Table of Contents:
1) Events and Appeals
2) Current News
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1) Events and Appeals
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End Texas Torture of Revolutionary Elder Xinachtli
Organization Support Letter
Letter to demand the immediate medical treatment and release of Chicano political prisoner Xinachtli (Alvaro Hernandez #00255735)
To the Texas Department of Criminal Justice,
We, the undersigned organizations, write to urge immediate action to protect the life, health, and human rights of Xinachtli (legal name Alvaro Hernandez). Xinachtli is 73-year-old Chicano community organizer from Texas who has spent 23 years in solitary confinement and 30 years incarcerated as part of a 50-year sentence. His health is now in a critical and life-threatening state and requires prompt and comprehensive medical intervention.
Since his conviction in 1997, Xinachtli has spent decades in conditions that have caused significant physical and psychological harm. As an elder in worsening health, these conditions have effectively become a de facto death sentence.
Xinachtli’s current medical condition is severe. His physical, mental, and overall well-being have declined rapidly in recent weeks. He now requires both a wheelchair and a walker, has experienced multiple falls, and is suffering from rapid weight loss. He is currently housed in the McConnell Unit infirmary, where he is receiving only palliative measures and is being denied a medical diagnosis, access to his medical records, and adequate diagnostic testing or treatment.
A virtual clinical visit with licensed medical doctor Dr. Dona Kim Murphey underscores the severity of his condition. In her report of the visit, she wrote: "Given the history of recent neck/back trauma and recurrent urinary tract infections with numbness, weakness, and bowel and bladder incontinence, I am concerned about nerve root or spinal cord injury and/or abscesses that can lead to permanent sensorimotor dysfunction."
Despite his age and visible disabilities, he remains in solitary confinement under the Security Threat Group designation as a 73-year-old. During his time in the infirmary, prison staff threw away all of his belongings and “lost” his commissary card, leaving him completely without basic necessities. He is experiencing hunger, and the lack of consistent nutrition is worsening his medical condition. McConnell Unit staff have also consistently given him incorrect forms, including forms for medical records and medical visitation, creating further barriers to care and communication.
A family visit on November 29 confirmed the seriousness of his condition. Xinachtli, who was once able to walk on his own, can no longer stand without assistance. He struggled to breathe, has lost more than 30 pounds, relied heavily on his wheelchair, and was in severe pain throughout the visit.
In light of these conditions, we, the undersigned organizations, demand that TDCJ take immediate action to save Xinachtli’s life and comply with its legal and ethical obligations.
We urge the immediate implementation of the following actions:
Immediate re-instatement of his access to commissary to buy hygiene, food, and other critical items. Immediate transfer to the TDCJ hospital in Galveston for a full medical evaluation and treatment, including complete access to his medical records and full transparency regarding all procedures. Transfer to a geriatric and medical unit that is fully accessible under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Xinachtli requests placement at the Richard P LeBlanc Unit in Beaumont, Texas. Approval of Medical Recommended Intensive Supervision, the release program for individuals with serious medical conditions and disabilities, in recognition of the severity and progression of his current health issues. Failure to act will result in the continued and foreseeable deterioration of Xinachtli’s health, amounting to state-sanctioned death. We urge TDCJ to take swift and decisive action to meet these requests and to fulfill its responsibility to safeguard his life and well-being.
We stand united in calling for immediate and decisive action. Xinachtli’s life depends on it.
Signed, Xinachtli Freedom Campaign and supporting organizations
Endorsing Organizations:
Al-Awda Houston; All African People’s Revolutionary Party; Anakbayan Houston; Anti-Imperialist Solidarity; Artists for Black Lives' Equality; Black Alliance for Peace - Solidarity Network; Columbia University Students for a Democratic Society; Community Liberation Programs; Community Powered ATX; Contra Gentrificación; Diaspora Pa’lante Collective; Down South; DSA Emerge; Entre nos kc; Fighting Racism Workshops; Frontera Water Protectors; GC Harm Reductionists; JERICHO MOVEMENT; Jericho Movement Providence; Montrose Anarchist Collective; NYC Jericho Movement; OC Focus; Palestine Solidarity TX; Partisan Defense Committee; Partido Nacional de la Raza Unida; PDX Anti-Repression; Red Star Texas; Root Cause; San Francisco Solidarity Collective; Shine White Support Team; Sunrise Columbia; UC San Diego Faculty for Justice in Palestine; Viva Palestina, EPTX; Water Justice and Technology Studio; Workshops4Gaza.
Sign the endorsement letter for your organization here:
https://cryptpad.fr/form/#/2/form/view/MiR1f+iLiRBJC7gSTyfhyxJoLIDhThxRafPatxdbMWI/
Write to:
Alvaro Hernandez CID #00255735
TDCJ-W.G. McConnell Unit
PO Box 660400
Dallas, TX 75266-0400
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Help World-Outlook Win New Subscribers
(the subscription is free of charge)
Dear reader,
Over the last month, World-Outlook and its sister publication in Spanish Panorama-Mundial have published unique coverage of U.S. and world events.
This includes the three-part interview with Cuban historian and writer Ernesto Limia DÃaz, ‘Cuba Is the Moral and Political Compass of the World.’ A related article by Mark Satinoff, World Votes with Cuba to Demand an End to U.S. Blockade, included information on the campaign to send medical aid to Cuba in the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa and was shared widely by the Los Angeles Hands Off Cuba Committee and other Cuba solidarity groups.
A number of readers sent their appreciation for Cathleen Gutekanst’s article Chicago Residents Fight ICE Abductions, Deportations, which provided a compelling, eyewitness account of this example of working-class resistance to the Trump administration’s war on undocumented immigrants. Some readers shared it widely on social media platforms.
The news analysis Bigotry, Jew Hatred Take Center Stage in GOP Mainstream also generated interest. It is part of World-Outlook’s consistent analysis of the danger of the rise of incipient fascism that Trumpism has posed for the working class and its allies in the U.S. and the world.
Most recently, another article by Mark Satinoff, ‘From Ceasefire to a Just Peace’ in Israel and Occupied Territories, was promoted by Friends of Standing Together (FOST NY/NJ) on the group’s website. Alon-Lee Green and Sally Abed — the two Standing Together leaders featured at the November 12 event in Brooklyn, New York, that Mark’s article covered — and Israelis for Peace sent their thanks to Mark for his accurate reporting.
This is a small sample of the news coverage and political analysis World-Outlook offers.
We ask you to use this information to try to convince at least one of your acquaintances, colleagues, friends, fellow students, neighbors, or relatives to subscribe to World-Outlook. As you know, the subscription is free of charge. Increasing World-Outlook’s subscription base will widen the site’s reach. It will also provide new impetus to improve our coverage. Comments and reactions from subscribers, or initiatives from readers to cover events in their areas, often result in unexpectedly invaluable articles or opinion columns clarifying important political questions.
Feel free to share this letter, or part of its contents, with those you are asking to subscribe. And keep World-Outlookinformed about the reactions you get from potential new readers.
In solidarity,
World-Outlook editors
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Funds for Kevin Cooper
Kevin was transferred out of San Quentin and is now at a healthcare facility in Stockton. He has received some long overdue healthcare. The art program is very different from the one at San Quentin but we are hopeful that Kevin can get back to painting soon.
For 41 years, an innocent man has been on death row in California.
Kevin Cooper was wrongfully convicted of the brutal 1983 murders of the Ryen family and houseguest. The case has a long history of police and prosecutorial misconduct, evidence tampering, and numerous constitutional violations including many incidences of the prosecution withholding evidence of innocence from the defense. You can learn more here .
In December 2018 Gov. Brown ordered limited DNA testing and in February 2019, Gov. Newsom ordered additional DNA testing. Meanwhile, Kevin remains on Death Row at San Quentin Prison.
The funds raised will be used to help Kevin purchase art supplies for his paintings . Additionally, being in prison is expensive, and this money would help Kevin pay for stamps, books, paper, toiletries, supplies, supplementary food, printing materials to educate the public about his case and/or video calls.
Please help ease the daily struggle of an innocent man on death row!
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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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”
——
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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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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2) Current News
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1) Israel Says It Killed Senior Hamas Commander, Despite Cease-Fire
Hamas said the attack on Saturday was a breach of the truce. The militant group did not comment on Israel’s claim to have killed one of its members.
By Aaron Boxerman and Adam Rasgon, Dec. 13, 2025
Aaron Boxerman reported from Jerusalem, and Adam Rasgon from Tel Aviv.
A destroyed car following an Israeli strike in Gaza City on Saturday. Saher Alghorra for The New York Times
The Israeli military said it killed one of Hamas’s top commanders in Gaza in a targeted strike on Saturday, in what would be the most high-profile assassination of a senior figure in the militant group since the cease-fire began two months ago.
The target of the attack was Raed Saad, a senior commander in the Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s armed wing, according to the Israeli authorities. Mr. Saad had helped plan the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel that ignited the two-year war in Gaza, the Israeli military said.
Hamas did not immediately comment on Israel’s claim to have killed Mr. Saad, leaving his fate unclear, but said in a statement that the attack was a “further criminal breach of the cease-fire agreement.” The group has frequently taken weeks or months to confirm the deaths of senior figures killed by Israel.
A longstanding member of Hamas, he had slowly risen in the ranks to become the armed wing’s second-in-command, according to two Arab intelligence officials. He spent much of the much of the war deep underground in Hamas tunnels beneath Gaza City, they said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said in a statement that he and the country’s defense minister had personally ordered Mr. Saad’s assassination in response to an explosive device that had wounded two Israeli soldiers earlier on Saturday.
Four people were killed in the attack — which hit a car on Gaza’s coastal road — and their bodies were brought to Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, according to Mohammad Abu Salmiya, the medical center’s director. He said he could not immediately confirm their identities.
The assassination attempt could further rattle the already fragile truce between Israel and Hamas, which has been tested by repeated rounds of violence. The United States and its regional allies brokered the cease-fire in mid-October, which saw the last 20 surviving hostages in Gaza freed in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.
But the truce did not entirely stop the fighting. More than 300 Palestinians have since been killed in Israeli attacks, including children, since the truce went into effect, local health officials say. And at least three Israeli soldiers have been killed in combat, according to the Israeli military.
International mediators, including President Trump, have tried to press ahead with carrying out the next phase of the cease-fire, which would see Hamas lay down its weapons and lead to a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
Hamas regards giving up all its weapons as tantamount to surrender, as armed struggle against Israel is a core part of its ideology. Mr. Netanyahu has repeatedly said that if Hamas did not agree to disarm quietly, it would be done “the hard way.”
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2) Deadly Attack in Syria on U.S. Troops Exposes Growing Challenges for Country’s Leader
The attacks further complicate President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s efforts to unify the country and rebuild relationships with the international community, analysts say.
By Abdi Latif Dahir, Reporting from Damascus, Syria, Dec. 14, 2025
When a lone gunman that President Trump said was linked to the Islamic State killed three Americans in central Syria on Saturday, it laid bare the mounting security challenges and precarious state of affairs confronting the country’s new leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa.
Since ousting Syria’s dictator, Bashar al-Assad, a year ago, Mr. al-Sharaa has had to deal with the daunting task of restoring control over a deeply fractured nation. His government has sought to rebuild a unified military force. Yet sectarian violence, involving government forces, has killed hundreds, hindering meaningful progress toward national reconciliation. And rising tensions with Kurdish militias, who hold significant sway over the country’s northeast, have complicated government efforts to integrate them into Syria’s new political and military structure.
Mr. al-Sharaa has also had to delicately navigate his relationship with Mr. Trump — who has openly embraced him — amid questions about the future of U.S. forces in Syria. American troops have been there for years, to fight the Islamic State, or ISIS, counteract Iranian influence and guard strategically important areas, including oil fields.
The persistent danger of terrorism has loomed large as Mr. al-Sharaa has tried to deal with these challenges.
Over the past year, ISIS has exploited security gaps to target civilians and Mr. al-Sharaa’s forces. Then, on Saturday, the shooting attack left two U.S. soldiers and a civilian interpreter involved in counterterrorism efforts dead. Three U.S. military personnel and two Syrian security forces were also wounded in the attack in Palmyra, a city in central Syria, according to American officials and Syrian state media.
Government forces detained five people in raids across central Syria on Sunday targeting ISIS, three of whom were suspected of involvement in the attack, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group. The raids followed earlier reports of overnight arrests in Palmyra.
The Islamic State has not claimed responsibility for the attack on Saturday, the first killing of Americans in Syria since Mr. al-Assad was overthrown. The Syrian government has also not said who was behind the killings, even after Mr. Trump’s statement blaming ISIS, and said it had warned American counterparts about potential ISIS attacks on U.S. forces.
The attack was a setback for Mr. al-Sharaa’s government, analysts say, and complicates his efforts to forge a lasting peace in a country still reeling from decades of authoritarian rule and a devastating civil war.
“This is a remarkably difficult moment for the president,” said Bassam Barabandi, a political analyst in the Syrian capital, Damascus.
Mr. al-Sharaa “doesn’t have the luxury of options,” he added. “He has no choice except to stabilize Syria, rebuild Syria and make Syria into a place that no terrorist organization has any presence.”
Mr. al-Sharaa came to power last December after his forces swiftly advanced across Syria, toppling the al-Assad family’s five-decade rule. A former leader of the Syrian branch of Al Qaeda, he was once imprisoned by U.S. forces in Iraq and had a $10 million bounty on his head. He cut ties with Al Qaeda in 2016 and rebranded his group as more moderate, and the U.S. dropped a bounty on him last December.
Since becoming president, Mr. al-Sharaa has sought to build international ties, including with the United States.He has met with Mr. Trump at the White House, delivered a speech at the United Nations and received strong support from several neighboring Arab states. Last month, his government also joined the U.S.-led global coalition to fight ISIS, reinforcing its commitment to combating the group.
The assault in Palmyra came as ISIS has conducted attacks in Syria in recent weeks, and as the authorities have ratcheted up their operations targeting the group.
The attack on Saturday brings American involvement in Syria into sharp focus, analysts say, and will test Mr. al-Sharaa’s relationship with Mr. Trump and the broader coalition.
Colin P. Clarke, a counterterrorism analyst at the Soufan Group, a global intelligence and security firm based in New York, said the attack could provide an impetus for Mr. Trump to accelerate the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria.
The United States has about 1,000 troops at outposts in Syria’s northeast and at al-Tanf base in the southeast, roughly half the total that were in the country when Mr. Trump took office in January.
“That’s also exactly what ISIS hopes to achieve,” Mr. Clarke said. “A hasty U.S. withdrawal that would offer the group more room to maneuver.”
The Palmyra assault also highlights the growing urgency for Mr. al-Sharaa’s government’s to address its relationship with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, or the S.D.F., a militia group that controls much of northeastern Syria.
For years, the S.D.F. has been the United States’ primary ally in its battle against ISIS, capturing territory in the civil war. The group also oversees detention camps and prisons that hold thousands of ISIS fighters and their families.
In March, the S.D.F. signed an agreement with the Syrian government committing to integrate into the new state by the end of the year. But that has yet to be realized, analysts and Syrian officials say, and the two sides have clashed in recent months.
Following Saturday’s attack, the Kurdish group emphasized that its forces were not part of the joint patrol with American troops in the Palmyra area, while also signaling its willingness to the United States to continue fighting ISIS.
“We reaffirm our readiness to pursue ISIS in those areas and defeat it, should an agreement be reached with the International Coalition,” Farhad Shami, the spokesman for the Kurdish forces, said on social media.
Just before the attack on Saturday, a spokesman for Syria’s Interior Ministry accused the group of refusing to adhere to the agreement with the government and using the fight against ISIS as a way to preserve its power. Taking on the terror group allows the S.D.F. to legitimize its authority over the areas it controls, maintain power over valuable oil and gas fields, and position itself as an essential American ally.
“Eradicating terrorism and ISIS would mean the end of the S.D.F. politically and financially,” the Interior Ministry spokesman, Noureddine al-Baba, said in an interview with The New York Times.
Mr. al-Sharaa will have to confront all these challenges in the coming days, analysts say, while contending with a range of security, economic and political pressures. He will also need to manage any fallout from the United States, as the Pentagon investigates the shooting and Mr. Trump vows to retaliate.
Mr. Barabandi, the political analyst in Damascus, said Mr. al-Sharaa’s government will most likely emphasize that it is doing its utmost, despite limited resources, expertise and capacity on the ground.
“Their message will be to show how they are doing their best and are still a reliable partner even though they face many elements that don’t want Syria to be stable,” he said.
Reporting was contributed by Eric Schmitt reporting from Washington; Muhammad Haj Kadour from Damascus; and Euan Ward and Hwaida Saad from Beirut, Lebanon.
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3) What We Know About the American Troops in Syria
The killing of three Americans during what was said to be a counterterrorism operation in central Syria served as a reminder that U.S. troops are still operating in the country.
By Jin Yu Young, Dec. 14, 2025
U.S. Army soldiers gather before a patrol from a remote combat outpost in northeastern Syria in 2021. Credit...John Moore/Getty Images
Three Americans were killed over the weekend in central Syria in what President Trump called an “ISIS attack against the U.S.” Their deaths were the first American casualties on Syrian soil since the fall of the dictator Bashar al-Assad in December 2024.
The attack is a reminder that there are still U.S. troops in Syria — around 1,000 today, according to a Pentagon official — fighting Islamic State, and of the deadly threat that the extremist group still poses.
The United States started drawing down hundreds of troops from northeastern Syria this year, and Mr. Trump has expressed interest in pulling more out.
Why are U.S. troops in Syria?
The first open-ended deployment of U.S. troops to Syria was in late 2015 under President Barack Obama. They were sent to support rebel groups in the country fighting Islamic extremists, including the Islamic State during Syria’s civil war.
While the number of U.S. troops in Syria has fluctuated from several hundred to thousands in the past decade, as of December 2024 — when Assad was ousted — there were around 2,000 in the country, according to the Pentagon.
Since then, ISIS has shown renewed vigor in Syria, attracting fighters and increasing attacks, according to the United Nations and U.S. officials. In addition, thousands of its hardened fighters are held in prisons in the northeast of the country, guarded by U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish forces. Two senior U.S. officials said in April that the American troops, which included conventional soldiers as well as Special Forces, were providing counterterrorism assistance to Kurdish fighters and helping to operate detention camps.
The U.S. military started pulling troops from Syria in April as part of efforts to reduce troop levels in Syria to about 1,400. While Mr. Trump has expressed deep skepticism about keeping any American forces there, U.S. military officials have recommended retaining at least 500 U.S. troops in Syria.
What’s the political situation in Syria?
The Assad regime was ousted by a rebel coalition led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former rebel commander. Mr. al-Sharaa acted as the de facto leader of the country until Jan. 29, when the country’s rebel coalition appointed him as president.
Last week, Syrians celebrated the first anniversary of the fall of Mr. Assad and the end of his family’s authoritarian rule. But the country still grapples with deep economic challenges and sectarian violence.
According to Pentagon officials, the United States still considers ISIS a threat, despite Syria’s leadership transition.
What is ISIS and where are they now?
The Islamic State is a Sunni Muslim insurgent group that traces its origins to Al Qaeda in Iraq, an extremist group that pushed that country to the brink of civil war two decades ago before being defeated by local militias and U.S. soldiers.
Survivors of that group rebranded themselves as the Islamic State and declared a caliphate in 2014, seizing swaths of Syria as well when the civil war there left that country volatile and instable.
For years, Syrian forces have battled ISIS to reclaim land and have detained thousands of ISIS fighters and tens of thousands of their relatives. As of 2023, an estimated 9,000 ISIS fighters were in Syrian detention facilities, according to the U.S. Department of State.
The new Syrian government has taken a strong public stand against ISIS. In November, the country pledged to join a U.S.-led coalition to fight the group.
Three ISIS leaders died in Syria in 2022 and 2023, but the group maintained a significant underground operation and conducted terrorist attacks throughout Iraq and Syria, according to the State Department report. It still operates nearly 20 branches and affiliates around the world, the report said.
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4) The War on ‘Wokeness’ Comes to the U.S. Mint
The Treasury Department unveiled new coins celebrating America’s 250th anniversary. They failed to include planned designs featuring abolition, women’s suffrage and the civil rights movement.
By Dan Barry, Photographs by Rachel Wisniewski, Dec. 14, 2025
"As for the requirement that one of the coin designs celebrate the contributions of women to the great American experiment, the Mint cited the image of a Pilgrim holding the hand of, and being embraced by, her protective male partner."
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/14/us/coins-us-250th-anniversary.html
A performance by the U.S. Army Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps.
George Washington was there. And Benjamin Franklin. And even Abraham Lincoln, who joked that the last time he was in a theater it did not go so well.
These paid re-enactors and other dignitaries gathered the other evening in a Philadelphia auditorium for the unveiling of coins designed to celebrate the country’s 250th anniversary. They provided a traditional, even simple, take on the American journey, with Pilgrims and founding fathers and a stovepipe hat tip to the Gettysburg Address.
Left unmentioned amid the event’s fife-and-drum pageantry was that these coins also represented a rejection of a different set of designs — meant to commemorate certain other inspiring chapters of the nation’s history, including abolition, women’s suffrage and the civil rights movement.
An event largely unnoticed by anyone other than coin enthusiasts, then, wound up reflecting the national struggle over how the American story is told, as the Trump administration seeks to frame any focus on the knottier moments in the nation’s arc as “wokeness.”
The Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, is authorized by law to make final decisions about coin designs, including these 250th anniversary coins — a dime, a half-dollar and five quarters — which are both collectible and legal tender. But his choices ignored the more diverse recommendations for the quarters by the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee, a bipartisan group mandated by Congress to review the U.S. Mint’s proposed designs for American coins.
To commemorate the abolition of slavery, the committee had recommended an image of Frederick Douglass on the obverse and shackled and unshackled hands on the reverse. To honor women’s suffrage, a World War I-era protester carrying a “Votes for Women” flag. And to evoke the civil rights movement, a 6-year-old Ruby Bridges, books in hand, helping to desegregate the New Orleans school system in 1960.
Mr. Bessent opted instead for the more general, and much whiter. For the Mayflower Compact, a Pilgrim couple staring into the distance. For the Revolutionary War, a profile of Washington. For the Declaration of Independence, a profile of Thomas Jefferson. For the Constitution, a profile of James Madison. And for the Gettysburg Address, a profile of Lincoln on the obverse, and on the reverse, a pair of interlocking hands. No shackles.
The rejection of its recommendations, along with the selection of designs it had not vetted, did not sit well with the committee, whose 11 members include numismatists, historians and members of the public. None attended the event last Wednesday, which served as a table setter for another divisive numismatic matter, also unmentioned: the administration’s plan to feature President Trump on a dollar coin.
Portraying a sitting president on a coin defies American tradition dating to the first president. Washington rejected proposals to feature his image on coins for fear of echoing the English monarchy from which the new country had just freed itself — a liberation sparked by the Declaration of Independence, which these coins, including one featuring Mr. Trump, are supposed to commemorate.
Several Democratic senators recently sent a letter to Mr. Bessent decrying a Trump coin as “un-American” and against the spirit of several laws. Senate Democrats also introduced a bill to prohibit “the likeness of a living or sitting president” from appearing on U.S. currency.
A spokeswoman for the Mint said in an email that “there was no prohibition on placing living persons on the obverse (front) of coins redesigned under the Semiquincentennial authority.” She did not answer questions about the appropriateness of featuring a sitting president on a coin.
Brandon Beach, the treasurer and a leading promoter of the Trump coin, said in a statement that Senate Democrats were “so triggered by the proposed coin celebrating our nation’s 250th anniversary that they are trying to recklessly change law to block it.” He added, “The American people deserve a commemorative coin celebrating our great nation.”
At this stage, the Trump coin seems certain to join other efforts by the president to celebrate himself; this month alone, the Institute of Peace was renamed the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace and the National Park Service added Flag Day, which it noted was also Mr. Trump’s birthday, to its list of free entrance days (while cutting Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday and Juneteenth). Proposed designs for the coin appear on the U.S. Mint’s website, even though the advisory committee has yet to review them, as required by law.
Donald Scarinci, a New Jersey lawyer and the longest-serving member of the advisory committee, called Wednesday night’s unveiling “another sad day for America,” because it marked the first time since the board’s establishment in 2003 that “the United State Mint announced coin designs that the committee never reviewed.”
“The guardrails that Congress created, so that all American coins and medals get reviewed by a citizens’ committee, have been removed,” Mr. Scarinci said.
But Kristie McNally, the Mint’s acting director, said in a brief interview that the Treasury secretary had final say.
This latest skirmish over how the United States sees and presents itself is rooted in the little-known Circulating Collectible Coin Redesign Act of 2020, signed by Mr. Trump on Jan. 13. 2021, one week after the Capitol riot. The act authorized the production of coins celebrating the country’s 250th anniversary, including quarters of up to five different designs, with the specification that one of the five be emblematic of women’s contribution “to the birth of the Nation or the Declaration of Independence” or any other monumental American moment.
In keeping with this mandate, the Mint staff conducted historical research, consulted with the Smithsonian and other federal entities, and developed various options. Then, after review, the advisory committee and the Commission of Fine Arts developed separate recommendations for several designs meant to convey the promise of the Declaration of Independence, including those images of Frederick Douglass, a suffragist and the young Ruby Bridges.
The advisory committee forwarded its recommendations in October 2024 to the Treasury secretary at the time, Janet Yellen. Mr. Trump took office two months later, after which the president, in his campaign against diversity efforts, issued an executive order “restoring truth and sanity to American history,” in part by “reversing the spread of divisive ideology.”
The committee heard nothing for months. And then: images of Pilgrims, long-dead presidents — and the president currently in office.
As for the requirement that one of the coin designs celebrate the contributions of women to the great American experiment, the Mint cited the image of a Pilgrim holding the hand of, and being embraced by, her protective male partner.
“The Mayflower Compact Quarter fulfills this legislative requirement,” a Mint official said in a statement. “The women of the Plymouth colony were essential for the colony’s survival by making medicines from native plants, preserving food, and educating children. It’s likely the women formed early connections with the Native American Wampanoag community, collecting knowledge about farming and food preparation.”
The unveiling of the Mayflower Compact quarter and other coins was held in the blond-wooded auditorium in the National Constitution Center, near Independence Hall. About 100 guests filed in, including Washington, who believed that coins should promote ideals, not individuals.
After several speeches and a performance by the U.S. Army Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps, a brief video flashed on a screen to reveal Mr. Bessent’s choices. Anyone looking for nods to civil rights and suffrage had to go downstairs to the Constitution Center’s display about the Nineteenth Amendment, which recognized women’s right to vote, or to its gift shop, where a children’s book about the civil rights movement, with a smiling Ruby Bridges on the cover, was on sale.
The moment the event ended, Mr. Beach, the treasurer, rushed toward the exit. He had less than a half-hour to catch a train back to Washington.
Before disappearing into an elevator, Mr. Beach said that the Trump dollar coin would be unveiled soon, but that the final design needed to be shown to “him.”
Asked whom “him” referred to, he said: The president.
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5) Floods, Mud and Cold Add to Gazans’ Misery
The rainstorm that battered the enclave this week has left many shivering in tent camps. Despite a cease-fire, rebuilding is still a long way off.
By Aaron Boxerman, Visuals by Saher Alghorra, Dec. 14, 2025
Gazans moving through flood water in the Al-Zahraa camp in the Mawasi area of Khan Younis on Friday.
Tents flooded as rain poured down outside. Children huddled around campfires in buildings half-smashed by fighting. Roads torn up by two years of war turned to muddy tracks.
For Gazans, the storm that battered the enclave this week was a reminder that while the bombs may have stopped falling for now, life is still far from normal.
Palestinians had hoped the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas would permit the devastated enclave to begin rebuilding as soon as possible. But they are likely to be kept waiting as Israel, the United States and Hamas wrangle over Gaza’s future.
More than two months into the cease-fire, many of Gaza’s two million Palestinians still have no permanent homes. Instead, they are often forced to choose between living under rubber tarps between mounds of rubble or in partly destroyed buildings.
Both options can be dangerous: Gaza’s civil defense emergency workers said that at least 11 people were killed this week when damaged buildings collapsed on those taking shelter there during the storm.
Staying warm, for many, is a constant battle. Cooking gas can be prohibitively expensive, and firewood damp and difficult to light. Gazans lucky enough to be living in stable buildings rarely have access to electricity or central heating.
The United Nations’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Jerusalem has reported that about 1.3 million Palestinians in Gaza lack proper shelter. More than 100,000 Palestinians were estimated to have been affected by the storm, which flooded more than 200 displacement sites, according to the agency.
The flooding brought sewage into the streets as well — overwhelming sanitation systems badly damaged in the war — according to the U.N.’s humanitarian office, raising the risk of turning clean water supplies into dangerous sources of disease.
Israel’s military campaign against Hamas killed tens of thousands in Gaza. It also flattened much of its cities through a relentless drumbeat of airstrikes and the systematic razing of entire residential neighborhoods.
According to the United Nations, more than 120,000 buildings in Gaza were destroyed and tens of thousands more were either moderately or severely damaged — in all, about 81 percent of the structures in the enclave.
Rebuilding them is likely to cost around $70 billion, according to U.N. agencies, and it is far from clear which nations might be willing to provide the funds. With Hamas and Israel still at loggerheads, potential donors say they fear pouring money into buildings that could be brought crashing down if the conflict reignites.
United States officials have said they would not allow large-scale reconstruction to take place in the half of Gaza still controlled by Hamas, which began the war by attacking Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. But a vast majority of the two million Gazans live in that area.
Israel says it is allowing international relief organizations to bring large amounts of winter supplies — like tents and tarps — into Gaza, but United Nations officials say that, so far, it is not nearly enough.
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6) The Billionaires Have Gone Full Louis XV
By Michael Hirschorn, Dec. 14, 2025
Mr. Hirschorn, the chief executive of Ish Entertainment, writes about the intersection of culture and politics.
“In the last five years alone, the wealthiest 20 Americans increased their net worth from $1.3 trillion to $3 trillion, Forbes reported. … Billionaires control the cable channels, social media platforms, newspapers, movie studios and essentially everything else that we consume, but for their own information sources they are in some cases more likely to trust their own kind. … According to the most recent edition of an annual Harris Poll, for the first time, a majority of Americans believe billionaires are a threat to democracy. A remarkable 71 percent believe there should be a wealth tax. A majority believe there should be a cap on how much wealth a person can accumulate.”
Illustration by Rebecca Chew/The New York Times
Billionaires had a great thing going. The ruling in the 2010 Citizens United case, among others, invited the super rich to exert all the influence on policy and politics that their money could buy — and then enjoy all the wealth that influence secured for them in return. Thanks to ever-more-obliging tax policies, the billionaire class grew absurdly rich over the years that followed. In the last five years alone, the wealthiest 20 Americans increased their net worth from $1.3 trillion to $3 trillion, Forbes reported.
And they did it in many cases without the rest of us even having a clue. It took the investigative reporter Jane Mayer five years of relentless digging to figure out how the Koch brothers gained a chokehold on the Republican Party. The title of her 2016 book, “Dark Money,” became synonymous with a particularly effective form of influence that was all but untraceable. The billionaires could have kept on like that forever. All they had to do was keep their mouths closed.
Today, billionaires are still flooding politics with their money and still reaping the benefits, but they won’t stop yapping about it.
Elon Musk bragged about his support for President Trump, to whose campaign and allied groups he donated more than $250 million. He loudly attempted to buy votes in Pennsylvania. Then he leveraged it all into a cruel and chaotic effort to dismantle federal agencies. Marc Andreessen’s tech-heavy venture capital firm publicly pledged $100 million to target lawmakers who attempt to regulate artificial intelligence; Mr. Andreessen then mocked the pope for suggesting some ethical guardrails around the technology. Bill Ackman announced that he and his pals were prepared to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to defeat Zohran Mamdani, and urged Mr. Trump to call in the National Guard if that effort failed and Mr. Mamdani’s mayoralty met his worst expectations.
And all the while they’re out there lecturing us about their fitness routines, their weird personal philosophies, their conspicuous consumption and more. Jeff Bezos staged a three-day, celebrity-packed, $50 million wedding to Lauren Sánchez, the whole cringe affair optimized for global paparazzi interest. Mr. Ackman is advising young men to try the line, “May I meet you?”, a strategy that in his own experience, he says, “almost never got a no.” Owning the world isn’t enough for these people; they must also go in search of the cheap high of influencer culture.
But no amount of auramaxxing can hide the new reality. Just six years ago, 69 percent of respondents to a Cato Institute poll agreed that billionaires “earned their wealth by creating value for others.” An only slightly smaller majority agreed with the statement “we are all better off when people get rich.” Today, one poll after another shows that Americans want the rich to be taxed at higher, even much higher rates. Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have attracted an increasingly large national following with an anti-billionaire message that previously would have sounded extremist. And New York City, the richest metropolis in the nation, just elected a democratic socialist who thinks billionaires shouldn’t exist at all.
The billionaires have only themselves to blame.
It’s as if the sheer scale of this wealth, which beggars even the riches of the Gilded Age, has induced a kind of class sociopathy. Peter Thiel, the crucial funder of JD Vance’s ascent, talks extensively about his desire to escape democracy (and politics generally) in favor of some kind of bizarre techno-libertarian future. Balaji Srinivasan, the investor and former crypto exec, calls for tech elites to take control of cities and states — or build their own — and run them as quasi-private entities. Alex Karp, who along with Thiel founded the high-flying military intelligence company Palantir, shares his predictions about an apocalyptic clash of civilizations, pausing to brag, “I think I’m the highest-ranked tai chi practitioner in the business world.” In another era, this would all be laughable. But as the MAGA moment emboldens them to drop any pretense of civic virtue and just go full will-to-power, their nutty ideas are now borderline plausible. And terrifying.
These people are whip smart. Why can’t they see how badly they’re coming off? Perhaps it’s because the superrich have allowed themselves to become increasingly isolated. An ever-more-stratified scale of luxury allows the staggeringly rich to avoid coming into contact with even the merely wealthy, let alone the rest of the world, “to glide through a rarefied realm unencumbered by the inconveniences of ordinary life,” as The Wall Street Journal reported. Chuck Collins, who gave away his family fortune and who now investigates inequality, describes it this way: “Wealth is a disconnection drug that keeps people apart from one another and from building authentic real connections and communities.”
Billionaires control the cable channels, social media platforms, newspapers, movie studios and essentially everything else that we consume, but for their own information sources they are in some cases more likely to trust their own kind. Semafor documented one ultraexclusive group chat that included Mr. Andreessen and Mr. Srinivasan, among others, in which the self-reinforcing discourse is reported to have pushed many Silicon Valley tycoons toward right-wing politics. “If you weren’t in the business at all,” the writer Thomas Chatterton Williams said of a similar group chat he was a member of, “you’d think everyone was arriving at conclusions independently.”
Such disconnection goes a long way to explaining why billionaires can’t grasp how the real world is convulsing outside their well-secured gates.
And convulsing it is. According to the most recent edition of an annual Harris Poll, for the first time, a majority of Americans believe billionaires are a threat to democracy. A remarkable 71 percent believe there should be a wealth tax. A majority believe there should be a cap on how much wealth a person can accumulate.
A realignment may be underway. The recent push for the Epstein files, a previously unimaginable collaboration between conspiracy-addled MAGA true believers and anti-corporatist Democrats, was just the latest sign. At a moment when income inequality, the looming threat of A.I. and the rise of authoritarianism seem to be straining American societal cohesion, a revolt against self-dealing elites may be the only cause compelling enough to bring us together.
The favor of billionaires is already in some cases proving to be more of a liability than a blessing. In Seattle last month, a democratic socialist was elected mayor over a Democratic incumbent backed by wealthy interests. For the billionaires, Virginia Heffernan wrote, the problem is self-evident: “It’s their billions. Lately, once the money of the private-jet set enters a campaign, the stink of the oligarchy sticks to the campaign and the candidate can be attacked as a corporate tool.” Alex Bores, a candidate for Congress in New York City next year, even thanked Mr. Andreessen’s super PAC for targeting him; its scorn will most likely help him, and his efforts to regulate A.I., to stand out in a crowded field.
The historian Robert Darnton described an uncannily similar moment in “The Revolutionary Temper: Paris 1748-1789,” his brilliant 2023 account of the decades leading up to the French Revolution. The preconditions were all there: suffocating top-down control of the media, rapid technological change, let-them-eat-cake behavior among the courtier class, weaponized religious bigotry, mansions with hideously de trop ballrooms. OK, Marjorie Taylor Greene is not quite Voltaire. But there was a pedophilia scandal involving Louis XV: Public obsession with the king’s many mistresses helped give rise to so-called libelles, cheaply printed, semi-factual pamphlets that speculated on, among other matters, the king’s supposed never-ending supply of teenage girls. It would have fit right in on TikTok. Reverence turned to mockery; mockery begot contempt; and then …
That story did not end well. This one may not either.
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7) Trial to Start for Judge Accused of Helping Undocumented Immigrant Evade Agents
The Milwaukee County judge faces federal charges, but she has maintained her innocence.
By Julie Bosman and Dan Simmons, Reporting from Milwaukee, Dec. 15, 2025
On an April morning, behind the neoclassical facade of the Milwaukee County Courthouse, a typically bustling day of misdemeanor cases was just beginning in Judge Hannah C. Dugan’s sixth-floor courtroom.
But what would unfold in a matter of minutes was anything but typical.
Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, a defendant at the courthouse facing domestic battery charges, left Judge Dugan’s courtroom through a side door after his hearing was adjourned — at the judge’s urging, witnesses said. He was then chased on foot by federal agents, who arrested him for immigration violations.
The episode prompted the Trump administration to take an unusual step: charging Judge Dugan with obstructing a proceeding of a federal agency and concealing an individual to prevent his discovery and arrest. The Department of Justice said that she had directed Mr. Flores-Ruiz, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, and his lawyer to exit through the side door in hopes that he would evade arrest.
Her trial is set to begin at a federal courthouse in Milwaukee on Monday and is expected to last a week. Judge Dugan, who has maintained her innocence, faces up to six years in prison if convicted and an uncertain future legal career.
The case has become an object of public fascination in Wisconsin, particularly as a national political debate over illegal immigration has raged in the background. To some, the case is a symbol of the Trump administration’s intolerance for any signs of resistance. To others, it is an example of a judge failing to adhere to a central tenet of impartiality.
“Many of the facts here aren’t going to be in dispute,” said Steven Wright, a law professor at the University of Wisconsin. “What the prosecution has to prove is that she acted with some type of bad motive, that she intended to prevent the federal officers from fulfilling their duties.”
Federal agents said that Judge Dugan was “visibly upset and had a confrontational, angry demeanor” and that she had called the situation “absurd” when she learned that agents were in the courthouse to arrest Mr. Flores-Ruiz. Immigration agents did not typically make arrests in the courthouse at the time, and judges, prosecutors and public defenders generally oppose the practice because it can undermine confidence in state and local courts.
The jury, chosen on Thursday from a pool of residents from 12 counties in Wisconsin, includes nine men and five women. Two jurors are alternates and will be dismissed before deliberations begin.
U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman, who was appointed by former President Bill Clinton, will preside over the trial.
At least nine federal law enforcement officials are expected to testify, including officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Drug Enforcement Administration and Customs and Border Protection.
Other potential witnesses include several other Milwaukee County judges, including Chief Judge Carl Ashley, and Tom Barrett, a Democrat and former longtime mayor of Milwaukee, who is a friend of Judge Dugan.
In interviews, some people in the Milwaukee area said they believed Judge Dugan, who is widely known in progressive circles in Milwaukee, had been trying to interfere with immigration agents because of her own policy beliefs.
“I feel like she kind of just went beyond her duties, and she felt like she was above the law,” said Natasha Lindow, 40, a resident of the Milwaukee suburb of Greenfield, who described herself as politically conservative. “In that moment, she assisted the guy, and in my opinion, I think she has to now see what her peers think.”
Others defended Judge Dugan’s actions, saying they believed the Trump administration had gone too far with what appeared to be a political prosecution.
“It really feels like they went after this judge who was just trying to protect immigrants,” said Sangita Nayak, 50, an elementary school teacher in Milwaukee. “It kind of describes the character of the current situation that we’re in, where it feels like anything could happen for folks who are the most vulnerable in our community.”
Since Judge Dugan’s arrest, protesters have frequently gathered in downtown Milwaukee to show their support for her, including during jury selection last week. Demonstrations are expected to continue in downtown Milwaukee throughout the trial.
After a string of defeats in high-profile prosecutions, the Trump administration has signaled that it views the Dugan case as an opportunity to send a message.
Pam Bondi, the attorney general, said earlier this year that the case demonstrates that there are consequences for judges who interfere with immigration policy.
“Some of these judges think they’re above the law. They are not,” she said. “We will come after you and prosecute you. We will find you.”
Judge Dugan was elected by a wide margin in 2016, beating an incumbent appointee of Scott Walker, the Republican former governor of Wisconsin. She ran unopposed for re-election in 2022, and her current term expires in 2028.
A 1987 graduate of the University of Wisconsin Law School, Judge Dugan carved out a legal career with a focus on representing people who were low-income or members of marginalized groups. As a young lawyer, she took a job at Legal Action of Wisconsin, a group that provides free legal services, where she specialized in housing, public benefits and Social Security cases.
She later worked as the executive director for Catholic Charities of Southeastern Wisconsin and as a lawyer for Legal Aid. In 1995, she represented people who panhandled on downtown sidewalks, arguing that banning them from doing so was unconstitutional.
Judge Dugan, 66, has been on administrative leave since April but has continued to collect her $174,000 salary. She was temporarily removed from the bench by the Wisconsin Supreme Court while the case against her worked its way through the court.
In June, Mr. Flores-Ruiz agreed to plead guilty to entering the United States illegally after being removed from the country in 2013. He was deported to Mexico in November.
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8) Born Deaf and Blind, She’s Caught in Trump’s Anti-Diversity Crusade
A program for deafblind children helped 3-year-old Annie Garner, born with poor vision and no ears, learn to communicate. The Trump administration cut the program’s funding over diversity goals.
By Sonia A. Rao, Visuals by Jamie Kelter Davis, Dec. 15, 2025
Sonia A. Rao covers disability issues. She reported from Wisconsin.
Casey and Leah Garner with their daughter, Annie, at their home in Reedsburg, Wis. Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times
Casey and Leah Garner wanted a big family. The Wisconsin couple had dreamed of having at least six children by the time they were in their 30s. But after years of struggling with infertility, they decided to adopt.
At the hospital three years ago, meeting the newborn who would become their daughter, Mr. Garner was the first to notice the tiny flaps of skin where her ears should be. Annie, the child they were adopting, was deaf.
Over the next few months, as they got to know their daughter, the Garners would discover more challenges, including poor vision, a developmental disability and weak muscles.
They were first-time parents, and they felt overwhelmed, thrown into an unfamiliar world they hadn’t expected. “I was out there looking for anything and everything that could help us,” said Mr. Garner, now 34.
He discovered the Wisconsin Deafblind Project, a state program for the families of children with combined vision and hearing loss. It made a tremendous difference as they learned to parent Annie, the Garners said.
They met other families experiencing the same thing. A mentor taught them sign language. Annie got sensory toys and Braille books. And she even made a best friend with a similar condition.
Then in September, the Trump administration canceled the five-year, $918,000 grant for the program, which supports about 170 children in Wisconsin like Annie. It also ended a $10.5 million grant used to recruit and retain special education teachers in the state.
The moves came at the same time that the administration cut similar programs for deafblind children across seven other states — all of which lean Democratic. In each case, the federal officials cited language in the programs’ grant applications related to goals for diversity, equity and inclusion.
Diversity efforts have been a point of attack for President Trump, who has attempted to quash them in both the public and private sectors. One of the first executive orders he signed after taking office targeted DEI initiatives throughout the government, including federal grants used to advanced DEI programs.
His administration has said it would not cut special education funding, although civil rights investigations into disability education have been curtailed, and other programs would be moved to new agencies as part of Mr. Trump’s wider goal to dismantle the Education Department.
By targeting diversity language, however, the administration has been able to make cuts to programs that benefit children with disabilities without specifically rolling back special education. In addition to the deafblind initiatives, the Education Department said it had slashed money for more than two dozen similar programs, including a school for the blind.
“Many of these use overt race preferences or perpetuate divisive concepts and stereotypes, which no student should be exposed to,” said Savannah Newhouse, an Education Department spokeswoman, in an emailed statement about the programs being cut.
The Garners said they were shocked that the government would cut off assistance for raising a deafblind daughter. “It seems like it should be a group of kids that everyone wants to help,” said Mr. Garner, a civil engineer. “Taking away help from deafblind kids? I don’t understand.”
The Wisconsin Deafblind Project was penalized for prioritizing “applicants from underrepresented and historically marginized groups,” according to a letter from the Trump administration, as well as its efforts to contract with women and minority business owners or disabled veterans.
The deafblind programs in other states that lost funding had similar language or stated goals. Ms. Newhouse, the agency spokeswoman, said in her statement that the grant funds were being reinvested to “better serve special needs students.”
Appeals by Wisconsin and other states to restore funding were quickly denied by Trump officials. An umbrella organization, the National Center on Deafblindness, said it could provide enough money from its own Education Department funding for the programs to continue — but only for another year.
Some 10,000 children across the United States qualify as deafblind — a rare disability that occurs when someone has combined hearing and vision losses, often caused by complications at birth or genetic mutations. Most have additional disabilities.
“For this small number, these dollars meant the world,” said Jolene Gruber, the grant coordinator for the Wisconsin program.
Liam Anderson, 19, has been deafblind since he was 3, when he contracted meningitis and had a stroke. His mother, Jodi Anderson, remembers her first call with employees from the program, describing it “one of the best phone calls ever.”
They understood the challenges Mr. Anderson would face, she recalled, and those early conversations helped her to realize that her son could still live a happy, fulfilling life.
The program trained an interpreter in the school district to help Mr. Anderson communicate — a specialized role known as an “intervener” — and the intervener helped him learn to understand tactile sign language and read Braille.
Now, there are Braille books scattered around the Andersons’ home. Mr. Anderson is currently making his way through the book of Leviticus from the Bible.
In high school, with the intervener’s help, he was able to join the marching band, playing percussion, and now takes drum lessons.
The program was also a boon for Sid Miller, a 19-year-old in Belgium, Wis., who has hearing and vision impairments. It helped him learn to ask for accommodations, like live captions in his high school classes and a sighted guide.
Those tools are now helping him study graphic design at a technical college, and he’s picked up contract work for the program, creating objects using 3-D printing that help deafblind children. Before a recent adaptive sailing trip, he made them a model of a boat, so they could visualize the vessel before taking part.
He worries that the younger students won’t get the same opportunities that he did if the program’s funding is cut. “It’s kind of cruel,” he said.
For Annie Garner, the program has provided something her parents feared she might not find, because of her communication issues and other disabilities: A best friend.
The Garners met another family through the program with a deafblind daughter, Emma, who was born just nine days apart from Annie. At their first meeting, the two sat together for hours, and now have regular play dates.
On a recent afternoon, Annie’s parents set up her feeding tube as she sat on the floor of her home in Reedsburg, a small town in a rural part of the state about an hour’s drive northwest of Madison.
A colorful headband held a hearing aid in place as Annie fiddled around with the electronic tablet that helps her to communicate — something she was taught to use by employees of the deafblind program.
She tapped several letters and symbols, until her message played: “I am a beautiful person who is the best.”
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