Dr. Atler Still Needs Our Help!
Please sign the petition today!
https://www.change.org/p/texas-state-university-give-tom-alter-his-job-back
What you can do to support:
—Donate to help Tom Alter and his family with living and legal expenses: https://gofund.me/27c72f26d
—Sign and share this petition demanding Tom Alter be given his job back: https://www.change.org/p/texas-state-university-give-tom-alter-his-job-back
—Write to and call the President and Provost at Texas State University demanding that Tom Alter be given his job back:
President Kelly Damphousse: president@txstate.edu
President’s Office Phone: 512-245-2121
Provost Pranesh Aswath: xrk25@txstate.edu
Provost Office Phone: 512-245-2205
For more information about the reason for the firing of Dr. Tom Alter, read:
"Fired for Advocating Socialism: Professor Tom Alter Speaks Out"
Ashley Smith Interviews Dr. Tom Alter
—CounterPunch, September 24, 2025
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Stop Cop City Bay Area
Did you know about a proposed $47 million regional police training facility in San Pablo—designed for departments across the Bay Area?
We are Stop Cop City Bay Area (Tours & Teach-Ins), a QT+ Black-led grassroots collective raising awareness about this project. This would be the city’s second police training facility, built without voter approval and financed through a $32 million, 30-year loan.
We’re organizing to repurpose the facility into a community resource hub and youth center. To build people power, we’re taking this conversation on the road—visiting Bay Area campuses, classrooms, cafes, and community spaces via our Fall 2025 Tour.
We’d love to collaborate with you and/or co-create an event. Here’s what we offer:
Guest Speaker Presentations—5-minute visits (team meetings, classrooms, co-ops, etc.), panels, or deep dives into:
· the facility’s origins & regional impacts
· finding your role in activism
· reimagining the floorplan (micro-workshops)
· and more
· Interactive Art & Vendor/Tabling Pop-Ups — free zines, stickers, and live linocut printing with hand-carved stamps + artivism.
· Collaborations with Classrooms — project partnerships, research integration, or creative assignments.
· Film Screenings + Discussion — e.g., Power (Yance Ford, 2024) or Riotsville, U.S.A. (Sierra Pettengill, 2022), or a film of your choice.
👉 If you’re interested in hosting a stop, open to co-creating something else, or curious about the intersections of our work: simply reply to this email or visit: stopcopcitybayarea.com/tour
Thank you for your time and consideration. We look forward to connecting.
In solidarity,
Stop Cop City Bay Area
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Dear Organization Coordinator
I hope this message finds you well. I’m reaching out to invite your organization to consider co-sponsoring a regional proposal to implement Free Public Transit throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.
This initiative directly supports low-income families, working people, seniors, youth, and others who rely on public transportation. It would eliminate fare barriers while helping to address climate justice, congestion, and air pollution—issues that disproportionately affect disadvantaged communities.
We believe your organization’s mission and values align strongly with this proposal. We are seeking endorsements, co-sponsorship, and coalition-building with groups that advocate for economic and racial equity.
I would love the opportunity to share a brief proposal or speak further if you're interested. Please let me know if there’s a staff member or program director I should connect with.
A description of our proposal is below:
sharethemoneyinstitute@gmail.com
Opinion: San Francisco Bay Area Should Provide Free Public Transportation
The San Francisco Bay Area is beautiful, with fantastic weather, food, diversity and culture. We’re also internationally famous for our progressiveness, creativity, and innovation.
I believe the next amazing world-leading feature we can add to our cornucopia of attractions is Free Public Transportation. Imagine how wonderful it would be if Muni, BART, Caltrain, AC Transit, SamTrans, SF Bay Ferries, and all the other transportation services were absolutely free?
Providing this convenience would deliver enormous, varied benefits to the 7.6 million SF Bay Area residents, and would make us a lovable destination for tourists.
This goal - Free Public Transportation - is ambitious, but it isn’t impossible, or even original. Truth is, many people world-wide already enjoy free rides in their smart municipalities.
New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani is promoting free transit, with a plan that’s gained the endorsement of economists from Chile, United Kingdom, Greece, and the USA.
The entire nation of Luxembourg has offered free public transportation to both its citizens and visitors since 2020. Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, has given free transit to its residents since 2013. In France, thirty-five cities provide free public transportation. Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, offers free rides to seniors, disabled, and students. In Maricá (Brazil) – the entire municipal bus system is free. Delhi (India) – offers free metro and bus travel for women. Madrid & Barcelona (Spain) offer free (or heavily discounted) passes to youth and seniors.
Even in the USA, free public transit is already here. Kansas City, Missouri, has enjoyed a free bus system free since 2020. Olympia, Washington, has fully fare-free intercity transit. Missoula, Montana, is free for all riders. Columbia, South Carolina, has free buses, and Chapel Hill, North Carolina, has enjoyed free transit for over a decade. Ithaca, New York, and Madison, Wisconsin, offer free transit to students.
But if the San Francisco Bay Area offered free transit, we’d be the LARGEST municipality in the world to offer universal Free Transit to everyone, resident and visitor alike. (Population of Luxembourg is 666,430. Kansas City 510,704. Population of San Francisco Bay Area is 7.6 million in the nine-county area)
Providing free transit would be tremendously beneficial to millions of people, for three major reasons:
1. Combat Climate Change - increased public ridership would reduce harmful CO2 fossil fuel emissions. Estimates from Kansas City and Tallinn Estonia’s suggest an increase in ridership of 15 percent. Another estimate from a pilot project in New York City suggests a ridership increase of 30 percent. These increases in people taking public transportation instead of driving their own cars indicates a total reduction of 5.4 - 10.8 tons of emissions would be eliminated, leading to better air quality, improved public health, and long-term climate gains.
2. Reduce Traffic Congestion & Parking Difficulty - Estimates suggest public transit would decrease traffic congestion in dense urban areas and choke points like the Bay Bridge by up to 15 percent. Car ownership would also be reduced. Traffic in San Francisco is the second-slowest in the USA (NYC is #1) and getting worse every year. Parking costs in San Francisco are also the second-worst in the USA (NYC #1), and again, it is continually getting worse.
3. Promote Social Equity - Free transit removes a financial cost that hits low-income residents hard. Transportation is the second-biggest expense after housing for many Americans. In the Bay Area, a monthly Clipper pass can cost $86–$98 per system, and much more for multi-agency commuters. For people living paycheck-to-paycheck, this is a significant cost. People of color, immigrants, youth, seniors, and people with disabilities rely more heavily on public transit. 55–70% of frequent transit riders in the Bay Area are from low-to moderate-income households, but these riders usually pay more per mile of transit than wealthy drivers. Free fares equalize access regardless of income or geography.
Free transit would help people 1) take jobs they couldn’t otherwise afford to commute to, thus improving the economy, 2) Stay in school without worrying about bus fare, 3) Get to appointments, child care, or grocery stores without skipping meals to afford transit.
To conclude: Free Public Transit should be seen as a civil rights and economic justice intervention.
The Cost? How can San Francisco Bay Area pay for Free Transit throughout our large region?
ShareTheMoney.Institute estimates the cost as $1.5 billion annually. This sum can acquired via multiple strategies. Corvallis, Oregon, has had free public bus service since 2011, paid for by a $3.63 monthly fee added to each utility bill. Missoula, Montana, funds their fare-free Mountain Line transit system, via a property tax mill levy. Madison, Wisconsin’s transit is supported by general fund revenues, state and federal grants, and partnerships/sponsorships from local businesses and organizations.
Ideally, we’d like the funds to be obtained from the 37 local billionaires who, combined, have an approximate wealth of $885 billion. The $1.5 billion for free transit is only 0.17% of the local billionaire's wealth. Sponsorship from the ultra-wealthy would be ideal. Billionaires can view the “fair transit donation” they are asked to contribute not as punishment or an “envy tax”, but as their investment to create a municipality that is better for everyone, themselves included. They can pride themselves on instigating a world-leading, legacy-defining reform that will etch their names in history as leaders of a bold utopian reform.
Our motto: “we want to move freely around our beautiful bay”
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Hank Pellissier - Share The Money Institute
Reverend Gregory Stevens - Unitarian Universalist EcoSocialist Network
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........* *..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*  Russia Confirms Jailing of Antiwar Leader Boris Kagarlitsky In a secret trial on June 5, 2024, the Russian Supreme Court’s Military Chamber confirmed a sentence of five years in a penal colony for left-wing sociologist and online journalist Boris Kagarlitsky. His crime? “Justifying terrorism” — a sham charge used to silence opponents of Putin’s war on Ukraine. The court disregarded a plea for freedom sent by thirty-seven international luminaries. Kagarlitsky, a leading Marxist thinker in Russia’s post-Soviet period, recently addressed socialists who won’t criticize Putin: “To my Western colleagues, who…call for an understanding of Putin and his regime, I would like to ask a very simple question. [Would] you want to live in a country where there is no free press or independent courts? In a country where the police have the right to break into your house without a warrant? …In a country which…broadcasts appeals on TV to destroy Paris, London, Warsaw, with a nuclear strike?” Thousands of antiwar critics have been forced to flee Russia or are behind bars, swept up in Putin’s vicious crackdown on dissidents. Opposition to the war is consistently highest among the poorest workers. Recently, RusNews journalists Roman Ivanov and Maria Ponomarenko were sentenced to seven, and six years respectively, for reporting the military’s brutal assault on Ukraine. A massive global solidarity campaign that garnered support from thousands was launched at Kagarlitsky’s arrest. Now, it has been revived. This internationalism will bolster the repressed Russian left and Ukrainian resistance to Putin’s imperialism. To sign the online petition at freeboris.info —Freedom Socialist Party, August 2024 https://socialism.com/fs-article/russia-jails-prominent-antiwar-leader-boris-kagarlitsky/#:~:text=In%20a%20secret%20trial%20on,of%20Putin's%20war%20on%20Ukraine. Petition in Support of Boris KagarlitskyWe, the undersigned, were deeply shocked to learn that on February 13 the leading Russian socialist intellectual and antiwar activist Dr. Boris Kagarlitsky (65) was sentenced to five years in prison. Dr. Kagarlitsky was arrested on the absurd charge of 'justifying terrorism' in July last year. After a global campaign reflecting his worldwide reputation as a writer and critic of capitalism and imperialism, his trial ended on December 12 with a guilty verdict and a fine of 609,000 roubles. The prosecution then appealed against the fine as 'unjust due to its excessive leniency' and claimed falsely that Dr. Kagarlitsky was unable to pay the fine and had failed to cooperate with the court. In fact, he had paid the fine in full and provided the court with everything it requested. On February 13 a military court of appeal sent him to prison for five years and banned him from running a website for two years after his release. The reversal of the original court decision is a deliberate insult to the many thousands of activists, academics, and artists around the world who respect Dr. Kagarlitsky and took part in the global campaign for his release. The section of Russian law used against Dr. Kagarlitsky effectively prohibits free expression. The decision to replace the fine with imprisonment was made under a completely trumped-up pretext. Undoubtedly, the court's action represents an attempt to silence criticism in the Russian Federation of the government's war in Ukraine, which is turning the country into a prison. The sham trial of Dr. Kagarlitsky is the latest in a wave of brutal repression against the left-wing movements in Russia. Organizations that have consistently criticized imperialism, Western and otherwise, are now under direct attack, many of them banned. Dozens of activists are already serving long terms simply because they disagree with the policies of the Russian government and have the courage to speak up. Many of them are tortured and subjected to life-threatening conditions in Russian penal colonies, deprived of basic medical care. Left-wing politicians are forced to flee Russia, facing criminal charges. International trade unions such as IndustriALL and the International Transport Federation are banned and any contact with them will result in long prison sentences. There is a clear reason for this crackdown on the Russian left. The heavy toll of the war gives rise to growing discontent among the mass of working people. The poor pay for this massacre with their lives and wellbeing, and opposition to war is consistently highest among the poorest. The left has the message and resolve to expose the connection between imperialist war and human suffering. Dr. Kagarlitsky has responded to the court's outrageous decision with calm and dignity: “We just need to live a little longer and survive this dark period for our country,” he said. Russia is nearing a period of radical change and upheaval, and freedom for Dr. Kagarlitsky and other activists is a condition for these changes to take a progressive course. We demand that Boris Kagarlitsky and all other antiwar prisoners be released immediately and unconditionally. We also call on the authorities of the Russian Federation to reverse their growing repression of dissent and respect their citizens' freedom of speech and right to protest. Sign to Demand the Release of Boris Kagarlitskyhttps://freeboris.infoThe petition is also available on Change.org *..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........* *..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........* |
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Mumia Abu-Jamal is Innocent!
FREE HIM NOW!
Write to Mumia at:
Smart Communications/PADOC
Mumia Abu-Jamal #AM-8335
SCI Mahanoy
P.O. Box 33028
St. Petersburg, FL 33733
Join the Fight for Mumia's Life
Since September, Mumia Abu-Jamal's health has been declining at a concerning rate. He has lost weight, is anemic, has high blood pressure and an extreme flair up of his psoriasis, and his hair has fallen out. In April 2021 Mumia underwent open heart surgery. Since then, he has been denied cardiac rehabilitation care including a healthy diet and exercise.
He still needs more complicated treatment from a retinal specialist for his right eye if his eyesight is to be saved:
Donate to Mumia Abu-Jamal's Emergency Legal and Medical
Defense Fund
Mumia has instructed PrisonRadio to set up this fund. Gifts donated here are designated for the Mumia Abu-Jamal Medical and Legal Defense Fund. If you are writing a check or making a donation in another way, note this in the memo line.
Send to:
Mumia Medical and Legal Fund c/o Prison Radio
P.O. Box 411074, San Francisco, CA 94103
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Updates From Kevin Cooper
A Never-ending Constitutional Violation
A summary of the current status of Kevin Cooper’s case by the Kevin Cooper Defense Committee
On October 26, 2023, the law firm of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, LLP wrote a rebuttal in response to the Special Counsel's January 13, 2023 report upholding the conviction of their client Kevin Cooper. A focus of the rebuttal was that all law enforcement files were not turned over to the Special Counsel during their investigation, despite a request for them to the San Bernardino County District Attorney's office.
On October 29, 2023, Law Professors Lara Bazelon and Charlie Nelson Keever, who run the six member panel that reviews wrongful convictions for the San Francisco County District Attorney's office, published an OpEd in the San Francisco Chronicle calling the "Innocence Investigation” done by the Special Counsel in the Cooper case a “Sham Investigation” largely because Cooper has unsuccessfully fought for years to obtain the police and prosecutor files in his case. This is a Brady claim, named for the U.S. Supreme court’s 1963 case establishing the Constitutional rule that defendants are entitled to any information in police and prosecutor's possession that could weaken the state's case or point to innocence. Brady violations are a leading cause of wrongful convictions. The Special Counsel's report faults Cooper for not offering up evidence of his own despite the fact that the best evidence to prove or disprove Brady violations or other misconduct claims are in those files that the San Bernardino County District Attorney's office will not turn over to the Special Counsel or to Cooper's attorneys.
On December 14, 2023, the president of the American Bar Association (ABA), Mary Smith, sent Governor Gavin Newsom a three page letter on behalf of the ABA stating in part that Mr.Cooper's counsel objected to the state's failure to provide Special Counsel all documents in their possession relating to Mr.Cooper's conviction, and that concerns about missing information are not new. For nearly 40 years Mr.Cooper's attorneys have sought this same information from the state.
On December 19, 2023, Bob Egelko, a journalist for the San Francisco Chronicle wrote an article about the ABA letter to the Governor that the prosecutors apparently withheld evidence from the Governor's legal team in the Cooper case.
These are just a few recent examples concerning the ongoing failure of the San Bernardino County District Attorney to turn over to Cooper's attorney's the files that have been requested, even though under the law and especially the U.S. Constitution, the District Attorney of San Bernardino county is required to turn over to the defendant any and all material and or exculpatory evidence that they have in their files. Apparently, they must have something in their files because they refuse to turn them over to anyone.
The last time Cooper's attorney's received files from the state, in 2004, it wasn't from the D.A. but a Deputy Attorney General named Holly Wilkens in Judge Huff's courtroom. Cooper's attorneys discovered a never before revealed police report showing that a shirt was discovered that had blood on it and was connected to the murders for which Cooper was convicted, and that the shirt had disappeared. It had never been tested for blood. It was never turned over to Cooper's trial attorney, and no one knows where it is or what happened to it. Cooper's attorneys located the woman who found that shirt on the side of the road and reported it to the Sheriff's Department. She was called to Judge Huff's court to testify about finding and reporting that shirt to law enforcement. That shirt was the second shirt found that had blood on it that was not the victims’ blood. This was in 2004, 19 years after Cooper's conviction.
It appears that this ongoing constitutional violation that everyone—from the Special Counsel to the Governor's legal team to the Governor himself—seems to know about, but won't do anything about, is acceptable in order to uphold Cooper's conviction.
But this type of thing is supposed to be unacceptable in the United States of America where the Constitution is supposed to stand for something other than a piece of paper with writing on it. How can a Governor, his legal team, people who support and believe in him ignore a United States citizen’s Constitutional Rights being violated for 40 years in order to uphold a conviction?
This silence is betrayal of the Constitution. This permission and complicity by the Governor and his team is against everything that he and they claim to stand for as progressive politicians. They have accepted the Special Counsel's report even though the Special Counsel did not receive the files from the district attorney that may not only prove that Cooper is innocent, but that he was indeed framed by the Sheriff’s Department; and that evidence was purposely destroyed and tampered with, that certain witnesses were tampered with, or ignored if they had information that would have helped Cooper at trial, that evidence that the missing shirt was withheld from Cooper's trial attorney, and so much more.
Is the Governor going to get away with turning a blind eye to this injustice under his watch?
Are progressive people going to stay silent and turn their eyes blind in order to hopefully get him to end the death penalty for some while using Cooper as a sacrificial lamb?
An immediate act of solidarity we can all do right now is to write to Kevin and assure him of our continuing support in his fight for justice. Here’s his address:
Kevin Cooper #C65304
Cell 107, Unit E1C
California Health Care Facility, Stockton (CHCF)
P.O. Box 213040
Stockton, CA 95213
www.freekevincooper.org
Call California Governor Newsom:
1-(916) 445-2841
Press 1 for English or 2 for Spanish,
press 6 to speak with a representative and
wait for someone to answer
(Monday-Friday, 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. PST—12:00 P.M. to 8:00 P.M. EST)
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Resources for Resisting Federal Repression
https://www.nlg.org/federalrepressionresources/
Since June of 2020, activists have been subjected to an increasingly aggressive crackdown on protests by federal law enforcement. The federal response to the movement for Black Lives has included federal criminal charges for activists, door knocks by federal law enforcement agents, and increased use of federal troops to violently police protests.
The NLG National Office is releasing this resource page for activists who are resisting federal repression. It includes a link to our emergency hotline numbers, as well as our library of Know-Your-Rights materials, our recent federal repression webinar, and a list of some of our recommended resources for activists. We will continue to update this page.
Please visit the NLG Mass Defense Program page for general protest-related legal support hotlines run by NLG chapters.
Emergency Hotlines
If you are contacted by federal law enforcement, you should exercise all of your rights. It is always advisable to speak to an attorney before responding to federal authorities.
State and Local Hotlines
If you have been contacted by the FBI or other federal law enforcement, in one of the following areas, you may be able to get help or information from one of these local NLG hotlines for:
Portland, Oregon: (833) 680-1312
San Francisco, California: (415) 285-1041 or fbi_hotline@nlgsf.org
Seattle, Washington: (206) 658-7963
National Hotline
If you are located in an area with no hotline, you can call the following number:
National NLG Federal Defense Hotline: (212) 679-2811
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1) Border Patrol Fans Out Across Charlotte, N.C., Arresting 81 People on First Day
Border Patrol agents descended on Charlotte this weekend searching for immigrants in the country illegally. It remains unclear how long the agents will stay.
By Eduardo Medina and Sonia A. Rao, Published Nov. 16, 2025, Updated Nov. 17, 2025
Eduardo Medina reported from Charlotte, N.C.
A flea market that is typically filled with Hispanic vendors was canceled this weekend. Nightclubs that play reggaeton music on Saturday nights decided not to open. And Catholic churches, which tend to have many immigrant parishioners, were unusually empty on Sunday morning.
The Trump administration crackdown on illegal immigrants arrived in Charlotte this weekend, resulting in 81 arrests on Saturday. It continued on Sunday, with Border Patrol agents fanning out across the largest city in North Carolina.
An immigrant rights group said the tally, reported by a senior Border Patrol official on social media, was the largest number of immigrant arrests in the state’s recent history.
The presence of the agents, led by Gregory Bovino, who directed similar operations in Chicago and Los Angeles this year, has startled people in one of the fastest-growing cities in the country. Much of that growth has been spurred by international migration, especially from Latin America. The city is also home to large corporations in the retail, banking and manufacturing sectors.
The increase in immigration has drawn the attention of Trump administration officials, who have been targeting communities with large immigrant populations for enforcement efforts.
The North Carolina operation, dubbed “Charlotte’s Web” — a reference to the children’s book that tells the story of friendship and an effort to save the life of a beloved barnyard pig — has already drawn criticism for its aggressive tactics, with local officials telling people to record their interactions with agents.
Mr. Bovino has already declared the North Carolina mission to be a success, confirming the 81 arrests in a social media post on X. He also posted photos of six detained people who he said had criminal histories.
Neither Mr. Bovino, who is from western North Carolina, nor the Department of Homeland Security has said exactly how many of the 81 people arrested on Saturday had criminal histories.
Few of the hundreds of people who were arrested in earlier operations in Chicago and Los Angeles had serious criminal backgrounds. But the Trump administration has said that it considers anyone who is present in the United States without legal status to be a criminal, and have used that view to justify its enforcement operations.
In Charlotte, lawyers and immigrant advocacy groups said a familiar pattern appeared to be emerging there as well. The people who were arrested or approached by agents on Saturday, they said, included a man participating in a church cleanup day, workers at a Home Depot, a landscaper putting up Christmas decorations and a Hispanic U.S. citizen whose truck window was shattered by an agent.
“This is a day of shame,” said Nikki Marín Baena, co-director of Siembra NC, an immigrant advocacy group. “It’s a shameful day for the North Carolina Republican Party, who hailed the arrival of so-called law enforcement officers carrying out terrorist operations, and echoed Greg Bovino’s talking points about ‘going after criminals.’”
Siembra NC said that before Saturday, the largest numbers of immigrant arrests in the state in one day were 30 people in June and 27 in February 2019.
On Saturday, Matt Mercer, a spokesman for the North Carolina Republican Party, said: “We’re grateful to see these brave men and women in federal law enforcement following through on President Trump’s promise to remove violent criminal illegals from our country and those stoking fear about these targeted operations must stop at once.”
Peter Han, whose family owns Super G Mart, an international grocery store chain in North Carolina, said that more than half of the 80 employees at the store’s Pineville location had called out of work Sunday after an altercation with the Border Patrol on Saturday afternoon.
Mr. Han said that around 2 p.m. on Saturday, five of his employees were in the parking lot bringing grocery carts back into the building when several SUVs pulled to a stop in front of them. Some of the employees, intimidated by the armed officers, panicked and ran, he said.
Mr. Han said two border patrol agents dragged an employee in his twenties outside the store, pinned his face into the concrete and then put him in the back of their vehicle. The agents also took two other employees, he said. Mr. Han said customers were yelling and some of the store’s cashiers, who are still in high school, were so afraid they hid in the bathroom.
On Sunday morning, Mr. Han said he saw Border Patrol agents drive by again. “Everybody’s on high alert right now,” he said. “It’s definitely taking a toll on our business.”
Officials in Charlotte and in Mecklenburg County, which includes the city, had been bracing for Mr. Bovino’s operation this week, and had warned residents who wished to protest to do so peacefully and not allow the agents’ presence to provoke them. Gov. Josh Stein, a Democrat, expressed concern about the agents’ arrival, saying in a statement that “when we see injustice, we bear witness.”
“If you see any inappropriate behavior, use your phones to record and notify local law enforcement, who will continue to keep our communities safe long after these federal agents leave,” Mr. Stein said. “That’s the North Carolina way.”
The arrival of the Border Patrol in Charlotte, a moderately Democratic city known for its booming banking industry, has puzzled many people in the state. Federal law limits the Border Patrol’s focus to the country’s 6,000 miles of international borders and a zone extending about 100 miles inland from the borders and the coastline. Charlotte is about 170 miles from the nearest point on the coast.
It remains unclear how long the operation in Charlotte will last. The federal agents are expected to head next to New Orleans. Mayor Esther Manheimer of Asheville, N.C., said on Friday that her city might also become a target in the future.
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2) In Pulpits and Pews, Catholic Churches Urge Compassion for Immigrants
Immigration was on the minds of priests and parishioners following a letter from the nation’s Catholic bishops decrying how immigrants are being treated.
By Mark Bonamo, Dave Philipps and Pooja Salhotra, Published Nov. 16, 2025, Updated Nov. 17, 2025
Mark Bonamo reported from Hoboken, N.J. and Pooja Salhotra reported from Brownsville, Texas
Rev. Alex Santora ascended to the pulpit of the Church of Our Lady of Grace and St. Joseph, looked out at the people gathered beneath stained glass and soaring gothic columns that were created largely by Irish immigrants in the 19th century, and told a story of a local immigrant in modern times.
The man came from Cuba more than 40 years ago, started a business and raised a family. But he had gotten into some minor legal trouble in the 1980s. And this year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement came for him. He had to close his business, lay off his workers, and leave the country.
“In the last 10 months, we’re hearing about a lot of pain, people whose lives are abandoned and ruined, and not just a few,” Father Santora told parishioners at the church in Hoboken, N.J., during Mass on Saturday evening.
In humble rural churches and tall urban cathedrals across the country this weekend, Catholic priests and parishioners reflected on the Trump administration’s sweeping immigration crackdown. Some said that the roundup of hundreds of thousands of people, which has disproportionately affected Catholic congregations full of immigrants, goes against Christian teachings.
Just a few miles from Our Lady of Grace, said Father Santora, about 1,000 immigrants were being held in a detention center. “This is not what Jesus Christ would want,” he told his flock. “It’s immoral.”
The Trump administration says that its immigration enforcement campaign will break deportation records by the end of the year. Teams of agents, often using military-style equipment, have raided factories, construction sites and apartment blocks and detained people at schools, churches and big-box stores.
The Department of Homeland Security said in late October that it had deported 527,000 “illegal aliens” this year and pushed another 1.6 million to leave the country voluntarily. A record 66,000 immigrants were in federal detention, according to the agency. Agency spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said in October, “This is just the beginning.”
As the administration has stepped up its deportation efforts, though, the Catholic Church has gotten louder in its criticism. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops on Wednesday issued a special message — the first since 2013 — opposing what it called the “indiscriminate mass deportation of people.”
“We are saddened by the state of contemporary debate and the vilification of immigrants,” the bishops wrote. “We are concerned about the conditions in detention centers and the lack of access to pastoral care.”
At the end of their message, they said, “We pray for an end to dehumanizing rhetoric and violence, whether directed at immigrants or at law enforcement.”
The Department of Homeland Security said it was focused on “removing the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens from American communities, including murderers, rapists, pedophiles, drug dealers, and more.”
The agency said that 70 percent of arrests were of immigrants charged with or convicted of a crime in the United States. But an analysis of federal data by The New York Times shows that fewer than 40 percent had a criminal conviction, and only about 8 percent had been convicted of a violent crime.
In Hoboken, Father Santora pointed around the church, speaking about how Our Lady of Grace was built by immigrants more than a century ago.
“Their nickels, dimes and quarters built this church. They employed all the people who designed, engineered, constructed and furnished it,” he said.
“We know that immigrants have built our country, and they fuel our economy,” he added.
At the Church of St. Mary in nearby Rutherford, Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin, 73, was presiding over a Sunday afternoon Mass after returning from the U.S. Council of Bishops meeting. After Mass, he described the moment when the bishops agreed to the content of their letter about the immigration crisis as the greatest show of unanimity he’d ever seen in the body. “And when the final vote count was flashed up on the screen in the meeting hall, people spontaneously stood up and applauded,” he said.
“We’re concerned about what we see going on in the country,” the cardinal added. “While we certainly do not deny the obligation of a state to regulate its borders, everyone from the Holy Father and several Holy Fathers down have made it quite clear that having laws isn’t enough. They have to be based on compassion and justice.”
Across the Hudson River in Manhattan, at the Church of St. Francis Xavier in Manhattan, Rev. Kenneth Boller also addressed the bishops’ letter during Mass.
“The church is like a mother. When the world sees threats, she sees children. When walls are built, she builds bridges,” Father Boller said. “She knows that her proclamation in the Gospel is credible only when it is translated into gestures of closeness and welcome. And she knows that in every rejected migrant, it is Christ himself.”
Other churches chose not to address the topic directly on Sunday. Still, some parishioners said they welcomed the bishops’ strong statement.
Charlotte Lesslie, 20, attended Mass with her parents at St. Andrew Catholic Church, in Clemson, S.C.
“I felt like it was good stating just that every human being deserves dignity and deserves love and deserves to be treated like they were made in the image and likeness of our Lord,” she said. “They weren’t saying that any one person is bad, but just that maybe some of the things that are going on aren’t really what is asked of us as people, as Christians.”
At St. Thomas Mission in Brownsville, Texas, Rev. Joel Flores did not directly mention the letter. But he said in an interview before Mass that there was nothing new in the bishops’ statement about immigration, adding, “It’s a statement the church has been making since its conception.”
“Any institution which does something against the value of human life is worthy of the church making a statement,” Father Flores said.
Deportations have put his parish in the Rio Grande Valley, which has a high number of Spanish-speaking immigrants, on edge. Father Flores said there has been a significant drop in the number of people attending Mass in recent months because parishioners fear they will be picked up by federal agents.
“There’s a system that is deporting or potentially deporting people indiscriminately,” he said. “People are asking questions like, why me, or why them, or am I next?”
Robert Chiarito, Sarah Goodman, Jesse Klein and Alison Hill contributed to this report.
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3) What Russian Activists Do When They Can’t Criticize Putin
Opposition-minded Russians who remain in the country are trying to keep politically active in whatever causes they can, whether that’s recycling, clean air or parking.
By Nataliya Vasilyeva, Nov. 17, 2025
They shouted no slogans nor held any placards. In their hands were petitions on seemingly innocuous subjects like air quality, city parks and paid parking.
But the orderly line of people snaking around a Putin administration building in central Moscow one chilly September morning were there to deliver a larger message. In the face of the Kremlin’s snowballing restrictions on dissent, they wanted to show that Russians unhappy with their government are not alone.
“The room for politics in Russia has shrunk a lot, but some opportunities are still there,” said Boris Nadezhdin, a longtime politician who helped organize the gathering of petitioners. “My job is to show that we are here and our voices should be heard.”
Russia has dramatically escalated its crackdown on criticism of the government after its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, forcing opposition-minded Russians to try to navigate the shifting red lines on what is allowed.
Just a few years earlier, critics of President Vladimir V. Putin could get elected to regional legislatures or mayor’s offices. Citizens who staged an “unsanctioned rally” would be punished with a fine, not a jail term.
But once the war started, people who spoke out about civilian deaths in Ukraine were thrown into prison. As the wartime repressions have continued, street musicians have been jailed for performing “banned” songs. Election observers have been sent to prison for routine vote monitoring.
For many Kremlin critics, the choice has been stark. They could leave the country and oppose the Russian government from exile, as many have. Or they could stay and cease political activities.
Some have chosen to stay and remain as politically active as they can.
Activists have held what they call “letter-writing evenings,” gathering at cafes or clubs to write letters to political prisoners. Yabloko, a marginalized liberal party, has organized charity auctions to support the prisoners, asking celebrities, some of them exiled, to donate items. And opposition politicians who remain in Russia have held workshops and talks touching on political subjects, inviting people to private gatherings via Telegram chat groups.
Some Russians have abandoned national politics for less politically charged issues, such as animal rights or the environment, that do not directly challenge the Kremlin’s power. One of them is Nikolai Lyaskin, a longtime ally of the opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny, who died last year at age 47 in a Siberian prison.
Before the Kremlin outlawed Mr. Navalny’s group as “extremist” in 2021, Mr. Lyaskin stood next to him at protest rallies calling for Mr. Putin’s resignation. Mr. Lyaskin was sentenced to one year of probation for organizing a protest in 2021.
He did not flee after Mr. Navalny’s group was banned, but instead changed his focus. These days, he posts online about recycling in Moscow.
Mr. Lyaskin said he had been criticized by Russian exiles for speaking out about relatively minor issues and not about the elephant in the room: Mr. Putin and his war in Ukraine.
“I would love to be able to say what I want, but right now, I can only talk about recycling and landfills — and I will be doing that,” he said.
Every other weekend, Mr. Lyaskin and his allies set up makeshift stations in Moscow to collect and separate garbage for recycling. He said he was thankful that he could still live in his country and gather with like-minded people.
“We have to do what is not banned,” he said. “This is the best thing we can do to stay collectively sane.”
A few Kremlin opponents who have stayed in Russia have not entirely given up on the idea of participating in politics.
Mr. Nadezhdin, who helped organize the petitioners who met at the government building in September, is a 62-year-old veteran of Russia’s opposition politics and a former member of Parliament.
Last year, he mounted an energetic grass-roots presidential campaign as the only antiwar candidate. The long lines of people who waited to leave a signature in support of his candidacy spooked the Kremlin, and Mr. Nadezhdin was barred from running.
He still intends to run for Parliament next year, even though he expects the election authorities to again claim that the signatures he collects were forged.
When he and his allies came up with the idea of gathering hundreds of petitioners in Moscow to lobby on seemingly unobjectionable issues, he said, he had been looking for safe ways to show that “tens of million people do not support Putin.”
Yulia Galyamina, another opposition politician who remained in Russia despite being arrested after an antiwar protest shortly after the invasion, helped to spread the word about the petitioner gathering.
She once headlined major protests in Moscow and sat on a local council. But she was labeled a “foreign agent,” which barred her from running for office or organizing public gatherings.
Ms. Galyamina, a university lecturer, has since gotten involved in activism in her Moscow neighborhood, coaching grass-roots campaigners. “We just have to squeeze into any cracks that we can find,” she said.
Low-level activism helps many Russians channel their grievances and feel at least some “political agency,” researchers from the Berlin-based Hannah Arendt Research Center said in a 2024 study of Russia’s civil society.
That has become all the more important, the researchers said, as the Kremlin has targeted anyone it deems a political threat.
Last month, Maxim Kruglov, a deputy chairman of the liberal Yabloko party, was arrested. Yabloko has not held rallies or campaigns against the war. Members like Mr. Kruglov have found discreet ways of showing solidarity with the antiwar movement such as organizing fund-raisers.
Before he was arrested, investigators dug up a social media post that Mr. Kruglov had written in spring 2022 that called out alleged Russian war crimes in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha.
“The criminal case was an absolute shock to everyone,” said Kirill Goncharov, a Yabloko colleague. “Maxim was always so careful.”
Even though Yabloko has been reserved in its criticism of the war, the Kremlin fears that it might become a rallying point in next year’s parliamentary elections, just as Mr. Nadezhdin found support last year among antiwar Russians, said Alexander Kynev, a Moscow-based political scientist.
“Imagine they go on a TV debate and start talking about issues of the war, then everyone will have to engage with it,” Mr. Kynev said. “That could make Yabloko a medium for a very uncomfortable agenda. That’s not what the Kremlin needs.”
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4) Hurricane Melissa Evacuees Return to Guantánamo Base
The storm and the government shutdown halted court sessions and deportation operations at the outpost in Cuba for weeks.
By Carol Rosenberg, Nov. 17, 2025
Carol Rosenberg reports on U.S. military activities at the naval base in Cuba.
Guantánamo Bay Naval Base in 2023. About 1,000 people had returned to the base by Saturday night. Credit...Marisa Schwartz Taylor/The New York Times
Navy families, immigration detention employees and lawyers have been streaming back to the U.S. base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to restart functions that were halted by the one-two punch of the government shutdown and Hurricane Melissa.
About 1,000 people had returned by Saturday night to a slightly transformed scene. During the hurricane, driving rains soaked the base’s usually dusty brown fields, turning them green, and workers recently set up a huge Christmas tree and other holiday decorations near the base’s commercial district.
A partially rebuilt pier was freshly painted, beaches were restored and piles of tree limbs, roof remnants and other debris awaited pickup around the 45-square-mile military installation.
Schoolchildren and their teachers returned to their classrooms on Monday for the first time in three weeks. They had been evacuated to a naval air station in the Florida panhandle for the storm, and then stayed on while Guantánamo’s remaining 3,000 residents cleaned up.
The Navy has yet to tally the cost of the hurricane damage, but it said that four families who had been evacuated required new housing.
Color-coded inspection notices on base buildings now warn which structures are unsafe or require repairs, and flags across the installation were at half-staff for former Vice President Dick Cheney, who died two weeks ago.
Those returning to the base included an Army judge, who will preside over the first hearings in the U.S.S. Cole bombing case since May.
During the weekslong slowdown, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth delegated the responsibility to negotiate plea agreements in the case to the deputy defense secretary, Steve Feinberg, who has been on the job since March.
A former C.I.A. prisoner, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, is accused of helping to orchestrate the attack, in which suicide bombers blew a hole in the warship off Yemen on Oct. 12, 2000, killing 17 American sailors. If convicted, he could face the death penalty. The judge has scheduled the trial to start on June 1.
Mr. Nashiri’s case has been in pretrial hearings since 2011. New hearings were scheduled for Monday, after court technicians restarted secured communications systems that were shut down in advance of the hurricane.
Defense lawyers also returned to the base over the weekend for the first time since the government shutdown to meet with some of the 15 wartime prisoners. Legal travel and confidential communications were declared nonessential during the shutdown, another impediment to trial preparation.
Other returnees included about four dozen Homeland Security employees, including Immigration, Customs and Enforcement officers, who were evacuated before the hurricane as nonessential workers.
No detainees designated for deportation have been held at the base since Oct. 1, and none are expected until after Thanksgiving.
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5) After Hundreds of Gazans Arrive on Mystery Flights, South Africa Asks How
A little-known group sold passage to desperate Palestinians who didn’t know their destination, catching the South African government by surprise.
By John Eligon and Zimasa Matiwane, Reporting from Johannesburg, Nov. 17, 2025
A Palestinian man, one of those granted entry to South Africa, with his child at an undisclosed location in Johannesburg, on Friday. Credit...Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters
The circumstances seemed shady.
The man on the phone said he worked for a humanitarian organization that could arrange to fly Ahmed Shehada and his family out of war-ravaged Gaza if he paid $1,600 per person to a crypto account. He demanded the money upfront.
Mr. Shehada thought it was a scam and declined. But after he learned of a friend who escaped Gaza through the same group, he decided to take a chance.
That decision led Mr. Shehada, 37, his wife and their two young children on a jittery 24-hour journey in two separate bus convoys, through tense Israeli checkpoints, onto a flight with an unknown destination and eventually to South Africa, a country to which he had never been.
“The situation in Gaza is so dreadful, you would take such a risk,” he said.
Mr. Shehada, a doctor, arrived in South Africa with his family last month, among the hundreds of Palestinians who have landed there recently aboard two flights, under conditions that the South African government has deemed suspicious.
The flights were arranged by Al-Majd Europe, a group with a scant public profile that South African officials said they knew little about. South Africa’s foreign minister, Ronald Lamola, suggested on Monday that Israel was behind what he called “a clear agenda to cleanse the Palestinians out of Gaza and the West Bank” — an accusation Israel has denied.
“It does seem like they were being, you know, flushed out,” said President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa, adding that his government had a duty to accept Palestinians because they are “a different and special case of a people that we have supported as a country.”
The Israeli military said it received approval from a third country to send the Palestinian families there, but it did not name the country.
Scrutiny of the flights, and South Africa’s handling of them, comes as the country faces a high-stakes week on the international stage, hosting the first Group of 20 Summit on African soil.
Officials in South Africa, which has been among the most vocal supporters of Palestinians, have faced criticism from local activists who believe the government mishandled the arrival last week of the second plane, carrying 153 Palestinians who were forced to wait on board for at least 10 hours while their immigration status was sorted out.
“The border authorities were unwilling to consider the factors that these people came from Gaza, that there’s a humanitarian crisis,” said Na’eem Jeenah, a South African activist who has assisted the Palestinians. “They were looking at it very narrowly.”
Mr. Shehada, who has worked for a U.N. agency since 2014, said when his flight arrived on Oct. 28, passengers were allowed to get off the plane and go through immigration just like any other international arrival.
He said he and his family were displaced 12 times during the war. He contacted Al-Majd in March after a colleague sent him a link to the website over WhatsApp. He filled out a form there, and in April someone from the organization called him.
When he decided to leave months later, Mr. Shehada said he paid $6,400 and got a call shortly before midnight on Oct. 26. The family needed to get to Khan Younis to leave in four hours, an Al-Majd representative told him.
There, they boarded a bus and were told to close the blinds and refrain from using their phones before entering Rafah, he said. Al-Majd instructed them to tell anyone who asked what they were doing, that they were part of the French Embassy evacuation.
“We said to ourselves, ‘What if they have no connection with the Israeli army and we go into Rafah and they start shooting at the buses?’” Mr. Shehada said.
They made it to the Kerem Shalom border post, where Israeli troops told them to leave all their belongings behind. They walked through several security checks and onto new buses that took them to Ramon Airport in southern Israel to board a charter flight, he said. They were not told until mid-flight that they were going to Nairobi, Kenya.
From there, they flew to South Africa, he said, where he received his last message from Al-Majd, telling him of a guesthouse booked for his family — but for only a week, though the group had promised a month.
A message on Al-Majd’s website on Monday said it was operating as normal and continuing to provide services, and warned of online scams using the organization’s name. Calls and messages to phone numbers listed went unanswered.
Luay Abu Saif was on the flight that arrived last week.
Al-Majd had kept them in the dark about how they ended up in South Africa, Mr. Saif said. “We didn’t even know where we were going.”
After a local aid organization offered accommodation for the entire group, they were allowed into the country on a 90-day visa exemption that South Africa grants Palestinians.
For Mr. Shehada, what resonates most is how his 4-year-old daughter seems to be discovering life after knowing only war. She marvels at being able to walk into a store to buy food or plug a cellphone into a wall to charge it — luxuries she’d only seen in online videos.
“The other day she was telling me, ‘Dad, we are living like the YouTube life,’” he said.
Abu Bakr Bashir contributed reporting from London.
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6) In Major Breakthrough, U.N. Security Council Adopts U.S. Peace Plan for Gaza
Russia and China abstained in the vote, which provides a legal mandate for the Trump administration’s vision of how to move past the cease-fire to rebuild the war-ravaged enclave after two years of war.
By Farnaz Fassihi, Published Nov. 17, 2025, Updated Nov. 18, 2025
Farnaz Fassihi has covered the United Nations for 10 years under four different U.S. administrations.
The U.S. resolution calls for an International Stabilization Force to enter, demilitarize and govern Gaza. Saher Alghorra for The New York Times
The United Nations Security Council on Monday approved President Trump’s peace plan for Gaza, a breakthrough that provides a legal U.N. mandate for the administration’s vision of how to move past the cease-fire and rebuild the war-ravaged Gaza Strip after two years of war.
The Council’s vote was also a major diplomatic victory for the Trump administration. For the past two years, as the conflict between Israel and Hamas has raged, the United States had been isolated at the United Nations over its staunch support for Israel.
The U.S. resolution calls for an International Stabilization Force to enter, demilitarize and govern Gaza. The proposal, which contained Mr. Trump’s 20-point cease-fire plan, also envisions a “Board of Peace” to oversee the peace plan, though it does not clarify the composition of the board.
The resolution passed with 13 votes in favor and zero votes against. Russia and China, either of which could have vetoed it, abstained, apparently swayed by the support for the resolution from a number of Arab and Muslim nations: Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, as well as Indonesia, Turkey and Pakistan, which is a member of the Council.
Mike Waltz, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, who addressed the Council before the vote, called Gaza “hell on earth” and held up a copy of the resolution, describing it as “a lifeline.” After the vote, Mr. Waltz thanked the Council for “joining us in charting a new course for Israelis, Palestinians and all the people in the region alike.”
Security Council resolutions are considered legally binding international law, and although the Council does not have a mechanism for enforcing such resolutions, it can take measures to punish violators with penalties such as sanctions.
In post on Truth Social, Mr. Trump wrote: “Congratulations to the World on the incredible Vote of the United Nations Security Council, just moments ago, acknowledging and endorsing the BOARD OF PEACE, which will be chaired by me, and include the most powerful and respected Leaders throughout the World.”
He thanked various countries, including Russia and China, and said the vote “will lead to further Peace all over the World.”
Still, the path forward is plagued by many uncertainties, with Israeli strikes continuing in Gaza and outbreaks of violence erupting in the West Bank. Among the next steps would be naming members of the Board of Peace, the body in charge of overseeing the transition in Gaza, and clarifying under whose authority the stabilization forces would operate.
The resolution says that if the Palestinian Authority, which partly governs the West Bank, undergoes reforms and the redevelopment of the shattered Gaza Strip advances, the conditions “may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood.”
Algeria’s ambassador to the United Nations, Amar Bendjama, the only Arab member of the Council and who was negotiating on behalf of the United Nations’ Arab Group, thanked Mr. Trump for his personal engagement in bringing the conflict in Gaza to the end. But he said the aspirations of Palestinians for a state should not be overlooked.
“Genuine peace in the Middle East cannot be achieved without justice, justice for the Palestinian people, who have waited for decades for the creation of their independent state,” he said.
Many Council members, including France, Guyana, Pakistan, Slovenia and Somalia, had issues with the fact that the resolution did not include clear language on Palestinian statehood. But they said that they had endorsed the proposal to support the political momentum, prevent the resurgence of violence and allow much-needed humanitarian aid to flow into the enclave. They reiterated that the territorial integrity of Gaza must remain intact, and that lasting peace must be rooted in a two-state solution.
The language in the resolution about Palestinian statehood had drawn objections from Israel, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying on Sunday that “our opposition to a Palestinian state in any territory has not changed.”
Among the challenges the International Stabilization Force will face is how to confront Hamas’s fighters, who are still armed and present in Gaza. The resolution states that the force would be responsible for destroying military infrastructure in Gaza and decommissioning the militant groups’s weapons.
But Arab and Muslim countries expected to send soldiers to Gaza — Egypt, Indonesia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates — are wary of their troops’ engaging in armed clashes with Palestinian militants and of any more bloodshed turning Arab public opinion against their involvement.
The Trump administration sought the mandate at the United Nations because those countries said they needed Security Council authorization so that their troops would not be viewed by their own populations as occupiers in Gaza.
Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, said on Monday: “The demilitarization of Hamas is a basic condition of the peace agreement. There will be no future in Gaza as long as Hamas possesses weapons.”
The resolution went through multiple revisions in negotiations last week and faced significant pushback from many Council members, including Europeans, who demanded more clarity on Palestinian statehood and the Board of Peace.
At one point late last week, objections by China and Russia, which typically coordinate their positions around resolutions by the United States, threatened to derail the resolution altogether. Russia drafted its own 10-point counterresolution on Gaza, which called outright for Palestinian statehood and said the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza should be joined as a state under the Palestinian Authority.
After the vote, Russia and China said they had abstained from the vote because the resolution lacked clarity on key components and that the United States had not responded to multiple demands to provide more details on the Board of Peace and a two-state solution, and that Palestinian self-determination for postwar governance of the enclave was not fully reflected.
“Today is a sorrowful day for the Security Council,” Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations, Vasily Nebenzya, told the Council. He called the resolution “yet another pig in a poke” — something obtained without careful inspection first — and said the United States had gotten it through by “twisting the arms” of members of the Security Council.
The United States made minimal compromises on the resolution and instead rallied the support of the Arab and Muslim countries to pressure Russia and China not to be seen as obstacles to a breakthrough in Gaza. Diplomats said that Mr. Waltz had also warned the countries during negotiations that if the resolution failed, the cease-fire in Gaza would collapse.
The stakes were high for all the major actors. Palestinians want the suffering and the war to end. Israelis want Hamas disarmed. And the United States hoped to be the major player bringing peace to the region.
The U.N. secretary general, António Guterres, welcomed the resolution, saying in a statement that it was an important step, and he encouraged all parties to abide by it. “It is essential now to translate the diplomatic momentum into concrete and urgently needed steps on the ground,” he said
The resolution allows the World Bank, a U.N. entity, to allocate financial resources for the reconstruction of Gaza and calls for the establishment of a dedicated trust fund for this purpose.
It authorizes the Board of Peace to oversee Gaza at least until the end of 2027 and says that the enclave would be managed day-to-day by a “technocratic, apolitical committee of competent Palestinians from the Strip.”
The stabilization force would also coordinate with Egypt and Israel to train and support Palestinian police personnel, protect civilians, work to secure humanitarian corridors and secure border areas.
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7) How We Linked the Auto Industry to Lead Poisoning
Blood and soil testing confirmed the health consequences. Then we tracked individual shipments to the United States.
By Will Fitzgibbon and Peter S. Goodman, Nov. 18, 2025
This article was reported in collaboration with The Examination, a nonprofit newsroom that covers global public health.
True Metals lead smelting plant in Ogijo, Nigeria. Finbarr O'Reilly for The New York Times
The Nigerian town of Ogijo has more lead recycling factories than anywhere else in Africa. When we arrived, a sky the color of a tobacco stain hung over the town.
Factories belched smoke over neighborhoods. And not just from chimneys. The metal roofs had eroded, leaving holes for smoke to escape.
The government has never had a comprehensive lead-testing program here, even as residents complained of headaches, stomach pain and fatigue — common lead poisoning symptoms.
Lead screening is expensive and Nigeria already struggles to build hospitals and pay for programs like malaria treatment.
So we commissioned our own testing.
A New York Times and Examination investigation revealed that factories supplying recycled lead to the American auto industry had poisoned people here.
While we based our investigation in Nigeria, experts said that what we found there was indicative of a health crisis playing out across the developing world as companies seek more lead for car batteries.
How did we test for lead?
The Examination contracted with a Nigerian nonprofit research group that experts said was best equipped to conduct such testing.
The group, Sustainable Research and Action for Environmental Development, or SRADev, had worked with the Nigerian government. So we knew officials considered its work credible.
Researchers hosted events in Ogijo to inform people about our project. Seventy people volunteered to have their blood tested. In June, nurses and doctors drew blood, singing “Baby Shark” to soothe nervous toddlers.
Old paint and pipes are common sources of lead poisoning. So SRADev distributed nasal filters to detect whether lead was in the air.
Scientists also tested a handful of volunteers who did not live near factories so they could compare the results.
The University of Ibadan, one of Nigeria’s premier universities, collected and analyzed soil samples near factories.
The regional health department approved the blood testing and sent a representative to oversee it.
“If this study was not done, we would just continue with the status quo,” said Dr. Olamide Agunbiade, a regional health official.
What did the results show?
Seven out of 10 people had harmful levels of lead in their blood, recognized by the World Health Organization as five micrograms per deciliter or above.
While five is the international standard, no amount of lead is safe.
Eight of 14 children had harmful blood-lead levels as high as 28.5 micrograms per deciliter. Every factory worker was poisoned.
Soil tests showed high levels of lead at farms, at a playground and elsewhere.
Volunteers who did not live near factories had practically no lead in their blood.
After analyzing the samples, SRADev’s scientists concluded that residents’ high blood-lead levels came “specifically from environmental and occupational exposure pathways” linked to battery recyclers, “not from background exposure.”
In October, the scientists gave people their results.
Nobody required urgent treatment. (In emergencies, doctors can use drugs to extract lead from the blood.) Doctors distributed calcium tablets and vitamins, and told people to clean surfaces and to keep children away from the factories.
Doctors encouraged people to move if they could afford it. Most said they couldn’t.
We traced lead to American companies.
We stood in a Lagos yard as workers hacked open batteries with machetes. We toured a factory where lead was melted down. Workers provided video from inside another.
Exactly who buys recycled lead from Nigeria is not made public. So we wrote down numbers of shipping containers outside factories and tracked them on international carriers’ websites.
We also reviewed U.S. Census trade data and customs records through services such as Import Genius, Panjiva and Volza, relying on the global product code for recycled lead.
Most African recycled lead arrives in the United States via the Port of Baltimore. Some exports of recycled lead from Nigeria were hard to trace. We tracked them to a battery manufacturer in South Korea. From there, we tracked shipments of batteries to Tesla and General Motors factories in California, New York and Texas.
Metals traders and trucking and logistics companies told us that much of the lead arriving in America was hauled from Baltimore to Pennsylvania. Inspection records and a few crash reports from the U.S. Department of Transportation confirmed connections between trucking companies, the trading company Trafigura and the Pennsylvania battery maker East Penn Manufacturing.
East Penn, we found, was using Nigerian lead.
A Trafigura spokesman, Neil Hume, said the company followed all regulations and worked with the Nigerian government and outside experts to assess its lead suppliers.
East Penn is just one buyer. Nigeria is just one supplier. But when East Penn saw our findings, it said it would stop importing Nigerian lead, which it said made up less than five percent of its supply.
The company now applies extra scrutiny to its lead purchases, said Chris Pruitt, the company’s executive chairman.
“We have learned some things and are making necessary changes,” Mr. Pruitt said in an interview. “We have the humility to course-correct if something is not right.”
Romina Colman contributed reporting.
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8) Lubbock Will Remove Buddy Holly-Themed Crosswalk After Federal Crackdown
A Trump administration directive targeting political road markings has left places like Lubbock, Texas, helpless to challenge broad new policies.
By Ali Watkins, Published Nov. 17, 2025, Updated Nov. 18, 2025
The Buddy Holly glasses artwork was installed in the crosswalks in 2020. Credit...City of Lubbock, via Associated Press
The four giant pairs of glasses are simple and striking: rendered in the crosswalks of an intersection in Lubbock, Texas, in white paint, tidy inside the bounds of the crossing lines. For years, they’ve been a beloved part of the city’s quirky downtown, a testament to its native son, the rock ‘n’ roller Buddy Holly.
Are they road murals? Are they public art? Or are they a safety hazard?
Whatever they are, the streetbound specs are now verboten, a casualty of the Trump administration’s crackdown on artistic displays on the nation’s roadways.
“Anything on the roadway would have to be eliminated,” David Bragg, Lubbock’s interim director of public works, said at a City Council meeting last week. “We were put in a situation where we had to either remove these crosswalks or send them a plan for removal.”
In Washington, local officials jackhammered a road mural honoring the Black Lives Matter movement. Laredo, Texas, removed a road mural that criticized President Trump’s so-called border wall. And in Florida, city officials painted over a rainbow crosswalk that memorialized the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting, which left 49 dead.
“I don’t really feel like we have the wherewithal to do anything about that without trying to litigate it,” Lubbock Mayor Mark McBrayer said at the City Council meeting, talking about the pending removal.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy sent a letter to governors urging them to keep roads “free of distractions” as part of a roadway safety initiative he announced in July. “Roads are for safety, not political messages or artwork,” he said in a statement announcing the letter.
Texas state officials went on to underscore Mr. Duffy’s directive, warning that state funding could be withheld if municipalities refused to remove any artwork on their streets.
In a speech before Lubbock city officials last week, Mr. Bragg said the glasses design was well within the city’s established traffic rules, but it was difficult to challenge such a broad directive from Washington.
“I don’t think it was intended to go after the Buddy Holly glasses,” Mr. Bragg said of the Trump administration’s initiative. “Unfortunately, it did.”
The markings were installed by the city in 2020 to celebrate Mr. Holly, who was born Charles Hardin Holley in Lubbock in 1936. A pioneering guitarist in contemporary rock, Mr. Holly was killed in a plane crash at age 22 alongside fellow musicians Ritchie Valens and J.P. “Big Bopper” Richardson. The day of the crash would be immortalized as “the day the music died” by Don McLean in his hit song “American Pie.”
The Buddy Holly crosswalk is one of three artistic crosswalks in the city that Mr. Bragg said would have to be removed.
“It’s so unfortunate because it’s such a tasteful cross section, and people like it,” City Council member Christy Martinez-Garcia said of the Holly-themed crosswalk. “But what do you do?”
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9) Inside the American-Run Base Helping Plan the Future of Gaza
U.S. and Israeli soldiers, foreign diplomats and aid workers are congregated in a warehouse in Israel to talk about the future of Gaza. One key group is missing: Palestinians.
By Aaron Boxerman, Adam Rasgon, Natan Odenheimer and David M. Halbfinger, Nov. 18, 2025
Reporting from Jerusalem and from Kiryat Gat, Israel
U.S. military personnel and other officials monitor screens displaying imagery of the Gaza Strip during a media tour of the new Civil-Military Coordination Center in Kiryat Gat, Israel, on Monday. Ariel Schalit/Associated Press
In a grungy industrial park in southern Israel, a massive, repurposed cargo warehouse is humming with hundreds of American and Israeli troops, Arab intelligence officers, international aid workers, and diplomats and military personnel from across Europe and as far away as Singapore.
Their official mission is to help monitor the fragile cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. But they have also been tasked with helping to craft ambitious plans for the enclave’s postwar future in line with President Trump’s 20-point peace proposal — disarming Hamas and rebuilding Gaza under a new, independent Palestinian administration.
On Monday, the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution endorsing Mr. Trump’s peace plan, and it also called for an International Stabilization Force to enter, demilitarize and govern Gaza. Some U.S. military officials at the facility are working on operational plans for that force.
A month into the hub’s operations, however, it is far from clear that they have made much headway. Officials liken the American-led Civil-Military Coordination Center, or C.M.C.C., as the operation is known, to a chaotic start-up.
Most strikingly, there is no formal Palestinian representation in the building, prompting criticism among some diplomats and aid workers who say that an outside vision for Gaza is unlikely to work unless Palestinians have a significant voice.
Some of those involved in the effort say that scenes of American soldiers tossing around ideas for how to rebuild the devastated Gaza Strip evoke uncomfortable memories of other U.S.-led attempts at reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan.
At the building in Kiryat Gat, about 13 miles northeast of Gaza, giant screens show aerial images of Gaza. Regular round-table working groups led by senior American officers cover subjects including intelligence, humanitarian aid and civil governance, according to Capt. Tim Hawkins, a spokesman for the U.S. military’s Central Command.
The center’s work is being overseen by a team led by Aryeh Lightstone, a Trump administration adviser currently based in Tel Aviv, who works on big-picture strategy for the future of Gaza, several diplomats and officials briefed on the matter said. Mr. Lightstone declined to comment.
Countries from Canada to the United Arab Emirates to Germany have sent representatives, as have aid agencies and nonprofits, according to two officials and an internal seating chart shared recently by one of them. Some officials with vast experience in the Middle East are sitting alongside others with none. At one point, a primer for newcomers was held on “What is Hamas?” according to three officials.
There are numerous whiteboard sessions, sometimes with light names for heavy topics, according to two officials. A working group on issues of civil governance broke up the week into themed days, including “wellness Wednesdays” for health care and education, and “thirsty Thursdays” for water infrastructure.
This article is based on interviews with more than 20 diplomats, other officials and aid workers who spent time at the facility, as well as on internal planning documents obtained by The New York Times. All of the people insisted on anonymity to discuss the coordination center’s operations because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
The Israeli military declined to comment.
Israel and Hamas agreed to a U.S.-backed cease-fire last month, stopping more than two years of devastating war that laid waste to the Gaza Strip, home to some two million people, and killed tens of thousands of Palestinians. The conflict began after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people and seizing about 250 hostages.
As part of the truce, Hamas freed the 20 surviving Israeli captives and agreed to release the bodies of more than two dozen others, in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners. And Israel pulled its forces back, retaining control of a little more than half of Gaza.
But the agreement did not formally end the war.
Now, the United States is trying to push both sides to a second phase of Mr. Trump’s peace plan: disarming Hamas, deploying an international stabilization force to Gaza and rebuilding at least the parts of the territory where Israel now is in control.
At least some of the preparations for that phase are happening at the coordination center, which was set up quickly by 200 troops from the U.S. military’s Central Command and opened on Oct. 17. The building previously served as a hub for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a much-criticized, Israeli-backed aid group that suspended its operations in October, according to two people briefed on the matter.
Lt. Gen. Patrick D. Frank, the commanding officer of U.S. Army Central, a component of Central Command; and Steven Fagin, the U.S. ambassador to Yemen, share leadership of the coordination center. Maj. Gen. Yaakov Dolf is the Israeli military’s chief liaison.
Another issue the C.M.C.C. has been monitoring is the humanitarian aid entering Gaza, which Israel regulates. Capt. Hawkins, the CENTCOM spokesman, said about 800 trucks of humanitarian aid were now entering Gaza on a daily basis.
U.S. officials have pushed to bring humanitarian aid into Gaza fully under the center’s purview, but they have seen mixed results so far, according to five participants in the coordination center.
Two Israeli security officials said the Israeli military’s liaison, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, had not ceded its authority to the C.M.C.C., although U.S. officials were taking the lead on dialogue with the international community.
The internationally-backed Palestinian Authority has drawn up its own plans for humanitarian relief in Gaza and postwar reconstruction. But Palestinian officials have not been included in the coordination center, according to numerous officials briefed on the hub’s operations.
That reflects Israel’s insistence that the Palestinian Authority be prevented from governing Gaza after the war, a stance in keeping with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s determination to block the creation of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.
In the warehouse in Kiryat Gat, U.S. troops occupy the top floor. The ground floor belongs to Israel. Between them is a joint floor also shared by international organizations and representatives of other governments.
The coordination center quickly became a backdrop for high-profile visits by Trump administration officials, including Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
On a visit to the center on Monday, journalists were given a closely supervised tour of the building’s middle floor, American soldiers could be seen giving a presentation to green-uniformed Israeli officers about a Palestinian police force for Gaza.
A map of Gaza in the center of the vast room showed a “red zone” still controlled by Hamas and a “green zone” controlled by Israel. The yellow line — to which Israeli forces withdrew as part of the cease-fire — separates both zones.
One Western diplomat who visited the center compared its open-plan layout to a low-budget Google campus. Each morning, a senior military officer normally leads a joint all-hands briefing, adding to the start-up feel, several officials said.
The center’s efforts now include some planning for “alternate safe communities,” according to more than eight diplomats and officials — new residential compounds that the Trump administration is considering building for Palestinians in parts of Gaza still controlled by Israel.
Israeli and American officials hope the new compounds will draw Gazans seeking shelter and security to move there from the Hamas-controlled zone, weakening the group, the officials said.
It was not clear whether or when the compounds would be built. But several diplomats briefed on the initiative were critical of the proposal, questioning whether Gazans would be willing to live there, whether the United States and Israel would impose conditions on which Gazans could live there, and whether it could create conditions for a permanent partition of the enclave.
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10) How Noncitizens, Anxious Under Trump, Are Altering Their Lives
Months into the Trump deportation campaign, one-third of noncitizens, including about 60 percent of undocumented immigrants, say they are avoiding aspects of daily life.
By Miriam Jordan and Ruth Igielnik, Nov. 19, 2025
Miriam Jordan, a national immigration correspondent, reported in Los Angeles, and Ruth Igielnik, who conducts surveys for The Times, is based in Washington, D.C.
“With the way things are now, we feel afraid and insecure.”—Ana Luna. Brandon Tauszik for The New York Times
In Ana Luna’s home, an image of an American flag adorns the kitchen wall. On her iPhone, the wallpaper is a picture of her eldest daughter, in her dress blue U.S. Marine uniform.
And tucked in folders are years of tax returns, a paper trail of working lives that helped Ms. Luna, 47, and her husband rent their three-bedroom apartment in Los Angeles where they have lived for almost two decades.
“We’re upstanding people who love this country,” Ms. Luna said.
She is an undocumented immigrant from Mexico. So is her husband.
For a family of modest means, life in Southern California has been defined by simple pleasures, like going to the park, the mall or services at the church that they made their spiritual home.
Now those joys have been colored by a fear that has swept through immigrant communities of the United States since the Trump administration launched its mass deportation campaign in January.
About one-third of noncitizen immigrants now say they are avoiding aspects of everyday life, according to a new national survey of immigrants from The New York Times and KFF, a nonprofit that conducts polling and research about health policy. Among undocumented immigrants, that share rises to 59 percent.
“With the way things are now, we feel afraid and insecure,” said Ms. Luna, who said she and her husband were speaking to The Times on the record becausethey were proud of their family’s contributions to the United States.
Large shares of undocumented immigrants like Ms. Luna describe changes to their daily life. Most say they or someone in their family now regularly avoid travel, nearly half have avoided seeking medical care, and 40 percent say they or someone in their family has avoided going to work.
About 52 million people living in the United States are immigrants. A little over half are naturalized citizens. The rest, noncitizens, are a mix of people who are in the country legally and who are not.
The new survey provides a window into the sentiments of noncitizen immigrants, both those with a temporary legal status — such as foreign students and workers — and those who are undocumented, because they entered the United States illegally or lack an active visa or other permission to reside in the country. At a moment when the administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement tactics in Chicago and elsewhere have stirred resistance among not only immigrants but growing numbers of U.S.-born citizens, the results help illuminate life as an immigrant right now in the United States.
The results come at a time when many Americans support tougher policies on illegal immigration: A Times/Siena poll in late September found that 54 percent of registered voters supported deporting immigrants who were living in the country illegally.
More than half of noncitizen immigrants now say they are worried that they or a family member will be detained or deported, an increase since 2023. Among undocumented immigrants, 75 percent say they fear detention or deportation.
Even immigrants in the country lawfully, whether permanent residents, students or workers on visas, are taking precautions they did not before. Many are carrying their green cards, required under the law but not usually enforced, nervous that an accent or a darker complexion could make them targets.
“Agents look at our face, assume we are illegal and treat us like criminals,” said Sandra Perez, 40, a legal permanent resident who lives in a New York City suburb, who never leaves home without her green card.
Half of noncitizen immigrants report carrying a passport, residency card or work authorization with them, twice as many who said that in April, a sign that intensified enforcement, from Los Angeles to Chicago, New York and beyond, has rattled even those who have temporary legal status.
In interviews, many said that their sense of belonging has been replaced with vigilance and dread.
John, 31, who is from India, came to the United States to study and earned undergraduate and graduate degrees. Two years ago, he received a green card after marrying an American citizen.
He teaches at a public school in Philadelphia, and that makes him uneasy.
The Trump administration lifted a directive that had banned immigration agents from conducting operations at “sensitive locations” such as schools, hospitals and houses of worship.
“I definitely hear stories and talk of immigration agents waiting outside of schools,” he said.
“I used to leave my green card at home in a safe place,” he said. “Now I have it in my wallet, just in case.”
John is among those interviewed for this article who spoke on condition that their last name be withheld for fear of jeopardizing their immigration status, even though he is residing in the United States lawfully.
He and his wife are expecting a child, and his green card is still temporary, or “conditional,” pending approval of a permanent one.
Like most immigrants, John believes the immigration system has treated him fairly. Nearly 70 percent of noncitizen immigrants, including half of undocumented immigrants, expressed that sentiment, according to the survey.
However, he said, “I feel I have to pay close attention to every aspect of life.”
“I have stopped posting anything on social media,” he said. “I am wary of what posts I like.”
The Trump administration has also increased vetting of citizenship applicants, to ascertain whether they hold anti-American sentiments. Immigration officers can also conduct interviews with neighbors of applicants.
Nearly one in three noncitizen immigrants, including half of those without legal status, say they personally know someone who has been detained or deported, roughly double the share who said the same in April of this year.
What keeps some undocumented immigrants especially on edge, they said in interviews, is the reality that the enforcement doesn’t differentiate between those who are dangerous criminals and those who have been in the country for decades working, paying taxes and often raising U.S. citizen children.
They also expressed frustration that there has been no progress toward comprehensive immigration reform, which Congress last passed in 1986.
Not all immigrants share the same fears.
Lemay Oliva, 42, crossed the southern border in California in May 2015 and, as a Cuban, benefited from the now-defunct “wet foot, dry foot” policy that offered a fast track to legal residency for any Cuban who touched U.S. soil — a path not offered to other migrants.
The policy, in effect from 1995 to 2017, was designed to advance the U.S. goals of welcoming those fleeing the Communist nation and deterring dangerous sea crossings by migrants trying to reach the United States.
Mr. Oliva, who described himself as right wing, runs a bar service for private parties in Orlando, Fla.
The current immigration crackdown did not bother him. “I’m fine with it,” he said.
“These people broke the law," he said of migrants who crossed the border. “You need to enforce the law. It doesn’t matter if you broke it 20 years ago.”
Mr. Oliva’s views reflect those of a small but not insubstantial share of noncitizen immigrants. One-third of the group said the level of immigration enforcement in the country right now was necessary.
Their comfort with the current enforcement climate mirrors that of white immigrants who report feeling less threatened by the crackdown.
Immigrants from European countries — undocumented as well as those with legal status — are less likely to experience the fear that many other immigrants describe, according to the survey. One-third of Europeans say they have felt afraid, compared with 57 percent of immigrants from Latin America and 44 percent from Asia.
Tatyana Puzynia, 34, moved to Washington State from Belarus in 2019, with her husband, a tech worker on an H-1B visa by a tech company.
They now live in the Seattle area, where they are raising their two sons, ages 6 and 4.
On the weekends, they enjoy the region’s many trails, museums and playgrounds.
“There are so many possibilities,” she said on the day the family had made a bid on a five-bedroom house. “The quality of life as middle class is so much better” than in Belarus.
Ms. Puzynia said that her family and people in their immediate circle have not been adversely affected by hard-line immigration policies.
She noted that she liked the politics of her Democratic-led state, whose governor has been an outspoken critic of President Trump’s deportation agenda. In her home country, the same man, Alexander Lukashenko, has been president since she was a young child, she said. Here, she said, “it’s great that the president can change every four years. Next time will come another president, and there will be changes.”
Ms. Luna, the undocumented immigrant in Los Angeles, paused when asked whether she would make the journey to the United States again. She never imagined that she and her husband, and by extension her family, would ever feel as unsafe as they do now, she said.
They have five children. Four of them — ages 18, 12, 11 and 7 — were born in the United States. The fifth, a son who is 26, was brought from Mexico as a child and is a so-called Dreamer, shielded from deportation by the Obama-era program known as DACA. They have created an emergency plan, in the event that Ms. Luna or her husband, Gabriel Lorenzo, gets detained.
“We are grateful for everything this country has given us and our children,” said Mr. Lorenzo, who has worked for the same construction company for more than a decade. “But the system has become downright cruel toward immigrants.”
For years, Ms. Luna drove her eldest daughter 45 minutes each way to attend a high school military academy, because she was determined to join the Marines.
Ms. Luna then rushed home to get her other girls ready for school. After dropping them off, she drove another 35 minutes to her janitorial job.
Busy as those days were, they feel like a blissful, bygone time in her life.
On several occasions, agents have shown up in the parking lot of the strip mall where she works, including this month, when a shopkeeper who knows her called to advise her to delay her arrival.
“We have been the work force in construction, restaurants, janitorial,” she said. “Now we have to run, hide or stay inside,” she said. “And it’s especially heartbreaking for our children.”
On a recent day, at 2:08 p.m., her phone buzzed with a text from her youngest child’s school informing parents about reports of immigration enforcement nearby. She prayed as she drove to get her.
Next month, her eldest daughter will graduate as a U.S. Marine at Camp Pendleton after completing boot camp.
Ms. Luna is resolved to attend the ceremony, no matter how risky the drive.
“I wouldn’t want to miss her graduation,” she said.
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11) Iowa City Made Its Buses Free. Traffic Cleared, and So Did the Air.
Ridership jumped, people cut back on driving and, over the summer, the city extended the program another year.
By Cara Buckley, Photographs and Video by Annick Sjobakken, Published Nov. 18, 2025, Updated Nov. 19, 2025
Reporting from a bus in Iowa City
Since the fare-free program began, people in Iowa City have driven 1.8 million fewer miles and emissions have fallen by 24,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide a year, the same as taking 5,200 vehicles off the roads.
There was a psychiatrist, a librarian, a substitute teacher and a graduate student in biomedical engineering. There was an Amazon warehouse worker who’d just finished his night shift, and a man who’d lost his driver’s license because of an incident in Florida that he didn’t want to talk about.
They were all riding Iowa City’s buses one sunny November morning, and they were all amped about the same thing: That everyone got to ride for free.
Iowa City eliminated bus fares in August 2023 with a goal of lowering emissions from cars and encouraging people to take public transit. The two-year pilot program proved so popular that the City Council voted this summer to extend it another year, paying for it with a 1 percent increase in utility taxes and by doubling most public parking rates to $2 from $1.
Ridership has surpassed prepandemic levels by 18 percent. Bus drivers say they’re navigating less congested streets. People drove 1.8 million fewer miles on city streets, according to government calculations, and emissions dropped by 24,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide a year. That’s the equivalent of taking 5,200 vehicles off the roads.
“You don’t have to figure out your bus pass. And before, it was $31 a month, which adds up,” said Vincent Hiser, 71, as he rode the No. 1 bus one recent Monday from his job at Bread Garden Market to the mobile home he shares with his 3-year-old Cavapoo, Ruby, and 13-year-old cat, Roy Rogers.
Free city buses are relatively rare in the United States. The idea has been getting a new look recently, after Zohran Mamdani won New York City’s mayoral race with a promise to make buses free. However, critics have described the plan as pie in the sky, and Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York recently voiced doubts.
But in Iowa City, a college town and home to the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, objections to free buses, and even parking fee increases, have been muted. One exception was in the summer of 2024, when fees on parking meters downtown were increased to $3 from $1.50. After nearby businesses complained, the city reduced the cost to $2.25. That increase felt reasonable, said Betsy Potter, executive director of the Iowa City Downtown District; the rates hadn’t been raised in 11 years.
Ms. Potter said downtown businesses supported free buses because they helped bring people downtown and decreased workers’ transit costs. “It is a walkable downtown, but it is not a walkable city,” she said. “It has been a big success.”
Darian Nagle-Gamm, the city’s transportation director, said that the unknowns in federal and state funding, along with proposed property-tax changes, meant that the city would most likely have to review the program every year. But there was eagerness for fare-free buses to stay, she said. “The transit system is one of the greatest tools communities have to combat climate change and reduce emissions,” she said. “You can make a pretty immediate impact.”
Ms. Nagle-Gamm said the idea for the program began with a chat she and the city manager had in 2018 about a book titled “Free Public Transit: And Why We Don’t Pay to Ride in Elevators.” The city wanted to improve its transit system and increase its use while reducing household expenses. Also, as part of a climate action plan, Iowa City wanted to replace 55 percent of vehicle trips with sustainable alternatives like walking, biking and taking transit by 2050. Fare-free buses, officials decided, could help meet those goals.
In 2021, the city starting running more buses, streamlining routes and seriously considering waiving the $1 fares. In 2023, the City Council voted to pay for a two-year fare-free pilot with Covid-19 relief funds.
When the day came, the city threw a launch party. Artists decorated bus shelters with decals of butterflies, bees, wind turbines and flowers. Jazz bands were hired to play on downtown sidewalks. A booth was set up where people could write thank-you cards to bus drivers.
“You can make buses free, but it’s also important to make them convenient and appealing,” said Sarah Gardner, the city’s climate action coordinator. “We have 70-some years of marketing telling everyone that personal vehicles are great, and the ticket to freedom. Bus ridership doesn’t have that same kind of P.R. arm around it.”
Ridership eventually grew to 118 percent of prepandemic levels, compared to the average nationally transit ridership-recovery levels of 85 percent.
William Porter, a night-shift worker and regular rider, said people’s moods seemed to lift since the fares went away. But he would like the adjoining city of Coralville, which charges $1 for adult riders, to do away with fares, too. “I think they should make it for both cities, since people commute back and forth,” Mr. Porter said.
There were early concerns that fare-free travel would heap extra burdens on bus drivers, drawing homeless people or anything-goes behavior. Yet several drivers said that not having to ask passengers for payment or transfers has led to less friction with riders.
It also speeds up travel, they said, because no one was delaying things by rummaging for money. According to the city, on-time arrivals have increased by 13 percent. “There’s less dealing with the fare box and finagling over fares, but it’s definitely been busier,” said Justin Jones, who’s been driving city buses for Iowa City for 15 years, one recent morning just before starting his route.
Then he climbed into the No. 10 bus, which travels between downtown and the west side of the city, crossing the Iowa River, and set off.
A few minutes later, Abbas Mahadi, 20, climbed aboard, holding the hand of his 6-year-old cousin, whom he was chaperoning to elementary school. Free transit, he said, was essential for his family. “If you didn’t have free buses, it would be too much for us,” Mr. Mahadi said.
As the bus rumbled along, more people hopped on, including a doctoral student who had become a regular because parking at the university was too expensive. Another student, Abby Kloha, a 21-year-old who is majoring in translation and Spanish at the University of Iowa, said that instead of stressing out behind the wheel, she was able to spend her bus ride studying Japanese vocabulary. “It kind of feels like a time saver,” she said.
Bus No. 10 pulled to a stop in front of an elementary school, and Mr. Mahadi led his young cousin down the steps and across the street. Mr. Jones idled the bus a few moments more, waiting until Mr. Mahadi hopped back on board. Then Mr. Jones shifted into gear and carried on his way.
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12) Smoking Weed Could Lead to Less Drinking, New Study Suggests
In a makeshift bar on a college campus, researchers studied how smoking cannabis affected alcohol consumption.
By Dani Blum, Nov. 19, 2025
Pete Gamlen
Countless college students have conducted the experiment: What happens when you mix alcohol and cannabis?
But few have done so in a lab, under the watchful eye of scientists, carefully calibrating their breathing as they take hits of research-grade marijuana.
In a new study, investigators corralled around 150 adults into a makeshift bar on campus at Brown University in order to test how much people wanted to drink after they smoked cannabis. It is one of the first rigorous trials to examine how marijuana affects drinking.
“This is basically a very carefully, precisely designed study of cross-fading,” said Dr. James MacKillop, the director of the Michael G. DeGroote Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research at McMaster University and an author on the study. (Cross-fading means getting simultaneously drunk and high.)
The researchers found that people drank considerably less after they smoked cannabis.
The new paper, published Wednesday, arrives at a time when going “California sober” — using marijuana and other drugs, but not alcohol — has become trendy. Researchers attribute its popularity to the growing legalization and availability of cannabis in an array of forms, including prepackaged edibles and beverages, as well as a rising awareness about the health harms of alcohol.
“We too often study drugs in isolation,” said Ryan Vandrey, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins Medicine, who studies cannabis and was not involved with the new research. But in reality, he said, people commonly combine alcohol and cannabis.
“We don’t have a good understanding of that,” he said. “And I think we need it.”
The researchers recruited 157 people who regularly use both cannabis and alcohol. The experiment took place over three rounds, separated days apart. During one session, participants smoked joints with a higher concentration of THC, a psychoactive compound in cannabis. In another session, they smoked cannabis with less THC, and in a third, they smoked a placebo joint.
Cannabis intake was controlled; the participants followed a standardized “paced puffing procedure,” listening to an audio tape instructing them when to inhale and exhale.
After they smoked, they went to a lab that was designed to look like a bar, decorated with string lights and signs for Guinness and Jack Daniel’s. The bar was stocked with the participants’ drinks of choice. The researchers watched through a two-way mirror as the participants weighed whether they wanted a drink.
On the day they smoked the higher-THC cannabis, participants drank around a third less than they did on the day they smoked the placebo joint. After they smoked the lower-THC cannabis, they consumed around twenty percent less alcohol than when they used the placebo.
Despite the study’s findings, it’s far too early to say for sure that cannabis can curb drinking, said Jane Metrik, a professor of behavioral and social sciences at the Brown University School of Public Health and the lead author on the paper.
And because the study was so controlled, the results might not neatly translate into everyday life. Popular marijuana products typically contain far more THC than even the higher dose used in the trial, said Johannes Thrul, an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who was not involved with the trial. (As with many studies, the scientists sourced cannabis from a national supply specifically used for research.)
As more potent cannabis hits the market, researchers are eager for more data on how the drug might interact with alcohol. There are still many unknowns about the combined health effects of both alcohol and marijuana: how the substances work in concert in the body; how different cannabis compounds mix with alcohol; and if smoking, eating or drinking marijuana changes how it intersects with alcohol.
“At the end of the day, it will have to be these really tightly controlled laboratory studies and then the real-world evidence coming together to paint the picture,” Dr. Thrul said. “Because none of these studies can answer these questions by themselves.”
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13) U.S. Lends $1 Billion to Three Mile Island Nuclear Project
The Pennsylvania site, shorthand for the dangers of nuclear power after a 1979 meltdown, is set for revival under a deal to power Microsoft data centers.
By Qasim Nauman, Nov. 19, 2025
Constellation’s nuclear power plant, called the Crane Clean Energy Center, on Three Mile Island near Middletown, Pa. earlier this year. Credit...Ted Shaffrey/Associated Press
The Trump administration is giving a $1 billion loan to help restart a nuclear plant at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, boosting a project that aims to provide power to Microsoft’s vast network of data centers.
The funding, announced by the Energy Department on Tuesday, would help restart Three Mile Island Unit 1, which shut down in 2019. The other unit at the site near Harrisburg, Pa., shut down in 1979 after its reactor had a partial meltdown and released a small amount of radioactive material into the air. It was the most serious nuclear power accident in the country’s history.
The plant became synonymous with the dangers of nuclear power and fueled public opposition to new nuclear projects for decades, even as safer reactors were developed.
Last year, Unit 1 became the face of a potential revival of the nuclear power industry when Microsoft and Constellation, Unit 1’s owner, announced a deal to restart the plant.
Nuclear energy is one of the options large technology companies like Microsoft are considering to help power the vast networks of data centers needed to provide all kinds of computing services, from social media to artificial intelligence. Google and Amazon have also signed deals with nuclear operators and developers.
Attitudes toward nuclear power have softened in the United States, and it has political support among both Republicans and Democrats. The industry’s supporters have said that the U.S. regulatory system drives up the cost of construction. China has leapfrogged the United States in nuclear power, and while it has similar safety standards, its approval system is more predictable.
The Trump administration has said it wants to reduce regulations at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which certifies that a reactor is safe before it is built. President Trump signed an executive order in May directing the agency to take no more than 18 months to approve applications for new reactors.
The Three Mile Island restart project would “help ensure America has the energy it needs to grow its domestic manufacturing base and win the AI race,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in a statement on Tuesday. Constellation said the loan has “made it possible for us to vastly expedite this restart without compromising quality or safety.”
Under the deal to revive the plant, Microsoft would buy as much power as it can from the plant for 20 years in an effort to add carbon-free electricity to the grids that power its operations.
Neither Constellation nor the Energy Department provided details of the loan or its terms. But Constellation said the loan would help it secure cheaper financing. The revived plant, named the Crane Clean Energy Center, is expected to come online in 2027, pending approvals from regulators, the company said in September. With 500 full-time employees, the site is 80 percent staffed, it said.
Once online, the 835-megawatt reactor will produce enough electricity to power roughly 800,000 homes, according to the Energy Department.
In addition to the technical challenges of restarting a mothballed nuclear plant, there are lingering safety concerns. In August 2024, about a dozen people opposed to the plant’s reopening protested outside its gates.
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