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Urgent medical alert – Free Mumia
Mumia’s eyesight endangered
Mumia’s eyesight is deteriorating at an alarming rate.
An independent expert ophthalmologist has confirmed the progression of his eye disease by analyzing Mumia’s most recent eye exams. She reports that he needs surgery and medically necessary treatment “immediately” or faces the possibility of “permanent blindness.”
Mumia’s vision has plummeted from 20/30 with glasses in 2024 (near normal) to 20/200 today—legally blind—because the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (PA DOC) failed to adequately monitor his vision and delayed his urgently necessary medical treatment and surgery. The PA DOC has known since at least March of 2025 that Mumia needed eye surgery. Exams from 2024 – 2025 showed a sharp deterioration, demanding immediate intervention. Despite knowing the urgency, they waited until July to act and then pushed surgery off to an unspecified date in September.
Mumia believes he now suffers from “diabetic retinopathy” stemming from a diabetic coma that he endured after being given an improper and unmonitored dose of steroids for a skin disease in 2015. Mumia asserts that the PA DOC is “slow-walking [him] to blindness” in 2025 – another egregious case of the prison’s medical neglect, medical harm, and inability to treat Mumia’s medical needs.
Court records already document this pattern: (a) negligence in monitoring lab reports that led to the diabetic coma, and (b) deliberate denial and delay of his hepatitis C treatment that left him with cirrhosis.
OUR DEMANDS:
· Release Mumia now – unconditionally – into the care of his own doctors, family, and friends. The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (DOC) has, once again, shown it cannot monitor or provide the timely, corrective care he urgently needs.
· Schedule Mumia’s eye surgery and medically necessary treatment immediately, under the supervision of his independent ophthalmologist, and have it performed by the nearest outside provider approved by that physician.
· Provide Dr. Ricardo Alvarez, Mumia’s chosen physician, with all the medical reports from the prison and any other outside examiners who have seen him in 2025.
RELEASE AGING PRISONERS:
The following report by Dr. Ricardo Alvarez details a more complete picture of the history of elder abuse by the Prison Industrial Complex – the New Jim Crow – and with particular regard to Mumia Abu-Jamal and other political prisoners:
Parole Elder Abuse article on Mumia Abu-Jamal :
https://paroleelderabuse.org/mumia-institutional-elder-abuse-reports/
What you can do immediately to help:
Call the prison and demand that Mumia immediately receives local expert treatment
Sample script:
“My name is ________and I am calling from ________
I am calling with regard to Mumia Abu-Jamal, also known as Wesley Cook AM8335.
He is suffering from dire vision loss that can be easily treated—or else he will lose his eyesight entirely.
I DEMAND THAT THIS TREATMENT HAPPEN IMMEDIATELY.”
Primary targets:
Bernadette Mason
Superintendent, SCI Mahanoy
Call 570-773-2158
Laurel Hardy
Secretary, PA DOC
Call 717-728-2573
ra-crpadocsecretary@pa.gov
Central Office, PA DOC
ra-contactdoc@pa.gov
Upcoming Press Conference, Rallies and Marches are being planned so please stay tuned!!
Questions and comments may be sent to: info@freedomarchives.org
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Stop Cop City Bay Area
Did you know about a proposed $47 million regional police training facility in San Pablo—designed for departments across the Bay Area?
We are Stop Cop City Bay Area (Tours & Teach-Ins), a QT+ Black-led grassroots collective raising awareness about this project. This would be the city’s second police training facility, built without voter approval and financed through a $32 million, 30-year loan.
We’re organizing to repurpose the facility into a community resource hub and youth center. To build people power, we’re taking this conversation on the road—visiting Bay Area campuses, classrooms, cafes, and community spaces via our Fall 2025 Tour.
We’d love to collaborate with you and/or co-create an event. Here’s what we offer:
Guest Speaker Presentations—5-minute visits (team meetings, classrooms, co-ops, etc.), panels, or deep dives into:
· the facility’s origins & regional impacts
· finding your role in activism
· reimagining the floorplan (micro-workshops)
· and more
· Interactive Art & Vendor/Tabling Pop-Ups — free zines, stickers, and live linocut printing with hand-carved stamps + artivism.
· Collaborations with Classrooms — project partnerships, research integration, or creative assignments.
· Film Screenings + Discussion — e.g., Power (Yance Ford, 2024) or Riotsville, U.S.A. (Sierra Pettengill, 2022), or a film of your choice.
👉 If you’re interested in hosting a stop, open to co-creating something else, or curious about the intersections of our work: simply reply to this email or visit: stopcopcitybayarea.com/tour
Thank you for your time and consideration. We look forward to connecting.
In solidarity,
Stop Cop City Bay Area
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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”
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Hank Pellissier - Share The Money Institute
Reverend Gregory Stevens - Unitarian Universalist EcoSocialist Network
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........* *..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*  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 KagarlitskyWe, 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 Kagarlitskyhttps://freeboris.infoThe petition is also available on Change.org *..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........* *..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........* |
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Mumia Abu-Jamal is Innocent!
FREE HIM NOW!
Write to Mumia at:
Smart Communications/PADOC
Mumia Abu-Jamal #AM-8335
SCI Mahanoy
P.O. Box 33028
St. Petersburg, FL 33733
Join the Fight for Mumia's Life
Since September, Mumia Abu-Jamal's health has been declining at a concerning rate. He has lost weight, is anemic, has high blood pressure and an extreme flair up of his psoriasis, and his hair has fallen out. In April 2021 Mumia underwent open heart surgery. Since then, he has been denied cardiac rehabilitation care including a healthy diet and exercise.
Donate to Mumia Abu-Jamal's Emergency Legal and Medical Defense Fund, Official 2024
Mumia has instructed PrisonRadio to set up this fund. Gifts donated here are designated for the Mumia Abu-Jamal Medical and Legal Defense Fund. If you are writing a check or making a donation in another way, note this in the memo line.
Send to:
Mumia Medical and Legal Fund c/o Prison Radio
P.O. Box 411074, San Francisco, CA 94103
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Updates From Kevin Cooper
A Never-ending Constitutional Violation
A summary of the current status of Kevin Cooper’s case by the Kevin Cooper Defense Committee
On October 26, 2023, the law firm of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, LLP wrote a rebuttal in response to the Special Counsel's January 13, 2023 report upholding the conviction of their client Kevin Cooper. A focus of the rebuttal was that all law enforcement files were not turned over to the Special Counsel during their investigation, despite a request for them to the San Bernardino County District Attorney's office.
On October 29, 2023, Law Professors Lara Bazelon and Charlie Nelson Keever, who run the six member panel that reviews wrongful convictions for the San Francisco County District Attorney's office, published an OpEd in the San Francisco Chronicle calling the "Innocence Investigation” done by the Special Counsel in the Cooper case a “Sham Investigation” largely because Cooper has unsuccessfully fought for years to obtain the police and prosecutor files in his case. This is a Brady claim, named for the U.S. Supreme court’s 1963 case establishing the Constitutional rule that defendants are entitled to any information in police and prosecutor's possession that could weaken the state's case or point to innocence. Brady violations are a leading cause of wrongful convictions. The Special Counsel's report faults Cooper for not offering up evidence of his own despite the fact that the best evidence to prove or disprove Brady violations or other misconduct claims are in those files that the San Bernardino County District Attorney's office will not turn over to the Special Counsel or to Cooper's attorneys.
On December 14, 2023, the president of the American Bar Association (ABA), Mary Smith, sent Governor Gavin Newsom a three page letter on behalf of the ABA stating in part that Mr.Cooper's counsel objected to the state's failure to provide Special Counsel all documents in their possession relating to Mr.Cooper's conviction, and that concerns about missing information are not new. For nearly 40 years Mr.Cooper's attorneys have sought this same information from the state.
On December 19, 2023, Bob Egelko, a journalist for the San Francisco Chronicle wrote an article about the ABA letter to the Governor that the prosecutors apparently withheld evidence from the Governor's legal team in the Cooper case.
These are just a few recent examples concerning the ongoing failure of the San Bernardino County District Attorney to turn over to Cooper's attorney's the files that have been requested, even though under the law and especially the U.S. Constitution, the District Attorney of San Bernardino county is required to turn over to the defendant any and all material and or exculpatory evidence that they have in their files. Apparently, they must have something in their files because they refuse to turn them over to anyone.
The last time Cooper's attorney's received files from the state, in 2004, it wasn't from the D.A. but a Deputy Attorney General named Holly Wilkens in Judge Huff's courtroom. Cooper's attorneys discovered a never before revealed police report showing that a shirt was discovered that had blood on it and was connected to the murders for which Cooper was convicted, and that the shirt had disappeared. It had never been tested for blood. It was never turned over to Cooper's trial attorney, and no one knows where it is or what happened to it. Cooper's attorneys located the woman who found that shirt on the side of the road and reported it to the Sheriff's Department. She was called to Judge Huff's court to testify about finding and reporting that shirt to law enforcement. That shirt was the second shirt found that had blood on it that was not the victims’ blood. This was in 2004, 19 years after Cooper's conviction.
It appears that this ongoing constitutional violation that everyone—from the Special Counsel to the Governor's legal team to the Governor himself—seems to know about, but won't do anything about, is acceptable in order to uphold Cooper's conviction.
But this type of thing is supposed to be unacceptable in the United States of America where the Constitution is supposed to stand for something other than a piece of paper with writing on it. How can a Governor, his legal team, people who support and believe in him ignore a United States citizen’s Constitutional Rights being violated for 40 years in order to uphold a conviction?
This silence is betrayal of the Constitution. This permission and complicity by the Governor and his team is against everything that he and they claim to stand for as progressive politicians. They have accepted the Special Counsel's report even though the Special Counsel did not receive the files from the district attorney that may not only prove that Cooper is innocent, but that he was indeed framed by the Sheriff’s Department; and that evidence was purposely destroyed and tampered with, that certain witnesses were tampered with, or ignored if they had information that would have helped Cooper at trial, that evidence that the missing shirt was withheld from Cooper's trial attorney, and so much more.
Is the Governor going to get away with turning a blind eye to this injustice under his watch?
Are progressive people going to stay silent and turn their eyes blind in order to hopefully get him to end the death penalty for some while using Cooper as a sacrificial lamb?
An immediate act of solidarity we can all do right now is to write to Kevin and assure him of our continuing support in his fight for justice. Here’s his address:
Kevin Cooper #C65304
Cell 107, Unit E1C
California Health Care Facility, Stockton (CHCF)
P.O. Box 213040
Stockton, CA 95213
www.freekevincooper.org
Call California Governor Newsom:
1-(916) 445-2841
Press 1 for English or 2 for Spanish,
press 6 to speak with a representative and
wait for someone to answer
(Monday-Friday, 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. PST—12:00 P.M. to 8:00 P.M. EST)
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Resources for Resisting Federal Repression
https://www.nlg.org/federalrepressionresources/
Since June of 2020, activists have been subjected to an increasingly aggressive crackdown on protests by federal law enforcement. The federal response to the movement for Black Lives has included federal criminal charges for activists, door knocks by federal law enforcement agents, and increased use of federal troops to violently police protests.
The NLG National Office is releasing this resource page for activists who are resisting federal repression. It includes a link to our emergency hotline numbers, as well as our library of Know-Your-Rights materials, our recent federal repression webinar, and a list of some of our recommended resources for activists. We will continue to update this page.
Please visit the NLG Mass Defense Program page for general protest-related legal support hotlines run by NLG chapters.
Emergency Hotlines
If you are contacted by federal law enforcement, you should exercise all of your rights. It is always advisable to speak to an attorney before responding to federal authorities.
State and Local Hotlines
If you have been contacted by the FBI or other federal law enforcement, in one of the following areas, you may be able to get help or information from one of these local NLG hotlines for:
Portland, Oregon: (833) 680-1312
San Francisco, California: (415) 285-1041 or fbi_hotline@nlgsf.org
Seattle, Washington: (206) 658-7963
National Hotline
If you are located in an area with no hotline, you can call the following number:
National NLG Federal Defense Hotline: (212) 679-2811
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1) Rabbis Emerge as Growing Voice of Criticism of Israel’s Tactics in Gaza
Among the recent public letters was one from dozens of Orthodox rabbis demanding “moral clarity” to what they called a humanitarian crisis.
By Elizabeth Dias and Lisa Lerer, Aug. 26, 2025
As Israel’s tactics in Gaza have increasingly provoked international condemnation, rabbis from across the world are taking the unusual step of speaking out against the Israeli government’s conduct in the war, on moral and religious grounds.
Over the past few weeks, as reports of mass killings in Gaza have spread and experts declared the area is officially suffering from famine, a significant number of clergy across the spectrum of Jewish observance and affiliation have signed a series of high-profile, carefully crafted public letters criticizing the Israeli government.
Associations representing Reform congregations and Conservative rabbis — denominations that encompass nearly half of American Jews — have called for Israel to release additional aid, citing Jewish values and what one group called a “moral priority” to feed the hungry. Nearly three dozen rabbis were arrested in demonstrations in New York and Washington last month, calling for more aid to Gaza and for Israel and its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to end the war.
Perhaps most notably, the ranks of those raising concerns now also include a small group of Orthodox rabbis, whose communities have broadly not wavered in their staunch support of Israel throughout the war.
Last week about 80 Orthodox rabbis signed an open letter demanding “moral clarity, responsibility, and a Jewish Orthodox response” to what they called a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Signers included chief rabbis of Poland and Norway, and the former chief rabbi of Ireland. Organizers said that more than half of those who signed the letter were from the United States.
“We affirm that Hamas’s sins and crimes do not relieve the government of Israel of its obligations to make whatever efforts are necessary to prevent mass starvation,” the letter said. “Orthodox Jewry, as some of Israel’s most devoted supporters, bears a unique moral responsibility. We must affirm that Judaism’s vision of justice and compassion extends to all human beings.”
A primary organizer was Rabbi Yosef Blau, the former religious leader of Yeshiva University, a Modern Orthodox institution in Manhattan. Mr. Blau said his concerns encompassed not only the Israeli government’s treatment of civilians in Gaza but also reported violence against Palestinians by Orthodox Jewish settlers in the West Bank.
“The responsibility and the lack of concern that Hamas has for the health and welfare of its own people does not free Israel from having responsibility for the destruction that it has caused,” Rabbi Blau said. “It is not a zero-sum game.”
The Jewish community is far from a monolith, and support for the tactics and mission of Israel’s war in Gaza has varied. But until recently, many mainstream Jewish organizations and leaders had defended Israel’s war against Hamas, if with growing unease.
Orthodox Jews, who tend to prioritize support for the Israeli government, and the groups that represent them have largely remained silent on the humanitarian crisis. Many of signatories on Rabbi Blau’s letter came from the liberal edge of Orthodox Jewry. They were organized by an activist and social worker, David Nyer.
The Orthodox Union, the prominent umbrella organization for Orthodox communities, was not affiliated with the letter.
The deteriorating conditions in Gaza and the denial of aid to Palestinian civilians is prompting some who consider themselves ardent supporters of Israel to publicly object to the far-right government’s stewardship of the war, arguing that it crosses a religious and moral line. The Torah and Jewish tradition command Jews to feed the poor and hungry, respect the sanctity of life and show mercy and compassion.
Rabbi Michael Schudrich, the chief rabbi of Poland, said he had seen other letters but hadn’t signed one until the Orthodox letter last week.
“Even in the midst of a horrific immoral war started by Hamas, it doesn’t take away from our responsibility to feed and to provide medical care for the civilian population,” he said.
Some of the rabbis’ positions echo the anguished calls of protesters and prominent academics, authors, politicians and retired military leaders in Israel, who are increasingly raising alarms about potential war crimes being carried out by the government in their name.
Ministers in the Netanyahu government who have called for Israeli settlers to expel and replace Palestinians in Gaza have “consistently morally compromised Israel’s actions,” the Union for Reform Judaism said last month.
“No one should spend the bulk of their time arguing technical definitions between starvation and pervasive hunger. The situation is dire, and it is deadly,” the group wrote. “Nor should we accept arguments that because Hamas is the primary reason many Gazans are either starving or on the verge of starving, that the Jewish State is not also culpable in this human disaster.”
The Rabbinical Assembly, the organization of Conservative rabbis, cited “the Jewish tradition” in calling on the Israeli government to “alleviate civilian suffering” and “do everything in its power” to ensure that food, water and medical supplies reached Gazans.
Even the American Jewish Committee, one of the country’s most solidly pro-Israel organizations, expressed “immense sorrow for the grave toll this war has taken on Palestinian civilians.”
Still, there is no sign of a unified public effort by the largest American Jewish institutions to pressure Israel into ending the war. Many pulpit rabbis have been reticent to speak out given the complexities of leading a congregation.
In the United States, the war has created painful rifts within the Jewish community dividing families, congregations, religious schools and community organizations. Older and more religiously observant Jews have been stauncher defenders of Israel, arguing that the country’s very survival is at stake — as well as the safety of Jews outside Israel.
But as the war has dragged on, younger and more secular Jews have recoiled from images of carnage and destruction in Gaza, seeing Israel and its government as responsible for the war’s continuation and its toll of devastation.
Many rabbis have found themselves caught in the middle. Some have shied away from discussing Israel from the pulpit or making strong public statements. Others have gingerly sought common ground, introducing new prayers reflecting on the war or hosting community conversations. Many have fiercely advocated the release of all the hostages, a position broadly shared across the Jewish world.
Some observant Jews who have felt unable to criticize Israel in their own communities called the recent response heartening.
“There’s a bit of a feedback loop: When rabbis see that more people in their communities feel comfortable speaking up, it gives them permission,” said Esther Sperber, a founder of Smol Emuni — Hebrew for “faithful left” — a group of observant Jews with progressive political views. Since the group was formed in April, nearly 3,000 people have joined its email list.
“I think that is something that many of us have been waiting for a long time for,” she added, “for the American Jewish community to feel comfortable speaking up in that way.”
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2) Israel Faces Growing Pressure Over Hostages and Gaza Offensive
As rallies spread to demand action to free captives, the country’s security cabinet was to meet for the first time since Hamas agreed to a new cease-fire proposal, officials said.
By Lara Jakes, Aug. 26, 2025
Lara Jakes writes frequently about the war in Gaza.
Israel’s security cabinet was preparing to meet on Tuesday to discuss the country’s new military offensive in Gaza, officials said, leaving the fate of a cease-fire proposal in doubt as nationwide protests flared over the intensifying war.
Four officials confirmed the meeting of the security cabinet, which includes senior ministers and is chaired by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Two of the officials said it would focus on the military advance on Gaza City, which Mr. Netanyahu’s office has said is necessary to achieve a decisive victory over Hamas.
It was not clear whether the security cabinet would discuss a cease-fire proposal that Hamas approved last week. The meeting will be the first time the ministers have a chance to formally consider the cease-fire since Hamas backed it, but the security cabinet was not expected to endorse the proposal on Tuesday.
The four Israeli officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
The cease-fire proposal, which was negotiated by Qatar and Egypt, has been described as a “partial deal” that would immediately release some of the hostages, who have been held for nearly two years; allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza; and provide a path to discussions to end the war.
Israeli officials are instead pushing ahead with the military offensive in Gaza City and have signaled that they want to negotiate a comprehensive deal that would bring home all hostages at once and disarm Hamas.
Majed al-Ansari, spokesman for the Qatari Foreign Ministry, said, “We’re still waiting for there to be an official Israeli response” on the cease-fire proposal.
“The Israeli side should truthfully bring forth its reservations to this text in front of it today,” Mr. al-Ansari told journalists in Doha, the Qatari capital.
Protests across Israel began shortly after dawn on Tuesday, aimed at pressuring Mr. Netanyahu to accept the cease-fire deal.
“Advancing the plan to conquer Gaza while there is an agreement lying on the table for the prime minister’s signature is a stab in the heart of the families and the entire nation,” said Itzik Horn, father of Iair Horn, who was released in February, and of Eitan Horn, who is still held hostage. The brothers were captured in the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, that started the war.
“Join us today in our collective struggle because only the people will bring them home,” Mr. Horn said in a statement released by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which represents the relatives of some of the captives.
A government spokesman, David Mencer, stopped short of saying Israel would reject the cease-fire proposal in a briefing with reporters. He added that Israel was assessing whether to work with what he described as “an Egyptian team who’s willing to engage in these negotiations.”
But, Mr. Mencer said, Mr. Netanyahu “has been crystal clear: No more piecemeal elements to a potential cease-fire, humanitarian pause.”
“Our objective is all of the hostages, a full deal,” Mr. Mencer said.
The Israeli security cabinet will meet after another deadly day in Gaza, during which military strikes on a hospital killed at least 20 people, including five journalists. Mr. Netanyahu’s office said in a statement that the attack was a “tragic mishap,” and the Israeli military said it was investigating.
International humanitarian law forbids attacks on hospitals, but Israel has accused Hamas of using hospitals and other protected spaces as “shields.” Hamas has denied the claims.
“We cannot say it loudly enough: STOP attacks on health care. Ceasefire now!” Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization, said on social media. President Trump told journalists on Monday that he was “not happy” about the hospital strike, adding, “We have to end that whole nightmare.”
Mr. Trump added that he believed there were fewer than 20 hostages still alive in Gaza. The Israeli authorities have said that the bodies of 30 other hostages are also being held in Gaza. Many Israelis fear that Hamas will kill the remaining hostages if the military operation goes forward.
About 1,200 people were killed and around 250 others kidnapped during the Hamas-led assault on Israel in 2023. After nearly two years of Israel’s retaliatory war against Hamas, the Gaza Strip has been largely leveled, and a famine has been declared in parts of the territory.
More than 60,000 Palestinians have been killed in the conflict, according to the Gazan health ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians.
Isabel Kershner, Aaron Boxerman and Adam Rasgon contributed reporting from Jerusalem.
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3) Journalism in Gaza
We look at a deadly strike — and explore the challenges of reporting from the enclave.
By Jodi Rudoren, Aug. 26, 2025
I covered the last two wars in Gaza.
In Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip. Credit...Abed Rahim Khatib/Picture-Alliance, via Associated Press
The video footage from Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza is horrifying. You can see rescue workers in orange vests tending to Palestinians injured in an Israeli attack. You can also see a journalist with a boom mic. Another wears a camera around his neck and holds a smartphone in his hand, documenting the scene.
And then, for a moment, you can’t see anything at all. The screen goes black as you hear the loud blast of a second strike. Five journalists were among the 20 people killed in the successive strikes on the hospital yesterday morning. In a rare statement of regret, Israel’s prime minister called it a “tragic mishap.”
Nearly 200 journalists have been killed in Gaza, more than in any other conflict or any single place since the Committee to Protect Journalists began keeping track in the 1990s. All but a handful were Palestinians who had to balance their own families’ displacement and hunger with the mission of bearing witness amid grave danger.
Israel barred international correspondents from Gaza when the war began, except for occasional military embeds. So we’re all relying on locals to tell us what happens there.
Today’s newsletter looks at Monday’s strike on the hospital and the particular challenges of reporting from Gaza now.
‘Tragic mishap’
Israeli officials have not given a reason for the attack. Hospitals are off limits under international law, but Israel points out that Hamas operates from hospitals and other protected sites.
Human rights groups say Israel targets journalists and acts without regard to their presence in the line of fire. Israel denies those claims. Two weeks ago, Israel assassinated Anas al-Sharif, an Al Jazeera correspondent who it said was also a member of Hamas’s armed wing. Five other journalists were killed in that strike, which targeted a press tent in northern Gaza.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was unusually contrite about yesterday’s attack. He promised to investigate. “Israel values the work of journalists, medical staff and all civilians,” he said. “Our war is with Hamas terrorists.” The slain journalists worked for The Associated Press, Reuters, Al Jazeera and Middle East Eye.
There are more than 1,000 journalists working inside Gaza, the International Federation of Journalists estimates. Like nearly all of Gaza’s two million residents, most have slept in tents or the courtyards of hospitals or in their cars. Some have had dozens of relatives killed. Some have isolated themselves from their children because they fear being targeted as journalists.
Movement within Gaza is challenging. Israel does not allow people to cross between north and south. Journalists — like all civilians — struggle to keep up with neighborhood evacuation orders, strike warnings and the routes of aid convoys that frequently erupt in riots. Editors weigh the relative risks of every assignment, often employing security experts to help make the call. When messages go unanswered for hours — or days — everyone worries.
The recent spate of killings has had a chilling effect. “It’s reached the point where I’m scared to report,” one photographer told The Times. Another, who was wounded along with his daughter during a July strike on a nearby home, said: “There’s a lot of fear, and there’s no protection.”
No access
Israeli officials have argued that all Gazan reporters are inherently biased. But in contrast to the Israel-Hamas wars that I covered in 2012 and 2014, international correspondents are not allowed to enter Gaza except under military escort. That makes it extremely difficult to report independently. Without Gazan journalists, “there’s no other source of information from Gaza other than Hamas itself,” said Dan Perry, a longtime A.P. bureau chief in the region.
In restricting access, Israel joins a list of mostly authoritarian countries taking extreme measures to control the narrative around conflicts. Russia passed laws that can make reporting on its Ukraine war an act of treason. The Syrian regime blocked most journalists from entering the country during its civil war, forcing us and other international outlets to rely on social media accounts from inside. Myanmar and South Sudan have also historically prohibited foreign correspondents.
Last week, 28 countries — including Britain, France and Germany — called on Israel to allow “immediate independent” access to Gaza, saying journalists “play an essential role in putting the spotlight on the devastating reality of war.” Their letter followed a petition signed by more than 1,300 journalists that said the press blackout would set a precedent: “that governments and military actors, through censorship, obstruction and force, can shut down access to truth in times of war.”
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4) Prosecutors Fail to Secure Indictment Against Man Who Threw Sandwich at Federal Agent
It was a sharp rebuke to the prosecutors who were assigned to bring charges against those arrested after President Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops and federal agents to Washington.
By Alan Feuer, Devlin Barrett and William K. Rashbaum, Aug. 27, 2025
Sean C. Dunn, left, who was later arrested, interacting with Border Patrol and F.B.I. agents in Washington this month. Credit...Andrew Leyden/Getty Images
Federal prosecutors on Tuesday were unable to persuade a grand jury to approve a felony indictment against a man who threw a sandwich at a federal agent on the streets of Washington this month, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The grand jury’s rejection of the felony charge was a remarkable failure by the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington and the second time in recent days that a majority of grand jurors refused to vote to indict a person accused of felony assault on a federal agent. It also amounted to a sharp rebuke by a panel of ordinary citizens against the prosecutors assigned to bring charges against people arrested after President Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops and federal agents to fight crime and patrol the city’s streets.
The rejection by grand jurors was particularly noteworthy given the attention paid to the case of the man who threw the sandwich, Sean C. Dunn. Video of the episode went viral on social media, senior officials talked about the case, and the administration posted footage of a large group of heavily armed law enforcement officers going to Mr. Dunn’s apartment.
It remained unclear if prosecutors planned to try again to obtain an indictment against Mr. Dunn, 37, a former Justice Department paralegal. They could also forgo seeking felony charges and refile his case as a misdemeanor, which does not require an indictment to move forward.
Mr. Dunn was initially charged on Aug. 13 in a criminal complaint accusing him of throwing a submarine sandwich at a Customs and Border Protection officer who was on patrol with other federal agents near the corner of 14th and U Streets in the northwest section of the capital, a popular part of the city filled with bars and restaurants.
Before he threw the sandwich, the complaint asserts, Mr. Dunn stood within inches of the officer, calling him and his colleagues “fascists” and shouting, “I don’t want you in my city!”
Mr. Dunn’s lawyer, Sabrina Shroff, declined to comment.
It is extremely unusual for prosecutors to come out of a grand jury without obtaining an indictment because they are in control of the information that grand jurors hear about a case and defendants are not allowed to have their lawyers in the room as evidence is presented.
But Mr. Trump’s decision to flood the streets of Washington with federal agents and military personnel who are generally not trained in conducting routine police stops has resulted in a flurry of defendants being charged with federal crimes that would typically be handled at the local court level, if they were filed at all.
It has also led to an increasing number of embarrassments for federal prosecutors, who have had to dismiss weak cases or reduce the charges that defendants were facing in recent days.
On Monday, for instance, prosecutors refiled a felony assault charge as a misdemeanor in the case of a woman who was accused of injuring an F.B.I. agent during a protest last month against immigration officials at the local jail in Washington.
The charges were reduced against the woman, Sidney Lori Reid, after prosecutors failed not just once but three times to obtain an indictment in the case.
That same day, at the request of prosecutors, a federal magistrate judge dismissed all charges against a man who was arrested at a Trader Joe’s grocery store last week for what the police said was possession of two handguns in his bag.
At a hearing, the magistrate judge, Zia M. Faruqui, lambasted prosecutors for having charged the man, Torez Riley, in an apparent violation of his constitutional rights.
“Lawlessness cannot come from the government,” Judge Faruqui said, according to HuffPost. “We’re pushing the boundaries here.”
Mr. Dunn is scheduled to appear next week in Federal District Court in Washington for a preliminary hearing where another magistrate judge, G. Michael Harvey, will determine if there is probable cause that a crime was committed during the sandwich-throwing incident.
Prosecutors typically have 30 days to secure an indictment after a defendant is arrested. If they fail to do so within that window, they either have to reduce the charges to a misdemeanor or dismiss the case altogether.
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5) U.S. officials are pushing for a comprehensive truce in Gaza.
By Aaron Boxerman, Reporting from Jerusalem, August 27, 2025
President Trump was expected to chair a meeting on Wednesday focusing on plans for postwar Gaza, according to his Middle East envoy, as the United States and Israel seek a comprehensive deal that would end the conflict and return all of the remaining Israeli hostages.
For nearly two years, international mediators have sought to pause the war in Gaza. They managed to achieve partial agreements that freed some hostages and briefly stopped the fighting in Gaza, but they did not ultimately end the war.
On Tuesday, Steve Witkoff, Mr. Trump’s Middle East envoy, appeared to rule out any piecemeal agreement that would bring home only some of the captives in exchange for a truce.
“We think we’re going to settle this one way or another, certainly before the end of this year,” Mr. Witkoff told Fox News in an interview.
The families of Israeli hostages have long called for a “full deal” to end the war in exchange for releasing the remaining hostages. But Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, has set exacting conditions for any such agreement that Hamas is unlikely to accept.
Here’s what to know about the latest efforts to reach a cease-fire.
How close are we to a cease-fire in Gaza?
Months of efforts to broker a truce by the United States, Qatar, and Egypt have stalled in recent weeks.
Israel is gearing up for a full-scale offensive to take over Gaza City, where hundreds of thousands of people are sheltering. Unless Hamas agrees to Israel’s terms, the Israeli military will launch the new military push in the coming weeks, Israeli officials say.
The war began nearly two years ago after a Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, that killed roughly 1,200 people. The group also took about 250 hostages back to Gaza. Two short-lived cease-fires saw some Israeli hostages released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners. Israel says 20 living hostages remain in Gaza and that Hamas is still holding the bodies of about 30 more.
But neither truce guaranteed an end to the war in Gaza. In January, Israel and Hamas agreed to a 60-day cease-fire, during which they would negotiate the terms for ending the war. But in March, with talks deadlocked, Israel resumed its military offensive.
More than 60,000 people have been killed in Gaza since Oct. 2023, and more than 10,000 have been killed since Israel ended the cease-fire, according to Palestinian health officials. Their data does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but includes thousands of children.
On what terms will Israel end the war?
Israeli leaders have vowed that they will not end the war until they destroy Hamas in Gaza. Any cease-fire that left the group in power or allowed it to rebuild its strength would be unacceptable, they said.
Hamas has refused to release all of the remaining hostages unless Israel ends the war and withdraws its forces, however, and Israeli officials have focused on temporary truces to bring home some of the captives.
Political analysts say that Mr. Netanyahu is concerned that ending the war would destabilize his right-wing coalition, which is stacked with hard-liners who hope to fully conquer Gaza and resettle it with Jewish Israelis. Mr. Netanyahu says he has acted in Israel’s national security interests.
But earlier this month, Mr. Netanyahu laid out Israel’s conditions for an end to the war: Hamas would have to lay down its arms and end its 18-year-rule in Gaza, where Israel would maintain “security control.” He did not say who would rule Gaza instead of Hamas but suggested Israel could hand over control to unnamed “Arab forces.”
Hamas officials have said the group is willing to give up governing Gaza, but they have repeatedly rejected Israeli demands to demilitarize, which the group’s leaders would view, effectively, as surrender.
What deal has Hamas agreed to?
Last week, Hamas said it had broadly agreed to a cease-fire offer presented by Qatari and Egyptian mediators.
That deal would not guarantee an end to the war but would pause fighting for 60 days, during which Hamas would release about 10 living hostages and turn over the bodies of 18 others. During the cease-fire, Israel and Hamas would again try to negotiate terms to end the war.
But since Hamas signaled that it would agree to such a deal, the Israeli government has yet to publicly respond.
Mr. Netanyahu’s critics say he has moved the goal posts. When Hamas demanded a full agreement, he focused on a cease-fire. Now that Hamas has more or less accepted a U.S.-backed truce proposal, he says he is focusing on a comprehensive deal.
The families of Israeli hostages held in Gaza have called for an end to the war in exchange for freeing the hostages. But they have also urged the government to accept the partial agreement to get as many living captives out alive as possible.
Within the Israeli government, Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition partners have pushed back against the cease-fire proposal accepted by Hamas. Itamar Ben-Gvir, the Israeli national security minister, rejected it and called for Israel to “go all the way and destroy Hamas” in Gaza.
Gabby Sobelman contributed reporting from Rehovot, Israel.
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6) Denmark summons an American official over espionage allegations.
By Jeffrey Gettleman and Maya Tekeli, August 27, 2025
ednesday after allegations emerged that three Americans with close ties to President Trump were running “covert influence operations” in Greenland.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly said that he wants to “get” Greenland, a huge, strategically important island, mostly in the Arctic, that is a territory of Denmark.
Within hours of the allegations, published by Denmark’s main public broadcaster on Wednesday morning, the Danish Foreign Ministry summoned the current head of the embassy, the chargé d’affaires, for a meeting.
“We are aware that foreign actors continue to show an interest in Greenland,” said Lars Lokke Rasmussen, Denmark’s foreign minister, in a statement on Wednesday. “Any attempt to interfere in the internal affairs of the kingdom will of course be unacceptable.”
Mr. Rasmussen called the summons a “preventive conversation.”
The allegations followed reports this spring that American intelligence agencies were stepping up spying operations in Greenland, news that had also created a stir in Denmark.
According to the report by the public broadcaster, three unnamed Americans, including two who were said to have previously worked for President Trump, have traveled back and forth to Greenland gathering information and cultivating contacts as part of the “covert influence operations.”
The report relied on anonymous sources within the Danish government, but the summoning of the envoy on Wednesday suggested that Copenhagen was taking the allegations seriously.
There was no immediate response from the Trump administration.
Denmark has repeatedly rejected Mr. Trump’s insistence that the United States take over Greenland. Mr. Trump has been pushing the idea for years, first offering to buy the island from Denmark and then, when that did not work, threatening to get it, “one way or the other,” and refusing to rule out using military force.
Greenland is mostly ice, with a population of fewer than 60,000. Many still hunt seals for food and follow a lifestyle that is part traditional Inuit culture and part modern Scandinavian.
The island is loaded with resources including critical minerals, which have attracted the interest of top officials in the Trump administration. It also served as a base for American military operations during World War II and the Cold War, and there is still a small, remote American installation on the northern side of the island.
Most Greenlanders do not want to join the United States, according to recent polls, though many have voiced aspirations to break off from Denmark and become an independent country.
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7) Medicare Will Require Prior Approval for Certain Procedures
A pilot program in six states will use a tactic employed by private insurers that has been heavily criticized for delaying and denying medical care.
By Reed Abelson and Teddy Rosenbluth, Aug. 28, 2025
“The federal government plans to hire private companies to use artificial intelligence to determine whether patients would be covered for some procedures, like certain spine surgeries or steroid injections. Similar algorithms used by insurers have been the subject of several high-profile lawsuits, which have asserted that the technology allowed the companies to swiftly deny large batches of claims and cut patients off from care in rehabilitation facilities. The A.I. companies selected to oversee the program would have a strong financial incentive to deny claims. Medicare plans to pay them a share of the savings generated from rejections.”
Frances L. Ayres worried that a new program under traditional Medicare will involve the types of pre-approval hassles for medical care that she had tried to avoid. Nick Oxford for The New York Times
Like millions of older adults, Frances L. Ayres faced a choice when picking health insurance: Pay more for traditional Medicare, or opt for a plan offered by a private insurer and risk drawn-out fights over coverage.
Private insurers often require a cumbersome review process that frequently results in the denial or delay of essential treatments that are readily covered by traditional Medicare. This practice, known as prior authorization, has drawn public scrutiny, which intensified after the murder of a UnitedHealthcare executive last December.
Ms. Ayres, a 74-year-old retired accounting professor, said she wanted to avoid the hassle that has been associated with such practices under Medicare Advantage, which are private plans financed by the U.S. government. Now, she is concerned she will face those denials anyway.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services plans to begin a pilot program that would involve a similar review process for traditional Medicare, the federal insurance program for people 65 and older as well as for many younger people with disabilities. The pilot would start in six states next year, including Oklahoma, where Ms. Ayres lives.
The federal government plans to hire private companies to use artificial intelligence to determine whether patients would be covered for some procedures, like certain spine surgeries or steroid injections. Similar algorithms used by insurers have been the subject of several high-profile lawsuits, which have asserted that the technology allowed the companies to swiftly deny large batches of claims and cut patients off from care in rehabilitation facilities.
The A.I. companies selected to oversee the program would have a strong financial incentive to deny claims. Medicare plans to pay them a share of the savings generated from rejections.
The government said the A.I. screening tool would focus narrowly on about a dozen procedures, which it has determined to be costly and of little to no benefit to patients. Those procedures include devices for incontinence control, cervical fusion, certain steroid injections for pain management and select nerve stimulators.
Abe Sutton, the director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, said that the government would not review emergency services or hospital stays.
Mr. Sutton said the government experiment would examine practices that were particularly expensive or potentially harmful to patients. “This is what prior authorization should be,” he said.
The government may add or subtract to the list of treatments it has slated for review depending on what treatments it finds are being overused, he said.
But while experts agree that wasteful spending exists, they worry that the pilot program may pave the way for traditional Medicare to adopt some of the most unpopular practices of private insurers.
The program, called the Wasteful and Inappropriate Service Reduction Model, is already drawing opposition from Democratic lawmakers, former Medicare officials, physician groups and others.
Patients are also leery. “I think it’s the back door into privatizing traditional Medicare,” Ms. Ayres said.
People enrolled in traditional Medicare who live in Arizona, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas and Washington State will be included in the experiment, which is expected to start in January and last for six years.
Dr. Vinay Rathi, an Ohio surgeon and an expert in Medicare payment policy, warned that the experiment could recreate the same hurdles that exist with Medicare Advantage, where people enroll in private plans. “It’s basically the same set of financial incentives that has created issues in Medicare Advantage and drawn so much scrutiny,” he said. “It directly puts them at odds with the clinicians.”
Typically, these A.I. models scan a patient’s records to determine if a requested procedure meets an insurer’s criteria. For instance, before authorizing back surgery, the system might search for proof that a patient first tried physical therapy or received an MRI showing a bulging disc. Many companies say human employees are involved at the final stages, to review the A.I. evidence and approve the recommendations.
Insurers defend these tactics as being effective in reducing inappropriate care, such as by preventing someone from getting back surgery at tremendous cost instead of another treatment that would work just as well.
Government officials said that any denials would be done by “an appropriately licensed human clinician, not a machine.”
Mr. Sutton also emphasized that the government could penalize companies for inappropriate decisions.
A group of House Democrats, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, warned in a letter to government officials in late July that giving for-profit companies a “veto” over care “opens the door to further erosion of our Medicare system.”
Private plans under Medicare Advantage have become increasingly popular, with a little more than half of older Americans and people with disabilities eligible for the program and some 34 million enrolled. But many, like Ms. Ayres, are willing to forgo some of the additional benefits the private plans offer, like dental checkups and gym memberships, to avoid having to jump through numerous hoops to get care.
“It’s really surprising that we are taking the most unpopular part of Medicare Advantage and applying it to traditional Medicare,” said Neil Patil, a senior fellow at Georgetown and a former senior analyst at Medicare.
The American Medical Association wrote in a letter that doctors view prior authorization “as one of the most burdensome and disruptive administrative requirements they face in providing quality care to patients.” Most patients who appeal are successful, but a vast majority never appeal.
Democrats and Republicans in Congress have supported legislation that would curb some of the insurers’ most troublesome practices. The Biden administration enacted some new rules, and the Trump administration was eager to take credit for pushing insurers to pledge to a series of reforms just a few days before unveiling this new program.
In announcing the new model, Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the Medicare agency, said the goal was to root out fraud, waste and abuse.
“It boils down to patient harm,” Mr. Sutton said. The model is expected to save several billions of dollars over the next six years, although it could save more if it were expanded.
There are clear-cut examples where Medicare has wasted billions on questionable medical care. The agency came under scrutiny earlier this year for spending billions of dollars on expensive “skin substitutes” of dubious value. The pilot program would require patients to seek prior authorization before getting a skin substitute.
But if the algorithm used to authorize those procedures proves to save the government money, Dr. Rathi fears C.M.S. may feel justified in broadening the program to include services that are not such “low-hanging fruit.”
“You’re kind of left to wonder, well, where does this lead next?” he said. “You could be running into a slippery slope.”
How insurers make their decisions remains opaque. A spokesman for Health and Human Services, which oversees the Medicare agency, declined to identify which companies had submitted applications for the contract.
Contractors hired by the government are supposed to watch over payments to ward against inappropriate or wasteful coverage. Those reviews generally happened after someone had received a treatment, though the Biden administration instituted a modest pre-approval program that did not use A.I.
The new model relies on an additional set of private companies for traditional Medicare that have a very clear incentive to deny care.
The companies represent “a whole new bounty hunter,” said David A. Lipschutz, the co-director for the Center for Medicare Advocacy, one of the groups that has urged government officials to abandon the program.
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8) Israel’s Exhausted Soldiers Complicate Plans for Gaza Assault
Worn down by hundreds of days of military service, fewer Israeli reservists are turning up for duty. Others are refusing to fight in a war they no longer believe in.
By Aaron Boxerman, Reporting from Jerusalem, Aug. 28, 2025
Israeli military reservists and veterans, demanding an immediate end to the war in Gaza and the return of hostages, demonstrated in Tel Aviv earlier this month. Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York Times
Israel is preparing to call up tens of thousands of reserve soldiers for its Gaza City offensive, but military officials say it’s not clear how many of them will return to the fight after nearly two years of grinding war.
Over the past few months, an increasing number of Israeli reserve soldiers have not been showing up for military service. Some cite exhaustion, as well as the need to save strained marriages or foundering careers. Others say they are increasingly disillusioned with the war.
The rising discontent in the ranks threatens to complicate Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to take control of Gaza City in an effort to decisively rout Hamas. The military has said it plans to call up an additional 60,000 reservists and extend the service of 20,000 more.
Besides Gaza, Israeli forces are also still fighting on several other fronts: Israeli soldiers now patrol parts of southern Lebanon and Syria, in addition to mounting major incursions into Palestinian cities in the West Bank.
The Israeli military did not provide hard numbers on how many reservists have dropped out, making it difficult to assess the scale of the phenomenon. In May, a senior Israeli military official told a parliamentary committee that while there had been some attrition, most reservists were still coming. Four soldiers who spoke to The New York Times in the last few months said their units were still motivated to continue fighting.
But around a dozen other officers and soldiers described depleted and exhausted units, with at least two saying that 40 to 50 percent of their reservist comrades were not turning up for duty.
Others said they had dropped out, believing that the war was no longer just. Most spoke on condition of anonymity because they were worried about reprisals or were not authorized to speak publicly.
Few soldiers have faced penalties for not reporting to their units, although a handful who refused on ideological grounds have served short stints in military prison.
Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, the Israeli military chief, objected to Mr. Netanyahu’s decision to expand the offensive in Gaza in part because of concerns over the fitness of reservists, according to four Israeli security officials.
Israel broadly conscripts Jewish Israelis after high school, although it makes a much-criticized exemption for the country’s ultra-Orthodox minority. The military relies heavily on reservists to form up to two-thirds of the overall force, particularly its pilot corps and many of the infantry battalions needed to launch a full-scale attack on Gaza City.
While some Israeli military planners argue that most reservists still answer when called, others now worry that the shortfall will make completing the operation more difficult, according to two Israeli defense officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
“We keep trying to squeeze out everything we can without real strategic planning,” said Omer Dank, an Israeli military analyst who serves in the air force reserves. “The current model is unsustainable. The army is exhausted.”
Military analysts say the system of calling up reservists from civilian life for stints in battle worked for shorter wars. But many reservists have now done hundreds of days of active service, turning them into absent fathers, employees and students.
One soldier said turnout in his 100-strong company had gradually dwindled to 60, with many citing tensions at home over child care, problems at their day jobs and mental health reasons. To incentivize reservists, the soldier said, his unit was being deployed into Gaza for a week at a time, then being given two-week breaks of paid leave.
A soldier in an infantry unit said just half of his team had arrived for his last call-up late last year. Another platoon commander in the reserves said that while his own soldiers were still coming, other officers were struggling to handle turnout as low as 40 percent.
Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel started the war in Gaza and prompted the Israeli government to call up more than 300,000 reserve soldiers. In that attack, roughly 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed and about 250 were taken hostage.
Initially, the turnout rate was often over 100 percent, according to the Israeli military, as volunteers rushed to bases, hoping to join the fight.
But as the war has dragged on, cracks have begun to emerge.
“It’s not that people have decided to shirk their duty. It’s because they are genuinely struggling,” said Ariel Heimann, a retired brigadier general who led a military body that managed reservists.
One member of the military’s elite paratroopers unit served two rounds of reserve duty in Gaza and Lebanon. In April, his platoon returned to Gaza as part of a renewed offensive against Hamas — but this time, he told his commanders that he could not bear to join them.
One of his best friends was killed by a missile in Gaza, he said, and readjusting to civilian life was enough of a battle.
Other soldiers are also infuriated that the military is demanding ever more weeks of service, even as the Israeli government has pushed to exempt ultra-Orthodox religious students from conscription to satisfy Mr. Netanyahu’s political allies.
Ron Peretz, a university student, is on his fourth tour of reserve duty, which is set to last until October. One of the hardest parts, he said, was the impossibility of making any future plans.
“In my battalion, they know most of us will keep coming over and over again. It’s a cynical use of our patriotism, even as they don’t draft tens of thousands of others,” said Mr. Peretz, referring to the ultra-Orthodox.
Several soldiers said the military was trying to manage the declining motivation of reservists to serve extended tours in Gaza by sending them to calmer fronts, like the occupied West Bank. The young conscripts they replaced were deployed to Gaza, they said.
A smaller number of Israeli soldiers have begun to refuse to serve in Gaza on ideological grounds, arguing that the war against Hamas has lost its way. More than 60,000 people have been killed in Gaza, including thousands of children, according to Palestinian health officials, who do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Ron Feiner, a 26-year-old captain, was sentenced in June to 25 days in a military prison for refusing to join his battalion’s most recent deployment. He spent about 270 days in uniform, including in deadly firefights during Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
“The government is trying to drag out this war as long as possible, even if it means leaving the hostages behind,” said Mr. Feiner.
Another Israeli reservist said his doubts deepened after his comrades-in-arms set at least 10 Palestinian homes ablaze as vengeance for the Oct. 7 attacks during a deployment to northern Gaza. Their commanders had greenlit the practice, he said. In response to a question from The Times about the alleged incident, the Israeli military said reports of improper conduct would be investigated and a criminal investigation opened if necessary.
The soldier and another member of his battalion said they had rebuffed calls from their commanders to come back to active duty. Their units deployed again to Gaza in early May without them, they said.
Others returned to war despite qualms over the direction of the Israeli campaign.
Before Avshalom Zohar-Sal, a 28-year-old combat soldier, left for his latest tour of duty in the Gaza Strip in May, his family and girlfriend begged him not to risk his life in a war that all of them — including him — no longer supported.
“At the beginning, this was a war which was forced upon us. But come on, that’s no longer the case, and it hasn’t been for a while,” Mr. Zohar-Sal said in a phone call as he drove south toward Gaza. “This should have ended a long time ago.”
Like many others who ultimately decided to return to fighting, he felt he couldn’t leave his comrades behind: “How can you stay home when the rest of your unit is out there?”
Reached again last week, however, Mr. Zohar-Sal said he didn’t know whether, if called, he would return next time.
Natan Odenheimer and Ronen Bergman contributed reporting.
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9) Israeli Airstrikes Kill Soldiers in Syria, Officials There Say
The strikes near the capital, Damascus, were the latest Israeli military intervention in the country since a new government came to power.
By Christina Goldbaum, Reporting from Tartus, Syria, Aug. 28, 2025
Israel has conducted two straight nights of air attacks on a suburb of the Syrian capital, Damascus, according to Syrian officials and state media, with reports that at least six Syrian soldiers had been killed in the strikes.
Syrian state media said that Israeli forces had also conducted a rare “airborne landing” in al-Kiswah, the same suburb that was targeted in airstrikes on Tuesday and Wednesday nights.
The attacks were the latest escalation of Israeli military interventions in Syria since rebels ousted the dictator Bashar al-Assad in December and took power. Israel has since carried out hundreds of airstrikes across Syria, targeting military assets, and has seized a U.N.-patrolled buffer zone in the south of the country.
The Syrian Foreign Ministry condemned the strikes on al-Kiswah as a “clear breach of sovereignty and territorial integrity” and part of Israeli policies “aimed at undermining security and stability in the region.”
The offices of Israel’s prime minister and defense minister and the military declined to comment on the Syrian reports.
The attacks on al-Kiswah began Tuesday night with airstrikes that killed the Syrian soldiers, Syrian officials said on Wednesday. The soldiers were on patrol and had discovered “surveillance and eavesdropping equipment” in the area, the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency reported on Wednesday. Other members of government security forces were said to have been injured and vehicles destroyed.
Israel launched more airstrikes on the Damascus suburb on Wednesday evening, according to Syrian state media. The Syrian reports did not say when the airborne landing took place.
The attacks this week followed an escalation last month when Israel intervened in a deadly wave of sectarian violence in Syria involving members of the Druse minority. During the unrest, Israel conducted airstrikes targeting Syrian forces in both Damascus and the Sweida province, in the south, after the government intervened in the sectarian fighting.
Israel said its military had intervened at that time to protect the Druse minority in Syria. Israel has close relations with its own Druse minority and has sought to strengthen its relationship with the Druse in southern Syria to foster a potential ally and to prevent hostile groups from entrenching near its border, according to experts on Israeli-Syrian relations.
The strikes last month were a notable escalation for Israel in Syria and prompted the Syrian president, Ahmed al-Shara, to accuse Israel of seeking to sow “chaos” in the country.
While Syria’s new authorities say they do not want a conflict with Israel, Israeli officials remain suspicious of the Islamist government and have cited security concerns when discussing military interventions in Syria.
This month, Syrian and Israeli officials met in Paris for U.S.-mediated talks to try to reset the relationship after decades of hostility between the two countries.
That meeting, between the Syrian foreign minister, Asaad al-Shaibani, and an Israeli delegation, was the first time that Syria’s new government had publicly acknowledged holding direct talks with its longtime enemy.
Reham Mourshed, Rawan Sheikh Ahmad, Adam Rasgon and Natan Odenheimer contributed reporting.
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10) Mississippi Museum Acquires Gun Linked to Emmett Till’s Murder
The Mississippi Civil Rights Museum put the gun on display Thursday, soon after the federal government released thousands of pages of records on the Till case.
By Emily Cochrane and Audra D. S. Burch, Aug. 28, 2025
The Emmett Till exhibition at the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum in Jackson, Miss. Imani Khayyam for The New York Times
It was the image of Emmett Till’s disfigured body, lying in an open casket for the world to see, that helped galvanize a movement. He had been beaten, but bullets also played a role in his death in 1955, fired from a weapon that was widely thought to be lost.
Now, the gun that is believed to have been used in 14-year-old Emmett’s murder — an Ithaca .45 caliber pistol — is on display at the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum in Jackson, mounted in a display case.
The museum announced the acquisition on Thursday, exactly seven decades after Emmett was killed in a Mississippi barn by two white men who were angered by allegations that he had whistled at a white woman in a grocery store while visiting from Chicago. The gun is going on display less than a week after the federal Civil Rights Cold Case Records Review Board released thousands of pages of documents related to the case.
“Now we have an artifact that we can clearly pinpoint to what happened in the barn,” said Daphne Chamberlain, a civil rights historian who works at the Emmett Till Interpretive Center in Sumner, Miss. She added, “If this artifact is out there, what else is out there that has not yet been disclosed to the public or to a cultural institution for historic preservation?”
Photographs of Emmett’s body, which circulated after his mother insisted on an open casket and allowed Black journalists to document his funeral, helped to set in motion the civil rights movement.
But there was little justice for his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, and her family. Two men were tried for the killing — Roy Bryant, whose wife, Carolyn, claimed that Emmett had whistled at her in their family’s grocery store, and his half brother, J.W. Milam — but they were quickly acquitted by an all-white jury. They later confessed to the beating and murder in an interview with Look magazine, which paid them for their story.
The two perpetrators are now dead, as are Carolyn Bryant Donham (who remarried twice) and several other witnesses who were called during the trial in 1955.
President Biden established a national monument in 2023 to Emmett and his mother, who devoted her life to seeking justice for her son. The monument, consisting of three sites in Illinois and Mississippi, came about after years of gunshot vandalism to historical markers placed along the river where his body had been dumped.
The museum has already preserved the doors from the grocery store, which has since fallen into disrepair. Other artifacts — most notably the ring Emmett was wearing, which helped the authorities identify his body — have since been lost.
The gun’s whereabouts first came to light in 2004 when Keith Beauchamp, a filmmaker working on a documentary about Emmett, received an email with details about it. Mr. Beauchamp declined to say in an interview who had sent him the email, but said that he had spoken with the person.
Mr. Beauchamp turned the information over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which reopened its investigation into the murder and later exhumed Emmett’s body.
Dale Killinger, the case agent who oversaw the F.B.I. investigation in 2004, said he had interviewed the owner of the gun, took the weapon into evidence and had it tested for fingerprints and whether it matched lead that was found in Emmett’s body. The results were inconclusive about the specific weapon, he said, and the gun was returned.
The gun is believed to have once belonged to Mr. Milam, who served in the Army during World War II, according to a redacted F.B.I. report, and to have been the weapon that was used to both whip and shoot Emmett
Museum officials declined to say who gave the gun to the museum or on what terms it was given. They said the gun had been in the care of a Mississippi family not directly connected to the Till case, and that the family was in communication with the surviving members of Emmett’s family before it went on display.
Mr. Killinger declined to say whether he knew who had possession of the gun over the decades, citing the confidentiality of his federal investigation in 2004.
Nan Prince, the museum’s director of collections, called the gun “a troubling and rare artifact.” She added that “it moved me immediately, knowing what had happened, what had precipitated the use of this item.”
There is some unease about the gun being on public display and under state ownership, with the Mississippi Department of Archives and History in charge of in charge of the Two Mississippi Museums, which includes the civil rights museum. Mr. Beauchamp, the documentarian, called it “a fine line between educating people using artifacts and spectacle,” adding, “It doesn’t give Black America closure.”
But the museum also displays the gun used in the assassination of the civil rights leader Medgar Evers in Jackson. Museum officials and others who have followed the Emmett Till case closely say that possession and display of the weapons — along with other painful symbols of American racism, like a Ku Klux Klan robe — allow for appropriate context and a physical reminder of accurate history.
“There are not a lot of objects that are still around that related to his murder,” Michael Morris, who oversees both the Museum of Mississippi History and the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, said of Emmett. “This is another object that needs to be around for generations of Mississippians to understand the state.”
The Rev. Wheeler Parker, Jr., Emmett’s cousin, who was with him that day at the grocery store, said that he was comfortable with the gun being on display for the sake of preserving history and educating people.
“We have mixed emotions,” Mr. Parker said of the anniversary and commemorations. “Shows us how far we’ve come, how much progress we’ve made, how much we still have to do.”
The federal records released last week include hundreds of letters that people sent to the F.B.I. after the two men were acquitted, pleading for federal intervention, as well as correspondence related to the government’s refusal to intercede.
Patrick Weems, executive director of the Emmett Till Interpretive Center, said that while the records did not reveal any surprises, they added to the understanding of what happened to Emmett and the seismic aftermath.
“This is another layer of the story, more texture than revelation,” Mr. Weems said. “You had the public calling on the F.B.I. and they were not willing to get involved.”
He added, “But there is still so much we don’t know.”
For example, Mr. Weems said, some researchers believe that Mr. Bryant and Mr. Milam were not the only people involved in the crime.
The records, available on the Civil Rights Cold Case Records portal, represent only a portion of the documents on the Till case held by the federal government. The board expects to release thousands more pages, possibly including material from the federal investigations in 2004 and 2017, by January 2027.
Those investigations did not yield new charges.
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11) Immigration Officials Conduct Operation at Wildfire Site in Washington State
Local firefighting officials provided few details about the incident at Olympic National Forest. Federal officials rarely enforce immigration laws at the site of an emergency.
By Mike Ives, Aug. 28, 2025
A view of the Bear Gulch wildfire on July 21. It started in early July and is still burning. Credit...U.S. Forest Service
Immigration officials conducted an operation at the site of the largest wildfire in Washington State, fire officials said on Wednesday. The incident appeared to be a rare case of federal officials enforcing immigration laws at the site of an emergency.
Officials in charge of fighting the Bear Gulch fire in the Olympic National Forest, west of Seattle, said in a brief statement on Wednesday night that they were “aware of a Border Patrol operation” at the site of the fire.
“The Border Patrol operation is not interfering with firefighting activity and Bear Gulch firefighters continue to make progress on the fire,” the officials said in their statement.
Hours earlier, The Seattle Times reported that two people fighting the blaze had been arrested earlier in the day. It cited interviews with firefighters, whom it did not name, and what it described as video of a confrontation between the firefighters and law enforcement agents.
The fire officials did not say whom the operation had targeted. They referred questions about the operation to a Border Patrol office in Port Angeles, Wash. Federal and state officials did not immediately respond to inquiries about the fire.
The blaze in the forest, west of Seattle, was the largest in the state as of Thursday morning, having consumed nearly 9,000 acres.
The Seattle Times report said that the federal agents had made the arrests after showing up on Wednesday morning at a site near Lake Cushman where two crews of private contractors had been assigned to cut wood for a local community. The Bear Gulch fire is burning next to the lake.
Border enforcement operations do not normally occur at active firefighting sites. During the 2021 wildfire season, the Department of Homeland Security said that immigration enforcement would not be conducted in places where disaster and emergency response and relief was being provided, “absent exigent circumstances.”
In some cases, federal immigration agents have assisted firefighters by helping with evacuation efforts.
The Bear Gulch fire was 13 percent contained of as Wednesday evening, officials said in an update. Officials have said that the fire, which started in early July, was caused by human activity. The exact cause is under investigation.
Parts of Washington State were under a red flag warning early Thursday. Many roads, trails and campfires inside Olympic National Forest were closed.
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12) Judge Orders New Federal Trial in Tyre Nichols Case
The ruling cited concerns about the appearance of bias, pointing to comments that the judge who presided over the trial of three former police officers reportedly made afterward.
By Emily Cochrane, Aug. 28, 2025
Emily Cochrane has covered the legal proceedings in connection with Tyre Nichols’s death since 2023.
A community rally in honor of Tyre Nichols after three former Memphis officers were acquitted in the fatal beating that lead to his death in Memphis in May. Brad J. Vest for The New York Times
A federal judge on Thursday ordered a new trial for three former Memphis police officers found guilty of charges related to the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old FedEx worker, in 2023. She cited concerns about the appearance of bias, pointing to comments that the judge who presided over the trial reportedly made afterward, suggesting that one of the defendants was a gang member.
Last fall, a federal jury acquitted the former officers of the most serious charge, that they had violated Mr. Nichols’s civil rights by causing his death. The jury found them guilty on federal witness tampering charges.
But just days before the three men were to be sentenced, Judge Mark Norris abruptly recused himself from the case.
Court documents unsealed on Thursday, as well as the judicial order, show that the defendants requested a new trial after the U.S. attorney’s office disclosed conversations that took place after the verdict. One of Judge Norris’s law clerks had been shot during an apparent carjacking in October, days after the verdict, and the judge repeatedly expressed frustration with the police investigation and lack of federal charges in that case to federal prosecutors, according to the documents.
Then, in a May meeting with the prosecutors, Judge Norris suggested that one of the defendants in the Nichols case was a member of a gang, according to the documents. He went on to say that the gang might have been responsible for the shooting of his law clerk, because the law clerk had been staying at the home of another clerk who had worked on the case.
Those comments prompted a federal prosecutor to recall a conversation she’d had with Judge Norris months earlier, during which the judge told her that the Memphis Police Department was “infiltrated to the top with gang members,” according to the documents.
In court filings unsealed on Thursday, the Justice Department said there was no evidence that any of the officers charged in the Nichols case, or any Memphis police officials, were in a gang.
The three officers asked for a new trial in June, arguing that the judge’s reported comments showed he was biased against not only them, but also the Memphis Police Department.
Chief Judge Sheryl H. Lipman, who was assigned the case after Judge Norris’s recusal, granted the request for a new trial on Thursday, saying that it “would serve the interest of justice.”
In her order, she said that had the request been based only on Judge Norris’s conduct during the trial, “then a new trial would be unnecessary.”
But, she concluded, “the risk of bias here is too high to be constitutionally tolerable.”
Judge Norris, who was nominated by President Trump in 2018, has given no reason for his recusal. Judge Lipman’s order notes that her decision was based on the “unrebutted description of the conversations as presented.”
An assistant who answered the phone in Judge Norris’s chambers on Thursday said the judge could not publicly comment given the ongoing case. The U.S. attorney’s office in Memphis, which had argued against a new trial, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The three former officers — Demetrius Haley, Tadarrius Bean and Justin Smith — had been scheduled for sentencing December. Two other former officers charged in the Nichols case — Emmitt Martin III and Desmond Mills Jr. — pleaded guilty and testified against their former colleagues.
“Judge Lipman did the morally and ethically correct thing,” said Martin Zummach, a lawyer for Mr. Smith.
Lawyers for Mr. Haley and Mr. Bean did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Nichols was driving home from work on Jan. 7, 2023, when he was stopped by some of the officers for speeding up to beat a red light. Surveillance and body camera footage showed that he was aggressively yanked out of the car. After he broke free and ran away, officers caught up to Mr. Nichols, punching and kicking him while he cried for his mother.
Mr. Nichols died three days later.
All of the officers are Black, as was Mr. Nichols, and the case was seen by many in Memphis as another example of brutal treatment of Black people by the police.
The officers were fired shortly after, as the brutal footage horrified many in Memphis and across the country. But the case has produced mixed verdicts over the course of two trials, one in state court and one in federal. All three men have maintained their innocence, arguing that the use of force was in line with their training.
An out-of-town jury acquitted the officers in May of state charges that included second-degree murder. But in a separate federal case last fall, a jury found Mr. Haley, Mr. Bean and Mr. Smith guilty on a charge of witness tampering. Mr. Haley was also found guilty of violating Mr. Nichols’s civil rights by causing bodily injury.
At least some of the federal charges will be revisited in a new trial. Judge Lipman, an Obama nominee who has sat on the court since 2014, gave the parties until Sept. 15 to say what charges should go to trial.
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13) Los Angeles Is Contaminated Now
By David L. Ulin, Aug. 29, 2025
Mr. Ulin is a professor of English at the University of Southern California and the author of “Sidewalking: Coming to Terms With Los Angeles.” He wrote from Los Angeles.
Maria Chimishkyan
Southern California was made to burn. The earliest wildfire recorded there was in 1889 and scorched 300,000 acres.
Given such a history, it might be tempting to see the calamitous Eaton and Pacific Palisades fires in Los Angeles County in January as part of a continuum. That would be a mistake. Rather, these fires show we need a new way of thinking about fire: as not only natural disaster, but also environmental threat with a high risk of long-term harms to health.
In part, this has to do with more frequent fires in the wildlife urban interface, where the city meets the wilderness. Both the Eaton and Palisades fires affected this type of terrain, which the historian and social critic Carey McWilliams (among others) once characterized as “rurban,” which is to say, untamed and densely populated at once.
Blazes in these areas consume, in addition to brush and undergrowth, all sorts of manufactured materials: lead paint and piping, lithium batteries and computers, cleaning solutions and artificial fibers, automobiles and electric wires. Soil samples collected from the Palisades and Altadena have revealed the presence of heavy metals and other toxic elements, including arsenic, lead and mercury. If not properly remediated, such contamination can linger, with potential effects including not only cancer but also damage to the brain and nervous system, especially in children under 3. That makes every fire in the wildlife urban interface a potential public health emergency.
Normally, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers would take the lead on testing the soil and other sites for contamination after such an event. In February, however, the Corps announced it would not order sampling to see if properties had been properly decontaminated, citing the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s refusal to authorize remediation efforts of that scope. Such a pullback is hardly exclusive to Southern California; in recent months, FEMA has denied disaster aid to West Virginia and Washington. This means that survivors in Los Angeles, as well as elsewhere, are on their own more than ever.
Some residents of Altadena and the Palisades have paid for their own remediation, then waited, in some cases for months, to be reimbursed by insurance companies. Many homes that escaped fire damage were inundated with debris, some of it toxic. The administration has said it wants states and municipalities to take a larger role in mitigation and recovery, but the truth is they are already strapped. California is no exception.
In June, the state announced a mortgage relief program for those whose homes have been destroyed or irreparably damaged, but these grants top out at $20,000. Meanwhile, Los Angeles County has allocated up to $3 million for soil testing for residents affected by the Eaton fire, but this, like many private programs, relies on residents gathering and transporting their own samples.
The ramifications of toxic contamination in large areas of Los Angeles for public safety and health are likely to be significant. Consider the spike in both heart and lung disease reported after the 2023 Lahaina fire on Maui. And then there are the psychological risks. In the immediate wake of Lahaina, suicides and overdoses rose precipitously across Hawaii — a staggering 97 percent on Maui alone in the month of the fire, according to a recent paper.
Among the problems with fire is how its effects linger. It may take years for the full consequences to be known. Equally troubling is that contamination doesn’t stay contained. For all the visible damage to Altadena and the Palisades, in other words, there is a more insidious set of dangers, both in the homes and structures left undamaged and throughout the broader region. Even as the January fires had stopped burning, wind had distributed toxic smoke and ash across much of Los Angeles County, before blowing them out to the Pacific by way of Long Beach.
The slow recovery in Los Angeles is the result, in part, of complex and contradictory insurance practices — according to one report, as many as 70 percent of survivors in Altadena and the Palisades have reported delays, denials or underpayment — intensified by the shifts in federal policy. According to Department of Angels, one of several community-based groups that have emerged to work for those left behind by government and insurers, a large number of affected residents are still unable to return to their properties.
Without federal resources for recovery efforts, survivors can end up in an ongoing state of triage, in which the best that can be hoped for is short-term remediation, amid the certainty that fire will come again.
Because fires and other climate disasters are no longer discrete episodes, but instead a constant barrage. They represent a new normal in a nation where more than 60,000 communities are within a wildlife urban interface, a number that, as weather patterns continue to turn increasingly severe, will only grow. We know what to do: plant fire-resistant vegetation; create defensible space cleared of flammable objects; build with fire-resistant materials. Such strategies, however, require time and money. They require patience and grit. Eight months later, with recovery moving slowly, those things are in short supply.
Meanwhile, climate change isn’t waiting. Every day, it seems, we face another catastrophe. July marked the onset of fire season in California, and conditions that helped precipitate the January conflagrations — drought and a preponderance of dry brush — remain a substantial risk. This month alone, the Gifford fire in San Luis Obispo County has burned more than 130,000 acres, making it the state’s largest fire by area in 2025.
And yet California has learned from, and adapted to, climate challenges since before the phrase was in use. I recall the Field Act, which mandated earthquake-resistant building codes for schools after more than 200 were destroyed or damaged in the 1933 Long Beach earthquake. I recall Bob and Jackie Genofile, the couple featured in John McPhee’s essay “Los Angeles Against the Mountains,” their Glendale home demolished by debris flow only to be rebuilt and reinforced.
Each, in its own way, represents a gesture of community. Each represents an act of will. As the wildlife urban interface expands and fires become more toxic, Californians have become, perhaps, the canaries in the coal mine, in a world where environmental devastation provoked by climate change is now a commonplace.
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14) Israel Resumes Daytime Operations in Gaza City, Signaling Buildup to Assault
The Israeli military ended a policy of pausing operations during the day that was intended to allow more aid in, calling Gaza City a “dangerous combat zone.”
By Adam Rasgon, Reporting from Tel Aviv, Aug. 29, 2025
Displaced Palestinians leaving Gaza City toward the southern areas of the Gaza Strip on Thursday. The Israeli military has not yet issued a blanket evacuation order for the city. Credit...Eyad Baba/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The Israeli military on Friday ended its policy of pausing daytime operations in Gaza City, intended to ease aid delivery, in the latest indication that the military was moving toward a full-scale invasion of the area.
In a statement, the military said the “local tactical pause in military activity” would not apply to the city as of 10 a.m. on Friday, describing the area as a “dangerous combat zone.”
The Israeli military said in late July that it started instituting pauses of operations between 10 a.m. and 8 p.m. in several parts of the Gaza Strip. It made the move after international outrage over the dire humanitarian situation. Last week, a panel of global food experts said Gaza City and its surrounding areas were suffering from famine.
Earlier this month, the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that the Israeli military would expand its nearly two-year war in the territory by taking control of Gaza City. Last week, the military said it had called up an additional 60,000 reservists and announced plans to extend the duty of 20,000 others. It was unclear how long it would take for the additional reservists to be mobilized.
In recent weeks, the military has made a series of moves signaling that it wants Palestinians in Gaza City to move southward, though it has not yet issued a broad evacuation order.
The move on Friday could complicate an already challenging aid situation in Gaza, in which humanitarian groups have struggled to overcome bottlenecks to deliver food and other supplies to the most vulnerable people.
Aid workers have said many trucks were being intercepted by hungry Palestinians and gunmen before reaching their destinations, even as Israeli authorities have reported a greater number of trucks entering Gaza daily. Aid workers have also said that there are limited routes into Gaza and long waits at Israeli checkpoints.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or O.C.H.A., has acknowledged that the pauses have enabled some improvements to the delivery of aid. But two U.N. officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information, said that bombings had taken place during the daytime in spite of the pauses. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
On Friday, O.C.H.A. said it was assessing the “potential impact” of the Israeli military’s announcement on civilians and humanitarian operations.
“We remain deeply concerned by the intensified offensive in Gaza city, which will drive further mass displacement,” the agency said in response to an inquiry.
Indications that the Israeli military was building up to its invasion of Gaza City have been mounting in recent weeks.
In early August, an Israeli military official contacted Dr. Mohammed Abu Salmiya, the director of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, telling him to prepare a plan for transferring medical equipment to towns south of the city.
On Wednesday, Avichay Adraee, an Arabic-language spokesman for the military, issued a statement claiming there were vast open spaces in central and southern Gaza where people in Gaza City could relocate. But Palestinians in central and southern Gaza have said there are few apartments for rent in those areas and expressed disbelief there was enough open space for hundreds of thousands of people to settle in tents.
The military has already carried out widespread destruction of a neighborhood in the southern part of Gaza City, Zeitoun, turning a large part of it into a barren wasteland, according to satellite images reviewed by The New York Times.
A satellite image from Aug. 8 showed scores of buildings intact and what appeared to be several tent encampments. A separate image of the same area from Aug. 25 showed many, if not most, of the buildings reduced to piles of rubble and the apparent encampments gone.
The Israeli military has said that its strikes in Gaza target militants and their weapon caches, and it has stressed that Hamas fighters have embedded themselves in civilian spaces.
The intensification of the war comes as talks have faltered for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas and the release of hostages.
Hamas has said it has accepted a new framework put forth by Arab mediators, which would begin with a temporary cease-fire and the exchange of some Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners. But Mr. Netanyahu has not supported that proposal, calling for negotiations for the release of all hostages and the end of the war “on conditions that are acceptable for Israel.”
Hamas has said it is willing to release all remaining hostages on the condition that Israel ends the war. But Hamas has not publicly accepted Mr. Netanyahu’s conditions for doing so, which include the group’s disarmament.
On Friday, Mr. Netanyahu said the body of an Israeli man who was killed during the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, had been returned to Israeli territory. He said the body of the man, Ilan Weiss, had been moved to Gaza after he was killed while he was going out to defend Kibbutz Be’eri in southern Israel.
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15) Israel Recovers Body of Oct. 7 Victim From Gaza, Netanyahu’s Office Says
Ilan Weiss, who was killed in the Hamas-led attack, and the remains of another person, who was not identified, were found as the government looks set to expand a military offensive.
By Johnatan Reiss, Reporting from Tel Aviv, Aug. 29, 2025
Demonstrators hold posters with photographs of Ilan Weiss at a rally in Tel Aviv last year. Credit...Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images
Israeli security forces have recovered the body of Ilan Weiss, who was killed during the Hamas-led attack on the country on Oct. 7, 2023, from Gaza, the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday.
The remains of “another deceased hostage” were also recovered, the prime minister’s office added, but their identity was not released.
Mr. Weiss was killed in his home village of Be’eri, in southern Israel, when hundreds of militants raided the community as part of a wider attack that killed roughly 1,200 people, according to Israeli officials. Some 250 more people were abducted and taken to Gaza as hostages.
The remains of Mr. Weiss and the unidentified person were recovered in a “complex rescue operation” carried out by forces from the Israeli military and Shin Bet, the domestic intelligence agency, the military said in a statement. Israeli officials did not specify where or when the operation took place.
Mr. Weiss, who led the village’s civilian emergency response team, disappeared after he had gone to the community armory when the attack began, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a group representing many families of the hostages, said in a statement. His death on Oct. 7, 2023, was confirmed in absentia in January 2024, the Forum added.
Mr. Weiss’s wife, Shiri, and teenage daughter, Noga, were kidnapped in the attack. They were released during a brief cease-fire along with dozens of other Israeli hostages in November 2023.
The recovery of the bodies comes as Israeli leaders face mounting pressure at home and abroad to reach an agreement with Hamas that would secure the release of the remaining hostages and end the war in Gaza. Israeli officials believe that 20 hostages are still alive and Hamas is holding the bodies of about 30 more captives.
The Israeli security cabinet, a group that includes senior ministers and is chaired by Mr. Netanyahu, recently decided to intensify military operations in Gaza, including taking over Gaza City, the enclave’s main urban center where thousands of Palestinians have sought refuge.
“We will not rest until everyone returns home — this is the objective of the upcoming maneuver,” the office of Israel Katz, the country’s defense minister, said in a statement on Friday referring to the plan to widen the military offensive.
But Israel’s plan to expand operations has been condemned by many world leaders. “Israel’s initial steps to militarily take over Gaza City signal a new and dangerous phase,” António Guterres, the secretary general of the United Nations, said on Thursday.
In Israel, hundreds of thousands joined nationwide demonstrations on Tuesday, calling on the government to accept a cease-fire proposal that Hamas agreed to earlier this month.
It is unclear whether Mr. Netanyahu will accept the proposal. A spokesman for the Israeli government, David Mencer, stopped short of saying that Israel would reject the proposal but told journalists this week that Israel was “going for a full agreement, and no longer a piecemeal agreement.”
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16) Britain Bars Israeli Government From a Leading Arms Trade Fair
The British government said it was acting in response to Israel’s escalating military operation in Gaza. Israel condemned the decision.
By Mark Landler, Reporting from London, Aug. 29, 2025
The Defense and Security Equipment International fair in London in 2023. Credit...Leon Neal/Getty Images
Britain has barred the Israeli government from sending officials to its flagship military weapons trade fair in London next month, in another sign of Israel’s deepening isolation as it expands the war in Gaza.
The British defense ministry confirmed in a statement on Friday that it had told Israel that its officials would not be welcome at the Defense and Security Equipment International exhibition, because “the Israeli government’s decision to further escalate its military operation in Gaza is wrong.”
Israel condemned the decision, calling it a “deliberate and regrettable act of discrimination against Israel’s representatives.” The Israeli defense ministry said in a statement that it “plays into the hands of extremists, grants legitimacy to terrorists and introduces political considerations wholly inappropriate for a professional defense industry exhibition.”
Britain’s ban does not extend to Israeli arms suppliers, several of which plan to have displays at the fair, which runs from Sept. 9 to 12. The British statement said the police would put “robust security measures in place” at the sprawling event, which attracts companies from about 60 countries and has drawn protests by human rights groups in previous years for the lethality of the weapons on display.
The British government has steadily ratcheted up pressure on Israel over its conduct of the war in Gaza, announcing last month that it would recognize an independent Palestinian state next month unless Israel agrees to a cease-fire with Hamas. Last September, it imposed a partial suspension of weapons sales to Israel.
Britain’s move to recognize a Palestinian state followed on the heels of France, which also acted to constrain Israel’s ability to sell weapons in its country. At the Paris Air Show in June, organizers erected walls around some stands, after the Israelis objected to a French demand that they take down the displays on the grounds that they were promoting offensive, rather than defensive, weapons.
At the time, the Israeli defense ministry’s director general, Maj. Gen. Amir Baram, called France’s action “absolutely, bluntly antisemitic.” His criticism was echoed by two Republican governors from the United States who attended the show, Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas and Glenn Youngkin of Virginia.
Britain said in its statement that it would reconsider its ban if Israel complied with international humanitarian law in Gaza and the West Bank, adding, “There must be a diplomatic solution to end this war now, with an immediate cease-fire, the return of the hostages and a surge in humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza.”
Under the ban, Israel’s defense ministry cannot set up a national pavilion at the fair, where arms producers are typically grouped together by country. Individual Israeli suppliers can still sell their weapons — a list that includes Israel Aerospace Industry and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, which are owned by the government. Both said Friday that they planned to attend the exhibition.
Britain’s handling of the war in Gaza has become an increasingly fraught issue for Prime Minister Keir Starmer. He is facing rising calls from members of his Labour Party to take harsher measures against Israel, with some criticizing him for making his pledge to recognize a Palestinian state conditional, unlike France.
Others faulted the government for not imposing a total ban on weapons sales to Israel. The government noted that Britain’s arms sales constitute less than 1 percent of Israel’s imports. But they include British-made components for the F-35 fighter jet, which the Israeli air force has used in strikes on Gaza.
Critics say Britain has adopted a series of half-measures against Israel, and then only after other countries, like France, acted first.
“They’re not leading, they’re following,” said Daniel Levy, who runs the U.S./Middle East Project, an institute in London and New York. “Left to their own devices, they would be as undisruptive as possible to the bilateral relationship. They put their finger in the air and say, ‘We need to move a bit.’”
Mr. Levy said the decision to bar Israeli officials, but not companies, could be calculated to defuse demonstrations. Britain recently banned a pro-Palestinian protest group, Palestine Action, and declared it a terrorist organization.
On Wednesday, Tony Blair, a former Labour prime minister who informally advises Mr. Starmer, took part in a White House meeting about the postwar future of Gaza. Mr. Blair served for eight years as the envoy for the Quartet, a coalition of Western countries that has tried fruitlessly to broker a peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians. He declined to discuss his role in the meeting.
Though Mr. Starmer has mostly stayed in lock step with President Trump on the war in Ukraine, there is growing daylight between them on Israel and Gaza. During a visit to Britain earlier this month, Vice President JD Vance said the Trump administration had no plans to follow Britain in recognizing a Palestinian state.
“I don’t know what it would really mean to recognize a Palestinian state, given the lack of a functional government there,” Mr. Vance said, adding that he expected “some disagreements” about how to end the suffering in Gaza, where observers warn of spreading famine.
Lara Jakes contributed reporting from Rome.
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