*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
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
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
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
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
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 *..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........* *..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........* |
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
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
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
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)
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
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
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
1) Trump Fires Black Officials From an Overwhelmingly White Administration
Separately, in the administration’s first 200 days, only two of 98 Senate-confirmed appointees to the most senior jobs in government were Black.
By Elisabeth Bumiller and Erica L. Green, Reporting from Washington, Oct. 8, 2025
Robert E. Primus was part of a series of firings of Black officials from high-profile positions in the Trump administration. Alyssa Schukar for The New York Times
Robert E. Primus, the first Black board chairman of the federal regulator responsible for approving railroad mergers, at first thought there was something wrong with his work phone. When he couldn’t unlock it he switched to his personal phone, only to learn that President Trump had fired him by email, effective immediately.
“I didn’t see it coming at all,” Mr. Primus, a Democrat, said in a recent interview. In January, the Trump administration had put a Republican in his place as the chairman of the Surface Transportation Board, which Mr. Primus saw as the president’s prerogative. But he had been appointed to the independent board by Mr. Trump in his first term and expected to remain on it, as had been the longstanding practice.
Instead, he heard a White House spokesman say the day after his firing in August that he did not “align” with the president’s agenda. Mr. Primus, a longtime congressional staff member and former lobbyist on transportation and national security matters, was reminded, he said, of Mr. Trump’s widely condemned comment during the 2024 campaign that immigrants were taking “Black jobs.”
“Maybe he felt that this job was not intended for Blacks," said Mr. Primus, 55. He acknowledged he was speculating, he said, but “it’s legitimate speculation. Because if you look across the board, there is a pattern.”
Mr. Primus is part of a series of firings of Black officials from high-profile positions in an overwhelmingly white administration that has banished all diversity, equity and inclusion programs across the federal government. And while there are no statistics on firings by race, an examination of the people Mr. Trump is appointing to fill those and other jobs shows a stark trend.
Of the president’s 98 Senate-confirmed appointees to the administration’s most senior leadership roles in its first 200 days, ending on Aug. 7, only two, or 2 percent — Scott Turner, the secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and Earl G. Matthews, the Defense Department’s general counsel — are Black.
Trump nominates few Black people to his administration
Senate-confirmed appointees by race and ethnicity at the 200-day mark in presidential administrations.
The statistics were compiled for the Brookings Institution by Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, a senior fellow at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center who specializes in presidential personnel. The statistics track appointments to the 15 cabinet departments in the presidential line of succession: Treasury, Defense, Justice, Homeland Security, Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, Labor, Energy, Health and Human Services, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development and Veterans Affairs.
“Trump seemed to be very proud to have ‘Blacks for Trump’ at all of his rallies and behind the podium, but not behind him in the cabinet meetings,” said Dedrick Asante-Muhammad, the president of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a think tank that tracks Black representation in government leadership, among other markers. The dearth of Black people at the top, he said, would result in “radical substantive policy changes” for African Americans.
“When we’re not in the room,” he said, “things don’t tend to go better for us.”
Mr. Trump’s highest-profile firing of a senior Black leader was in February, when he ousted Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., the second Black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the nation’s senior military official. Joint Chiefs chairmen traditionally remain in place as administrations change, regardless of the president’s party, and in 2020 Mr. Trump had nominated General Brown, a fighter pilot, to be the Air Force’s chief of staff. But Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had previously said that General Brown should be fired because of a “woke” focus on D.E.I. programs in the military and questioned whether he was promoted because of his race.
General Brown was replaced with a little-known Air Force general, Dan Caine.
The president has fired other Black officials, like Mr. Primus, from top jobs at government agencies and independent boards that typically serve multiple administrations.
Those terminated include Carla Hayden, the first African-American and the first woman to be the librarian of Congress; Gwynne A. Wilcox, the first Black woman to serve as a member of the National Labor Relations Board; and Alvin Brown, the only Black member of the National Transportation Safety Board at the time of his removal.
Willie L. Phillips, the first Black person to be the chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, stepped down from his position in April at the request of the White House. The president has since nominated David LaCerte to replace him.
Mr. Trump has tried to fire Lisa Cook, the first Black woman to serve on the Fed’s board of governors, but she has sued to stop him. Last week, the Supreme Court declined to allow Mr. Trump to immediately remove her and said it would review his efforts to oust her at oral arguments in January.
Mr. Primus, Mr. Brown and Ms. Wilcox have also filed lawsuits asking to be reinstated.
General Brown, Dr. Hayden and Mr. Phillips have been replaced by white men. A white man has been nominated to replace Mr. Brown, and two white men have been nominated to fill seats on the labor relations board after Ms. Wilcox was fired. Mr. Primus and Ms. Cook have not yet been replaced.
“You don’t need a very sophisticated analysis to read into what this means,” said Cathy Albisa, the former vice president at Race Forward, a nonprofit that promotes racial equity in government. Ms. Albisa now runs an organization, Branch4, supporting federal workers. “It is a resegregation of the work force, and an attack on the Black middle class.”
In the first Trump administration, there were fewer high-profile firings of Black workers. But there was only one Black official — Ben Carson, the housing secretary — among the 70 Senate-confirmed nominees to the major government departments in the first 200 days. (Dr. Carson returned to the administration last month as an adviser to the Agriculture Department.)
In the same 200-day period for previous presidents, according to Brookings, Black officials accounted for 21 percent of Senate-confirmed nominees under President Joseph R. Biden Jr., 13 percent under President Barack Obama and 8 percent under President George W. Bush.
Black Americans make up about 14 percent of the U.S. population.
A White House spokesman, Kush Desai, rejected criticism that Mr. Trump was undermining Black Americans. But he did not address the lack of diversity in appointments.
“President Trump pledged to build a government and economy that works for every American, and the administration is hard at work restoring the historic private-sector job, wage and economic growth that Americans, including Black Americans, enjoyed during his first term,” Mr. Desai said.
Mr. Trump informed Ms. Wilcox in a late-night email on Jan. 27 that she was being removed from her position on the labor relations board, effective immediately. No cause was given. It was the beginning of the administration’s test of the boundaries of the president’s power over independent agencies.
Ms. Wilcox, a Democrat and former union lawyer, was the first board member in its 90-year history to be removed by a president. A week before, in the very first hours of his administration, Mr. Trump had signed an executive order calling for an end to D.E.I. programs and the “termination of all discriminatory programs” in the government, including in federal employment practices.
“We had targets on our backs, no doubt about it, by virtue of the color of our skin,” Ms. Wilcox, 72, said in an interview. “But I did not get this job because of D.E.I. I got it because of my experience.”
Since then, she has fought her firing, calling it “unlawful and unprecedented.” In April, the Supreme Court ruled that Mr. Trump could temporarily remove her while her challenge goes forward.
Ms. Wilcox was nominated to the board, which enforces laws protecting workers’ rights, in 2021 and 2023 by Mr. Biden, and she was confirmed twice by the Senate. Her second term was to end in August 2028.
As the first Black woman to serve on the labor relations board since its creation in 1935, “I didn’t get overwhelmed by the thought of it,” she said. Instead, “I embraced it.’’
At the time she was nominated, Ms. Wilcox was a senior partner at a labor law and employment law firm in New York. She had spent her career championing the rights of a diverse group of workers, starting in a legal services office where she represented young white women in domestic violence cases. Her clients inspired her to practice labor law, she said, a career she started in a regional office of the N.L.R.B.
Ms. Wilcox said she was not thinking about breaking racial barriers when she accepted the appointment, nor did race play a role in how she decided cases. “I made decisions based upon my application of the National Labor Relations Act to the facts presented in each case assigned,” she said.
She worried about the work that has halted as a result of her removal. Only one board member remains, and without a quorum of three, the board cannot resolve cases. American workers who are awaiting decisions on issues like reinstatements and back pay after being unlawfully terminated, suspended or laid off have had their lives hanging in the balance.
“I don’t know what the Supreme Court will decide,” Ms. Wilcox said. “But I had to fight this. Not just for me, but for working people, including those who have cases before the N.L.R.B., and to fight for the agency.”
Black workers, particularly Black women, have been hard hit by reductions in the federal work force overall. According to a New York Times tracker of Mr. Trump’s cuts, agencies where racial minorities and women were a majority of the work force, such as the Education Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, were targeted for the largest work force reductions or complete elimination. Black women made up nearly a quarter of the work force in agencies such as the Internal Revenue Service, which also saw deep reductions, according to a Times analysis.
Frederick Gooding Jr., a historian and professor of African American studies at Texas Christian University and the author of “American Dream Deferred: Black Federal Workers in Washington, D.C., 1941-1981,” said that the federal government was one of the first integrated workplaces in the country. It quickly became a ladder to the middle class for Black Americans who now have a disproportionately large presence in parts of the work force.
“When we look at Black people in this country, their relationship with the federal government provides a window into this thing called the American dream,” Dr. Gooding said. “What is happening right now is shameful.”
‘Thank You for Your Service’
Dr. Hayden did not see her firing coming, either.
The librarian of Congress, who was appointed a decade ago by Mr. Obama as the 14th person in the role since its creation in 1802, was at her mother’s home in Baltimore on a Thursday evening in May.
“I was there a little early, like 6:30,” she told the author and producer Kwame Alexander in a conversation onstage at the annual convention of the American Library Association in June. “So a little happy hour. You know, TV’s on in her den, and I’m looking at the phones and stuff. And I see this text.”
Dr. Hayden, 73, who is now a senior fellow at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, declined to be interviewed by The New York Times. But she spoke openly about her firing at the library association convention.
The text message, she told Mr. Alexander and the crowd, was two sentences, addressed casually to “Carla,” from someone she had never heard of. “On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as the Librarian of Congress is terminated effective immediately,” read the text from Trent M. Morse, the deputy director of White House personnel. “Thank you for your service.”
“I turned to my mom and said, ‘This is weird,’” Dr. Hayden told Mr. Alexander. At first she thought it wasn’t real, Dr. Hayden said, then turned to address the crowd.
“I’m among friends, right?” she said. (Dr. Hayden, who was the chief librarian in Baltimore for more than two decades, served as the library association’s president in 2003 and 2004.) She lowered her voice to a dramatic stage whisper.
“I’ve never been fired before,” she said.
Mr. Trump has appointed Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general and his former lawyer, as the acting librarian of Congress.
The day after Dr. Hayden’s ouster, she learned from a briefing by the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, that her dismissal was the result of unspecified “concerning things that she had done at the Library of Congress in the pursuit of D.E.I.,” including allowing “inappropriate books in the library for children.”
The Library of Congress, the largest library in the world, is the main research arm of Congress and also provides scholars access to its vast collections of presidential papers, manuscripts, films, maps, letters and photographs. It does not lend books to children or adults.
“I must say,” Dr. Hayden said wryly of Ms. Leavitt’s remark, “it has been interesting.”
Kitty Bennett contributed research.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
2) Israel-Hamas Deal Paves Way for Gaza Cease-Fire
Israel said a truce would take effect on Friday and start a 72-hour window to exchange hostages and prisoners. President Trump said he might travel to the region this weekend.
David M. Halbfinger, Liam Stack, Aaron Boxerman, Adam Rasgon, John Yoon, Gabby Sobelman and Rawan Sheikh Ahmad, Oct. 9, 2025
In Khan Younis on Thursday. In interviews with Palestinians across Gaza, many said that they were desperate for the war to end but were also cautious about what happens next. Credit...Saher Alghorra for The New York Times
Here’s the latest.
Israel and Hamas on Thursday were preparing for an exchange of hostages and prisoners after agreeing on the initial terms of a deal that could pave the way to a cease-fire in Gaza and bring relief to the families of Israeli hostages and to two million Palestinians in the territory.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel was convening his cabinet to sign off on the agreement. Shosh Bedrosian, a government spokeswoman, said that a full cease-fire in Gaza would go into effect 24 hours after the cabinet endorses the deal. After that, Hamas will have 72 hours to return “all of our hostages,” Ms. Bedrosian said.
Israeli forces will withdraw to an agreed-upon line in Gaza that will leave the Israeli military in control of about 53 percent of the territory, she added. The Israeli military said that it was preparing to lead the operation for the hostages’ return and to “transition to adjusted deployment lines soon.”
In return for all the surviving hostages, and the bodies of others, the agreement calls for Israel to release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.
But the initial agreement addresses only a few of the 20 points in a plan Mr. Trump proposed last month, and some of the most difficult issues between Israel and Hamas appeared to have been left to a future phase of negotiations. Those include who would rule postwar Gaza and whether, to what degree and how Hamas would lay down its weapons.
Hamas called on Mr. Trump and others to compel Israel “to fully implement the agreement’s requirements and not allow it to evade or delay” carrying them out. Explosions and smoke rose from Gaza on Thursday morning, indicating that Israel’s military operations were continuing even as its government was meeting to approve the cease-fire.
Here’s what else to know:
· Details unclear: Officials didn’t elaborate on the specifics of the hostages-for-prisoners exchange or the lines to which Israeli forces would pull back. It was also uncertain that the agreement would translate into a permanent end to the war. One important sticking point is that Hamas has publicly rejected Mr. Netanyahu’s insistence that it disarm. Here’s what to know about the deal.
· Toll of war: The war in Gaza started in October 2023 when Hamas led an attack on Israel, killing about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and taking about 250 hostages. The Israeli military has since killed more than 67,000 Palestinians, including civilians and combatants, according to the Gaza health ministry, and reduced the territory’s infrastructure to ruins.
· Risk for Hamas: In agreeing to a deal, Hamas is giving up much of the leverage it has with Israel. While the agreement achieves the release of Palestinian prisoners, there is no certainty it will lead to the end of the war and it provides for only a partial Israeli withdrawal. Read more ›
· Hope in Gaza: Palestinians in Gaza welcomed the announcement, but many had questions about what it will mean for them, their loved ones and their devastated communities. The situation had not changed in any material way on Thursday morning — food, water and medicine remained scarce and their cityscapes remained ruined — but there were reasons for hope. Read more ›
· Relief in Israel: Israel believes that about 20 living hostages are still being held in Gaza along with the remains of 28 others who died in captivity. A sense of elation swept Israel on Thursday as news of the deal broke, and many rushed to the so-called Hostages Square in Tel Aviv to celebrate.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
3) Gazans welcome the deal, even as key questions remain.
By Liam Stack, Rawan Sheikh Ahmad and Bilal Shbair, Reporting from Tel Aviv; Haifa, Israel; and Gaza. Oct. 9, 2025
Palestinians in Gaza welcomed the announcement of a deal between Hamas and Israel overnight, but many have questions about what it will mean for them, for their loved ones and for their devastated communities.
The situation had not changed in any material way on Thursday — food, water and medicine remained scarce and their cityscapes are ruined — but there were reasons for hope.
“We still don’t understand anything,” said Awni Sami Abu Hasera, 36. He has been living in a shabby tent in Deir al Balah, central Gaza, since fleeing Gaza City, where an Israeli ground offensive destroyed his home and once thriving seafood business last month.
“We’re still waking up,” he said. “I don’t see a cease-fire yet.”
In interviews with Palestinians across Gaza, many said that the deal had stirred a mixture of relief, joy, disbelief and fear. They said that they were desperate for the war to end after the Israeli offensive against Hamas had destroyed much of the territory and killed tens of thousands.
But many added that they were wary of believing any announcement, saying that they had experienced false hopes and disappointment before.
It was also hard to fathom what the deal might mean for their families. For Mr. Abu Hasera, even if the fighting were to stop, staying in the ruined enclave did not seem like an option, he said.
“As soon as the borders open, I will take my family and leave, anywhere, it doesn’t matter,” he said. “I can’t describe to you what life in a tent and life in displacement really mean.”
Elsewhere in Gaza, others were also skeptical after two years of war.
Maher al-Alami, 53, was listening to the news on the radio with his daughter, Mais al-Reem, 3, when he spoke to The Times. His family has lost everything in the war, he said, and he was unsure what the deal could do for them now.
Mr. al-Alami made a comfortable living in real estate and had an apartment in Gaza City, but his neighborhood has been reduced to rubble, he said. His family fled Israeli military strikes 10 times and now lives in a tent in Az Zawayda.
“We’re here in a tent, and we’ll go back to Gaza City in a tent, too,” Mr. al-Alami said. “Same thing, same suffering. What have we gained from this war? Nothing but loss.”
Doaa Hamdouna, 39, said she had heard people in Az Zawayda celebrating the deal but could not bring herself to join them.
“I still don’t trust it,” said Ms. Hamdouna, a math teacher from Gaza City who fled Israeli military action five times during the war. “I’m mixed between wanting to believe it will last and fearing or worrying that it won’t, that we’ll never really stand in our neighborhoods in Gaza City again.”
Siham Abu Shawish, 33, a nursing student from Nuseirat, said she felt “a bit of relief, but not hope.”
“We’ve seen this before — news comes out, but nothing changes on the ground,” she noted. “We just want to retrieve what is left of our lives.”
Dr. Ahmed al-Farra, head of the pediatric ward at Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis, said that no new patients had arrived on Thursday morning as a result of Israeli attacks. But no matter what happens, he said, he expected Gaza’s severely strained hospitals to remain overwhelmed.
Dr. al-Farra said that the experience of earlier cease-fires in Gaza, which all eventually gave way to renewed fighting, had left him wary.
“We hope this is true and that the war has really stopped,” he said.
In Deir al Balah, Mohammed Fares, 25, had similar concerns. He said he was feeling a mix of both joy and fear. The deal seemed too good to be real, he added.
“I’m so happy and I’m thinking about returning to Gaza City, but I also worry that there will be another installment of the war,” said Mr. Fares, who fled the city for the relative safety of Deir al Balah earlier in the war.
But, like Mr. Abu Hasera, he said he thought that the future would contain no shortage of Palestinian suffering with “so many things totally ruined and destroyed.”
“It will take decades to make Gaza a humane place to live,” Mr. Fares said.
But some were more optimistic.
Mohammad al-Atrash, 36, said that he felt relief and gratitude “to all the countries that helped end the war,” even though it was not clear if the agreement reached overnight in Egypt would bring the conflict to a firm end.
Mr. al-Atrash said that he had nearly been killed twice in the war, which had destroyed normal life in Gaza for him and his family. His children had been out of school for two years, he said.
If the war were to end, he said, it “will ease much suffering.”
“God willing,” he added, “this announcement means it won’t return.”
Adam Rasgon contributed reporting.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
4) Why Blowing Up Venezuelan Boats Won’t Stop the Flow of Drugs
By Samuel Granados, Genevieve Glatsky and Annie Correal, Oct. 9, 2025
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/10/09/world/americas/drug-trafficking-venezuela.html
Small and large smuggling routes.
The U.S. military has killed at least 21 people in recent strikes on small boats that it says were smuggling drugs off the coast of Venezuela.
President Trump justified the attacks by saying the United States is in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels and vowing to “destroy Venezuelan terrorists and trafficking networks.”
But Mr. Trump’s focus on Venezuela is at odds with reality: The vast majority of cocaine is produced and smuggled elsewhere in Latin America, according to data from the United States, Colombia and the United Nations. And Venezuela does not supply fentanyl at all, experts say.
Here is how those two drugs actually get to the United States.
In the 1980s and ’90s, the Caribbean was the main route for smugglers taking cocaine to the United States. Now, most of that traffic moves through the Pacific.
The Caribbean remains a pass-through point, however. And some countries in the region say that in response to an increased U.S. military presence on the water, some traffickers have started flying their product through the area.
But in recent years, top U.S. officials have rarely mentioned cocaine as a priority. Their focus has been on fentanyl, the drug tied to a national overdose crisis.
Venezuela plays essentially no role in the production or smuggling of fentanyl. The drug is almost entirely made in Mexico with chemicals imported from countries in Asia, including China, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the Justice Department and the Congressional Research Service.
Describing the boats destroyed by the U.S. military off the coast of Venezuela, Mr. Trump has said they carried enough drugs to kill tens of thousands of Americans. He did not specify what drugs.
Cocaine is sometimes mixed in with fentanyl, but when that happens, experts say, it mainly takes place after both drugs reach the United States.
Mexican cartels, including some designated as terrorist organizations by the United States, largely control how drugs like fentanyl, cocaine and methamphetamine cross the border. (The substances mostly come in by land, sometimes concealed in cars or trucks, not by sea.)
The Trump administration has pressed Mexico’s government to do more to stop drugs from entering U.S. territory, but former diplomats and regional analysts say that — American claims notwithstanding — the boat strikes off Venezuela appear to have a different aim.
Some suggest that they may instead be intended to put pressure on Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, or end his rule altogether. Trump officials have called him an illegitimate leader and accused him of running a cartel. He denies any involvement in drug trafficking.
Whatever effect the strikes have in Venezuela, these experts say they are unlikely to alter the flow of the deadly drugs fueling America’s crisis.
James Story, the American ambassador to Venezuela from 2018 to 2023, said even if the United States achieved limited success, traffickers would regroup.
And using military might to take out small trafficking boats, Mr. Story said, is like “using a blowtorch to cook an egg.”
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
5) Colombia’s President Says Boat Bombed by U.S. Was Carrying Colombians
The Trump administration has said that it is attacking boats and killing their occupants because they are smuggling drugs from Venezuela to the United States.
By Julie Turkewitz and Robert Jimison, Oct. 8, 2025
Julie Turkewitz reported from Bogotá, Colombia and Washington, D.C.
President Gustavo Petro of Colombia at the United Nations General Assembly last month. Credit...Leonardo Munoz/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
President Gustavo Petro of Colombia said on Wednesday that his government believed one of the boats recently bombed by the United States in its campaign against alleged drug traffickers had been carrying Colombian citizens.
“A new war zone has opened up: the Caribbean,” Mr. Petro wrote on X. “Signs show that the last boat bombed was Colombian, with Colombian citizens inside. I hope their families come forward and file a complaint.”
Mr. Petro did not provide further details.
The U.S. military has launched at least four lethal strikes on civilian boats in the Caribbean since early September, killing 21 people. The Trump administration has characterized its military buildup in the Caribbean Sea as targeting Venezuela and its authoritarian leader, Nicolás Maduro, whom the administration has accused of leading a terrorist organization that is flooding the United States with drugs.
This is the first time another country has claimed its citizens were killed in the attacks.
Most cocaine in the region originates in Colombia, according to the United Nations, while fentanyl, which causes far more overdose deaths, is produced in Mexico. Legal analysts have called the attacks on the boats illegal. And Mr. Maduro has claimed that the real goal of the campaign appears to be his ouster.
Two U.S. officials, who were not authorized to discuss the sensitive matter publicly, also said that Colombians were aboard at least one of the boats recently destroyed by the United States.
Mr. Petro, a leftist leader who is nearing the end of his four-year term, has been a vocal critic of President Trump’s military campaign in the region.
Mr. Trump has said the people killed in recent attacks were drug traffickers, but has provided no evidence and has not given a clear legal basis to the public for the attacks. In the case of the first two boats, the Trump administration identified those killed as Venezuelans. It has not identified the nationalities of those killed in the other two attacks.
After Mr. Petro’s announcement, the White House denounced his remarks as “baseless” and “reprehensible” and sought to pressure the Colombian leader to issue a retraction, according to a White House official who was not authorized to speak publicly about a security matter.
The official said that a retraction would allow the two nations to refocus on strengthening their relationship, an apparent acknowledgment that Mr. Petro’s statement risked straining bilateral ties between the United States and Colombia.
Julian E. Barnes and Tyler Pager contributed reporting from Washington.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
6) Can Satellites Stop an Avocado Addiction From Killing Mexican Forests?
A new program using satellite imagery seeks to raise pressure on avocado growers by getting support from American buyers.
By Emiliano Rodríguez Mega, Visuals by César Rodríguez, Oct. 9, 2025
Reporting from Mexico’s avocado belt, in Michoacán state, where budding efforts to stop illegal deforestation have emerged.
An avocado-growing area in Uruapan, Michoacán, being surveyed by the federal agency responsible for overseeing and enforcing environmental laws and regulations.
When word of a new plan to help save forests reached Juan Gabriel Pedraza, an Indigenous leader in Mexico’s avocado heartlands, he feared the worst.
“They’re going to screw us over,” he remembered thinking.
Rumors had spread that his town’s orchards could be blocked from the market, a devastating outcome for residents. Avocados had helped over a thousand families climb out of poverty. Forest loss was nothing new, having long ago transformed western Mexico, the world’s primary supplier of avocados.
Devouring that forest, for years, has been U.S. demand for the fruit.
Anyone trying to slow the deforestation, nearly all of it illegal, has faced a wall of opposition. Criminal groups, landowners, corrupt local officials and others have been involved in setting fires to clear land for new orchards, and reaping profits from them.
Now a new scheme, using satellite imagery and public pressure, has confronted industry giants and small growers alike with a choice.
They can stop expanding into recently cleared forests, ensuring their fruit remains eligible for the biggest U.S. buyers. Or they can deforest more land for cheap new orchards, risking being cut off from a $2.7 billion annual trade.
Mr. Pedraza said his town, the Purépecha community of Sicuicho, understood the bind between the wilderness and business better than most.
“The forest lives within us,” he said. “But protecting the forest is a lot of work, and takes a lot of money.”
‘The Big Brother Effect’
Americans’ appetite for avocados has made the industry extremely lucrative. It employs nearly 390,000 people across Mexico, and everyone wants their cut — including drug cartels that extort growers and clear forests, according to farmers and U.S. authorities.
“Everyone in this business is in it for the money, not the environment,” said Heriberto Padilla, the 36-year-old general director of Guardián Forestal, the nonprofit that developed the new monitoring system.
Mr. Padilla saw firsthand how, since the U.S. market opened to Mexican avocados in the 1990s, growers had razed the pine-oak forests around his mother’s hometown in the state of Michoacán.
“Experiencing all these abuses makes you very angry,” he said. “So I was like, ‘Well, how do we stop this?’”
Earlier proposals to stop the destruction have largely failed, bogged down by corruption, industry interests or lack of political will.
The new program stands apart, Mr. Padilla and his allies say, by using satellite imagery to assess deforestation and keep an up-to-date map of certified and flagged orchards, available for anyone to see.
They argue the risk of being publicly marked by the platform — showing American consumers who uses deforested land — can motivate better behavior. “Fear is what drives us,” Mr. Padilla said.
“It’s the Big Brother effect,” said Alberto Gómez-Tagle, a biologist who helped design the system. “I’m watching you.”
The program launched last year with help from Michoacán’s state government. But while officials sometimes inspect sites it flags, the system is operated by Guardián Forestal and independent auditors that double-check its findings.
To get certified, an orchard cannot use land deforested since 2018 or affected by wildfires since 2012. It also cannot face accusations of environmental harm or be inside a nature reserve.
When an orchard is flagged, the system blocks it from being used by allied packing houses. So far, Guardián Forestal has blocked nearly 2,200 avocado orchards of the 53,000 it has surveyed in Michoacán.
The program also certifies packing houses, which must exclusively take avocados from compliant orchards. After three strikes, houses lose their stamp of approval.
The system’s power also comes from a factor outside its control: external pressure from buyers and activists, including through the courts.
Independent of the nonprofit, the Organic Consumers Association, a U.S. advocacy group, last year sued four American importers that dominate the industry. The group accused them of making misleading sustainability claims as they sold avocados harvested from illegally deforested lands.
One of the lawsuits, involving the company West Pak, was settled in a confidential agreement. The other three remain unresolved.
“We are not utilizing or picking from any ranches identified or flagged by the Guardián Forestal platform,” Delanie Beeson, a senior manager at Mission Produce, one of the U.S. importers, said in an email.
West Pak and the other companies either declined to comment or did not respond to inquiries.
Nearly 30 packing houses are now certified, including the four American giants, in total accounting for about 84 percent of all Mexican avocado exports to the United States.
The system could offer lessons for others, said Daniel Wilkinson, a senior policy adviser at Climate Rights International.
“One of the most urgent challenges now, globally, is finding ways to clean up the agricultural supply chains driving deforestation,” he said. “Michoacán is providing a model of how to do it.”
‘We Didn’t Investigate’
Before the new program, packing houses only complied with pest-control criteria demanded by U.S. and Mexican authorities.
“We didn’t investigate who had cut down trees and who hadn’t,” said Maricarmen Villaseñor, who oversees harvest operations for Mexico’s largest house, Aztecavo.
Once American companies joined the certification program, a domino effect followed among Mexican suppliers. Aztecavo, which ships 2,000 tons to the United States every week, was one of them.
“Important customers from abroad are saying, ‘Hey, I don’t want you to bring me avocados from deforested areas,’” said José Antonio Villaseñor, the company’s founder and Ms. Villaseñor’s father.
“That is in the avocado industry’s best interest,” Ms. Villaseñor said, “because the climate is changing and the region will cease to be productive altogether.”
But while pressure from U.S. buyers proved persuasive to many, smaller growers, like those in Sicuicho, were outraged by the apparent threat to their livelihood.
In November, Mr. Pedraza and hundreds of other producers went to the state capital, Morelia, demanding answers. They found a handful of scared officials and Mr. Padilla, the nonprofit director.
First, Mr. Padilla explained he wasn’t with the government, allaying their fears of corruption and bureaucratic meddling. Then he outlined the new certification and showed them a map of their 1,200 orchards. All but one were free of recent forest loss.
He persuaded the growers to get 300 orchards certified, and to contribute about $90 per hectare to an environmental trust fund managed by a bank.
The group set their own condition: The money had to go back to Sicuicho to support its conservation efforts. The community will use some of those funds, Mr. Pedraza said, to buy a backhoe excavator to help restore degraded soil and build firebreaks.
‘Look at the Devastation’
Other figures remain critical of the program, including environmental activists who call it too lax and growers who call it onerous. Some inside the industry feel it’s unjust that such a program has power over major companies without giving them a say.
“We don’t have to have the last word, but we do have to be taken into account,” said Ernesto Enkerlin, a prominent ecologist and spokesman for Mexico’s powerful association of avocado exporters.
The association and the federal Mexican government are devising a rival certification program, part of an effort to make all agricultural exports deforestation-free by 2030. That mandatory plan, set to start next year, would ban exports from land deforested from 2025 onward and be regulated by the government, Mr. Enkerlin said. A spokeswoman with Mexico’s agriculture ministry said orchards would be inspected twice a year and algorithms would be used to identify possible deforestation.
But that effort, too, has its skeptics, including Gov. Alfredo Ramírez Bedolla of Michoacán, a supporter of the Guardián Forestal system.
“If you release a certification that only looks good on paper, then good for you,” he said. “But very soon it will become clear how weak it really is.”
Mandating new industry rules, he said, would spark intense resistance and a host of legal challenges. He attributed the success of the nonprofit’s program, in part, to the fact that it was driven by buyers.
“Its strength does not come from the state or the law,” Mr. Ramírez Bedolla added. “It comes from the end consumer.”
It’s too soon to say whether the program has helped slow deforestation, experts said. But it has had a chilling effect in some areas, said Julio Santoyo, an environmental activist. In Madero, where he lives, loggers no longer seem as eager as they once were to slash the forest for avocados.
“The hesitation is already noticeable,” he said.
Elsewhere, deforestation persists. Last month, a group of government inspectors arrived at a clearing, guided by a Guardián Forestal alert. Stumps and a few forgotten logs lay beside the glossy leaves of avocado plants.
“Just look at the devastation,” said Guillermo Naranjo, a federal environmental inspector in the state of Michoacán. A total of 126 trees, his men counted, had been felled for illegal avocados.
Moments later, his team hung a banner on a small warehouse with bright, red lettering: Closed.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
7) Bob Ross’s ‘Happy Little’ Paintings Will Be Auctioned
Thirty canvases, many created for viewers of Ross’s PBS series, “The Joy of Painting,” will be sold to benefit public television stations grappling with funding cuts.
By Sopan Deb, Oct. 9, 2025
Ross became a beloved pop culture figure through “The Joy Of Painting,” which ran for more than a decade beginning in 1983. Credit...Bob Ross Inc., via Associated Press
Whimsical clouds. Lush colors. An idyllic and relaxed landscape. All are hallmarks of a Bob Ross canvas.
Now 30 original paintings by the television host and artist, who died in 1995, will be available for sale beginning next month through the auction house Bonhams, Ross’s estate announced on Tuesday. The proceeds will benefit public television stations across the country that have been grappling with the Trump administration’s cancellation of $1.1 billion in funding for public media.
The idea came about a few months ago when Joan Kowalski, the president of Bob Ross Inc., saw that Bonhams sold two privately owned Ross paintings in August, one for $114,800 and another for $95,750. She decided to donate the 30 paintings to American Public Television, which syndicates programs, including Ross’s PBS Show, “The Joy of Painting,” to hundreds of public television channels across the country.
“It will motivate bidders because it will help public television,” Kowalski said in an interview. “The marriage of the two ideas came together and then I couldn’t let loose of it until I set it all in motion.”
Ross became a beloved pop culture figure through “The Joy Of Painting,” which ran for more than a decade beginning in 1983. Born in Daytona Beach, Fla., he dropped out of high school and discovered his love of painting while serving in the Air Force. Ross built an art empire on a simple concept: that anyone could be a painter using his “wet-on-wet” technique, in which paint is applied to a canvas that has been coated with a thin base layer of oil paint.
The show featured Ross, with dulcet tones, bushy hair and a buttoned shirt, teaching the audience how to paint, say, “a happy little cloud” in the sky. “The Joy Of Painting” was carried by hundreds of public television stations across the country.
“It will motivate bidders because it will help public television,” Kowalski said in an interview. “The marriage of the two ideas came together and then I couldn’t let loose of it until I set it all in motion.”
Ross became a beloved pop culture figure through “The Joy Of Painting,” which ran for more than a decade beginning in 1983. Born in Daytona Beach, Fla., he dropped out of high school and discovered his love of painting while serving in the Air Force. Ross built an art empire on a simple concept: that anyone could be a painter using his “wet-on-wet” technique, in which paint is applied to a canvas that has been coated with a thin base layer of oil paint.
The show featured Ross, with dulcet tones, bushy hair and a buttoned shirt, teaching the audience how to paint, say, “a happy little cloud” in the sky. “The Joy Of Painting” was carried by hundreds of public television stations across the country.
Ross’s cultural footprint only increased after his death, from lymphoma, at 52. His image and laid-back delivery gave rise to a legion of memes. “The Joy Of Painting” is still widely available on public television. Bob Ross Inc., the company that oversees the Ross empire, holds workshops with instructors trained in the Ross Method at the gallery Ross opened in New Smyrna Beach, Fla. The company has 20 employees, who also oversee a warehouse in Chantilly, Va., and distribute products branded with Ross’s likeness.
Robin Starr, the general manager of Bonhams in Massachusetts, said there had been a spike in interest in Ross in recent years. Bonhams has sold eight of his paintings at auction in the last five years, she said.
“During the pandemic, he really sort of came back into his own. People circled back to him,” Starr said, adding, “How do you not appreciate happy little trees?”
The 30 paintings will be the first large-scale auction of Ross’s original works, and the first time that pieces he created on “The Joy Of Painting” will be available for purchase. Kowalski estimated that there were about a thousand of Ross’s works remaining in the Virginia warehouse. (Kowalski’s parents, Walter and Annette Kowalski, were the previous stewards of Ross’s work dating to the early 1980s, as was Ross’s wife, Jane Ross, who died in 1992.)
“We have a fair number of paintings,” Kowalski said. “And the way that I chose them was to just find what I thought were the prettiest. It’s that easy.”
Most of the 30 paintings have been seen only on the air, when Ross painted them. The first three paintings will be auctioned on Nov. 11 at Bonhams in Los Angeles, while the remaining 27 works will be sold throughout next year at Bonhams locations in New York, Boston and Los Angeles.
All the proceeds will go to American Public Television, which will disperse the money to broadcasters in need of relief. The Trump administration’s move to cut hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for public broadcasting has put public radio and television stations at risk of going dark, particularly in rural areas.
“For a healthy democracy, you need healthy discourse,” said Jim Dunford, the chief executive officer of American Public Television. “You need information that you can trust, but you also need a place that celebrates and gathers community. And I think public television does all of that.”
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
8) U.S. to Send 200 Troops to Israel in Support Roles
The American force will help coordinate the many aspects of the cease-fire deal.
By Tyler Pager and Eric Schmitt, Reporting from Washington, Oct. 9, 2025
The United States is sending 200 troops to Israel to monitor the implementation of the cease-fire deal in Gaza, American officials said Thursday.
The officials said the U.S. Central Command, led by Adm. Brad Cooper, will establish a civil-military coordination center in Israel to provide security and humanitarian support.
The American troops, reporting to Admiral Cooper, will join soldiers from nations in the region, including Egypt, Qatar, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates to provide oversight. The American troops are not intended to go into Gaza, one of the U.S. officials said.
The first of the 200 troops have already started to arrive in Israel and more will follow over the weekend to begin setting up the new coordination center. The troops are mostly military planners and specialists in logistics, security and other support fields.
The goal of the center will be to establish a hub for military, political and aid experts to help coordinate everything from humanitarian assistance to security support and the execution of the cease-fire agreement.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
9) Senate Passes Bipartisan $925 Billion Defense Policy Bill
The legislation would provide a 3.8 percent pay raise for American troops, while funding weapons and overhauling military procurement.
By Robert Jimison and Megan Mineiro, Reporting from the Capitol, Oct. 9, 2025
"...the measure would bring the amount of military spending authorized for the coming year to more than $1 trillion."
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/09/us/senate-passes-bipartisan-925-billion-defense-policy-bill.html
The bill would expand the fighter jet program to authorize dozens more advanced F-35A jets. Doug Mills/The New York Times
The Senate approved legislation on Thursday that would authorize $925 billion for national defense, giving overwhelming bipartisan support to the annual defense policy bill.
The vote set up a potentially contentious series of negotiations with the House, which has loaded its version of the measure with a range of conservative social policy dictates that the Senate mostly avoided.
The 77-to-20 vote took place late on Day 9 of a federal government shutdown, advancing legislation that would authorize everything from new submarines and fighter jets to the annual pay increase for troops. The bipartisan bill also overhauls how the military buys weapons and supports the large network of private and public organizations that provides the U.S. government with materials, products and services for defense and military operations.
“Today, the Senate passed one of the most important legislative priorities to enable the modernization of our military and strengthen our national security,” Senator Roger Wicker, Republican of Mississippi and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement late Thursday. The legislation helps the U.S. military contend with a threat environment “that we have not faced since World War II,” he added.
The bill also reflects how members of both parties continue to agree on pouring vast sums into the military, even as President Trump and Republicans have moved to slash government spending in a drive they say is aimed at reining in deficits. Combined with a hefty allocation in Mr. Trump’s sprawling tax cut domestic policy bill that was passed this summer, the measure would bring the amount of military spending authorized for the coming year to more than $1 trillion.
The legislation would reshape rules for defense contractors, which industry experts say deter smaller companies from bidding on projects. It also would extend the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative through 2028 and would increase authorized funding to $500 million. And the bill would expand the fighter jet program to authorize dozens more advanced F-35A jets.
The bill also seeks to tackle modern military technology, by requiring studies on how to safely integrate artificial intelligence and other cybertools, along with a program focused on the “rapid development, testing, and scalable manufacturing” of drones. The Pentagon, watching as U.S. allies deploy drones in creative battlefield maneuvers, is eager to build up its own stash of the new technology.
“The bill authorizes important investments in key technologies like artificial intelligence, unmanned systems, and hypersonics, and makes real progress toward modernizing our ships, aircraft, and combat vehicles,” said Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat of the Senate Armed Services Committee. He said the measure “delivers key wins for service members and their family.”
That includes a 3.8 percent pay raise for military members.
The measure includes provisions to restrict diversity, equity and inclusion practices across military branches and a prohibition of affirmative action at military service academies, codifying executive orders from Mr. Trump. But aside from those, it largely omitted many of the more partisan social policy restrictions that House Republicans stuffed in their version, alienating Democrats who mostly opposed its passage.
In contrast, House Republicans included a number of amendments involving gender in the military. They included restricting insurance coverage for gender-affirming care, barring transgender women from participating in women’s athletic programs in U.S. service academies, and barring the Defense Department from collecting information about gender identity.
Over the objections of Democrats, Republicans also inserted an amendment that restricts the use of electric or hybrid vehicles within the department.
The variations in topline figures and partisan priorities could set up a difficult negotiation when the two chambers come together to agree on a final product.
In the Senate, the most contentious debate came as senators sparred over Mr. Trump’s use of the military to police American cities; he has deployed federalized National Guard into Democratic-run cities, including Los Angeles, Washington D.C. and Chicago.
“We’ve seen President Trump force military troops uninvited into American cities,” said Senator Tammy Duckworth, Democrat of Illinois. On Thursday she proposed new rules to require the administration to notify Congress before sending military personnel to domestic locations. “Let’s be clear: Ordering our troops to intimidate the very Americans they were willing to risk their lives to protect does nothing to make our nation stronger,” Ms. Duckworth said.
The Senate rejected her measure and a series of others offered by Democrats that would have placed limits on how the president could use military troops in American cities. Republicans argued that the deployments were both legal and appropriate.
“Protecting the American people and their property is fundamental to the government. In fact, it’s a core principle and responsibility of the federal government, and I see no need or any good reason to remove the tools that the president has to do exactly that,” Senator Kevin Cramer, Republican of North Dakota, said.
Though her measure was voted down along party lines, Ms. Duckworth, who had threatened to block a final vote on the defense measure, secured a commitment from Republican leaders to hold a hearing on the deployment of National Guard troops.
Ms. Duckworth also secured language in the bill to cover in vitro fertilization for service members and their families, the majority of whom would currently have to pay out of pocket for the procedure. The proposal faces pushback from conservatives and could still be pulled behind closed doors before the final bill heads to the president’s desk.
There was bipartisan agreement on at least one move to claw back authority from the executive branch: The bill would repeal Iraq and Persian Gulf war-era authorizations for the use of military force. For more than two decades they have been used by presidents in both parties to justify a range of military operations.
“The gulf war started 34 years ago, and the Iraq War began 22 years ago. These conflicts have long ended, and today Iraq is a partner, not an adversary,” Senator Todd Young, Republican of Indiana, said in a statement. “It’s time for our law to reflect that reality. Tonight’s Senate vote is a step in the right direction.”
Mr. Young, together with Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, have for many years sought to bring an end to the authorizations that the two say have perpetuated the idea of “forever wars.”
Still, the repeal faced long odds. At least three previous bipartisan attempts to repeal the decades-old resolutions have failed to be signed into law.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
10) Gaza Cease-Fire Begins, Israel Says, as Thousands Return to the North
The Israeli military’s announcement of a pause in fighting brought a mass movement of people heading home to Gaza City and its surroundings.
By Liam Stack, Aaron Boxerman and Bilal Shbair, Oct. 10, 2025
Liam Stack reported from Tel Aviv, Aaron Boxerman from Jerusalem and Bilal Shbair from the Gaza Strip.
Explosions in Gaza could be seen and heard from Kfar Aza, Israel, on Friday morning. Credit...Amit Elkayam for The New York Times
Thousands of people began the long walk from the south to the north of the Gaza Strip on Friday after the Israeli military announced a cease-fire that mediators hoped would lead to the end of the two-year war.
Men carried bags, women carried young children, and older children held hands as they made their way up the dusty seaside road toward the ruins of Gaza City, which they were ordered to flee weeks ago. Some said they were heading north for the first time since the war began.
Though the surroundings were bleak, the mood was jubilant.
“The crowds are unbelievable,” said Shamekh al-Dibs, who fled south with his family last month. “People are so happy, even if what they’re going back to is destruction.”
Israel agreed early Friday morning to a cease-fire deal with Hamas, which the military said came into effect at noon. As part of the agreement, Hamas would release the remaining hostages held in Gaza in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, while Israeli troops would partially withdraw.
The deal was based on a proposal presented by President Trump last week. On Friday, a spokesman for Israel’s Parliament said Mr. Trump was expected to visit the chamber in Jerusalem on Monday.
Steve Witkoff, Mr. Trump’s Mideast envoy, said the U.S. military had verified that Israeli troops had withdrawn to the agreed-upon line inside Gaza. That, he said on social media, opened a 72-hour window in which Hamas must hand over the remaining hostages.
Mr. Netanyahu said in a recorded statement on Friday that the cease-fire deal would allow Israel to bring back the remaining hostages while maintaining its forces in Gaza.
Israel would not compromise on the rest of its demands, he added, including that Hamas lay down its weapons and that Gaza be demilitarized. But Hamas regards disarmament as tantamount to surrender and views armed struggle as a legitimate form of resistance against Israeli control over Palestinian lands.
“If this is achieved the easy way, so much the better. If not, it will be done the hard way,” Mr. Netanyahu said.
On the coastal road in Gaza, Mousa Rajab, 22, a nursing student, said he and his cousin had decided to start walking to Gaza City as soon as they heard about the cease-fire. Around them, thousands of pedestrians shared the asphalt with trucks, vans and horse-drawn carts packed with people and piled high with blankets, water tanks and mattresses.
“We just want to see if our homes are still standing,” Mr. Rajab said. “We heard ours was partly damaged, but we have to see it with our own eyes.”
Though previous cease-fires in Gaza have collapsed into renewed fighting, Mr. Rajab was optimistic the war might actually be over this time. “Everything still feels uncertain,” he said. “Will they tell us to leave again? I hope not. I just want this to be the last time we walk this road.”
Avichay Adraee, a military spokesman, said on Friday that the Israeli military would allow Palestinians in southern Gaza to travel along major roads to the north. But he warned people not to approach several areas across Gaza where Israelis troops would remain active, saying those places were “extremely dangerous.”
On Thursday night, the Israeli military said it had struck a site in northern Gaza, which it said was being used by Hamas fighters who “posed an immediate threat” to Israeli troops.
Gaza’s Civil Defense emergency rescue service said the site was a residential building that dozens of people were believed to be in at the time of the strike.
According to a government resolution Mr. Netanyahu’s office released on Friday, the Israeli military would have to move to new deployment lines inside Gaza by early Saturday. Hamas would then have 72 hours to return all of the hostages, including the bodies of those who have died.
The text also said Israel had authorized the release of 250 Palestinian prisoners, mostly serving life sentences, and 1,722 Gazans detained during the war who were not involved in the attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, including 22 people who were under the age of 18.
On Friday, the Israeli government issued a list of the prisoners who would be released, including many who were convicted of staging attacks against Israelis. It did not include several high-profile prisoners whose release analysts had expected Hamas would try to secure.
A Hamas office that handles prisoners’ affairs said on Friday that the list was not yet agreed on or finalized.
Johnatan Reiss contributed reporting.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
11) How Right-Wing Influencers Are Shaping the Guard Fight in Portland
President Trump and his administration are amplifying the voices of pro-White House podcasters and streamers eager to ratify the president’s description of Oregon’s largest city as a “hellscape.”
By Anna Griffin and Aaron West, Reporting from Portland, Ore., Oct. 10, 2025
In the fight over deploying National Guard troops to Portland, Ore., Democratic leaders in the city and state have pleaded with President Trump and the courts to trust law enforcement records, both local and federal, that describe the demonstrations as small and comparatively calm.
But in the bifurcated media world of 2025, one side’s comparative calm is the other’s “hellscape” — as the White House described Portland on Wednesday — and the narrative that the Trump administration has wanted has been supplied by a coterie of right-wing influencers elevated by Mr. Trump himself.
On Thursday, the repercussions of those dueling versions of reality became clear as judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit questioned a district court’s finding that the protests in Portland were likely too minor to justify the National Guard deployment. The appeals court judges instead cited federal reports of demonstrators spitting on federal officers and shining flashlights in their eyes, behavior that has been captured, amplified and sometimes even prompted by pro-Trump personalities eager to counter local police.
“The Portland Police Chief did an interview today attacking independent journalists for exposing the violent terrorists that he allows to run the city,” Benny Johnson, a popular pro-Trump podcaster, wrote Tuesday on social media after accompanying Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, in Oregon. “He’s humiliated and knows Portland is under siege.”
To some extent, the right’s assertions of chaos in Oregon have been self-fulfilling. The administration’s close ties to a small but well-followed group of influencers and conspiracy theorists has amplified their voices, and they in turn have encouraged administration efforts to crack down on demonstrators. The portrayals of a city on fire have angered protesters.
And sometimes, left-wing activists have risen to the bait, leading to scuffles and injuries conservative streamers then promote on the internet. One right-wing commentator, Katie Daviscourt, said she received a black eye when a demonstrator hit her with a flag pole.
“Certainly over the last 10 days, the energy level has gone up, the amount of conflicting points of view have increased greatly,” Chief Bob Day of the Portland Police Bureau said at a news media briefing Tuesday. “And this has created an environment that’s equally, if not more, challenging for us.”
Pro-Trump provocateurs have gotten more open about their efforts as the stakes in the battle over how to police protests grow. Ms. Noem has threatened to quadruple the number of federal law enforcement agents in Portland if she is not satisfied with the city’s crowd-control efforts. Troops from the Oregon and California National Guards are awaiting deployment. Another group of guardsmen from Texas could be summoned at the president’s request.
Meantime, influencers are seeking to raise the tension. Matt Tardio, a right-wing streamer who was broadcasting to an online audience of 10,000 or so from the ICE building in Portland on Wednesday night, conceded that other streamers were trying to stir up trouble so they could capture it on video.
“They were handing out flags and trying to get antifa folks to burn them, and then claimed that they were going to do physical harm to them if they burned the American flag,” he said. All the while, a videographer was capturing the action.
Mr. Tardio, 41, said he was not sure which side the people involved were supporting.
“In the beginning it looked like people on the right are the ones instigating, but in the following evenings it looked like people on the left,” he said. “People are absorbing information on social media quicker than reality.” Nobody can keep up, he added.
Political messages don’t seem to be the point for some on either side, said Sgt. Daniel DiMatteo while patrolling near the protest Wednesday night.
“It’s a lot more of the, ‘I’m going to get in your face and say something controversial to try to get a response out of you,’” he said.
There are, to be sure, streamers and podcasters on the left who are commenting on the standoff, but conservative provocateurs hold more influence because of their connections to the administration. Ms. Noem did not have any news briefings or public appearances during her trip to Portland this week. Instead, she brought her own media entourage, which chronicled her every move through the prism of their support.
“BREAKING,” Bo Loudon, a 19-year-old influencer and friend of Mr. Trump’s youngest son, Barron, wrote on social media. Ms. Noem “just stared down violently Antifa rioters on the roof of a Portland ICE facility,” he wrote.
The video attached showed Ms. Noem on the roof of the building looking down at a small clutch of protesters far away, one of them in a chicken suit.
The man in the chicken suit, Jack Dickinson, 26, who had been coming to the ICE building to protest federal immigration policies for months, said he was struck by the disconnect. Mr. Dickinson said he watched one of the pro-Trump influencers, Nick Sortor, film outside the ICE building, then heard the narration.
“He was talking about this looking like a third-world country,” Mr. Dickinson said as he surveyed a riverfront neighborhood of apartment buildings, coffee shops and an Italian restaurant popular for holiday meals and graduation parties. “It’s just clearly not.”
The influencers with Ms. Noem included major conservative celebrities such as Mr. Johnson, whose YouTube posts regularly draw hundreds of thousands of views, and younger conservative journalists such as David Medina, who lives in Oregon, and Mr. Sortor, who has been producing a steady stream of content this week based on his Oct. 2 arrest at the ICE demonstrations.
Mr. Sortor was initially charged with second-degree disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor in Oregon, after he took a burning American flag from a left-wing demonstrator and a fight ensued. The response from Washington, D.C., was intense and immediate. Attorney General Pam Bondi demanded an investigation into the Portland Police Bureau, and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Mr. Sortor had been “ambushed by antifa.”
For his efforts, Mr. Sortor found himself at the White House on Wednesday, as the president praised the actions of right-wing activists and pledged to dismantle antifa, a loose-knit group of anarchists whose presence in Portland has long angered Mr. Trump.
Mr. Sortor had been “assaulted in Portland by a flag-burning mob,” the president declared.
Mr. Sortor responded, “The Portland politicians literally are willing to sacrifice their own citizens just to appease these antifa terrorists.”
Nathan Vasquez, the district attorney of Multnomah County, which includes parts of Portland, dropped the charges against Mr. Sortor but planned to take two left-wing demonstrators he scuffled with to trial. Mr. Vasquez said police did have probable cause to arrest Mr. Sortor.
The influencer was engaged in “what I think most people would consider antagonistic behavior,” Mr. Vasquez said. “The hard part is that obnoxious behavior doesn’t amount to you getting to punch him in the face.”
After Ms. Noem’s visit to Portland, Mr. Johnson appeared live on Newsmax from inside the cordoned-off ICE building. He described the building as being in downtown Portland and said that the windows were blacked out and covered with tarps because “Democrats keep shooting sniper rounds into ICE facilities.”
Police have not reported any incidents of sniper fire, and the ICE building sits about two miles from downtown Portland.
Along with a video of Ms. Noem praying before a fast-food meal with federal workers, Mr. Johnson posted on social media his own photo of her on the roof of the ICE building.
“She stood at the edge and stared down Antifa and a dude in a chicken suit,” Mr. Johnson wrote. “Straight savage.”
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
12) Marc Benioff Says Trump Should Send Guard Troops to San Francisco
Mr. Benioff, the Salesforce C.E.O. and owner of Time magazine, once supported Hillary Clinton and a business tax for homeless services. Now he’s fully behind Donald Trump.
By Heather Knight, Reporting from San Francisco, Oct. 10, 2025
For years, San Franciscans considered him their benevolent, big-hearted billionaire.
While other tech titans built private rocket ships and scooped up super yachts, the Salesforce founder and chief executive Marc Benioff was known for spreading large sums of money around San Francisco, his hometown. He tended toward the liberal side of Silicon Valley politics. He lectured other business leaders about the importance of helping homeless people instead of complaining about them.
But 2025 seems to have ushered in Benioff 2.0.
The benevolence remains, but the liberal leanings do not. In a wide-ranging interview, Mr. Benioff said this week that he avidly supported President Trump and thought National Guard troops should be deployed to San Francisco — an action that city leaders would consider beyond the pale.
Mr. Benioff’s shift serves as another example of a prominent Bay Area tech executive acceding to the Republican president’s view of the world. Tim Cook, the chief executive of Apple, gave Mr. Trump a 24-karat gold gift and heaped praise upon the president in an August visit to the Oval Office. Last month, at a White House dinner for tech barons, the OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman told Mr. Trump he was “a very refreshing change.”
To many Silicon Valley observers, such attempts to accommodate Mr. Trump are simply a matter of protecting tech businesses, especially after watching Mr. Trump threaten companies, individuals and institutions that have run afoul of him. And Salesforce has hundreds of software contracts with the federal government.
Nearly nine months into Mr. Trump’s second term, San Francisco has avoided the heavy federal incursions seen in Los Angeles, Washington and Chicago. The most palpable action in the city has involved agents arresting immigrants at the federal courthouse, sometimes in aggressive ways.
But the president, in an Oval Office gathering in August, mentioned that he was considering sending federal troops into San Francisco as he ticked off a list of other Democratic-led cities. He said that Democrats had “destroyed” San Francisco and that he would “clean that one up, too.”
Mr. Benioff said he liked that idea and thought that Guard soldiers could help reduce crime in the city.
“We don’t have enough cops, so if they can be cops, I’m all for it,” he said.
Mr. Benioff spoke as his annual Dreamforce conference is set to begin Tuesday in downtown San Francisco, bringing 50,000 visitors to the city. He is scheduled to deliver a keynote address about the benefits of “agentic enterprise,” a business model in which humans and artificial intelligence bots work together.
Speaking by telephone from his private plane en route to San Francisco, he lamented that he has to pay for hundreds of off-duty law enforcement officers to help patrol the convention area and said that San Francisco needed to “re-fund” the police.
The city never actually “defunded” its police force, and San Francisco’s violent crime rates are below those in many other U.S. cities.
But San Francisco has struggled to recruit and keep officers, and it still has problems with lower-level crimes and open-air drug use, especially in neighborhoods like the Tenderloin near City Hall. It has about 1,500 police officers, and Mr. Benioff says it needs another thousand.
“You’ll see. When you walk through San Francisco next week, there will be cops on every corner,” he continued. “That’s how it used to be.”
Mr. Benioff’s team wanted him to highlight his latest round of philanthropy, which includes another personal donation of $100 million to the University of California, San Francisco children’s hospitals named after him, as well as a $39 million company gift to schools and children’s causes. His family and company have given more than $1 billion to Bay Area causes over the past 26 years.
“I don’t think anyone has hired more people or given more money or supported San Francisco more than I have,” Mr. Benioff said.
Since the pandemic, he has mostly lived on the Big Island of Hawaii, where he has bought up numerous parcels of land. He said that he wasn’t sure how many days he spends each year in San Francisco, but that he is never in one place for more than a day or two.
Mayor Daniel Lurie, a moderate Democrat who avoids discussing national politics or even saying the president’s name, did not address Mr. Benioff’s view that Mr. Trump should send the National Guard to San Francisco. In a statement, his spokesman highlighted the city’s falling crime rates and increased hiring of law enforcement officers.
Other San Francisco politicians rebuked Mr. Benioff.
“You can’t support San Francisco and want to see us invaded,” said Assemblyman Matt Haney, a Democrat. “It’s one thing to wrongly support Trump’s misguided economic policies. It’s quite another to support a direct assault and occupation of our city.”
Brooke Jenkins, the San Francisco district attorney, was livid that Mr. Benioff wanted the National Guard in the city. She would seek to prosecute anyone, including federal agents, who becomes violent or harasses residents, she said.
“San Franciscans right now sit scared that we are next in line for what Trump is delivering to other cities across this nation,” Ms. Jenkins said. “I’m disappointed that anyone would want to invite that chaos into our city.”
Rafael Mandelman, the president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, said he agreed that the city needs more police officers, but said there was no need to send federal troops. He said he understood why so many tech leaders were turned off by the swing further left in the city five years ago, but said that they were moving too far to the right.
“I really don’t think Trump is the answer,” he said.
Though San Francisco and other Bay Area cities have elected more moderate leaders in recent years, they remain staunchly Democratic and oppose Mr. Trump. A Public Policy Institute of California poll in June found that 77 percent of likely voters in the Bay Area disapproved of Mr. Trump, the highest share for any region in the state.
But over the course of a 50-minute conversation, Mr. Benioff did not have a negative word to say about Mr. Trump or his policies.
“I fully support the president,” he said. “I think he’s doing a great job.”
During the interview, Mr. Trump’s voice could be heard in the background. Mr. Benioff was watching a YouTube video about the Israeli hostage release deal, for which he praised the president.
Mr. Benioff is close enough to Mr. Trump to have been invited last month to a state dinner that was hosted by King Charles for the president at Windsor Castle in England. Mr. Benioff said that he was incredibly honored to be seated directly across the table from Mr. Trump and spent the dinner telling him “how grateful I am for everything he’s doing,” he recounted.
Mr. Benioff, who also owns Time magazine, said he had not closely followed the news about the immigration raids, Mr. Trump’s call to gerrymander congressional districts before the midterm elections, the government shutdown or the Trump administration’s attacks on the media. He said Time, which named Mr. Trump its “Person of the Year” last year, had faced no pressure from the White House.
“We haven’t been under attack,” he said. “We provide accurate, balanced journalism.”
He praised Elon Musk’s DOGE initiative to slash federal spending, texting a recent photo of himself hanging out with Mr. Musk and a Tesla robot. He likewise praised David Sacks, another San Francisco tech billionaire and the chairman of Mr. Trump’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
It all seemed to be a major political shift for Mr. Benioff. In 2016, he hosted a large fund-raiser for Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential candidate who lost to Mr. Trump, at his $31 million mansion on the edge of the Presidio in San Francisco.
In 2018, Mr. Benioff personally funded a city ballot measure campaign to tax businesses, including his own, for services for those who are homeless.
When he cut the ribbon that same year to open Salesforce Tower, a rocket-shaped building that consumed the city skyline, he asked the head of a local meditation center to lead the crowd in chanting “Om, shanti,” a Sanskrit call for peace, and called on his fellow tech leaders do more to combat poverty.
Myrna Melgar, a San Francisco supervisor, said that Mr. Benioff’s comments about the National Guard and Mr. Trump “threw me for a loop.” She speculated that his political shift might be for self-serving business reasons.
“From the railroad barons until now, that’s nothing new,” she said. “But with Marc Benioff, it’s particularly disappointing. It’s definitely out of step and out of touch with what most San Franciscans would want.”
On Thursday, Mr. Benioff said he had never been progressive even if many San Franciscans thought he was. He said he was a longtime Republican before switching to become an independent voter.
At the end of the interview, he turned to a public relations executive. He could be heard asking why her mouth was wide open and if he had said anything he shouldn’t have.
“What about the political questions?” he asked. “Too spicy?”
Then he hung up.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
13) Judge Signals She Is Likely to Order Abrego Garcia’s Release Soon
The judge expressed frequent frustrations with the Trump administration, saying it had presented a “totally inconsistent” case to keep the Maryland man in immigration detention.
By Minho Kim, Reporting from Greenbelt, Md., Oct. 10, 2025
If Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia is released, it would be his first time walking free since August. Credit...Stephanie Scarbrough/Associated Press
A federal judge on Friday expressed strong doubt that the Trump administration had legal authority to continue detaining Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man now in immigration custody after Trump officials wrongfully deported him and then brought him back.
Judge Paula Xinis of the U.S. District Court in Maryland had called the hearing to give the Trump administration a chance to demonstrate evidence of lawful plans to deport Mr. Abrego Garcia soon, without which she said she was inclined to release him. But instead, she said, the government seems to be switching arguments at will to try to lengthen his detainment, resulting in a “totally inconsistent” case.
“You’re not even close,” the judge told administration lawyers at one point during the six-hour session. “We’re getting to ‘three strikes and you’re out.’”
If Judge Xinis orders Mr. Abrego Garcia released, it would be his first time walking free since he was briefly released for three days in August, after two judges ruled against Mr. Abrego Garcia’s continued detention for criminal charges the administration is separately pursuing against him. The release would also amount to the latest judicial rebuke of the Trump administration in a long and twisting case that began with what officials admitted was an “administrative error” that led to Mr. Abrego Garcia’s detention in a Salvadoran prison.
The administration has vowed that Mr. Abrego Garcia would “never go free on American soil.”
Central to the argument on Friday was whether administration officials had found a country where to take Mr. Abrego Garcia, who has been barred from deportation to his native El Salvador because he fears his life would be in danger there.
The Trump administration had previously floated Uganda and Eswatini as the primary options. But the government’s key witness, John Schultz, a deputy assistant director overseeing deportation operations at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, said no African countries to which the government intended to deport Mr. Abrego Garcia had agreed to take him.
For weeks, Mr. Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national who is married to a U.S. citizen, has made clear that he would not challenge his deportation if he were sent to Costa Rica, which has promised him legal residency and guaranteed that he would not be sent back to El Salvador.
But the Trump administration has refused to deport him to Costa Rica, and in an earlier hearing this week, Judge Xinis pressed the administration to consider the option or clarify why it was unacceptable.
She did not get the clarity she was seeking. Mr. Schultz not only could not explain why the administration had refused to consider Costa Rica but also said he had been unaware that Costa Rica had provided such assurances to Mr. Abrego Garcia.
“You came here today with a witness who knows nothing about Costa Rica, I mean, less than nothing,” Judge Xinis told a government lawyer, referring to Mr. Schultz. “Help yourself dig out of this hole.”
“This is a joke for anyone who’s listening,” she added.
Mr. Schultz’s testimony often seemed to undermine the government’s contention that it had concrete plans to deport Mr. Abrego Garcia in the weeks to come.
Government officials had presented Eswatini, a tiny nation in southern Africa, as the leading option for Mr. Abrego Garcia at a hearing on Monday. But Mr. Schultz said the State Department requested that Eswatini take Mr. Abrego Garcia on Wednesday, two days later. Mr. Schultz learned a few hours before the hearing on Friday that Eswatini had refused, he said.
There was also discussion of Ghana at the hearing, but Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, Ghana’s foreign minister, said on social media on Friday that the country was “not accepting Abrego Garcia,” a position that he said the Ghanian government “directly and unambiguously conveyed to U.S. authorities.” Mr. Abrego Garcia objected to being deported to Uganda, expressing fear for his safety in the country, an argument that Trump officials have yet to challenge.
Mr. Abrego Garcia had been living illegally in the United States but was protected from deportation to El Salvador under a 2019 immigration court ruling. Then the Trump administration mistakenly deported him to the country anyway. He spent months in prisons there before returning to the United States in June, weeks after the Supreme Court ordered Trump officials to facilitate his return.
Soon after his return, the administration brought criminal charges against him, claiming that Mr. Abrego Garcia had smuggled undocumented immigrants across the United States, an accusation that a federal judge in Nashville found likely to have stemmed from a vindictive prosecution.
According to court filings, Mr. Abrego Garcia is currently a legal resident of the United States, as the Trump administration paroled him into the country until June 2026 to bring criminal charges against him.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
14) Thousands Return to Northern Gaza, Hopeful, but Faced With Devastation
With the cease-fire holding overnight, many Palestinians continued to travel toward Gaza City on Saturday to learn what remained of their lives and homes.
By Liam Stack, Reporting from Tel Aviv, Oct. 11, 2025
Palestinians in Gaza made their way north toward Gaza City on Saturday, after the announcement of a cease-fire the day before. Saher Alghorra for The New York Times
Thousands of people continued to travel by foot toward Gaza City on Saturday as a cease-fire held overnight, but early accounts described devastation across the area.
“The scale of destruction is really staggering,” said Olga Cherevko, a spokeswoman for the United Nations’ humanitarian office, who visited the city this past week. “We have a lot of people moving north to Gaza City and arriving to find the ruins where their homes used to be, so there is a lot of conflicted emotion.”
Mediators hope the cease-fire, which began at noon Friday, will lead to the end of two years of war.
In Gaza, joy at the pause in fighting has been tempered by the scale of destruction that many face as they return to the north. Hundreds of thousands of people fled Gaza City last month as Israel began a ground offensive there.
Mahmoud Bassal, a spokesman for Gaza’s Civil Defense emergency rescue service, said on Saturday that 63 bodies had been recovered in the streets of Gaza City since the cease-fire began. He said he believed dozens more were probably under the rubble.
The director of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Dr. Mohammad Abu Salmiya, said the health care system would face “severe shortages” and “immense” challenges as people returned to the city. “We’ve finished one war and entered another,” he said.
Gaza is in a deep humanitarian crisis, with widespread hunger, vast destruction of property and most of its two million people displaced repeatedly in two years of war. The territory was impoverished before the war, and food supplies and other aid have been sharply curtailed since the conflict began, making circumstances much worse.
The agreement reached on Thursday between Israel and Hamas contains stipulations for an increase of aid into the enclave.
Israel will allow the United Nations to deliver larger amounts of humanitarian aid into Gaza starting on Sunday, according to a senior U.N. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the plans.
The United Nations has said about 170,000 metric tons of food, medicine and other supplies are staged and ready to be transported.
According to the agreement, Hamas would release the remaining Israeli hostages held in Gaza in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, and Israeli troops would withdraw to new deployment lines inside the territory.
The deal is based on a 20-point plan announced last month by President Trump. Though the truce reached this past week does not address some of the plan’s key stipulations, including whether Hamas will agree to disarm, Mr. Trump has celebrated it as a victory.
“I’ve never seen happier people than many of these places, not just Israel, many of these places. They’re all dancing in the streets,” Mr. Trump said at a White House event on Friday. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
He told reporters that he believed there was “consensus on most” of the plan and that the hostages would be released on Monday. “They’re getting them now,” he said. “They’re in some pretty rough places. Only a few people know where they are in some cases.”
For many of those walking the coastal road from southern to northern Gaza, the pause in fighting offered a chance to return home and to learn what remained of their lives there.
Mona Mortaja, 27, an accounting student, was returning to a city she thought she might never see again. “Our goodbye to Gaza felt like the last one,” she said on Friday.
Nearby, Ahmed Jabr, 37, was walking with his wife and seven children. They fled Gaza City last month and also feared they might never return.
“Now, I’m back,” he said. “There are no bombardments, no airstrikes, no fear. I finally feel safe, and my children do, too.”
Rawan Sheikh Ahmad contributed reporting from Haifa, Israel.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
15) ‘Over the Clouds’: Families of Palestinian Prisoners Await Their Release
Israel agreed to free 250 Palestinians serving life sentences, many of whom will be sent into exile. For their families, it brought joy. But for those whose relatives were excluded, it was a crushing blow.
By Fatima AbdulKarim, Reporting from Ramallah, West Bank, Oct. 11, 2025
Palestinians celebrated with prisoners released in January by Israel. Credit...Afif Amireh for The New York Times
Fuad Kamamji described the moment he saw his son’s name on a list of Palestinian prisoners to be released by Israel as one of “rare happiness.”
“We have been accepting God’s fate in the worst conditions,” Mr. Kamamji said. “We were content with all the difficult things that came our way. But now, we are feeling a joy we haven’t known in a long time.”
His son, Eham Kamamji, 39, was arrested in 2006 and has been serving a life sentence since his conviction for the kidnapping and murder of an Israeli settler, Eliyahu Asheri. He has been in solitary confinement since 2021, when he was among six Palestinians who temporarily escaped from Israel’s Gilboa Prison in what Israeli officials said was the largest Palestinian jailbreak in more than two decades.
On Friday, Israel released a list of prisoners to be freed as part of the cease-fire deal that it reached with Hamas. Under the agreement, the Palestinian militant group will free the remaining 48 hostages it holds, of which Israel believes 20 are still alive.
Israel will release about 250 Palestinian prisoners, most of whom are serving life sentences, and 1,700 Gazans who were detained during the war and were not involved in the attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, according to a government resolution released on Friday. Most of those who are serving life sentences did not deny the accusations when they were convicted, and said they were acting as resistance fighters.
While Eham Kamamji was on the list of prisoners set to be freed, it indicated that he would be sent into exile, rather than being permitted to return home to Jenin, in the West Bank.
Fuad Kamamji said he was holding off from celebrating because his son had been mentioned in prior swap deals that never materialized. “But what I’m feeling now is a strong sense of relief and peace,” he said. “I believe my son will be out, whether among us or in exile. The important thing is that he’ll be free.”
Across the West Bank and Gaza, Palestinians with imprisoned relatives have been absorbing the news of who would be released, who would be exiled, and who would remain behind bars — namely, prisoners whose release Israel sees as intolerable.
One of those Israel has refused to free is Hassan Salama, 54, a senior Hamas figure. He was sentenced to more than 40 life terms in prison for orchestrating suicide bombings in 1996 that killed dozens of Israelis and wounded hundreds, after Israel’s assassination of the militant group’s well-known bomb-maker Yahya Ayyash.
Ghufran Zamel, 42, became engaged to Mr. Salama 16 years ago, when he was already behind bars. Last year, she emigrated to Turkey. Ms. Zamel said she feared that Hamas’s release of all the Israeli hostages, ending any leverage it holds, “would mean a death sentence” to any Palestinian prisoner not on Israel’s release list.
For many of the families of the Israeli victims of the attacks, however, the news that the perpetrators would be freed stirred complicated emotions.
Renana Meir, whose mother, Dafna, was stabbed to death outside her home in the West Bank settlement of Otniel in 2016, wrote in an Israeli newspaper on Friday that the imminent release of her mother’s killer would pose a threat to Israelis everywhere.
Still, she believed that her mother would have been in favor of their release in exchange for the return of Israeli hostages. “I know you would have done this without thinking twice, if it were up to you,” she wrote.
More than half of the prisoners to be released by Israel are to be sent into exile, according to the list, but it was unclear where they would be sent. That includes Basem Khandaqji, a Palestinian writer who was sentenced to three life terms for his involvement in the Carmel Market suicide bombing in 2004, which killed three Israelis and wounded dozens more.
While in prison, Mr. Khandaqji has published poetry collections and several novels, including the acclaimed “A Mask, the Color of the Sky,” which won the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2024.
His sister, Amani Khandaqji, said she felt “over the clouds” about his possible release. “He could be deported,” she said, “but at least he will be free.”
Sara Salem, a resident of Jericho, in the West Bank, was waiting for the release of her husband, Ahmad Kaabnah, a veteran Fatah member, who has been behind bars for 28 of his 54 years, after being convicted of killing two Israeli settlers.
She said she had barely slept since the deal was announced. “I couldn’t even open the TV to see if the cease-fire had come into effect or not because it was all eating me up inside,” she said.
Ms. Salem was pregnant with their second child when Mr. Kaabnah was arrested. They had a third later through in vitro fertilization, with sperm smuggled out of prison. Today, Mr. Kaabnah has five grandchildren, with a sixth on the way. He has not been allowed to meet with anyone, including his family, since before the war in Gaza, Ms. Salem said.
She said she hoped Mr. Kaabnah “would return to us,” but he, too, is slated for exile once he is freed.
Still, his potential release has her racked with tension, Ms. Salem said. “We are sitting like on fire,” she said, “and waiting for the news to tell us our Ahmad will be free.”
Johnatan Reiss contributed reporting from Tel Aviv.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
16) This Isn’t Crisis Response, It’s Crisis Construction
By Jason P. Houser, Oct. 11, 2025
Mr. Houser is a former chief of staff at Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Kenn Cook Jr. for The New York Times
Nearly nine months into President Trump’s second term, immigration enforcement has become the administration’s primary political weapon — not to solve problems, but to manufacture fear, provoke outrage and stage an illusion of control. This isn’t a crisis response. It’s crisis construction.
The president’s team vowed to target gang members, murderers and rapists, but we’re not just rounding up violent offenders. We’re arresting working parents, students, asylum seekers and even U.S. citizens, to create made-for-TV crackdowns.
I served as chief of staff at Immigration and Customs Enforcement under President Joe Biden and spent over a decade working in homeland security. I knew that national security requires focusing on threats — not turning law enforcement into a spectacle. Despite President Trump’s promises to go after the “worst of the worst,” in the past few months the administration has deported a preschooler who is a U.S. citizen and who has stage 4 kidney cancer and his family. A raid on a Hyundai plant where South Korean nationals were rounded up triggered an international incident and threatened future investment in Georgia. Those scenes appear to be part of a deliberate strategy of political theater.
Over the next three years, detention space will be multiplied. Due process will likely be further sidelined. The broken legal immigration system won’t be fixed — it will be abandoned.
The One Big Beautiful Bill signed in July will inject agencies at every level — federal, state and local — with funding for immigration enforcement. That will entrench removal as the singular goal of our law enforcement at every level of government, while focusing away from terrorism, transnational crime, cyberattacks and foreign adversaries.
Federal, state and local law enforcement are already being deputized to support ICE endeavors.
Nearly 14,500 law enforcement agents have been pulled off their investigations to do civil immigration work, including agents taken off the border. Nearly 3,000 Federal Bureau of Investigation agents were reassigned to civil immigration enforcement, instead of focusing on their mission of national security and public safety. This is allowing fentanyl traffickers, child predators and foreign intelligence threats to operate with less scrutiny. Federal prosecutions for drug violations have dropped significantly.
In Chicago, a recent federal raid turned an apartment complex into a battlefield. A helicopter hovered overhead as agents stormed in, zip tying American children and parading them, in pajamas and crying, into the street. The result of that raid? Another neighborhood terrorized — another community pushed farther from trusting law enforcement. No cartel leader was arrested. No terrorist cell was disrupted.
When immigration enforcement is conducted this way it has consequences for all of law enforcement, and in turn, all public safety. This is where our national security dollars are going. This is how we’re choosing to spend our limited operational bandwidth. How does this make us safer?
Under President Trump, every raid, every news conference, every viral image is part of a larger operation — not of enforcement, but manipulation. The resistance these tactics create are useful for the administration and help justify escalation.
Federal agents, many of whom signed up to protect the nation, are essentially being used as props, and I worry that, as the political tides turn, political appointees will be able to scapegoat them and then discard them. The proud men and women who enforce our immigration laws saw this during the previous Trump administration — the posturing, the betrayal, the blame dumped on officers who were directed to carry out operations (like family separation) in a way that instills distrust in law enforcement.
We need immigration enforcement — but it must be humane, targeted and precise. This country deserves an approach that prioritizes national security, protects communities and upholds due process. ICE officers are capable of that mission. Placing the formidable power of ICE — with its vast authority and reach — in the hands of political opportunists who neither fully comprehend nor respect that its mission is a volatile and dangerous combination, turning a critical national security tool into a blunt political weapon.
When law enforcement is forced into partisan roles, it stops serving the public. And when the public loses trust in law enforcement, the whole system begins to fail. The blueprint is: Create chaos. Blame the chaos. Then offer yourself as the cure.
This plan is already underway. The question now is if the rest of us will keep pretending this is law and order.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
17) These Students Are Scared. Friends and Teachers Are Their Protectors.
Sometimes, they offer a place to stay to immigrant children. Other times, they provide help navigating the legal system. They have become part of the resistance.
By Ana Ley, Oct. 11, 2025
Joel Camas, 16, and his mother, Elvia Chafla, came to the United States from Ecuador as undocumented immigrants. Joel’s school has provided a crucial lifeline. Diana Cervantes for The New York Times
Joel Camas, 16, and his mother, Elvia Chafla, came to the United States from Ecuador as undocumented immigrants. Joel’s school has provided a crucial lifeline.Diana Cervantes for The New York Times
Hope was scarce for Joel Camas, 16, last winter. His mother had spent $11,000 on lawyers — nearly all of her money — but mother and son remained on a trajectory toward deportation back to Ecuador, and Joel’s life in New York City seemed to be unraveling.
In the Bronx, his high school was a lifeline. Against a drumbeat of immigration arrests, teachers offered comfort and helped him plan for the future he dreamed of as an auto mechanic or Army soldier. In his spare time, he liked hanging out with classmates to play soccer and eat pepperoni pizza.
And, crucially, school staff members and friends worked with a pro bono lawyer to try to persuade immigration officials to let Joel, who is undocumented, stay in America.
As President Trump’s immigration crackdown has begun to target more underage migrants, New York schools have become a quiet locus of resistance, with teachers, classmates and neighbors banding together in their defense. At least five migrant students have been detained or deported since January in New York City.
In interviews, more than a dozen people connected to school-age migrants said they were dismayed by what they described as the federal government’s intimidation of children. They have built an informal network of allies and shelters to cocoon the city’s students, in some cases offering lodging or escorting them to and from school so that their parents avoid interactions with law enforcement. There have been no reported cases of federal agents detaining children at school in New York or elsewhere.
Because their efforts risk drawing the attention of administration officials who have sometimes exacted retribution against those who impede their clampdown, many advocates and educators have acted in secret.
“That’s what New Yorkers are best at: being able to come together in a crisis,” said Norma Vega, the principal of Ellis Preparatory Academy, whose student Dylan Lopez Contreras was detained by immigration officials earlier this year. She added: “There’s a lot more good than there is bad.”
Mr. Lopez Contreras, 20, was the first public school student in the city to be arrested during Mr. Trump’s second term. Ms. Vega said that the city’s outpouring of support for him and other young migrants reminded her of the kindness that strangers extended to her mother after she survived the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
In the case of another student — Mamadou Mouctar Diallo, 20, who attended Brooklyn Frontiers High School — teachers rallied on the steps of the city Department of Education’s headquarters after he was detained in August by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents during a routine court appearance at 26 Federal Plaza in Lower Manhattan. That building, and the immigration courtrooms inside, have become the epicenter of detentions in New York City.
Mr. Diallo, 20, is an asylum seeker from Guinea who entered the country last year. He remains in confinement in Lords Valley, Pa.
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, said in an email that ICE does not target schools or children.
“The media is sadly attempting to create a climate of fear and smear law enforcement,” Ms. McLaughlin said. She added: “ICE is not conducting enforcement operations at, or ‘raiding,’ schools.”
Sometimes, help comes from beyond the walls of the classroom.
On a blistering June afternoon before classes broke for the summer, an alliance of a half-dozen panicked neighbors gathered a few blocks from P.S. 015 in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Red Hook. Someone at the elementary school had called a mother who lived nearby amid whispers that ICE agents were waiting for her outside the campus. The neighbors debated what to do.
What if ICE agents were also lurking near the family’s home? Should someone stay with the mother? Was the Police Department in on it?
A few minutes later, they instructed the woman to barricade herself inside, and together they marched to the school and delivered the child home. ICE never showed up.
Elsewhere in New York this year, a principal and a teacher’s mother attended two students’ deportation hearings. Upstate, a teacher gave refuge to a family that was too afraid to go home after being detained and released by immigration officials.
With the backing of the teacher’s union in New York City, the United Federation of Teachers, schools have trained educators and parents to distribute red cards — documents that assert people’s constitutional rights, regardless of immigration status.
Educators have also helped students understand how to avoid interactions with immigration officials as part of a broader plan to help families seeking asylum in the United States. A New York City public school program devotes resources for migrant students, including transportation to school and English-language lessons.
The New York City schools chancellor, Melissa Aviles-Ramos, has denounced the detention of students, vowing to keep them safe and to defend their rights. Educators have expressed concern that many undocumented kids are not showing up to school because of increased immigration enforcement.
“Public schools are the bedrock of democracy, so I’m glad to see certain public schools standing up,” Sari Beth Rosenberg, a teacher at a New York City public high school and a co-founder of the nonprofit Teachers Unify to End Gun Violence, said. “I think if we can use the public schools to educate and empower young people, I hope they can come home and educate their family members who are very frightened right now.”
Schools that are bracing for potential activity have been offered support by the staff of City Councilman Lincoln Restler and State Senator Andrew Gounardes, both Democrats who represent districts where residents have gathered to help undocumented students. Many schools have developed guidelines for children and parents during pick-up and drop-off, as well as for principals to share news about ICE sightings.
Between classes, school-age migrants swap information among one another about community organizations that can help tether them to New York.
Joel, the teenager from the Bronx, met his attorney, Beth Baltimore, through a youth social services center called the Door, which offers 12- to 24-year-olds essential services such as health care, mental counseling and legal assistance.
“Someone will become a member of the Door, and suddenly, the next week, all of their friends become members of the Door, too,” Ms. Baltimore said. “If you’re in high school, there’s just kind of immediate access to other people who are similarly situated. And I think people don’t feel like, ‘I was alone with nowhere to go,’ because of that.”
Thousands of underage migrants arrive in New York each year without their parents, often fleeing poverty or violence in their native countries. Many have formed deep bonds with Americans who do not want them to go.
In some cases, the bonds nurtured during high school extend after graduation.
Gerson Josué Santamaría Turcios, a 23-year-old recent graduate from Rhinebeck High School in New York’s Hudson Valley, arrived in the United States from Honduras almost six years ago. After high school, he built a landscaping business in the idyllic New York countryside, where neighbors treated him like family.
Mr. Turcios, who is undocumented, was detained after cutting the yard of resident Jenny Friedberg, who sounded the alarm for their friends to spring to action. Within days, a fund-raiser had amassed more than $100,000, including donations from Paul Rudd, the actor, and Andrew Jarecki, the filmmaker.
Soon thereafter, a charter bus and caravan of supporters traveled more than two hours to Manhattan in hopes a judge would keep Mr. Turcios from being transferred out of the city and into a Republican stronghold where he was more likely to be deported. Mr. Turcios has since been moved among several ICE detention centers, including two in Louisiana.
Outside the courtroom, his best friend, Brendan Dougherty, 20, said that he felt disappointed by his country.
“When I told him ICE was in Rhinebeck, I told him he could seek refuge at my house,” Mr. Dougherty said. “This kid had spent the past six years building a life here. I should be deported over him.”
For Joel Camas, the teenager from Ecuador, the future remains uncertain, his immigration case unresolved. His mother has returned to their homeland, deciding to leave rather than waiting to be deported by authorities. Joel remains in New York, still going to school.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
