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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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13) ICE Is Cracking Down on Chicago. Some Chicagoans Are Fighting Back.
Residents have begun forming volunteer groups to monitor their neighborhoods for federal immigration agents. Others honk their horns or blow whistles when they see agents nearby.
By Julie Bosman, Visuals by Jamie Kelter Davis, Reporting from Chicago, Published Oct. 14, 2025, Updated Oct. 15, 2025
Residents gathered on Tuesday in a far South Side neighborhood after federal agents were involved in a vehicle crash.
Federal agents deployed tear gas on Chicago residents and more than a dozen police officers on Tuesday, the latest clash in the nation’s third-largest city as the Trump administration has carried out its immigration crackdown.
The clash began on Tuesday morning when federal agents were seen chasing a car through a working-class, heavily Latino neighborhood on the city’s far South Side, witnesses said. An S.U.V. driven by the federal agents collided with the car they were pursuing, the Chicago Police Department said, sending that car into another vehicle that was parked nearby.
After the crash, dozens of additional immigration agents in masks arrived and residents emerged from their houses, gathering on streets and sidewalks, throwing objects at agents and shouting, “ICE go home!”
As the agents left, they released tear gas, apparently without warning, sending people coughing and running for cover. Among those affected by the gas were 13 Chicago Police Department officers, the police department said, and at least one officer was seen rinsing his eyes out with water from a neighbor’s garden hose.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security said that the federal agents were conducting an immigration enforcement operation when two people tried to flee and hit the agents’ vehicle.
“This incident is not isolated and reflects a growing and dangerous trend of illegal aliens violently resisting arrest and agitators and criminals ramming cars into our law enforcement officers,” the D.H.S. said in a statement. The statement said that federal agents used “crowd control measures” after a group of people gathered and turned hostile.
It was one of many turbulent episodes to erupt in Chicago in recent days. Federal agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol have roamed the city and suburbs making arrests, often pulling up to people walking along sidewalks, stopping them and questioning them.
The agents repeatedly have been observed releasing smoke bombs, tear gas and pepper balls to disperse residents who gather or capture videos on cellphones, including when the agents were making arrests in densely populated neighborhoods. Chicago police officers, who have been called to the scenes of some clashes, have been exposed to tear gas from federal agents twice in the last two weeks.
As the intensity of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown has risen, residents of Chicago are increasingly pushing back with fury.
In the last several weeks, Chicagoans have formed volunteer groups to monitor their neighborhoods for federal immigration agents, posting alerts on Facebook and in Signal group chats when agents are seen.
If agents are spotted on the street, motorists lean on their horns as a warning and sometimes give chase. Around the city last weekend, pairs of volunteers were seen with orange whistles around their necks, blowing the whistles at the first sight of immigration agents.
One Chicago resident, Chris Molitor, stationed himself on a street corner on the North Side on Tuesday, holding a sign denouncing President Trump and wearing a shirt critical of ICE.
“We’re seeing videos of people being abused,” said Mr. Molitor, 64, who works in hospitality, nodding in the direction of a local taqueria whose owners were questioned by ICE. “There’s got to be a pushback of some kind.”
Last month, Andre Vasquez, a City Council member who is chairman of Chicago’s Committee on Immigrant and Refugee Rights, sponsored a “community defense workshop” to inform residents of their rights and help them organize politically.
“Chicago’s been doing just fine, and then these guys showed up,” Mr. Vasquez said of federal immigration officers. “There is big concern about what these unidentified, masked men are doing in this city without accountability. Chicagoans are just trying to live their life. We’re not going to tolerate unconstitutional authoritarianism.”
Bystanders have posted videos of arrests that appear unrelated to violations of immigration law.
Debbie Brockman, an employee of the TV station WGN, was pinned to the ground and arrested by Border Patrol agents on Friday while walking to a bus stop. A Border Patrol official said that Ms. Brockman had thrown an object at federal agents. Ms. Brockman’s lawyer called the arrest an attack. Ms. Brockman was released without charges.
Yarelly Jimenez, 21, a resident of Chicago’s East Side neighborhood, said that immigration arrests had been the talk of the neighborhood and among her family.
Ms. Jimenez and two others were recording federal agents in a Walgreens on Tuesday and hurriedly left the store to get away from them, she said.
Inside, shoppers yelled at federal agents, videos taken by bystanders show. “Real Americans don’t want you here!” one man said.
An agent grabbed one of Ms. Jimenez’s companions, Warren King, 19, on his way out, asking him why he was running and pinning him to the ground. It was uncertain what Mr. King was accused of, and D.H.S. officials did not immediately provide a reason for his arrest.
Video taken by another bystander and posted to social media captured Ms. Jimenez shouting at the agent in a panic.
“He’s a citizen!” she said.
Robert Chiarito and Arijeta Lajka contributed reporting.
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14) L.A. County Declares State of Emergency Over Immigration Raids
The move would allow county officials to provide financial aid to those affected by Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids.
By Jonathan Wolfe, Oct. 15, 2025
California National Guard members stand ready as people protest against the detention of migrants by federal law enforcement in downtown Los Angeles in June. Credit...Philip Cheung for The New York Times
Los Angeles County voted on Tuesday to declare a state of emergency over federal immigration raids, the latest move by the county to push back against the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Southern California.
The emergency declaration, traditionally used in response to events like natural disasters, would allow the county to provide resources for those who have been affected by the raids.
County officials say the move will provide help for those who have refrained from going to work for fear of being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or who lose their income after family members are detained.
The declaration, which was passed in a 4-to-1 vote by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, also gives officials the ability to vote later to impose an eviction moratorium and other protections for tenants who might have fallen behind on rent payments because of the raids.
In justifying the declaration, county officials argued that federal immigration sweeps, in which thousands of people have been detained by heavily armed and masked immigration officials, have produced a climate of fear.
“We have residents afraid to leave their homes,” said Janice Hahn, a board member who voted in favor of the declaration. “We have entire families who are destitute because their fathers or mothers were taken from their workplaces and they have no way to pay their rent or put food on the table.”
Last month, county officials approved around $30 million in rental relief assistance for residents who were affected by wildfires or federal immigration raids. The county plans to begin accepting applications for that relief in December. The board did not provide an estimate for how many residents have been affected by immigration raids or how many might apply for relief.
County lawyers have warned that the emergency declaration could create issues for landlords and tenants, as well as invite litigation from the Trump administration. They said the declaration could lead to significant income loss for landlords and expose tenants to lawsuits from landlords seeking to recover debts. It could also prompt tenants to publicly disclose their immigration status, the lawyers said, inviting enforcement action from the federal government.
Kathryn Barger, the member of the board of supervisors who voted against the declaration, argued that the raids did not meet the criteria for an emergency.
“Emergency powers exist for crises that pose life and death consequences like wildfires — not as a shortcut for complex policy issues,” she wrote in a statement provided to the news media after the vote. “Stretching emergency powers for federal immigration actions undermines their purpose, invites legal challenges, and circumvents the public process.”
Los Angeles County — home to 10 million people and the country’s largest population of undocumented immigrants — became the primary battleground this summer in the Trump administration’s aggressive crackdown on immigration. A spike in immigration arrests led to protests, and the federal government responded by deploying National Guard troops and Marines to the region.
Local and state officials have sought to push back, banning federal officials from wearing masks in the state, filing lawsuits over the deployment of troops and challenging the tactics used by ICE.
In July, a judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from making indiscriminate immigration arrests in the county, and a sense of normalcy returned to Los Angeles. But last month, the Supreme Court overturned the order, reinstating fear among immigrants there.
Orlando Mayorquín contributed reporting.
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15) With Truce in Place, Hamas Pursues Bloody Crackdown on Rivals in Gaza
A video this week captured Hamas fighters in Gaza executing Palestinian rivals as the militant group tries to assert that it is still the dominant force in the territory after two years of war with Israel.
By Iyad Abuheweila, Aaron Boxerman and Sanjana Varghese, Oct. 15, 2025
“Military analysts say a major target for this Hamas crackdown will likely be the string of small Palestinian militias that have sprung up in Gaza over the past several months, though it is not clear whether Hamas has already moved against them in force. None have mounted a serious challenge to Hamas yet, the analysts said. Some of these smaller militias say they worked in coordination with Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel confirmed in June that Israel was “using clans in Gaza” who were fighting Hamas on its behalf. Israeli officials later confirmed helping to arm one operated by Yasser Abu Shabab in eastern Rafah. Mr. Abu Shabab was notorious for ransacking humanitarian aid from U.N. convoys earlier in the war, according to aid officials. Later, he set up a militia in an Israeli-controlled zone inside Gaza, saying this zone would be peaceful and free of Hamas.”
Palestinian militants standing guard on the day that hostages held in Gaza were handed over to the International Committee of the Red Cross, as part of a cease-fire and hostages-prisoners swap deal between Hamas and Israel, in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, on Monday. Credit...Ramadan Abed/Reuters
The public execution was captured on video.
Masked gunmen, some wearing green headbands associated with the Palestinian militant group Hamas, lined up eight captives in the middle of a crowded street in Gaza City on Monday. They forced the men to bend over, leveled their rifles at them, and opened fire, leaving their bodies in the dirt.
A Hamas internal security official confirmed that the video, which The New York Times geolocated to Gaza City, showed Hamas fighters executing Palestinian rivals in the Gaza Strip. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to journalists.
The execution took place just days after a cease-fire with Israel began on Friday and Israeli forces pulled back in parts of Gaza. Analysts say that Hamas appears to be trying to assert that it is still the dominant force in the territory, no matter how weakened it is after two years of war with Israel.
Hamas lost many of its top commanders and thousands of fighters in the conflict, and some Gaza residents launched rare protests against the group’s iron-fisted rule earlier this year.
Israel has acknowledged that it also sought to undermine Hamas’s control by backing rival Palestinian clans in Gaza, with mixed results.
“Hamas is sending a message: ‘We are here. We are the sole authority in Gaza,’” said Tamer Qarmout, a Palestinian political analyst and academic from Gaza, who is based in Qatar.
Since Monday, at least 10 members of Hamas’s security forces and at least 20 members of rival Palestinian groups have been killed in the internecine fighting, according to a Gaza health official and the Hamas internal security official.
It was not clear whether the eight men who were executed in the video were included in those tolls. They included members of the Doghmosh family, which has a long-running rivalry with Hamas, Nizar Doghmosh, a family leader, told The Times on Wednesday.
The outbreak of internal violence in Gaza, which has been limited to a few incidents so far, could further complicate President Trump’s vision for a postwar Gaza. His plan to end the war requires Hamas to lay down its weapons, allow an international force to stabilize the territory, and effectively end its two-decade control — demands the group has rejected so far.
After a visit to Israel on Monday coinciding with Hamas’s release of the remaining hostages in Gaza, Mr. Trump was asked by a reporter about the possibility of the group reasserting itself as a police force in Gaza and shooting rivals.
Mr. Trump suggested the United States was not opposed, at least for now.
“They’ve been open about it, and we gave them approval for a period of time,” he said.
On Tuesday, Mr. Trump addressed the issue again, saying Hamas had “taken out a couple of gangs that were very bad,” and adding: “That didn’t bother me very much, to be honest.”
During the war, uniformed Hamas fighters were rarely seen on the streets of Gaza. They avoided moving in the open as much as possible so they would not be targeted by Israeli airstrikes.
Palestinian witnesses in Gaza say groups of masked, rifle-toting Hamas security officers are appearing again now, including when Hamas handed over the remaining hostages to the International Committee of the Red Cross on Monday.
Some of the Hamas activity does appear to entail restoring public order in daily life.
In the central city of Deir al-Balah, armed men have been spotted in the streets directing traffic this week, which they had hardly done during two years of war.
Hamas officials publicly acknowledge that they are also launching operations against people they deem to be lawbreakers or collaborators with Israel.
Two Hamas internal security officials said the killings shown in the video were in retaliation for the Doghmosh family’s killing of several Hamas militants during the war.
The clashes that led to the killings shown in the video began on Sunday, Mr. Doghmosh said, after some members of the family shot and killed the son of a Hamas commander who accused them of being collaborators. Mr. Doghmosh denied that the family was working with Israel.
Later that evening, Hamas fighters and armed members of the Doghmosh family fought a pitched gun battle in Gaza City, according to two Gaza health officials, two Hamas internal security officials and Palestinian residents.
One of those killed in the clashes was Naim Naim, whose father, Basem Naim, is a senior Hamas leader, according to two family members and one of the Gaza health officials.
After the clashes, armed Hamas fighters burst into nearby houses, checking identity cards to see who belonged to the Doghmosh family, said a Palestinian witness who asked not to be named for fear of retribution. He said his family spent hours huddled in the center of their home amid a hail of gunfire and explosions outside.
Then Hamas fighters showed up and ordered them to flee, he recounted.
At least 24 bodies arrived at Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City from the Hamas-Doghmosh clashes on Sunday night, said Mohammad Abu Salmiya, the medical facility’s director. He said he did not know how many were from each side.
On Monday, the day after the Gaza City clashes, the Hamas gunmen were filmed shooting the masked and blindfolded men in the middle of neighborhood where the clashes took place, surrounded by a large crowd of bystanders.
Hamas’s interior ministry has warned rival groups that it will come after any “criminal gangs” that threaten “civil peace.” Mahmoud Mardawi, a Hamas official, vowed on social media on Tuesday that the group would not allow “chaos to spread in beloved Gaza nor criminals to escape punishment.”
Military analysts say a major target for this Hamas crackdown will likely be the string of small Palestinian militias that have sprung up in Gaza over the past several months, though it is not clear whether Hamas has already moved against them in force. None have mounted a serious challenge to Hamas yet, the analysts said.
Some of these smaller militias say they worked in coordination with Israel.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel confirmed in June that Israel was “using clans in Gaza” who were fighting Hamas on its behalf. Israeli officials later confirmed helping to arm one operated by Yasser Abu Shabab in eastern Rafah.
Mr. Abu Shabab was notorious for ransacking humanitarian aid from U.N. convoys earlier in the war, according to aid officials. Later, he set up a militia in an Israeli-controlled zone inside Gaza, saying this zone would be peaceful and free of Hamas. His militia uploaded videos showing makeshift classrooms and quiet tents in an effort to attract displaced Gazans to join.
“This adventure was only ever going to end one way,” said Michael Milshtein, a former senior Israeli intelligence officer. “We armed and supported these militias, and now Hamas is coming for its revenge.”
If Hamas attacks any of the clans affiliated with Israel, it would pose a “heavy dilemma” for the Israeli authorities, who would have to decide whether to defend them — thus breaking the cease-fire — or allow them to be killed or arrested, Mr. Milshtein said.
For now, many of the militias say they have no plans to surrender to Hamas.
“We are preparing to defend ourselves by any means necessary should Hamas attack,” said Mohammad al-Mansi, 21, whose father leads a small armed group opposed to Hamas in northern Gaza.
“We won’t turn ourselves in. We would rather die.”
Bilal Shbair and Abu Bakr Bashir contributed reporting.
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16) The Shadow of Jim Crow Looms Over the Supreme Court
By Troy Carter and Cleo Fields, Oct. 15, 2025
Mr. Carter and Mr. Fields, both Democrats, represent the two majority-Black congressional districts in Louisiana.
Civil rights demonstrators in Montgomery, Ala., during the Selma March in 1965. Bruce Davidson/Magnum Photos
The Supreme Court on Wednesday will hear arguments in Louisiana v. Callais, a case that could topple what remains of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. At question is whether one-third of our state’s population — Black Louisianians — will continue to have an opportunity to elect representatives of their choice, or if decades of hard-won progress will disappear under the guise of “colorblind” politics.
For over a decade, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority has been chipping away at this landmark civil rights legislation. Now the law’s Section 2, which prohibits voting practices that discriminate based on race, is at risk. If the court declares it unconstitutional, it is all but certain that one of our congressional districts will be dissolved, and quite possibly both districts.
Let’s be clear: Section 2 is still necessary, especially in Louisiana. Despite what some people may argue, there is no evidence to support the idea that our state’s Black voters can elect candidates of their choice without the existence of majority-Black districts.
Critics of the Voting Rights Act would have you believe that protecting the rights of minority voters is by definition redistricting by race. They argue that standards should be colorblind and that America’s strides toward greater racial equality make voting protections unnecessary.
History illustrates the farce of this argument. Grandfather clauses, poll taxes and literacy tests were all technically colorblind. Louisiana’s literacy test is cited in schools across the country as a textbook example of how purportedly neutral standards can be used for discriminatory ends.
Today’s numbers tell the same story. Approximately one-third of Louisiana is Black. In our state’s entire history, only five Black citizens have been elected to the U.S. House and served, out of 171 Louisianans sent to the House. These facts underscore the persistent racial polarization in voting patterns and the enduring need for legal protections that ensure all voices are heard, not just those of the majority.
When Black communities lose representation at both the state and federal levels, their concerns are often ignored or deprioritized. Black elected officials, already too few in number, are left to shoulder the burden of constituents outside their districts who feel they have nowhere else to turn. That’s not how a representative democracy is supposed to work.
The consequences of unequal representation aren’t theoretical. Just seven years ago, Louisianans voted to end the state’s practice — shared by only one other state — of allowing nonunanimous juries to convict people of felonies. The state’s 1898 Constitution enshrined this practice with the explicitly racist intent to limit Black people’s power in the justice system and to make it easier to convict them.
Louisiana’s 1974 Constitution retained these so-called Jim Crow juries, and for decades many didn’t think of them as abnormal. It was Black representation that unearthed the insidious nature of this relic. Under scrutiny by Black members of the State Legislature, an elected district attorney opposing the change stated: “I’ve heard a lot about this system being adopted as a result of a vestige of slavery. I have no reason to doubt that. I’m not proud of that — that that’s the way it started. But it is what it is.”
Sadly, this is not the only artifact of Jim Crow lingering in our government. The South is still a place where people who look like us must pass the statues of Confederate soldiers to enter courthouses seeking justice.
The Voting Rights Act, including Section 2, has garnered bipartisan support. When it was last reauthorized, in 2006, it passed overwhelmingly under a Republican president and Congress. Not a single senator voted against it. At the time, lawmakers across the political spectrum recognized that, left to their own devices, some states would turn back to a time when certain voices did not matter and could be disregarded. That’s just as true today as it was then.
Even though the Supreme Court’s decision isn’t expected until next year, political powers in Baton Rouge, recognizing Section 2 of the law may very well be declared unconstitutional, reportedly took steps to convene a special session of the Legislature in which they originally planned to redraw the congressional map. This move suggests leaders in our state’s capital are eager to create a new map that dismantles our majority-Black districts and disperses our current constituents across predominantly white districts. It should be a warning sign to the Supreme Court that without the Voting Rights Act, state leaders seem intent on denying Black voters fair representation.
America stands at a crossroads. We can either move forward, ensuring that every community — Black, white, urban, rural — has a voice in shaping our future, or we can slide back into a past where the decisions are made by only some.
The Voting Rights Act is not a relic. It is a living promise to all Americans that our democracy belongs to everyone. For nearly 200 years, Black Americans had virtually no representation in our collective governance. Section 2 was enacted to right that wrong.
It remains as vital today as it was when it was first signed into law 60 years ago. The law represents progress on our nation’s trek to a more perfect union. We must not allow the erosion of its promise; not now, not in Louisiana, not anywhere, and not on our watch.
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17) A Lesson From the German Resistance That Applies Today
By Jonathan Freedland, Oct. 15, 2025
Mr. Freedland is a columnist for The Guardian and the author of the forthcoming “The Traitor’s Circle: The True Story of a Secret Resistance Network in Nazi Germany — and the Spy Who Betrayed Them.”
Bianca Bagnarelli
As authoritarian rulers gain ground across the democratic world, making inroads not only in Hungary and Turkey, but even in the United States, a question from the 20th century has resurfaced in the 21st, one that presses on individuals as well as institutions. Put simply, who bends the knee to tyranny and who stands up to it?
A clue can be found in an extraordinary episode from inside the Third Reich that has lain, almost forgotten, for nearly 80 years. At the heart of it is a loose grouping of 10 or so friends and acquaintances drawn from German high society, both the aristocracy and professional elite. Their circle included not one but two countesses, an ambassador’s widow, a diplomat, high-ranking government officials (current and former), a doctor, a pioneering headmistress and a former model, among others. What they found in one another was a shared willingness to defy Hitler, in ways large and small.
Except their assumption of common purpose was fatally flawed. In September 1943, they met for a tea party — unaware that one of them was poised to betray all the rest to the Gestapo. That act would lead to arrest and jail and, for several of those present that day, death, whether by the guillotine or the hanging rope. Its ramifications would eventually reach the apex of the Nazi state.
The core mystery that runs through this story is not just the identity of the betrayer, but also why people of privilege and rank, who could so easily have kept their heads down, risked everything. Had they fallen in line, their fortunes, careers and country estates likely would have remained intact. They could have survived the war unscathed. But they chose another path.
Consider Otto Kiep, 57 years old at the time of the tea party, a diplomat who had secured the glamorous post of German consul general in New York City in the last years of the Weimar Republic. In 1933, an invitation had come to attend a dinner in honor of an eminent fellow countryman, Albert Einstein, who also happened to be the world’s most famous Jew. To accept would be to incur the wrath of his new Nazi masters, installed in power just a few weeks earlier. To refuse would be to side with their campaign of antisemitic persecution. Kiep accepted the invitation and delivered a toast in Einstein’s honor. That brought a summons back to Berlin where he would be hauled before the Führer himself.
Or take Maria von Maltzan, the young countess who turned her Berlin apartment into an unofficial refuge for “submarines” — Jews forced to live in hiding, whose safety depended on staying silent and unseen. (Among them was Ms. von Maltzan’s own forbidden Jewish lover.) Or her fellow countess, Lagi Solf, who broke the rules banning contact with Jews, in order to fetch groceries for the submarines. Carrying full shopping bags, one in each hand, had long been her habit. That way, if she ran into someone on the street she would be unable to give the requisite Heil Hitler salute.
In scouring the archives, including letters, diaries and court testimonies left behind by the group, and by speaking with their surviving relatives, I’ve begun to form an answer to why some were capable of saying no to a mighty and terrifying regime while the vast majority of their neighbors were bowing their heads and saying yes.
Several were committed Christians, adamant that they would ultimately have to answer not to Adolf Hitler but to Jesus Christ. Perhaps the most devout was the hostess of the fateful tea party: the innovative educator, Elisabeth von Thadden, whose school, the Evangelical Rural Education Home for Girls, founded six years before the Third Reich, discreetly took in Jewish pupils while their families scrambled to secure the papers that would enable them to flee the country. Her belief that she was accountable to God alone helped Ms. von Thadden face down the Gestapo inspector who came to examine her school for “deficiencies of conviction,” after the authorities learned that she had recited an Old Testament psalm, which, to them, bore the unforgivable taint of Hebrew scripture. (A 13-year- old pupil was the informant.)
Others among the rebels were children of the nobility, convinced their highest loyalty was not to national socialism but to their own ancestors. Hitler might have dreamed of a 1000-year Reich, but these families had already ruled Germany for centuries. They believed that those of their class represented the deep and true Germany, defined in part by its patrician ideal of compassion for the weak. Nazism would be a passing fad; it was they, and the aristocratic inheritance they embodied, that would last.
So it was that Maria von Maltzan could speak to the Gestapo men who raided her apartment with imperious impatience. When they demanded she open up the wooden compartment under a sofa-bed — inside which her lover was hiding, holding his breath — she explained that it could not be opened, and that if the secret police were so certain someone was hiding inside, they should aim their guns at it and shoot. She all but dared them to do it. But, she insisted, if they did, they would have to compensate her for the damage, and promise to do so in advance and in writing. Her gambit, deployed with all the hauteur of her caste, worked. Her lover survived.
Several key players in the drama were women whose upbringing shared another striking aspect: a close relationship with a strong father. That was true of Ms. von Thadden and both countesses, Maria and Lagi. In all three cases, the women were not just loved by their fathers; they were trusted by them. In a way that was unusual in the era before modern feminism, they were deemed by their fathers to be the equal of any man, capable of taking on any task. Long after their fathers were dead, the women carried that confidence with them. By the time the Nazis ruled Germany, it had blossomed into courage.
The strength of those women was buttressed by that deeper conviction that is perhaps the key determinant of who defies an oppressive regime and who buckles before it: belief in an authority higher than the government of the day. Most rebels at the tea party also came to understand that such a belief demanded action as well as thought.
For some, that translated into small gestures of defiance, like Lagi Solf and her shopping bags. For others, such as Otto Kiep, it meant acts of audacious resistance, coming within touching distance of a plot to assassinate Hitler. Through deeds large and small, they demonstrated — to themselves and one another — that obedience was not the only option.
To be clear, most aristocratic Germans did not rebel against Hitler. On the contrary, the German nobility largely fell in line behind the Nazis, drawn in part by the Führer’s pledge to restore titles abolished in the Weimar era. And of course, we cannot neatly read across from that place and that time to our own age.
But if there is a lesson to be gleaned from the deadly fate of those men and women, it might just be that the best safeguard against tyranny is a legion of people who believe in an authority higher than any political program, prince — or president.
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18) When Children of Public Figures Go Public With Their Dissent
The conversation heats up on social media.
By Callie Holtermann, Oct. 15, 2025
Maddie Block took to social media to criticize her father, Jay Block, a New Mexico state senator, for participating in a trip for American lawmakers that was paid for by the Israeli government. Maddie Block; Adria Malcolm/The Washington Post, via Getty Images
Maddie Block was scrolling on social media last month when she saw a post from a New Mexico state senator about his recent trip to Israel, where he heard remarks from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Ms. Block, 28, who lives in New York and is a vocal defender of Palestinian rights, was stopped in her tracks. The post dismissed the idea that Israel was committing genocide in its war in Gaza, saying that “Israel does everything possible to avoid killing Gazan civilians.” To Ms. Block, the post amounted to misinformation, and sought to excuse Israel for killing tens of thousands of people in Gaza, she said in an interview.
So she decided to post a TikTok video disagreeing with its author — who also happens to be her father.
“It looks like my dad and a bunch of other, just like, loser politicians from New Mexico went to meet with Netanyahu,” Ms. Block said in a video that has been viewed more than 1.8 million times and gained national media attention.
In the video and a series of follow-up posts, she speculated that her father, State Senator Jay Block, a Republican representing parts of northwestern Albuquerque, was being paid to repeat pro-Israel talking points. (He denies this.) She questioned why a state senator needed to get involved in the Middle East, anyway: “How does meeting with Netanyahu help the local people of New Mexico?” she asked.
The political rifts that exist in families across the country often play out behind closed doors. But in an era of intense polarization, some young family members of political figures have taken to social media to condemn the positions of their elders.
Social media has had a “profound impact in terms of taking these disagreements public,” said Ioana Literat, an associate professor of communication at Teachers College, Columbia University, and an author of “Not Your Parents’ Politics.” Whether or not they are from high-profile families, members of Gen Z “don’t have to rely on traditional media gatekeepers or family approval to be heard.”
The phenomenon has left some lawmakers in the awkward position of having to field phone calls from reporters about their child’s TikTok account. Reached by phone last week, Senator Block said he was proud of his daughter, and that he supported her right to say whatever she wanted about his political positions. The two are not currently in contact, he said.
“I love my daughter very much,” he said. “Anything she has said to hurt me, whether politically or financially or relationship-wise, I forgive her.”
In the interview, Mr. Block reiterated his support for Israel, which he thinks has been justified in how it has conducted its strikes in Gaza. He said he had visited as part of a bipartisan cultural exchange program paid for by the Israeli government, motivated in part by his concerns about rising antisemitism in the United States after the Oct. 7 attack.
He said that after his daughter posted her video, he and a member of his staff had received death threats. “Reckless comments can really push people toward violence, and unfortunately we’ve seen that a lot today, quite frankly, with the left,” he said.
The Block family is not alone in navigating their political disagreements in public. Political scions have long applied public pressure to their parents. Patti Davis, for instance, the daughter of Ronald and Nancy Reagan, was a thorn in her father’s side throughout his presidency, loudly denouncing his policies on nuclear weapons. In recent years, the dynamic more often results in political sparring and family drama that tends to draw an audience online.
Take Jack Schlossberg, who called his cousin Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential campaign “an embarrassment” and has continued to oppose his efforts as President Trump’s health secretary. Or Christian Walker, a conservative social media figure who publicly criticized his father, the Senate candidate Herschel Walker, in 2022 after reports that he paid a girlfriend to have an abortion.
And then there is Vivian Wilson, a daughter of Elon Musk, who wrote on Threads last year that her father had misrepresented her experience as a transgender woman “in a last-ditch attempt to garner sympathy points.” She called the Trump administration, which her father helped into office, “cartoonishly evil” in an interview this year with Teen Vogue.
Some of the young, digitally savvy family members speaking up are estranged from the relatives whose politics they oppose. But not all of them. Claudia Conway, daughter of the former Trump aide Kellyanne Conway, made news as a 15-year-old for a series of posts disapproving of her mother’s political views. (In one, she begged Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to “adopt” her.)
In an interview with The New York Times last year, Ms. Conway said she regretted the way she had worded some of her posts in 2020. In the years since, she said that she and her mother had worked to repair their relationship.
Ms. Block, who has not spoken to her father in more than two years, does not expect that kind of reconciliation. In a recent interview, she said she grew up mostly sharing the Republican viewpoints of her father, a former lieutenant colonel in the Air Force. When he retired from the military and ran for a seat on the Sandoval County Commission in 2016, Ms. Block helped with his campaign. “I couldn’t have won my first election without her,” he said in the interview.
The two began to have private arguments about abortion rights and immigration as the Trump administration got underway, Ms. Block said. The onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 strained their relationship further. “He was so anti-vax and not wanting to wear masks and saying this was some form of government tyranny,” Ms. Block said.
Children of politicians are already exposed to the public’s approval or disapproval of their parents’ politics, said Christopher Ojeda, an associate professor of political science at the University of California, Merced. In many cases, those young people end up choosing between conflict with their families and conflict with their peers. “They’re kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place,” he said.
Ms. Block, who now works for a nonprofit and is pursuing a master’s degree, said she would have been more willing to overlook their disagreements if her father were not in office. However, he was influencing policies that she believed were hurting people, she said, and he had not been receptive to her private confrontations. “That was when I was like, I think I kind of need to start speaking out about this,” she said.
Ms. Block said she did not want her posts to result in threats for either her or her father. She said she hoped her videos on TikTok, where she has more than 50,000 followers, would encourage people to pay attention to politics at the local and state level.
She is quickly learning that even criticism can become fodder for more content.
When she saw that her father had spoken to The Daily Mail about their relationship, describing her actions as “horrible,” she posted on TikTok again.
“I had a good laugh,” she wrote.
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