Embarcadero Plaza
2:00 P.M.San Francisco, CA
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March for Peace & Justice, not more WAR
Saturday, March 14th, in the annual Saint Patrick’s Day Parade.
Veterans For Peace (VFP) San Francisco chapter #69 has marched in the huge annual SF Saint Patrick’s Day Parade since 2012, marching for Palestine and against All Wars. Now the U.S. and Israel are bombing Iran! Join us!
The Irish government and People were the First in Europe to stand up to Israeli genocide and Call for a Ceasefire. They are again calling for a Ceasefire in the Entire Middle East.
VFP & “About Face – Veterans Against the War” (POST 9/11 vets), along with CodePink will be the official organizations representing our contingent. All Anti-War individuals are ASKED TO JOIN US!
The parade is viewed by thousands. We will be handing out an Informational Leaflet to those watching the parade.
Two years ago we had a very large contingent, with lots of Palestinian flags, and won First Place for a “Military” Unit!
Join us!
LOGISTICS:
· Saturday, March 14th. Muster by 11:30 AM on Second Street, between Bryant & Brannan – 5 ½ blocks South of Market St. on Second.
· We will have a vehicle as well. Our Official Number in the parade is #87.
· Bring Veterans For Peace banners, flags, etc. We will have US, Irish and VFP flags and banners - and a Palestinian flag as well. All to be carried by participants or taped to the vehicle.
CONTACTS: VFP SF Chapter 69 Organizers:
Nadya Williams - CELL: (415) 845-9492, EMAIL: nadyanomad@gmail.com
Louis Flores – CELL: (925) 550-9775, EMAIL: louisflores2468@comcast.net
Mike Wong - EMAIL: mikevfp69@gmail.com
Please join us on March 14 as we march for peace and justice through diplomacy not more war!
Eleanor Levine
CodePink, SF Bay Area
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March 19: The Voice of Hind Rajab Screening @ Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA) Offices
1101 Eighth St, Berkeley, CA 94710, USA
Join the Middle East Children's Alliance for our screening of The Voice of Hind Rajab. This tragic docudrama, written and directed by Kaouther Ben Hania, follows the Red Crescent response during the killing of Hind Rajab, a six-year-old Palestinian girl, by the Israel Occupation Forces during the Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip. It stars Saja Kilani, Motaz Malhees, Amer Hlehel, and Clara Khoury.
Tickets: $10.00
https://events.humanitix.com/the-voice-of-hind-rajab?emci=a59ade92-0318-f111-a69a-000d3a1f0a97&emdi=7c21261a-2118-f111-a69a-000d3a1f0a97&ceid=2453624*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
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Saturday, March 28
11:30 A.M. – 3:00 P.M.
Embarcadero Plaza
Market and Steuart Street
San Francisco, CA 94105
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Veterans For Peace Condemns
U.S. Attack on Iran
Military Members and Civilians:
Resist Illegal Wars!
Veterans For Peace condemns the U.S./Israeli attack on Iran in the strongest possible terms. We call on our members, friends, and allies to resist this dangerous and illegal war. We offer our support to members of the military who decide to refuse illegal orders and resist an illegal war.
A War Based on Lies
The Trump administration’s ever-changing rationales for going to war against Iran are lies. Iran posed no threat to the United States. This military operation is not a defensive war, but rather a war of choice by Israel and the U.S., a war of aggression, a war for regime change – very much like the disastrous U.S. wars that killed millions of people in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan – wars that many veterans remember with horror and regret.
Contrary to President Trump’s oft-repeated lie, Iran has repeatedly stated that it has no intention of acquiring nuclear weapons. Rather, the United States, the only country to attack another nation with nuclear weapons, has unilaterally abrogated multiple arms control treaties, and is investing Two Trillion Dollars in a new generation of nuclear weapons. It was the U.S., not Iran, that violated and withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal. Israel also has nuclear weapons – undeclared and uninspected. Two nuclear powers attacking Iran, claiming to stop it from pursuing a nuclear program, is the height of hypocrisy.
The aggression against Iran follows by less than two months the U.S. attack on Venezuela and the unlawful abduction of its president and wife. It comes amid the ongoing war threats and oil blockade of Cuba. This complete disregard and abuse of the process of negotiations only encourages nuclear proliferation around the world.
Illegal and Unconstitutional
The U.S. war on Iran is illegal in multiple ways. It is a violation of the UN Charter, a treaty which is the “supreme law of the land” under Article VI of the U.S. Constitution. Article 2(4) of the UN Charter states, “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.”
The unilateral war of aggression against Iran is a blatant violation of the U.S. Constitution, which explicitly grants Congress the sole authority to declare war. This power was intentionally given to the legislative branch to prevent unilateral military action by a single executive.
These legal and constitutional issues may seem quaint to those of us who have seen them routinely violated by president after president with the complicity of a supine Congress. Nonetheless, they constitute both international and domestic law. They are the legal codification of a moral framework for international peace and cooperation. Peace-loving people must struggle to ensure that these laws are followed. We must hold our government officials accountable when they are not.
Refuse Illegal Orders – Resist Illegal Wars
Veterans For Peace reminds our sisters and brothers, children, and grandchildren in the U.S. military that an order to participate in an illegal war is, by extension, an illegal order. You have the right and even the duty to refuse illegal orders. Veterans For Peace and many others will stand with you when you do, and provide helpful information and resources. Whatever legal consequences you may endure pale compared to risking your life in an illegal war or living with Post Traumatic Stress and Moral Injury.
Veterans and civilians also have the right and the responsibility to resist the illegal actions of our government at home and abroad. This attack is a very critical moment in the history of the United States and the world. We must be in the streets protesting. We must be on our phones telling our representatives to Vote Yes on the Iran War Powers resolution. We must be on our keyboards, writing letters to the editors. Tell them to:
IMMEDIATELY HALT U.S. MILITARY ATTACKS ON IRAN!
· End U.S. Support for Israel and Genocide in Palestine!
· End Economic Warfare against Iran, Venezuela, and Cuba!
· End ICE and Authoritarian Repression in U.S. Cities!
· Abolish Nuclear Weapons and War!
PEACE AT HOME, PEACE ABROAD!
https://prod.cdn.everyaction.com/emails/van/EA/EA015/1/94223/Alqa3p0mdFGQOfwCaEOYO6dpWCJEn2qC1GPoEaid_7O_archive?emci=6196a802-9415-f111-a69a-000d3a57593f&emdi=d3c0d4a7-a515-f111-a69a-000d3a57593f&ceid=10474381
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Tell Congress: No War On Iran!
On Saturday, February 28th, the United States and Israel bombed Iran’s capital. Shortly after, President Donald Trump announced a planned prolonged war against Iran and stated that American servicemembers would likely be killed in the process. He addressed Iranians, telling them to stay inside because bombs would be dropping all over Iran, and called on them to overthrow their government. The self-proclaimed “peace president” has launched yet another endless war – risking millions of human lives. The entire world should be outraged.
Tell Congress we want PEACE with Iran, we don’t want the US bombing Iran, we don’t want a regime change war, and we want to lift the sanctions that are hurting everyday Iranians.
https://www.codepink.org/iranaction
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The Trump administration is escalating its attack on Cuba, cutting off the island’s access to oil in a deliberate attempt to induce famine and mass suffering. This is collective punishment, plain and simple.
In response, we’re releasing a public Call to Conscience, already signed by influential public figures, elected officials, artists, and organizations—including 22 members of the New York City Council, Kal Penn, Mark Ruffalo, Susan Sarandon, Alice Walker, 50501, Movement for Black Lives, The People’s Forum, IFCO Pastors for Peace, ANSWER Coalition, and many others—demanding an end to this brutal policy.
The letter is open for everyone to sign. Add your name today. Cutting off energy to an island nation is not policy—it is a tactic of starvation.
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Petition to Force Amazon to Cut ICE Contracts!
https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-amazon-end-contracts-with-ice/?source=group-amazon-labor-union&referrer=group-amazon-labor-
Amazon Labor Union
Over 600,000 messages have already been sent directly to Amazon board members demanding one thing: Amazon must stop fueling deportations by ending its contracts with ICE and DHS.
ICE and DHS rely on the data infrastructure provided by Amazon Web Services. Their campaign against immigrants and those who stand with them depends on the logistical, financial, and political support of companies like Amazon.
But workers and communities have real power when we act collectively. That’s why we must expose Amazon’s role in the deportation machine. Help us reach 1 million messages and force Amazon to act by signing our petition with The Labor Force today:
Tell Amazon: End contracts with ICE!
On Cyber Monday 2025, Amazon workers rallied outside of Amazon’s NYC headquarters to demand that Amazon stop fueling mass deportations through Amazon Web Services’ contracts with ICE and DHS.
ICE cannot operate without corporate backing; its campaign against immigrants and those who stand with them depends on the logistical, financial, and political support of companies like Amazon. Mega-corporations may appear untouchable, but they are not. Anti-authoritarian movements have long understood that repression is sustained by a network of institutional enablers and when those enablers are disrupted, state violence weakens. Workers and communities have real power when they act collectively. That is why we must expose Amazon’s role in the deportation machine.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) rely on Amazon Web Services (AWS) as its most commonly used cloud platform. DHS and ICE cannot wage their attack on immigrants without the critical data infrastructure that Amazon Web Services provide, allowing the agencies to collect, analyze, and store the massive amounts of data they need to do their dirty work. Without the power of AWS, ICE would not be able to track and target people at its current scale.
ICE and DHS use Amazon Web Services to collect and store massive amounts of purchased data on immigrants and their friends and family–everything from biometric data, DMV data, cellphone records, and more. And through its contracts with Palantir, DHS is able to scour regional, local, state, and federal databases and analyze and store this data on AWS. All of this information is ultimately used to target immigrants and other members of our communities.
No corporation should profit from oppression and abuse. Yet Amazon is raking in tens of millions of dollars to fuel DHS and ICE, while grossly exploiting its own workers. Can you sign our petition today, demanding that Amazon stop fueling deportations by ending its contracts with DHS and ICE, now?
https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-amazon-end-contracts-with-ice/?source=group-amazon-labor-union&referrer=group-amazon-labor-
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End Texas Torture of Revolutionary Elder Xinachtli
Organization Support Letter
Letter to demand the immediate medical treatment and release of Chicano political prisoner Xinachtli (Alvaro Hernandez #00255735)
To the Texas Department of Criminal Justice,
We, the undersigned organizations, write to urge immediate action to protect the life, health, and human rights of Xinachtli (legal name Alvaro Hernandez). Xinachtli is 73-year-old Chicano community organizer from Texas who has spent 23 years in solitary confinement and 30 years incarcerated as part of a 50-year sentence. His health is now in a critical and life-threatening state and requires prompt and comprehensive medical intervention.
Since his conviction in 1997, Xinachtli has spent decades in conditions that have caused significant physical and psychological harm. As an elder in worsening health, these conditions have effectively become a de facto death sentence.
Xinachtli’s current medical condition is severe. His physical, mental, and overall well-being have declined rapidly in recent weeks. He now requires both a wheelchair and a walker, has experienced multiple falls, and is suffering from rapid weight loss. He is currently housed in the McConnell Unit infirmary, where he is receiving only palliative measures and is being denied a medical diagnosis, access to his medical records, and adequate diagnostic testing or treatment.
A virtual clinical visit with licensed medical doctor Dr. Dona Kim Murphey underscores the severity of his condition. In her report of the visit, she wrote: "Given the history of recent neck/back trauma and recurrent urinary tract infections with numbness, weakness, and bowel and bladder incontinence, I am concerned about nerve root or spinal cord injury and/or abscesses that can lead to permanent sensorimotor dysfunction."
Despite his age and visible disabilities, he remains in solitary confinement under the Security Threat Group designation as a 73-year-old. During his time in the infirmary, prison staff threw away all of his belongings and “lost” his commissary card, leaving him completely without basic necessities. He is experiencing hunger, and the lack of consistent nutrition is worsening his medical condition. McConnell Unit staff have also consistently given him incorrect forms, including forms for medical records and medical visitation, creating further barriers to care and communication.
A family visit on November 29 confirmed the seriousness of his condition. Xinachtli, who was once able to walk on his own, can no longer stand without assistance. He struggled to breathe, has lost more than 30 pounds, relied heavily on his wheelchair, and was in severe pain throughout the visit.
In light of these conditions, we, the undersigned organizations, demand that TDCJ take immediate action to save Xinachtli’s life and comply with its legal and ethical obligations.
We urge the immediate implementation of the following actions:
Immediate re-instatement of his access to commissary to buy hygiene, food, and other critical items. Immediate transfer to the TDCJ hospital in Galveston for a full medical evaluation and treatment, including complete access to his medical records and full transparency regarding all procedures. Transfer to a geriatric and medical unit that is fully accessible under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Xinachtli requests placement at the Richard P LeBlanc Unit in Beaumont, Texas. Approval of Medical Recommended Intensive Supervision, the release program for individuals with serious medical conditions and disabilities, in recognition of the severity and progression of his current health issues. Failure to act will result in the continued and foreseeable deterioration of Xinachtli’s health, amounting to state-sanctioned death. We urge TDCJ to take swift and decisive action to meet these requests and to fulfill its responsibility to safeguard his life and well-being.
We stand united in calling for immediate and decisive action. Xinachtli’s life depends on it.
Signed, Xinachtli Freedom Campaign and supporting organizations
Endorsing Organizations:
Al-Awda Houston; All African People’s Revolutionary Party; Anakbayan Houston; Anti-Imperialist Solidarity; Artists for Black Lives' Equality; Black Alliance for Peace - Solidarity Network; Columbia University Students for a Democratic Society; Community Liberation Programs; Community Powered ATX; Contra Gentrificación; Diaspora Pa’lante Collective; Down South; DSA Emerge; Entre nos kc; Fighting Racism Workshops; Frontera Water Protectors; GC Harm Reductionists; JERICHO MOVEMENT; Jericho Movement Providence; Montrose Anarchist Collective; NYC Jericho Movement; OC Focus; Palestine Solidarity TX; Partisan Defense Committee; Partido Nacional de la Raza Unida; PDX Anti-Repression; Red Star Texas; Root Cause; San Francisco Solidarity Collective; Shine White Support Team; Sunrise Columbia; UC San Diego Faculty for Justice in Palestine; Viva Palestina, EPTX; Water Justice and Technology Studio; Workshops4Gaza.
Sign the endorsement letter for your organization here:
https://cryptpad.fr/form/#/2/form/view/MiR1f+iLiRBJC7gSTyfhyxJoLIDhThxRafPatxdbMWI/
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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Self-portrait by Kevin Cooper
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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 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 auth *..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........* *..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........* |
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) South African President Talks Trump, Racism and That Oval Office ‘Ambush’
In an interview with The New York Times, President Cyril Ramaphosa opened up about the role of middle powers, relations with Washington and apartheid.
By John Eligon and Zimasa Matiwane, March 5, 2026
The reporters interviewed South Africa’s president at his office in Cape Town.
“The tensions between South Africa and the Trump administration erupted early last year after Mr. Ramaphosa signed into law a measure that would allow the government to take privately held land without providing compensation. Though white South Africans make up roughly 7 percent of the population, white-owned farms still cover about half the country’s entire surface area.”
President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa opened up about his relationship with President Trump. Joao Silva/The New York Times
The reporters interviewed South Africa’s president at his office in Cape Town.
When South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, visited President Trump in the Oval Office last year, he expected to correct Mr. Trump’s false claim that white South Africans were being killed and discriminated against because of their race.
Mr. Ramaphosa said the Oval Office meeting turned into a “spectacle” and an “ambush” instead of a discussion, during which Mr. Trump handed him a stack of newspaper clippings, some of which were unrelated to South Africa, dimmed the lights and presented misleading video footage to double down on his point.
Mr. Trump even suggested that white South Africans now have it as bad as Black people did during apartheid.
“I just thought that he is so uninformed, truly uninformed,” Mr. Ramaphosa said of Mr. Trump. “I realized that he is looking at South Africa through a completely, sort of, foggy lens, without realizing the real, real harm that apartheid did. In my view, he was just dismissive.”
In an interview with The New York Times, Mr. Ramaphosa spoke about his relationship with the American president and the challenges facing South Africa in a world where consensus building and multilateral cooperation appear to be falling away. He called some of Mr. Trump’s policies “racist,” said that Ukraine should not seek to join NATO and pressed the importance of “nonaligned” middle powers like his, particularly during times of crisis and conflict.
The interview took place before last week’s attack by the United States and Israel on Iran, a country that Mr. Ramaphosa and his government have been criticized by Western allies for supporting. Yet Mr. Ramaphosa defended his country’s relations with Tehran, arguing that South Africa’s critics “have much deeper dealings with the very countries that they malign.”
Mr. Ramaphosa, 73, and his country have become regular targets of the second Trump administration. Mr. Trump and his officials have accused South Africa of “doing very bad things,” imposed steep tariffs, cut American aid and created a pathway for Afrikaners, a white ethnic minority, to enter the United States as refugees.
“I do think the Afrikaner policy is racist,” Mr. Ramaphosa said. “It is that racist sort of demeanor that we want to be able to whittle down so that he can see the truth of the situation.”
Mr. Trump is calling attention to “the harrowing stories of Afrikaners,” the White House said in a statement to The Times. “The South African government, at minimum, does not respond, but President Trump has a humanitarian heart. He will continue to speak the truth about these injustices.”
One of Nelson Mandela’s closest lieutenants during apartheid, Mr. Ramaphosa became president in 2018. He acknowledged that South Africa would continue its effort to improve relations with the Trump administration despite the Oval Office blowup and even though “it is irritating, it is demeaning at times when we are insulted.”
But as he sat in a slightly stuffy room in a presidential office in Cape Town with the air-conditioning switched off — it makes him sick — he opened up about how Mr. Trump appeared to be ignorant when it came to the facts on South Africa.
“I think he’s just bereft of any reality about what South Africa is all about and what it stands for,” he said. “We are rather amazed at the attention he gives to us. We are a small country, and we are no threat to the United States.” He said he believed that Mr. Trump’s visa restrictions and bans unfairly targeted African nations and were driven by “a racist demeanor.”
Mr. Ramaphosa has fashioned himself as one of Africa’s leading statesmen. He leads the continent’s largest economy and has lobbied for more African influence on the global stage. “Africa is the future,” he said.
He emphasized that he is in touch with both Iran and China, the United States and the United Nations. (No, South Africa will not be joining the Board of Peace, he said, but he does want African representation on the United Nations Security Council.)
He has also served as a mediator between Presidents Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. As Mr. Ramaphosa sees it, Ukraine’s effort to join NATO was a central cause of the conflict between the two nations. And given that it was one of the causes of the war, he said, Russia’s demand that Ukraine not join NATO “needs to heeded.”
“At the same time, the guarantees that Ukraine wants also need to be heeded,” said Mr. Ramaphosa. “There needs to be a balance.”
The tensions between South Africa and the Trump administration erupted early last year after Mr. Ramaphosa signed into law a measure that would allow the government to take privately held land without providing compensation. Though white South Africans make up roughly 7 percent of the population, white-owned farms still cover about half the country’s entire surface area.
The law is meant, in part, to undo the severe wealth and ownership disparities in South Africa that were created when the white-led colonial and apartheid governments forcibly removed Black people from their land. Redressing such imbalances has been a central pillar of Mr. Ramaphosa’s party, the African National Congress.
But Mr. Trump saw in the law what some South Africans say is anti-white racism. Mr. Trump said falsely that the South African government was using the law to seize white-owned land and that Afrikaners were being targeted and killed, a situation he said amounted to genocide. (No land has been seized as part of the new legislation.)
“There’s no white genocide and there is no grabbing of land, of white people’s land,” Mr. Ramaphosa told The Times. “And white farmers are not being driven out of the country and badly treated.”
He said he was “truly bemused” when Mr. Trump turned down the lights to play the video in the Oval Office. “I didn’t know what was happening,” he said. “As I sort of unpacked it later, I realized that it was an ambush, and I was least prepared for that.”
In the months after that meeting, Mr. Trump has continued his attacks on South Africa, slapped the country with 30 percent tariffs — among the highest in Africa — skipped the Group of 20 meeting in Johannesburg and disinvited South Africa from this year’s G20 meeting hosted by Mr. Trump in Florida.
Mr. Ramaphosa said he invited Mr. Trump for a state visit ahead of the G20 summit last November but did not receive a response. The White House meeting “in many ways, just shook the relationship quite a bit,” he said.
But he said he had not lost hope.
The United States is South Africa’s second-largest trading partner. Away from the cameras, officials from both countries have continued to talk, particularly on trade. “The quiet layer of the relationship continues,” Mr. Ramaphosa said. “It continues because the United States is a strategic country for us.”
He pointed out that South Africa had not been kicked out of a long-running trade agreement between the United States and dozens of African countries, a sign, he said, that efforts to maintain ties were bearing fruit.
“Time is a great healer,” he said.
Mr. Ramaphosa said his optimism was shaped by the dark days of apartheid, when he was arrested twice and almost killed during a police crackdown on protests. “Many people, in looking at the South African situation, would have lost hope. It seemed intractable,” he said.
But Mr. Mandela and many other heroes of the liberation struggle never gave up.
“My hope derives from that human spirit that resides in all of us,” Mr. Ramaphosa said. “And that human spirit to want to do good, to advance, will forever remain embedded in humanity.”
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2) Why Does Child Care Seem Less Affordable Than Ever?
It has always been expensive, but recently prices have risen faster than inflation.
By Asmaa Elkeurti and Claire Cain Miller, March 5, 2026
Sherry Picha runs a child-care center in La Crosse, Wis. She has a second job because it pays so little. Tim Gruber for The New York Times
Child care has always been a large expense in parents’ lives. Recently, it has become even more so.
Though costs vary depending on where you live, families earning the median income in every U.S. state spend far more than the 7 percent of household income that the Department of Health and Human Services considers affordable.
In, Alabama, the average cost for Infant care was $22,628 per year in 2024, which is 20.0% of the median state family income.
Prices reflect center-based care. Source: Child Care Aware 2024 state surveys and U.S. Census Bureau state-level family median income. By The New York Times
Nationally, the cost of child care now significantly outpaces inflation, rising 8 percent since June 2024, compared with a 4 percent increase in general inflation.
It’s one of the main factors weighing on Americans’ economic outlook, according to New York Times/Siena University polling, which found that affordability concerns are largely about the costs of family life — things like paying for child care, health care and a home. In most states, the average price for child care is even higher than in-state college tuition.
In high-profile races last fall for governor of New Jersey and Virginia and mayor of New York City, the winning candidates all made child care affordability a key issue, including Zohran Mamdani’s pledge to make it free in New York.
Child care has become more expensive because providers’ operating expenses have increased, largely from higher costs and shrinking government financing. And because the business operates on very slim margins, higher costs almost always mean higher fees.
Erica Phillips, the executive director of the National Association for Family Child Care, said care for her 9-month-old and 7-year-old in New Rochelle, N.Y., costs nearly as much as her mortgage, forcing her family to make do with one car and cut back on retirement savings.
“Every winter we have to carefully go over our budget and adjust around child care expenses,” Ms. Phillips said.
Rising costs
Today’s high prices are in part a result of the pandemic, which stressed an already precarious business. Other factors have continued to drive up costs. In a survey of child care providers released last week by the National Association for the Education of Young Children, most said that expenses had increased in the last year — significantly more than said so in 2025 — and that they had raised fees as a result.
More child care providers are citing higher costs than before
Percent of survey respondents who said these expenses had gone up the previous year:
Inflation has driven up the prices of supplies and food — in the new survey, nine in 10 respondents said those costs had risen in the last year.
By far the largest expense for child care providers is wages.
The work is labor-intensive, with strict limits set by state governments on the number of children each worker can care for. Pay is the most important contributor to high-quality care, research shows.
Yet the median wage for child care workers is $13 an hour. As states and cities have raised the minimum wage, child care providers said they increasingly compete for workers with fast food jobs paying as much as $20 an hour. Hiring has also become harder as increased immigration enforcement has reduced the number of foreign-born child care workers.
Unlike many industries, which can absorb wage increases by making cuts elsewhere or automating tasks, child care providers have little choice but to pass on wage increases to parents, or decrease their already-low profits.
“I could either raise the prices to where the parents probably couldn’t afford it or not give the workers raises or me take a cut, and I chose myself to take the cut,” said Wanda Crawford, who for three decades has run Ms. Wanda’s Daycare in Nashville, where price increases have been particularly steep. “Being rich is not a part of it. I continue to do it because of my love of working with kids.”
Falling government support
To help pay for child care, millions of low-income families are eligible for subsidies from states and the federal government, the largest source of which is something known as the child care block grant.
But in recent months, many states have cut that funding, facing budget constraints. They are helping fewer families with fees and lowering reimbursement rates. Some states had also temporarily given money to child care providers after the federal pandemic aid for the sector expired, and most of that has now ended too.
In the new survey, nearly one-third of providers said federal or state funding for their program had declined in the past year.
Government support could decrease further: In January, the Trump administration said it planned to freeze $10 billion in funding for child care and other family services in five Democratic states. A judge has temporarily blocked the move.
Sherry Picha and her daughter run a child-care center in La Crosse, Wis. After federal pandemic funding expired, the state provided monthly payments of $13,000 to help offset operating costs, but those end this summer.
Ms. Picha doesn’t know where she’ll make up the difference. Ninety-seven percent of her costs are for wages and benefits for workers, and she and her daughter split a $47,000 salary. She has a second job, teaching part time, to make ends meet.
“You look at those numbers, and you see this is not getting better, this is only getting worse,” she said.
Some policies meant to improve the quality of child care or make it accessible to more children have wound up making it more expensive.
As more cities and states offer public pre-K, for example, it sometimes has the unintended consequence of increasing the cost of care for infants and toddlers. Caring for older children costs less because there can be more of them with each adult. As a result, their tuition helps offset the cost of caring for younger children — and when they enter public programs, infant care costs rise.
Efforts to improve quality — like requiring facility upgrades or caregivers who have college degrees — can also result in higher prices, said RB Fast, who has worked in child care for nearly three decades and opened her own program in Denver in 2022.
“There’s a big effort to improve quality, which is great and I fully support,” she said. “But the government wants it but doesn’t give money, which means it’s the parents who are going to pay for that quality.”
She has, reluctantly, raised fees each year. After taking a significant loss last year, she’s considering closing: “I can’t just not pay myself forever.”
What could help
One solution is for the government to help by financing child-care centers or offsetting parents’ fees — which is what most other rich countries do.
“If you’re looking at trying to reduce the cost to families, the solution lies in how you’re going to subsidize it — there’s not much to do to run down the cost of child care,” said Hailey Gibbs, associate director of early childhood policy at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank.
Democrats have, in every Congress since 2017, proposed that the government subsidize child care fees so no working family pays more than 7 percent of their income.
When Donald J. Trump was a candidate in 2024, a spokeswoman said he planned to reduce child care prices. But his administration has done little on family policy beyond expanding the child tax credit, and has in some cases blocked child care funding.
Other Republicans, along with Democrats, have generally endorsed tax credits or child allowances — which parents could use as they see fit, including to stay home with children — or an expansion of the child care block grant to cover more low-income families. Another idea is for employers to subsidize child care the way they do health insurance.
But the current approach — parents paying more — is unsustainable, researchers and child care providers said.
“It is a lot of money, but it’s because of the quality, the skilled professionals,” said Nina Buthee, executive director of EveryChild California, an industry group. “It should cost that money — it should cost even more than that — but all that burden shouldn’t be placed on the individual parents.”
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3) He Didn’t Kill Anyone. Alabama Is About to Execute Him Anyway.
By Elizabeth Vartkessian, March 5, 2026
Ms. Vartkessian has investigated death penalty cases on behalf of defendants for over two decades
Tarini Sharma
Sonny Burton is not a killer. No one disputes this. Yet he has spent nearly half his life on death row. At age 75, he spends most of his days in a wheelchair and wears a padded helmet because he falls frequently.
Unless Kay Ivey, the governor of Alabama, decides to commute Mr. Burton’s sentence, the state is set to kill him on March 12. In the near decade she has been governor, clemency is a mercy that Ms. Ivey has bestowed just once.
Here are the facts of Mr. Burton’s case: On a summer day in 1991, he accompanied Derrick DeBruce and four other men to an AutoZone store in Talladega. He carried a gun. He traumatized people. He stole recklessly. Then, Mr. Burton left the store. Mr. DeBruce stayed behind and killed a man.
Mr. DeBruce was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Mr. Burton was also convicted of murder and was sentenced under a state law that permits accomplices to receive the death penalty if a murder happens during the course of another felony, like a robbery.
After Mr. DeBruce appealed his case, the State of Alabama told the court that relief for Mr. DeBruce would lead to an “arguably unjust” result: Mr. Burton would remain on death row while the person who actually took the man’s life would receive a lesser sentence. Still, Mr. DeBruce’s death sentence was vacated and he was resentenced to life without the possibility of parole.
I have worked on death penalty cases for over two decades as a mitigation specialist — a member of the defense team who carries out the investigation into the background of a person accused of murder. I closely track all executions in America, and the prospect of Mr. Burton being killed is sticking in my bones. It is exceptionally rare for someone like Mr. Burton to be executed when all sides agree that he did not kill the victim. Governors of other states with similar laws have granted clemency under such conditions. Yet Mr. Burton’s execution date remains fixed.
In a state with some of the most overcrowded and deadly prisons in the country, Mr. Burton’s case provides an opportunity for a different kind of justice to prevail. In choosing mercy for Mr. Burton, Governor Ivey would not just be extending grace to a man who deserves it; she would be challenging a culture of indifference that has allowed Alabama’s prison system to grow too comfortable with its own inhumanity.
Several jurors from Mr. Burton’s trial have said that they do not want him to be killed. Tori Battle, the daughter of Doug Battle — the man who was killed at the AutoZone — also doesn’t want the state to kill in her father’s name. In an essay published in December, Ms. Battle wrote that her opposition to Mr. Burton’s execution embodies the values her father lived by. “Justice can be measured by our commitment to truth and our willingness to show mercy,” she wrote.
If Ms. Ivey doesn’t intervene, Mr. Burton will be lifted onto a gurney where officers will affix a mask to his face and suffocate him with lethal nitrogen gas. It is a method of killing that the American Veterinary Medical Association has declared inappropriate for euthanizing most animals. If his execution goes the way previous nitrogen executions have gone, he will writhe on the gurney for minutes before losing consciousness.
Although a handful of states allow for nitrogen gas to be used in executions, Alabama was the first to try it when it killed Kenneth Eugene Smith in 2024. That was after Mr. Smith survived an attempted lethal injection of drugs in 2022, when executioners repeatedly punctured his arms and chest with needles, unable to establish intravenous lines; in all, Mr. Smith spent four hours strapped to a gurney waiting to die.
If Mr. Burton’s execution proceeds, he will be yet another casualty of the indifference pervasive throughout Alabama’s legal system. In 2019, the Justice Department released a report detailing rampant and unchecked violence in the state’s prisons. Page after page contained accounts of prisoners who were tortured, raped, burned, sodomized, stabbed and killed in mostly unsupervised dorms. Instead of using this report as an impetus for change, Alabama seems to have largely accepted the status quo. Prisons remain understaffed and overcrowded. Well over 1,000 people have died inside the state’s prisons since the report came out. Recently, I sat with a client who is incarcerated in the maximum-security prison in Bessemer. He scanned the room nervously as he recounted the stabbings he had witnessed since I had seen him months earlier.
Justice includes mercy. It must. What we allow for one person, regardless of the individual’s circumstance, we permit for all people. Indifference cannot be allowed to prevail. With Sonny Burton’s case, Alabama has a chance to pivot toward a more humane form of justice. In a state that rarely shows mercy to those behind bars, here is an opening. Let us hope Governor Ivey will take it.
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4) Analysis Suggests School Was Hit Amid U.S. Strikes on Iranian Naval Base
The Feb. 28 school strike in Minab, which killed dozens, including children, appears to have been part of an attack on an adjacent naval base in southern Iran, where officials said U.S. forces were operating.
By Malachy Browne and Aaron Boxerman, March 5, 2026
The Feb. 28 strike that hit an elementary school in the southern Iranian town of Minab is the deadliest known episode of civilian casualties since the United States and Israel attacked Iran — and no side has yet taken responsibility.
But a body of evidence assembled by The New York Times — including newly released satellite imagery, social media posts and verified videos — indicates the school building was severely damaged by a precision strike that occurred at the same time as attacks on an adjacent naval base operated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
And official statements that U.S. forces were attacking naval targets near the Strait of Hormuz, where the I.R.G.C. base is located, suggest they were most likely to have carried out the strike.
The White House referred The Times to remarks by the press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, at a news conference on Wednesday. When asked if the United States had conducted the airstrike on the school, she responded, “Not that we know of,” adding that “the Department of War is investigating this matter.”
Determining precisely what happened has been impeded by the lack of visible weapons fragments and the inability of outside reporters to reach the scene. The total death toll has yet to be independently confirmed, but Iranian health officials and state media said the strike had killed at least 175 people, many of them children, at the Shajarah Tayyebeh elementary school.
In the several days since the attack, U.S. officials have neither confirmed nor denied responsibility. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Wednesday that an investigation was underway. Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli military spokesman, told reporters on Sunday that “as of now,” he was not aware of any Israeli military operation “in that area” at the time.
U.S. officials in public statements have indicated that on the day in question, U.S. planes were conducting operations in the region where the school was located.
The elementary school is in the small southern town of Minab, more than 600 miles from Tehran but near the critical waterway of the Strait of Hormuz. Since Saturday is the start of the Iranian workweek, children and teachers were in class at the time of the strike, health officials and Iranian state media said.
The strikes were first reported on social media shortly after 11:30 a.m. local time. An analysis of those posts — as well as bystander photos and videos captured within an hour of the strikes — helps corroborate that the school was hit at the same time as the naval base. One video, pinpointed by geolocation experts, showed several large plumes of smoke billowing from the area of the base and the school.
Images showing extensive damage to the school building were shared by an Iranian rights group soon after, and videos posted by Iranian media and independently verified by The Times showed throngs of people searching through rubble for survivors and victims.
Another video was filmed by a motorist passing the entrance of the Revolutionary Guards base. The video showed the Revolutionary Guards’ insignia on two entrances to the compound and signs for a naval medical command.
Dark plumes of smoke were rising from where military buildings had been hit, the Times analysis found.
To more fully assess the damage inside the base and what might have caused it, The Times ordered new satellite imagery from the provider Planet Labs. An image taken on Wednesday further corroborated the chronology.
The imagery shows that multiple precision strikes hit at least six Revolutionary Guards buildings along with the school. Four buildings inside the naval base were completely destroyed and two other buildings showed impact points at the center of their roofs, consistent with such precision hits.
Wes J. Bryant, a national security analyst who served in the U.S. Air Force and was a senior adviser on civilian harm at the Pentagon, reviewed the new satellite images and concluded that all of the buildings, including the school, had been hit with “picture perfect” target strikes.
Mr. Bryant, who has been critical of the Trump administration, said the most likely explanation was that the school had been a “target misidentification” — that forces had attacked the site without realizing that it might have had large numbers of civilians inside.
Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a news conference on Wednesday that U.S. forces were carrying out strikes at the time along southern Iran. A map he presented showed that an area including Minab had been targeted by strikes in the first 100 hours of the operation, although it did not explicitly identify the town.
At the same briefing, General Caine said Israeli forces had predominantly been operating farther north in the country. He also identified several U.S. military operations targeting the southern and southeastern areas of Iran, without mentioning any Israeli activity there.
Specifically, General Caine said: “Along the southern axis, the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln strike group has continued to provide pressure from the sea along the southeastern side of the coast and has been attriting naval capability all along the strait.”
The school at one point was part of the Revolutionary Guards’ naval base, according to satellite images from 2013 reviewed by The Times. Roads had led from other areas of the base to the school building that was struck on Saturday. But by September 2016, satellite images show, the same building was partitioned off and was no longer connected to the base.
Publicly available historical satellite imagery shows the structure bears the hallmarks of a school, including a sports field and other recreational areas that were added over time.
“Given the U.S.’s intelligence capabilities, they should have known that a school was in the vicinity,” said Beth Van Schaack, a former State Department official who teaches at Stanford University’s Center for Human Rights and International Justice.
Some theories have circulated online suggesting that a misfired Iranian missile was responsible for the strike on the school, but The Times and other online analysts debunked the claim, in part by determining that a single errant missile wouldn’t have caused such precise and targeted damage to several buildings across the naval base.
U.S. officials say the strike is still under investigation. If it’s confirmed to be an American bomb that hit Shajarah Tayyebeh, one question is likely to be whether the school strike was a mistake or whether it was targeted based on outdated information.
Janina Dill, an expert on the laws of war at Oxford University, said attackers were obligated to “verify the status” of what they targeted to ensure that civilians were not being harmed. Failure to do so could violate international law, she added.
Reporting was contributed by Sanam Mahoozi, Kiana Hayeri, Parin Behrooz, Aric Toler, Shawn McCreesh and Eric Schmitt. Videos produced by Alexander Cardia, Cynthia Silva and Dmitriy Khavin. Graphics editing was contributed by Rafaela Balster.
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5) Health Care Has Become the Lifeblood of the Labor Market
An aging population is drawing workers to medical and social care, creating reliable jobs and revealing weakness for the rest of the economy.
By Lydia DePillis, March 6, 2026
The emergency department of a hospital in Los Angeles. As fast as the health care sector has been expanding, it’s unclear whether the supply of workers can keep pace with the ever-growing need. Credit...Morgan Lieberman for The New York Times
It is an exceptionally difficult time to find a job in America, as employers work through a hiring hangover from the pandemic and hesitate to invest in new staff with policy changes coming fast and furious from Washington.
But the picture is even worse without one sector: health care.
The industry, and related professions in the social assistance category, added 693,000 positions last year. Without it, the economy would have lost 570,000 jobs, as business and professional services, retail, the federal government and manufacturing all contracted.
Health care’s insatiable growth is good news for people who make it into the profession, offering mobility and options for advancement. It’s why nurses in New York City won pay increases and job protections last month after a weekslong strike that had forced hospitals to spend heavily on traveling staff, and why health care positions offer signing bonuses uncommon for most professions.
But it also highlights the sluggishness in the rest of the labor market, where hiring has been glacial. As the unemployment rate has drifted upward, most job postings have attracted qualified candidates quickly — except for medical positions, which are taking longer to fill, said Raj Namboothiry, senior vice president for the United States at Manpower, a staffing company.
“Health care has constantly shown gains when the rest of the sectors are on pause,” Mr. Namboothiry said. “This has become America’s most reliable job engine. Health care is keeping the lights on.”
Some of the growth is catch-up hiring for a sector that took longer than most to recover from the pandemic after frontline workers burned out and left the field. But the quicker pace could be sustained as the youngest baby boomers retire and need more care, from hospitals to home health aides.
“Health care stands out right now because it is doing its natural thing,” said Kosali Simon, a health economist at Indiana University-Bloomington. “What’s not happening is that other sectors are not doing the same. Health care is not as discretionary — it has to grow.”
An Ever-Stronger Anchor
The growth of the health care industry is not new. Driven by changes in consumer spending and expanding access to insurance as well as the aging population, the health and social assistance sector went from 8.3 percent of total employment in 1990 to nearly 15 percent today, compared with about 8 percent for manufacturing. Health care’s dominance only grows during recessions because people still have to go to the doctor even if they decide to put off buying a new car.
The sector’s expansion has been good for places that have become medical hubs, especially outside major metropolitan areas that have lost large industrial employers.
Take Montour County, Pa., which has the highest density of health care jobs in the country. More than half of its approximately 18,000 workers are employed in the industry, largely at the Danville headquarters of Geisinger Health, a hospital system that has been snapping up smaller clinics around the state. The company is in the middle of an $880 million construction project to add more operating rooms and private beds.
Jennifer Wakeman, the economic development director for the five-county region including Danville, said the industry had expanded fairly consistently in a place without many other large economic drivers.
“If you think about economic development statistics 101, it’s job creation and capital investment. They do both of those things,” Ms. Wakeman said. “It’s a huge benefit to the community to have that kind of player literally in our backyard.”
Or look at Morgantown, W.Va., where losses of steel manufacturing and coal mining jobs have been more than offset by the growth of WVU Medicine, which started its own insurance plan in 2021 and employs more than 26,000 people. Telehealth services that exploded during the pandemic mean that clinicians can serve more people across the rural, sicker-than-average state, which expanded its Medicaid program in 2014.
The institution is strong enough that when Mylan Pharmaceuticals, a generic drug manufacturer, shut down a factory with 1,500 workers in 2021, WVU Medicine took it over and turned it into a health sciences business incubator.
“To most communities, losing a big employer like that would have had a devastating impact,” said Russ Rogerson, president of the Morgantown Area Partnership. “But it really didn’t have a major negative impact in Morgantown and Monongalia County because the growth of our health care industry absorbed it.”
It’s not just small towns that benefit. Las Vegas, recognizing the cyclical nature of its hospitality industry, committed during the 2009 recession to invest in health care, including a new medical school. Since 2015, employment in the sector has grown 56 percent across the metropolitan area, compared with 23 percent overall. A children’s hospital is slated to break ground this year.
Shani Coleman, director of community and economic development for Clark County, which includes Las Vegas, sees the city’s casinos and hospitals as complementary. Patients can come from out of town to have a good time before getting their medical procedure. And although entertainment industry employment just barely recovered after the pandemic, its workers transition naturally to roles at the bedside.
“As a community, our hospitality industry does customer service really well,” Ms. Coleman said. “When you take that and are able to marry it with health care, it creates an opportunity where you have a high level of care.”
Help Always Wanted
It’s not clear that the supply of workers will keep pace with the ever-growing need for care. Although artificial intelligence may cut down administrative positions in billing and marketing, bedside jobs are not being replaced anytime soon.
Richard Merchant is the chief executive of the Health Workforce Collaborative of New York, which coordinates employers and training programs to match people with skills in demand, especially as the existing medical corps nears retirement.
“It is true that the health care industry is going strong,” Mr. Merchant said. “It would have to be going a lot stronger and the distribution would have to be much better than it is to actually keep up with the vacancies that are increasing.”
Filling those vacancies has gotten harder over the past year, Mr. Merchant said, since 35 percent of medical workers in New York State are immigrants. The Trump administration has squeezed avenues for workers to come in from overseas, including doctors on H-1B visas, who are particularly important for rural clinics, as well as the millions of people with temporary protected status, such as Haitians, who have staffed nursing homes and rehabilitation facilities.
Their absence could be felt quickly: A 25 percent increase in immigration flows would save 5,000 lives every year in the United States, a paper published recently by the National Bureau of Economic Research found.
Other changes by the Trump administration might also constrict the pipeline of new medical workers, such as its plan to cap student loans for graduate nursing degrees at $100,000.
Olivia Jackson left her career as a cook a few years ago, looking for better pay and more regular hours. After being laid off from a job at a Washington State agency last summer, knowing the high demand for nurses, she enrolled at a community college to take the prerequisites for nursing school. She is worried about being able to borrow enough to afford it.
“I want to be a nurse practitioner, but I’m not certain I’ll be able to get the funding I need to get there,” Ms. Jackson said. “I’m currently on unemployment. I don’t have any money to live off of, or pay tuition.”
Nursing offers the highest earnings potential without going to medical school, but there are other options — and high demand for workers with more specific skills, like running an EKG machine, sterilizing surgical equipment and analyzing lab samples. Cengage, a company that provides short-term online training modules, said sales of medical courses were growing 20 to 40 percent annually.
One of the highest-demand jobs requires little education but pays about as much as fast food work: home health aides. Medicaid and Medicare pay most of their salaries, but rates are low, and could get lower after President Trump signed legislation last year that restricted federal health spending.
“If Medicaid is only going to pay $16 an hour, and it’s below what the market should be paying, you’re going to run into some of these issues,” said Gopi Shah Goda, director of the Retirement Security Project at the Brookings Institution. “It’s just another way of saying that at the prevailing wage, there’s just not an ample supply of workers.”
A Leaky Bucket
The other challenge is ensuring that once people get the education they need, they stick around to do the job.
The extreme strain of the pandemic sent hundreds of thousands of medical workers to the exits in 2020 and 2021. Even after the crisis passed, conditions like understaffing and violence against care providers pushed many out of the profession. According to the job review website Glassdoor, health care workers judge their employers more harshly than workers in other sectors.
Olga Yakusheva, an economist at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, has estimated that one in three licensed registered nurses is no longer working in the profession.
“We just spent all of this time educating the nurses, and they can’t stay and work,” Ms. Yakusheva said. “What we have is not a shortage of nurses, but there is a shortage of job openings that nurses are willing to fill.”
Lloyd Stanley went to nursing school in his late 30s, after several years as an emergency medical technician. He spent a few years in urgent care centers and skilled nursing facilities, and then began to work for nurse staffing agencies to maintain more flexibility as he cared for his own mother, who has dementia. Through the pandemic, he said, he saw management make financially driven decisions that compromised patient care, like not having adequate supplies or staff.
Mr. Stanley doesn’t plan to leave nursing. Though gig work can be frustrating, he loves the basic tasks of helping people. But he does see why people become disillusioned and quit.
“You are working in facilities that are inherently frustrating,” he said. “Nurses want to take care of people. I feel like that nature is taken advantage of a little bit. It can be pretty demoralizing.”
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6) Bulletproof Vests and Rolex Watches: The Rise and Fall of Kristi Noem
The homeland security secretary, who was fired by President Trump Thursday, helped fulfill his border pledges, but also drew negative attention to his administration.
By Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Hamed Aleaziz, Published March 5, 2026, Updated March 6, 2026
The display of a Rolex at a notorious prison in El Salvador. A self-promotional advertising campaign for mass deportations. The lingering story of the killing of her dog.
Kristi Noem never appeared able — or particularly keen — to step out of the spotlight during her time leading the Department of Homeland Security. But even for a White House familiar with political crises, Ms. Noem’s streak of controversies, handling of government funding and flair for theatrics might have proved too much for President Trump.
On Thursday, Mr. Trump announced on social media that he was firing Ms. Noem, and that he had selected Senator Markwayne Mullin, Republican of Oklahoma, to replace her. The decision capped an embattled two-year arc for the former governor of South Dakota, in which she went from a contender for vice president to the first cabinet member to be ousted from Mr. Trump’s second stint in the White House.
Under Ms. Noem’s leadership, the Department of Homeland Security made progress on some of Mr. Trump’s core campaign promises, including his effort to bring illegal crossings at the southern border to historic lows.
“The American people and our posterity are better off today, tomorrow, and for generations to come because of Secretary Noem’s dedication to public service,” the department posted on social media Thursday.
Ms. Noem wrote on X on Thursday that “we have made historic accomplishments at the Department of Homeland Security to make America safe again.”
But a number of episodes over the course of her tenure also prompted frustration among Mr. Trump’s allies and some White House officials.
Here are key moments in the rise and fall of Kristi Noem.
SPRING 2024
The beginning of Noem’s political evolution
Ms. Noem appeared on the cusp of a major transformation.
After Republicans suffered losses in the 2022 midterm elections, she told The New York Times that she did not believe Mr. Trump offered “the best chance” for the party in 2024.
But she then worked to gain favor with him, deploying the National Guard to the border and endorsing him before many other Republican governors. She was front and center in an ad promoting her cosmetic dental work that some saw as a move to catch Mr. Trump’s attention, even as it drew legal scrutiny. She was widely seen as a potential pick for vice president.
But she drew criticism from a number of political figures when she defended a story in her autobiography in which she killed a family dog on her farm, to her daughter’s distress. Ms. Noem wrote that she had hoped to train the dog, Cricket, to hunt pheasant, but that she proved “untrainable” and “less than worthless” as a hunting dog. “I hated that dog,” Ms. Noem wrote.
The story, which she highlighted to demonstrate her leadership skills and ability to make tough decisions, struck some people as unnecessarily cruel, and shadowed her tenure.
MARCH 2025
A self-promotional approach to running D.H.S.
The Trump administration had just used a wartime law to deport hundreds of Venezuelan migrants to a prison in El Salvador. Ms. Noem wanted to see the facility for herself — and wanted to make sure her presence was noticed.
Ms. Noem toured the prison, known for its harsh conditions, in a baseball cap emblazoned with an Immigration and Customs Enforcement logo. She also wore a gold Rolex Cosmograph Daytona that sells for about $50,000. Ms. Noem filmed a video during the tour in front of rows of prisoners crowded tightly into bunks behind bars.
It was one of many photo ops that prompted ridicule on social media and among the rank and file of ICE and Border Patrol. Agents objected to her choice to show up to immigration operations in field gear, accusing her of cosplaying, such as an episode in Phoenix in which her bulletproof vest appeared to be improperly secured. Some agents used disparaging names for her, such as “ICE Barbie.”
JUNE 2025
Funding bottleneck at D.H.S.
Ms. Noem faced backlash for her handling of the Department of Homeland Security’s non-immigration missions, including delivering grants from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Mr. Trump had already created unease over the future of disaster relief when he mused about shutting FEMA down. But last June, Ms. Noem signed off on a rule that required her approval for any expense over $100,000.
Ms. Noem was slow to sign off on the new spending requests, including projects deemed critical for national security. The policy also created a backlog of spending requests from FEMA, including one contract that would provide inspections of an estimated six million homes damaged in disasters. And the $100,000 requirement delayed FEMA’s response to catastrophic floods in Central Texas.
JUNE 2025
A senator is handcuffed at a Noem event
Ms. Noem was holding a press availability in a federal building in Los Angeles when Senator Alex Padilla, Democrat of California, interrupted and began questioning mug shots on display behind the secretary.
Mr. Padilla, a vocal critic of Mr. Trump’s deportation policies, was muscled out of the room by federal agents and handcuffed.
“Sir! Sir! Hands off!” Mr. Padilla said as the agents surrounded him.
Mr. Padilla later said in an interview that he wanted answers about the administration’s “increasingly extreme” immigration actions, and that he had not been able to get them. Democrats denounced the treatment of Mr. Padilla as an escalation in what they said were authoritarian-style actions by Mr. Trump and Ms. Noem.
Ms. Noem later told reporters that she spoke to Mr. Padilla after the incident and that they had a “great conversation.”
JUNE 2025
Empowering a fiery new official: Gregory Bovino
After protests raged in Los Angeles following an immigration operation, Ms. Noem turned to a little-known border official to take over enforcement in the region.
Gregory Bovino, the head of the El Centro sector of the border dividing California and Mexico, would run immigration operations in Southern California. Soon, images of agents chasing migrants from car washes and parking lots became ubiquitous online. U.S. citizens were getting caught in the dragnet, and allegations of racial profiling were rampant.
The decision to allow Border Patrol to conduct mass immigration operations across the country was unprecedented for an agency primarily charged with handling the country’s borders.
Mr. Bovino took his operations to Chicago, New Orleans, Charlotte and Minnesota. In nearly every location, lawsuits and chaotic scenes followed. Inside D.H.S., some officials were concerned about the tactics deployed by Mr. Bovino, and Ms. Noem’s decision to empower him.
After the shooting of Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis, Mr. Bovino left his perch running operations across the United States. He was replaced by Tom Homan, Mr. Trump’s border czar, who was charged with bringing calm to the region.
JANUARY 2026
Labels protesters domestic terrorists
In the hours after agents pinned down and shot Mr. Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse, Ms. Noem weighed in with comments that would rapidly accelerate her downfall.
In a news conference, Ms. Noem said Mr. Pretti had been attempting an act of “domestic terrorism,” and claimed he had brandished a gun. An initial review by U.S. Customs and Border Protection shortly after the shooting found those claims to be untrue, and the episode undermined Ms. Noem’s credibility.
Days later, when asked about Ms. Noem’s characterization of Mr. Pretti, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, declined to defend it, distancing Mr. Trump from the remarks. Days later, Mr. Trump himself called Mr. Pretti an “agitator and, perhaps, insurrectionist.”
MARCH 2026
Leadership under fire at congressional hearings
Ms. Noem’s ouster came after she was grilled by lawmakers on a range of topics during congressional hearings.
She declined to apologize for her description of Mr. Pretti and another U.S. citizen killed by federal agents in Minneapolis, Renee Good, as domestic terrorists. She said her statements were informed by “reports from the ground, from agents at the scene.”
Senator John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana, grilled Ms. Noem about a ProPublica report that her department had spent more than $200 million on ad contracts, which he said had been steered to her former political consultants. Mr. Kennedy described the ads, including one in which she appeared on a horse in front of Mount Rushmore, as wasteful spending meant to boost Ms. Noem’s “name recognition.”
Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, a Republican retiring at the end of his term, accused Ms. Noem of a “failure of leadership.”
And during a House hearing this week, Representative Sydney Kamlager-Dove, Democrat of California, alluding to rumors, asked Ms. Noem if she had a sexual relationship with her senior adviser, Corey Lewandowski. Ms. Noem responded by calling the question “tabloid garbage.”
“This has been something that I have refuted for years, and I continue to do that,” she said at a different point in the hearing. Democrats, she said, attack Republican women by saying “we are either stupid, or we’re sluts.”
She added: “I am neither of those.”
Mr. Lewandowski, who ran Mr. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, served at D.H.S. as a special government employee, a role meant to last 130 days a year.
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7) Pardon Industry Offers Rich Offenders a Path to Trump
One inmate paid lobbyists and lawyers with ties to the president’s team and walked free. Others are following his blueprint, but it is not always clear who can deliver.
By Kenneth P. Vogel, March 6, 2026
Kenneth P. Vogel has investigated the untraditional uses of clemency by President Trump and former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. He reported from the federal prison camp in Otisville, N.Y.
One evening last November, word spread around the federal prison camp in Otisville, N.Y., that an inmate who had spent heavily to pursue clemency had hit pay dirt, winning a pardon from President Trump and walking free.
His release intensified an ongoing debate for those who were left behind. Whom could they pay to achieve the same result?
There was a lot to parse in the clemency campaign of Joseph Schwartz. He had served only three months of a three-year sentence for tax crimes related to a nursing-home empire that had collapsed amid allegations of endangering the residents and defrauding his employees.
Mr. Schwartz had not been shy about sharing the strategy behind his clemency campaign with other inmates, so they knew he had paid multiple people to try to get the job done, according to two people familiar with conversations at Otisville.
Nearly a million dollars went to right-wing operatives who claimed to have worked with Laura Loomer, a social media provocateur who has the ear of Mr. Trump, to advocate for Mr. Schwartz’s release. Another $100,000 or more was paid to a lobbyist who had a different set of connections to Mr. Trump — pro-Israel evangelicals.
Thousands more went to lawyers who had personal relationships with Alice Marie Johnson, Mr. Trump’s “pardon czar,” and David Warrington, the White House counsel, according to four people familiar with the effort.
Mr. Schwartz’s supporters employed various techniques and arguments for his relief. Those included stating publicly and in private petitions and conversations that his sentence was too severe, noting that he had paid his full $5 million in federal restitution and emphasizing his religious faith and health problems.
It was not entirely clear which effort did the trick.
But the costly campaign offers rare visibility into the lucrative pardon industry that has emerged around Mr. Trump.
It is based in part on the proposition that paying the right person to deliver a message tailored to Mr. Trump’s politics or grievances is more important than demonstrating remorse or a low likelihood of recidivism.
A growing number of practitioners promise access in this murky enterprise, but some also may exaggerate their effectiveness to elicit payments from clients desperate to avoid incarceration. Pardon seekers routinely offer to pay as much as $1 million or more, often with bonus payments triggered by a successful outcome, according to lobbying filings and people familiar with the fees.
This transactional approach to clemency has been welcomed by white-collar offenders like those serving time at the Otisville camp, a minimum-security facility about 75 miles northwest of Manhattan.
Many of its inmates cheered Mr. Trump’s election, seeing him as a kindred spirit who shares their grievances about the unfairness of financial crime prosecutions like the one that led to his own conviction, according to four people familiar with conversations at Otisville.
Over the course of his first term and the first year of his second, Mr. Trump has granted pardons or commutations to at least nine inmates who served at Otisville’s camp or the adjacent medium-security prison. That includes two inmates who were freed after Mr. Schwartz from the minimum-security camp, which typically houses about 100 inmates.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, dismissed the notion that lobbyists had shaped Mr. Trump’s clemency decisions.
“Anyone spending money to lobby for pardons is foolishly wasting their money and the president doesn’t even know who these so-called ‘lobbyists’ are,” she said in a statement. “The Trump administration has a robust pardon review process,” she added, calling Mr. Trump “the final decider.”
But the perception that freedom is for sale to affluent offenders like Mr. Schwartz outrages some of his victims, including former employees of his nursing homes who were deprived of health insurance or left scrounging for supplies to care for residents.
“This man hurt a lot of people,” Theresa Dante, 61, said, recounting a flurry of text messages from her former colleagues expressing disbelief and concern about the precedent that could be set by the pardon. “If it’s OK for Mr. Schwartz to do this to everybody, then in the future is this going be OK?”
Mr. Schwartz did not respond to requests for comment.
This article, key details of which have not been previously reported, is based on lobbying and court filings, private correspondence and recordings, as well as interviews with more than a dozen people familiar with clemency advocacy.
A Guilty Plea
Even in the nursing-home industry — which is plagued by tax and insurance fraud, chronic understaffing and neglect — Mr. Schwartz’s rise and fall stood out.
He started with a handful of nursing homes that he and his family operated out of an office above a pizza parlor in New Jersey.
In 2015, flush with $22 million in proceeds from the sale of an insurance business, the family began an aggressive expansion. Soon their company, Skyline Healthcare, owned about 100 nursing homes and rehabilitation facilities in at least 11 states that employed as many as 15,000 people.
As the business grew, it attracted scrutiny.
Medicare decertified a Skyline facility in Tennessee from collecting reimbursements after a resident was discovered lying in feces with maggot-infested open wounds. The resident died days later.
The attorneys general in Arkansas, Massachusetts and Nebraska brought lawsuits or levied fines against Skyline, including for Medicaid fraud, wage theft and tax violations.
Company facilities in several states fell behind on bills for critical supplies and utilities.
In South Dakota, where Skyline operated 19 facilities, a regional administrator for the company emailed state authorities in 2018, raising alarm about dwindling caches of food along with medical and cleaning supplies.
“All residents’ safety is at risk and will increase every day,” the administrator wrote in an email reported by the Aberdeen News.
Regulators in several states — including South Dakota — seized Skyline-owned nursing homes and placed them into receivership.
It was not a moment too soon for the Redfield facility where Ms. Dante worked as a cook, she said, recalling that the power company was threatening to turn off the electricity for nonpayment of bills.
That would have been “an atrocity to say the least,” she said, given that there were “so many residents tethered to machines for their survival.”
Additionally, Ms. Dante, who was fighting leukemia, said her health insurance benefits and those of other employees were not being funded, forcing them to pay out of pocket or to forgo medical care entirely.
She joined former staff from Skyline facilities in other states in a class-action lawsuit filed in 2020 against Mr. Schwartz and his companies for having “willfully pocketed” insurance premiums that had been deducted from employees’ paychecks.
The suit is still pending.
Last year, Mr. Schwartz pleaded guilty to tax crimes in federal and Arkansas courts related to his failure to pay nearly $40 million in employment and payroll taxes, as well as to a state Medicaid fraud charge in Arkansas.
Prosecutors praised the sentences.
Attorney General Tim Griffin of Arkansas, a Republican who was endorsed by Mr. Trump, said in a statement last May that Mr. Schwartz “didn’t just take advantage of our vulnerable population, he also preyed on Arkansans who worked in his facilities.”
‘Direct to the president’
Less than two weeks after his guilty plea was accepted, with his surrender date approaching and Otisville looming, Mr. Schwartz hired the right-wing conspiracists Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl to lobby for a presidential pardon, according to congressional filings.
Mr. Burkman and Mr. Wohl are known less for effective lobbying campaigns and more for spurious political stunts, including a robocall scheme to suppress the Black vote in the 2020 presidential election that led to felony convictions and fines for both men.
Mr. Burkman and Mr. Wohl have boasted that they maintain close ties to Mr. Trump and people in his orbit that they can use to win clemency, according to communications reviewed by The New York Times and interviews with two people who have dealt with the lobbyists.
In an audio recording heard by The Times, Mr. Burkman discussed his strategy, saying that he and Mr. Wohl “use a combination of influencers and members of Congress,” as well as going “direct to the president, and I think that’s a very good approach.”
A White House official, who requested anonymity to discuss a clemency case, said that no one in the White House had talked to either Mr. Burkman or Mr. Wohl about Mr. Schwartz.
Mr. Burkman and Mr. Wohl also have privately indicated that they enlisted Ms. Loomer to assist with the Schwartz clemency push.
In an interview with The Times, Ms. Loomer said Mr. Burkman and Mr. Wohl had nothing to do with her decision to champion Mr. Schwartz’s cause and that she was not paid by the lobbyists or Mr. Schwartz to do so.
“A lot of people claim to know me and claim to work with me because of my effectiveness and how well-known I am amongst administration officials,” Ms. Loomer said.
While she acknowledged that she is close to Mr. Wohl, Ms. Loomer said Mr. Schwartz’s case was brought to her attention in a group chat related to Jewish causes. Mr. Schwartz, like many inmates at the Otisville camp, is Jewish.
A week after Mr. Burkman and Mr. Wohl went to work for Mr. Schwartz in April, Ms. Loomer published posts on social media calling for his sentence to be “overturned” and citing it as an example of “judicial tyranny” and “obvious antisemitism” by the judge.
She praised Mr. Schwartz as a “well known member of the Jewish community in New Jersey.”
Mr. Burkman repeatedly hung up on a reporter asking about his work on the Schwartz pardon. He and Mr. Wohl did not respond to a list of emailed questions about their clemency claims.
Mr. Schwartz paid their firm, J.M. Burkman & Associates, $960,000 in the 10 weeks after their hiring last spring, according to lobbying reports filed by the firm. The firm collected another $845,000 last year from three other clients seeking clemency, most of which — $600,000 — came from Torrence Ivy Hatch Jr., a rapper known as Boosie Badazz who had pleaded guilty to a firearms possession violation. Mr. Hatch has not received a pardon.
In all, lobbying firms disclosed receiving payments of nearly $5.2 million last year from clients seeking clemency from Mr. Trump for individual clients — about eight times more than was disclosed in 2024 from people seeking clemency from former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. — according to congressional filings. But that likely reflects only a fraction of the spending by clemency seekers, since most pardon advocates claim that their efforts represent legal work that is exempt from lobbying disclosure laws.
As word circulated about successful paid clemency campaigns, more inmates sought out their own pardon fixers claiming access to the president, said Walt Pavlo, who served two years himself starting in 2001 for his role in a fraud scheme and now serves as a consultant for people facing prison time.
“They believe that they can pay for some access, but the other thing is that they think that Trump is sympathetic to their cause, because of what he’s gone through,” Mr. Pavlo said.
Mr. Pavlo said he urges clients to be cautious, predicting that “at the end of the day, there’s going to be a lot of very disappointed people that don’t get pardons that paid a lot of money.”
More firepower
The efforts by Mr. Burkman, Mr. Wohl and Ms. Loomer did not keep Mr. Schwartz out of Otisville. He reported there in August.
He began leading Torah study classes for inmates.
And he spoke to other inmates about his clemency strategy, complaining that Mr. Burkman and Mr. Wohl were not up to the job, according to two people familiar with conversations in Otisville, who requested anonymity to share jailhouse discussions.
Frustrated, Mr. Schwartz stopped paying Mr. Burkman and Mr. Wohl’s firm.
He turned instead to Josh Nass, a lawyer and lobbyist with connections in pro-Israel Jewish and evangelical circles. Congressional lobbying filings show that Mr. Schwartz paid Mr. Nass at least $100,000.
In an interview, Mr. Nass said that “clemency reflects the belief that people are capable of redemption.” He added “President Trump has shown a willingness to give deserving individuals a second chance and he should be commended for such.”
Mr. Schwartz expressed confidence to other inmates that Mr. Nass would facilitate the pardon, according to the people familiar with those conversations.
Mr. Nass had been paid nearly $300,000 at the end of Mr. Trump’s first term to help a handful of clients seek clemency, according to lobbying filings. None received it.
This time around, Mr. Nass implemented a more comprehensive strategy. He enlisted evangelical figures with connections in Mr. Trump’s circle to highlight Mr. Schwartz’s cause to administration allies. They emphasized Mr. Schwartz’s faith and argued this was a matter of religious liberty.
One person who made the case after being approached by Mr. Nass was Mark Walker, a former North Carolina representative who had been tapped by Mr. Trump to serve as a State Department envoy for religious freedom, according to two people familiar with his involvement. During the first Trump administration, the White House had credited Mr. Walker and others with supporting the commutation of another observant Jewish inmate who had been convicted of fraud.
At Mr. Nass’s urging, Mr. Schwartz’s family also retained lawyers with ties to the White House to file clemency petitions.
The Schwartzes hired Brittany K. Barnett, who had helped secure clemency during the first Trump administration for Ms. Johnson, who was serving a life sentence for a nonviolent drug conviction. Last year, Mr. Trump appointed Ms. Johnson as a White House adviser on clemency and criminal justice.
Ms. Barnett’s website includes photos of her with Ms. Johnson and advertises her “deep understanding of the legal, political and human dimensions of clemency.”
Another petition was filed by Laurin H. Mills, a lawyer who is close to Mr. Warrington, according to three people familiar with his efforts. Mr. Mills and Mr. Warrington worked together at a now-defunct firm on politically charged cases.
Mr. Mills’s petition cast Mr. Schwartz’s sentence as too harsh for the fact pattern, noting that he had paid his restitution and arguing that he was in poor health. (Mr. Schwartz, who was 65 years old when he reported to prison, had told authorities that he suffered from a heart arrhythmia and was borderline diabetic.)
Mr. Warrington did not discuss the Schwartz case with Mr. Mills and did not play any role in facilitating the pardon, according to the White House official.
But Mr. Mills checked in periodically with Sean Hayes, a deputy counsel who works on clemency matters in Mr. Warrington’s office.
Mr. Hayes was among the White House officials who presented the paperwork to the president.
‘Free and safe’
The day after Mr. Trump signed the pardon, Ms. Johnson praised the pardon on social media, writing that Mr. Schwartz “finally spent Shabbat free and safe with his family.”
In a statement to The Times, Ms. Johnson reiterated her support for the pardon of Mr. Schwartz, arguing that a three-year sentence “serves no purpose,” and assailed what she called “the media’s efforts to smear our work.”
After the pardon, Mr. Schwartz still had his Arkansas sentence looming, including the prospect of a state prison term of as long as nine months and an additional $1.4 million in restitution.
But he would be freed on parole in January after only two and a half weeks in state prison by a board appointed by the governor. While Mr. Nass had reached out to Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas and her father, Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, the offices for both issued statements to The Times saying that they had not intervened. The board said that it had acted independently.
Shortly after leaving Otisville, Mr. Schwartz and one of his sons took Mr. Nass to Le Marais, a kosher French steakhouse in Manhattan’s Times Square to thank him, according to a person familiar with the episode. A photograph from the dinner shows Mr. Nass and the elder Mr. Schwartz embracing while holding a manila envelope that purportedly contained a copy of the signed pardon.
The trio discussed a handful of the inmates with whom Mr. Schwartz had served time and who, since his pardon, had reached out indirectly to Mr. Nass seeking assistance. Several had discussed offering to pay $500,000 each, with additional $1 million success fees if they secured pardons, according to the two people familiar with the conversations at Otisville.
Mr. Nass declined to represent any of them, according to a person familiar with the offers.
The next month, the elder Mr. Schwartz and his wife attended the White House Hanukkah party, where they met Ms. Loomer.
Ms. Loomer said that Mr. Schwartz thanked her for her posts about his case and said he was grateful to not be in prison.
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8) 180,000 New Yorkers May Lose Food Stamp Benefits Under New Work Rules
Social workers are scrambling to alert recipients and help them find jobs before their aid is eliminated under President Trump’s sweeping domestic policy law.
By Matthew Haag, March 6, 2026
A meal is served at a Food Bank for New York City kitchen in Harlem. The organization expects to provide more meals this year than last because of the changes to the food stamp program. Dave Sanders for The New York Times
Since Pat Chisholm was laid off early in the pandemic by a Manhattan law firm, after spending 20 years as a legal assistant, she has depleted her life savings and applied for more jobs than she can remember. At 62, her only income is the $292 she receives in food stamps each month.
Ms. Chisholm learned recently that she might lose that, too. She is among the estimated 180,000 New York City residents who receive federal food assistance but could have it eliminated or reduced in the coming months, thanks to the tougher eligibility rules imposed by President Trump’s sweeping domestic policy law.
Passed last year, the law made drastic cuts to the social safety net program for low-income people, in order to help pay for tax cuts that largely aid wealthier ones. The new eligibility rules, which require that significantly more recipients work, volunteer or enroll in skills training in order to receive their benefits, took effect this month.
Now, Ms. Chisholm and many others who are able-bodied and had been exempt from previous work requirements must comply by June to maintain their benefits. This includes homeless people, veterans, parents with children older than 14 and people age 55 to 64, including retirees.
“A lot of people do not want to sit around on public assistance,” said Ms. Chisholm, who lives in the Bronx, “but they are not finding jobs either.”
Nearly 42 million Americans rely on food stamps every month, most of them members of families that include children. About a third of all households in New York City, one of the most expensive cities in the world, receive them, representing 1.8 million people.
The new rules have sparked a panic at city and state agencies and numerous community groups that help people sign up for food stamps through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.
Officials and social workers have been scrambling to inform community groups and recipients of the monumental changes, and help people apply for jobs or secure volunteer positions, including at food banks and aid organizations.
Still, an estimated 10 percent of households on SNAP in the city could have their benefits eliminated or reduced, representing a devastating blow to low-income families as well as the markets where they shop. That would lead to 180 million fewer meals consumed per year, according to anti-hunger groups.
Across the state, more than 300,000 households are expected to lose benefits, with an average loss of $220 per month, said the New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, which oversees the program. The maximum benefit is $292 for a single person and $785 for a family of three.
Social workers said they were worried that people would be unable to find volunteer positions or jobs, particularly in the weak labor market. The unemployment rate is 5.6 percent in New York City, and 4.3 percent nationwide.
They also fear that recipients, especially non-English speakers, may not fully understand the requirements or the voluminous paperwork required of them to show compliance.
Case managers said they were particularly concerned about retirees on fixed budgets and other older people who will now need to spend at least 80 hours a month working or performing another qualifying activity.
“This is purely a punitive approach,” said Scott French, the administrator at the New York City Human Resources Administration, the city’s social services agency. “The purpose is about having people lose their benefits.”
Mr. Trump and other Republicans have long criticized SNAP, arguing that the program encourages recipients not to work and is badly managed.
“We know there is so much significant fraud in the SNAP program that it is rampant,” Brooke Rollins, the agriculture secretary, said in December. (Anti-hunger groups said that, more often, SNAP recipients are the victims of fraud, with thieves siphoning benefits from their cards using skimming devices.)
The new work requirements are expected to trim 2.4 million from the program nationwide; in his recent State of the Union speech, Mr. Trump described those people as being “lifted” from poverty.
As the new rules roll out, food banks across the city are preparing for an influx of new families, coming on top of the increase in demand they have seen since the pandemic, years ago. In lines that form outside the pantries, workers have been encouraging recipients to find solutions quickly, before the grace period ends in June.
Mr. French said the city has been urging food banks and social service agencies to open up their volunteer positions to SNAP recipients. Dozens of groups have signed on to the initiative, but they won’t be able to find a place for everyone who needs to be volunteering monthly.
Ms. Chisholm signed up this week for her first volunteer shifts at the Food Bank for New York City, using an online portal to claim as many shifts as she could. She will have to repeat the process each week, competing with others who, like herself, are desperate to keep their food assistance.
Zac Hall, the food bank’s senior vice president of programs, called the looming crisis a man-made catastrophe that was entirely avoidable, and driven by what he described as false beliefs that Mr. Trump and other critics held about the program.
“In my lifetime at this organization, I have not seen this tsunami of need on the horizon, other than major events like Covid, hurricanes and blackouts,” he said.
Mr. Hall said that he expected a surge in need similar to that which occurred in November, when some food stamp recipients had their benefits disrupted during the federal government shutdown.
The Food Bank for New York City and another large hunger-relief organization, City Harvest, both expect to provide more meals this year than last as a result of the SNAP changes. At City Harvest, the group plans to deliver an additional million pounds of food in 2026, if not more.
Still, it isn’t likely to be enough to feed everyone, said Jilly Stephens, its chief executive. “We’ll do everything we can, as we always do, but we won’t be able to fill the gap,” Ms. Stephens said.
People in every corner of New York City rely on food stamps, but nowhere is need greater than in the Bronx. There, about 37 percent of households depend on them, one of the highest rates in the country, according to census figures.
Able-bodied recipients in the Bronx, as in most areas of New York State, were exempt from the former work requirements for SNAP because of the area’s high unemployment rate, or the lack of available jobs. The Bronx has the highest unemployment rate in the state, at 7.4 percent.
Evelyn Torres-Viera, who left a job in investment banking to work at Life Together Works NYC, a community organization in the Bronx, said that the composition of the group showing up at its food pantry or seeking food stamps had changed in recent years.
“There are people on the line that are working, coming on their lunch break,” Ms. Torres-Viera said, including school bus drivers, who park at a nearby depot after their morning shifts.
The group serves about 600 families a week, up from about 150 less than four years ago, she said.
Luis Tirado, owner of the People’s Choice Meat Market and Grill, a butcher shop in the South Bronx, said he was distressed over the possibility that some customers could lose their food assistance. About 80 percent of the purchases at his market are paid for with food stamps, with sales spiking at the start of every month, when benefits are replenished, he said.
Now, he is worried about his ability to repay a $500,000 Small Business Administration loan he took out during the pandemic.
“Of course it’s going to harm me, because people are just going to buy less,” Mr. Tirado said of the looming loss to his customers. “That’s why I don’t sleep well at night.”
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