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/
IMPORTANT LINKS TO MATERIALS FOR XINACHTLI FREEDOM CAMPAIGN:
PHONE BLAST: Your community can sign up for a 15-minute-long call shift here: bit.ly/xphoneblast
FUNDRAISER: Here is the link to Jericho's fundraiser for Xinachtli: http://givebutter.com/jerichomovement
CASE HISTORY: Learn more about Xinachtli and his case through our website: https://freealvaro.net
CONTACT INFO:
Follow us on Instagram: @freexinachtlinow
Email us:
xinachtlifreedomcampaign@protonmail.com
COALITION FOLDER:
https://drive.proton.me/urls/SP3KTC1RK4#KARGiPQVYIvR
In the folder you will find: Two pictures of Xinachtli from 2024; The latest updated graphics for the phone blast; The original TRO emergency motion filing; Maria Salazar's declaration; Dr. Murphy's report from her Dec. 9 medical visit; Letter from Amnesty International declaring Xinachtli's situation a human rights violation; Free Xinachtli zine (which gives background on him and his case); and The most recent press release detailing who Xinachtli is as well as his medical situation.
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 Díaz, ‘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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Articles
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1) Trump’s Seizures of Oil Tankers Challenge Maritime Rules and Customs
Recent U.S. actions against ships near Venezuela may embolden other countries to seize or detain ships, legal experts said.
By Peter Eavis, Dec. 24, 2025
The U.S. government seized the Skipper, an oil tanker, in the Caribbean Sea this month after obtaining a warrant from a federal court. Credit...2025 Planet Labs, via Reuters
President Trump’s recent actions against tankers near Venezuela, the dramatic seizure of a vessel called Skipper and the detention of another called Centuries, appear to bend international maritime laws and customs, legal experts say.
Countries have authority to seize vessels in their territorial waters. But policing international waters can be difficult, which is why large numbers of vessels transport illicit or dubious cargo often with impunity. The United Nations has established rules for shipping under its Convention on the Law of the Sea. While the United States has adopted many of the rules in practice, it has not ratified the convention.
The Trump administration’s actions differ in crucial ways from the approach that other administrations, including Mr. Trump’s first one, took toward ships engaged in trade the government wanted to restrict. By moving so forcefully, legal experts say, the president may embolden other countries to use similar tactics when it suits them. If such seizures and detentions become more common, that could hurt the shipping industry and international trade.
Previously, the United States typically put pressure on foreign shipping companies to direct their vessels to a place where they would give up oil and other products targeted by the U.S. government. In 2020, the Trump administration used this approach to remove Iranian fuel from four Greek-owned tankers destined for Venezuela.
That method avoided the potentially provocative step of using the U.S. military to take over ships in international waters, which are supposed to be neutral.
“That’s what I think is novel about this,” said Francisco Rodríguez, a senior research fellow at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a left-leaning research organization.
Now, some analysts fear that the recent seizure and detention will undermine the rules and customs that have for decades maintained order on the high seas.
Jennifer Kavanagh, director of military analysis at Defense Priorities, a research institute that favors restraint in foreign policy, said other countries, particularly China, might conclude that they, too, could take similar steps.
“This would be a precedent that they could fall back on,” she said, “that they were only doing what the United States had indicated was legal.”
Dozens of tankers have been carrying oil and other products in and out of Venezuela, whose main oil company has been placed under sanctions by the Treasury Department. To avoid detection, the vessels sometimes switch off location transmitters. They may also sail under a false flag. And the ships’ owners or operators have been known to take steps to hide their identities and links to the vessels.
China, the biggest importer of Venezuelan oil, has condemned the U.S. actions. On Monday, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said Beijing opposed any moves that “infringe on the sovereignty and security of other countries, or constitute acts of unilateral bullying.”
White House officials did not respond to a request for comment.
“Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America,” Mr. Trump said this month on Truth Social, his social media platform. “It will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before.”
The United States obtained a warrant from the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to seize the Skipper, which is on an American sanctions list. Legal analysts said the boarding may have been legal under international law because the tanker was apparently sailing under a flag that it was not authorized to use, a violation of U.N. maritime rules. The Skipper was using the flag of Guyana, but the Guyanese government said the vessel was not registered in the country.
Even so, some experts on sanctions said the Trump administration’s actions appeared at odds with longstanding maritime practices.
“This differs from past seizures, which generally involved the cooperation of the vessel’s owner or charterer,” said David Tannenbaum, director at Blackstone Compliance Services and a former sanctions compliance officer at the Treasury Department.
The Centuries was flying a Panamanian flag. Panama’s foreign minister later said the vessel had not respected the country’s maritime rules.
The American authorities did not have a warrant to take possession of Centuries, a U.S. official told The New York Times. It was also not on a public list of vessels under U.S. sanctions. But some lawyers said other laws allowed the United States to seize assets that were not on sanctions lists.
“The federal terrorism-related seizure statute allows extraterritorial seizures,” said Jeremy Paner, a partner specializing in sanctions law at Hughes Hubbard, a law firm.
While U.S. law authorizes the government to seize property outside American territory, the government has to go to federal court to gain ownership of the seized assets, and may face challenges from the owners of those assets.
Mr. Paner said be believed that Venezuela would challenge the latest American actions in U.S. federal court. “It’ll likely take years to resolve,” he said.
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2) The Truce Is 2 Months Old. So Why Have Hundreds of Gazans Been Killed?
Since the cease-fire took effect, Israel says it has targeted only militants. But death can come for Gazans while on a family outing or sleeping in a tent.
By David M. Halbfinger, Bilal Shbair and Aaron Boxerman, Visuals by Saher Alghorra, Dec. 24, 2025
Bilal Shbair reported from the Gaza Strip. David Halbfinger and Aaron Boxerman reported from Jerusalem.
A Palestinian man carried the body of a child in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza on Oct. 20, after an Israeli strike on an area where displaced people had set up tents.
The cease-fire in Gaza is more than two months old. But the killing of Palestinians has not yet stopped for more than a day or two at a time.
Death can come from straying across the Yellow Line, the poorly demarcated border between eastern Gaza, where the Israeli military has entrenched itself, and the western half, where Hamas is seeking to reestablish control over Gaza’s two million-plus residents.
Dozens of times since the truce went into effect on Oct. 10, Palestinians have been killed for crossing east, knowingly or not.
Palestinians say the continued bloodshed shows that Israel does not respect the cease-fire and is cavalier, at best, about the lives of Gazan civilians. The Israeli military says it has opened fire only in response to violations of the cease-fire, and that its rules of engagement permit targeting only people it perceives as threats.
Death can come from being related to the wrong person, as it did for much of the Abu Dalal family in Nuseirat. When Israel targeted two cousins on Oct. 29 — it said they were both local militant commanders — overnight missile strikes destroyed both their homes. One of the men was killed. So were 18 other members of their extended family, including two 3-year-olds.
For Maysaa al-Attar, 30, a pharmacy student, death came from being in the wrong place at the wrong time. She was shot in the abdomen as she slept in her parents’ tent in northwest Gaza on the morning of Nov. 14. Three weeks earlier, they’d set up the tent on the ruins of their family home.
For Ali al-Hashash, 32, death came at about 8 a.m. on Nov. 6 while foraging for firewood east of the Yellow Line to help feed his pregnant wife, whose due date was days away, and their 4-year-old son. There was no cooking gas in the Bureij refugee camp where they lived, according to his father, Hasan al-Hashash.
It’s a risk that many people in Gaza are taking as the cold sets in. On Dec. 18, Mr. al-Hashash’s friend, Saeed al-Awawda, 66, was shot while collecting wood in the same area, Mr. al-Hashash said. “He lost his hand,” he said. “I keep thinking, ‘I wish my son had only lost his hand, too, not his life.’”
Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli military spokesman, said the army’s procedures were designed to avoid civilian casualties. When Palestinians who are not clearly armed cross over to the Israeli side of the Yellow Line, he said, soldiers are under orders to warn them to turn around and as a last resort to stop them by firing at their lower legs.
He said that Hamas militants in civilian clothes, sometimes with concealed weapons, were probing across the Yellow Line, making almost anyone approaching Israeli positions appear as a potential threat.
“The majority of cases, the violations are by Hamas,” Colonel Shoshani said. “And in the majority of cases where it’s not Hamas, we’re able to warn people, and they turn around.”
The Israeli military was unable to address the death of Ms. al-Attar, of which it said it was unaware.
Palestinian officials say that 406 people have been killed since the cease-fire, including 157 children. That is nothing like the carnage of the previous two years of war, which began with the Hamas-led attack of Oct. 7, 2023, in which 1,200 people were killed, and prompted an Israeli invasion of Gaza in which local health officials say 70,000 people have been killed — an average of hundreds each week.
But the mounting body count highlights the fragility of the truce, with a difficult-to-discern border, bitter enemies in proximity and Palestinian militants sometimes emerging from tunnels on the Israeli-held side and opening fire on Israeli soldiers.
The imbalance in the numbers killed on each side also reflects the continuation, despite the cease-fire, of the Israeli military’s harsh wartime practices of hitting back with punishing force and allowing strikes on militants even when they risk killing large numbers of civilians.
A Family Outing With No Return
On Oct. 17, a week into the cease-fire, a dozen members of the Shaban and Abu Shaban families piled into a van in Gaza City for an outing. Trusting in the relative safety of the truce, they set out from the cramped tent encampment where they were living to visit their two homes in Zeitoun, a largely destroyed neighborhood to the southeast. One was perilously close to the as-yet-unmarked Yellow Line.
Othman Shaban, 14, was along for the ride. He said the family arrived at one of its two houses to see what was left. Then, he recalled, “My father said, ‘Let’s go check our other house.’ We were enjoying our time as we left.”
He said he and his father, who was at the wheel, had collected firewood in the area on foot several times recently, so they believed it was safe.
Othman said their van encountered rubble blocking the road. “I got out of the car and moved the stones off the path,” he said.
That saved him. As his father rolled the van forward to pick him up again, he said, “I suddenly heard an explosion.”
Othman suffered neck and leg wounds. Everyone in the van was killed: his parents, three of his siblings — a sister, Nisma, 16, and brothers Anas, 12, and Karam, 10 — Mr. Abu Shaban’s sister, her husband, their daughter Jumana, 9, and their sons Naser, 12, Ibrahim, 6, and Muhammad, 4.
A relative who stayed behind, Mohammed Abu Shaban, said he believed that Othman’s father may have unwittingly driven toward the Yellow Line. The Israeli military later marked it with yellow-painted concrete blocks.
“Gaza is so devastated that it’s easy to lose your way,” Mr. Abu Shaban said.
The Israeli military said in a statement that its forces had fired warning shots at “a suspicious vehicle” which had crossed the unmarked line, but that the vehicle continued toward them “in a way that caused an imminent threat to them” and that the “troops opened fire to remove the threat.”
Colonel Shoshani added that the distance from the Yellow Line to Israeli territory was only “a two-minute drive” in many places.
But Othman said there had been no warning shots, just the explosion that killed his family.
Othman’s description of the location of the attack — on Salah al-Din Road, a major Gaza artery, hundreds of yards west of the Yellow Line — is also at odds with the Israeli military’s. In his telling, the van was not so close to Israeli-held territory that it could have been perceived as threatening to cross it.
The military says there was no attack at the spot that Othman described.
Civil Defense rescuers waited nearly a day to receive Israeli permission to collect the bodies from the burned vehicle, Mr. Abu Shaban said. They found just nine — or “eight and a half,” he said, to be morbidly precise.
Two Targeted, 18 Others Killed
Despite the truce, militants in Gaza have sporadically opened fire on Israeli soldiers. Each time, Israel has responded with overwhelming force against broad sets of targets far from the attack locations.
On Oct. 28, a sniper killed an Israeli soldier in Rafah — the third Israeli soldier killed since the cease-fire, and, to date, the last of the war. That night, Israel attacked in response, killing at least 100 people across Gaza.
It was midnight in Nuseirat, about 16 miles north of Rafah, when missiles struck the first of two homes belonging to the extended Abu Dalal family.
The following day, the Israeli military said it had targeted 25 terrorists in Gaza, including Yahya Abu Dalal and Nazmi Abu Dalal, who it said were commanders in the militant group Islamic Jihad.
The military said nothing about civilian casualties.
Amr Al-Sabakhi, 20, was in his home across the street when he said two missiles hit the home of his aunt Hala, the wife of Yahya Abu Dalal, 50. He rushed outside to try to help and found his cousin Bayan, 15, dead, his body split in two. Yahya and Hala were both dead. Bayan’s three brothers were also dead, including 11-year-old Mostafa, as were other members of the extended family, including twin 3-year-old boys.
Another neighbor, Muhammad Qasem, 41, said his mother suffered a deep scalp wound from the blast. “I always feared that house would be struck,” he said of the Abu Dalal home, nodding to the prospect that Yahya Abu Dalal could be targeted by Israel. But, he added, “I thought at least there would be a prior warning, so the neighbors wouldn’t be harmed.” There was none, he said.
Colonel Shoshani, the Israeli military spokesman, said that planned airstrikes went through a “rigorous process of approval.” While Israel warns civilians before attacking buildings or other infrastructure, it does not when seeking to eliminate specific enemy targets, lest they escape — and “there’s no army in the world that does,” he said.
He did not say whether Israel was unaware of the presence of so many civilians or determined that the targets justified the risk that so many civilians could be killed.
Other members of the Abu Dalal clan came running to try to help after the airstrike, including Nizar Abu Dalal, 48, who lived around the corner.
He returned home a couple of hours later, according to his wife, Iman Abu Dalal.
Their daughter, Dareen, 23, said she and her mother talked about whether to leave but decided they had nowhere safer to go.
A little after 3:30 a.m., Iman Abu Dalal said, “I heard the whistling sound of a missile,” then felt herself being thrown and rolling violently, before blacking out.
Dareen, two of her siblings, and her toddler daughter, Shatha, all survived the strike. Her father Nizar was killed, as was a 24-year-old brother, Majd, who was set to be married in November. Instead, his body was found days after the strike, crushed between slabs of concrete.
The Israeli military defended the strikes on the homes, saying the two targets, Yahya and Nazmi Abu Dalal, “had for years been involved in directing and leading terrorist activities” against Israel.
Upstairs from Nizar’s home, where Nazmi, his brother, lived, the carnage was far worse.
Nazmi, the target of the second airstrike, was wounded but survived. No one in his immediately family did.
His wife was killed, as were their seven children, who ranged in age from 21-year-old Baraa to 8-year-old Zeinab.
Baraa had painted her nails that afternoon, her cousin Dareen said.
When the results of the Tawjihi, the college-eligibility exam for Palestinian high school seniors, were published a few weeks later, one daughter, 18-year-old Duha, had received a score of 96.7 percent.
Abu Bakr Bashir contributed reporting.
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3) Man Shot in ICE Confrontation in Maryland, Officials Say
Federal and local officials said the man, an immigrant from Portugal, tried to flee and harm agents. He and another man were hospitalized after a vehicle they were in crashed.
By Jazmine Ulloa and Charlotte Dulany, Dec. 24, 2025
A shooting in Glen Burnie, Md., involving a U.S. Immigration and Customs officer left two people hospitalized. They were in stable condition, according to ICE. Credit...Kaitlin Newman/The Baltimore Banner, via Associated Press
A quiet Baltimore suburb was shaken Wednesday morning after a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot an undocumented driver trying to evade arrest, according to ICE and local officials, resulting in a crash that left the driver and a passenger hospitalized.
Tricia McLaughlin, the Department of Homeland Security’s assistant secretary, said in a statement that federal officers had approached a van with two undocumented men in the unincorporated town of Glen Burnie in Anne Arundel County.
Officers asked the driver to turn off his engine, but the man, Tiago Alexandre Sousa-Martins, of Portugal, refused and tried to flee, she said.
“He then drove his van directly at ICE officers,” she said. The man was shot after he rammed his van into several ICE vehicles and crashed in between two buildings, injuring the passenger, Ms. McLaughlin said.
Both Mr. Sousa-Martins and the passenger were in stable condition and expected to recover, Ms. McLaughlin said, adding that no officers were severely injured.
Justin Mulcahy, a spokesman for the Anne Arundel County Police, confirmed the shooting in a news conference. After ICE agents approached the van, he said, “that van attempted to run agents over.” He added that after the agents opened fire, the vehicle accelerated and eventually came to rest in a wooded area nearby. He also said no police officers were involved in the incident.
Attempts to contact a representative for Mr. Sousa-Martins were unsuccessful.
The encounter, first reported by The Baltimore Banner, occurred around 11 a.m. in the Parke West neighborhood. Lt. Josh Bramble, a spokesman for the Anne Arundel County Fire Department, said his agency had dispatched two ambulances to the area and took two people to a trauma hospital.
The shooting comes against a backdrop of rising tensions over the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown on migrants, as federal officers, often masked and highly armed, have used aggressive enforcement tactics to bring in detainees.
In September, two immigrant detainees were killed and another was critically injured after a man opened fire at a Dallas ICE facility and left behind ammunition that bore the phrase “ANTI-ICE” in blue writing. The same month, an ICE officer fatally shot a man in the Chicago area whom immigration agents had tried to pull over.
Mr. Sousa-Martins overstayed his visa and had been illegally residing in the United States for almost 17 years, immigration officials said. The passenger, Solomon Antonio Serrano-Esquivel, an El Salvador native, was being treated for whiplash, they said.
The agency did not provide further details as to why the men were the subjects of a targeted operation.
The Trump administration has said these operations were needed to deport dangerous criminals who are in the country illegally, keeping the public safer. But most immigrants who have been arrested in city crackdowns have no criminal record.
Allison Pickard, a Democratic county councilwoman who represents Glen Burnie, called for “a clear accountable process” to further investigate the shooting and to ensure federal officers are working to de-escalate such encounters. She said in an interview that the increase in violent episodes during the apprehensions of migrants was worrying.
“I am concerned this is the new normal with communities across the country,” she said. “It is upsetting for this community, and it is upsetting in so many ways.”
Miriam Jordan and Albert Sun contributed reporting.
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4) I’ve Been the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees for a Decade. This Is the Crisis I See.
By Filippo Grandi, Dec. 25, 2025
Mr. Grandi is the United Nations high commissioner for refugees.
Peter Marlow/Magnum Photos
I became the United Nations high commissioner for refugees in January 2016, when violence in Syria was in full spate. That conflict, which began in 2011 and lasted until the ouster of Bashar al-Assad’s regime one year ago, killed hundreds of thousands and sent millions fleeing for their lives.
This summer I stood on the border between Lebanon and Syria and heard trucks and buses sound their horns in celebration as they carried people back to villages, towns and cities. More than a million Syrians have returned from abroad since last December. If the fragile peace holds, more will follow.
The lesson ought to be obvious: Syrian refugee numbers fell not because of draconian border policies, patrols on land or at sea, or xenophobic rhetoric. They fell because the fighting finally stopped.
Yet to judge from the backlash in several countries against refugees, asylum-seekers, migrants — in some cases, simply foreigners — this lesson is not being absorbed. Instead, many governments are choosing tighter borders, higher fences, bigger deterrents and cuts to foreign aid.
As I prepare to step down after a decade as high commissioner for refugees, I see not only conflicts and emergencies affecting every region of the world, but also a crisis of global leadership, a failure of imagination and ambition, and a proliferation of populist rhetoric that is numbing us to the plight of others.
Ordinary people have genuine concerns about the abuse of asylum systems, the security of their borders and the capacity of their public services. One cannot dismiss or trivialize such worries. And compassion fatigue is hardly surprising: It is difficult to keep track of all the world’s crises when many go unresolved while new ones erupt.
But we seem to be in a race to the bottom, where even moderate politicians compete to announce the harshest (and often ineffective) policies rather than attempt to solve the issues. Brutal simplicity may be easier to sell than complex, long-term, multilateral engagement, but the latter produces more effective results.
The international community should invest in asylum systems, to make them faster, more efficient and better able to return people who do not need the help. Governments have an obligation to control their borders, but they also have a shared responsibility to protect those fleeing for their lives. It is a responsibility that many states willingly agreed to a few years after World War II. A responsibility that does not impinge on sovereignty, but is an expression of it.
There is much more to do beyond focusing on borders. More than 70 percent of refugees live in middle- and low-income countries, including some of the world’s poorest nations. Relatively few move toward wealthier countries, and then only when there is no alternative where they are — no work, no school, no hope. Nobody wants to risk their life on a packed and leaking boat, or a desert road or jungle path harassed by traffickers, armed groups and myriad other dangers.
We must provide much greater support for states that host refugees, particularly those with few resources like Chad, Uganda, Lebanon, Bangladesh and others. Ensuring that these countries can offer jobs, education, housing and other rights to refugees is not free, but it is a good investment. It gives refugees hope and a measure of stability. It enables them to become social and economic contributors. It equips them with the means to help rebuild their countries when they return home.
This approach — where humanitarian aid meets development meets peacemaking — is about pragmatic self-interest as much as principle. The disorderly movement of millions of desperate people can be viewed as a security issue, given the pressure on borders it creates. And, frankly, it can be addressed at little cost compared with the huge amounts spent on defense.
I began my humanitarian career more than 40 years ago in refugee camps along the Thai-Cambodian border. In the years since, I have worked in refugee crises in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Great Lakes region of Africa, with Palestinian refugees and many others. I have seen terrible suffering, but there was always a bulwark against inhumanity: the aid workers on the front lines, and the international consensus to support and protect those in need.
My time at the U.N. High Commission for Refugees is ending as the agency reaches its 75th anniversary. Next July, the Refugee Convention itself will also turn 75. Its critics say that this cornerstone of international law is no longer suited to a world of mass travel and multiple conflicts. Wrong. Flexible, pragmatic and widely applicable, it is entirely suited to such a world — it’s the legal translation of the human obligation to protect people fleeing persecution, violence and war, enshrined for centuries in all cultural traditions.
Today, some 117 million people have been forced to flee their homes, either to safer parts of their own country or across an international border. The tools to help them survive, rebuild and eventually return home already exist. But they require time, cooperation, trust and a desire to invest in peace rather than war.
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5) After Suffering in Israeli Prison, a Gaza Detainee Comes Home to More Pain
Haitham Salem spent 11 months held by Israel without charge and said he endured beatings and abuse. He was released as part of the cease-fire deal, longing to return to his family.
By Bilal Shbair and Isabel Kershner, Dec. 25, 2025
Bilal Shbair reported from Deir al-Balah, Gaza, where he sat with Haitham Salem after his release. Isabel Kershner reported from Jerusalem.
Haitham Salem, a Palestinian electrician, at a camp for displaced people in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, in December. Saher Alghorra for The New York Times
For 11 months, Haitham Salem, an electrician from northern Gaza, languished in Israeli prisons and a detention facility, enduring harsh conditions and, by his account, violent abuse.
He says he was frequently beaten, including in the area of his genitals; attacked by muzzled dogs; subjected to deafening music and denied adequate medical treatment.
“I wished I had died before living through it,” he said.
Mr. Salem, 31, was one of thousands of Palestinians seized from Gaza and held by Israel during its two-year war in the territory, ignited by the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. He spent months in a makeshift detention facility at the Sde Teiman military base in southern Israel, which is at the center of allegations of prisoner mistreatment.
He had been snatched away from his wife and three young children at a military checkpoint in Gaza in November 2024 as they fled Israeli bombardment. Never charged with a crime, he was released in October as part of the cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas.
His suffering only intensified when he returned.
The New York Times was unable to verify his account independently, but it aligns with the abuse described by other released detainees interviewed by The Times, and with reports by Israeli and international organizations. Israel’s Public Defenders Office has described conditions for Palestinian prisoners during the war as harsh in the extreme, with severe overcrowding, complaints of hunger, routine violence and unhygienic surroundings.
The Israeli military did not comment on most of the specifics of Mr. Salem’s story, but broadly accused him of “spreading falsehoods.” It rejected “claims of systematic abuse of detainees in detention facilities under its responsibility.”
Israel classified Mr. Salem, like most of the thousands of Gazans jailed during the war, as an “unlawful combatant,” meaning it could hold him without charge or trial under Israeli law. He ended up being used as a kind of currency, or bargaining chip, exchanged for hostages held by Hamas.
The Israeli military said he belonged to Palestinian Islamic Jihad, an armed extremist group, and was apprehended “on the basis of his involvement in terrorist activities, which he admitted to during his interrogation.” The military did not provide evidence or details, saying the information was classified.
A military statement added that an Israeli court twice approved his continued incarceration and that he would have remained in “lawful and justified detention” had it not been for the swap.
Mr. Salem denies any involvement with armed groups or activities hostile to Israel. Before he was apprehended, he said, he had passed through an Israeli military checkpoint without being detained. The Times could not independently verify his claims regarding affiliation with armed groups.
Mr. Salem spoke to The Times for several hours at his new living quarters, a tent in a densely-packed encampment for people displaced by the war beside a main road in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza.
Throughout his incarceration, he said, he had imagined reuniting with his family. He celebrated his children’s birthdays, creating confections from hoarded prison rations, and crafting a bracelet for his infant daughter from beads of bread baked hard in the sun.
When he finally returned to Gaza, he eagerly scanned the waiting crowd for a glimpse of his wife and children. He asked relatives where they were, but nobody would answer until a cousin eventually replied, “May God have mercy on their souls.”
All four had been killed in an Israeli airstrike a month before he came home.
Bound, Blindfolded and Beaten
Mr. Salem met and married Ikhlas Eissa in 2016.
“She was everything I had dreamed of — strong, thoughtful and beautiful,” he recalled. Children soon followed and they built a life in Beit Lahiya, in northern Gaza.
He worked for the Jabaliya municipal council, part of the Hamas-run government, and taught electrical courses at Al Israa University, which is widely regarded in Gaza as being affiliated with Islamic Jihad — a connection confirmed by several Palestinian academics.
Mr. Salem said he was aware of the connection but only worked there to earn money, adding that he did not identify with the group. The Israeli military destroyed the university during the war.
After an Israeli airstrike damaged their home in May 2024, the Salem family moved in with neighbors. On Nov. 17, 2024, the couple’s eighth wedding anniversary, the Israeli strikes intensified to the point that they decided to take their chances and set out on foot in search of refuge.
“We had no idea where to go or what to expect,” Mr. Salem said, reflecting on the chaos of the mass displacements of most of Gaza’s 2 million people.
They headed south with whatever they could carry. Their son, Baraa, was 7 at the time, his sister, Iman, was 4 and baby Layan not even a year old.
They soon encountered a military checkpoint where soldiers were separating men of fighting age from the elderly, women, children. Anticipating arrest, Mr. Salem gave Baraa his wristwatch, telling him, “From now on, you are the man of our family.”
After detaining him, Mr. Salem said Israeli soldiers kicked him and pressed lit cigarettes into his hands. After midnight, he and other detainees were driven in the bed of a truck to the Israeli border, bound, blindfolded and shivering, dressed only in flimsy overalls. There they were thrown out of the truck onto gravel, where they sat for hours in the cold, he said.
One officer brought him thermal blankets, then he boarded a bus to Sde Teiman. Along the way, he said, soldiers beat him with batons and struck him in the groin area, causing pain and bleeding for days.
Dogs and a “Disco” Room
At the detention facility, Mr. Salem was taken to a clinic but received no medication, he said. He was assigned a number: 090260. The next morning, he was interrogated for the first time.
An Israeli officer checked his identity, he said, then played him a recording of a phone call his father-in-law had made to him on the morning of Oct. 7, 2023, arranging to come over to collect a spare gas cylinder. It proved that the Israelis already knew he was at home that day, not participating in the attack on Israel, he said.
The officer questioned him about the location of booby-trapped buildings in his neighborhood. Mr. Salem said he had no such information, being “a civilian living among civilians.”
When he asked how long he would be held, he said, the interrogator told him, “You are just a number here” and said he might be released within weeks, or in a future swap.
The detainees rose at dawn, had to stand or kneel for long periods during the morning prisoner count, and spent the rest of the day sitting in silence on the ground.
Before his next interrogation, he said, he was placed for nine days in a room the prisoners called the “disco,” where loud music blared at unbearable volume. It was forbidden to ask for the bathroom. The guards hurled meals consisting of a thin slice of bread with a tomato or a cucumber at the roughly 20 men there.
“When I dared to glance around, I saw some detainees with blood oozing from their ears because of the beatings or loud music,” Mr. Salem said.
The Israeli military denied using music “as a method of torture,” something that has been alleged by other detainees interviewed by The Times.
Mr. Salem said his next interrogator asked again about booby-trapped buildings and tunnels, and about the whereabouts of fighters and weapons, and who might be holding hostages. He said he pointed on a screen to some tunnels that he knew had already been discovered.
The officer then showed him images of apartments in his neighborhood and asked about the residents.
“There was no room for lying,” Mr. Salem said. “I knew that if I lied even once, I would never get out of prison.”
He said the officer showed him a screenshot of a post Mr. Salem had written on Facebook before his arrest, blaming Hamas for bringing catastrophe upon the people of Gaza.
Asked why he had written the post, he told the Israelis, “My house was destroyed. I lost my job. Many of my relatives were killed. Our lives are shattered.”
In an earlier post, Mr. Salem had listed 26 members of his extended family who had been killed during the Gaza war.
Mr. Salem said he suffered other abuse at Sde Teiman. Soldiers slammed his face into a metal fence; used metal detector wands to press down hard on his genitals during searches; and detonated stun grenades near him and other prisoners, he said. One soldier unleashed two muzzled dogs that barreled into his chest, he added, knocking the breath out of him.
Israel’s prison service declined to comment on Mr. Salem’s case and the Shin Bet domestic security agency did not respond to requests for comment.
Mr. Salem said he had two court hearings, held by video link, approving his continued incarceration. Shalom Ben Hanan, a former Shin Bet official, said it was unlikely a court would have approved his detention for 11 months without any justification.
But Mr. Salem said he told one judge he was a hostage, and the judge said that he would be held until the war ended.
One Day, the Skies Went Quiet
In April, Mr. Salem was transferred from Sde Teiman to Ofer prison in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where he spent four and a half months. There, he said, he was at least able to sleep during the day.
In August, he was moved again, to Naqab prison in Israel’s southern desert.
One day in October, Mr. Salem and his fellow detainees noticed that the skies had gone quiet. They could no longer hear Israeli war planes taking off or landing.
A couple days later, the detainees were gathered in one room. Soldiers arrived and began calling out names. Mr. Salem’s came up.
After a cursory medical check, Mr. Salem said he was fingerprinted, photographed and given a new gray tracksuit. He was going home.
On the morning of Oct. 13, he boarded a bus back to Gaza, one of about 2,000 Palestinian prisoners exchanged for the last 20 living hostages who had been seized from Israel by Palestinian militants two years earlier.
What he thought was a joyful day quickly turned to anguish.
His wife, Ikhlas, and three children had been sheltering in a tent in Sheikh Radwan, a neighborhood of Gaza City. At about 1 a.m. on Sept. 8, an Israeli airstrike hit the tent, immediately killing Iman and Layan, he said. Baraa succumbed to his wounds on Sept. 12, and Ikhlas three days later.
The Israeli military acknowledged carrying out an airstrike that night at the same location, saying the target was a Hamas operative.
Now Mr. Salem’s Facebook page is filled with photographs of his children.
He smuggled out of prison the beads he made for Layan, defying Israeli regulations forbidding inmates from taking anything back to Gaza.
He still has the bracelet, he said, but “without the one it was meant for.” Layan would have turned 2 on Oct. 17, four days after his return.
Mr. Salem looking at a photo of his two daughters, Iman and Layan, on his phone, in the tent camp for displaced people in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza. Saher Alghorra for The New York Times
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6) U.S. Strikes ISIS in Nigeria After Trump Warned of Attacks on Christians
The attack comes after President Trump ordered the Defense Department last month to prepare to intervene militarily in Nigeria to protect Christians from Islamic militants.
By Helene Cooper, Saikou Jammeh and Eric Schmitt, Dec. 25, 2025
Gunmen attacked the Christ Apostolic Church in Kwara State, Nigeria, in November. Credit...Abdullahi Dare Akogun/Reuters
The United States launched a number of strikes against the Islamic State in northwestern Nigeria, President Trump announced on Thursday, the latest American military campaign against a nonstate adversary — in this case, Islamic jihadis who the president asserts have been slaughtering Christians.
Mr. Trump said in a post on Truth Social that “the United States launched a powerful and deadly strike against ISIS Terrorist Scum in Northwest Nigeria, who have been targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians at levels not seen for many years, and even Centuries!”
The strike involved more than a dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles fired off a Navy ship in the Gulf of Guinea, hitting insurgents in two ISIS camps in northwest Nigeria’s Sokoto State, according to a U.S. military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters. The operation was done in coordination with the Nigerian military, the official said.
In a statement, U.S. Africa Command said its initial assessment concluded that “multiple” ISIS terrorists were killed in the strike.
“U.S. Africa Command is working with our Nigerian and regional partners to increase counter terrorism cooperation efforts related to ongoing violence and threats against innocent lives,” Gen. Dagvin Anderson, the commander of U.S. Africa Command, said in a statement. “Our goal is to protect Americans and disrupt violent extremist organizations wherever they are.”
The attack occurred in a region along the border with Niger, where a branch of ISIS called the Islamic State-Sahel has been attacking both government forces and civilians, according to Caleb Weiss, a counterterrorism analyst and editor with FDD’s Long War Journal.
The U.S. operation inside Africa’s most populous nation followed months of growing allegations by Christian evangelical groups and senior Republicans that Christians were being targeted in widespread violence.
An insurgency there has gone on for more than a decade, killing thousands of Christians and Muslims across sectarian lines. The Nigerian authorities have rejected allegations of a Christian genocide, noting that the web of violent armed groups, with different motives and spread across the country, kills as many Muslims as Christians.
However, Nigerian officials have stepped up engagement with the U.S. in recent weeks, after Mr. Trump ordered the Defense Department in November to prepare to intervene militarily in Nigeria to protect Christians.
The Christmas Day attack came after the U.S. had been conducting intelligence-gathering surveillance flights over large parts of Nigeria since late November, according to the military official.
On Thursday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wrote in a post on social media, “The President was clear last month: the killing of innocent Christians in Nigeria (and elsewhere) must end.”
“The @DeptofWar is always ready, so ISIS found out tonight — on Christmas,” he added. “More to come…”
Kimiebi Ebienfa, the spokesman for Nigeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said in a post that “the precision strikes on terrorist targets in Nigeria were carried out in coordination with the Nigerian government.”
“Terrorist violence in any form — whether directed at Christians, Muslims, or other communities — remains an affront to Nigeria’s values and to international peace and security,” he added.
The strikes in Nigeria mark the second time in a week that Mr. Trump has ordered American military retaliation against a branch of the Islamic State. Last week, the United States carried out dozens of airstrikes against the Islamic State in Syria, fulfilling the president’s vow to avenge the deaths of two Army soldiers and a civilian interpreter killed in a terrorist attack there earlier in the month.
U.S. Africa Command, responding to Mr. Trump’s orders, in November drew up options for targeting insurgents in Nigeria and forwarded them to the Pentagon and the White House. The options included airstrikes on the few known compounds in northern Nigeria inhabited by militant groups, officials said.
But even as the plans were being drawn up, American military officials said it was doubtful they would have much long-term impact because of the entrenched nature of the conflict.
The violence in the northwest region, where the strikes occurred, is driven in large part by armed bandits and gangs kidnapping for ransom. The insurgency is concentrated in the northeast, where jihadist groups like the notorious Boko Haram and its now more powerful splinter, the Islamic State West Africa Province, an affiliate of the Islamic State group, have killed tens of thousands of civilians over the past decade.
Nigeria is not officially at war, but more people are killed there than in most war-torn countries. More than 12,000 people were killed by various violent groups this year alone, according to Armed Conflict Location and Event Data, a conflict monitoring group.
On Wednesday, a suspected suicide bomber detonated an explosive device during evening prayers in a mosque at a market in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State, in the northeast of Nigeria. Nigerian government officials said five were killed and dozens injured, though local media said at least 12 people were buried on Thursday, citing residents.
Mr. Trump, in his Truth Social post, said that “under my leadership, our Country will not allow Radical Islamic Terrorism to prosper.” He added: “May God Bless our Military, and MERRY CHRISTMAS to all, including the dead Terrorists, of which there will be many more if their slaughter of Christians continues.”
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7) What to Know About U.S. Military Action in Nigeria
Before the strikes on Thursday, President Trump said he would halt all aid and go in “guns-a-blazing” to target affiliates of a resurgent Islamic State.
By The New York Times, Published Nov. 3, 2025, Updated Dec. 26, 2025
The strikes on Thursday on what the United States called Islamic State targets in northwestern Nigeria followed President Trump’s threat earlier this year to take military action if Nigeria’s government did not stop the killing of Christians by Islamist militants.
Mr. Trump has not specified which attacks he was referring to, nor has he cited evidence for the claim, made by several of his political allies, that Christians in Nigeria were facing a “genocide.”
U.S. military officials have expressed doubt that strikes would do much to quell violence in West Africa. Recent coups and the withdrawal of Western forces from the region have created a vacuum, allowing insurgent groups linked to the Islamic State and to Al Qaeda to expand attacks against military targets and civilians.
The strikes
More than a dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles were fired from a Navy ship in the Gulf of Guinea, striking two Islamic State camps in Nigeria’s Sokoto State, according to a U.S. military official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters.
The strike killed “multiple” terrorists belonging to the group, which is also known as ISIS, according to an initial assessment by U.S. Africa Command.
Announcing the strikes on social media, Mr. Trump said “the United States launched a powerful and deadly strike against ISIS Terrorist Scum in Northwest Nigeria,” accusing the group of “targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians.”
The Defense Department said it worked with the Nigerian government to carry out the strikes, which the Nigerian Foreign Ministry confirmed in a statement.
Trump’s threat
On Nov. 1, Mr. Trump said that if Nigeria’s government continued to “allow the killing of Christians, the USA will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and may very well go into that disgraced country, ‘guns-a-blazing.'”
“I am hereby instructing our Department of War to prepare for possible action,” he wrote. “If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet.”
A day earlier, the Trump administration said it would reinstate Nigeria as a “country of particular concern,” a designation that the U.S. government applies to nations deemed to have “engaged in severe violations of religious freedom.” Mr. Trump took a similar step in 2020, near the end of his first term, but it was reversed during the Biden administration.
Nigeria’s response
Nigeria has denied the accusations that it was allowing the killing of Christians. In a statement on Friday, the Nigerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said terrorist attacks against Christians, Muslims, or any community were “an affront to Nigeria’s values and to international peace and security.”
The characterization of Nigeria “as religiously intolerant does not reflect our national reality,” President Bola Ahmed Tinubu said in a statement in November, citing what he described as sustained efforts by the government to safeguard freedom of religion and belief for all Nigerians.
Terrorism in Nigeria
Nigeria, home to around 220 million people, has large populations of Christians and Muslims. Boko Haram, an Islamist terror group based in northeastern Nigeria, has long carried out attacks on civilians, including Christians and Muslims.
In 2016, a group known as the Islamic State West Africa Province, or ISWAP, splintered from Boko Haram and declared allegiance to the Islamic State. ISWAP operates primarily in northeastern Nigeria and has also carried out attacks in neighboring Niger, Chad and Cameroon.
A smaller affiliate, known as Islamic State-Sahel, has been most active west of Nigeria, in countries including Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. Those countries lie in the Sahel region, which stretches across the south of the Sahara.
While Boko Haram has focused largely on attacking civilians, ISWAP and ISIS-Sahel have more frequently targeted military troops, according to analysts and regional military officials. The United States director of national intelligence estimated in 2024 that ISIS-Sahel had about 1,000 fighters, while ISWAP had up to 7,000 fighters.
The resurgence of ISIS
The Islamic State, which began as a splinter group of Al Qaeda in Iraq and expanded to control a wide swath of Iraq and Syria, was largely defeated by local militias and American troops. Its founder, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, died in 2019 during a U.S. military operation.
Although ISIS no longer controls significant territory in the Middle East, its regional affiliates have remained active in parts of Africa and Asia. Recent coups in Burkina Faso, Chad and Niger have disrupted governance in West Africa, creating openings for groups such as ISWAP and ISIS-Sahel to escalate their attacks.
Last year the United States closed an air base in Niger and withdrew 1,000 military personnel from the country, ending what had been the Pentagon’s most enduring counterterrorism partnership in the Sahel. Relations deteriorated after a military takeover in 2023.
In Afghanistan, an affiliate group called ISIS-K has expanded since United States forces withdrew in 2021. ISIS has also reasserted itself in parts of Syria since the country’s longtime dictator, Bashar al-Assad, was ousted in late 2024.
Pranav Baskar, Helene Cooper, Ruth Maclean and Francesca Regalado contributed reporting.
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8) One Gazan Girl’s Fight to Survive Extreme Hunger
After Israel sealed Gaza’s borders, Hoda Abu al-Naja, 12, who suffered from celiac disease, spent months seeking the food and care she needed to combat malnutrition.
By Ben Hubbard and Bilal Shbair, Visuals by Saher Alghorra, Dec. 26, 2025
Ben Hubbard reported from Istanbul, and Bilal Shbair and Saher Alghorra from Gaza.
Sumaya Abu al-Naja with a photo of her daughter, Hoda. Saher Alghorra for The New York Times
Hoda in the hospital in July. via the Abu al-Naja family
In early October, Hoda Abu al-Naja, age 12, landed in a hospital in Gaza because severe malnutrition was ravaging her body.
In six months, she had lost a third of her weight, her doctors said. Her limbs were spindly, her ribs visible, and her shoulder blades jutted from her back like fins. Her brown hair had become wispy and turned the color of hay.
Lying on a gurney, she struggled to speak.
“Before this, I was pretty and such, but in the war I got malnutrition,” she told a local photographer. “Every day, I feel death.”
For months, a wave of hunger had been crashing over Gaza. In August an international panel of experts declared an “entirely man-made” famine in part of the territory and looming famine elsewhere. Aid organizations warned that stringent Israeli restrictions on food entering the territory were fueling widespread deprivation.
Images of severely malnourished children raised global alarm about how Israel was fighting the Palestinian militant group Hamas. By the second anniversary of the conflict in October, the Gaza health authorities had attributed 461 deaths to malnutrition, including 157 children. The rate of such deaths spiked this year.
Israeli officials accused Hamas of stealing supplies and aid groups of failing to get food to people in need. They cast doubt on reports of starving children, saying that many suffered from pre-existing medical conditions.
For Hoda, as for other Gazan children who fell ill, that was true, but not the complete picture.
Hoda was diagnosed in March with celiac disease, which causes the immune system to react to gluten, a protein in wheat and other grains, by attacking the body. An exam in April found that her intestine had been damaged over time, a common result of the disease. It hampered her ability to absorb nutrients, effectively starving her.
Normally, celiac disease is treated with a gluten-free diet, which can allow damaged intestines to heal. But an Israeli siege of Gaza from March to mid-May and later border restrictions deprived Hoda of the foods she needed: gluten-free flour, fruits, vegetables, meats, eggs and fish.
That plunged Hoda and her family into a monthslong struggle to navigate Gaza’s vast shortages and battered medical system to get what she needed to survive.
The New York Times reconstructed Hoda’s case from dozens of medical reports, images showing her symptoms and interviews with her parents and doctors. Three outside physicians who specialize in celiac disease assessed her case. All agreed that it was likely that she could have returned to health had proper food and medical care been available.
They weren’t, and her condition turned critical.
“The progressive decline of this poor girl was 100 percent caused by scarcity of protein-rich food and gluten-free food together with multiple deficiencies in the hospital treatment,” Carlo Catassi, a professor of pediatrics at the Polytechnic University of Marche in Italy and a celiac expert, wrote in an email.
Hoda was so sick by June that her doctors recommended her for treatment overseas. She was still waiting to leave Gaza in October, when she told the Palestinian photographer that she had become “a skeleton.”
“I used to be like any normal child — I would play and all that,” she said. “I long to get treated and travel abroad so that I can live like children in other countries.”
Siege Begins
Hoda’s parents and doctors described her as intelligent and expressive. Her mother, Sumaya, said that Hoda — who was born Hodallah, the second of four siblings — would bake bread in a clay oven, make dinner and put her younger siblings to bed.
Her father, Hussein, who works in the Internal Security Forces for Gaza’s Hamas-run government, said she not had serious health problems.
Photos from before she fell ill show dark hair, healthy skin and a broad smile.
On March 2, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Israel was imposing a siege on Gaza to punish Hamas for refusing to accept a cease-fire proposal.
“As of this morning, all entry of goods and supplies into the Gaza Strip will cease,” his office declared.
Nearly 17 months had passed since Hamas led an attack in which 1,200 people were killed and 250 more taken hostage. During the war that assault started, Israeli bombardments killed tens of thousands of Gazans, according to health officials there, who don’t distinguish between combatants and civilians. Much of the territory was in ruins, and its health system was in shambles.
Throughout the war, Israel, which controls Gaza’s borders, had restricted what could enter, saying it did not want outside supplies to strengthen Hamas. The March blockade was more severe, almost completely sealing off the territory.
A spokesman for the Israeli military office that deals with humanitarian agencies in Gaza said that Israel facilitates the entry of a variety of foods, including fruits, vegetables, meat and other products, based on requests from aid organizations and other countries.
During the conflict, Hamas has shown reckless disregard for Gaza’s civilians by fighting from residential areas and rejecting proposals that could have ended the war because they would have removed the group from power.
Two days after the blockade began in March, Hoda turned 12.
Like most Gazan families, hers had moved repeatedly to escape the war and lived in a crowded tent camp near Gaza’s Mediterranean coast.
In March, her complexion turned yellow and she developed exhaustion and diarrhea, her parents said. Ahmed al-Farra, the first doctor she saw, said in an interview that she had tested positive for celiac.
Some celiac patients show few symptoms until after their intestines have been damaged, doctors say, which appears to be what happened to Hoda.
In April, a pathologist inspected a sample from her small intestine and wrote in a report reviewed by The Times that Hoda was suffering from a stomach infection and a damaged intestine.
Dr. Catassi, the celiac expert, said that proper treatment would have excluded gluten from her diet and included intravenous feeding, steroids, antibiotics and the gradual reintroduction of appropriate food.
“This treatment would be 100 percent effective in saving the girl,” he said.
But treatment in Gaza was limited.
Hoda’s family received gluten-free flour and enriched peanut bars from aid groups, they said. But shortages made such food scarce, and Hoda’s hands, feet and face swelled.
In Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis, she was diagnosed with “severe acute malnutrition,” said Dr. al-Farra, who heads the pediatric ward.
Dealing with their own shortages, the doctors gave her milk, dietary supplements, rice and grapes, her mother said. Blood transfusions buoyed her temporarily, and she was discharged.
Her decline resumed. Her hair thinned further, and pains developed in her joints and her chest, her parents said.
In June, she entered a malnutrition treatment center supported by Doctors Without Borders, where she received antibiotics, anti-worm medication and a diet to help her rebound. A medical report said she had level three edema, meaning she was so malnourished that her swollen skin did not rebound quickly after pressure was applied. Her condition improved somewhat after 12 days, the report said, so she returned to her family’s tent.
Her health soon faltered again, and her parents grew frustrated that the doctors could not reverse her downward spiral.
“My daughter became a puzzle the doctors could not solve,” her father said.
A Way Out?
As summer progressed, signs of extensive hunger in Gaza became stark.
The number of children admitted to malnutrition centers supported by UNICEF increased, doubling from June to July to more than 16,000. The total peaked in August at 17,300, even though Israel had let in more food since late May, a lag that aid groups blamed on insufficient quantities and distribution problems.
Aid groups sounded the alarm.
In July, the U.N. World Food Program said that one in five Gazans faced starvation and that almost 100,000 women and children were suffering from severe acute malnutrition.
“I don’t know what you would call it other than mass starvation, and it’s man-made,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the World Health Organization, said. “This is because of blockade.”
Days later, President Trump reacted to images of emaciated Gazan children, calling it “real starvation.”
Israeli officials denied the gravity of the crisis.
A government spokesman, David Mercer, told Sky News, “There is no famine in Gaza — there is a famine of the truth.”
In August, Mr. Netanyahu told journalists that Israel had been working “to prevent a humanitarian crisis while Hamas’s policy has been to create it.”
Hoda’s health followed a troubling pattern. During hospital stays, she rebounded and spent time coloring boats, rocket ships and sailboats. She got worse after being discharged.
The charity that had provided gluten-free flour ran out, her parents and an official at the organization said. Her family struggled to find enough food for themselves, much less the rarer items that Hoda needed.
“Breakfast, forget it — and lunch,” her mother said. “Forget dinner. The essential meal was whatever you could provide.”
Hoda needed vegetables, she added. “Either there were none, or the prices were very high.”
A hospital report from late June said that Hoda had “malabsorption syndrome,” which can result when celiac patients eat too much gluten. Damage to Hoda’s small intestine severely limited the nutrients it could take into her body from the food she ate. That had caused swelling and low height and weight for her age, known as failure to thrive.
The report said the gluten-free diet she needed was “not available in Gaza.”
Her parents and her doctors decided that she should go abroad for treatment.
“She was in the heart of famine — no fruit, no meat, no eggs,” her father said.
To leave Gaza, she needed a referral from a Palestinian medical committee, security clearance from Israel, and another country willing to accept her. The World Health Organization would coordinate.
The number of sick and injured during the war had overwhelmed Gaza’s evacuation system, and only a fraction made it out. So there was no guarantee that Hoda’s case, which is now being investigated by the Palestinian committee, would be approved.
In August, after a long hospital stay, Hoda returned to her family’s tent to wait.
‘Play Like Other Kids’
Tent life was hard, and Hoda’s health made it worse.
Shortages continued, and food prices were high.
Hoda’s father recalled buying her an apple for $10. He once treated her to a candy bar — for $15.
“I needed to be a millionaire to keep her alive,” he said.
He called it “psychological torture” to eat bread that he could not share with her because it would harm her.
“She felt terrible, and we were starving,” he said.
By autumn, she had shortness of breath, body pains, ceaseless diarrhea and extreme fatigue, her parents and doctors said. Her skin was dry and scaly, and eating or drinking made her vomit.
On Oct. 4, she entered the emergency room.
In Hoda’s interview with the Palestinian photographer soon after, she slumps on a hospital bed, her thin arms, her light hair and the bags under her eyes giving her the look of an elderly woman rather than a child.
“I wish I could play like other kids,” she said. “Every day, my siblings go to the sea, but I can’t go. Every time I want to play, I fall down.”
On Oct. 9, her health failed. A doctor wrote on a medical report that at 10:30 a.m., “The girl moved to the mercy of God Almighty.”
The report attributed her death to septic shock, an infection that overwhelmed her immune system, and severe acute malnutrition.
Her family buried her that afternoon.
Later that month, Hoda’s parents received a surprise call from the W.H.O. It had not been informed of her death.
Her request for medical evacuation was moving forward.
Italy had agreed to welcome her for treatment.
In early November, Israel, which was also unaware that she had died, approved her departure.
Aaron Boxerman contributed reporting from Jerusalem.
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9) At Protests, Lots of Boomers, Few Young People. Why?
A guest essay offered several possible explanations. Young and older readers offer their own.
Letters to the Editor, Dec. 27, 2025
Alexander Coggin for The New York Times
To the Editor:
Re “Where Are the Young People in the Fight for Democracy?,” by Brendan Nyhan (Opinion guest essay, Nov. 30):
Professor Nyhan was correct to point out the generational factor in the No Kings movement. I attended two “No Kings” rallies where my own boomer generation was dominant.
I would suggest a reason for the age disparity not mentioned by Professor Nyhan. He noted that young people protested more vigorously against the war in Gaza, for Black Lives Matter and, earlier, against the war in Vietnam. Those were protests against specific wrongs, while No Kings was about something more general — the degradation of our democracy and the loss of our moral standing under President Trump.
I don’t think younger people feel this degradation as keenly as boomers. We grew up proud of our country and what it stood for. Many of our fathers had served in World War II. We thought of the U.S. as the country that freed Europe from Nazi despotism and cruelty. When I say “we,” I mean largely white middle-class kids like me, and, of course, as children we were naïve about many things, including the country’s shortcomings.
Vietnam and Watergate disabused us of some of that naïve faith, but most of us never lost the idea that there was something special about the U.S. in a moral sense. I don’t think succeeding generations were brought up that way, and perhaps they have a more realistic view that the U.S. is no better or worse than other countries.
What Mr. Trump has done and what he represents seem to many boomers like a repudiation of everything we grew up believing in.
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Peter Samson
Orange, Va.
To the Editor:
I was one of the young people who attended the No Kings protest in October. I was dragged there by one of my more politically motivated friends. It’s not that I don’t despise President Trump and what he’s doing to our country. It just feels hopeless.
I am too young to remember a time when protests spurred action and have grown up watching and participating in protests that have done nothing. I was 18 years old when March for Our Lives happened in 2018. My own high school had a gun scare only a couple of months earlier. Children have been dying every day since then and there has been no change.
So a part of me asks, Why protest if we’re going to be ignored anyway?
Katie Xue
New York
To the Editor:
Brendan Nyhan highlights the generational differences I also experienced as a boomer attending demonstrations expressing concerns with the policies of President Trump.
I appreciate Mr. Nyhan’s proposed explanations for the phenomenon, but I have a different perspective on how social media might account for the varied generational reactions to our current political climate: The visual perception of an issue can result in an emotional response and subsequent action.
Most Gen Z-ers have grown up with a steady diet of social media that focus on short visual clips. The visions of carnage in Gaza during the war — children and families torn to pieces, their cities pummeled into rubble — or the brutality displayed in the killing of George Floyd are more likely to trigger an emotional response and subsequent action from the generation who grew up on TikTok and Instagram.
Events like the abandonment of world alliances, the use of the Justice Department for personal vendettas or attacks on diversity programs, the sciences and institutions of higher learning do not have the same visual impact. Many boomers, like me, see the threat to democracy and react by protesting not just for our generation but, more important, for the Gen Z-ers and generations to follow.
Paul Dolinsky
Eastham, Mass.
To the Editor:
Brendan Nyhan’s description of the limited participation of students at anti-Trump No Kings protests is both undeniable and concerning. But the experience in on-campus chapters of Democracy Matters tells a different story.
An upsurge of students, especially this fall’s freshman class, has embraced pro-democracy activism. While not yet joining off-campus protests in large numbers, they are quickly developing their own brand of activism in meetings, discussions and outreach to their peers.
Joan D. Mandle
New Paltz, N.Y.
The writer is executive director of Democracy Matters and an emerita associate professor of sociology and women’s studies at Colgate University.
To the Editor:
Brendan Nyhan omitted one of the most important factors responsible for the absence of Gen Z in current anti-Trump protests: As the beneficiaries of a dramatically underfunded and overpoliticized educational system, they are the least knowledgeable of any existing generation in American civics, history and politics.
Starved of a critical knowledge base, they lack a critical context that many of them appear to require for actionable outrage at today’s events.
For Gen Z, Donald Trump’s outrageous conduct and that of his Republican enablers are the only political behavior they’ve ever known.
T.G. Krontiris
Pasadena, Calif.
To the Editor:
I was incredibly gratified that Brendan Nyhan’s guest essay did not devolve into the usual condemnation of young people. I found myself largely in agreement with his conclusions. However, I did feel one key aspect of young people’s experience was missed: In addition to the fear of arrest or harassment that he cites, young people also bear disproportionate risk to their livelihoods by being at these protests.
The modern workplace expects an enormous degree of political camouflage for any young person who wants to stay employed. I have experienced this repeatedly. I have been asked to explain my presence in a picture of a protest that I attended in 2017. For many of us, being present at one of these protests would mean sacrificing our only income in a hostile economy.
Older generations are largely insulated from this reality, as years of experience and clout in the workplace make them more difficult to replace. Is it any wonder that young people are finding forms of resistance that allow them to operate in anonymity?
Robert Marshall
St. Louis
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10) We Don’t Seem to be Making America Healthy Again
By Benjamin Mazer, Dec. 28, 2025
Dr. Mazer is a physician and a writer covering medicine and public health.
Mark Peterson for The New York Times
As a physician and medical journalist, I have spent years watching, with both fascination and concern, as anti-vaccine groups honed their persuasive techniques.
My colleagues largely considered me eccentric for paying attention to this coterie of cranks. I remember when a prominent oncologist, Dr. Vinay Prasad, suggested a few years ago that debunking alternative medical views was akin to “dunking on a seven-foot hoop.” The work that I and others were doing was so easy, in other words, as to be a waste of time.
Today, Dr. Prasad is the Food and Drug Administration’s lead vaccine regulator. He works for one of the country’s most notorious vaccine critics, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. As secretary of health and human services, Mr. Kennedy has spent the last year not only remaking federal immunization policy but shifting the national dialogue about this essential public health tool.
I never predicted that a fringe conspiracy theorist like Mr. Kennedy would one day become leader of the health care system, but it doesn’t surprise me. Anti-vaccine groups have developed into a potent force. They have learned to stoke suspicion of authority with masterful precision, they have become adept at applying a veneer of scientific legitimacy to their ideas, and they’ve prepared a superficially compelling response to seemingly every argument that doctors make to encourage immunization. These rhetorical tactics were first worked out at dinky conferences and obscure media outlets, but now the government itself has become a propaganda organ for the movement. This makes confronting vaccine skepticism much more challenging — and, amid growing measles outbreaks nationwide, far more urgent.
The message emanating from U.S. public health agencies used to be simple: Immunizations are safe and effective. Those halcyon days are over. Mr. Kennedy has been hard at work distorting the truth.
Take the false idea that vaccines cause autism. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention once plainly declared that they didn’t. Mr. Kennedy instructed the agency to take a different position: “The rise in autism prevalence since the 1980s correlates with the rise in the number of vaccines given to infants,” the C.D.C.’s website has been updated to read.
This sort of claim is typical of the anti-vaccine community. A nearly identical statement appears on the website of Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine group Mr. Kennedy was formerly a part of. It isn’t true: Studies have shown that neither the number of active ingredients nor the amount of additives in vaccines corresponds to an increased rate of autism. But it sounds faintly data-driven and taps into a widely held belief that society has become overmedicalized.
Vaccine critics have won converts by branding their opposition to proven public health interventions as advocacy for individual liberty. “The decision to vaccinate is a personal one,” Mr. Kennedy wrote last March in response to the country’s measles outbreak. The C.D.C.’s acting director, Jim O’Neill, has followed the health secretary’s lead. In December he refused to endorse universal vaccination as a solution to the measles outbreaks, only going so far as to issue a vague recommendation for parents to “consult with their health care providers about vaccination options.”
Most parents, for the time being, seem to trust their doctor’s advice. Childhood immunization rates remain relatively high in the United States. But it has taken only a slight decline in vaccine confidence to set off the disease outbreaks we are seeing. It is easier for anti-vaccine groups to chip away at public trust than it is for the medical community to rebuild it.
Mr. Kennedy and his compatriots are able to draw from a vast body of literature — largely created by physicians and scientists themselves — documenting where more research is needed and the conflicts of interest that persist in modern medicine. Rather than use this scholarship to show that doctors are able to acknowledge their own limitations, they hold it up as proof of malign intent.
There is no surefire strategy for countering vaccine skepticism. Distrust of immunization is nearly as old as the technology itself. Still, medical organizations must ramp up their efforts to disseminate persuasive rebuttals to anti-vaccine talking points wherever people get their health information.
Physicians should also do a better job at making the case for vaccines clear. Many doctors have witnessed the harms of vaccine-preventable diseases. Relaying those firsthand experiences will be more compelling than simply dishing out data.
It is important for medical professionals to express how much they care, not just how much they know. The anti-vaccine community has showed staying power because it serves as a home for people who feel neglected or dismissed by conventional medicine. Doctors could do more to make patients, whose experience of the health care system is often that it is convoluted, callous and expensive, feel welcome.
Vaccines may be safe and effective, but just saying so is no longer enough. We’re only one year in, and how physicians and public health experts respond will shape what happens next.
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11) Trump Says the U.S. Struck a ‘Big Facility’ in Campaign Against Venezuela
The administration provided no details of what the president said was an attack last week linked to U.S. efforts to disrupt drug trafficking from Latin America.
By Tyler Pager and Julian E. Barnes, Dec. 28, 2025
The reporters have been covering the Trump administration’s pressure campaign against Venezuela.
Such an attack would be the first on land since President Trump began his military campaign against Venezuela. Credit...Eric Lee for The New York Times
President Trump said in a radio interview that the United States had knocked out “a big facility” last week as part of his administration’s campaign against Venezuela, an apparent reference to an American attack on a drug trafficking site.
American officials said that Mr. Trump was referring to a drug facility in Venezuela and that it was eliminated, but provided no details. Military officials said they had no information to share, and the Central Intelligence Agency declined to comment. The White House declined to comment.
Mr. Trump made his statement on Friday during an interview with John Catsimatidis, the Republican billionaire and supporter of the president who owns the WABC radio station in New York. The two men were discussing the U.S. military campaign to disrupt drug trafficking from Latin America by striking boats suspected of carrying narcotics.
“They have a big plant or a big facility where the ships come from,” Mr. Trump said, without saying where it was or explicitly identifying Venezuela as the target. “Two nights ago we knocked that out.”
If Mr. Trump’s suggestion that the United States had struck a site in the region proves accurate, it would be the first known attack on land since he began his military campaign against Venezuela. U.S. officials declined to specify anything about the site the president said was hit, where it was located, how the attack was carried out or what role the facility played in drug trafficking. There has been no public report of an attack from the Venezuelan government or any other authorities in the region.
While some officials called the facility struck a drug production site, it is not clear what role in narcotics trafficking the facility would have played. Venezuela is well known for its role in trafficking drugs, especially cocaine produced in Colombia, but has not been a major producer of narcotics.
Mr. Trump has been promising strikes on land in Venezuela for weeks, part of an intensifying pressure campaign on Nicolás Maduro, the authoritarian leader of Venezuela, who is under indictment in the United States for his role in the drug trade.
Mr. Trump authorized the C.I.A. to begin planning covert operations inside Venezuela months ago.
The United States has been conducting military strikes on boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific since September. The administration maintains that the vessels are transporting cocaine. The operations have killed at least 105 people so far, and have been called extrajudicial killings by critics who say the U.S. military has no legal basis for lethal strikes against civilians. The administration has defended the attacks by asserting that the United States is in a conflict with what it calls narco-terrorists who can only be stopped with military force.
Those boat strikes were originally developed as part of a two-phase operation. The second phase, which has yet to be officially announced, was to include strikes on drug facilities in Venezuela, people familiar with the planning have said.
Since beginning the strikes, Mr. Trump has announced what he has called a blockade of Venezuela as the United States has begun trying to intercept oil tankers, cutting off a vital source of income for the Maduro government.
Mr. Trump has publicly acknowledged he has authorized the C.I.A. to plan for operations inside Venezuela.
Exactly what operations Mr. Trump had in mind for the C.I.A. were not clear, but they could include both sabotage operations and psychological operations meant to prod Mr. Maduro into making some mistake.
Eric Schmitt, Edward Wong and Maria Abi-Habib contributed reporting.
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12) How Did This Family End Up Back in a Toxic House?
A Times investigation has found that insurers are driving families into homes contaminated by smoke. Lab results show how one family was exposed to neurotoxins and carcinogens.
By Rukmini Callimachi and Blacki Migliozzi, Dec. 29, 2025
“‘The first commandment of an insurance company is, ‘Pay as little as possible and as late as possible,’ said John Garamendi, a Democratic congressman who represents Northern California and who was the state’s first insurance commissioner in 1991.”
Every day, he vacuums, mops and wipes every surface in his house, which stands on one of the blocks in Altadena, Calif., that survived the flames of the Los Angeles wildfires, but not the smoke.
He works in deliberate lines across the kitchen tile, then along the baseboards, then into the corners where the smoke pooled nearly a year ago — following a map only he can see.
It’s the only way to quiet his thoughts: Is it safe for his children, 6-year-old Sylvia and 9-year-old Milo, to walk barefoot on the kitchen tiles? Should he wash the toys they drop on the floor with bleach, or with soap and water? The darkest thoughts are about his wife, Cathlene Pineda, 41, a jazz pianist who is on medication for cancer. If the toxins were in the house, he wonders, could they bring the cancer back?
The family reluctantly returned home in August, eight months after the Los Angeles fires and two months after a consultant they hired found lead — a dangerous neurotoxin — inside the house. After their insurer, Farmers Insurance, dismissed those findings and cut off payments for their hotel, the Van Nesses had little choice but to return and do the only thing they could: clean.
“We don’t have the means to pay our mortgage and live somewhere else,” said Mr. Van Ness, 44, a waiter at a five-star hotel. “It’s a feeling of helplessness that is indescribable.”
For nearly every house reduced to ash by the fires that blackened the Los Angeles sky last January, another was left standing but steeped in smoke, according to an analysis by The New York Times.
These homes sit at an uncomfortable juncture: intact but potentially contaminated.
Like most insurance policies in California, the Van Nesses’ contract with Farmers — the second largest home insurer in the state — covers smoke damage, but it doesn’t spell out how the damage should be repaired. That’s because there are no state or federal standards for how an insurer should remediate a smoke-damaged home after a fire. In May, the California Department of Insurance created a task force to establish such standards, but until its recommendations are announced, families like the Van Nesses are caught in a regulatory no man’s land.
A growing body of research shows that smoke from urban wildfires, like the ones that engulfed Altadena and Pacific Palisades, is more dangerous than smoke produced when vegetation alone burns. Ordinary objects become poisons when extreme heat turns them into gases. The button you push to start your car often contains beryllium — harmless when sealed in metal but highly toxic once airborne. A car’s tires can melt into a cloud of benzene, as can the foam in a sofa. The handle of a kitchen faucet can give off chromium.
Microscopic particles carried by the smoke slip into a home’s insulation, lodge in the seams of hardwood floors and pass through the mesh in kitchen tiles, contaminating the space with carcinogens and other toxins. Industrial hygienists and toxicologists insist that removing the contamination requires tearing out nearly every surface the smoke touched — not just the insulation, but the hardwood floors, tiles, plaster and stucco.
By contrast, the insurance industry is relying on what experts interviewed by The Times describe as outdated or incomplete research, endorsing cleanups based only on what can be seen and smelled. If insurers test at all, it is for a small subset of contaminants.
According to more than two dozen scientists, insurance adjusters and consumer advocates interviewed for this article, as well as a review of thousands of pages of internal insurer documents, this approach is supported by a small roster of industry consultants who cite research papers that have not been peer-reviewed, or were funded by the insurance industry.
“We call it the tobacco playbook because it was done for so long and so successfully by an industry that was making a deadly product,” said David Michaels, who served as the assistant secretary of labor directing the Occupational Safety and Health Administration from 2009 to 2017, and who has written two books detailing this strategy. “This is absolutely the latest iteration of ‘science for hire.’”
The Exposure
To understand what happened to the Van Ness home and whether it was safe to return over the summer, The Times asked the family for permission to have a certified professional test for lead and other heavy metals in each room, and to submit strands of hair so scientists could measure family members’ exposure to these metals over time.
By then, the house had already been extensively cleaned.
In February, a contractor hired by the family carried out the remediation that Farmers Insurance had recommended: The attic insulation was ripped out, floors were vacuumed and mopped, countertops and other surfaces were wiped, carpets and drapes were laundered and air scrubbers were left roaring in every room.
By March, dangerous chemicals were being found inside neighboring homes. But Farmers’ tests concluded that the Van Ness house was safe inside, finding hazardous levels of lead only outdoors.
Those findings were contradicted by an independent test the family paid for in June, which showed lead above the federal threshold in the living room and in the attic — results that Farmers dismissed. That was when Mr. Van Ness repainted the walls and began his obsessive cleaning.
The readings commissioned by The Times were taken in September — a month after the family had moved back in — and allowed reporters to see whether the home remained contaminated, and whether the Van Nesses had been exposed to harmful substances.
Six of the 11 samples collected in the house showed unsafe levels of contaminants, including extremely high levels of lead which is known to metabolize quickly, leaving the blood and entering bones and tissue. No metals were found in the other five samples taken from the bedrooms, the living room, the piano and a wooden toy.
The readings showed 27 times the federal hazard limit of lead on the floor next to the refrigerator, and more than seven times the limit where the kitchen tile meets the dining room floor.
A sample taken from the HVAC in the attic found lead levels close to 8,000 micrograms per square foot. Although the Environmental Protection Agency does not set lead-dust standards for attic surfaces, a rule change passed during the Biden administration holds that any reportable level of lead dust inside a home is considered a hazard. The concentrations found in the attic were “sky high,” said Joe L. Nieusma, a toxicologist who was one of 10 experts who reviewed the results.
“There are multiple carcinogens in the house and extremely high levels of lead,” Dr. Nieusma said. “It’s not safe for humans — or animals — to live in that residence.”
To determine whether the toxins inside the Van Ness home had made their way into their bodies, The Times commissioned Manish Arora, vice chairman of environmental medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York and the creator of a technology that uses strands of hair to measure a person’s exposure to chemicals in the environment.
One centimeter of hair represents approximately one month in a person’s life.
“Every other test is like a snapshot,” Dr. Arora told the family, explaining why their blood tests were negative. “Hair has the ability to map back in time. It’s like a molecular movie.”
After reviewing the family’s hair samples, Dr. Arora concluded that the Van Nesses had been exposed to dangerous levels of toxins.
Each family member’s strand of hair showed “measurable spikes in heavy metals after they returned to the home in August, indicating a period of elevated exposure,” he said. The results revealed that Milo had elevated levels of all 11 chemicals that Dr. Arora’s lab tested for, including lead, a potent neurotoxin with no safe level of exposure in children. Sylvia’s hair showed elevated levels of nine chemicals compared with the exposure levels of 1,000 children in California who are participants in an ongoing statewide study funded by the National Institutes of Health.
But he also found that the continued cleaning was working — at least for lead. For both parents and children, the levels of lead in their hair began to decline after they returned home and as they steadily moved bags of contaminated belongings to the curb and Mr. Van Ness continued his compulsive cleaning.
The presence of these metals does not mean the family will necessarily become ill, Dr. Arora cautioned. “But it does show that their bodies absorbed contaminants during that period, exposure that scientists associate with increased risks of neurological and developmental harm and, in the case of arsenic, cancer,” he said.
All 10 experts who reviewed the testing results from the house expressed concern about the level of contamination and said that the insurance-led remediation effort was not sufficient. Several of them highlighted the risk in the attic, where testing by The Times detected beryllium, chromium and cadmium, all known to cause cancer in humans.
Especially concerning is beryllium, said Dr. Michaels, who issued the standard for beryllium during his tenure as the longest-serving administrator of OSHA. “There is no safe level of beryllium exposure,” he said, describing how, at the Department of Energy, an accountant had developed the debilitating lung condition known as chronic beryllium disease after handling files stored in a building where beryllium had been processed years before.
“The most shocking thing is that this is after the home was remediated,” said Joseph G. Allen, the director of the Healthy Buildings Program at Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health and a former scientific adviser to the White House, who reviewed the results.
“Junk Science”
What happened to the Van Ness family is unfolding across the Los Angeles basin, as homeowners navigate a narrow range of options: accept a modest cleanup or shoulder the cost themselves. Or, most fraught of all: move back in and accept their insurers’ assurances that the air is breathable, the walls are clean and the home is safe, according to responses to a Times survey of more than 500 survivors of the recent fire, as well as interviews with three dozen affected families.
Evidence showing that the remediation approved by insurers is inadequate is mounting: Data from 45 homes tested after professional cleaning showed that 43 of them still tested positive for unsafe levels of lead, according to Eaton Fire Residents United, a coalition of concerned residents.
Farmers ultimately paid for the Van Ness family’s hotel accommodation for seven months and approved a budget of $25,900 to have the home professionally cleaned — a fraction of what it would have cost to follow the advice of experts who insisted that the only way to remove the contaminants was to strip away every surface the smoke touched. That kind of renovation would have cost upward of $500,000, according to data from the real estate tracking firm Cotality.
Scale those numbers across the Los Angeles burn zone, and the math is staggering: Doing only a surface-level cleanup of the nearly 10,000 homes that likely had smoke damage would save insurers over $8.5 billion, according to a Times analysis using Cotality data.
“The first commandment of an insurance company is, ‘Pay as little as possible and as late as possible,’” said John Garamendi, a Democratic congressman who represents Northern California and who was the state’s first insurance commissioner in 1991.
Dylan Schaffer, a lawyer who is representing more than 500 policyholders whose homes were damaged by toxic smoke from the Los Angeles fires, agreed that the insurers are driven by the bottom line. “There is no other explanation. The science is against them.”
It was when the Van Nesses started asking about the science that they ran into problems with Farmers.
Five years ago, Ms. Pineda was diagnosed with Stage 3B cancer. Concerned that she could be exposed to carcinogens inside her house after the fire, her oncologist wrote a letter to Farmers urging the insurer to replace all the soft goods — including mattresses, bedding and carpets — according to correspondence reviewed by The Times.
The adjuster texted back: “Did the oncologist perform any type of testing of these soft goods to support their recommendation?”
The question landed like a blow — as though her doctor’s warning didn’t count unless it came with results from the very tests the family had asked the insurer to perform.
“It felt like when you have those dreams that something’s happening,” she said, “and you’re screaming at the top of your lungs in your dream to wake someone up or to alert someone, and nothing is coming out.”
In California, insurers began trying to limit payouts for smoke damage more than a decade ago, after a series of devastating wildfires, according to Dave Jones, a former state insurance commissioner who was the top regulator when carriers first started inserting policy language that excluded toxic smoke.
When those exclusions were struck down in court, the carriers turned to something more subtle: They downplayed the science by relying on in-house experts, whose studies are often not peer-reviewed and whose methods are increasingly at odds with the emerging science of urban wildfires, according to interviews with two former insurance commissioners, insurance industry whistleblowers, attorneys and consumer advocates.
The initial settlement letter that Farmers sent to the Van Nesses, which was reviewed by The Times, referred to “scientific studies” that it said showed that household materials exposed to the smoke could be cleaned. According to these studies, it said, soot, char and ash have “no inherent physical or chemical properties that will cause physical damage to common household materials,” and that “routine laundering” and “everyday cleaning methods” were enough to restore the home to its pre-fire state.
In a single footnote, the letter referred to only one source: a three-page paper from 2019. It appeared on the website of a private company specializing in hazardous materials that once employed Richard L. Wade, the paper’s author.
Contacted by The Times, Dr. Wade confirmed that the document was never published nor peer-reviewed and described it not as a study but as “a research summary,” contradicting how Farmers characterized it.
“This report is not objective science,” said Dr. Michaels, currently a professor at George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health, after reviewing the paper. “It makes unsupported and unverifiable assertions,” he said, adding, “It’s science for hire.”
Dr. Wade did not respond to questions regarding the criticism of his research paper.
In an email, Luis Sahagun, a spokesman for Farmers Insurance, wrote: “Every claim is evaluated and reviewed on an individual basis. Our goal is to pay claims quickly and fairly, taking into account the circumstances of the loss and the terms of the policy.”
The company did not address detailed questions from The Times about the contamination found inside the Van Ness home after the insurer-led remediation, or about the carcinogens detected in the family’s hair, saying that “we cannot comment on individual claims or customers.”
When the family sent their independent results to Farmers in June, the insurer turned to Safeguard EnviroGroup, a company that is advising the leading insurance carriers in California following the fires, and whose principal scientist is Dr. Wade, the expert whose paper was not peer-reviewed but was used as a reference.
In a document labeled “confidential” and obtained by The Times, Safeguard EnviroGroup’s founder, Brad Kovar, sought to discredit the family’s independent report, writing that the hygienist hired by the Van Nesses lacked a particular license, and that the report — which found the highest levels of lead in the attic — had failed to specify whether the samples came from a floor, a shelf or a windowsill, each of which has a different regulatory threshold.
In their denial letter to the family, Farmers, citing the report by Safeguard EnviroGroup, further described the attic as a “non-habitable space” — the only explanation the insurer provided for never having tested the attic for contaminants.
But in response to a detailed list of questions, a spokesman for Mr. Kovar seemed to contradict that guidance, saying that “all non-habitable spaces are relevant if they meet established contamination thresholds and provide pathways of exposure.”
The spokesman added: “Our conclusions are based on fact, data, established methodologies and recognized scientific standards.”
Dr. Nieusma pointed out that the HVAC is in the attic and acts as the “lungs of the house.” If the attic is contaminated, the HVAC is likely redistributing those toxic particles throughout the home.
“What they are doing is junk science,” said Dr. Zahid Hussain, winner of the Department of Energy Secretary’s distinguished service award for his work at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, adding that references to empty or unvetted studies are rife in the insurance industry when it comes to smoke.
The (Lack of) Standards
The Van Ness home, along with the debate over what the family’s insurer should have done to repair it, is a microcosm of a broader fight now dividing the American Industrial Hygiene Association, which publishes a technical guide for how to remediate smoke damage. In the absence of state or federal standards, insurers have cited this guide, which lists Mr. Kovar and Dr. Wade among its authors.
But a cohort of industrial hygienists say the guide has been hijacked by insurance industry contractors who have introduced language suggesting that toxins can be cleaned using everyday methods. This summer, the hygienists submitted to the A.I.H.A. a list of what they said were errors and distortions in the latest edition of the guide, arguing it should be retracted or significantly revised.
They said that numerous non peer-reviewed research papers had been added as references in the bibliography, while peer-reviewed studies showing that microscopic particles of smoke can penetrate the fibers of a house were removed or omitted.
On Dec. 16, the debate turned tense on a video call during which the A.I.H.A. declined to make changes, according to three participants on the call.
In an emailed statement, Jessie Lewis, an A.I.H.A. spokeswoman, declined to discuss the specifics of the meeting, saying that the technical guide was a “science-based publication” and that the most recent edition was not influenced by the insurance industry. She had no comment after The Times pointed out that the organization’s top donors included the Property Casualty Insurance Association of America, one of the main lobbying groups for the insurance industry.
The same battle is now roiling the newly created California Smoke Claims & Remediation Task Force, where Safeguard EnviroGroup employees including Dr. Wade presented slides claiming that professional cleaning was enough and that testing for anything more than lead, asbestos and soot, char and ash was an unnecessary “rabbit hole,” as first reported in a San Francisco Chronicle investigation. They argued that the A.I.H.A. guide — the same one that scientists are asking to be retracted — should be the accepted standard.
Since returning to their house in August, the Van Nesses have debated leaving for good. But where would they go?
Mr. Van Ness’s job provides the health insurance needed for his wife’s continuing cancer treatment with the oncologist who saved her life. And on his waiter’s salary, they feel trapped in one of the country’s most strained housing markets.
“It’s free-falling while reaching for branches that you hope will break your fall but don’t,” he said. “And so you flail. You paint, you rack up debt and get rid of the things that you think are dangerous, you keep windows open, you wash your hands more,” he said. “And you worry that your efforts are no match for what really needs to happen.”
For now, the Van Nesses are doing what they can: fighting with their insurer. And cleaning.
Methodology
Sample collection – With the family’s permission, The Times commissioned certified professionals and scientists to collect samples from the house and the family. Eleven wipe samples were taken from the house, including the attic and the family’s converted garage, using the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health’s 9102 sampling method: seven samples and one blank for lead; four samples and one blank for a broader metals panel. Additionally, air samples were collected using equipment from Access Sensor Technologies and Casella Solutions.
The Times commissioned an independent lab, Eurofins, to analyze the results, and the professional hired by The Times followed strict chain-of-custody procedures, documenting each step in the collection, handling and transfer of the samples to ensure their integrity and prevent contamination or tampering.
Lab analysis – For the wipe samples, the lab used Inductively Coupled Plasma (I.C.P.) Mass Spectrometry (M.S.), modifying the N.I.O.S.H. 9102 protocol to use a more precise analytical method, a step recommended by scientific advisors and senior researchers at the lab. Air samples were analyzed using three common analytical methods: I.C.P.-M.S., I.C.P.-Atomic Emission Spectroscopy (A.E.S.), and X-ray Fluorescence (X.R.F) Spectroscopy. The analysis of the air samples yielded inconclusive results. Experts agreed that detecting metals in the air would be difficult when collecting samples months after the fires, because the family ventilated the home and used air purifiers.
Results – Ten experts reviewed the lab results commissioned by The Times and compared them with the tests conducted by the contractor chosen by Farmers Insurance.
Dr. Joseph G. Allen, a certified industrial hygienist and an associate professor of exposure assessment science at Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, where he heads its Healthy Buildings Program.
Dawn Bolstad-Johnson, a certified industrial hygienist who has tested more than 100 homes in the Los Angeles area.
Dr. Jill Johnston, an associate professor at the University of California at Irvine’s Joe C. Wen School of Population & Public Health whose research focuses on the health impacts of environmental contaminants.
Jeanine Humphrey, an industrial hygienist who has tested more than 100 smoke-damaged homes in Los Angeles.
Dr. Zahid Hussain, a former division deputy of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the recipient of the Department of Energy Secretary’s Distinguished Service Award.
Dr. Lisa A. Maier, a pulmonologist who leads a clinical team studying and caring for patients with chronic beryllium disease as chief of National Jewish Health's Division of Environmental and Occupational Sciences.
Peggy Mroz, lead epidemiologist in the Division of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences at National Jewish Health, who studies chronic beryllium disease.
Dr. Joe L. Nieusma, a toxicologist and author of a recent study showing that particles of smoke saturate every crevice, seam and texture of a home and are recirculated through airflow.
Dr. Michael Weitzman, a professor and former chairman of the department of pediatrics at the New York University School of Medicine, whose research on lead poisoning in children contributed to the decision by the E.P.A. to lower its dust lead clearance levels.
One expert asked not to be named because of fear of retaliation.
The following chemicals were detected in the home via wipe samples: lead, beryllium, cadmium, chromium, lithium and manganese. Some of these elements are naturally occurring in the body, but when found in extremely high concentrations they are harmful to human health and linked to neurological and developmental problems, as well as damage to specific organs, including the kidneys.
For surface wipe samples, the post-abatement federal hazard limit for lead is 5 µg/ft2 for floors, 40 µg/ft2 for window sills and 100 µg/ft2 for window troughs.
The following chemicals were found in the hair analysis at elevated levels when compared with median exposure levels of 1,000 children in California who are participants in an ongoing statewide study funded by the National Institutes of Health: zinc, strontium, phosphorus, manganese, magnesium, lithium, lead, copper, calcium, barium and arsenic.
Estimating damage from smoke – To estimate the number of homes that were likely smoke-damaged, The Times drew a 250-yard buffer around structures identified by Cal Fire as partially burned. This buffer was chosen based on the public health advisory issued by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health after the fires. It is a conservative measure: A National Academy of Sciences report stated that any property within one to 10 kilometers from a burned structure could be damaged by smoke, depending on the direction of the wind.
To estimate the $8.5 billion in savings for insurers to remediate the homes that have likely experienced smoke damage, The Times counted the homes within 250 yards of a burned structure. When a property had additional structures, like a guesthouse or a garage, the structures were all counted as one. For each property, The Times used a median cost of remodeling, excluding demolition — a metric provided by Cotality, a company that tracks and analyzes real estate.
Why hair sampling and not blood? – To date, 99.5 percent of residents tested by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health following the recent fires — all but 10 out of more than 2,000 people — had blood lead levels below the Centers for Disease Control’s ceiling of 3.5 micrograms per deciliter, meaning almost no one showed elevated levels despite widespread evidence of lead contamination. The Times turned to the technology created by Dr. Arora which uses hair strands because it maps past exposure over time.
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13) Experts Question Denmark’s Vaccine Program as a Model for the U.S.
The United States is expected to adopt the vaccine schedule used by Denmark, a much smaller country with universal health care.
By Amelia Nierenberg and Maya Tekeli, Dec. 29, 2025
Amelia Nierenberg reported from London, and Maya Tekeli from Copenhagen.
“‘They are economic decisions,’ he said. ‘Authorities look at how many children get sick, how many are hospitalized, how many die, and then they calculate the cost of vaccination versus the cost of illness.’ Different cost analyses are one factor. Another is the difference in countries’ ‘burden of disease,’ which is the overall impact of any health problem. Both are heavily influenced by their approaches to health care. Denmark has universal health care; that means Danes can get treated more easily for diseases and often seek medical help earlier. Its people do not pay for most doctors’ appointment.”
The United States, a nation of 343 million people with a complex and overburdened health care system, is poised to adopt the childhood vaccine recommendations used in Denmark, a country of six million with universal health care. The decision has alarmed public health experts in both countries.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the U.S. health secretary, is expected to announce the move in the new year. It would reduce the number of immunizations required for American children to 10 from 17, radically changing the recommended vaccines without the deliberative process that the United States has relied on for decades.
Instead, Mr. Kennedy is following a presidential directive issued on Dec. 5 by President Trump, which said the United States was an “outlier” in the number of vaccines children receive, pointing to Denmark, Germany and Japan as peer countries that recommend fewer.
But public health experts have questioned the comparison to Denmark, and the assumptions underlying the expected U.S. move.
“We’re using the information from a country that is the size of one of our states to dictate what should happen to children. And that is just wrong,” said Dr. Kathryn Edwards, a professor emerita of pediatrics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and a prominent vaccine expert.
“The Danish approach to vaccination is relevant to the Danish population,” said Dr. Edwards, who was a member of the committee that recommends vaccines for Americans in the 1990s. “The U.S. approach is appropriate for the U.S.”
Why does the U.S. say it chose Denmark as its model?
Reducing the number of childhood vaccinations has been a longtime goal for Mr. Kennedy, who has a deep skepticism of vaccines.
In a memo in early December, Mr. Trump directed Mr. Kennedy to align U.S. vaccine recommendations with “best practices from peer, developed countries.”
Vaccine experts say that is already the case. “We are already in line with our peer nations,” the Vaccine Integrity Project at the University of Minnesota said in a statement. The United States is on the upper end of recommending vaccinations, but its schedule is closely aligned with those of Canada, Britain, Australia and Germany.
The presidential memorandum on childhood vaccines notes that Denmark “recommends vaccinations for just 10 diseases with serious morbidity or mortality risks.”
That makes Denmark a rarity. Data from the Vaccine Integrity Project shows that Denmark recommends fewer shots than many of its European peers, including other Nordic nations, according to country comparisons on the European Vaccination Information Portal.
Kristian G. Andersen, a Danish-American professor in the immunology and microbiology department at the Scripps Research Institute in California, said the United States already has one of the best standards for vaccine recommendations.
“Their childhood vaccine program covers almost everything it should,” Dr. Andersen said.
“The Danish program does not,” he added, noting that the Nordic country “has one of the most minimal vaccine programs among wealthy nations.”
“Denmark is the outlier,” Dr. Andersen said. “Not the United States.”
Why does Denmark require fewer vaccines?
Some of the differences in vaccine schedules, Dr. Andersen said, came down to how the different countries weigh the costs of care.
“They are economic decisions,” he said. “Authorities look at how many children get sick, how many are hospitalized, how many die, and then they calculate the cost of vaccination versus the cost of illness.”
Different cost analyses are one factor. Another is the difference in countries’ “burden of disease,” which is the overall impact of any health problem. Both are heavily influenced by their approaches to health care.
Denmark has universal health care; that means Danes can get treated more easily for diseases and often seek medical help earlier. Its people do not pay for most doctors’ appointment.
In the United States, about 8 percent of the population is uninsured. Even with health insurance, some American families need to decide whether a child is sick enough to justify the potential cost of a doctor’s visit.
“The United States is not the same as Denmark,” Dr. Jennifer B. Nuzzo, the director of the Pandemic Center at the Brown University School of Public Health, wrote in an email. “The U.S. doesn’t have guaranteed, free health care that ensures every pregnant woman and baby gets appropriate medical care on a regular schedule.”
Danish parents have no financial reason to wait and see if their child is sick enough to justify a trip to the doctor, experts said. That means children can get seen earlier, which could protect them from dangerous complications.
“The risk of severe consequences of an infection in the United States is much higher than in Denmark,” said Dr. Lone Graff Stensballe, a professor of pediatric vaccinology at the University of Copenhagen. “That is why, on average, the Americans would need more vaccines,” she said.
“If not everyone has free access to hospitals, vaccines are even more important,” said Dr. Stensballe, who is also an expert in pediatric infectious diseases at the Danish National University Hospital. “It would be such a risk and such a potential waste of life not to be immunized if you don’t have free access to health care.”
Why do different countries require vaccines for different diseases?
It is not unusual for different countries to require vaccinations for a different set of diseases.
Consider Japan. Its vaccination schedule includes a shot against the Japanese encephalitis virus, which can cause severe illness and is spread by mosquitoes in parts of Asia and the Western Pacific.
Many people who are infected with the virus do not have symptoms, but some develop encephalitis, a dangerous inflammation of the brain. Up to 30 percent of people who get encephalitis will die, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most cases occur in children, the World Health Organization said.
But the virus is not a significant threat in the United States. So the C.D.C. recommends the Japanese encephalitis vaccine only for some travelers to the region.
Denmark’s approach to vaccines for hepatitis B, a serious liver infection, is different from that of many other countries, including the United States.
The disease can spread through unprotected sex, sharing needles and other ways people share blood and fluids. Pregnant women with hepatitis B can also pass it to their children while giving birth.
Until recently, the United States required that all newborns be immunized at birth against hepatitis B. It still requires the shot for babies whose mothers are known to be infected, or whose status is not known.
Denmark recommends the vaccine only for newborns of infected women. But nearly all pregnant women in Denmark are screened for the disease, compared with about 80 percent, Dr. Edwards said.
Apoorva Mandavilli contributed reporting.
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14) From A.I. to Immigration, These New State Laws Will Take Effect in 2026
States across the country have also passed new rules around cellphone usage for minors, medically assisted death and gender-related care.
By Chris Hippensteel and Sonia A. Rao, Dec. 29, 2025
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent during an immigration raid in Mecca, Calif., in December. A new California law will ban law enforcement officers from wearing face coverings while on duty. Credit...Daniel Cole/Reuters
Artificial intelligence. Immigration. Gender-related care for minors.
Across the nation, new laws will take effect at the stroke of midnight on Jan. 1 in virtually every state. From cellphone bans to higher minimum wages, here are some of the important policy changes set to go into effect in 2026.
Regulating A.I.
An increasing number of states are passing new laws to regulate A.I. even as the Trump administration attempts to neuter such laws or punish states that regulate the industry.
Lawmakers in California, where many A.I. companies are based, have passed several new laws governing the technology. One new California law, inspired by a teenager in the state who died by suicide after confiding in ChatGPT, will put in place safeguards for A.I. chatbots. The law will regulate the exposure of minors to sexual content and establish protocols for how chatbots should deal with users expressing suicidal thoughts. Other new laws ban chatbots from misrepresenting themselves as medical professionals and require law enforcement officers to disclose when they use A.I. to generate reports.
A Texas law limits the use of A.I. systems to manipulate human behavior, establishes a state A.I. ethics council and requires government agencies to disclose to consumers when they are interacting with A.I.
And in Illinois, a new law restricts employers’ ability to use artificial intelligence for hiring or other employment decisions.
Cellphone Bans
In recent years, many states have placed limits on cellphone use by young children and teenagers. Now, more are following suit. By the start of the 2026-27 school year, districts in California, Georgia and Massachusetts must comply with state laws that limit or prohibit students’ usage of cellphones or other personal devices.
Some states that already have cellphone bans are attempting to further expand social media and data privacy protections for minors. A new Virginia state law will require social media platforms to limit daily use for children under 16 to one hour per day, with parents being able to increase or decrease that limit.
And in Texas, a state law that would require app stores to verify users’ ages and require parental consent for downloads and purchases by minors has been blocked by a federal judge for violating the First Amendment. It would have gone into effect on Jan. 1.
Responding to Immigration Crackdowns
As the Trump administration enacted mass deportations in 2025, several states put laws on the books to advance or curb the activities of federal immigration officers. Those laws are now set to kick in.
In California, where raids by masked ICE agents prompted a backlash, a law banning law enforcement officers, including federal agents, from covering their faces while on duty goes into effect on Thursday. The Trump administration has said federal agents will not follow the mask restrictions and has sued to block the law’s enforcement.
Another California law will allow relatives to assume temporary guardianship of children whose immigrant parents are detained or deported and will prevent day care centers from collecting information on citizenship or immigration status.
A similar law set to take effect in Illinois will prevent schools from sharing the immigration status of children or their families.
Meanwhile, in Texas, sheriffs operating county jails will be required to cooperate with federal officials in enforcing immigration law. Those sheriffs may receive extra personnel and funding.
Medically Assisted Death
Three states — New York, Illinois, and Delaware — have laws slated or expected to take effect in 2026 that would allow terminally ill patients to end their lives with medical assistance.
In each state, the laws would give patients with a prognosis of fewer than six months to live the right to die. The governors of Delaware and Illinois have both already signed laws set to take effect in 2026. Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York has declared her intent to sign a similar bill if the legislature passes some proposed amendments.
With Ms. Hochul’s signature, New York would become the 13th state with a right-to-die law on the books.
Increasing the Minimum Wage
As affordability increasingly becomes a political focal point, more than 20 states are set to increase their minimum hourly wage for workers in 2026.
Michigan will increase its minimum wage by more than a dollar per hour, from $12.48 to $13.73. In Nebraska, it will jump by $1.50 to $15.
The minimum wage will rise from $16.50 to $17 in New York City, Long Island and Westchester County, and from $15.50 to $16 everywhere else in New York State.
Gender Surgery and Recognition
Weeks after the federal government threatened to pull funding from hospitals that offer gender-related care for minors, some states are cracking down further.
Starting Jan. 1, New Hampshire will prohibit the prescribing of hormone treatments and puberty blockers to alter a child’s gender. Another law will ban breast surgeries as a form of gender care for minors. New Hampshire had previously enacted legislation prohibiting transition surgery for minors.
And in North Carolina, the state legislature overrode the governor’s veto to pass a law that, beginning Jan. 1, officially recognizes just two sexes in the state. The measure referenced President Trump’s January 2025 executive order on the subject.
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15) Surge of Economic Pain Pushes Iranians to the Streets
High inflation and a currency collapse have squeezed Iranians’ budgets, challenging the country’s leaders.
By Ben Hubbard, Sanam Mahoozi and Leily Nikounazar, Dec. 29, 2025
Ben Hubbard reported from Istanbul, Sanam Mahoozi from London and Leily Nikounazar from Brussels.
Protesters took to the streets of the capital, Tehran, and other cities in Iran on Monday to decry surging inflation and the collapse of the national currency, which have thrown markets into chaos and punched holes in family budgets.
The currency plunged to a record low this past weekend against the U.S. dollar and the annual inflation rate rose to 42.2 percent in December.
Amid the turmoil, the head of Iran’s central bank, Mohammad Reza Farzin, resigned on Monday, pending the president’s acceptance, local news media reported. A former economy minister, Abdolnaser Hemmati, was set to replace him.
President Masoud Pezeshkian acknowledged the magnitude of the crisis while speaking to Parliament on Sunday about the country’s proposed 2026 budget.
“They say, increase salaries,” he said. “Where will we get the money?” He blamed decisions taken by previous governments, parliaments and officials for the situation.
The economic turmoil poses a new challenge for Iran’s leaders as they seek to maintain control of their country of 92 million people while recovering from attacks on its nuclear facilities in June by Israel and the United States and a campaign of “maximum pressure” from the Trump administration aimed at securing a new agreement about Iran’s nuclear program.
Iran has experienced repeated waves of protests fueled by economic woes, drought and other grievances since 2017, and it was not immediately clear whether these new demonstrations would grow and spread to additional cities.
Iranian security forces have repressed previous protests with deadly force and arrests, raising the stakes for those who make their complaints public. Videos shared online on Monday showed security forces firing tear gas to disperse some of the protests in Tehran and at least two other cities.
Experts attribute Iran’s deepening economic pain to a host of factors from poor management to policies that keep the country’s economy closed. The stepped-up efforts by the Trump administration to limit Iran’s oil sales to foreign countries and the war with Israel in June, during which the government tapped Iranian banks to cover its costs, have also contributed to the worsening economy.
The government has few options to address the crisis swiftly, said Amir Hossein Mahdavi, a doctoral candidate in political science at the University of Connecticut who studies Iran’s economy.
It could change its relationship with the United States in exchange for relief on sanctions, he said, or drastically cut government spending, but neither option appears likely.
“At present, the risk of sustained high inflation, and a repetition of recent experiences such as those of Venezuela and Argentina, is increasingly growing,” Mr. Mahdavi said.
The proposed 2026 budget showed the government’s dilemma, reflecting a substantial decrease in oil revenue and an increased reliance on tax revenue.
On Monday, the Parliament rejected the proposed budget, the semiofficial Tasnim News Agency reported.
The Economy and Foreign Affairs Ministries did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The currency collapse has been painful for ordinary Iranians, who have watched the value of their salaries and savings drop while prices for goods and services skyrocketed.
Omid, a 42-year-old sales manager in Tehran, said the value of his monthly income has dropped to the equivalent of $200 per month from $300 in just two months, giving him anxiety.
He said he worried about being able to cover his elderly parents’ medical bills and that his car would break down and he would be unable to fix it.
“These days, even hanging out with friends feels restricted, as we’re constantly calculating like human calculators whether we can squeeze in the cost of a simple coffee,” he said.
Mariam, a 41-year old bank employee in Tehran, said other Iranians see her as upper middle class even though her salary now only covers two-thirds of her monthly expenses.
Both Mariam and Omid spoke by telephone and asked to be identified by their first names only for fear of government reprisals.
Mariam said she rarely ate out and avoided buying red meat or inviting guests over for meals.
“Things have gotten so expensive that over the past few days when I had guests, I was constantly crunching numbers to ensure I wouldn’t run out of money before the end of the month,” she said.
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