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Beloved tenured History professor and Socialist Horizon member Tom Alter was summarily fired on September 10th by Texas State University President Kelly Damphousse for expressing his views in a virtual conference unrelated to the university. This action cannot stand. Socialist Horizon calls on people everywhere to join us and demand that Professor Alter be reinstated to his tenured position.
President Damphousse fired Dr. Tom Alter based solely on a video published online by an extreme rightwing provocateur who infiltrated and secretly video-recorded segments of a virtual socialist conference with the intention of publishing information to slander and attack conference participants. In videos posted on their website, this person declares that they are a proud fascist, who tries to monetize exposure of the left as an “anti-communist cult leader”. This grifter publicly exhorts followers to embrace fascist ideology and take action, is an antisemite that states that Jewish people ‘chose to die in the Holocaust’, is a self-declared racist and xenophobe, a homophobe and a transphobe that spews hate speech throughout their platform that is solely designed to inflame and incite.
After the fascist’s ‘exposure video’ reached President Damphousse, he summarily fired Dr. Alter, a tenured professor, without questioning or investigating the content, without considering its authenticity or validity, without any form of due process, and violating existing state law and campus policy which requires a formal due process procedure.
Alter spoke against this cruel and unjust system and argued in favor of replacing it with socialism, and he advocated organizing politically to achieve this. Alter’s political views reflect those of nearly half of the total US population. Almost half now oppose capitalism and 40% favor socialism over capitalism. Alter’s views are far from subversive, they reflect the mainstream. It is a just cause that more and more people are joining, one people believe to be worth fighting for, and represents a change in thinking that is scaring the bigots, fascists, and capitalists.
It is in fact the fascist infiltrator who incites violence against oppressed people, and in this case, directly against Alter. It is Alter’s employer Texas State University that inflicted violence: stripping Alter of his job, refusing him any due process, casting him and his family into the uncertainty of unemployment and making them a target for the extreme right, while slamming the door shut on his free speech and academic freedom. Alter’s First Amendment right to speak, guaranteed by the Constitution, has been violated, as has his academic freedom– a protected right developed by his national faculty union, the American Association of University Professors.
We call on President Damphousse to stop this flagrant attack on constitutionally-protected free speech, to undo this wrongful termination, and to immediately reinstate Dr. Tom Alter to his teaching position.
The termination of Dr. Alter is a serious attack that upends his livelihood, his professional and academic career, and sets a very dangerous precedent. President Damphousse’s actions appear to be in accordance with the far-right politics of Texas politicians Greg Abbot and Ted Cruz, as well as being in-line with that of Donald Trump who has used the office of the presidency to wage war on his political opponents.
Damphousse’s actions align with Trump and the far right forces trying to impose and enforce an authoritarian regime that wants to silence critics, crush political dissent, and attack anyone they perceive to be oppositional to their project. Even more threatening, Damphousse’s actions strengthen the power and influence of fascists and enable the most violent and reactionary groups to also attack and take action against anyone they deem to be part of the left.
It is Trump who inflicts violence against millions through his authoritarian political attacks that target people of Color, women, transpeople, immigrants and refugees, people with disabilities, impoverished and unhoused people, and the working class as a whole . It is the far right and the fascists who are building movements to harm innocent and vulnerable people. It is this capitalist system that Alter spoke against that inflicts mass violence condemning billions to hunger, poverty and war while a handful accumulates ever growing obscene amounts of wealth that is stolen from the rest of us.
Alter is being attacked because he is telling a truth that many people in the United States believe today: that capitalism is ruining their lives and that socialism is a better system. If Dr. Tom Alter can be fired for expressing his personal beliefs and principles, then people everywhere are in danger. If he can be fired for expressing a point of view at a conference, away from his work and in his daily private life, then none of us are safe.
His case must draw support from people of all sectors of society: workers, teachers, nurses, students—anyone and everyone who upholds the value of free speech. As the great anti-slavery abolitionist Frederick Douglass once said, “The law on the side of freedom is of great advantage only when there is power to make that law respected”.
We call on everyone to join us in building the broadest possible solidarity campaign to win this decisive battle.
The attacks on Dr. Tom Alter and socialist politics will not intimidate Socialist Horizon. We will defend our comrade and we will continue fighting for the very cause he is being attacked for: justice, freedom, and equality. We will also continue building the organization that it will take to win it.
Dr. Tom Alter is not only a beloved faculty member at Texas State but also an advisor to several student organizations. He is the author of a celebrated history of socialism in the American South, Toward a Cooperative Commonwealth: The Transplanted Roots of Farmer-Labor Radicalism in Texas (University of Illinois Press). He is also the father of two children. Socialist Horizon demands that Texas State University immediately restore Tom Alter’s position as Associate Professor of History.
Socialist Horizon also calls on all organizations and individuals that defend the basic democratic right to free speech and reject fascism and authoritarianism, and all socialists in particular, to join this fight. This is an attack on all of us. We need to confront it with the broadest unitary campaign for Alter’s immediate reinstatement, in defense of free speech and against fascism.
This is an attack on all of us. We need to confront it with the broadest unitary campaign for Alter’s immediate reinstatement, in defense of free speech and against fascism.
What you can do to support:
—Donate to help Tom Alter and his family with living and legal expenses: https://gofund.me/27c72f26d
—Sign and share this petition demanding Tom Alter be given his job back: https://www.change.org/p/texas-state-university-give-tom-alter-his-job-back
—Write to and call the President and Provost at Texas State University demanding that Tom Alter be given his job back:
President Kelly Damphousse: president@txstate.edu
President’s Office Phone: 512-245-2121
Provost Pranesh Aswath: xrk25@txstate.edu
Provost Office Phone: 512-245-2205
For more information about the reason for the firing of Dr. Tom Alter, read:
"Fired for Advocating Socialism: Professor Tom Alter Speaks Out"
Ashley Smith Interviews Dr. Tom Alter
—CounterPunch, September 24, 2025
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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) Trump Is Blowing Up Boats Off Venezuela. Could Mexico’s Cartels Be Next?
U.S. strikes on boats that President Trump says are drug smugglers have unsettled America’s biggest trading partner, where powerful criminal groups produce and smuggle drugs.
By Paulina Villegas and Jack Nicas, Oct. 12, 2025
Paulina Villegas reported from Culiacán, Mexico. Jack Nicas reported from Mexico City.
A cargo plane in Puerto Rico last month, part of a U.S. military buildup. Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo/Getty Images
As President Trump has blown up one boat after another off Venezuela’s coast and declared an “armed conflict” against drug cartels, a question with stark consequences has arisen much closer to the United States.
Could Mexico, where far more drugs are made by some of the world’s most powerful criminal groups, be next?
“I would be honored to go in and do it,” Mr. Trump said in May, about using U.S. forces to hunt cartel members. “The cartels are trying to destroy our country. They’re evil.”
Yet three senior Mexican officials said in interviews that, although they are watching the U.S. military action with caution, Mexico is not worried — for now.
That is because, they said, the cooperation between the countries has become simply too robust and yielded too many results on migration and drugs for them to imagine the Trump administration jeopardizing it by conducting unilateral military strikes. Their assessments were reinforced by two Trump administration officials who emphasized collaboration between the countries.
But perhaps more surprisingly, these views were shared by several members of a top cartel who said they were unafraid of American intervention. They were more focused on an ongoing conflict within their ranks, they said.
So far, the U.S. government says it has targeted only boats leaving Venezuela, a country ruled by an autocratic government that Washington has long wanted gone.
Mexico, the largest U.S. trading partner, presents a far different case. Any U.S. intervention would have major diplomatic, economic and political consequences, given Mexico’s red line over impeding on its sovereignty.
The Mexican officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss delicate diplomacy, have top jobs in areas spanning foreign affairs and security. They said that they have gotten little sense from their U.S. counterparts that Mexico is in the cross hairs.
Still, that experts are asking the question at all says much about how far the Trump administration has shifted U.S. relations with Latin America.
And many American and Mexican political and security analysts cautioned that Mexico was hardly out of the woods, given Mr. Trump’s approach to the cartels as targets of war and the reality that the biggest and most powerful cartels are just south of the border.
One of the Mexican officials stressed that while the government did not see unilateral American strikes inside Mexico as an immediate threat, the U.S. strikes in the Caribbean posed a long-term concern.
In Washington, American officials have sounded similar notes about prioritizing collaboration. Two Trump administration officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal strategy, said that because of the two nations’ increased cooperation, the United States is focused on working with Mexico rather than making unilateral strikes on criminals.
The Trump administration believes its threats against Mexico have caused it to step up against cartels, one official said, eliminating the need for U.S. forces to get involved, at least for now. Another official said that Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s visit to Mexico last month reaffirmed the sense that the countries were aligned on security.
Mr. Rubio met with President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico on Sept. 3, the day after Mr. Trump first announced that U.S. forces had struck a boat in the Caribbean. In comments to reporters, Mr. Rubio had harsh words about smugglers from Venezuela.
“We’re not going to sit back anymore and watch these people sail up and down the Caribbean like a cruise ship,” he said. Stopping boats and seizing cargo does not stop smugglers, he added. “What will stop them is when you blow them up.”
But on Mexico, he mostly offered praise. “It is the closest security cooperation we have ever had,” he said.
After the meeting, the two nations put out a joint statement about security cooperation, noting it was based on “respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity,” as well as “mutual trust.”
At the top of the Mexican government, Ms. Sheinbaum has repeatedly drawn a line in the sand over U.S. military intervention.
“Under no circumstances will the people of Mexico accept interventions that violate our territory,” she said at a rally in Mexico City on Sunday. “Whether by land, water, sea or air.”
Strikingly, Ms. Sheinbaum’s firm public stance against U.S. interventions has reassured one of the very criminal networks she and Mr. Trump have vowed to dismantle: the Sinaloa Cartel, one of the world’s most notorious criminal organizations and potentially a larger supplier of drugs than all Venezuelan smugglers combined.
In interviews, five cartel operatives dismissed the idea that the U.S. military could strike within Mexico next. Speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, they said their more pressing concern was the relentless fighting among rival criminal factions. Most were only vaguely aware of the recent American attacks in the Caribbean.
One cartel member, a 39-year-old midlevel operative who oversees security operations in Culiacán, the group’s stronghold, said that he had little fear of U.S. intervention because he believed Ms. Sheinbaum would not allow it. “It will never happen,” he said. “He can’t do that,” he added of Mr. Trump.
Even if the United States did strike their smugglers at sea, he said, disruption would be minimal. “We don’t only have maritime routes, we have land and air as well,” he said. “There is always a way.”
In addition to fighting each other, Mexico’s criminal groups are also under heightened pressure from the Mexican government. Its forces have arrested thousands of cartel members, sent 55 high-level operatives to the United States, and destroyed hundreds of fentanyl labs. Together, the actions have helped lead to a sharp decline in the number of fentanyl seizures at the U.S.-Mexico border, Mexican officials say.
The Mexican government has also increased efforts on migration, helping to bring illegal border crossings to their lowest level in years.
One of the senior Mexican officials said that there is daily cooperation between U.S. and Mexican authorities on cartels, including regular U.S. surveillance flights over Mexican territory. But U.S. authorities do not — and will not — use force in Mexico, in part because the Mexican Constitution bans it, the official said.
There is another, nearly $1 trillion reason why many believe the United States will not strike Mexico: The nations are deeply interdependent, with about $950 billion in goods and services flowing between them each year.
Disrupting such trade could potentially cause economic devastation in border states of both countries, and drive migrants to seek work inside the United States.
At the same time, analysts warned that Mexico may be placing too much faith in diplomacy with a notoriously mercurial U.S. president.
“Sheinbaum acts, delivers and gives, but it’s never enough for the U.S.,” said David Mora, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group. “The problem is the volatility and unpredictability of the Trump administration.”
On the ground, attitudes are more complex. At least three national surveys this year have found that more than 60 percent of Mexicans opposed the idea of the U.S. conducting military operations in Mexico. One poll also showed that 31 percent of Mexicans welcomed the idea.
In parts of Sinaloa, where bloodshed has become part of daily life, some conservative and business groups would embrace U.S. strikes, said Adrián López, editor of El Noroeste, the state’s largest newspaper. Businesses there have suffered enormous losses because of the cartel wars, and many Mexicans perceive the United States as more effective in combating organized crime, he said, making “the logic of U.S. intervention is appealing.”
“People here say, ‘If that makes the violence stop,’” he said. “‘Where do I sign?’”
“But,” he added, “we should be careful what we wish for.”
Annie Correal, Miriam Castillo and Emiliano Rodríguez Mega contributed reporting from Mexico City. Maria Abi-Habib and Edward Wong contributed reporting from Washington.
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2) Trump Is Pitting Us Against One Another in Chicago
By Vic Mensa, Oct. 12, 2025
Mr. Mensa is a musician and actor. He reported from Chicago.
Protesters at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview, Illinois, on Friday, Oct. 10, 2025. Kenn Cook Jr. for The New York Times
The fragrant steam rose from the plates of pasta like mist from a hot spring as the famished Venezuelan newcomers lined up to eat on a frozen Chicago November afternoon in 2023. Many arrived in shorts and flip-flops.
I had partnered with local restaurateur Eldridge Williams to help feed and clothe the group, who had been bused up to my hometown along with other “sanctuary cities” run by Democrats by Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas as part of an inhumane political stunt. Chicagoans stepped up to aid these people in need.
It was a strain, as Mr. Abbott knew it would be. The newly elected mayor of Chicago, Brandon Johnson, had to reallocate already tight resources to help. Much of the responsibility of providing for the Venezuelans ended up being shouldered by Chicago’s Black community: Shelters were placed in our neighborhoods, and services were diverted away from our most vulnerable.
Having to take care of the needs of the new arrivals would quickly stir up resentment in a population that was already hurting. Just as Mr. Abbott had hoped, many Chicagoans wondered why the migrants’ plight had to be our problem to solve.
The apparent chaos of these arrivals, hyped by the right-wing media, helped re-elect Donald Trump. And it led directly to what happened this past week, when the federal government began treating my city like enemy territory. Rappelling out of helicopters like in a scene from “Black Hawk Down,” federal agents raided an apartment building in the predominantly Black community of South Shore, knocking down doors, separating children from their zip-tied parents and detaining people barely clothed.
Many people in Chicago assumed the targets of this action would be limited to immigrants, some of whom were, according to Trump administration officials, engaged in criminal activity. But the effects rained down on Black citizens who were caught up in the raid, too. Some Black Chicagoans expressed indignation and disbelief at seeing us be brutalized by Mr. Trump’s deployments, with one young brother exclaiming as he watched federal agents appear to choke a Black man on the street, “Ya’ll supposed to be choking Mexicans.”
At its heart, his comment speaks to Mr. Trump’s success in dividing us from one another and our humanity: a nagging devil on the shoulder of struggling Americans barely scraping together the rent and telling them someone else is to blame. It also reflects the divisions within the African diaspora, where it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that—like my own father—many Black people are also immigrants, experiencing their own traumas at the sight of these cruelties.
I visited the apartment complex on 75th Street and South Shore Drive after the raid. A friend of mine who is a journalist, Maira Khwaja of the Invisible Institute, had been one of the first on the ground and warned me of the wreckage that had been left behind by the mayhem, but seeing it in person was shocking. Tension loomed in the air even days later. A child’s soiled pink unicorn toy seemed to cry out for help beneath a broken headboard and an uprooted mattress. My heart breaks for the lessons of worthlessness being taught to these children.
Conversations with the victims of ICE’s South Shore raid reveal a people divided. One man expressed love for his new Venezuelan neighbors, one of whom helped him fix his car. Others burn with contempt, like a hot coal in weathered hands. These are hands that all too often can’t find work and are perfectly primed for pointing the finger. “I don’t agree with how they did it, but they needed to get them out,” said one disgruntled neighborhood resident.
And I get it: Not long ago, I welcomed a friend home from prison with the help of Gov. JB Pritzker. I was hopeful he’d be eligible for subsidized housing through the state’s re-entry programs, only to find that many of the opportunities had been siphoned off to the Venezuelan immigrants, and nothing was available. A crisis of conservative design, this desperate scramble for scarce resources is a rife breeding ground for ethnic animosity.
The reality of the Black American experience is that being at the heel of a racially unjust society means that the oppression of anyone invariably affects us.
Chicago has real problems and festering resentments. As industrial jobs shriveled up in the 1970s and redlining created hypersegregated neighborhoods, poverty was highly concentrated into Black communities on the South and West Sides, and along with it all of the symptoms of unemployment. Huge public housing projects were built, neglected, then torn down. Some criminal activity that had been concentrated in the projects became more dispersed. Meanwhile, the police weren’t always exactly there to protect and serve.
Extralegal detention and law enforcement terrorism are as native to Chicago as deep-dish pizza and ketchup-free hot dogs. This is the city of the disgraced detective Jon Burge, who, after leaving the military police, joined the Chicago Police Department and deployed what have been likened to military black sites to torture what has been estimated to be over 100 Black men in the 1970s to early ’90s, causing the city to pay out over $100 million in settlements. After Laquan McDonald was shot 16 times by Officer Jason Van Dyke in 2014, protests erupted downtown over his death. Then, after George Floyd, as in other cities full of people fed up with police brutality, many of us took to the streets. Some protesters vandalized property in that heated moment.
The question now is: How will Chicago’s residents respond? The protests started small, but as the stakes of the federal incursion ramp up, with Mr. Trump ordering Department of Homeland Security agents in and attempting to deploy the National Guard as well (which has been blocked, for now, by the courts), the crowds have gotten bigger and the mood more defiant. The tactics that the federal agents have used against the crowds have been so aggressive that another judge temporarily blocked the use of tear gas and pepper balls. All of this could eventually provoke peaceful demonstrators into revolt, which would also turn Chicago into the “war zone” Mr. Trump and his administration keep saying our city is, as a justification for his sending in his forces in the first place.
In Season 7 of Showtime’s “The Chi,” a show on which I appear as the character Jamal, there’s a moment when he’s shot in an attack meant for someone else and he has to wrestle with how to respond. In my creative exploration for the role, I contemplated the enormous weight of forgiveness and restraint. I sat in silence with Jamal’s gnawing, burning urge for revenge. I thought of the damage and the destruction it would do to his family, to his younger sister, who was left abandoned during Jamal’s previous incarceration. And ultimately, for the greater good of himself, and his loved ones, my character decided against it.
“The Chi” is fiction. In no way am I asking the people of Chicago to forgive the thuggish tactics of the Trump administration and other Republicans, but perhaps to consider, in our response, the damage that can be done to ourselves by a lack of organization, unity and intention in our action. If anything positive is to come from this moment, I hope it can be a reminder that we must stand up for the human rights of everyone if we expect to continue to have those rights ourselves.
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3) Hostages and Palestinian Prisoners Are Freed as Trump Hails ‘Historic Dawn’ in Mideast
Hamas freed the 20 hostages and Israel released some 2,000 Palestinian prisoners as part of a cease-fire. President Trump, in Israel, proclaimed an “end” to the war, but Israel and Hamas have not agreed on next steps in Gaza.
By David M. Halbfinger, Aaron Boxerman, Natan Odenheimer, Isabel Kershner, Adam Rasgon, David E. Sanger and Liam Stack, Reporting from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, Oct. 13, 2025
The hostages in Gaza were returned to Israel on Monday and nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners were freed from Israeli jails as part of a cease-fire that President Trump hailed as “the end of the war” in an address to cheering members of Israel’s Parliament.
But the agreement that Mr. Trump helped broker has left many unanswered questions over whether Israel and Hamas can reach a lasting peace, and over the future of Gaza, which has been devastated by two years of war.
Under the cease-fire deal, Hamas released 20 hostages from Gaza on Monday as Mr. Trump arrived in Israel. Hours later, the Israeli authorities said that they had finished freeing all 1,968 Palestinian prisoners slated for release as part of the hostage exchange deal.
Mr. Trump told Israeli lawmakers that the agreement marked “the historic dawn of a new Middle East” before traveling to Egypt on Monday afternoon to attend a summit on the cease-fire deal along with many other world leaders. The Egyptian government said that Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, would participate in the summit, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel will not, his office said, citing a Jewish religious holiday.
Among both Israelis and Palestinians, the cease-fire and the start of the exchange brought relief and hope.
“You are coming home!” Einav Zangauker, the mother of Matan Zangauker, 25, said on a video call with her son in Gaza, their first conversation since he was abducted two years ago, according to footage broadcast on Israeli television.
In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, crowds of Palestinians gathered in Ramallah, where video footage showed Palestinian prisoners stepping off the bus that brought them from Israel’s Ofer Prison. Some of the men wore keffiyehs and flashed victory signs as they were greeted by crowds of people.
For some Gazans, the relief was clouded by sadness over a war that has reduced much of the territory to rubble. “There’s nothing to be happy about,” Saed Abu Aita, 44, said. “My two daughters were killed, my home was destroyed and my health has deteriorated.”
Hamas militants attacked Israel in October 2023, killing about 1,200 people and abducting about 250. In response, Israel invaded Gaza, killing about 67,000 Palestinians, according to Gazan health authorities.
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4) Cheering crowds greet Palestinian prisoners freed by Israel.
By Liam Stack and Fatima AbdulKarim, Liam Stack reported from Tel Aviv and Fatima AbdulKarim from Ramallah, West Bank. Oct. 13, 2025
Newly released Palestinian prisoners flashed victory signs to cheering crowds who gathered on Monday to watch them step into freedom under the new cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas.
Families waited at dawn in the West Bank city of Ramallah and broke into teary-eyed trills as buses carrying some of the nearly 2,000 released prisoners approached. They rushed forward to greet the men as they stepped off. Many of the men looked haggard and exhausted.
“This feeling is indescribable,” said Nasser Shehadeh, who was released after serving three years of a 17-year sentence for ramming two soldiers with a car. He was told he would be freed three days ago, and said the news came as a surprise.
“I haven’t slept since that moment,” he said.
On Monday afternoon, the Israeli prison service said it had freed all of the 1,968 Palestinian prisoners slated for release in an exchange for all remaining hostages in Gaza. The prisoners were sent to the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.
Among those freed were 250 Palestinians convicted of terrorism offenses or acts of violence against Israelis and roughly 1,700 more who were detained in Gaza without charge during the war.
The 250 convicts were mostly affiliated with Fatah, a rival Palestinian faction to Hamas, and were serving life sentences for attacks in the 1980s or 1990s. More than 150 of them were sent into exile.
Of that group, the Gaza residents were taken through the Rafah border crossing which links Gaza to Egypt, according to the Hamas Prisoners’ Media Office.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said one prisoner was transferred to Ramallah Hospital from Ofer Prison, while seven others were hospitalized after they were dropped off in Ramallah.
Some of the families who gathered there on Monday left despondent after learning that their loved ones were not among those released.
Nuhad Hammami waited anxiously in Ramallah for her brother, Mohammed, who was convicted of murder, according to the Israeli authorities. She stood on her toes to see over the crowd. Then tears began to stream down her face.
“His name was on the list of prisoners returning home until this morning,” she said. “Then the list changed, and now we don’t know if we’ll ever see him again.”
She was worried that he might have been released and sent to Gaza instead of the West Bank.
“Where would he sleep in the winter?” she said, her voice trembling. “Gaza is destroyed.”
Most of the released prisoners were residents of Gaza who were detained without charge during the war, including women and children. They were brought to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, where such large crowds gathered that the buses could barely move down the street.
One Gaza resident, Amani Nasir, 30, joined a crowd early Monday to watch Red Cross vehicles take some of the freed hostages out of Gaza and back to Israel. She knew their release meant that Palestinian prisoners would be coming home soon.
“Today feels like the happiest day of our lives,” said Ms. Nasir, who fled her home in northern Gaza during the two-year war. Since then, she said, she had been displaced 19 more times to flee fighting.
“We were happy for our prisoners — and for the Israelis, too,” she said. “We love peace and the truce. Just as Israelis worry about their hostages, we worry about our prisoners.”
Bilal Shbair contributed reporting.
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5) Gazans confront a devastating reality: ‘There’s nothing to be happy about.’
By Adam Rasgon and Bilal Shbair, Reporting from Tel Aviv and Gaza, Oct. 13, 2025
Palestinians in Gaza expressed relief that the Israeli military halted its two-year military offensive in Gaza, but they said there was little to celebrate. The war has left Gaza in ruins: cities reduced to rubble, tens of thousands killed and the health system devastated.
“It’s important the bombing has stopped, but there’s nothing to be happy about,” said Saed Abu Aita, 44, who is displaced in central Gaza. “My two daughters were killed, my home was destroyed and my health has deteriorated.”
Feelings of despair and hopelessness have become widespread among Gazans, where many no longer see a future.
Mr. Abu Aita said that a fragment of shrapnel penetrated his rib cage when an Israeli airstrike hit his hometown, Jabaliya, in northern Gaza in October 2023, soon after the war began. For more than a year, he said, he has not been able to find a doctor who could remove the fragment.
He said he hoped that the return of the last 20 living hostages to Israel on Monday — a crucial part of the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas that went into effect last week — would pave the way to an end to the war.
“They needed to go home a long time ago,” he said. “Holding them in Gaza gave Israel a pretext to continue its bombing.”
Others were more skeptical that the cease-fire would hold.
Abdullah Shehab, 32, said he was worried that the respite in fighting would only be temporary because Hamas had not agreed to Israel’s conditions for ending the war.
“The situation is very fragile,” he said. The main issue, he said, was that “the weak party, Hamas, hasn’t been convinced to accept the strong party’s demands.”
Mr. Netanyahu has said that Israel will not agree to end the war until Hamas’s government and military wing are dismantled. While Hamas has pledged to hand civilian rule over Gaza to another Palestinian entity, it has not committed to giving up its weapons.
In recent days, Mr. Shehab said, Hamas was trying to show that it “hasn’t given up its rule” in Gaza. On Sunday, he said, masked gunmen who he believed were members of Hamas stopped him on the way to the dentist and inspected his car.
Still, some residents offered a more hopeful sentiment.
“For two years, we’ve dreamed of this moment,” said Amani Nasir, 30. “We’ve had enough of tents, fire, displacement and thirst.”
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6) Coal Miners With Black Lung Say They Are ‘Cast Aside to Die’ Under Trump
President Trump has been a cheerleader for coal miners. But these miners say his administration is failing to enforce limits on a lethal workplace hazard.
By Lisa Friedman, Oct. 13, 2025
Gary Hairston, 71, is a retired coal miner from West Virginia and the president of the National Black Lung Association. He has had black lung disease since he was in his 40s. Jared Hamilton for The New York Times
When coal miners came to Washington in April, they posed behind President Trump at the White House, wearing their hard hats and thanking him for trying to reinvigorate their struggling industry.
But on Tuesday dozens of miners and their families will be in a more unusual position: protesting the Trump administration outside the Labor Department building, arguing it has failed to protect them from black lung disease, an incurable illness caused by inhaling coal and silica dust.
They have been waiting months for the government to enforce federal limits on silica dust, a carcinogen that has led to a recent spike in the disease. But mining industry groups have sued to block the rule, and the Trump administration has paused enforcement while the lawsuit plays out.
Labor unions, Democrats and a growing number of miners accuse the Trump administration of ignoring workers while using hundreds of millions of dollars in federal subsidies to bolster the companies that operate coal plants and mining operations.
“The companies might be getting a handout, but the miners ain’t getting none,” said Gary Hairston, 71, a retired coal miner from West Virginia who is the president of the National Black Lung Association. Mr. Hairston has been living with black lung disease since he was in his 40s.
Anna Kelly, a White House spokeswoman, said in a statement that President Trump “cares deeply about unleashing America’s energy potential, as well as standing up for those who fuel our country” like coal miners.
“Blue collar Americans played a key role in sending President Trump back to the White House because they know he has their back,” she said, adding that “he is working tirelessly to deliver policies that improve the livelihoods of working families across the nation.”
Ms. Kelly did not say whether the administration plans to revise or repeal the silica dust regulation.
The federal government has recognized the health threats that coal dust poses since 1969, when Congress passed the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act, which set health and safety standards for coal mining and required federal inspections and monitoring for black lung disease.
But now, after decades of improvements, the disease has made a disturbing resurgence, particularly among younger workers because of their exposure to a different material: silica dust. Experts said that is in part because of changing mining practices. Most of the thick coal seams in places like Appalachia have already been mined, and workers are increasingly cutting through more rock to reach coal, exposing them to silica dust.
Composed of tiny crystals that can lodge in lung tissue, silica dust can cause inflammation and scarring when inhaled. It is considered about 20 times more toxic to the lungs than coal dust and can also cause lung cancer and kidney disease.
The Biden administration set limits on miners’ exposure to the silica dust that mirrored federal regulations covering construction and other industries in which workers are exposed to the dust. It also required mine operators to take immediate corrective action if exposures exceeded the limit. The administration estimated the rule would prevent at least 1,067 deaths and 3,746 cases of black lung.
Andy Martin, 68, a retired miner from Norton, Va., who worked for nearly five decades in Wyoming and Virginia before being diagnosed with black lung, said the rule is crucial if the work force is going to survive. Once considered a disease of older miners, black lung is now being diagnosed in workers in their 30s and 40s.
A 2018 study found that more than 10 percent of coal miners who had been working for at least 25 years had black lung disease. In Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia, home to most of the miners who planned to travel to the Tuesday rally, up to 20 percent of veteran miners suffer from lung disease caused by dust.
“It’s not the coal that’s getting them, it’s the silica,” said Mr. Martin, who paused to cough and catch his breath every few minutes during a recent interview. “We need to get this done for the younger generation.”
Limits on silica exposure were supposed to take effect in April. But the National Sand Stone and Gravel Association, the National Mining Association and other industry groups asked a federal appeals court to block the rule, citing the cost to mine operators.
“We are absolutely supportive of the new lower levels,” Conor Bernstein, a spokesman for the National Mining Association, said in a statement. But while the regulation requires operators to reduce the concentration of silica inside mines through ventilation systems, dust control devices and other improvements, the association argues the government should also allow for greater use of personal protective equipment to comply with the standards, a position similar to one taken by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Miners’ advocates have criticized respirators as impractical and ineffective.
The Trump administration did not defend the rule in court. Instead, it agreed to delay enforcement and has since petitioned the court to prevent labor unions and a lung health association from intervening in the case. This month it asked for another court delay, citing the government shutdown.
West Virginia’s senators, Shelley Moore Capito and Jim Justice, both Republicans, declined to comment on the rule and the delays.
Democrats and labor unions accused the Trump administration of using coal miners as backdrops for photo opportunities while ignoring their health needs.
“The Trump administration was handed tools to protect black lung and they are doing everything in their power to toss those rules in the trash,” said Jason Walsh, executive director of the BlueGreen Alliance, a partnership of labor unions and environmental organizations.
Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, said abandoning the silica standards “would be a real slap in the face for those who work so hard to power our communities.”
Mr. Trump has promoted the coal industry since his first presidential run in 2016, when he campaigned with miners. Since retaking the White House this year, he has expanded the mining and burning of coal, prevented unprofitable coal plants from shutting down, rolled back regulations limiting coal pollution that the industry had opposed, and announced $625 million in subsidies to help coal plants.
Coal once generated nearly half of America’s electricity but today produces just 16 percent. Hundreds of coal plants have retired since the mid-2000s as utilities switched to cheaper natural gas, wind and solar power.
Judith Riffe, 80, whose husband, Bernard, died in March of complications from black lung disease after working in West Virginia coal mines for more than 40 years, said miners deserve an administration that would fight for them as hard as it fights for the coal companies.
“Sure, they talk about how much they care about coal but come down here and look,” Ms. Riffe said from her home in Wyco, a once-thriving coal community in West Virginia.
“They’re mining a lot more now, the coal trucks and everything are running, but there’s no benefits for the coal miners coming in,” she said.
She added: “The coal miners have supplied this country with electricity, and now they’re just cast aside to die.”
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7) Now Comes the Hard Part for the Gaza Cease-Fire Plan
Hamas released hostages and agreed to abide by a cease-fire, but persuading it to lay down its arms is another matter.
By David M. Halbfinger and Adam Rasgon, Oct. 14, 2025
Reporting from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv
A Hamas gunman on Monday during the handover of Israeli hostages in Deir al Balah, in southern Gaza. Saher Alghorra for The New York Times
Getting Israel’s hostages released from Gaza and stopping the war may have taken two years and the direct efforts of the American president and the leaders of several Arab and Muslim nations.
But that was almost certainly the easy part.
Getting Hamas to give up its weapons, and demilitarizing the Gaza Strip — key preconditions for Israel to pull out of Gaza fully, as both President Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated on Monday — could prove a lot harder.
Then there are the other issues in Mr. Trump’s 20-point plan, which outlined a comprehensive solution for Gaza. In full, it also called for the establishment of an international force to help maintain security in the territory, an ambitious effort to rebuild Gaza’s economy and infrastructure, and the creation of a temporary Palestinian governing committee, whose work would be overseen by an international board.
During the talks leading up to the cease-fire in Gaza, provisions for who would run the enclave on “the day after” the war was over were among the most complicated and vexing — so much so that they were eventually severed from the cease-fire talks and put off until a second phase of negotiations.
That phase had at least an air of auspiciousness on Monday evening in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, where Mr. Trump and President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt gathered dozens of leaders to try to build on the momentum created by the truce and the exchange of 20 living Israeli hostages and the bodies of others for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.
“Phase 2 has started,” Mr. Trump said. He predicted “tremendous progress.”
“It’s peace in the Middle East,” he said. “Everyone said it’s not possible to do. And it’s going to happen.”
Yet, Monday’s kickoff in Sharm el-Sheikh aside, it is unclear even when Phase 2 talks will formally begin and where they will be held.
And both Israeli and Palestinian analysts said it was easier to imagine things going sideways than to imagine Mr. Trump’s plan being fully realized.
“The main issue still hasn’t been solved: Hamas’s weapons,” said Akram Atallah, a London-based Palestinian columnist originally from Jabaliya, in the northern Gaza Strip. “The Israelis are demanding Hamas disarm, which is not a simple administrative measure. Hamas was founded on the basis of bearing arms.”
Hamas, he said, is effectively being asked to “dismantle its ideology.”
With the halt to a war that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and lain waste to much of Gaza, Mr. Atallah said that the current atmosphere was more optimistic but that it was uncertain how long that would last.
“It feels good right now,” he said, “but I can see dark clouds in the distance and I don’t know what they’re carrying.”
Israeli analysts and officials said the likeliest outcome was that Phase 2 of the talks would become bogged down. They envisioned the status quo lingering for so long that it takes root, with Hamas still armed, and the Israeli military refusing to withdraw fully from Gaza. In that circumstance, they also foresaw the Israeli military treating the group much as it now treats Hezbollah in Lebanon: occasionally striking Hamas militants or their weapon depots from afar.
Despite Mr. Trump’s repeated, unqualified declarations that the war is over, backsliding on either side could threaten a renewal of fighting, analysts said.
“If there’s a terrorist attack against one of our posts right now, God forbid, and we have casualties, after a minute, it’s over,” said Zohar Palti, a former senior Mossad and Ministry of Defense official.
Nimrod Novik, a former Israeli envoy and distinguished fellow at the Israel Policy Forum, warned of the influence of domestic politics. “If it turns out in four or five weeks that the general mood in the country is that this war was an awful round, but only another round, and Hamas is back, I can see Netanyahu trying to correct that,” Mr. Novik said, alluding to the possibility of a resumption of hostilities. “All you need is a Hamas provocation and a disproportionate Israeli reaction, and you can have a spiral.”
It was up to Qatar, Turkey and Egypt — the three Muslim-majority countries that played major roles in mediating the Hamas-Israel cease-fire — “to pressure Hamas not to provoke,” Mr. Novik said.
To members of Mr. Netanyahu’s governing coalition, the onus is squarely on Hamas. Several officials described the cease-fire agreement so far as amounting to a simple trade in which Israel gave away roughly half of Gaza in exchange for its hostages. To get Israel to leave the rest of Gaza’s territory, they said, it will need to give up its arms and let another entity step in to govern the enclave.
“Things are very straightforward,” said Boaz Bismuth, a Netanyahu ally who heads the Knesset’s foreign affairs and defense committee. “If you don’t want Israel to be there, you know exactly what you have to do. It’s easy.”
But saying so doesn’t make it so.
Hamas, experts close to the militant group said, is willing to make certain moves to enable the reconstruction of Gaza, but it still wants to retain some influence over the territory’s future.
“Hamas is willing to offer some concessions to enable the rehabilitation of Gaza, but it will not evaporate,” said Ibrahim al-Madhoun, a Palestinian analyst close to Hamas. “Its focus is on quiet. It wants to be part of the solution, and it won’t be an obstacle to stability.”
Mr. Palti, the former Israeli intelligence and defense official, expressed skepticism over the Trump plan’s prescription that Hamas be barred from either a military or civilian role in governing Gaza.
“Who’s going to do it?” he said. “If somebody thinks that with a magic stick you’re achieving this revolution in hours or days, forget about it. It’s not going to happen. Not because I’m pessimistic; because I’m realistic.”
The deployment of an international stabilization force, as the plan suggests, could lead the Israeli military to withdraw further. But it is still largely unknown which countries would contribute to the force, how it would be funded and trained, and when it would deploy.
And the Palestinian Authority, which previously governed Gaza and still has employees on the ground, appears to be largely excluded from Mr. Trump’s initiative, barring the completion of unspecified reforms.
All of which is not to say that Phase 2 is doomed from the outset.
Mr. Bismuth, the lawmaker from Mr. Netanyahu’s party, took great encouragement from the participation of Arab countries in the peace talks, and even more from Monday’s release of 20 Israelis held in Gaza since the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks.
“I do believe that those who have to do the specific moves expected from them will do them,” he said. “When you have such results like today, you can believe in the optimistic scenario.”
Natan Odenheimer contributed reporting from Jerusalem.
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8) Israel Pressures Hamas to Return Bodies, but Gaza’s Destruction Poses Challenge
Israelis were angered that Hamas handed over only four bodies out of some two dozen left in Gaza. But the devastation in the enclave complicates the task of retrieving all the remains.
By Liam Stack and Aaron Boxerman, Reporting from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, Oct. 14, 2025
Hamas militants handing over hostages to Red Cross on Monday in Deir al-Balah, Gaza. Saher Alghorra for The New York Times
Israeli officials and hostage families have accused Hamas of violating the new cease-fire deal by failing to immediately return the remains of many of the former captives still in Gaza.
The truce agreement called for the immediate handover of all remaining bodies in Gaza, but acknowledged that some could be difficult to locate and may take more time to retrieve because of the destruction. Gaza was highly urbanized before the war, but two years of Israeli strikes have turned large parts of it into a flattened landscape of cement rubble.
Hamas on Monday returned only four bodies of roughly two dozen remaining, angering Israelis who had been expecting many more to come home.
Israel Katz, the Israeli defense minister, accused Hamas of failing “to uphold its commitments” but stopped short of threatening any immediate military action, suggesting the cease-fire may hold.
“The urgent task we are all committed to now is ensuring the return of all the bodies of the hostages home,” the minister said on social media. “Any deliberate delay or refusal will be considered a blatant violation of the agreement and will be met accordingly.”
A Hamas official said Tuesday that the group was committed to releasing all the bodies, as agreed in the cease-fire reached last week. But the widespread devastation in Gaza was making it difficult to retrieve all remains quickly, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Under the truce deal, Israel is required to release the bodies of 15 deceased Palestinian prisoners in exchange for every deceased former hostage returned by Hamas. It began to fulfill that pledge on Thursday by releasing 45 bodies to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.
But an official at the hospital, Dr. Mohammed Zaqot, said Israel had handed over the bodies with no identification, only a number that had been assigned to each one.
The truce deal outlined how the remains of former hostages in Gaza might be located and returned if Hamas was unable to do so right away. It calls for the establishment of a joint task force, to include the United States and other mediators, that would share information and help find the remaining bodies, according to three Israeli officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to speak publicly.
These officials said Israel believed that Hamas knows the location of many, but not all, of the bodies. The Palestinian militant group will need to conduct its own investigation to find some of them, one of the officials said, and will need to speak with other militant factions in Gaza, clear rubble and inspect collapsed tunnels.
The officials also said Israel was considering keeping the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt closed in response to the small number of bodies Hamas has so far released.
For the families who did not receive the remains of their loved ones on Monday, it was a bitter coda to an otherwise joyous day, when the country celebrated the release of the last 20 living hostages from Gaza and Palestinians welcomed home nearly 2,000 prisoners freed by Israel in exchange.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, the main advocacy group for the hostages and their relatives, said on Monday that it was “calling for the immediate suspension of all agreement implementation until every deceased individual is returned.” It added that the return of only four bodies was a “violation of the agreement” that must be met with a serious response from the government and the mediators.
“If Hamas does not fulfill their part, Israel should not fulfill its part either,” the group said.
The Israeli military on Tuesday identified two of the four bodies returned by Hamas a day earlier as Guy Illouz, an Israeli, and Bipin Joshi, a citizen of Nepal. The military declined to publicly identify the other two former hostages because their families had not yet been notified.
Mr. Illouz was kidnapped from the Nova music festival and died in captivity at age 26 after not receiving adequate medical care for injuries he sustained during the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the Israeli military said. The attack ignited the war in Gaza.
Mr. Joshi was killed in captivity in the early months of the war after he was abducted at age 23 from a shelter in Kibbutz Alumim, the military said.
Gal Hirsch, the coordinator for hostages and missing people in the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told the families of the hostages whose bodies had not been returned that the government was committed to bringing their remains home and applying pressure on Hamas.
“The mission is not yet complete,” he said on Tuesday. “We are absolutely determined and fully committed — we will not stop until all the fallen hostages are located and brought home.”
On Tuesday, the International Committee of the Red Cross said it was assisting with the “dignified” handling of the deceased, including by providing body bags and refrigerated trucks and by deploying personnel to assist the authorities in Israel.
“Families grieving the loss of their loved ones have already endured unimaginable pain,” the group said. “All parties must ensure that the return of human remains is done under dignified conditions.”
Abu Bakr Bashir Ameera Harouda and Natan Odenheimer contributed reporting.
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9) What Would It Cost to Rebuild Gaza?
A fragile cease-fire between Israel and Hamas is stoking hopes for a surge in investment in the region, and the Middle East more broadly.
By Andrew Ross Sorkin, Bernhard WarnerSarah Kessler, Michael J. de la Merced, Niko Gallogly and Vivienne Walt, Oct. 14, 2025
“Rebuilding a shattered Gaza will be costly. That effort — including the construction of water and sanitation networks, hospitals, schools and thousands of homes — could cost $53 billion, the World Bank estimated in February.”
A fragile cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas has led to speculation over potential investments to rebuild Gaza. Credit...Saher Alghorra for The New York Times
Peace, and deals, in the Middle East?
President Trump on Monday declared the war in Gaza over, even as big questions lingered over whether the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas would lead to a lasting peace.
The obstacles are many. Regional powers remain far apart on Gaza’s future. Security on the ground is precarious, with no clear idea of how to disarm fighters. And then there are the questions of what it will cost to rebuild, and who will pay.
But optimists hope that if the war ends, peace in Gaza could usher in a new wave of deal-making, including for mega-projects that had been frozen during the war, Vivienne Walt writes.
Some big deals were affected by the fighting. BP and the Abu Dhabi-based ADNOC were closing in on an agreement to acquire a 50 percent stake in the Israeli company NewMed Energy, which oversees some of the mammoth natural gas fields in the eastern Mediterranean. But the $2 billion deal was suspended last year as Israeli bombs pummeled Gaza.
“It was just too toxic for the U.A.E. to deepen economic relations with Israel at the time,” Jamie Ingram, a Middle East analyst and managing editor of the economic newsletter MEES, told DealBook. “This peace agreement could start to unlock investments,” he added.
The war did not stifle all business in the region. Despite the global outrage over the war in Gaza, trade continued among countries that signed the 2020 Abraham Accords.
Israel did $3.2 billion in trade with the United Arab Emirates last year, up 11 percent year over year, according to The Times of Israel, citing government statistics. (That excluded software and government-to-government deals.)
Among the big focuses of trade:
· The U.A.E. has invested billions in new data centers to power its artificial intelligence ambitions — infrastructure that could see business from Israel’s tech industry. “You could see some real concrete tie-ups,” Ingram said.
· Morocco agreed this year to buy $120 million worth of military drones from Israel Aerospace Industries, as Israel was seeking to turn its defense-tech expertise into a booming export.
· Chevron and Israeli energy companies signed a $35 billion deal with Egypt in August, agreeing to double natural gas exports from the eastern Mediterranean by 2029 and positioning Israel to be a regional energy power.
Rebuilding a shattered Gaza will be costly. That effort — including the construction of water and sanitation networks, hospitals, schools and thousands of homes — could cost $53 billion, the World Bank estimated in February.
The first projects could start within months, with financial support from Brussels, according to news reports.
That may set off a scramble for lucrative contracts, with big potential investors eyeing a huge opportunity. “My concern is you end up with backroom deals with private investment funds, Egypt, the Palestinian Authority and Israel,” Hugh Lovatt, an expert on Israeli and Palestinian issues for the European Council on Foreign Relations, told DealBook.
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10) Russia Steps Up Assault on Antiwar Exiles, Accusing Them of Terrorism
An intelligence agency’s sweeping investigation shows that Moscow is closely following the anti-Kremlin activities of Russians abroad.
By Nataliya Vasilyeva, Oct. 14, 2025
Russia’s main intelligence agency on Tuesday announced a sweeping terrorism investigation into nearly two dozen antiwar Russians, escalating the Kremlin’s onslaught against exiled critics of the invasion of Ukraine.
The agency, the Federal Security Service, or F.S.B., said that it suspected a group called the Russian Antiwar Committee of plotting to overthrow the government. The committee, which was founded by the anti-Kremlin tycoon Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, includes exiled politicians, law professors and other prominent professionals.
The F.S.B. accused Mr. Khodorkovsky, who was imprisoned for 10 years in Russia on what his lawyers called politically motivated charges, of setting up a “terrorist organization.” In a statement, the agency said that the committee aimed to “seize power by force and change the constitutional order in Russia” by funding Ukrainian Army units and recruiting individuals inside Russia.
The criminal case signals how closely President Vladimir V. Putin is watching anti-Kremlin activity abroad as Russia pursues its perceived enemies across international borders, including in some cases with poisonings and shootings.
The Russian authorities appear to be particularly concerned with recent moves in Europe. The Council of Europe, an intergovernmental organization that is dedicated to upholding democracy, human rights and the rule of law on the continent, adopted a resolution to create a “platform for dialogue with Russian democratic forces.”
That forum would help exiled Russians engage with Europe on their opposition to the Putin government, as well as on issues faced by the hundreds of thousands of anti-Kremlin exiles abroad. Participants are expected to include those who signed a 2023 declaration by the Russian Antiwar Committee condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
In its statement on Tuesday, the F.S.B. referred to the actions of the Council of Europe as setting up an “alternative to power structures” in Russia.
Mr. Khodorkovsky, in a social media post, linked the terrorism accusations to the antiwar committee’s efforts to set up the democracy forum.
The Kremlin sees his committee’s cooperation with the Council of Europe as “a big problem,” he said. “That’s why we have this new investigation into an ‘overthrow of the government’, and lies about ‘recruitment’ or ‘weapons for the Ukrainian army,’” he noted.
Most of the 23 suspects named by the F.S.B. are Russian professionals who have not declared any political ambitions. Some of them once sat on Mr. Putin’s council for human rights or advised the government in an independent capacity before the war.
The Russian Antiwar Committee brings together a wide variety of Russian civil society. Its members include Mikhail M. Kasyanov, Mr. Putin’s first prime minister; Sergei Guriev, who is now dean of the London Business School; and other prominent academics such as the political scientist Ekaterina Schulmann.
The group, which was set up by Mr. Khodorkovsky shortly after the 2022 Russian invasion to “help address the consequences of Putin’s aggression,” has not made any public calls for violence.
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11) Big Banks Credit ‘Resilient’ Economy for Profit Growth
JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Citi and Wells Fargo reported strong earnings, mostly topping analyst expectations and showing broad growth.
By Stacy Cowley, Oct. 14, 2025
Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase at the bank’s new headquarters in New York last month. “The U.S. economy generally remained resilient,” he said in an earnings release on Tuesday. Credit...Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
Even as President Trump’s tariffs and trade restrictions have upended industries and generated a swirl of economic uncertainty, Wall Street keeps humming along.
Some of the nation’s biggest banks reported strong quarterly earnings on Tuesday, mostly topping analyst expectations and showing broad growth across their key lines of business. While bank leaders warned about the growing risks of a slowdown, “resilient” was the word many chose to describe the economy.
For the three months through September, JPMorgan Chase reported a 12 percent year-over-year increase in profit to $14.4 billion on revenue of $46.4 billion. Investment banking fees rose 16 percent, and credit card and auto lending revenue rose 12 percent, a sign of solid business on both Wall Street and Main Street.
But the bank added more padding to its reserve for credit losses, as charge-offs on soured loans ticked upward.
“The U.S. economy generally remained resilient,” Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan, said in a statement. “There continues to be a heightened degree of uncertainty stemming from complex geopolitical conditions, tariffs and trade uncertainty, elevated asset prices and the risk of sticky inflation.”
On a call with reporters, Mr. Dimon elaborated on his comment about asset prices. “You have a lot of assets out there which look like they’re entering bubble territory,” he said. The stock market has set a series of records this year, although it has wobbled in recent days after the latest outbreak of tit-for-tat trade restrictions by the United States and China.
The bank is keeping a close eye on the labor market for signs of trouble, Jeremy Barnum, the bank’s chief financial officer, said on the call.
“If that were to deteriorate, we would expect in the normal course to see that flow through to consumer credit,” he said. “It’s not happening yet.”
A surge in deal making helped Goldman Sachs earn $4.1 billion in the third quarter, a jump of 37 percent from the same quarter last year. The bank recorded its highest-ever revenue for the third quarter, which totaled $15.2 billion. Its investment banking fees surged more than 40 percent to about $2.7 billion, allowing the division to easily exceed analyst expectations.
Citi also beat expectations with a profit of $3.8 billion, up 16 percent from the year before. It recorded revenue of $22.1 billion, up 9 percent, and growth in all five of its major business lines.
Mark Mason, the chief financial officer at Citi, echoed the sentiment of other bankers that companies and consumers had proven surprisingly durable.
“We’ve been in kind of recession-ready mode for over a year,” he said. But the company hasn’t seen any of the warning signs, like missed payments, that would cause alarm, he added.
Wells Fargo reported a profit of $5.6 billion, up 9 percent from the same quarter last year, on revenue of $21.4 billion. It, too, profited from growing credit card spending and balances — as well as higher fees for managing wealthy customers’ assets.
Credit and debit card spending has increased among its most affluent clients and lower-income customers, according to Mike Santomassimo, its chief financial officer.
“I think that’s a good sign for sort of what’s happening in the overall economy at this point,” he said.
The bank celebrated a long-sought milestone last quarter, as the Federal Reserve freed it from the asset growth cap it imposed seven years ago as punishment for extensive misconduct, including the creation of sham bank accounts and improper home foreclosures.
“While some economic uncertainty remains, the U.S. economy has been resilient and the financial health of our clients and customers remains strong,” Charlie Scharf, the bank’s chief executive, said in a statement.
Since Mr. Trump’s re-election, a wide range of companies have announced plans to invest billions in the United States, often drawing praise from the president.
JPMorgan joined those ranks on Monday, saying that it would facilitate $1.5 trillion in financing and investments over the next 10 years, focused on industries “critical to national economic security and resiliency” in the United States. The plan includes up to $10 billion in direct equity and venture capital investments by the bank in a group of mostly American companies.
“It has become painfully clear that the United States has allowed itself to become too reliant on unreliable sources of critical minerals, products and manufacturing,” Mr. Dimon said in a statement.
Asked on Tuesday about the simmering trade tensions between the United States and China, Mr. Dimon took a wait-and-see stance.
“In general, the trade effect has been less than people expected, including us,” he told reporters. “This still is going to play out. Hopefully it won’t have a major effect, but I wouldn’t take it off the table as having any effect.”
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12) Protests in Brussels Halt Flights and Disrupt Public Transit
The demonstrations, organized by Belgium’s major trade unions, oppose austerity proposals that would affect pensions and other social welfare.
By Koba Ryckewaert, Reporting from Brussels, Oct. 14, 2025
A demonstration against the Belgium government’s proposed austerity measures, in Brussels, on Tuesday, October 14, 2025. Credit...Nicolas Tucat/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Demonstrators took to the streets of Brussels on Tuesday, disrupting air traffic and public transit during a national strike protesting proposed austerity measures by the government.
The strike was led by the country’s major trade unions, who object to proposed changes in laws that affect pensions, working conditions and salaries.
The strike is the latest in a series organized by the trade unions since a new federal coalition government took office earlier this year, vowing to put Belgium’s ailing budget in order. The police estimated that 80,000 people protested on Tuesday.
At Brussels Airport, Belgium’s largest, all departing flights and around half of incoming flights were canceled as security staff and baggage handlers joined the strike, an airport official said. More than 300 flights and 48,000 passengers were affected. All flights were canceled at Charleroi Airport, the country’s second largest, an official there said.
Trains within Belgium ran as usual, but public transit was disrupted in Brussels and elsewhere. In the region of Flanders, four out of 10 buses and trams were not in service, an official there said.
Protesters gathered at Brussels North Station in the morning, with some setting off firecrackers and flares, and marched through the city center to Brussels South Station.
At around noon, the police arrested several dozen protesters after a government building on Pacheco Boulevard was vandalized with projectiles, paint bombs and firecrackers, the police said in a statement.
In July, the government proposed changes in laws governing pensions, the labor market, health care and taxation in what Prime Minister Bart De Wever called “the biggest socio-economic reforms of the century.” Unions and opposition parties criticized the proposals as eroding the country’s welfare system.
The government is currently in budget talks and wants to reduce the country’s deficit by at least another 10 billion euros — about $11.6 billion — by 2029.
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