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 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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2) 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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3) 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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4) 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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5) 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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6) Trump Affirms Bond With Netanyahu and Says U.S. Would Back New Iran Strikes
The American and Israeli leaders showed few signs of disagreement after meeting in Florida, giving no public indication of their growing strains over Gaza, Syria and other issues.
By Tyler Pager and David M. Halbfinger, Dec. 29, 2025
Tyler Pager reported from Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla, and David M. Halbfinger reported from Jerusalem.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on June 5.Ziv Koren/Polaris, for The New York Times
President Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel presented a united front on Monday, papering over their differences on how to carry out the Gaza peace plan while heaping praise on each other.
The two leaders, who met over a multicourse lunch inside the dining room of Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s private club in Florida, shared few details on the substance of their talks or how they planned to resolve the many outstanding issues between them.
Nor did they shed light on how Mr. Trump’s Gaza plan is to advance into its next phase, in which Hamas is supposed to disarm, the Israelis are supposed to pull back their forces and other countries are supposed to commit troops to an “international stabilization force.”
But Mr. Trump did make at least one commitment. He said that the United States would back Israeli strikes on Iran if Iran continued with its ballistic missile and nuclear weapon program. The president said he has heard Iran is “behaving badly” and looking to restart its nuclear program, but he declined to provide additional details.
For Mr. Trump, the meeting was an opportunity to take another victory lap for orchestrating the Gaza cease-fire, however tenuous it may be — he repeatedly overstated it as “peace in the Middle East.” And Mr. Netanyahu departed with fresh footage of Mr. Trump lauding him as Israel’s savior, which will no doubt prove useful in the Israeli leader’s re-election campaign.
“You needed a very special man to really carry through and really help Israel through this horrible jam,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Netanyahu.
The tone was a shift from Mr. Trump’s recent posture, as he has shown more willingness in recent months to voice his frustrations with Mr. Netanyahu and the ways in which he has delayed or undercut Mr. Trump’s efforts to advance his plans for a post-conflict Gaza. On Monday, there was no sign of friction, though the president said at one point that Mr. Netanyahu could be difficult.
“I’m not concerned about anything that Israel is doing,” Mr. Trump said.
Mr. Trump and Mr. Netanyahu mostly sidestepped questions about the next steps of the Gaza peace plan.
On the West Bank, where Mr. Netanyahu faces pressure from his base to annex more territory and the United States has made clear it opposes that, Mr. Trump acknowledged the two leaders did not agree “100 percent” on the issue. But when asked about the nature of the disagreement, the president declined to elaborate. “Well, I don’t want to do that,” he said, before adding, “But he will do the right thing.”
On the possibility that Turkey could play a role in a postwar Gaza, which Israel staunchly opposes, Mr. Trump praised the leaders of both countries, who have a bitter relationship.
“I’m with him all the way,” he said of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey. “I’m with Bibi all the way. Nothing’s going to happen.”
Mr. Trump also praised the new leader of Syria, Ahmed al-Shara, and said he was hopeful the new leadership would usher in a better relationship between Israel and Syria. But Israel’s military action in Syria has angered the White House, and some Israeli officials do not trust Mr. al-Shara. Mr. Netanyahu said only that he wanted to ensure the country’s border with Syria was safe.
“In terms of public appearances, Netanyahu got what he wanted: a full public embrace from President Trump to show off to Israeli voters,” Ilan Goldenberg, the chief policy officer at J Street, the center-left lobbying group that promotes a two-state solution in the Middle East, said in a statement. “The substance of the meeting is less clear. Cracks are beginning to show in how they approach Turkey, Syria, the West Bank and even the next phase of the war in Gaza, but what was discussed behind closed doors remains unknown.”
Mr. Netanyahu, in his fifth visit with Mr. Trump this year, seemed to struggle to find new ways to say the president was the best friend Israel had ever had in the White House, at one point going so far as to praise the meal the American leader had just served him.
The Israeli government also bestowed another award on Mr. Trump, the latest in a trend of foreign leaders and organizations trying to win over the president with new honors. At the start of the bilateral meeting, Israel’s education minister, Yoav Kisch, called in to share that Mr. Trump would be awarded the Israel Prize, which is traditionally given to Israeli citizens in various categories of the arts and science.
And Mr. Trump suggested that Mr. Netanyahu would soon win a prize of his own: a presidential pardon in his long-running corruption trial. Mr. Trump has urged Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, to grant Mr. Netanyahu a pardon.
“I spoke to the president and it’s — he tells me it’s on its way,” Mr. Trump said on Monday. “You can’t do better than that, right?”
But Mr. Herzog’s office quickly denied that any decision had been made and said a decision was weeks away at minimum.
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7) This Is the Damage Kennedy Has Done in Less Than a Year
By Jeneen Interlandi, Dec. 30, 2025
Ms. Interlandi writes about public health for Opinion.
Jennifer Hueston for The New York Times
In the days before Christmas, as measles, whooping cough and influenza continued to spread and surge across the country, the Department of Health and Human Services came perilously close to scrapping the nation’s longstanding list of recommended childhood vaccines.
As CNN reported, the agency’s plan was to go with a shorter list, along the lines of what Denmark recommends. As Politico reported soon after, that plan was jettisoned at the last minute over legal and political concerns.
Sources in and around the department have since suggested that something far worse may still be in the offing. “They could still move to align us with a country like Denmark,” said Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s respiratory disease division. He resigned in August in protest of the agency’s politicization of vaccine policy. “But they could also just scrap the list altogether, so that there are no official recommendations, only vague suggestions.”
Either of those changes would be unconscionable. Among other things, the C.D.C. list, also known as the childhood vaccine schedule, helps determine which vaccines are covered by insurance, which are included in the Vaccines for Children Program that supplies crucial shots to the un- and underinsured, and which are protected from certain liabilities that might otherwise drive vaccine makers from the U.S. market. Altering those recommendations, or downgrading them to “shared clinical decision making,” would upend those protocols, and could make it nearly impossible for millions of families to receive certain lifesaving vaccines, even if they still want them.
However, neither move would be surprising.
In the 11 months since he was confirmed as health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has wreaked steady havoc on the nation’s vaccination policies and programs. He canceled hundreds of millions of dollars in federal investment for mRNA vaccines, including ones that would have improved our ability to fight the next flu pandemic. He chased away doctors and scientists at the Food and Drug Administration and the C.D.C. who oversaw federal vaccine policy for decades.
Perhaps worst of all, he fired the entire 17-member Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, known as ACIP. The group is responsible for advising the C.D.C. on which vaccines to recommend for whom. It now consists of a mix of ideologues and incompetents handpicked by Mr. Kennedy himself.
Already, this new Potemkin group has:
Rescinded recommendations for any flu shots containing thimerosal, a preservative that keeps multidose vaccine bottles free of bacteria and other contamination. It has been in use for nearly a century and has decades’ worth of data validating its safety.
Revoked a longstanding recommendation of the measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox, or MMRV, combination vaccine for children younger than 4. The policy change is not based on any valid medical or scientific concern.
Stopped recommending Covid-19 vaccines for healthy people younger than 65 unless they talk to a health care provider, a move that makes it harder for people who want or need those shots to get them.
Changed the recommendations for hepatitis B vaccination from saying that all newborns should have this shot to one that might as well be a shrug emoji: new mothers who test negative should decide for themselves whether to have their babies vaccinated at birth, but might consider waiting.
None of these changes are evidence-based. All of them run counter to what the C.D.C.’s own experts (and most of the nation’s leading medical groups) have advised. And all are likely to sow confusion, undermine public trust and ultimately drive the nation’s vaccination rates down. “We are already hearing about pregnant women who test positive for Hep B deciding not to get the shot,” said Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “Because the message they’re getting from that recommendation is that the vaccine itself is dangerous.”
Proponents of the push to align U.S. recommendations with those of so-called peer nations such as Denmark, Japan and Germany — all of which recommend fewer shots than the United States — have billed it as a common-sense corrective. But, as innumerable doctors and scientists have explained, when it comes to public health, countries with fewer shots on their must-have list are not actually our peers.
In Denmark, to take the administration’s favorite example, prenatal care is free and universal. More than 95 percent of pregnant women are screened for hepatitis B, and those who test positive are promptly treated and duly monitored. In Japan and in most European nations, primary care systems have the capacity to find and vaccinate children who face a higher risk for vaccine-preventable diseases — and in many of those countries, paid sick leave also helps minimize the spread of contagions through schools and offices.
None of this is true in the United States.
Here, nearly a quarter of pregnant women lack adequate prenatal care, and those who face the highest risk of contracting and spreading vaccine-preventable diseases are often the least likely to have access to doctors or pharmacies. When U.S. health officials tried to stamp out hepatitis B through vaccination programs aimed at high-risk groups, they failed miserably. It was not until they carried out a universal, at-birth vaccination policy in 1991 that hepatitis B infections finally plummeted — by about 99 percent.
In fact, if the U.S. public health system has one thing going for it relative to other nations, it’s probably vaccines. As the C.D.C.’s own data indicates, routine childhood vaccination has prevented hundreds of millions of illnesses and tens of millions of hospitalizations here. It has also saved half a trillion dollars in medical costs, a figure that jumps into the multitrillions once you factor in indirect, societal costs like lost productivity and lost wages.
The United States tends to have higher rates of measles vaccination than Europe, and fewer measles cases as a result. Compared with Denmark, we also tend to have lower hospitalization rates for rotavirus (which causes diarrhea and can be fatal in infants and children) and respiratory syncytial virus, or R.S.V. (which is a leading cause of hospitalization among children). The reason for those disparities is not in dispute: We vaccinate routinely against both viruses. Denmark does not.
Mr. Kennedy and his supporters have said repeatedly that parents should be able to decide for themselves whether to vaccinate their children. But the Trump administration’s actions have put the nation on course for a future where even those who want vaccines may not be able to get them.
“Anytime you move away from a clear, universal recommendation, implementation becomes more difficult,” said Dr. Fiona Havers, a vaccine expert who resigned from the C.D.C. in protest in June. Does insurance still have to cover a shot that falls under shared clinical decision making? Maybe. Can you still get it at the pharmacy? Not necessarily.
For now, health insurers have promised to continue covering vaccines, regardless of what the C.D.C. does or says, presumably because they understand that vaccinating people is far cheaper than letting them get sick. But consumers would have no obvious recourse if those insurers eventually changed their minds — and, in any case, that promise applies only to families that have commercial health insurance to begin with. About half of all American children rely instead on the federally funded Vaccines for Children Program — and that program falls squarely within the jurisdiction of Mr. Kennedy, our anti-vaxxer in chief.
If the C.D.C. does change the childhood schedule to resemble Demark’s, or scraps that schedule altogether, and if the health secretary decides to adjust the Vaccines for Children Program accordingly, about half of all American families could suddenly find themselves with no clear way to get essential vaccines — their best possible protection against a roster of devastating diseases, including rotavirus, R.S.V. and hepatitis B.
In the meantime, the Food and Drug Administration is angling to make an even bigger and more enduring impact on Americans’ access to vaccines. After claiming, without presenting a shred of proof, that Covid vaccines played a role in the death of 10 children, top officials at the agency have proposed a roster of new requirements for the shots, including several that critics say would be logistically impossible and could leave us with no F.D.A.-approved Covid or flu vaccines.
That loss of approval would be disastrous, Dr. Daskalakis, Dr. Havers and others say.
Changes to the federal Vaccine Injury Compensation Program could also seriously undermine vaccine access. The program, which compensates people who suffer rare side effects from certain vaccines, was established in 1988 after a tidal wave of lawsuits threatened to drive vaccine makers from the American market. If Mr. Kennedy decides to exempt any shot that falls under the fuzzy rubric of “shared clinical decision making” from this program — and if nobody stops him — vaccine makers may once again threaten to leave the U.S. market.
Mr. Kennedy could also drive those companies away by adding autism to the list of conditions for which they are potentially liable. (Decades of research has debunked the assertion that vaccines cause autism. But Mr. Kennedy and his supporters have proved astoundingly impervious to that evidence.) “They will stop selling vaccines here,” Dr. Havers said. “And regardless of what ACIP says, regardless of what F.D.A. says, regardless of what your doctor says, and regardless of what you actually want, if companies don’t sell them, people can’t get them.”
We don’t have to wonder what that future will look like. We can glimpse it already in communities across the country where measles and whooping cough are resurgent and where infants and young children have already died from both. We can also see it foretold in the current flu season: This year’s flu vaccine has proved an imperfect match to the currently circulating strains. New shots, based on mRNA technology, would have one day enabled us to avoid this kind of misfire. But the nation’s leaders have imperiled that future with the decisions they made this year.
It should not surprise anyone that 2025 — when the nation’s most prominent anti-vaxxer rose to the highest health office in the land — is ending with our vaccine policies in disarray and our access to vaccines increasingly imperiled.
Mr. Kennedy has brought us to this precipice by aggressively subverting nearly every process and protocol that previously governed our public health institutions. He has granted political appointees enormous sway over agency scientists. He has excluded people with meaningful expertise from his planning and deliberations. And he has fired dissenters all the way up to the C.D.C. director and replaced them with lackeys, sycophants and wellness grifters.
The relentless norm-shattering is not just a byproduct of Mr. Kennedy’s larger plans; it is a central feature. Bureaucratic changes to arcane and acronym-laden programs are easy to overlook or forget after a brief flash of indignation, especially in a world saturated with bleak, worrisome headlines. But it’s through that overlooking that we may eventually lose vaccines altogether.
Vaccines are a triumph of human ingenuity, modern medicine and public health. With them, we have beaten back smallpox, chickenpox, yellow fever, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, hepatitis B, Covid, meningitis and more. If Mr. Kennedy continues to force the nation down the course he’s now set, we will be left to explain to future generations how we came to abandon them.
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8) The Oil Company Drilled. The Government Slaughtered. Who Is Guilty?
By M. Gessen, Opinion Columnist, Dec. 30, 2025
“The civil war in Sudan does go back to the mid-1950s. In 1978 the American company Chevron found oil there. In the decades that followed, control over oil fields became central to the armed conflict. During the second Clinton administration, the U.S. government imposed severe sanctions on Sudan in response to what Secretary of State Madeleine Albright described as the Sudanese government’s ‘continued sponsorship of international terrorism, its effort to destabilize neighboring countries and its abysmal record on human rights.’ … The Nuremberg trials showed us that normal people can commit war crimes for normal reasons, such as wanting to make a profit and to keep their jobs. What hasn’t been normal is to see them held accountable.”
Illustration by The New York Times; photographs by Archive Photos and Scott Peterson via Getty Images
At the end of the 1990s, a Swedish company called Lundin Oil started drilling in a war-torn region of what was then Sudan. To secure the drilling sites, the company contracted with the Sudanese government. Over the next several years, the price of oil skyrocketed, and Sudanese government and allied forces displaced, as human rights groups estimate, 160,000 people in the area, bombing and burning their villages. The groups say some 12,000 people were killed.
Two former executives of the company, which has since been renamed and reconfigured, are now defendants in the longest criminal trial in Swedish history; it began in September 2023 and is expected to continue through next May. They stand accused of complicity in war crimes. The defendants reject the charge, and the company maintains that there is no legal basis for the prosecution. The company also disputes the casualty figures.
I went to Stockholm this month to watch a couple of days of the hearings. I was mostly interested in the trial’s other historic distinction: It is the most ambitious effort since Nuremberg to hold accountable corporate executives accused of complicity in war crimes. After World War II, owners and leaders of three companies — Flick KG, I.G. Farben and Krupp — were accused of profiting from and aiding Hitler’s war and the Holocaust. But those efforts fizzled. Within a few years, all of the accused were free and in possession of their fortunes. The case against the Lundin executives seeks to set a precedent: to establish that corporate complicity in war crimes can be severely punished.
To an American, the tone of the Stockholm trial is remarkable. There is little pomp and no visible drama — no judicial gowns, no theatrics, no “All rise” and no gaveling. Six judges (two professional judges and four nonprofessional, or what the Swedish call lay judges) and the court stenographer all sit at a long table, with no hierarchy evident among them; all wear modest business clothes. The prosecutor questions the witness in a monotone. No dramatic flourishes, no arguments weaseling their way into witness examination, few objections and no exclamations, just a calm, deliberate, even tedious inquiry into the facts.
The two executives on trial are Ian Lundin and Alexandre Schneiter, but when I was in Stockholm, the prosecution was questioning Ken Barker, who was the highest-ranking Lundin employee in Sudan at the time and is a witness in this case. (He has not been granted immunity and was warned at the start of his testimony that his statements could be used against him.) Barker, a British citizen, ran the operation on the ground for much of the time with which the trial is concerned. He reported directly to Ian Lundin and had frequent interactions with Ian’s father, Adolf, the founder of the company, before Adolf’s death in 2006.
Prosecutors projected onto four large pull-down screens around the courtroom the weekly reports that Barker wrote to his superiors at the company’s headquarters in Geneva. He described the situation on the ground, enumerating the events of a given week: The Sudanese Army was behind schedule on the construction of a road it had promised the company; an army truck was ambushed; 12 soldiers killed; one rebel killed; the army is amassing troops in the area where the company was drilling. In a report dated August 2001, he wrote that the army was active near the rig. “This is a cleanup operation on some scale, and I would not care to comment on the breach of any humanitarian principles that may be involved,” he wrote. “It is beyond reasonable doubt that there is some displacement and cleansing going on.”
Barker is 79. Like other witnesses in this case, he has trouble remembering what happened 25 years ago. This is an issue at many war crime prosecutions: Investigations often take many years, and by the time cases come to trial, witnesses and perpetrators are often frail, and their memories are unreliable.
On the morning of the second day of his testimony, Barker sat outside Courtroom 34 in Stockholm District Court, waiting for the green light that announces the doors have opened. He put aside his tattered paperback copy of “The Lord of the Rings” to chat with the few spectators waiting for the start of the hearing: Martin Schibbye, a Swedish journalist who is writing a book on the trial; a Swedish criminologist who is part of an academic study of the trial; and me.
Barker told us that he and his wife often catch each other in memory lapses. That morning, when he was paying for breakfast, he couldn’t remember his debit card PIN. It’s an age thing; he talked about it with some amusement. So, of course, he had only a vague memory of many of the events the prosecutor was asking him about. But that wasn’t the only issue, he said. He was an engineer; he had been trained to solve precise problems. The oil lay at a certain depth. Or the rig had to be shut down for a certain number of days because of bad weather. But can you calculate what justice is? Especially after so many years.
In 1963, when Hannah Arendt, in dispatches from Jerusalem, described “the banality of evil,” she was widely misunderstood as trivializing the crimes of which the Nazi functionary Adolf Eichmann was convicted. In reality, she was describing the ease with which some people go along with hideous crimes. Not driven by deep conviction or rage, they simply don’t bother to think about the monstrous consequences of their actions. The idea, controversial at the time of her writing, doesn’t seem particularly radical now, when we have so much more evidence of the human capacity for both atrocity and indifference.
Before Barker’s testimony, the court heard from the 32 plaintiffs — former and current South Sudanese residents who described being terrorized by government-backed forces, having their villages destroyed, family members killed and children captured and being forced into military service.
On the second day of Barker’s testimony, one of the prosecutors, Annika Wennerstrom, pressed him for his opinion of the events he’d been reporting on.
“My view was that it was part of the war,” he responded. “The war had been going on since 1956, and this was an extension.”
The civil war in Sudan does go back to the mid-1950s. In 1978 the American company Chevron found oil there. In the decades that followed, control over oil fields became central to the armed conflict. During the second Clinton administration, the U.S. government imposed severe sanctions on Sudan in response to what Secretary of State Madeleine Albright described as the Sudanese government’s “continued sponsorship of international terrorism, its effort to destabilize neighboring countries and its abysmal record on human rights.”
American companies had to cease operations in Sudan. Lundin Oil apparently saw this as an opportunity. In a 1997 interview, Adolf Lundin told a television reporter that the sanctions got rid of the competition his company faced in Sudan. “One could say that we thrive in maximum unrest,” he said. The journalist interviewing him asked him if some regimes were more “appealing” than others. Perhaps they were, Lundin allowed, “but we observe that dispassionately. The only thing we want is the concession. And the regime itself we must treat as a normal negotiating partner.”
The defense argues that there is nothing illegal about this approach. The company didn’t ask for anyone to be killed, it says; it wanted peace. And it contracted for what the company describes as only “a small guard force” to “provide passive protection for personnel and equipment.” In the bigger picture, the defense says that it’s not a crime to drill for oil in a dictatorship or in the middle of a war and that it’s not a crime to cooperate with the local authorities, whoever they are and whatever the tactics they use to maintain their power or facilitate the extraction of their resources.
This argument is similar to that made by the industrialist defendants in the Nuremberg trials. In those proceedings, the defense argued that the accused had simply been doing business as business was done at the time and where they had found themselves. Many of them were acquitted, and the sentences of the rest were commuted soon after the trial ended. Alfred Krupp, the only one of those industrialists whose property was confiscated, was pardoned and granted restitution.
In the decades since Nuremberg, the logic of the industrialists’ defense largely held. The most ambitious international justice effort — the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia — hardly considered the economic dimension of the war. The International Criminal Court, similarly, has focused on military and political but not corporate leaders.
More recently, however, national courts have taken up a handful of such cases. In 2007, Chiquita Brands International pleaded guilty to financing a designated terrorist organization, after it paid off a Colombian rebel group, and last year a Florida court ordered the company to pay more than $38 million in damages to some of the organization’s victims. The French cement company Lafarge has pleaded guilty in the United States to providing material support to terrorist groups, including ISIS, which it paid to protect its plant in Syria, and agreed to pay a $778 million fine. The company is now in French criminal court, fighting additional charges over payments to these groups. And Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur for the occupied territories, has prominently advocated holding corporations responsible for enabling and profiting from the genocide in Gaza.
A few things made the Lundin trial possible. One is the legal doctrine of universal jurisdiction, which holds that — because the laws governing war crimes are agreed on by many nations and because war crimes are of concern to all of humanity — such crimes can be prosecuted in any country. In reality, there is nothing universal about universal jurisdiction: Whether a country takes up a case depends on national laws and procedures as well as political will.
Sweden is a special case. Its national identity has been that of a moral superpower, as the Swedes put it. This identity, in turn, has dictated that Sweden open its doors to refugees — and though the Swedish welcome has worn thin in recent years, hundreds of thousands of people who fled conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, Syria, Afghanistan and elsewhere now live in the country.
Some of these newcomers were victims of war crimes, and their presence spurred Swedish prosecutors to action. The country has created special law-enforcement units for war crimes. In 2016 a Swedish court convicted a man for participating in the Rwandan genocide and sentenced him to life in prison. Other cases have stemmed from the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, Syria, Iraq and Iran. But unlike the Lundin trial, all of them have involved direct or indirect perpetrators of the crimes, never the complicity of corporate individuals.
And then there was one very determined prosecutor, Magnus Elving. When he was working on the Rwandan genocide case, someone sent him a book on Lundin Oil and Africa, written by a Swedish journalist. Elving began an investigation that lasted over a decade and included interviewing victims and witnesses all over the world. In 2018 the police searched the Lundin offices in Geneva; many documents they found there are being reviewed at the trial. (Elving developed cancer, forcing him to retire in 2018; he died the year the trial began.)
In 2001 the Presbyterian Church of Sudan, along with people displaced from what became oil fields, brought a class-action lawsuit in U.S. District Court against Talisman Energy, a Canadian oil company that was operating in Sudan around the same time as Lundin. Talisman argued that the United States did not have jurisdiction, but a federal judge ruled that, in part because the Sudanese government’s actions were considered genocide and because the U.S. government had classified Sudan as a state sponsor of terrorism, a federal court could take up the case. Several years later, however, different judges found that the plaintiffs couldn’t prove that Talisman had purposefully aided and abetted war crimes.
Swedish law contains the concept of reckless intent. Fanny Holm, a legal scholar who has been following the trial, told me that this makes Swedish law different from international criminal law, which contains only direct intent (the perpetrator intended to commit the crime) and indirect intent (the perpetrator was aware that a crime would occur). Reckless intent means, in essence, that the perpetrator is indifferent to a crime that will be likely to occur. The case the Swedish prosecutors are making is that the information was there — in international newspapers, on BBC radio and television and in the memos found in the Lundin office and projected onto the walls of the courtroom. It was there, but executives contracted with the Sudanese government anyway, and this constitutes complicity in a war crime.
On the second day of Barker’s testimony, Wennerstrom asked a series of questions about reports he had received of burned villages, which the company apparently interpreted as a form of traditional farming. Barker kept repeating that he remembered nothing about this issue.
“But with 70,000 people displaced, who would farm under such circumstances?” Wennerstrom pressed, apparently asking Barker to think about the issue now, even if he didn’t think about it 25 years ago. “Who would engage in slash-and-burn agriculture?”
“I don’t know what the locals had in mind,” Barker responded with an audible note of annoyance.
One of the judges let out a laugh, prompting the presiding judge to issue a stern reprimand.
It is as if the Swedish system is designed to underscore that this trial, unlike many war crime trials (including the one Arendt wrote about), is not a show trial. There is nothing showy about it, and the outcome is not preordained. It may be the longest criminal trial in Swedish history, and it may be legally novel, but it is a very normal trial of some very normal people. The Nuremberg trials showed us that normal people can commit war crimes for normal reasons, such as wanting to make a profit and to keep their jobs. What hasn’t been normal is to see them held accountable.
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9) Nostalgia in Denmark as Main Postal Carrier Ends Letter Delivery
PostNord, the country’s longtime service, is delivering its last letters. Few Danes send snail mail anymore, but some are mourning the end of an era.
By Amelia Nierenberg and Maya Tekeli, Dec. 30, 2025
Amelia Nierenberg reported from London and Maya Tekeli from Copenhagen. Neither can remember the last time they sent a letter by mail.
Two mailboxes in front of the Marble Church in Copenhagen. There has been a steep decline in the use of Denmark’s postal service for sending letters. Credit...Kristian Tuxen Ladegaard Berg/NurPhoto, via Reuters
Andreas Birch’s very first job as a young boy was sticking postage stamps on envelopes. Week after week, he helped his father, the veterinarian in a rural village in central Denmark, mail bills to clients.
The post office where his father used to drop off bags full of letters is now a kindergarten. And like many Danes, Mr. Birch, now 31, hasn’t licked a stamp in years.
“I honestly couldn’t remember the last time I sent a letter,” he said.
Denmark has had a postal service for more than 400 years. But a steep decline in its use has led the Nordic country’s longtime postal carrier to stop letter deliveries entirely, a change taking effect on Tuesday.
Danes have seen it coming for months: The carrier, PostNord, has been removing its red mailboxes, once a ubiquitous public fixture.
The disappearance of the mailboxes is “what actually made people emotional,” said Julia Lahme, a trend researcher and the director of Lahme, a Danish communications agency, “even though most of them hadn’t sent a letter in 18 months.”
Letter writing in the country has declined by more than 90 percent since 2000, according to PostNord, which is owned jointly by the Danish and Swedish governments. Next year, in Denmark, it will only deliver packages, although in Sweden it will continue to deliver letters.
The change comes partly as a result of a drop-off in government mail. Denmark is one of the world’s most digitized countries. Only 250,000 people, or less than 5 percent of the population, still receive their official communications in the mail.
“People simply do not rely on physical letters the way they used to,” Andreas Brethvad, the communications director of PostNord Denmark, said in an emailed statement. He said that because nine in 10 Danes shop online each month, the change “is about keeping up with times to meet the demands of society. It’s a natural evolution.”
Denmark is not forgoing snail mail entirely. Remaining pen and paper enthusiasts — as well as the few who have opted out of digital government communications — will be able to send and receive letters through Dao, a private company.
While some Danes are quietly mourning a service that, for the most part, they had largely stopped using, the transition feels like a sign of the times.
Physical mail delivery has declined around the world, hurting postal carriers in Germany, Greece, Britain and elsewhere. In March, PostNord announced layoffs in Denmark for 1,500 people, from a work force of 4,600.
But Denmark appears to be the first country where the longtime designated postal carrier will stop delivering letters. The Switzerland-based Universal Postal Union, the United Nations’ postal agency, said it had no records of a similar move.
Mr. Birch, who now works as a communications officer in the Danish city of Odense, said that progress “isn’t wrong. But we should acknowledge what we lose along the way.”
In Mr. Birch’s rural hometown, he said, the postal worker was a “human link in the local community. He knew the route, and he knew the people.” And something tastes sour to him about a private company taking over letter deliveries: “The old postal service existed as a public responsibility. To me, that’s a meaningful difference.”
Many Danes were shaken when PostNord began taking down the bright red mailboxes in June.
When 1,000 of the boxes went online earlier this month, they sold out in less than three hours for the equivalent of $315 or $236, depending on their condition, with the proceeds intended to help children in poor areas.
Danes clamored to own a piece of history, just like the New Yorkers who bought old orange seats and retired metal signs from the city’s subway system at a Metropolitan Transportation Authority pop-up sale in the fall.
“It was overwhelming,” said Mads Arlien-Soborg, a lifestyle trend researcher in Copenhagen, the capital. “There’s a nostalgia in this that is super important.”
Next month, 200 additional boxes will be auctioned, many decorated by local artists. PostNord said it expected them to sell quickly, and at varying prices.
“An entire era is coming to an end,” said Magnus Restofte, the director of Enigma, a communications museum in Copenhagen.
Still, some experts have noted signs of younger generations returning to letter-writing — if not as a regular habit, then at least as a countercultural embrace of vintage technology.
“Fifty years ago, people received so many letters that they were almost taken for granted,” Mr. Restofte said. Today, letters are more precious, he added, “precisely because we receive so few.”
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10) Gaza Aid Groups Face Suspensions Under New Israeli Rules
The organizations, including Doctors Without Borders, have resisted providing Israel with detailed information about their workers.
By Ephrat Livni, Dec. 30, 2025
Palestinians climbed onto a truck carrying aid near Gaza City in August. Credit...Saher Alghorra for The New York Times
More than three dozen humanitarian groups will have their authorizations to operate in the Gaza Strip suspended on Jan. 1 and will have to clear out by March after failing to comply with new registration rules, Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs said on Tuesday.
Israeli officials say the new rules are meant to prevent militants from infiltrating aid groups, and they require humanitarian groups to submit lists of their Palestinian employees for review, among other information. The organizations that are facing suspension did not provide that material by the end-of-year deadline after operating under a “good-faith extension” since March, the officials said.
Israel’s decision to act against the groups — among them Doctors Without Borders — at a time of humanitarian crisis in Gaza drew objections from the international community. A fragile cease-fire that began in October is still holding, but mass privation and hunger are still prevalent for about two million Palestinians after two years of war.
Citing the “restrictive new requirements” of the Israeli government, the foreign ministers of Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Japan, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Britain on Tuesday called on Israel to ensure that aid groups can “operate in Gaza in a sustained and predictable way.”
“Any attempt to stem their ability to operate is unacceptable,” the foreign ministers wrote in a joint statement, saying that without the contributions of aid groups, “it will be impossible to meet all urgent needs at the scale required.”
Doctors Without Borders said in a statement on Tuesday that it had not received any official decision about the registration requirements as of Dec. 30.
Preventing services from getting into Gaza “will have devastating consequences for Palestinians,” Doctors Without Borders said. The organization said it supports around 20 percent of all hospital beds in the enclave and the delivery of one in three babies.
“We are urgently seeking solutions so that we can continue providing services to Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank,” it said.
Earlier this month, Doctors Without Borders said it was seeking “constructive engagement with Israeli authorities to continue its activities.”
Israeli agencies rejected the contention that Doctors Without Borders and the other aid groups facing suspension were critical to the humanitarian response.
Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, or COGAT, an agency responsible for managing the entry of aid into Gaza, said in a statement on Tuesday that the organizations were not bringing in aid during the current cease-fire and had in the past given minimal assistance. All of their contributions combined amounted to about 1 percent of the total aid volume, the agency said.
“Accordingly, the implementation of the government decision will not result in any future harm to the volume of humanitarian aid entering the Gaza Strip,” it said.
According to COGAT, aid will continue to enter every week via the United Nations, donor countries, the private sector and “more than 20 international organizations.”
“Attempts by organizations to portray the humanitarian system in Gaza as dependent on their personnel are disconnected from the reality on the ground,” COGAT said.
In May, 55 aid groups objected to Israel’s new rules, saying they undermined humanitarian principles of independence and exposed their staffs to risk. “In a context where humanitarian and health care workers are routinely subject to harassment, detention and direct attacks, this raises serious protection concerns,” they said.
Israel has accused the United Nations and some aid organizations, including Doctors Without Borders, of allowing militants to infiltrate them and exploit humanitarian assistance. It says that the new requirements simply ensure security.
“The refusal of organizations to operate transparently and to cooperate with the required checks is not technical or incidental, but rather raises genuine concern regarding the nature of their activities and the entities with which they operate,” COGAT said.
Last year, the U.N. fired nine employees from its agency for Palestinian refugees, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, saying they “may have been involved” in the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attacks that set off the war in Gaza. Israel had accused the aid workers of participation. The U.N. investigation cleared 10 others who were similarly accused.
Israel has also routinely accused Hamas of systematically looting aid intended for civilians, a contention that the United Nations and some Israeli military officials have denied. Israel has previously used that reason to justify severely restricting aid.
In their joint statement on Tuesday, the foreign ministers also called on Israel to lift “excessive restrictions” on goods that it has barred from entry, including medical equipment and shelter materials, and to open all crossing points to allow more aid to flow into Gaza.
Some of Israel’s most vocal allies approved of the decision to block some organizations from continuing to operate in Gaza. Mike Huckabee, the United States ambassador to Israel, wrote approvingly on social media about the restrictions on Tuesday, accusing some of having “terrorists on their payroll.”
Johnatan Reiss and Aaron Boxerman contributed reporting.
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11) Justice Dept. Leaders Pushed to Charge Abrego Garcia, Emails Show
The release of the emails raised serious questions about whether the Justice Department had misled a judge in telling him that local prosecutors had acted alone in charging Mr. Abrego Garcia.
By Alan Feuer, Reporting from Washington, Dec. 30, 2025
Excerpts from the emails appeared to suggest that Justice Department leaders had played a greater role in bringing the charges than prosecutors have acknowledged so far. Credit...Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times
Federal prosecutors in Nashville have insisted in the past few months that senior Justice Department officials had no involvement in their decision to file charges against Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the immigrant who was wrongfully deported to El Salvador in March and then brought back to the United States to face indictment.
But on Tuesday, excerpts from several emails released by a federal judge overseeing Mr. Abrego Garcia’s criminal case appeared to directly contradict those assertions, suggesting that Justice Department leaders — including Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general — played a greater role in bringing the charges than prosecutors have acknowledged so far.
The emails, which were made public as part of a newly unsealed judicial order, largely reflected communications about the case that Robert E. McGuire, the acting U.S. attorney in Nashville, had with members of his staff and with Aakash Singh, a top official in Mr. Blanche’s office. They raised serious questions about whether the Justice Department had misled Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw Jr., who is overseeing the case, by telling him that local prosecutors had acted alone in charging Mr. Abrego Garcia.
“These documents show that McGuire did not act alone and to the extent McGuire had input on the decision to prosecute, he shared it with Singh and others,” Judge Crenshaw wrote in the unsealed order. “Specifically, the government’s documents may contradict its prior representations that the decision to prosecute was made locally and that there were no outside influences.”
One of the emails, dated April 30, was written by Mr. Singh to Mr. McGuire and another prosecutor, Jacob Warren, as the government was building its criminal case against Mr. Abrego Garcia, who at the time was still in custody in El Salvador.
In it, Mr. Singh made clear that charging Mr. Abrego Garcia was “a top priority” for Mr. Blanche’s office. In response, Mr. McGuire wrote, “We want the high command looped in.”
A little more than two weeks later, Mr. McGuire wrote to his staff that while the ultimate decision about whether to bring charges was his own, he had heard that Mr. Blanche and his chief deputy at the time, Emil Bove III, were pushing for charges to be filed. In the email, Mr. McGuire referred to Mr. Blanche as the “DAG” — or deputy attorney general — and to Mr. Bove as the “PDAG” — or principal deputy attorney general. He also mentioned the “ODAG” — or the office of the deputy attorney general.
“I have not received specific direction from ODAG other than I have heard anecdotally that the DAG and PDAG would like Garcia charged sooner rather than later,” Mr. McGuire wrote.
Judge Crenshaw’s order was only the latest in an ever-growing series of rebukes dealt to the Justice Department as it has pursued parallel efforts to both prosecute Mr. Abrego Garcia and expel him from the country again.
Three weeks ago, a federal judge in Maryland released him from immigration custody in a scathing order that accused the Justice Department of egregious conduct that included stonewalling her, disobeying her direct instructions and even “affirmatively” misleading her about its plans to re-deport Mr. Abrego Garcia.
The judge in that case, Paula Xinis, has temporarily barred the Justice Department from taking Mr. Abrego Garcia back into custody. But on Tuesday evening, department lawyers said they would rearrest him if they were able to overcome her provisional order stopping them from doing so.
Judge Crenshaw’s order containing the excerpted emails was originally issued under seal on Dec. 3, when he instructed prosecutors to hand over the full trove of materials to Mr. Abrego Garcia’s lawyers. The lawyers sought the communications in an effort to bolster their claims that the indictment against Mr. Abrego Garcia had been brought because the Trump administration was trying to vindictively punish him for contesting his initial deportation.
In October, Judge Crenshaw issued a preliminary ruling finding that there was a “realistic likelihood” that the administration had in fact brought the case vindictively. That decision allowed Mr. Abrego Garcia’s legal team to seek internal documents from the government.
In his initial order, the judge singled out Mr. Blanche, saying that he had made “remarkable statements” about the criminal case. On the day in June that Mr. Abrego Garcia was brought back to face indictment, Mr. Blanche went on Fox News and declared that the government had started to investigate the case only after Judge Xinis, in Maryland, had questioned the administration’s decision to deport Mr. Abrego Garcia and found that it “had no right.”
The newly released emails only pointed further at Mr. Blanche’s involvement in deciding to charge Mr. Abrego Garcia.
In one of the emails, written on May 16 as the Justice Department was nearing its decision to bring charges, Mr. Warren wrote to Mr. Singh, suggesting that Mr. Blanche was playing some sort of role in whether to seek an indictment quickly.
“If the DAG does want to move forward with the indictment on Wednesday,” Mr. Warren wrote, “we think it would be prudent to loop in the press office ASAP.”
Mr. Abrego Garcia’s lawyers have issued subpoenas to both Mr. Blanche and Mr. Singh in an effort to have them testify under oath about their roles in seeking criminal charges. The Justice Department has strenuously objected to the subpoenas in a series of court filings, some written by a top department official, Stanley E. Woodward Jr.
For the moment, Judge Crenshaw has put off deciding whether to force Mr. Blanche and Mr. Singh to take the witness stand — although he has put Mr. McGuire and his team in Nashville in a tough spot as they seek to rebut the judge’s preliminary finding that the case was brought vindictively.
All along, Mr. McGuire has told Judge Crenshaw that he can fight the claims of vindictiveness by placing himself and other lower-ranking witnesses from law enforcement on the stand to testify that senior Trump officials were not involved in the indictment of Mr. Abrego Garcia. But that argument lost much of its credibility after the emails were released on Tuesday.
And that has left Mr. McGuire facing a pair of bad outcomes.
If he were to go forward with his plan to overcome Judge Crenshaw’s preliminary finding of vindictiveness with testimony that the emails have already undercut, the judge could make a permanent finding of vindictiveness and immediately dismiss the indictment.
But the judge has also reserved the right to force Mr. Blanche and Mr. Singh to take the witness stand if he is unsatisfied by Mr. McGuire’s presentation. And that could lead to embarrassing questions being asked of some of the Justice Department’s most senior leaders.
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12) They, Too, Died After Beatings by Guards. No One Raised an Alarm.
Two brutal killings, less than three months apart, in New York State’s prison system raised troubling questions: Had other inmates met similar fates?
By Jan Ransom, Dec. 31, 2025
Jan Ransom has been covering the turmoil in the New York State prison system. This article is based on dozens of interviews and a review of thousands of pages of court filings and inmate death records.
A screen grab from an officer’s hand-held camera recording shows officers at the Upstate Correctional Facility in Malone, N.Y., pushing Ladale Kennedy, an inmate, against a wall during a “cell extraction.” NYS Department of Corrections and Community Supervision
When an inmate named Ladale Kennedy stopped breathing one night in a New York State prison cell, no one paid it much mind.
No one opened a broad inquiry into the death of Mr. Kennedy, the 1,055th to be recorded in the prison system since 2014.
The local medical examiner classified the incident, in July 2022, as something of an official mystery: cause and manner “undetermined.”
In fact, just before he died, Mr. Kennedy, 41 and mentally ill, had been pepper sprayed by guards, beaten, handcuffed, held face-first under running water and fitted with a “spit hood” — a mesh restraint that is sometimes used to prevent inmates from biting or spitting on officers.
All because he had failed to return some food trays and cups that had been handed to him in his cell.
He had said, “I’m sorry” at least eight times as they pulled him from his cell, video shows. He had told the officers he could not breathe at least 20 times during the entire counter.
Over the past year, the prison system that held Mr. Kennedy has come under enormous scrutiny. Twenty guards were charged in the fatal beatings of two inmates, Robert L. Brooks and Messiah Nantwi. Lawmakers proposed a sweeping measure to strengthen prison oversight, and the governor signed it into law.
But Mr. Kennedy’s case, which passed by largely unnoticed, is a reminder that other men have died after beatings like Mr. Brooks and Mr. Nantwi did — and that the public still has not received a full accounting of those deaths.
The New York Times, after conducting dozens of interviews and reviewing thousands of pages of medical records, court filings and inmate death records, identified three other cases of inmates who died after beatings in the past three years, including Mr. Kennedy.
These new cases bear similarities to the high-profile deaths of Mr. Brooks and Mr. Nantwi. But where those cases stirred outrage, these have gone almost completely unnoticed.
Mr. Kennedy died at Upstate Correctional Facility.
Another inmate, Clement Lowe, 62, told his daughter that guards at Green Haven Correctional Facility had stomped on him and lashed his head with batons before he deteriorated and died of a massive brain bleed in November 2023.
The third occurred in October 2024, when Ameek Nixson, 39, began fighting with another inmate at Fishkill Correctional Facility and was beaten by officers until he went limp, according to records and interviews.
Mr. Nixson’s was the only one of the three deaths that was ruled a homicide, although investigators have yet to determine whether it was caused by the inmate he was fighting or the guards who intervened.
None of the deaths have resulted in criminal charges.
Only Mr. Kennedy’s beating was captured on video, but many of the recorded actions are obscured by poor angles or guards’ bodies.
The New York State attorney general’s office, which is required by law to conduct an inquiry into every in-custody death, took the rare step of hiring an independent reviewer in April to scrutinize the medical examiner’s ruling in the case.
That reviewer, Dr. Christopher Milroy, said he was not able to determine what caused Mr. Kennedy’s death.
One expert who reviewed the case at the request of The Times called the findings into question.
“They put a spit hood on, that you can see,” said the expert, Dr. Michael Baden. “He starts at that point saying he can’t breathe.”
Dr. Baden, a former New York City chief medical examiner and longtime consulting pathologist who spent decades on a state board reviewing in-custody deaths, said: “In my opinion, this was a death from asphyxia caused by the spit mask.”
In a statement, a spokeswoman for the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision said that evidence had shown that the prison staff members had not caused the deaths of any of the three inmates.
The rate of deaths per year in the correctional facilities has been on the rise even though the number of people being held in the prisons has declined, the records show. Last year the death count hit 144 — the highest number in the past seven years.
State law requires each of those deaths to be investigated, but the results of those inquiries are often not made public. That makes it difficult to know what surfaced during the investigations and how thoroughly the cases were reviewed.
Current and former inmates, advocates for the incarcerated and state watchdog officials said they have long suspected that many more of those deaths followed violent encounters with guards than has been publicly known.
“There is no accountability,” said Jose Saldana, a former New York prison inmate who runs a nonprofit that lobbies for the release of older prisoners. “If Robert Brooks’s brutal murder wasn’t inadvertently captured on a camera, they would have gotten away with it.”
‘I can’t breathe’
After the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers in 2020, the New York State legislature passed a law requiring all in-custody deaths to be thoroughly investigated.
It assigned the task of reviewing the cases to a newly created unit within the attorney general’s office, which would be empowered to supersede local law enforcers, gather evidence and issue public reports.
Over the years, the law was refined to add more protections for the incarcerated, in particular, including a requirement that the corrections department post information about prisoner deaths online within 48 hours of notifying the prisoner’s next of kin.
But the case of Mr. Kennedy shows that even a system that was designed to be robust has its limitations.
Mr. Kennedy was still a teenager when, according to his mother, he fell in with the wrong crowd. At 17, he was accused of killing a man in the Bronx in a gang-related shooting, convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 25 years to life.
Inside the prison system, he began showing signs of mental illness — including fits of paranoia and hallucinations — and was often at odds with guards and other inmates.
In summer 2022, he had been accused of fighting another prisoner and ordered held in solitary confinement despite his often fragile mental state, prompting him to write to state officials that the guards at Upstate prison were torturing him and that he needed to be transferred “before an officer murders me.”
Not long after, on July 30, guards dressed in riot gear assembled outside Mr. Kennedy’s cell for a “cell extraction” over concerns that he had kept items from the mess hall.
Their actions were captured on a hand-held video camera in accordance with department policy.
Although the camera’s view is often obscured by the guards, the video shows the officers blasting Mr. Kennedy’s cell with pepper spray and storming inside. They appear to strike him as he calls out apologies and begs the officers not to kill him.
Soon, they walk him, handcuffed, down a corridor to a shower cell, where they turn on the water, and he can be heard gurgling as they hold his face in the stream, ostensibly to wash away the pepper spray.
One of the guards accuses Mr. Kennedy of spitting, and he is taken to another room, where they pull a mesh spit hood over his face.
A nurse enters the room and he tells her: “I can’t breathe, ma’am.”
“All right, well stop spitting,” she replies, and then leaves the room.
They ignore his repeated protests that he cannot breathe — and signs that his legs were giving way — and carry him back to his cell, where they leave him alone for the next several hours.
When prison guards finally opened the cell to check on him, they found he had stopped breathing.
A local forensic pathologist, Dr. Laura Schned, conducted an autopsy for the Franklin County Coroner’s Office, in which she noted lacerations to Mr. Kennedy’s head and body and fractured ribs — possibly caused by emergency efforts to revive him. He was found to have no toxic substances in his body.
Ultimately, Dr. Schned concluded that it was impossible to say what had led to his death. She marked down its cause and manner as “undetermined,” and Mr. Kennedy became one of 121 inmates over the past decade whose deaths were initially attributed to “unknown causes” — a number that included Mr. Brooks, records show, before his case was reclassified as a homicide.
Dr. Schned did not respond to requests for comment.
At that point, the New York State Police opened an investigation into Mr. Kennedy’s death and the attorney general’s office began a preliminary review, but months passed with seemingly no developments.
Earlier this year, unsure of Dr. Schned’s finding in the case, the attorney general’s office hired an independent expert, Dr. Milroy, a renowned forensic pathologist at the Ottawa Hospital in Ontario, Canada, to review her conclusions.
Dr. Milroy concluded that it appeared the guards had not caused his death.
In an interview he said he considered the spit hood as causing the death but added that, in his opinion, too much time had elapsed between when Mr. Kennedy was put in the hood and when he stopped breathing.
“The specific cause of death could not be determined, and I would stand by that,” he said. “People don’t typically die of delayed asphyxiation.”
The Times filed a freedom of information request for the report laying out the basis for his findings, but the attorney general’s office did not provide it before this article was published.
On Dec. 22, the office sent a letter to the local district attorney informing her that Mr. Kennedy’s death did not meet the criteria for further scrutiny from the in-custody death unit.
Nicole March, a corrections department spokeswoman, said that video showed that the force used during the cell extraction was consistent with agency policies and procedures and that Mr. Kennedy had been assessed by a nurse.
She said that his death had been thoroughly investigated by multiple agencies and that evidence supports that he was alive for 10 hours before he was found unresponsive in his cell.
Mr. Kennedy’s mother, Dorothy Charley, remains at a loss.
“Somebody killed him,” said Ms. Charley, who filed a still-pending lawsuit over her son’s death. “It seems like they can do all of this — and get away with it.”
Pleading for help
About a year after Mr. Kennedy died, Mr. Lowe was showing signs of medical distress in the same prison.
He had been incarcerated since 2000 and was serving up to 49 years for attempted murder, kidnapping and other crimes. For days, Mr. Lowe had been slurring his words, vomiting constantly and unable to hold eye contact with other people — all signs of a possible brain injury. But the prison officials in charge of his care failed to get him outside help until it was too late.
He died in a hospital in Albany on Nov. 7, 2023. After an autopsy, a forensic pathologist, Dr. Bernard T. Ng of Schenectady Pathology Associates, ruled his death to be of natural causes.
Mr. Lowe’s case underscores how inmate deaths can receive that classification even after the prisoner was involved in a violent encounter with guards.
He was 62 and had a history of stroke and diabetes. But on Oct. 7, 2023, weeks before he died, guards at Green Haven Correctional Facility had struck him with batons in the head, stomach and ribs, Mr. Lowe told his daughter.
The guards were upset over an assault they said another inmate had committed on a correction officer and had set out to teach the other prisoners a lesson, according to an inmate who witnessed the beatings and complaints received by a state watchdog panel.
After the beating, he was driven by bus some 300 miles to Upstate prison, where he began to deteriorate.
It was not a subtle process, said his daughter, Jessica Lawman, who recalled her desperate efforts to get him medical care. She said he was complaining of splitting headaches. Then that he could not hold a pen or feed himself. Then vomiting, slurring and an unsteady gait.
She went to visit him, and a guard pushed him out in a wheelchair, Ms. Lawman said. He was emaciated and drooling, she said.
Still, despite pleas from Mr. Lowe and Ms. Lawman, the prison medical staff offered him no additional care, Ms. Lawman said. They did not even ensure that he was getting his medication for diabetes and other ailments, she said.
“His death could have been avoided if he had gotten the care he needed and if he was never beaten,” said Ms. Lawman, who filed a lawsuit that is still pending in state court.
After the autopsy, Dr. Ng concluded that Mr. Lowe had died of a massive intracerebral hemorrhage.
In an interview, Dr. Ng said that he had not been aware of the beating Mr. Lowe received when he did the autopsy but that he found no signs of trauma on his body.
“Does severe head trauma in the past increase the likelihood of a stroke? Yes, that is possible, but also hypertension and diabetes can as well,” he said. “He had a number of things against him that can lead to the final clinical presentation.”
Dr. Baden, the pathologist consulted by The Times, said the ruling of death by natural causes seemed not to take into account Mr. Lowe’s complaints of being beaten before he fell ill — and the failure of the prison medical staff to care for him.
“There is evidence the person is getting worse,” Dr. Baden said. “It takes weeks for this to get this bad.”
Ms. March, the corrections department spokeswoman, said, “There was no evidence of trauma identified, which refutes the claim that an earlier beating of Lowe caused his death.”
She said that department investigators did, however, find evidence to show that certain Green Haven staff had engaged in an unnecessary use of force, and they were disciplined. One was arrested and prosecuted, she said.
Mr. Lowe was one of 978 people over the past decade whose deaths were attributed to natural causes while in the custody of the state prison system, records show.
Gray areas
More so than the cases of Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Lowe, the death of Mr. Nixson shows the gray areas that in-custody deaths can inhabit.
Mr. Nixson was 12 months into a five-year sentence for drug selling when he arrived at Fishkill Correctional Facility in fall 2024. He had been transferred there after an inmate at another prison had slashed his face, his mother, Laurie Willis, said in an interview.
Weeks later, for reasons that remain unclear, Mr. Nixson approached a prisoner with whom he had been friendly and took a swing at him in a housing area, according to that inmate and other prisoners who witnessed the incident.
The two men tussled briefly on the floor before guards intervened, the inmates said. One jumped on top of Mr. Nixson, landing with his knee on Mr. Nixson’s head, and others piled on, the inmates said.
After Mr. Nixson and the other man were handcuffed and separated, the guards began to beat them, according to the inmates and witness statements obtained by The Times.
They slammed Mr. Nixson onto a stove top, said one of the inmates, Jeffrey Wynn, in an interview at the prison.
Another witness, David Josaphat, 47, said the guards were punching Mr. Nixson in the head.
“They were bending their arms as far as they could,” said Mr. Josaphat, who was released from prison in March.
Other inmates shouted for the guards to stop, the inmates said, and the officers dragged the men into a hallway.
Accounts differ as to what happened next, but the man whom Mr. Nixson punched told The Times that after they were out of view of the other inmates, the guards kicked and punched them in the head, stomach and groin.
When the man looked over at Mr. Nixson, he said, Mr. Nixson’s eyes were fixed, his head lolled and it appeared he could not stand. The man spoke to The Times on condition of anonymity because he feared reprisals for Mr. Nixson’s death, which he said he did not cause.
Soon after, a nurse reported that Mr. Nixson was cold and clammy and had no pulse, according to the witness statements in a State Police investigative report obtained by The Times.
Mr. Nixson’s autopsy was conducted by a Dr. Jennifer L. Roman, a forensic pathologist in nearby Orange County.
Dr. Roman discovered that Mr. Nixson had severe heart disease that contributed to his death. But the manner, she concluded, was homicide.
Still, the case presented a challenge for investigators. It was not clear whether it was the fight with the inmate or the response by the guards that had caused his death.
The officers involved were wearing cameras, as required by policy, but none were activated during the incident, and no security cameras were installed in the housing area at the time, records show.
Four of the guards involved declined to speak with investigators without a union representative present.
The State Police opened an investigation but closed it months later. The attorney general’s office is still reviewing the case.
Ms. March, the correction department spokeswoman, said the agency’s investigators reached the same conclusion as the local pathologist.
“Staff did not cause the death of Ameek Nixson,” she said. “Nixson’s minor abrasions to his face and knee and small cut to his thumb were consistent with the fight he had engaged in with the other incarcerated individual and responding staff using force to break up the fight.”
She added, however, that staff members had been found to have violated department policy by failing to activate their body-worn cameras during the incident, and they were retrained on the policies.
Despite the murky circumstances, Mr. Nixson’s mother, Ms. Willis, remains convinced that the guards were responsible.
She has filed a lawsuit in the hopes that the civil courts can bring her the clarity that the criminal justice system has so far failed to provide.
“I know my son is in heaven right now saying, ‘My mom never gave up,’” she said, and then added: “I’m living a nightmare.”
Bianca Pallaro contributed reporting and Arijeta Lajka contributed reporting and video production. Amogh Vaz also contributed video production.
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13) One Lawyer’s Standoff With Trump’s Deportation Machine
Mahsa Khanbabai’s client, a graduate student, had been whisked away by masked agents and held in lockup for weeks. Would a court free her — and would the government let her go?
By Jonah E. Bromwich, Dec. 31, 2025
Mahsa Khanbabai’s account provides a window into the experience of immigration lawyers this year, who are fighting for clients against an administration that they no longer trust to follow the rules. Sophie Park for The New York Times
Mahsa Khanbabai peered through the small glass window of a locked door in an immigration jail in Basile, La., watching two Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents question a young Turkish woman.
For six weeks, Ms. Khanbabai, a lawyer, had been fighting to free the woman, Rumeysa Ozturk. That day, a judge had agreed, but that was courtroom success, legal success. The young woman was still behind bars.
Ms. Khanbabai had feared this. Since the woman’s dramatic March arrest in Somerville, Mass., the Trump administration had been eager to keep her in captivity. It was May 9, a Friday afternoon, and Ms. Khanbabai expected the jail to close for the weekend at 5 p.m. If Ms. Ozturk were not released by then, her lawyer worried, she might not be released at all.
But a few minutes earlier, the two agents had finally retrieved Ms. Ozturk. Through the window, Ms. Khanbabai could see her filling out final paperwork. So why was the lawyer, 5-foot-4 on tiptoe, perched at the window as if she could micromanage the process? Chiding herself, she glanced away.
When she looked back, the young woman had disappeared.
Ms. Khanbabai felt a stab of panic.
In the nine months since Ms. Ozturk’s detention, tens of thousands of people have been taken into ICE custody, a way station before their forced removal from the United States. The mass deportation of immigrants was a fundamental part of President Trump’s 2024 campaign, and voters were enthusiastic. But in some cases, the Trump administration has bent rules and tested laws, transporting detainees in the dead of night, on military planes, to countries not their own.
Ms. Khanbabai was among the first lawyers to confront the deportation machine in a high-profile episode. Few knew how the administration might behave, or what laws and norms would be heeded.
That day in Louisiana, Ms. Khanbabai had to improvise minute-by-minute decisions outside a rule-bound courtroom.
Ms. Ozturk declined to speak for this article, or to have her picture taken. But Ms. Khanbabai’s account provides a look into the experience this year of immigration lawyers, who are fighting for clients against an administration that they no longer trust to follow the rules.
“A David and Goliath situation,” said Ms. Khanbabai, in one of several interviews with The New York Times in which she shared details of the episode. “It feels overwhelming.”
Asked for comment, the Department of Homeland Security, which ICE is part of, provided a statement: “The Trump administration is committed to restoring the rule of law and common sense to our immigration system, and will continue to fight for the arrest, detention and removal of aliens who have no right to be in this country.”
‘Horrible Things Could Happen’
Ms. Khanbabai, 54, regularly travels to places where the rule of law is flimsy and the possibility of violence looms large — China, Egypt and Lebanon, among others. She remembers thinking she could be picked up off the streets by security forces and nothing could be done to help her.
This year, it started happening in the United States as the Trump administration targeted students involved in pro-Palestinian demonstrations. In March, Mahmoud Khalil, a green card holder, was arrested in New York and rushed to a Louisiana jail. The same month, another legal resident, Yunseo Chung, went into hiding to escape ICE. Two weeks later, Ms. Ozturk, a 30-year-old Tufts graduate student wearing a hijab, was in the midst of a phone call when she was arrested on the street, and escorted toward a dark government vehicle.
Ms. Khanbabai felt her life had been leading to the moment of Ms. Ozturk’s arrest.
Born in Iran, she moved to Massachusetts as a child. Her father worked at a community hospital in Ware, Mass., a cosmopolitan oasis in an otherwise largely white town, where many of the other doctors were also immigrants: Filipinos, Indians, Egyptians.
While at Union College in Schenectady, N.Y., she participated in a Muslim student association, protesting on behalf of Palestinians. At Albany Law School, she was one of the few students who wore a hijab.
She graduated in 1998 and after a divorce found herself living at home in western Massachusetts, a single mother with no professional experience. But she put up fliers at the mosque and the bodega advertising her own practice. Clients began to call, many with immigration matters.
Years passed. In 2016, Mr. Trump was elected president, and Ms. Khanbabai fought his ban on travel from predominantly Muslim countries. She became vice chairwoman of the New England chapter of the immigration bar, then chair.
In 2024, the Gaza protests grew heated, and when Mr. Trump returned to office, new forms of repression were imminent. Even a foreign student who’d merely written an editorial in a college newspaper — as Ms. Ozturk had — was vulnerable.
“We had already started to think that horrible things could happen,” Ms. Khanbabai said.
Ms. Ozturk’s sudden arrest by masked agents was captured by a surveillance camera and the clip went viral. In the days that followed, Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the arrest, saying that her visa had been revoked because she was participating in a movement that had brought chaos to university campuses. He linked her editorial to the most destructive actions of the pro-Palestinian student movement.
“Why would any country in the world allow people to come and disrupt?” he said, adding that it was a privilege to study in the United States — not a right.
News of Ms. Ozturk’s arrest also traveled through a more private social network. The student had been on the phone with her mother in Turkey. Her mother phoned a friend who phoned another friend who contacted an acquaintance of Ms. Khanbabai who got in touch with the lawyer herself.
That day, Ms. Khanbabai asked a federal judge to free Ms. Ozturk.
Anxiety
Things that should have been simple were complicated. After Ms. Ozturk’s arrest, ICE had quickly moved her across state lines — New Hampshire, then Vermont and finally Louisiana — making it difficult to know which court should even hear her case.
Ms. Khanbabai had little faith in the immigration courts, given that they were overseen by Trump’s Justice Department. In April, an immigration judge denied Ms. Ozturk’s release.
She had asthma, and her attacks were becoming more frequent and more intense. She was stressed, anxious and exhausted. She and Ms. Khanbabai were talking almost every day.
Then, finally, a Vermont federal judge set a bail hearing for May 9. It would be held in a Vermont courtroom, and Ms. Ozturk would attend remotely from Louisiana. So on the afternoon of May 8, a Thursday, Ms. Khanbabai flew south to be by her side.
From New Orleans, she drove northwest toward a Cajun country town called Basile. The landscape transformed, the city giving way to serene countryside, the sun setting over Lake Pontchartrain.
Ms. Khanbabai found the whole thing surreal. Outside her window, everything was so calm and beautiful, and yet she was driving toward a jail, unsure whether the government was going to follow the law.
Ms. Khanbabai entered the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center early that Friday morning: high fences, barbed wire, prefab buildings connected by cement walkways. Inside, it smelled dank, humid and stale. Ms. Khanbabai was led through locked doors to a large, fluorescently lit room. Pictures on the wall showed children frolicking on playgrounds and people of different races holding hands.
She waited for Ms. Ozturk. The lawyer expected Ms. Ozturk to be interrogated by Vermont’s top federal prosecutor about the article she’d cowritten for a Tufts University student newspaper. It was, apparently, the sole reason Ms. Ozturk had been detained. It called on the school’s administration to recognize Israel-related resolutions passed by the student senate.
Ms. Ozturk entered the visitation room, and smiled at her lawyer. Ms. Khanbabai silenced the chatter that had dominated her thoughts, and tried to project calm and encouragement.
In the movie “Bridge of Spies,” a lawyer played by Tom Hanks asks a client facing the death penalty why he doesn’t seem worried. Each time, the client responds, “Would it help?”
That was Ms. Khanbabai’s mantra whenever her own anxiety began to build: Would it help?
Her Day in Court
The two women were escorted into a different building, where they logged on to the hearing.
It started poorly. Ms. Khanbabai struggled to read the courtroom, 1,500 miles away. The judge, William K. Sessions, seemed skeptical, and when Ms. Ozturk tried to testify about her asthma, Judge Sessions cut her short.
But when it was the government’s turn to question Ms. Ozturk, the prosecutor declined. Ms. Khanbabai began to believe her client would be released. She squeezed Ms. Ozturk’s arm, smiling.
Oh my God, she thought. I can’t believe this is finally going to happen. And immediately, she began looking ahead: If the government throws up more obstacles, how are we going to get out of here?
The government might thwart the judge’s order. A month earlier, the Supreme Court had ordered the administration to facilitate the return of a Salvadoran man from the harsh prison in that country where he had been sent. Rather than bring him back, the White House had waged a war over the meaning of “facilitate.” It took weeks for the man to be returned to the United States. He was released from jail earlier this month.
Judge Sessions began to speak: The government, he said, had introduced no evidence to suggest that Ms. Ozturk posed a public risk. Her detention could chill the speech of millions. To him, Ms. Ozturk seemed a quiet, book-loving member of the Tufts community, wholly committed to her academic career.
Shortly after noon, he ordered her release. Electronic monitoring was not required.
Alone Again
The end of the hearing marked a shift from the rule-governed environment of the courtroom to what Ms. Khanbabai saw as the caprice of an unscrupulous executive branch.
She did not want Ms. Ozturk to feel her concern.
“Let’s call your parents,” Ms. Khanbabai said, so they did, and laughed until one of the jail staffers chastised them: “You can’t make phone calls in here!”
Back in the visitation room with the sunny pictures, Ms. Khanbabai was concerned about the 5 p.m. deadline, expecting that the ICE agents might decree the day over and keep Ms. Ozturk in custody. There were hours to go.
What are they going to try to do to foil this, she thought — and what’s going to be my countermove?
They had not seen an agent since the hearing. Ms. Khanbabai asked the staff several times whether she could speak to ICE, and was assured that agents were on their way. She asked that Ms. Ozturk’s belongings be brought, too.
The hours ticked by. At 3:30 p.m., with 90 minutes to go, there was still no progress.
Then two ICE agents entered the family waiting area, both of them looming over Ms. Khanbabai. They began to review paperwork for Ms. Ozturk’s release. After some time, Ms. Khanbabai again asked for Ms. Ozturk’s belongings.
The men escorted Ms. Ozturk from the visitation room to the desk behind the locked door. Ms. Ozturk protested, but the agents insisted that the lawyer could not accompany her.
Ms. Khanbabai reassured her. “I’m going to stand right here by the door and look through the window and keep an eye on you,” she said.
She stationed herself at the window. Soon, Ms. Ozturk disappeared.
Standoff
For five long minutes, Ms. Khanbabai did not know where her client was.
Then, suddenly, Ms. Ozturk burst through the door, upset, trailed by the agents.
They’re demanding that I wear this, she told her lawyer.
She gestured at a cloth bag one of the agents held. Inside was an ankle bracelet. The agents had tried to place it on Ms. Ozturk, but she had refused.
The ICE agents told Ms. Khanbabai that they would not let her client leave without it.
Ms. Khanbabai told the ICE agents that the judge’s order specifically said that there was to be no monitoring of any kind. The agents said that they had been told the ankle bracelet was mandatory.
Ms. Khanbabai asked who had told them. “It’s from D.C.,” they said. “From headquarters.”
It was a standoff.
If Ms. Ozturk refused the bracelet, she might remain in captivity, her asthma attacks worsening. If she were forced to wear it, her imprisonment would not quite end. She would be bound by a physical reminder of her powerlessness.
Ms. Khanbabai decided that was unacceptable. Ms. Ozturk would refuse the bracelet, and the lawyer would refuse to leave the facility without her client.
Ms. Khanbabai texted the rest of Ms. Ozturk’s legal team, and her colleagues in New England raced to get a new order from the judge clarifying that Ms. Ozturk was to be released without the ankle bracelet. In Louisiana, Ms. Khanbabai and Ms. Ozturk huddled, talking quietly.
Shortly before 5, the judge gave the order that Ms. Ozturk’s team had requested. Ms. Ozturk was to be released immediately, without any ICE monitoring.
Ms. Khanbabai and Ms. Ozturk looked up at the agents, watching as they digested the order.
They said they would have to check with headquarters, and one made a phone call. Ms. Khanbabai tried not to imagine the worst. Would it help?
The call lasted a few minutes. When the agent was done, he walked over to Ms. Khanbabai and Ms. Ozturk.
Ms. Ozturk, he said, would not have to wear the ankle bracelet.
‘Say Something and Stand Up’
This month, Ms. Ozturk’s legal status as a student was restored; she is in the country lawfully. Nonetheless, Mr. Rubio’s revocation of her visa stands, which means that she continues to face the threat of deportation.
In its statement, the Homeland Security Department said that ICE had been right to terminate Ms. Ozturk’s legal status as a student.
“We also have the right to put illegal aliens on GPS monitors,” the statement said. “Visas provided to foreign students to live, study and work in the United States are a privilege, not a right.”
Ms. Khanbabai feels far more optimistic than she did on that day in May.
“Things have changed already so much within the legal community and their willingness to say something and stand up to the Trump administration,” she said.
That day in Basile, she was relieved, ecstatic that the system had worked. Ms. Ozturk was given her things and an officer led them to a door that led to the outside world. Ms. Khanbabai walked side by side with her client. Several more doors, then fresh air.
It was raining. Ms. Ozturk thanked reporters for being there, smiling and polite, but told them she was too tired to speak at length. She has barely spoken to the press since. She was yanked into public life against her will, and exited as soon as she could.
Ms. Khanbabai spoke to reporters far more effusively about the meaning of Ms. Ozturk’s release, emphasizing one specific point. “There is hope,” she told them.
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14) I Counted Trump’s Censorship Attempts. Here’s What I Found.
By Nora Benavidez, Dec. 31, 2025
Ms. Benavidez is the senior counsel for the media policy organization Free Press.
Pete Marovich for The New York Times
“We took the freedom of speech away.”
That was part of President Trump’s explanation in October of his executive order that purports to criminalize burning the American flag. Though his words fail as a constitutional rationale, they inadvertently distill many of his efforts at smothering dissent during the past 11 months.
Since returning to office, Mr. Trump and his administration have tried to undermine the First Amendment, suppress information that he and his supporters don’t like and hamstring parts of the academic, legal and private sectors through lawsuits and coercion — to flood the zone, as his ally, Steve Bannon, might say.
Some examples are well known, such as when ABC briefly took Jimmy Kimmel off the air after Brendan Carr, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, objected to a reference in one of Mr. Kimmel’s monologues about the killing of Charlie Kirk. Other examples received less attention, but by my count, this year there were about 200 instances of administration attempts at censorship, nearly all of which I outline in a new report.
Mr. Trump’s playbook isn’t random. It employs several recurring modes of attack.
The president has tried to cow the press. His administration banned Associated Press reporters from certain parts of the White House and Air Force One because the outlet uses “Gulf of Mexico” rather than the term Mr. Trump prefers, “Gulf of America.” It tried and failed to force some of the nation’s biggest news organizations to agree to restrictions on coverage of the Pentagon. He has said critical coverage of his initiatives is “really illegal.”
A journalist from El Salvador, Mario Guevara, was arrested while reporting on a No Kings protest in Georgia; he was detained for more than three months, then deported. At an Oval Office meeting between Mr. Trump and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, an ABC News correspondent, Mary Bruce, asked about the killing of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and about the Jeffrey Epstein files. Mr. Trump replied by berating her at length, at one point describing one of her questions as “insubordinate” — a characterization that upends the entire notion of a free press.
The administration has used immigration status to try to suppress political speech. In March, Mahmoud Khalil, a green card holder and a leader of pro-Palestinian demonstrations on the Columbia campus, was arrested and detained by immigration officials for several months. That month, Rumeysa Ozturk, a student visa holder, was arrested by immigration officials and detained for several weeks, apparently because she was an author of an opinion essay criticizing Tufts University for its response to the Israel-Hamas war.
It seems almost no one is beyond the scope of administration efforts to muzzle views or decisions that conflict with Mr. Trump’s agenda: After Federal District Court Judge James Boasberg ruled against the administration in a case involving the deportation of Venezuelans to El Salvador, Mr. Trump called for the judge to be impeached. A trainee was dismissed from the F.B.I.’s academy, apparently for having displayed an L.G.B.T.Q. Pride flag. The F.B.I. also appears to have fired agents for kneeling during George Floyd protests.
At a news conference in Tampa, Fla., Kristi Noem, the secretary of homeland security, asserted that filming Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers while they are in the field is tantamount to violence. In Los Angeles, Senator Alex Padilla, Democrat of California, was forced to the ground and handcuffed after interjecting at a news conference held by Ms. Noem.
In just the past few days, the administration has banned a former member of the European Commission and four European researchers from the United States, claiming that their efforts to fight disinformation and hate speech online amount to censorship of Americans.
The president federalized and deployed the National Guard in Los Angeles; a federal appeals court found that his administration had illegally prolonged the deployment. He similarly sent the National Guard to the Chicago area — an action that the Supreme Court, for now, has blocked.
As part of the administration’s war on so-called wokeness, it has identified hundreds of words, with the intent of curtailing their use. Mr. Trump issued an executive order directing staff members at national parks and museums to get rid of content that, he says, portrays America “in a negative light.” Just two days after Inauguration Day, the Justice Department’s chief of staff sent a memo calling for a “litigation freeze” in the department’s civil rights division.
Two of Mr. Trump’s perceived political adversaries — James Comey, a former F.B.I. director, and Letitia James, the New York attorney general — were criminally charged (in cases now both dismissed) that were difficult to see as anything other than revenge prosecutions. A few days into his term, the president fired more than a dozen inspectors general from various federal government agencies.
Some of the nation’s biggest law firms — including Paul, Weiss and Kirkland & Ellis — have caved under presidential pressure and signed deals agreeing to contribute pro bono work for causes dictated by the administration. Several prestigious universities submitted to agreements in which they committed to change certain policies and, in some cases, pay what amounts to millions of dollars in fines.
Mr. Trump has sued social media platforms for their content moderation policies — free-speech decisions, in other words — leading to Meta, X and YouTube capitulating through settlements totaling around $60 million.
These examples are just a sampling from the administration’s relentless campaign to stifle dissent. What is important to recognize is that these efforts work in concert in their frequency and their volume: Even the most egregious cases seem to quickly fade from public consciousness, and in that way, they’re clearly meant to overwhelm us and make us think twice about exercising our rights.
Over the past year, individual and communal acts of resistance have blunted the potency of Mr. Trump’s censorship campaign and contributed to his declining approval ratings. Unquestionably, more and more Americans are rejecting his overreach.
But constitutional rights and democratic norms don’t disappear all at once; they erode slowly. The next three years will require a vigilant defense of free speech and open debate.
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