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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”
——
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) Elon Musk Could Become First Trillionaire Under New Tesla Pay Plan
Tesla’s board unveiled a compensation package for the chief executive that could be worth $900 billion if he meets ambitious targets.
By Jack Ewing and Peter Eavis, Sept. 5, 2025
Tesla’s board on Friday proposed a pay package that could make its chief executive, Elon Musk, the world’s first trillionaire as long as he meets a series of very ambitious corporate goals.
Mr. Musk, already the world’s richest person, would have to increase Tesla’s stock market value eightfold over the next decade to collect the full value of the package, according to a securities filing.
All the compensation would be in the form of Tesla shares. The package, which must be approved by the company’s shareholders, is expected to be put to a vote at an annual meeting on Nov. 6.
Mr. Musk has a net worth of more than $400 billion, according to Forbes. The new pay could add around $900 billion to that fortune if he succeeds in raising Tesla’s stock market value to $8.5 trillion from about $1.1 trillion today. It would be by far the richest compensation of any executive in corporate history. And it could leave him owning nearly 29 percent of Tesla, an extraordinary level of control for a chief executive.
Mr. Musk would have to remain at Tesla for at least seven and a half years to cash in any of the shares, and 10 years to earn the full amount. He would also have to meet various very ambitious operational milestones, including overseeing the commercial deployment of one million autonomous taxis, one million robots and a more than 24-fold increase in profit.
Hitting many of those targets could be extremely hard. Many other companies around the world are racing to perfect self-driving cars and robots.
“Retaining and incentivizing Elon is fundamental to Tesla achieving these goals and becoming the most valuable company in history,” Robyn Denholm, chair of the Tesla board, and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson, a director on the board, said in a letter to shareholders.
The lavish pay plan will almost surely be criticized by some shareholders for excessively rewarding Mr. Musk. Some investors have said the chief executive has performed poorly in recent years and engaged in behavior that has damaged the company. The package will increase the already intense scrutiny of Mr. Musk, who is regarded as a genius by his acolytes and a dangerous oligarch by his critics.Tesla’s sales and profit have slumped over the last year as Mr. Musk has become immersed in right-wing politics. He worked for several months in the Trump administration, offending many liberal electric-vehicle buyers.
While exercising significant control over Tesla, Mr. Musk spends a lot of time overseeing other business interests. Among them are SpaceX, a rocket company, and xAI, an artificial intelligence venture that owns the social media site X.
The plan announced Friday does not place restrictions on how much time he spends on other ventures or his political activities.
The compensation plan mirrors one from 2018 that awarded Mr. Musk millions of Tesla shares if he met goals that seemed far-fetched at the time. He achieved the milestones, but a Delaware judge struck down that pay package after shareholders claimed that it was excessive and contended that the company’s board had not properly informed investors about the package. Tesla has appealed to the state’s Supreme Court.
The documents that Tesla filed Friday contain measures that would replace Mr. Musk’s compensation from the 2018 plan if the company’s appeal of the Delaware case is unsuccessful. Tesla said Friday awarding that compensation package would require it to record an expense of at least $56 billion on its financial statements based on the recent share price.
If shareholders approve the latest pay package, dissident investors would have more difficulty challenging it. This year, Tesla moved its corporate domicile from Delaware to Texas, where state law makes it harder for shareholders to sue companies in which they have only a small stake.
Tesla pioneered the market for electric cars, but has fallen behind the Chinese carmakers BYD and Geely in the number of cars sold globally, and is in danger of being overtaken by Volkswagen, according to figures compiled by SNE Research, a South Korean firm.
Some analysts blame Mr. Musk for the decline, saying he squandered resources developing the Cybertruck pickup, which has sold poorly, rather than new models with broader appeal. Chinese carmakers and established manufacturers like General Motors and Hyundai have introduced dozens of electric cars that increasingly make Tesla’s main products, the Model 3 sedan and Model Y sport utility vehicle, look dated.
Mr. Musk has played down the importance of car sales, saying Tesla’s future is in artificial intelligence, self-driving cars and humanoid robots. The compensation plan calls for Tesla to have sold a total of 20 million cars by 2035, from eight million today. That implies the company would need to sell only 1.2 million a year, far fewer than it sold last year.
On Monday, the company unveiled what it called its Master Plan IV, which said the company would be at the forefront of an age of “sustainable abundance” when power will come from the sun, people will travel in self-driving cars and robots will take over menial tasks.
“Today we are on the cusp of a revolutionary period primed for unprecedented growth,” the plan, published on X, said.
In their letter to shareholders, Ms. Denholm and Ms. Wilson-Thompson said, “Elon’s singular vision is vital to navigating this critical inflection point.”
But they also hinted at a future without Mr. Musk, saying he would work with the board on “development of a framework for long-term C.E.O. succession.” And the filing said Mr. Musk had to develop a succession “framework” to earn a portion of the new stock award.
According to the compensation plan, Mr. Musk would be eligible to receive 35 million shares if Tesla’s Wall Street value hit $2 trillion. He would receive additional shares if Tesla’s value increased until it reached $8.5 trillion. The plan is structured so that Mr. Musk would profit from gains in the share price only from $334, the closing price on Wednesday.
For Mr. Musk to collect the full award, Tesla’s operating profit will have to rise to $400 billion, from $17 billion last year.
Although Mr. Musk would not be allowed to sell any of the shares for years, he will immediately be able to exercise their votes in shareholder meetings, increasing his control of the company. If he collects all the shares, and does not sell any, his stake in Tesla would rise from 13 percent now to about 29 percent. Taxes could reduce that amount.
Mr. Musk had threatened to leave the company if he didn’t get a much bigger share of the company. He “raised the possibility that he may pursue other interests that may afford him greater influence,” the board said.
There is a little doubt that the goals are ambitious. Tesla would have to become twice as valuable as Nvidia, the maker of chips for artificial intelligence and currently the world’s most valuable public company.
Mr. Musk and his brother, Kimbal Musk, who is a member of the Tesla board, recused themselves from the decision on whether to approve the pay package, Ms. Denholm and Ms. Wilson-Thompson said. But Tesla said in its regulatory filing Friday that Texas law and stock market rules allowed both Musks to vote on the compensation package during the November shareholder vote.
Boards typically determine executive compensation by comparing pay of other corporate leaders in similar industries. Benchmarking in Mr. Musk’s case would be “irrelevant,” Tesla’s board said.
“Chief executive officers at other comparably large companies are not being presented with performance goals comparable in scope, degree or complexity to those being asked of Mr. Musk,” the board said.
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2) Why Hamas Refuses to Give Up
Analysts say that despite its vast losses in Gaza, Hamas believes it can hold out for a deal that ensures its survival.
By Adam Rasgon, Reporting from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, Sept. 5, 2025
Israel has killed thousands of Hamas’s fighters, taken out most of its senior military command and destroyed much of its arsenal and underground tunnel network.
The country’s relentless military campaign has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, cities have been reduced to rubble, and people have struggled daily to find enough food, water and electricity.
And yet Hamas has refused to surrender. The group wants to secure its future in Gaza, but its unwillingness to give up to Israel and disarm is also rooted in its ideology.
Since the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which ignited the war in Gaza, the group’s leaders have acknowledged that the resulting Israeli counterattack has caused enormous destruction. But they have said it is a “price” Palestinians must pay for their ultimate freedom.
In interviews, some Hamas leaders have said that the group’s calculation was less about defeating Israel on the battlefield, and more about drawing the government into an intractable conflict, one that isolates it diplomatically and undermines its international support. Eventually, they say, Israel will be compelled to realize that its policies toward Palestinians are not sustainable.
“Surrender, as Israel and America are calling for it, is not in Hamas’s dictionary,” said Khaled al-Hroub, a professor at Northwestern University in Qatar who has written books about the group.
Izz al-Din al-Haddad, the leader of Hamas’s military wing, said recently that if he cannot get what he described as an honorable deal to end the war with Israel, then the conflict would become a war of liberation or the group would face “martyrdom,” according to a senior Middle Eastern intelligence official familiar with Mr. al-Haddad’s thinking.
What Hamas considers to be an “honorable deal” is an agreement that could lead to the end of the war and enable the group to continue wielding power in Gaza.
Hamas has previously agreed to temporary cease-fires with Israel in part to provide relief to people in Gaza. But it has firmly rejected ending the war on terms set by Israel, which has demanded the group disarm and send its leaders into exile, and has shown a willingness to tolerate the ongoing suffering of civilians in pursuit of the deal that it wants.
There are no suggestions that Hamas’s position is shifting. This week, it released a statement reiterating that it was ready to accept a deal that would see the release of all remaining hostages held in Gaza in exchange for a number of Palestinian prisoners, an end to the war and a withdrawal of Israeli forces.
But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas by force or dismantle it through negotiation, and has rebuffed any deal on the end of the conflict that would leave the group intact.
Civilians in Gaza have paid the highest price for the continuation of the war.
“Have Hamas’s weapons stopped Israel from killing us?” said Abdullah Shehab, 32, who has been staying at his sister’s home in Gaza City since he was forced to leave his hometown, Jabaliya, at the end of May. “Have they stopped Israel from invading our cities? The only thing Hamas’s weapons have done is given Israel a justification to continue the massacres.”
During the October attack, some 1,200 people were killed and about 250 others were abducted, according to Israeli authorities. While Hamas has celebrated the attack, more than 60,000 people in Gaza have been killed in the ensuing war, said the local health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
The seemingly irreconcilable positions of Hamas and Israel on how to end the war suggest that the fighting will continue until one side is forced to compromise.
And Hamas believes that Israel will eventually come to terms with an agreement that does not require the group to give in, Palestinian political analysts say.
“They know that the continuation of the war is very costly, but they’re hopeful that they’ll get a deal they can live with, if they remain patient and steadfast,” said Esmat Mansour, a Palestinian analyst who spent years in Israeli prisons with several top Hamas leaders.
“They see the internal and external pressure on Israel to end the war and they know that Israel can’t free the captives without them,” he added. “So they’re saying to themselves, ‘Why should we surrender when we can get something better?’”
Still, Mr. Mansour said, Hamas may conclude that to maintain some power it needs to make difficult concessions, like suspending military recruitment and training and putting its weapons in storage, potentially overseen by a third party.
Ibrahim Madhoun, a Palestinian analyst close to Hamas, said the group needed “an exit” from the war. “The problem is Israel has closed all the exits,” he said.
Hamas, at least publicly, has refused to entertain discussions about abandoning its weapons or sending its commanders into exile. Husam Badran, a senior Hamas official, framed the group’s refusal to surrender as safeguarding Palestinians.
“We’re dealing with an extremist government that carried out massacres at the expense of our people and that is still plotting the killing, slaughter and expulsion of our people,” he said in a text message. “We can’t stop defending ourselves and our people in light of the impotence of the international community and the clear American complicity.”
“Without a clear political agreement that protects the Palestinian people and its land, the resistance will continue its fight,” Mr. Badran added.
Another Hamas official, Taher El-Nounou, recently suggested that the war could ultimately turn in Hamas’s favor, a result that appears unlikely given Israel’s military advantage. Asked on Russia Today’s Arabic-language channel whether carrying out the 2023 attack had been the right decision, he said nobody could judge the results of the war while it was still ongoing.
“Before the Normandy landing, Germany was occupying almost all of Europe,” he said, referring to a costly but decisive battle during World War II. “After that landing, the situation changed.”
Residents of Gaza are facing the reality that the war could drag on into a third year. Though outraged by Israel’s continued bombing campaign, many are also frustrated with Hamas.
Conceding defeat, Mr. Shehab, the displaced man in Gaza City, said, would be the least Hamas could do to take responsibility for “the catastrophic error” of the October 2023 attack — one that “caused plunder greater than the Nakba of 1948,” the dispossession and displacement of Palestinians after Israel’s founding.
But he had little hope Hamas would agree to step aside. “We’re trapped,” he said. “Honestly, the only real difference between Palestinian civilians and Israeli hostages is we’re above ground and they’re below.”
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3) Israel Steps Up Attacks on Gaza City Ahead of a Planned Wider Offensive
The Israeli military destroyed a landmark building after saying it had taken control of almost half of the city, where hundreds of thousands of civilians are sheltering amid a worsening humanitarian crisis.
By Liam Stack, Photographs by Saher Alghorra, Sept. 5, 2025, Liam Stack reported from Tel Aviv and Saher Alghorra reported from Gaza City
An Israeli strike hit the Mushtaha Tower in Gaza City on Friday. The Israeli military said Hamas used the building for intelligence-gathering, but Hamas denied the accusation.
Israel expanded its preparations for a full-scale assault on Gaza City on Friday and targeted a prominent local landmark, a day after a military spokesman said it was in control of almost half the city.
A broad evacuation order has yet to be issued for the city, where hundreds of thousands of people are believed to be sheltering in ruined buildings and tents.
But on Friday, Israel warned people to leave a high-rise building in Gaza City shortly before it destroyed it in a military strike. It was unclear how many people had been killed or injured.
Announcing the evacuation order on social media, Israel Katz, Israel’s defense minister, said: “The gates of Hell are being unlocked in Gaza City.” After the strike, Mr. Katz posted a video of the tower collapsing along with the words: “We started.”
Israel said the building had been used by Hamas for military and intelligence-gathering activities.
Hamas denied the accusation and said Israel had targeted “residential towers densely populated by displaced persons.”
Last month, Israel announced that it planned to expand its military offensive in Gaza City, which Israeli officials have portrayed as one of Hamas’s last strongholds in Gaza.
Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin, a military spokesman, said on Thursday that Israeli forces had taken control of 40 percent of the city and were active in the neighborhoods of Zeitoun, Sheikh Radwan and Shuja’iyya.
The military has already carried out widespread destruction in parts of Gaza City in recent weeks. Israeli forces have turned large parts of Zeitoun, a once bustling urban neighborhood, into a barren wasteland, according to satellite images reviewed by The New York Times.
On Friday, the strike on the Gaza City high-rise caused the building to collapse in a pillar of dark smoke, according to a video from the scene published by Reuters. The video also showed a large tent encampment around the tall tower.
In recent days, residents of Gaza City have described nights punctuated by Israeli airstrikes and shelling. Large crowds of people have been fleeing to what they hope are safer neighborhoods.
The prospect of a full-scale offensive on the city would likely exacerbate a humanitarian crisis for the hundreds of thousands of civilians sheltering there. Many of them have fled Israeli bombardment in other parts of Gaza multiple times since the war began 22 months ago, crisscrossing territory to escape attacks, and are now struggling to find food and clean water.
The war began after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, terror attack on Israel, in which roughly 1,200 were killed and 250 more taken hostage. Since then, the Israeli military response has killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, according to the local health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. More than half of those killed have been women, children and the elderly, according to local health officials.
The war has destroyed most of Gaza’s infrastructure and parts of the territory are suffering from famine, according to a U.N.-backed group of food experts.
Elham Shamali, 47, who taught at Al-Azhar University before the war, said she fled Gaza City’s Senaa neighborhood with her family two weeks ago when Israeli strikes and shelling came close to their home.
Since then, Ms. Shamali said, they have been staying in Sheikh Radwan, where their neighbor’s home was hit by an airstrike a few days ago. “The building was badly damaged and seven were killed,” she said. “I saw the dead bodies and knew the people, they were our neighbors.”
Ms. Shamali said she and her family planned to flee again, this time to the Tal Al Hawa neighborhood in the west of the city.
Israel’s planned take over of Gaza City has been criticized by the families of Israeli hostages held in Gaza, who say any large-scale operation could imperil their loved ones further. Those concerns were renewed on Friday when Hamas released a video of two hostages, Guy Gilboa-Dalal and Alon Ohel.
Mr. Gilboa-Dalal said in the video that it was filmed on Aug. 28 and that he and other hostages were being held in Gaza City. Israeli officials have said they believe roughly 20 living hostages are still being held in Gaza.
Rights groups and international law experts say that hostage videos are made under duress, and that the statements in them are usually coerced.
In a post on social media, Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s minister of national security, called the release of the video “psychological terrorism intended to stop us from pursuing the action in Gaza.”
Abu Bakr Bashir and Johnatan Reiss contributed reporting.
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4) ICE Agents Are Wearing Masks. Is That Un-American?
The long, strange story of masking and law enforcement.
By Sabrina Tavernise, Sept. 5, 2025
Photo illustration by Alex Merto
One of the defining images of President Trump’s second term so far has been security officers in masks. Whether detaining a Turkish student on the street in Boston, raiding Home Depot parking lots in Los Angeles or, now, arresting immigrants on the streets of the capital, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in tactical gear and with their faces obscured have become a strange new national pageant.
The Homeland Security Department says that in an era of extreme polarization and rising political violence, masks are necessary. “ICE officers wear a mask because they’ve been doxxed by the thousands,” Tom Homan, Mr. Trump’s border czar, told my colleagues at “The Daily.” “Their families have been doxxed. ICE officers’ pictures show up on trees and telephone poles. Death threats are sky-high.” Masking, the argument goes, is simply the practical response.
Lawmakers in liberal states say the practice should be banned, and this summer, Democratic elected officials in California, New York and Pennsylvania proposed laws to do just that. At the end of July, Virginia’s Democratic senators introduced a bill to ban the use of masks nationally. The issue also got the attention of a federal judge, who, in a ruling on Tuesday against Mr. Trump’s use of the military in Los Angeles, noted disapprovingly that the armed forces’ identity “was often obscured by protective armor.”
As I watched all of this, I found myself wondering about masking by law enforcement and whether it has a history in the United States. Something about it seemed at once familiar and foreign. That’s because I associate the practice with Russia.
In the summer of 2000, when President Vladimir Putin had just taken office, I was living in Moscow and working as a reporter. At the time, the first battle lines were being drawn between the new president and the powerful oligarchs he hoped to tame. Russians began to see raids by government forces on oligarchs and their properties. Men in masks conducted them. They became so ubiquitous that people began referring to them sardonically as Maski Show, or mask shows, after a popular television show involving mask-wearing clowns.
The United States is not Russia. But as I search for ways to understand what is happening in my country today, I am looking to the places I’ve been before. In Russia in the 2000s, I thought of masking as a peculiar feature of a wobbly post-Soviet state. Over time it became clear that it was a harbinger of a new era.
The Power and the Danger
Masks became a feature of America’s fiercely polarized political life during the Covid pandemic. Mask requirements enraged conservatives, who saw them as an effort by the government to boss them around on flimsy science. Concerns about the virus’s spread subsided, but the debate seemed to have unlocked something in the American psyche about the power — and danger — of masks.
Over the past several years, states and counties began passing laws against masking that applied to protesters in demonstrations, reasoning that they would be more likely to do something illegal if law enforcement couldn’t see their faces.
Some of those laws echoed statutes passed in the 1940s and 1950s by states and cities that were trying to control the Ku Klux Klan, said Robert Mickey, a political science professor at the University of Michigan. Even though Klan chapters were often “shot through with members of the police,” Mr. Mickey said, those officers, who showed their faces during the day, wore masks when doing the work of the Klan at night.
There are good reasons vigilantes wear masks and police officers don’t. Policing experts argue that masking by law enforcement is wrong because officers are public servants and are supposed to be accountable to the public. Hiding behind a mask makes that harder. Yes, officers’ jobs can be dangerous, but being publicly identifiable goes along with having the right to wield a deadly weapon on behalf of the state.
In recent years in the United States, trends in law enforcement were moving in the opposite direction. Many police departments now use body cameras and require that the officer’s badge, with name and number, be visible.
Michael German, a retired F.B.I. agent who is now a fellow in the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Program, said that even when he worked undercover, “the period of secrecy ended when charges were brought and I had to defend what I had done in that undercover capacity.”
Masking provides leeway for abuse, he said. People tend to be more scrupulous and vigilant when they can be personally held accountable for their actions. A mask allows more latitude for sloppiness or shortcuts — a punch or a kick, for example.
No one I interviewed could think of an example of American law enforcement masking. Jules Epstein, a law professor at Temple University who worked for decades as a criminal defense lawyer and death penalty litigator, said that in his more than 45 years of practice, he had never seen the police wear masks, including in high-profile gang cases.
‘Without Question a Bad Sign’
Outside the United States, masking by law enforcement has a long history. When it happens, it tends to be in countries with weak central governments, sometimes ones that are fighting insurgencies or drug cartels or, for that matter, political opponents.
In Colombia in the 1980s and 1990s, the government worked with paramilitary groups — forces on the side of the government but not directly employed by it — that often wore masks. They operated at the margins of the law, according to Adam Isacson, a security expert at the Washington Office on Latin America, and over time, courts and special tribunals have documented abuses they perpetrated. In Colombia, the state was up against a well-equipped and deadly foe: drug cartels. Anyone obstructing them had reason to fear for their lives. Judges wore masks to avoid reprisal killings, a practice that became known as “judges without faces.”
Law enforcement officers in Mexico sometimes mask, too, Mr. Isacson said, in areas where drug cartels have a strong presence.
In Peru, government forces often wore masks in their war against Shining Path guerrillas in the 1980s and 1990s, said Steven Levitsky, a political scientist who has studied Latin America and written about democratic decline. In areas where Shining Path was strongest, police officers were afraid of reprisals by the guerrillas but also of becoming pariahs in their own communities for abuses they themselves committed, he said.
More recently, Human Rights Watch has documented cases of government forces using masks in Venezuela during the repression that followed the country’s tainted presidential election last year. And in the Philippines, victims of Rodrigo Duterte’s brutal antidrug campaign report that the people doing the killing were sometimes masked.
“The use of masks,” Mr. Levitsky said, “is without question a bad sign.”
And it is extremely rare in functional democracies. “I cannot think of a democratic country with a reliable rule of law where security forces mask themselves,” Mr. Levitsky said. “It just doesn’t happen.”
Stronger, more confident regimes rarely mask. Totalitarian states that have established control over their populations tend to avoid moves that would stir dissent. Masking can draw attention to the fact that the government is up to something it wants to hide, or that it is not powerful enough to protect its own forces. In short, it’s a bad look.
In China, the security forces do not wear masks, said Lynette Ong, a China scholar and professor at the University of Toronto. But something else happens. In her book, “Outsourcing Repression,” Ms. Ong explains that China’s everyday security policing force draws from ordinary people mobilized from the street and paid a daily rate or hired on a contract. The state does not formally employ them, and when they are caught harming someone, the government can plausibly say it was not responsible. China may be authoritarian, she said, but public officials can be held accountable for abuse. They can be fired, for example, if their forces are caught on camera beating people up.
Masks are rare in Iran, too, though they are occasionally used in drug and organized crime operations, said Omid Memarian, an Iranian journalist who is now an Iran expert at DAWN, a Washington-based organization focused on U.S. policy in the Middle East. He said that when he was arrested in 2005, no one, not even his interrogators, wore masks.
“The people who interrogated me, they wanted me to see their faces,” Mr. Memarian said.
The reason was that the government wanted to show that what it was doing was legitimate. They also arrested him discreetly, “without a splash,” Mr. Memarian said. A number of armed men came to his building, but his neighbors had no idea it was happening. They kept it low-key so as not to draw the attention of regime critics.
“Once a mask is involved,” he said, “people understand it as a sign of weakness, that the government has something to hide.”
The Show
In Russia in the early 2000s, Mr. Putin wasn’t trying to hide anything. On the contrary: He was putting on a show that he wanted everyone to see. Russia’s central government had been plagued by weakness throughout the 1990s, with the oligarchs running official agencies and having their way with the state. The Maski Shows were efforts by this new leader to turn the tables.
One of the most famous episodes took place a few days after Mr. Putin was inaugurated in May 2000. Armed men in military fatigues and masks showed up at one of the offices that belonged to the oligarch who had founded the first independent television network, NTV.
Yevgeny Kiselyov, then the director of the channel and its main anchor, remembers being struck by the over-the-top nature of the force. “They were carrying out their operation as if this building was full of heavily armed terrorists,” he said in an interview. In reality, it was middle-aged women working in accounting.
The television station was eventually taken over by the state, and Mr. Kiselyov now lives outside Russia. He said the meaning of the raid was clear even then. It was a public message, not just to that station and its owner, but to anyone who opposed Mr. Putin. “It was an act of intimidation,” he said. “It was saying, ‘We are now in power, and we are going after you.’”
The Trump administration seems to be sending the same message with ICE, except in this case, the targets are not oligarchs, but immigrants and the businesses who employ them.
But there are other audiences. Asa Hutchinson, the former governor of Arkansas, who helped oversee border security in the George W. Bush administration, said he believes the performance is aimed at would-be migrants around the world. Former President Joe Biden, “no matter what he did, could not change the view of the world that the border was open,” Mr. Hutchinson said. “I knew it was going to take someone who was going to create some heartache, and that they’d have to be very tough and create some fear to change the circumstances.”
And then there’s the domestic audience. Polling suggests that many Americans don’t like Mr. Trump’s tactics around deportations, at least when it comes to immigrants who have not committed violent crimes. But some Americans do approve of it, perhaps drawn to its dark spectacle. The immigrant detention center in Florida known as Alligator Alcatraz, which is now tied up in court battles, has its own merch. Americans pose for selfies by the center’s new highway sign and post them on social media. In early August, Indiana announced a partnership with the Homeland Security Department to build the “Speedway Slammer,” its answer to Alligator Alcatraz. A few weeks later, Nebraska announced plans for the “Cornhusker Clink.”
Mr. Levitsky called the highly visible, almost ostentatious use of masks “a performance but with real-world consequences.” “MAGA seems to get something out of playing authoritarian,” he said. “There’s an element of cosplay to it.”
Perhaps the most important audience of all is the agency itself — and its potential recruits. ICE says it wants to hire 10,000 new agents at a time when hiring law enforcement officers has been hard. It got a multibillion-dollar cash infusion from Congress in July. Masking could serve to reassure reluctant applicants, who are worried for their safety or about being judged by people they know, but also to attract more exuberant ones, who see masking as subversive and fun.
In August, the Homeland Security Department posted on social media an image in the style of the TV show “South Park” that showed a caravan of cartoon figures riding in ICE cars. Their faces were all covered from the nose down. At the top of the post was a link: JOIN.ICE.GOV.
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5) South Koreans Swept Up in Immigration Raid at Hyundai E.V. Plant in Georgia
They were among nearly 500 workers apprehended at a construction site for a South Korean battery maker, officials said. The episode prompted diplomatic concern in Seoul.
By John Yoon and Jenny Gross, John Yoon reported from Seoul, Sept. 5, 2025
The Hyundai plant in Ellabell, Ga., in March. Credit...Mike Stewart/Associated Press
Immigration authorities arrested hundreds of workers for a major South Korean battery maker at a Hyundai plant in Georgia, U.S. officials said Friday, calling it the largest ever Homeland Security enforcement operation at a single location.
Agents on Thursday arrested 475 people, most of whom are South Korean citizens, at a construction site for an electric vehicle battery plant in Ellabell, Ga., near Savannah, Steven Schrank, a special agent in charge of Homeland Security investigations for Georgia, said at a news conference.
He said that the workers arrested were in the United States illegally or were working unlawfully. No criminal charges would be announced on Friday, he said, adding that investigators were still determining employment details for those arrested, some of whom worked for subcontractors.
“This operation underscores our commitment to protecting jobs for Georgians and Americans, ensuring a level playing field for businesses that comply with the law, safeguarding the integrity of our economy and protecting workers from exploitation,” Mr. Schrank said.
Most of those arrested were held at the Folkston detention facility on Thursday night and would be moved based on their individual circumstances, he said. One person arrested was treated at the scene for overheating, and one agent suffered a “minor laceration,” but there were no major injuries, he added.
The battery manufacturer, LG Energy Solution, which co-owns the plant with Hyundai Motor Group, said in a statement that employees of both companies, including executives, had been taken into custody.
Hyundai said in a statement that none of those detained were Hyundai employees, as far as the company was aware.
“We are closely monitoring the situation and working to understand the specific circumstances,” Hyundai said on Friday.
South Korea’s Foreign Ministry confirmed on Friday that South Koreans were among those in custody, without saying how many. Mr. Schrank told reporters at the plant on Thursday that some U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents had been detained initially and were being released.
The agencies involved in the operation included the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the F.B.I., according to the Atlanta division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which also participated.
The operation, part of President Trump’s crackdown on immigration, caused diplomatic alarm in South Korea. Just over a week earlier, Mr. Trump hosted President Lee Jae Myung of South Korea at the White House, where the South Korean leader pledged to invest an additional $150 billion in the United States, including in battery manufacturing.
The lithium-ion battery plant, which predated Mr. Lee’s pledge, was expected to start operating next year. It is the kind of large-scale, job-creating investment that the United States has pushed for from South Korea and other nations.
The Ellabell site is part of one of Georgia’s largest manufacturing plants. Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia, a Republican, has promoted the $7.6 billion Hyundai E.V. factory there as the largest economic development project in state history.
The immigration operation brought construction to a halt at the battery plant, known as HL-GA Battery Company. A spokeswoman, Mary Beth Kennedy, said in a statement that the plant was cooperating with the authorities.
South Korean Embassy and consular officials were sent to the site from Washington and Atlanta, Lee Jaewoong, a spokesman for South Korea’s Foreign Ministry, said at a news conference earlier on Friday. He expressed concern that South Koreans had been detained.
“The economic activities of our investment companies and the rights and interests of our citizens must not be unjustly violated during U.S. law enforcement proceedings,” he said.
LG Energy Solution said that it was working with the South Korean government to get its employees, as well as Hyundai’s, released.
Neal E. Boudette contributed reporting from Detroit.
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6) Chicago Could Be a Powder Keg
By Robert A. Pape, Sept. 5, 2025
Dr. Pape is a professor of political science at the University of Chicago who has studied political violence for 30 years.
With Department of Homeland Security agents preparing to assemble in Chicago for an expected crackdown on undocumented immigrants, the Trump administration is starting down a dangerous road. Its incursion into Chicago may begin with pursuing undocumented immigrants, but with its threat to also deploy National Guard troops or active-duty military to combat crime more broadly in the city — over the objections of Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois — the administration risks provoking large-scale civil unrest.
I have studied democracies’ military occupations of regions within their national borders, focusing on cases that existed in or started after 1980: Britain and Northern Ireland, Spain and the Basques and others. These occupations occurred for a range of reasons, and often started out suppressing violence, but they ended up provoking or exacerbating widespread civil unrest, political violence and terrorism.
There are, of course, many ways in which a de facto military occupation of Chicago would differ from these cases, but the general lessons I’ve learned remain applicable: Occupying forces rarely, if ever, call their activities an occupation, but they are widely perceived as such by the local population. Occupation often lasts longer than expected and leads to involvement beyond its original stated purpose. Protests happen. Suppression of protests happens. The occupying forces must withdraw in disgrace or double down in hopes of pacifying the uprising. Things usually escalate.
This kind of exercise of military force, regardless of the legitimacy of its aims, inevitably intrudes on the political rights and economic livelihoods of ordinary people. Even if an occupation starts out with apparent success, it typically leads to chaos and generates defiance in the local community.
There is reason to worry that Chicago is poised to head down a broadly similar path.
For one thing, many of its residents oppose the presence of federal forces. In June and July my research center, the Chicago Project on Security and Threats, conducted a representative survey of more than 1,100 residents of Chicago to gauge their attitudes on federal military deployment to U.S. cities. Sixty percent said they did not “approve of the way President Trump is handling immigration enforcement, including deportations.” Twenty-eight percent said they “would attend a protest against the Trump administration’s efforts to deport illegal immigrants, even if it became violent.” Thirty percent agreed that “immigrants targeted by the Trump administration for deportation are justified in using force to defend themselves.” Thirty-seven percent agreed that “the use of force is justified to remove Donald Trump from the presidency.”
In a city that has more than 2.5 million residents, those percentages represent significant numbers of people willing to endorse or participate in violent resistance.
In addition, to achieve the administration’s stated objective of drastically and lastingly reducing illegal immigration and other crime, a deployment of federal forces would have to be very large and last many months. Consider that there are, by some estimates, nearly 200,000 undocumented immigrants in Chicago. It takes time and effort to deport people: Across the United States, by August, federal forces were deporting not even 1,500 undocumented immigrants a day. So removing just the 71,000 people with pending cases in immigration court who reside in Cook County (for which Chicago is the county seat) would be an enormous undertaking, requiring many thousands of agents and taking many months — and involving invasive operations throughout the city.
Suppressing crime more broadly in a lasting way would, of course, require even more resources and time and be similarly invasive. The longer federal forces stay and the more expansive their operations, the more the local community will perceive a loss of political power to determine its future. This perception would be exacerbated in Chicago because of the approaching state elections in 2026, which many perceive Mr. Trump as trying to influence through these actions. Note, for example, that Mr. Trump spoke of the need to “liberate” Chicago in a fund-raising email on Wednesday.
This is a Chicago story, but it is also a national story. If the administration proceeds as expected, Chicago will be the third major American city governed by members of Mr. Trump’s political opposition to be subjected this year to the presence of military force, after Los Angeles in June and Washington last month. Other blue cities and states may reasonably fear that they will be next. Mr. Trump is threatening to radicalize our nation’s politics in a way not seen in our lifetimes.
It is not too late. The federal government can still reverse course, limiting its policing efforts in Chicago to illegal immigration, limiting its deportations to convicted criminals and working with — not independently of — local law enforcement. I fervently hope Mr. Trump reconsiders.
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7) What I Got Wrong About D.E.I.
By Eugenia Cheng, Sept. 5, 2025
Dr. Cheng is the scientist in residence at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
enigmatriz
As a woman in the male-dominated field of mathematics, I once opposed targeted efforts to help women succeed — what we now call diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, which are currently facing fierce backlash. I wanted to be judged on the merit of my mathematics alone.
When I was admitted to the University of Cambridge as an undergraduate in math in 1994, I felt that I was a part of a clear minority. I struggled to keep up with some of the men in my class, many of whom had gone to elite boys’ schools where they had intense preparation. Yet I would progress to a Ph.D. and a career as a research mathematician.
As my career has advanced, what I’ve learned is that D.E.I. initiatives helped others see value in my abilities and experience that would have been missed otherwise. And it was through the lens of math that I came to understand this.
Math is not just a way of calculating numerical answers; it is a way of thinking, using clear definitions for concepts and rigorous logic to organize our thoughts and back up our assertions. Numbers can tell us about representation, but they often don’t tell the full story. The percentage of female math graduates in the United States has improved to around 42 percent; however, still less than 18 percent of university professors in mathematics are women. A 50-50 gender split might seem like equality, but not if it was achieved by lowering standards to let more women in. We need to be more careful than that. The nuance found in mathematics can show us a clearer understanding of how to think about equality.
Math is famous for its equations, but equations are more subtle than they first appear. A simple equation like 4 + 1 = 1 + 4 shows not just that two values are equal but also that there are two subtly different ways of adding the same numbers to produce the same result. A similar approach applies to more advanced and complicated forms of math, such as the study of shapes or paths through space. We make choices about how to determine equality.
This is relevant to how we evaluate what people have achieved and make predictions about how well they will do. We can get some insight into how we should make these evaluations from a mathematical field called metric spaces.
A metric is a way of measuring the distance between two points but not necessarily physical distance; it could be how much time it takes with traffic as a factor or how much energy will be expended, depending on whether you’re going uphill or downhill. A distance cannot be measured based on the position of a single point. It requires the effort of measuring the distance between two points. This may sound redundant, but it’s an important clarification: Metrics can be measured only by taking into account the starting point and ending point, as well as relevant features of the journey — the whole story.
When we evaluate people, we could do the same. Instead of looking at just what they have achieved, we could also look at where they started and be clearer about how we are measuring the metaphorical distance they have come and whether we are taking into account the support they had or the obstructions they faced.
If we are selecting sprinters for a track team, we might look at their best times for the 100-meter dash. But if someone had, for some reason, only ever run races uphill or against the wind, it would make sense to take that into account and not compare that runner’s times to others’ directly. We would be treating those people differently but only because their paths were different; really we’d be evaluating their paths fairly relative to their contexts.
Other forms of achievement are not as straightforward to measure, but the idea is analogous. If someone achieved a certain SAT score after months of tutoring and someone else earned the same score having never seen an SAT before, it would be reasonable to be more impressed with the latter result and think that the second test taker has more potential. We should think of D.E.I. efforts as the best versions of this and aim to design systems that can measure the fuller picture of someone’s professional journey, not just the current result.
It took me a long time to realize that when I began my career, I had probably worked much harder than I might have if I had had a different identity. I had to work against people telling me I would never be able to succeed. When I attended conferences, I dealt with inappropriate behavior from men senior to me. I had to find my way in my career having no mentors who looked at all like me. I am grateful for the support of some senior mathematicians, and I now realize that it wasn’t extra help because I was a woman; it was help in overcoming the extra obstructions I faced as a woman.
It shouldn’t be called sexist to help people overcome sexism, and it shouldn’t be called racist to help people overcome racism, but if we give this help too crudely, then we leave ourselves open to these criticisms. Math teaches us that D.E.I. initiatives should be about carefully defining the metrics we use to measure how far people have come and thus how far they have the potential to go. They should be about uncovering when some people are constantly running uphill or against the wind, which can inform us how to give everyone an equal tailwind and an equal opportunity to succeed.
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8) What to Know About a Rapid U.S. Military Buildup in the Caribbean
The United States has deployed eight warships, several surveillance planes and one attack submarine to the region as tensions with Venezuela grow.
By Eric Schmitt, Reporting from Washington, Published Sept. 5, 2025, Updated Sept. 6, 2025
The Navy warship U.S.S. Sampson docked at the Amador International Cruise Terminal in Panama City last month. Credit...Martin Bernetti/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The rapid U.S. military buildup in the southern Caribbean Sea culminated this week with a deadly strike against a drug vessel that the Trump administration said had departed from Venezuela.
U.S. officials said the attack on a speedboat on Tuesday killed 11 drug traffickers. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio both said the military would carry out more strikes in the coming weeks as part of a counternarcotics and counterterrorism campaign.
But on Thursday, two armed Venezuelan F-16 fighter jets buzzed a Navy guided-missile destroyer in the region in a show of force, dialing up tensions between Washington and the government of President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela.
In response, the Pentagon dispatched 10 F-35 stealth fighters to Puerto Rico on Friday to deter more Venezuelan flyovers and to be positioned should Mr. Trump order airstrikes against targets in Venezuela itself.
Here is a look at how the United States and Venezuela got to this point, and what military action might come next.
Why is the U.S. sending warships and surveillance planes to the Caribbean?
President Trump signed a still-secret directive in July ordering the Pentagon to use military force against some Latin American drug cartels that his administration has labeled “terrorist” organizations.
Around the same time, the administration declared that a Venezuelan criminal group was a terrorist organization and that Mr. Maduro was its leader.
Soon after, the Pentagon began amassing a small armada of ships and planes to monitor the supposed drug traffickers and to pick targets to attack.
The U.S. Navy has long intercepted and boarded ships suspected of smuggling drugs in international waters, typically assigning a Coast Guard officer temporarily in charge to invoke law enforcement authority. Tuesday’s direct attack in the Caribbean was a marked departure from that decades-long approach.
How much military force has the Pentagon assembled in the region?
The military so far has deployed eight warships, several Navy P-8 surveillance planes and one attack submarine to the region. The Pentagon has offered few details on the force’s objectives and locations.
The Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group — including the U.S.S. San Antonio, the U.S.S. Iwo Jima and the U.S.S. Fort Lauderdale, carrying 4,500 sailors —was steaming near Puerto Rico on Friday, Defense Department officials said. So was the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit, with 2,200 Marines. The Iwo Jima is equipped with AV-8B Harrier attack aircraft.
Two Navy guided-missile destroyers — the U.S.S. Jason Dunham and the U.S.S. Gravely — are operating in the southern Caribbean. Both warships had recently joined the campaign against the Houthi militia in the Red Sea. A third destroyer, the U.S.S. Sampson, now in the eastern Pacific, may soon join, one Navy official said.
These warships are Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers, equipped with more than 90 missiles, including surface-to-air missiles. They can conduct antiaircraft and anti-submarine warfare, and shoot down ballistic missiles.
In addition, the guided-missile cruiser U.S.S. Lake Erie and the littoral combat ship Minneapolis-St. Paul are also operating in the Caribbean.
How has Venezuela responded?
Mr. Maduro has warned that he would respond to any U.S. military action with an “armed fight,” and claimed that Mr. Rubio was trying to draw Mr. Trump into a war in the Caribbean that would taint his reputation.
“Mr. President, Donald Trump,” the Venezuelan leader said earlier this week, “watch out, because Mr. Rubio wants to stain your hands with blood.”
Mr. Maduro called the naval buildup “the greatest threat that has been seen on our continent in the last 100 years,” in the form of “eight military ships with 1,200 missiles” targeting Venezuela.
The Venezuelan leader also announced that he was deploying 4.5 million militiamen around his country, and vowed to “defend our seas, our skies and our lands” from any incursions.
What other military action might the U.S. take?
The size of the military buildup has led to speculation over whether Mr. Trump’s real goal is to oust Mr. Maduro, through military action or other pressure.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, was asked recently about the troop movements and whether the administration was considering putting forces on the ground in Venezuela. She responded by calling Mr. Maduro illegitimate and invoking his indictment, late in the first Trump administration, on U.S. drug trafficking charges.
Mr. Trump, she said, was “prepared to use every element of American power to stop drugs from flooding into our country and to bring those responsible to justice. The Maduro regime is not the legitimate government of Venezuela. It is a narco-terror cartel.”
Military historians point to other provocative conditions that preceded important American military episodes in the second half of the 20th century.
In December 1989, the administration of President George H.W. Bush sent more than 20,000 American troops to invade Panama and arrest its strongman leader, Manuel Noriega, who had been indicted in the United States on drug trafficking charges. Mr. Noriega was convicted in 1992 and died in Panama City in 2017.
The U.S. force now in the Caribbean is too small to conduct a land invasion of Venezuela, military officials said. But Special Operations commanders say commandos could launch targeted raids or capture-or-kill missions from the Navy ships.
Mr. Maduro has threatened to respond to an armed attack in Venezuela with “maximum rebellion.”
After the Venezuelan fighter flyover on Thursday, the Trump administration issued a veiled threat of more attacks to come.
“The cartel running Venezuela is strongly advised not to pursue any further effort to obstruct, deter or interfere with counternarcotics and counterterrorism operations carried out by the U.S. military,” the Pentagon said in a statement.
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9) Israel Targets More Buildings in Gaza City and Warns Residents to Flee
The Israeli military issued evacuation orders for residents in the high-rise towers and urged Palestinians to move to the south of Gaza, as it intensifies its offensive on the city.
By Liam Stack, Reporting from Tel Aviv, Sept. 6, 2025
The Israeli military on Saturday issued evacuation orders in Gaza City, and urged Palestinian civilians to move to the south of the Gaza Strip, where it said it was designating a humanitarian area. Aid organizations said such an exodus could worsen the humanitarian crisis in the territory.
The Israeli military warned that it planned to strike two high-rise buildings in Gaza City and ordered people inside them and in nearby tents to leave. A short time later, it said it had attacked one of the towers.
A military spokesman said the buildings were targets because of Hamas activity inside or near them. Hamas denied those accusations and said both buildings had been residential towers. It was unclear whether people had been killed or injured in the strike.
The evacuation orders came a day after the military destroyed a high-rise tower in Gaza City, also saying Hamas operated from it, which Hamas denied.
The military said the humanitarian area it designated on Saturday was in Al-Mawasi and Khan Younis. The military urged Gazans to move to those areas, saying it would work to provide “field hospitals, water pipelines, and desalination facilities, along with the continued supply of food, tents, medicines, and medical equipment.”
In a statement, the Israeli military agency that manages humanitarian affairs in Gaza, known as COGAT, said the facilities were operational.
That statement could not be independently verified. Both Al-Mawasi and Khan Younis have been heavily damaged during the war, and it was not clear what humanitarian assistance was available.
Hamas called on Gazans to remain in their “residential areas” and said there were no safe zones in southern Gaza.
Israel announced in August that it planned to take over Gaza City, which Israeli officials have portrayed as one of Hamas’s last strongholds in Gaza. This week, the military said it was in control of almost half of the city.
The U.N.’s humanitarian affairs office warned on Saturday that further intensification of military operations in Gaza City would cause “catastrophe” for civilians, and said it would continue operating in the city to provide aid to those who stay.
The war in Gaza was ignited by the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, in which roughly 1,200 people were killed and 250 taken hostage. Since then, the Israeli military response has killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, according to the local health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. More than half of those killed have been women, children and older adults, according to local health officials.
The war has destroyed most of Gaza’s infrastructure and parts of the territory are suffering from famine, according to a U.N.-backed group of food experts.
Gaza City is home to hundreds of thousands of people who have sought shelter in ruined buildings and tent encampments.
Many of those people have been displaced multiple times by Israeli military operations, crisscrossing Gaza as they have fled offensive after offensive.
Israel has directed Gazans to humanitarian zones multiple times during the war, but has sometimes continued to strike those areas. In Sept. 2024, an Israeli military strike in Al-Mawasi killed at least 19 people. It also struck Al-Mawasi two months before that attack.
In both strikes, the military said the targets were Hamas fighters.
Israel has been preparing to take over Gaza City for weeks. But humanitarian groups have warned that forcing such a large number of people to flee, especially at this stage of the war, would exacerbate a dire humanitarian crisis.
Mirjana Spoljaric, the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, said in a statement in August that no part of Gaza could absorb a huge influx of people, given the destruction to civilian infrastructure and lack of food, shelter and medical care.
“It is impossible that a mass evacuation of Gaza City could ever be done in a way that is safe and dignified under the current conditions,” she said.
Abu Bakr Bashir and Aaron Boxerman contributed reporting.
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10) Federal Report on Drinking Is Withdrawn
The upcoming U.S. Dietary Guidelines will instead be influenced by a competing study, favored by industry, which found that moderate alcohol consumption was healthy.
By Roni Caryn Rabin, Sept. 5, 2025
The report that has been sidelined is one of several that have upended a long-dominant narrative about alcohol that suggested that moderate drinking was not harmful and might even have health benefits. Credit...Colin Clark for The New York Times
The Department of Health and Human Services has pulled back a government report warning of a link between cancer and drinking even small amounts of alcohol, according to the authors of the research.
Their report, the Alcohol Intake and Health Study, warned that even one drink a day raises the risk of liver cirrhosis, oral and esophageal cancer, and injuries. The scientists who wrote it were told that the final version would not be submitted to Congress, as had been planned.
The report is one of two assessments that were to be used to shape the new U.S. Dietary Guidelines’ recommendations on alcohol consumption. Its early findings were reported by The New York Times in January; a full draft remained on the H.H.S. website as of Friday afternoon.
A competing report, written by a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine panel, came to a conclusion long supported by the industry: that moderate drinking is healthier than not drinking. Some panelists came under criticism for financial ties to alcohol makers.
The academies report was requested by Congress in 2022, after the scientific review for the last version of the dietary guidelines in 2020 stated that health risks associated with low consumption might have been underestimated. The alcohol industry has strongly criticized such findings and opposed efforts to tighten drinking recommendations.
H.H.S. did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did representatives of the alcohol industry.
Mike Marshall, chief executive of the U.S. Alcohol Policy Alliance, a nonprofit that aims to reduce the harms of alcohol, said H.H.S. was “doing the work of the alcohol industry.”
“They’re burying the report so the information about the health consequences is not widely known,” Mr. Marshall said.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has decried a “chronic disease epidemic” sweeping the country. But he has said little about alcohol’s impact on American health since taking office.
Consumption of both alcohol and tobacco was absent from the first Make America Healthy Again report released in May. Mr. Kennedy (like his boss, President Trump) has said he does not drink.
In public comments on the Alcohol Intake and Health Study, wine and beer vendors and representatives of the alcohol industry urged federal officials to rely only on the competing academies report supporting moderate drinking. They called the alcohol intake study “alarming and misguided.”
The decision not to publish that study was first reported by Vox. In June, Reuters reported that the upcoming Dietary Guidelines would scrap the longstanding recommendation: that women have no more than one drink a day, and men no more than two.
Instead, the guidelines would include a brief statement that people should drink in moderation, Reuters said.
“What people need to know is that the risk of serious morbidities and mortality, and chronic disease, increases as alcohol consumption increases, and it even increases at low levels of consumption,” said Katherine M. Keyes, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia University who was one of the report’s authors.
Dr. Keyes said the alcohol intake study did not make recommendations and noted that people do many things that carry risks, like driving cars.
But, she added, “The American public deserves to know what they’re putting in their body and what kind of health outcomes they can cause.”
The authors now plan to submit their analysis for publication in a peer-reviewed medical journal, she said.
The Alcohol Intake and Health Study was one of several to have upended the long-dominant narrative that moderate drinking was not harmful and might have health benefits, particularly for the heart.
Newer studies have questioned the methodology used in older studies, and researchers have increasingly focused on alcohol’s contribution to cancer.
In January, Dr. Vivek Murthy, then the surgeon general, called for putting labels on alcoholic beverages to warn consumers that drinking increases the risk of breast cancer, colon cancer and at least five other malignancies.
He said that drinking directly contributed to 100,000 cancer cases and 20,000 related deaths each year.
Americans are getting the message. A Gallup poll in August found drinking at an all-time low in the United States, with only 54 percent of adults saying they consumed alcohol. A majority said they believed that even one to two drinks a day was harmful to health. Sales of wine and spirits have dipped.
The academies report concluded that moderate drinking was linked to fewer heart attack and stroke deaths and fewer deaths overall, compared to not drinking. It acknowledged that moderate drinking was linked to a small but significant increase in breast cancer in women, but said that there wasn’t enough evidence to link moderate consumption to other cancers.
The National Cancer Institute, among other medical organizations, disagreed.
The alcohol intake study assessed relationships between different levels of average alcohol consumption and the risk of dying from health conditions that can be caused by drinking.
The research found some benefits for those having one drink a day: a lower risk of diabetes for women, and a lowered risk of ischemic stroke among both men and women.
But even at that modest level, women were more likely to develop liver cancer. And just occasional heavy drinking nullified the protection against stroke.
“The key message is that drinking two drinks a day may be moderate from a social perspective, but when it comes to health, it’s a pretty risky amount,” said Dr. Timothy Naimi, director of the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research and one of the authors.
“A man who drinks two drinks every day on average has a one in 25 chance of dying prematurely from alcohol.”
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