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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”
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Hank Pellissier - Share The Money Institute
Reverend Gregory Stevens - Unitarian Universalist EcoSocialist Network
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........* *..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*  Russia Confirms Jailing of Antiwar Leader Boris Kagarlitsky In a secret trial on June 5, 2024, the Russian Supreme Court’s Military Chamber confirmed a sentence of five years in a penal colony for left-wing sociologist and online journalist Boris Kagarlitsky. His crime? “Justifying terrorism” — a sham charge used to silence opponents of Putin’s war on Ukraine. The court disregarded a plea for freedom sent by thirty-seven international luminaries. Kagarlitsky, a leading Marxist thinker in Russia’s post-Soviet period, recently addressed socialists who won’t criticize Putin: “To my Western colleagues, who…call for an understanding of Putin and his regime, I would like to ask a very simple question. [Would] you want to live in a country where there is no free press or independent courts? In a country where the police have the right to break into your house without a warrant? …In a country which…broadcasts appeals on TV to destroy Paris, London, Warsaw, with a nuclear strike?” Thousands of antiwar critics have been forced to flee Russia or are behind bars, swept up in Putin’s vicious crackdown on dissidents. Opposition to the war is consistently highest among the poorest workers. Recently, RusNews journalists Roman Ivanov and Maria Ponomarenko were sentenced to seven, and six years respectively, for reporting the military’s brutal assault on Ukraine. A massive global solidarity campaign that garnered support from thousands was launched at Kagarlitsky’s arrest. Now, it has been revived. This internationalism will bolster the repressed Russian left and Ukrainian resistance to Putin’s imperialism. To sign the online petition at freeboris.info —Freedom Socialist Party, August 2024 https://socialism.com/fs-article/russia-jails-prominent-antiwar-leader-boris-kagarlitsky/#:~:text=In%20a%20secret%20trial%20on,of%20Putin's%20war%20on%20Ukraine. Petition in Support of Boris KagarlitskyWe, the undersigned, were deeply shocked to learn that on February 13 the leading Russian socialist intellectual and antiwar activist Dr. Boris Kagarlitsky (65) was sentenced to five years in prison. Dr. Kagarlitsky was arrested on the absurd charge of 'justifying terrorism' in July last year. After a global campaign reflecting his worldwide reputation as a writer and critic of capitalism and imperialism, his trial ended on December 12 with a guilty verdict and a fine of 609,000 roubles. The prosecution then appealed against the fine as 'unjust due to its excessive leniency' and claimed falsely that Dr. Kagarlitsky was unable to pay the fine and had failed to cooperate with the court. In fact, he had paid the fine in full and provided the court with everything it requested. On February 13 a military court of appeal sent him to prison for five years and banned him from running a website for two years after his release. The reversal of the original court decision is a deliberate insult to the many thousands of activists, academics, and artists around the world who respect Dr. Kagarlitsky and took part in the global campaign for his release. The section of Russian law used against Dr. Kagarlitsky effectively prohibits free expression. The decision to replace the fine with imprisonment was made under a completely trumped-up pretext. Undoubtedly, the court's action represents an attempt to silence criticism in the Russian Federation of the government's war in Ukraine, which is turning the country into a prison. The sham trial of Dr. Kagarlitsky is the latest in a wave of brutal repression against the left-wing movements in Russia. Organizations that have consistently criticized imperialism, Western and otherwise, are now under direct attack, many of them banned. Dozens of activists are already serving long terms simply because they disagree with the policies of the Russian government and have the courage to speak up. Many of them are tortured and subjected to life-threatening conditions in Russian penal colonies, deprived of basic medical care. Left-wing politicians are forced to flee Russia, facing criminal charges. International trade unions such as IndustriALL and the International Transport Federation are banned and any contact with them will result in long prison sentences. There is a clear reason for this crackdown on the Russian left. The heavy toll of the war gives rise to growing discontent among the mass of working people. The poor pay for this massacre with their lives and wellbeing, and opposition to war is consistently highest among the poorest. The left has the message and resolve to expose the connection between imperialist war and human suffering. Dr. Kagarlitsky has responded to the court's outrageous decision with calm and dignity: “We just need to live a little longer and survive this dark period for our country,” he said. Russia is nearing a period of radical change and upheaval, and freedom for Dr. Kagarlitsky and other activists is a condition for these changes to take a progressive course. We demand that Boris Kagarlitsky and all other antiwar prisoners be released immediately and unconditionally. We also call on the authorities of the Russian Federation to reverse their growing repression of dissent and respect their citizens' freedom of speech and right to protest. Sign to Demand the Release of Boris Kagarlitskyhttps://freeboris.infoThe petition is also available on Change.org *..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........* *..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........* |
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Mumia Abu-Jamal is Innocent!
FREE HIM NOW!
Write to Mumia at:
Smart Communications/PADOC
Mumia Abu-Jamal #AM-8335
SCI Mahanoy
P.O. Box 33028
St. Petersburg, FL 33733
Join the Fight for Mumia's Life
Since September, Mumia Abu-Jamal's health has been declining at a concerning rate. He has lost weight, is anemic, has high blood pressure and an extreme flair up of his psoriasis, and his hair has fallen out. In April 2021 Mumia underwent open heart surgery. Since then, he has been denied cardiac rehabilitation care including a healthy diet and exercise.
Donate to Mumia Abu-Jamal's Emergency Legal and Medical Defense Fund, Official 2024
Mumia has instructed PrisonRadio to set up this fund. Gifts donated here are designated for the Mumia Abu-Jamal Medical and Legal Defense Fund. If you are writing a check or making a donation in another way, note this in the memo line.
Send to:
Mumia Medical and Legal Fund c/o Prison Radio
P.O. Box 411074, San Francisco, CA 94103
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Updates From Kevin Cooper
A Never-ending Constitutional Violation
A summary of the current status of Kevin Cooper’s case by the Kevin Cooper Defense Committee
On October 26, 2023, the law firm of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, LLP wrote a rebuttal in response to the Special Counsel's January 13, 2023 report upholding the conviction of their client Kevin Cooper. A focus of the rebuttal was that all law enforcement files were not turned over to the Special Counsel during their investigation, despite a request for them to the San Bernardino County District Attorney's office.
On October 29, 2023, Law Professors Lara Bazelon and Charlie Nelson Keever, who run the six member panel that reviews wrongful convictions for the San Francisco County District Attorney's office, published an OpEd in the San Francisco Chronicle calling the "Innocence Investigation” done by the Special Counsel in the Cooper case a “Sham Investigation” largely because Cooper has unsuccessfully fought for years to obtain the police and prosecutor files in his case. This is a Brady claim, named for the U.S. Supreme court’s 1963 case establishing the Constitutional rule that defendants are entitled to any information in police and prosecutor's possession that could weaken the state's case or point to innocence. Brady violations are a leading cause of wrongful convictions. The Special Counsel's report faults Cooper for not offering up evidence of his own despite the fact that the best evidence to prove or disprove Brady violations or other misconduct claims are in those files that the San Bernardino County District Attorney's office will not turn over to the Special Counsel or to Cooper's attorneys.
On December 14, 2023, the president of the American Bar Association (ABA), Mary Smith, sent Governor Gavin Newsom a three page letter on behalf of the ABA stating in part that Mr.Cooper's counsel objected to the state's failure to provide Special Counsel all documents in their possession relating to Mr.Cooper's conviction, and that concerns about missing information are not new. For nearly 40 years Mr.Cooper's attorneys have sought this same information from the state.
On December 19, 2023, Bob Egelko, a journalist for the San Francisco Chronicle wrote an article about the ABA letter to the Governor that the prosecutors apparently withheld evidence from the Governor's legal team in the Cooper case.
These are just a few recent examples concerning the ongoing failure of the San Bernardino County District Attorney to turn over to Cooper's attorney's the files that have been requested, even though under the law and especially the U.S. Constitution, the District Attorney of San Bernardino county is required to turn over to the defendant any and all material and or exculpatory evidence that they have in their files. Apparently, they must have something in their files because they refuse to turn them over to anyone.
The last time Cooper's attorney's received files from the state, in 2004, it wasn't from the D.A. but a Deputy Attorney General named Holly Wilkens in Judge Huff's courtroom. Cooper's attorneys discovered a never before revealed police report showing that a shirt was discovered that had blood on it and was connected to the murders for which Cooper was convicted, and that the shirt had disappeared. It had never been tested for blood. It was never turned over to Cooper's trial attorney, and no one knows where it is or what happened to it. Cooper's attorneys located the woman who found that shirt on the side of the road and reported it to the Sheriff's Department. She was called to Judge Huff's court to testify about finding and reporting that shirt to law enforcement. That shirt was the second shirt found that had blood on it that was not the victims’ blood. This was in 2004, 19 years after Cooper's conviction.
It appears that this ongoing constitutional violation that everyone—from the Special Counsel to the Governor's legal team to the Governor himself—seems to know about, but won't do anything about, is acceptable in order to uphold Cooper's conviction.
But this type of thing is supposed to be unacceptable in the United States of America where the Constitution is supposed to stand for something other than a piece of paper with writing on it. How can a Governor, his legal team, people who support and believe in him ignore a United States citizen’s Constitutional Rights being violated for 40 years in order to uphold a conviction?
This silence is betrayal of the Constitution. This permission and complicity by the Governor and his team is against everything that he and they claim to stand for as progressive politicians. They have accepted the Special Counsel's report even though the Special Counsel did not receive the files from the district attorney that may not only prove that Cooper is innocent, but that he was indeed framed by the Sheriff’s Department; and that evidence was purposely destroyed and tampered with, that certain witnesses were tampered with, or ignored if they had information that would have helped Cooper at trial, that evidence that the missing shirt was withheld from Cooper's trial attorney, and so much more.
Is the Governor going to get away with turning a blind eye to this injustice under his watch?
Are progressive people going to stay silent and turn their eyes blind in order to hopefully get him to end the death penalty for some while using Cooper as a sacrificial lamb?
An immediate act of solidarity we can all do right now is to write to Kevin and assure him of our continuing support in his fight for justice. Here’s his address:
Kevin Cooper #C65304
Cell 107, Unit E1C
California Health Care Facility, Stockton (CHCF)
P.O. Box 213040
Stockton, CA 95213
www.freekevincooper.org
Call California Governor Newsom:
1-(916) 445-2841
Press 1 for English or 2 for Spanish,
press 6 to speak with a representative and
wait for someone to answer
(Monday-Friday, 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. PST—12:00 P.M. to 8:00 P.M. EST)
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Resources for Resisting Federal Repression
https://www.nlg.org/federalrepressionresources/
Since June of 2020, activists have been subjected to an increasingly aggressive crackdown on protests by federal law enforcement. The federal response to the movement for Black Lives has included federal criminal charges for activists, door knocks by federal law enforcement agents, and increased use of federal troops to violently police protests.
The NLG National Office is releasing this resource page for activists who are resisting federal repression. It includes a link to our emergency hotline numbers, as well as our library of Know-Your-Rights materials, our recent federal repression webinar, and a list of some of our recommended resources for activists. We will continue to update this page.
Please visit the NLG Mass Defense Program page for general protest-related legal support hotlines run by NLG chapters.
Emergency Hotlines
If you are contacted by federal law enforcement, you should exercise all of your rights. It is always advisable to speak to an attorney before responding to federal authorities.
State and Local Hotlines
If you have been contacted by the FBI or other federal law enforcement, in one of the following areas, you may be able to get help or information from one of these local NLG hotlines for:
Portland, Oregon: (833) 680-1312
San Francisco, California: (415) 285-1041 or fbi_hotline@nlgsf.org
Seattle, Washington: (206) 658-7963
National Hotline
If you are located in an area with no hotline, you can call the following number:
National NLG Federal Defense Hotline: (212) 679-2811
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1) Chicagoans Resist I.C.E. Agents
Immigration agents are using aggressive tactics. Residents of the sanctuary city are trying to resist them.
By Julie Bosman, I’m the Chicago bureau chief., Oct. 16, 2025
Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times
During a recent run near Lake Michigan, I watched a black S.U.V. make a U-turn and chase down three young men. Two armed immigration agents, their eyes peeking out from behind their balaclavas, jumped out and approached them. One asked what visas they held.
“H-1B,” they responded, looking bewildered. That’s the visa for foreign workers with special expertise.
Nothing that I could see would have attracted the attention of the agents, except for the fact that the men had brown skin. After questioning them, the agents let them go.
This scene is now unfolding across Chicago every day.
Federal immigration agents have been asking people about their legal status outside churches, homeless shelters, apartment buildings, parks and even a cemetery. Officers have questioned both U.S. citizens and legal residents, asking for passports and visas as proof of identity.
The presence of officers from Border Patrol and ICE has brought forth an intense backlash. Chicagoans are shouting at immigration agents, calling them fascists and Nazis, throwing objects at them and chasing their unmarked S.U.V.s or minivans, honking their horns to warn bystanders of ICE’s presence.
In response to what a Homeland Security official called “a surge in assaults,” the officers are using increasingly aggressive tactics. In recent days, they’ve hurled tear gas, pepper balls and smoke bombs at the public, protesters, journalists and even Chicago police officers, often without warning. Today’s newsletter is about the conflict on the streets of Chicago.
The intervention
The Trump administration began a crackdown on illegal immigration here five weeks ago, promising to help the city by arresting “criminal illegal aliens.” But the tactics are unusual.
Schools. Officers are lingering just off campus in some places. So principals have ordered “soft lockdowns,” keeping students in classrooms until the agents are gone. Last month, ICE tried to arrest a father after a day care drop-off; in the confrontation, he was shot and killed. Now some schools use neighborhood volunteers, at parents’ request, so white adults can walk Latino children home.
Restaurants. Kitchens are often staffed by undocumented immigrants, and ICE knows it. Workers are afraid to leave their homes, and many have cut their hours. One Mexican spot I like keeps its door locked — even when it’s open — as a shield against ICE, allowing customers in one at a time.
Public spaces. Many people, even those with legal status, are asking friends to do their grocery shopping for them. Streets are quieter. One man with legal residency got a $130 ticket for not having his papers, The Chicago Tribune reported.
Why here? It is not surprising to people here that the administration has focused on Chicago, which calls itself a sanctuary city. That means it doesn’t help the federal government deport undocumented immigrants. Half a million Chicagoans, nearly one-fifth of the population, were born outside the United States, and support for immigrants is generally strong in the area. Local police officers won’t ask suspects about their immigration status.
Trump and Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois, a Democrat, have an adversarial relationship, and Trump regularly criticizes Chicago’s Democratic mayor, Brandon Johnson. The president wrote online that they “should be in jail for failing to protect Ice Officers!” City and state leaders said they were receiving no communication from the Department of Homeland Security or the White House about the operations.
The fury over immigration enforcement has expanded in the last few days. After a car chase and crash involving agents, more than 100 people came out of their homes and shouted, “ICE go home.” At least one person threw eggs at the agents, hitting an agent directly in the head. (Trump ordered National Guard troops into Illinois over Pritzker’s objections, but a federal judge blocked their deployment last week.)
In response, federal officers released tear gas on the crowd, including 13 Chicago police officers who had been called to the scene. For weeks, Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have dispersed people filming and shouting at them by shooting pepper balls and tear gas.
This is very different from norms of modern policing: Officers typically release chemical agents only in extreme situations, and only after warnings. Agents have pointed guns at people who get in their way.
On Wednesday, Pritzker complained that ICE was causing “mayhem” and warned that other cities would face the same fate. In the Oval Office yesterday, Trump named San Francisco. He said, “We’re just at the start. We’re going to go into other cities.”
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2) How FEMA Is Pushing Communities to Fend for Themselves
President Trump has said he wants to eventually shift the burden of disaster relief and recovery onto states. It’s already happening.
By Scott Dance, Oct. 16, 2025
Roger King, a resident of Canton, N.C., earlier this month. Hurricane Helene hit western North Carolina a year ago and the town is still operating out of trailers and awaiting some federal funds. Credit...Loren Elliott for The New York Times
Life is inching back to normal in the town of Cave City seven months after a tornado slammed into its corner of northeastern Arkansas. The only grocery store is about to reopen. Crews are starting to dig the foundation for a rebuilt funeral home.
But the town — like so many others facing daunting recoveries from recent disaster — has had to go it alone, Mayor Jonas Anderson said.
The Trump administration denied Cave City’s requests for Federal Emergency Management Agency money to help it recover. Mr. Anderson was forced to forge ahead anyway, racking up a bill of about $300,000 he said could end up eating 15 percent of the small town’s annual budget.
Some of the nearly 2,000 residents have gotten federal help. FEMA agreed to cover repairs to the more than 50 homes damaged or destroyed when 165 mile per hour winds struck in March. The state pledged relief money, too. But Mr. Anderson said Cave City is carrying more of the burden of recovery than expected.
“We’re making a really good recovery not because of some big FEMA reimbursement we got, but in spite of not getting it,” Mr. Anderson said. “People here are super resilient.”
This could be the future for more communities across the country, based on Mr. Trump’s vision for emergency management in the United States: one that would transfer responsibility for disaster recovery from the federal government to the states in all but the largest catastrophes. For many places, it is already the reality.
FEMA has been delaying disaster declarations and aid payments to communities, adding new hurdles to access some grant funds and cutting off the flow of money intended to boost resilience and prevent future disasters from causing so much damage.
Emergency managers and elected officials across the country are adjusting to a system in which they can no longer count on the sort of disaster aid they typically expect from FEMA, which was established in 1979 to coordinate and professionalize disaster response. They are figuring out how to prepare for future disasters without key FEMA grants, raising private funds to replace federal aid and turning to state governments to beef up their preparations. In some places, volunteer disaster recovery squads have sprung up.
In an emailed statement, the FEMA spokesman Daniel Llargues said that the agency has held back some disaster relief funding, saving it for the future. For example, a monthly report on the agency’s spending this summer showed it withheld $11 billion for projects tied to a coronavirus pandemic disaster declaration that states had expected to receive by Sept. 30. Agency officials said those payments are not canceled, but rather deferred into the new fiscal year to ensure the solvency of the government fund used to pay for disaster aid.
“Under President Trump’s leadership, FEMA remains committed to supporting disaster survivors,” Mr. Llargues wrote. He said the agency is managing disaster funding “in a way that prioritizes immediate needs and long-term recovery efforts.”
Still, the consequence of such delays could be that communities find themselves less prepared when disaster does strike, critics said.
“They’re making good on their promise to shift the burden onto states without giving the states any runway to prepare for that,” said Sarah Labowitz, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who tracks disaster recovery spending across the country.
Slower-than-expected hurricane and wildfire seasons have meant few recent tests of the evolving emergency response system, allowing FEMA to stretch its disaster relief fund further than it might otherwise. The fund had been forecast to run out of money by now but as of the end of September, it was projected to contain more than $2 billion, down from a routine $22.5 billion infusion from Congress in March.
Since January, Mr. Trump has approved 32 federal disaster declarations, which make available a variety of federal aid programs to communities and individuals. That’s far fewer than the average of more than 60 declarations per year from fiscal years 2015 through 2024, according to the Congressional Research Service. Mr. Trump has rejected nearly a dozen state requests for FEMA aid so far this year, on par with the numbers of rejections during his first administration as well as President Joe Biden’s term, according to FEMA data.
A steady backlog of pending disaster aid requests has persisted this year, sitting at a dozen as of Tuesday. Under previous administrations, there have rarely been more than a handful of outstanding requests at any given time.
Normally, Congress would appropriate tens of billions of dollars to refill the disaster aid fund at this time of year. Amid a government shutdown stretching into its third week, there has been little discussion of disaster funding on Capitol Hill. A bipartisan group of members is supporting a House bill that would make FEMA a Cabinet-level agency, removing it from the Homeland Security Department while streamlining its payment process and speeding up agency investments in disaster resilience around the country.
Representative Frank Pallone, a Democrat from New Jersey, said a strong FEMA is important for coordinating among states that may have differing capabilities when it comes to handling a crisis.
“These disasters tend to be multistate,” Mr. Pallone said. “If you have to do everything yourself, it’s not going to work because you don't have the expertise.”
Proponents of a trimmed-down FEMA, on the other hand, argue that too much federal aid can prevent communities from investing in their own preparedness. State and local governments are more closely attuned to communities’ needs, and should be equipped to handle the most common and predictable types of disasters, said Dominik Lett, a budget policy analyst at the Cato Institute, a right-leaning research organization.
But in places still recovering from historic disasters, slow and unpredictable support from FEMA demonstrates the limits of those ideas. In western North Carolina a year after Hurricane Helene — and four years after an earlier bout of devastating flooding from the remnants of Tropical Storm Fred — the town of Canton is still operating out of trailers and waiting for federal money it expected for a new town hall and police station, Mayor Zeb Smathers said.
“We should not have to count on recovery like it’s raffle money,” Mr. Smathers said. “It should be streamlined, efficient, dependable. It’s not.”
Camille Rivera, president of La Brega Y Fuerza, a nonprofit group focused on connecting the diaspora of Puerto Ricans spread across the United States, said that if FEMA shifts more responsibility to states and territories, poor communities will suffer. That is already evident in Puerto Rico, where blackouts are common and damage remains from storms going back to Hurricane Maria in 2017. Many residents are turning to crowdfunding websites like GoFundMe instead of waiting for FEMA, Ms. Rivera said.
“We have people who still have tarps on their roofs who haven’t been able to rebuild,” she said. “A lot of communities aren’t even relying on the federal government anymore.”
At the same time, the Trump administration has either paused or canceled grant programs designed to help communities improve their resilience to disasters.
Erik Thorsen, chief executive of Columbia Memorial Hospital on the Oregon coast, said that as construction continues on a $300 million expansion that could withstand a powerful earthquake and tsunami, he is scrambling to replace a $14 million FEMA grant that is no longer coming.
A lawsuit filed by 20 states is seeking to reinstate the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities grant program, saying that since it was established in 2018 during Mr. Trump’s first term, its roughly $4.5 billion in investments have prevented $150 billion in disaster damage.
In Cave City, where plans for a new park and community center are on hold because the town has to devote its tax revenue to tornado recovery, Mr. Anderson said he understands why President Trump would want states to handle more disasters. They know their residents’ needs best, after all.
But when that shift happens seemingly overnight, it creates uncertainty that makes it harder for local officials to make decisions, and can leave livelihoods hanging in the balance, Mr. Anderson said.
“It’s definitely going to have to be an adjustment,” he said. “Nobody has the resources that the federal government can have.”
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3) Trump Administration Authorizes Covert C.I.A. Action in Venezuela
The development comes as the U.S. military is drawing up options for President Trump to consider, including possible strikes inside the country.
By Julian E. Barnes and Tyler Pager, Reporting from Washington, Published Oct. 15, 2025, Updated Oct. 16, 2025
“The new authority would allow the C.I.A. to carry out lethal operations in Venezuela and conduct a range of operations in the Caribbean. … The scale of the military buildup in the region is substantial: There are currently 10,000 U.S. troops there, most of them at bases in Puerto Rico, but also a contingent of Marines on amphibious assault ships. In all, the Navy has eight surface warships and a submarine in the Caribbean. … The Trump administration’s strategy on Venezuela, developed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, with help from John Ratcliffe, the C.I.A. director, aims to oust Mr. Maduro from power. … In 1954, the agency orchestrated a coup that overthrew President Jacobo Árbenz of Guatemala, ushering in decades of instability. The C.I.A.-backed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961 ended in disaster, and the agency repeatedly tried to assassinate Fidel Castro. That same year, however, the C.I.A. supplied weapons to dissidents who assassinated Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina, the authoritarian leader of the Dominican Republic. The agency also had its hands in a 1964 coup in Brazil, the death of Che Guevara and other machinations in Bolivia, a 1973 coup in Chile, and the contra fight against the leftist Sandinista government of Nicaragua in the 1980s.”
A street market in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital. John Ratcliffe, the C.I.A. director, has said little about what his agency is doing in the country. Adriana Loureiro Fernandez for The New York Times
The Trump administration has secretly authorized the C.I.A. to conduct covert action in Venezuela, according to U.S. officials, stepping up a campaign against Nicolás Maduro, the country’s authoritarian leader.
The authorization is the latest step in the Trump administration’s intensifying pressure campaign against Venezuela. For weeks, the U.S. military has been targeting boats off the Venezuelan coast it says are transporting drugs, killing 27 people. American officials have been clear, privately, that the end goal is to drive Mr. Maduro from power.
Mr. Trump acknowledged on Wednesday that he had authorized the covert action and said the United States was considering strikes on Venezuelan territory.
“We are certainly looking at land now, because we’ve got the sea very well under control,” the president told reporters hours after The New York Times reported the secret authorization.
Any strikes on Venezuelan territory would be a significant escalation. After several of the boat strikes, the administration made the point that the operations had taken place in international waters.
The new authority would allow the C.I.A. to carry out lethal operations in Venezuela and conduct a range of operations in the Caribbean.
The agency would be able to take covert action against Mr. Maduro or his government either unilaterally or in conjunction with a larger military operation. It is not known whether the C.I.A. is planning any specific operations in Venezuela.
But the development comes as the U.S. military is planning its own possible escalation, drawing up options for President Trump to consider, including strikes inside Venezuela.
The scale of the military buildup in the region is substantial: There are currently 10,000 U.S. troops there, most of them at bases in Puerto Rico, but also a contingent of Marines on amphibious assault ships. In all, the Navy has eight surface warships and a submarine in the Caribbean.
The new authorities, known in intelligence jargon as a presidential finding, were described by multiple U.S. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the highly classified document.
In a statement, Venezuela rejected Mr. Trump’s “bellicose” language, and accused him of seeking “to legitimize regime change with the ultimate goal of appropriating Venezuela’s petroleum resources.”
Venezuela said it planned to raise the matter at the U.N. Security Council on Thursday, calling Mr. Trump’s actions “a grave violation of the U.N. charter.”
Mr. Trump ordered an end to diplomatic talks with the Maduro government this month as he grew frustrated with the Venezuelan leader’s failure to accede to U.S. demands to give up power voluntarily and the continued insistence by officials that they had no part in drug trafficking.
The C.I.A. has long had authority to work with governments in Latin America on security matters and intelligence sharing. That has allowed the agency to work with Mexican officials to target drug cartels. But those authorizations do not allow the agency to carry out direct lethal operations.
The Trump administration’s strategy on Venezuela, developed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, with help from John Ratcliffe, the C.I.A. director, aims to oust Mr. Maduro from power.
Mr. Ratcliffe has said little about what his agency is doing in Venezuela. But he has promised that the C.I.A. under his leadership would become more aggressive. During his confirmation hearing, Mr. Ratcliffe said he would make the C.I.A. less averse to risk and more willing to conduct covert action when ordered by the president, “going places no one else can go and doing things no one else can do.”
The C.I.A. declined to comment.
On Wednesday, Mr. Trump said he had made the authorization because Venezuela had “emptied their prisons into the United States of America.”
The president appeared to be referring to claims by his administration that members of the Tren de Aragua prison gang had been sent into the United States to commit crimes. In March, Mr. Trump proclaimed that the gang, which was founded in a Venezuelan prison, was a terrorist organization that was “conducting irregular warfare” against the United States under the orders of the Maduro government.
An intelligence community assessment in February contradicted that claim, detailing why spy agencies did not think the gang was under the Maduro government’s control, though the F.B.I. partly dissented. A top Trump administration official pressed for the assessment to be redone. The initial assessment was reaffirmed by the National Intelligence Council. Afterward, the council’s acting director, Michael Collins, was fired from his post.
The United States has offered $50 million for information leading to Mr. Maduro’s arrest and conviction on U.S. drug trafficking charges.
Mr. Rubio, who also serves as Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, has called Mr. Maduro illegitimate, and the Trump administration describes him as a “narcoterrorist.”
Mr. Maduro blocked the government that was democratically elected last year from taking power. But the Trump administration’s accusations that he has profited from the narcotics trade and that his country is a major producer of drugs for the United States have been debated.
The administration has asserted in legal filings that Mr. Maduro controls Tren de Aragua. But an assessment by U.S. intelligence agencies contradicts that conclusion.
While the Trump administration has publicly offered relatively thin legal justifications for its campaign, Mr. Trump told Congress that he decided the United States was in an armed conflict with drug cartels it views as terrorist organizations. In the congressional notice late last month, the Trump administration said the cartels smuggling drugs were “nonstate armed groups” whose actions “constitute an armed attack against the United States.”
White House findings authorizing covert action are closely guarded secrets. They are often reauthorized from administration to administration, and their precise language is rarely made public. They also constitute one of the rawest uses of executive authority.
Select members of Congress are briefed on the authorizations, but lawmakers cannot make them public, and conducting oversight of possible covert actions is difficult.
While U.S. military operations, like the strikes against boats purportedly carrying drugs from Venezuelan territory, are generally made public, C.I.A. covert actions are typically kept secret. Some, however, like the C.I.A. operation in which Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden in 2011, are quickly made public.
The agency has been stepping up its work on counternarcotics for years. Gina Haspel, Mr. Trump’s second C.I.A. director during his first administration, devoted more resources to drug hunting in Mexico and Latin America. Under William J. Burns, the Biden administration’s director, the C.I.A. began flying drones over Mexico, hunting for fentanyl labs, operations that Mr. Ratcliffe expanded.
The covert finding is in some ways a natural evolution of those antidrug efforts. But the C.I.A.’s history of covert action in Latin America and the Caribbean is mixed at best.
In 1954, the agency orchestrated a coup that overthrew President Jacobo Árbenz of Guatemala, ushering in decades of instability. The C.I.A.-backed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961 ended in disaster, and the agency repeatedly tried to assassinate Fidel Castro. That same year, however, the C.I.A. supplied weapons to dissidents who assassinated Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina, the authoritarian leader of the Dominican Republic.
The agency also had its hands in a 1964 coup in Brazil, the death of Che Guevara and other machinations in Bolivia, a 1973 coup in Chile, and the contra fight against the leftist Sandinista government of Nicaragua in the 1980s.
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4) Trump Considers Overhaul of Refugee System That Would Favor White People
The proposals would transform a program aimed at helping the most vulnerable people in the world into one that gives preference to mostly white people who say they are being persecuted.
By Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Hamed Aleaziz, Reporting from Washington, Published Oct. 15, 2025, Updated Oct. 16, 2025
Some of the dozens of white South Africans who accepted an invitation from the Trump administration to come to the United States as refugees arrived at an air hangar in Dulles, Va., in May. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
The Trump administration is considering a radical overhaul of the U.S. refugee system that would slash the program to its bare bones while giving preference to English speakers, white South Africans and Europeans who oppose migration, according to documents obtained by The New York Times.
The proposals, some of which already have gone into effect, would transform a decades-old program aimed at helping the world’s most desperate people into one that conforms to Mr. Trump’s vision of immigration — which is to help mostly white people who say they are being persecuted while keeping the vast majority of other people out.
The plans were presented to the White House in April and July by officials in the State and Homeland Security Departments after President Trump directed federal agencies to study whether refugee resettlement was in the interest of the United States. Mr. Trump had suspended refugee admissions on his first day in office and solicited the proposals about how and whether the administration should continue the program.
Trump administration officials have not ruled out any of the ideas, according to people familiar with the planning, although there is no set timetable for approving or rejecting the ideas. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the confidential plans.
The proposed changes would put new emphasis on whether applicants would be able to assimilate into the United States, directing them to take classes on “American history and values” and “respect for cultural norms.”
The proposals also advise Mr. Trump to prioritize Europeans who have been “targeted for peaceful expression of views online such as opposition to mass migration or support for ‘populist’ political parties.”
That appeared to be a reference to the European far-right political party Alternative for Germany, whose leaders have trivialized the Holocaust, revived Nazi slogans and denigrated foreigners. Vice President JD Vance has criticized Germany for trying to suppress the views of the group, which is known as the AfD.
A senior official said the Trump administration was monitoring the situation in Europe to determine whether anyone would be eligible for refugee status. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the plan had not been finalized.
Mr. Trump enacted some of the proposals in the documents even before the plans were submitted to him, including slashing refugee admissions and offering priority status to Afrikaners, the white minority that once ran South Africa’s brutal apartheid system.
Mr. Trump has claimed that Afrikaners face racial persecution in their home country, a claim vigorously disputed by government officials there. Police statistics do not show that white people are more vulnerable to violent crime than other people in South Africa.
Taken together, the proposals provide a window into Mr. Trump’s intentions for a program that has come to symbolize America’s role as a sanctuary.
Mr. Trump and many American voters have rejected that role after years of record illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border. Although the refugee program, with its meticulous screening processes and yearslong waits, is considered the “right way” of seeking protection in the United States, Mr. Trump has made clear he wants to crack down on immigration in general — both legal and illegal.
According to the rationale laid out in the documents submitted to Mr. Trump, America’s acceptance of refugees has made the country too diverse.
“The sharp increase in diversity has reduced the level of social trust essential for the functioning of a democratic polity,” according to one of the documents. The administration should only welcome “refugees who can be fully and appropriately assimilate, and are aligned with the president’s objectives.”
To that end, the documents say, Mr. Trump should cancel the applications of hundreds of thousands of people who are already in the pipeline to come to the United States as refugees, many of whom have gone through extensive security checks and referrals.
And Mr. Trump’s federal agencies proposed imposing limits on the number of refugees who can resettle in communities that already have a high population of immigrants, on the basis that the United States should avoid “the concentration of non-native citizens” in order to promote assimilation.
Thomas Pigott, a spokesman for the State Department, would not comment on specific details of the documents, but he said: “It should come as no surprise that the State Department is implementing the priorities of the duly elected president of the United States.” He added: “This administration unapologetically prioritizes the interests of the American people.”
The administration has made some exceptions to its refugee ban. According to the documents, federal agencies have worked to resettle a limited number of Afghans who assisted U.S. soldiers during the war.
Critics say the plans exposes the president’s vision for what America should look like.
“It reflects a preexisting notion among some in the Trump administration as to who are the true Americans,” said Barbara L. Strack, a former chief of the refugee affairs division at Citizenship and Immigration Services during the Bush, Obama and Trump administrations. “And they think it’s white people and they think it’s Christians.”
Other changes include more intensive security vetting for refugees, including expanded DNA tests for children to ensure they are related to the adults they are traveling with.
Mr. Trump also is planning to slash the number of refugees allowed into the United States to 7,500 in the upcoming year, a drastic decrease from the limit of 125,000 set by the Biden administration last year.
Mr. Trump is required by law to consult Congress on imposing a refugee limit, but White House officials say the government shutdown has delayed that.
Administration officials are not done submitting proposals to the White House. According to a draft of a third report, obtained by The New York Times, the latest proposal calls for U.S. embassies to make referrals for who should be considered for refugee status, rather than the United Nations, which has long been the practice. The change would allow for greater American control of who gets funneled into the refugee pipeline.
At the United Nations General Assembly summit last month, Christopher Landau, the deputy secretary of state, defended the Trump administration’s approach during a panel on refugee policies.
“Saying that the process is susceptible to abuse is not being xenophobic, it is not being a mean or bad person,” Mr. Landau said.
The administration has argued that allowing thousands of refugees from all over the world to enter the nation would overwhelm American communities that have already called for additional resources to assist the record number of migrants who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border during the Biden administration.
Migrants at the border, however, seek protection through a program separate from that of refugees, who often wait years overseas before they are vetted to travel to the United States. The refugee program has historically received bipartisan support from both Republicans and Democrats.
Mr. Trump and the architect of his immigration restrictions, Stephen Miller, have for years sought to limit the number of refugees entering the United States, particularly from Africa or Muslim-majority nations. During his first term, Mr. Trump demanded to know at a White House meeting why he would accept immigrants from Haiti and African nations, which he described as “shithole countries,” rather than Europe.
His administration now appears prepared to turn those sentiments into policy.
In the report, administration officials also proposed banning refugees from resettling in U.S. communities that have requested federal aid to assist migrants in recent years.
But many local leaders and refugee advocates argue that not only can refugees adjust to life in America effectively, they also benefit local economies.
Marian Abernathy, a lay leader at the Judea Reform Congregation synagogue in Durham, N.C., has helped refugees who had settled in her community since 2016, including a dozen families in the last four years from Afghanistan, Ukraine, Haiti, Venezuela and Syria.
The refugees have worked as nursing aides, engineers, Uber drivers, medical technicians and lunch coordinators at local schools, she said.
“They come to dinner at our houses,” she said. “We go to dinner at their houses. We go to events together, hang out at the museum. I don’t feel like they’re not integrated.”
“I’ve rarely seen a group of people,” she said, “who work harder and who want fewer handouts.”
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5) Renting a San Francisco Apartment in the A.I. Boom? Good Luck.
The artificial intelligence gold rush has pushed San Francisco’s residential rents up by the most in the nation, as A.I. companies lease apartments and offer rent stipends to employees.
By Natallie Rocha, Reporting from San Francisco, Oct. 16, 2025
Roy Lee, Cluely’s chief executive, at his home in Cluely’s office in San Francisco. His start-up has leased apartments for its employees. Amy Osborne for The New York Times
After Roy Lee’s artificial intelligence start-up, Cluely, landed $5.3 million in venture capital funding this spring, he orchestrated a San Francisco real estate coup.
In May, Cluely leased eight apartments for its employees at a new luxury complex — where rents start at $3,000 a month and reach $12,000 a month for penthouse units — just a one-minute walk from its office in the city’s South of Market neighborhood. The apartments were a mix of one-bedroom and two-bedroom units in the 16-story building, which offers a fitness center, a rooftop bar, and concierge and housecleaning services.
“Going to the office should feel like you’re walking to your living room, so we really, really want people close,” said Mr. Lee, 22, who chose not to move into the apartments and lives in Cluely’s office, which is housed in a loftlike single-family home. “I feel like I’m more trying to build a frat house, and you don’t commute to a frat house.”
Driven by a boom in A.I. companies like Cluely, San Francisco’s residential rents have soared the most in the nation over the past year. Apartment prices in the city rose an average of 6 percent in that time, more than double the 2.5 percent increase in New York City, according to the real estate tracker CoStar. That now puts the average rent for a San Francisco apartment at $3,315 a month, right behind New York City’s $3,360, which is the nation’s highest.
The A.I. frenzy’s effect on rents has put pressure on San Francisco’s already strained housing supply, leading to heated competition among techies and non-techies to pounce on listings. Applicants are showing up to apartment tours with envelopes of cash in hand and waiting in long lines to see properties. And the rejections for would-be renters are coming fast.
That has raised questions about the affordability of San Francisco, which has long been one of the most expensive U.S. cities. Daniel Lurie, the mayor, has made addressing affordable housing a cornerstone of his policies, while also embracing the growth of local A.I. companies like OpenAI and Anthropic.
“Honestly, I’ve never seen anything like it before,” said Will Goodman, a principal at Strada Investment Group, which developed the luxury complex that Cluely leased from. Within two months of the development’s opening in May, he said, half of the 501 units had been rented.
Ted Egan, the chief economist for the City and County of San Francisco, said the city’s market rents today are still below prepandemic levels when adjusted for inflation. But many service workers who left rent-controlled apartments during the pandemic would now find it difficult to return, he acknowledged.
“Tech is setting the bar for housing prices,” Mr. Egan said.
Caroline Roche, 25, a demand planner at Backroads, a travel company, recently experienced the rental scarcity firsthand. She has moved twice in San Francisco since arriving in 2022 for her first job after college. But as she prepared for a third move this summer, Ms. Roche was stunned by how much harder it was to find apartments in her desired neighborhoods.
When she and her partner showed up to a property tour in the North of the Panhandle neighborhood, they found 20 other couples waiting. In some cases, she said, she has received same-day denials for her rental applications.
“It was frustrating to just feel like you’re kind of doing things right in life — you have your job, you’re paying off your credit card — and you still aren’t in the demographic that can afford necessarily what you want,” she said.
Ms. Roche and her partner treated the apartment hunt as a second job and did 25 tours in a week, she said, before getting “super lucky” by finding a one-bedroom apartment in their $3,200 monthly budget near Golden Gate Park. She does not plan on moving for at least two years, she said.
Landlords used to receive only a few rental applications within a month of listing an apartment, but now are getting one to three on the same day an apartment lists, said Ryan Shane, president of the Housing Guild Management Company, which manages mostly Victorian and Edwardian-style apartment buildings.
“It’s much, much easier than it has been in a very long time,” he said.
Neighborhoods near A.I. companies — such as Mission Bay, where OpenAI has its headquarters — are particularly popular. Rents in Mission Bay jumped 13 percent over the past year, according to CoStar. Many techies at A.I. start-ups work long hours and want to live close to their offices, said Strada’s Mr. Goodman.
Flo Crivello, 33, the chief executive of Lindy, a start-up that makes A.I. software, said he offers his approximately 40 employees a $1,000-a-month rent stipend if they live within a 10-minute walk of the company’s office.
Two employees accepted the offer a few years ago when Lindy was in an office near the Hayes Valley and Duboce Triangle neighborhoods, he said. But he has not had any takers since moving Lindy to an office in the SoMa area and is considering expanding the radius.
“People are so much happier and healthier when they live close to work,” Mr. Crivello said. “This makes them stick around for longer, perform better and work longer hours.”
In August, Taylor Cordoba, 23, who is working on an A.I. medical technology start-up, waited in line at an apartment showing in North Beach as about 15 other people milled around.
Ahead of her in line, someone showed rental paperwork to the landlord and offered to pay the deposit on site, with about $7,000 in an envelope, she said. At another showing in Pacific Heights, a person in line showed the landlord a job offer letter, offered to pay the deposit and begged to sign immediately, she said.
It was “stressful,” said Ms. Cordoba, who visited more than a dozen apartments over two months. She finally found a three-bedroom apartment for $6,000 a month with two roommates in the Cow Hollow neighborhood.
Ia Balbuena, 27, resorted to posting signs on telephone poles around neighborhoods that she wanted to live in during a summer search for a studio apartment. “If you or someone you know are moving out of their studio or 1br send me a text!” she wrote, with an illustration of herself and her two cats, Miso and Frida.
The signs did not work. But after about eight tours, said Ms. Balbuena, who works as an office manager at a venture capital firm, she got “really lucky” and found a studio near Haight Ashbury for $2,500 a month.
The whole process was “crazy,” she said. “But in this climate, it feels completely normal.”
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6) Where Does the Israel-Hamas Cease-Fire Stand?
Unresolved issues — mainly over the exchange of the remains of hostages and prisoners — threaten to destabilize the fragile agreement.
By Liam Stack, Reporting from Tel Aviv, Oct. 16, 2025
Palestinians returning to Gaza City on Saturday. Credit...Saher Alghorra for The New York Times
The cease-fire between Israel and Hamas has held for almost a week now. But the deal rests on shaky ground, with a number of unresolved issues.
The primary source of tension at the moment is a dispute over the exchange of the remains of hostages taken from Israel two years ago for the bodies of Palestinian prisoners and detainees.
At the core of the problem is the deep enmity and fundamental mistrust between the two sides, neither of which believes the other is sincere about holding up its end of the agreement.
Here is where things stand:
The Return of Hostage Remains
By Thursday, Hamas had returned 10 bodies to Israel, most of them of former hostages. The cease-fire agreement stipulated that the group was supposed to immediately return all the remaining bodies in Gaza, believed to be roughly two dozen.
The agreement included an acknowledgment that the destruction in Gaza would make it difficult to find all the bodies quickly, and laid out a process for extending the deadline and providing assistance to recover remains.
That process centers on the establishment of a joint task force, to include the United States and other mediators, that would pool information and help find the remaining bodies, according to three Israeli officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive issues.
Hamas’s military wing said on Wednesday night that it had handed over all of the remains of Israeli hostages that it had been able to recover without additional special equipment. Hamas has said it is doing all it can to locate and return the bodies but the process is hampered by the destruction in Gaza.
On Thursday, Gideon Saar, the Israeli foreign minister, accused Hamas of violating the agreement in comments during a diplomatic visit to Italy.
He said that 19 dead hostages were still being held by Hamas and that “we know for certain that they could easily release a significant number of hostages in accordance with the agreement.” He added that Israel had shared its concerns with the Americans and expected the cease-fire mediators to help resolve the problem immediately.
Israel has said it is considering restrictions on aid in retaliation, according to two diplomats who were briefed by Israeli officials and spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive topics.
But three Israeli officials said earlier this week that they did not believe Hamas was slow-walking the process or acting in bad faith.
Late on Thursday, Hamas said it was committed to the agreement and reiterated in a statement that extracting the remaining bodies requires equipment to remove the rubble. It noted that the necessary tools are “unavailable due to the occupation’s ban on their entry” and that therefore “any delay in the return of the bodies falls entirely on the Netanyahu government.”
The Handover of Palestinian Bodies
Israel was supposed to return 15 Palestinian bodies to Gaza in exchange for every hostage body that it received. But by Thursday, it had returned 120 bodies to Gaza in exchange for the 10 bodies handed over by Hamas, fewer than required by the deal.
On Thursday night, David Mercer, a spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said the exchange mechanism in the agreement applied only to the handover of bodies of Israeli hostages.
Of the 10 bodies handed over by Hamas, one was a Palestinian, and another was a Nepalese citizen, and Mr. Mercer said Israel was not required to release Palestinian bodies in exchange for those.
“Israel is keeping to the deal,” he said.
The bodies have been given to officials at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, who said they received no information about who they were or how Israel had them.
The bodies were labeled only with numbers assigned by Israel but no names, Gaza hospital officials said.
Increasing Aid to Gaza
The cease-fire deal calls for a significant expansion of aid in Gaza, including the entrance of at least 600 aid trucks per day.
The United Nations has said that more aid is entering Gaza now than before the cease-fire, which took effect on Friday. But it also said that Israel had not yet given aid groups the green light to ramp up deliveries enough to address the humanitarian crisis.
Stéphane Dujarric, a spokesman for the U.N. secretary general, said on Wednesday that U.N. teams had been largely unable to get any aid into Gaza for two days earlier this week.
On Monday, the main crossings into Gaza, Kerem Shalom and Kissufim, were closed because the Israeli military was giving priority to the prisoner and hostage exchange. Aid was also unable to enter on Tuesday because aid workers could not collect cargo on the Gaza side of the crossing.
Mr. Dujarric said he did not know whether the goal of 600 trucks had been reached on any day this week.
Border Crossings
Israel had agreed to reopen the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt, which has been mostly closed since the war began. But it has not done so yet.
On Thursday, Mr. Saar, the Israeli foreign minister, said the crossing would most likely reopen on Sunday. It will be monitored by a team from the E.U. mission, the European Union said.
But aid will not enter through Rafah. On Thursday, the Israeli military said the cease-fire deal did not call for aid to enter through that crossing, and that it would be open only for people who wished to travel between Gaza and Egypt.
The Next Phase of Negotiations
The cease-fire deal that went into effect last week addressed only a handful of the points laid out by President Trump in his peace plan. In addition to the cease-fire and exchange of hostages and prisoners, Israeli forces pulled back from parts of Gaza.
But the deal left some of the most complicated issues to be negotiated at a later stage, including whether Hamas will give up its weapons, who will govern Gaza in the future and how will they govern it.
Those issues will be discussed during Phase 2 talks, but it is not clear when those will begin. An Israeli official said this week that a second round of talks would not start until the first phase was completed.
Natan Odenheimer, Aaron Boxerman and Rawan Sheikh Ahmad contributed reporting.
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7) Russia Jails Street Band for Performing Antiwar Songs
The group, called Stoptime, had been performing anti-Kremlin songs for months and gaining in popularity before the authorities moved against the open dissent.
By Ivan Nechepurenko, Reporting from St. Petersburg, Russia, Oct. 17, 2025
Diana Loginova, left, arriving for a court hearing in St. Petersburg, Russia, on Thursday. Credit...Anton Vaganov/Reuters
A Russian court has sentenced three members of a popular street band to jail after they performed antiwar and anti-Kremlin songs in St. Petersburg, as Moscow continues to crack down on open displays of dissent against its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
On Thursday, a district court sentenced Diana Loginova, the lead singer of Stoptime who goes by the stage name of Naoko, and Vladislav Leontyev, the band’s drummer, to 13 days of administrative detention. Aleksandr Orlov, the guitarist, was sentenced to 12 days. They were found guilty of organizing a concert that obstructed pedestrian access to a subway station.
The band members were detained on Wednesday and denied the charges, pointing out that no one had complained that they made it difficult to enter the station.
Court records showed that another case was opened against Ms. Loginova, 18, for allegedly discrediting the Russian Army. If she is found guilty, she could be fined.
The number of subscribers to the band’s Telegram channel has surged this week, to 37,000 on Friday from 11,000 on Monday. In its last post on the social media app, Stoptime said it would not comment on the situation and confirmed all future performances were suspended.
To many in St. Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city, the band’s arrest may have seemed inevitable. The Russian authorities have effectively outlawed open opposition to the government and threatened perpetrators with arrest.
Yet for months, Stoptime had played songs widely associated with the anti-Kremlin and antiwar opposition.
On Monday, at the band’s last concert before the members were arrested, a crowd of about 100 people watched them perform and loudly sang along on a busy pedestrian street in the city center. Many were dedicated fans and members of the band’s channel on Telegram, where they would announce their shows a few hours beforehand.
“They are doing a dangerous thing,” said Innokentiy Molchanov, 17, who has been a regular concertgoer. “But they are important because at least someone should say the truth.”
The band displayed a QR code and a phone number linked to its bank account for donations taped to the synthesizer. A young man walked around with a pink hat collecting cash donations. Many of the spectators, most of them young, knew one another and saw themselves as part of a community of fans.
“I have been coming to almost every concert,” said Nataliya, 19, who works at a kindergarten and declined to give her last name, fearing government repercussions.
“People who gather here cannot express their thoughts openly, and you feel warmth and support, something that you cannot feel anywhere else,” she added.
Stoptime’s repertoire included songs by popular antiwar musicians who have gone into exile after publicly opposing the Kremlin. One by Noize MC, a Russian rapper, for example, alluded to corruption by President Vladimir V. Putin and ridiculed justifications used by state propaganda in support of the invasion of Ukraine. In May, the song was banned by a Russian court as extremist.
The band also performed a song by Pornofilmy, a Russian punk band, that included the refrain “Uncle Volodya, tighten up our screws,” a veiled reference to Mr. Putin. Volodya is a diminutive form of the name Vladimir.
Songs by Monetochka and Zemfira, two of Russia’s most popular singers who went into exile after being designated “foreign agents” by the Russian government for opposing the war in Ukraine, were on the set list, too.
For weeks, Stoptime’s concerts went largely unnoticed. The group was one of many street bands that performed every night in major squares and intersections along St. Petersburg’s Nevskiy Prospekt, the city’s main thoroughfare.
But as people began posting footage of the performances online, the band attracted the attention of Russia’s pro-war nationalists. At the end of August, police officers detained the band members for violating the law that prohibits playing loud songs at night. They were released hours later.
But this fall, as their popularity grew, so did their problems. Conservative commentators began to criticize their performances and openly called for their arrests.
“They’re jumping around — they like the little tune, and the rhymes are easy to memorize,” Marina Akhmedova, a pro-Kremlin journalist and activist, wrote on Monday in a post on Telegram. “That’s all there is to it. They think they’re cool — protesting against the big man in the center of St. Petersburg.”
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