Born in rural Ohio, Howard Keylor attended a one-room country schoolhouse. He became a member of the National Honor Society when he graduated from Marietta High School.
After enlisting in the U.S. Army, Howard fought in the Pacific Theater in World War Two, during which he participated in the Battle of Okinawa as a Corporal. The 96th U.S. Army Division, which Howard trained with, had casualty rates above 50%. The incompetence and racism of the military command, the destruction of the capital city of Naha and the deliberate killings of tens of thousands of Okinawan civil-ians – a third of the population - made Howard a committed anti-imperialist, anti-militarist and anti-racist for the rest of his life.
Upon returning to the United States, Howard enrolled in the College of the Pacific, but dropped out to support Filipino agricultural workers in the 1948 asparagus strike, working with legendary labor leader Larry Itliong. He became a longshore worker in Stockton in 1953. As a member of the Communist Party, Howard and his wife, Evangeline, were attacked in the HUAC (McCarthy) hearings in San Francisco. Later, Howard transferred to ILWU Local 10. In 1971 he, along with Brothers Herb Mills, Leo Robinson and a ma-jority of Local 10’s members, opposed the proposed 1971 contract which codified the 9.43 steadyman sys-tem. This led to the longshore strike of 1971-1972, which shut down 56 West Coast ports and lasted 130 days. It was the longest strike in the ILWU’s history.
In Local 10 Brother Keylor was a member of the Militant Caucus, a class struggle rank-and-file group which published a regular newsletter, the “Longshore Militant”. He later left the Militant Caucus and pub-lished a separate newsletter on his own, the “Militant Longshoreman.” Howard advocated deliberate defi-ance of the “slave-labor” Taft-Hartley law through illegal secondary boycotts and pickets. Running on an open class-struggle program which called for breaking with the Democratic and Republican Parties, form-ing a worker’s government, expropriating the capitalists without compensation and creating a planned economy, Howard won election to the Executive Board of Local 10 for twelve years.
The Militant Caucus was involved in organizing protests and boycotts of military cargo bound for the military dictatorship in Chile in 1975 and 1978 and again in 1980 to the military dictatorship in El Sal-vador. The Caucus also participated in ILWU Local 6’s strike at KNC Glass in Union City, during which a mass picket line physically defeated police and scabs, winning a contract for a workforce composed pri-marily of Mexican-American immigrants.
In 1984, Brother Keylor made the motion, amended by Brother Leo Robinson, which led to the elev-en-day longshore boycott of South African cargo on the Nedlloyd Kimberley. In 1986, Howard again partici-pated in the Campaign Against Apartheid’s community picket line against the Nedlloyd Kemba. When Nel-son Mandela spoke at the Oakland Coliseum in 1990 after his release from prison, he credited Local 10 with re-igniting the anti-Apartheid movement in the Bay Area.
Other actions Brother Howard initiated, organized or participated in included the 1995-98 struggle of the Liverpool dockworkers; the 1999 coastwide shutdown and march of 25,000 in San Francisco to de-mand freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal; the 2000 Charleston longshore union campaign; the 2008 May Day anti-imperialist war shutdown of all West Coast ports; the shutdown of Northern California ports in pro-test of the murder of Oscar Grant; the blockades of Israeli ships to protest the war on Gaza in 2010 and 2014; the 2011 ILWU struggle against the grain monopolies in Longview; Occupy Oakland’s march of 40,000 to the Port of Oakland, and countless other militant job actions and protests. Throughout his life, Brother Keylor always extended solidarity where it was needed. He fought racist police murders and fas-cist terror, defended abortion clinics, and fought for survivors of psychiatric abuse. Having grown up in Appalachia, he has always been an environmentalist, and helped shut down a Monsanto facility in Davis in 2012, as well as fighting pesticide use and deforestation in the East Bay.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
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.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
VIDEO:
What Cubans Really Think About Trump
By Jeff Seal, May 28, 2026
Mr. Seal is a comedian and a visual journalist.
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-
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
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
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
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)
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
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
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
 Boris Kagarlitsky International Solidarity CampaignAn appeal for financial supportMay 12, 2026 Dear Friends of the Boris Kagarlitsky International Solidarity Campaign, It has been more than two years since Boris Kagarlitsky began serving the five-year sentence meted out to him by a Russian military court as a way of silencing and punishing him for his opposition to Putin’s war on Ukraine. With a multitude of longstanding friends and colleagues throughout the world, Boris is one of the best-known victims of the steadily escalating political repression in Russia. He has borne the gross injustice of his incarceration with characteristic courage, determination and defiance. But there is no denying that Putin’s gulag takes a toll on even the most valiant spirits. The Boris Kagarlitsky Solidarity Campaign has worked continuously these last two years to draw attention to Boris’s plight, and by extension to that of other prisoners unjustly condemned for protesting the ongoing war that has already cost upwards of half a million lives and vastly more maimed, according to estimates. We have sought, through a variety of activities, to bring pressure to bear on the Russian authorities to free Boris. The many people involved in the Campaign are happy to volunteer their time. However, we rely on the generosity of the Campaign’s supporters to cover the periodic expenses we incur. We recently reached out for help to defray costs associated with the participation of Boris’ daughter and tireless advocate for Russian political prisoners, Kseniia Kagarlitskya, in the international antifascist conference in Porto Alegre at the end of March. That trip was a great success. It allowed Kseniia and Mikhail Lobanov, Russian mathematician, political activist, and former associate professor at Moscow State University, to introduce the thousands of conference-goers from Brazil and across the world to the grim realities confronting Russian political dissidents. The Boris Kagarlitsky International Solidarity Committee has many plans in store for the coming months and especially the fall, including a virtual conference devoted to the global manifestations of political repression. We are appealing to you for a little financial help to carry out our projects and support the day-to-day ongoing work of the committee. We would be deeply appreciative of any assistance you can provide. Because the members of the Campaign coordinating committee are scattered across Europe, North America and beyond, it has been a little complicated to set up a campaign bank account, although we are making progress on that front. For the time being we are asking that you send any contributions you can manage directly to our de facto treasurer Suzi Weissman who is located in Los Angeles, California. The details of her account are: Bank: Wells Fargo Swift/Bic: PNBPUS6L Account holder: Susan Claudia Weissman Account number: 0657205076 International wire transfers: WFBIUS6S wise.com personal account: @susanclaudiaw We thank you in anticipation of any contribution you can make to help keep the Campaign running. Yours in solidarity, Dick Nichols 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
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
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
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
Articles
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
1) The Mideast Is Baffled by Trump’s Call to Expand Abraham Accords
The president said more countries should be required to recognize Israel as part of a deal to end the war with Iran. Analysts say the chances of that happening are close to zero.
By Vivian Nereim, Isabel Kershner and Elian Peltier, May 28, 2026
Vivian Nereim reported from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Isabel Kershner from Jerusalem and Elian Peltier from Kabul, Afghanistan.
President Trump with leaders from Israel, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates at the signing of the Abraham Accords in Washington in 2020. Doug Mills/The New York Times
The social media post by President Trump made it sound straightforward. The United States would orchestrate a deal to end the war with Iran and, in exchange, a slew of countries across the Middle East and South Asia would join an agreement, called the Abraham Accords, establishing relations with Israel.
In fact, he said, that “should be mandatory.” But half of the countries he named — such as Egypt, Jordan and Turkey — already have relations with Israel. And the other half — including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Pakistan — have no interest in establishing them anytime soon.
As a result, the meandering ultimatum that Mr. Trump shared on Monday was met with a mix of silence and bemusement across the Middle East. Regional analysts said they were not even sure that they understood the rationale behind his proposal. Why would ending the war, which the United States and Israel initiated by bombing Iran on Feb. 28, provide an incentive to recognize Israel for countries like Qatar, which had lobbied desperately to prevent the war in the first place?
“It’s just bizarre,” said Yoel Guzansky, a senior fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University in Israel. “What’s the connection between a deal with Iran and that? I’m honestly puzzled.”
Two Western diplomats in the region said that no one was really taking the idea seriously. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss diplomacy.
Asked to explain the connection between peace negotiations with Iran and expanding the Abraham Accords, a White House spokeswoman did not answer directly. Instead, she referred to remarks made by Mr. Trump on Wednesday, when he suggested that U.S. agreement on a deal with Iran could be made contingent upon countries such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar agreeing to recognize Israel.
“I think those countries owe it to us,” he said. “I’m not sure we should make the deal, if they don’t sign.”
The Saudi and Qatari governments did not respond to requests for comment.
Under the Abraham Accords — a deal brokered by the first Trump administration in 2020 — the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco agreed to establish diplomatic relations with Israel. A wide range of American politicians have portrayed the pact as a major diplomatic achievement, and have frequently referred to the accords as a “peace deal.”
Scholars from the region say that is merely a turn of phrase, belying the fact that there has never been a war between Israel and Bahrain or the Emirates. In effect, the deals bypassed the central conflict — between Israel and the Palestinians — declaring harmony between parties that were not fighting.
Since then, the Abraham Accords have created opportunities for expanded trade, security cooperation and tourism between the countries that signed them. The Emirates, the Arab architect of the accords, has grown especially close to Israel. But the accords did not usher in a new era of regional peace — far from it — and the Emirates’ warm ties with Israel have increasingly made it an outlier in the Middle East.
For Israel, the crowning of the Abraham Accords would be the normalization of diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia, the largest Arab economy and home to Islam’s holiest sites. Saudi Arabia does not formally recognize Israel, although successive U.S. administrations have made it their goal to change that.
Few consider that a possibility now. Over the past couple of years, Saudi officials have consistently predicated ties with Israel on the creation of an independent state for Palestinians. Israel’s current government — the most right-wing in the country’s history — vehemently opposes the establishment of a Palestinian state and is unwilling to even talk of a pathway to one.
“Saudi Arabia will not be rushed into a historic decision that ignores Palestinian statehood,” said Salman al-Ansari, a Saudi political analyst. “Saudi Arabia’s commitment to a two-state solution is not a slogan, and it is not a bargaining chip.”
Mr. Trump’s language implied that he was giving an order, not making a request.
“It should start with the immediate signing by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and everybody else should follow suit,” he said. “If they don’t, they should not be part of this Deal in that it shows bad intention.”
Perhaps even Iran — Israel’s archenemy — could join the Abraham Accords, Mr. Trump mused.
“Wow, now that would be something special!” he wrote.
Soon after, Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, who had recently slammed the potential deal with Iran, wrote his own post on social media calling it a “simply brilliant” idea to link the deal with the expansion of the Abraham Accords.
“I expect our Arab allies to embrace this,” he wrote.
If taken at face value, those statements would seem to indicate an ignorance of political dynamics in the Middle East, analysts said. An association with Israel — never popular among Arab populations — has become even more toxic for many governments in the Middle East as a result of the devastating wars that Israel has waged in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran since the deadly Hamas-led attack on Israel in October 2023.
The more that American officials push for normalization as an imposition rather than as part of a mutually beneficial deal, “the more unpalatable it becomes,” said Abdulaziz Alghashian, a Saudi scholar and senior nonresident fellow at the Gulf International Forum, a research organization.
Under the Biden administration, the Saudi crown prince had been seeking substantial incentives from the United States in exchange for establishing ties with Israel, including access to American nuclear technology and a U.S.-Saudi defense pact.
The extent to which Mr. Trump’s mandate came across as a complete non sequitur in the Middle East made Mr. Alghashian think that the Abraham Accords were possibly “the only clear strategy the U.S. has in the region,” he said.
A deal with Iran appears shaky at best, and fighting has continued to flare as diplomats have negotiated the details. In Israel, Mr. Trump’s linkage between that deal and an expansion of the Abraham Accords has been largely met by baffled silence.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has not reacted publicly to Mr. Trump’s pronouncement. Analysts have said that the phased deal with Iran the president has proposed would most likely be hard for Mr. Netanyahu to swallow. If the bid to include an expansion of the Abraham Accords were meant as some kind of sweetener, the Israeli prime minister was not letting on.
Asked about the Abraham Accords becoming part of any Iran deal, or if Mr. Netanyahu had discussed this issue with Mr. Trump, the Israeli government responded with a statement saying only that “Israel is keen on expanding the circle of peace, which will be most beneficial to all signatories of the Abraham Accords.”
With Israeli elections expected this fall, and Mr. Netanyahu’s political future on the line, the prospect of Saudi Arabia or other Muslim-majority states handing him such a prize appears even more remote.
“Those countries won’t take a step before the elections in Israel and before seeing what the deal with Iran yields,” Mr. Guzansky said, adding, “We are still in such a fog of war.”
Mr. Trump even suggested that Pakistan — which has mediated between the United States and Iran to end the war — should join the accords.
In Pakistan, one of the world’s most populous Muslim-majority countries, officials and analysts greeted that call with a flat no. Pakistan does not recognize Israel, and its passports explicitly state that holders are barred from traveling there.
Pakistan’s defense minister, Khawaja Muhammad Asif, said on local television that joining the accords would clash with the country’s “fundamental ideologies.”
Mr. Trump’s statement might have been an attempt to please parts of his domestic audience — such as Iran hawks who view the potential deal with the Iranians as a disappointment — Pakistani analysts said. They called the proposal a distraction from the peace negotiations between the United States and Iran.
“Trump may be trying to divert attention with his Abraham Accords statement, but it is a poor effort at that,” said Maleeha Lodhi, a former Pakistani ambassador to the United States and the United Nations.
In the end, Mr. Trump appeared to give himself an offramp — raising questions about why he had made the proposal in the first place.
“It may be possible,” he wrote in the post, that some of the countries he named have acceptable reasons for not recognizing Israel, he said.
But the rest of the countries, he said, should be ready to join in — making his settlement with Iran “a far more Historic Event than it would, otherwise, be.”
Salman Masood contributed reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan, and Adam Rasgon from Tel Aviv.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
2) Prices in the U.S. Are Rising at the Fastest Pace in Years
Officials at the central bank have embraced the possibility of higher interest rates to get resurgent inflation under control.
By Colby Smith, Colby Smith covers the Federal Reserve., May 28, 2026
Vincent Alban/The New York Times
A measure of inflation closely watched by the Federal Reserve accelerated in April to a three-year high, reinforcing the central bank’s budding support to consider raising interest rates if price pressures do not ease.
The Personal Consumption Expenditures index rose 3.8 percent from the same time last year. It was the fastest annual pace since May 2023, when the Fed was in the midst of raising rates to tame a burst of inflation that had emerged in the wake of the pandemic.
A measure of underlying inflation that strips out volatile food and energy prices also notched a multiyear high. That measure, “core” inflation, increased at an annual pace of 3.3 percent, the fastest since November 2023.
On a monthly basis, inflation rose slightly less than expected. Overall prices jumped 0.4 percent and those excluding food and energy prices ticked up 0.2 percent.
That was a welcome reprieve, but on the whole, the latest data, which the Commerce Department released on Thursday, underscored the difficult position that officials at the central bank are now in with price pressures intensifying because of the war with Iran.
This month, the Consumer Price Index, another inflation gauge, also showed that consumer prices had risen at the fastest pace since May 2023.
Consumers have started to moderate their spending in the face of resurgent prices, according to Thursday’s data. Spending, once adjusted for inflation, rose just 0.1 percent in April, as incomes flatlined and the savings rate dropped to the lowest level since June 2022.
The Commerce Department also revised lower its assessment of growth in the first quarter, noting that the economy expanded 1.6 percent on an inflation-adjusted basis compared with its initial estimate of 2 percent.
The war, which began in late February, has severely disrupted global energy markets, raising the urgency of a deal between President Trump and Iranian officials. No agreement has emerged, however, and renewed hostilities in recent days have dimmed hopes that a crucial shipping pathway, the Strait of Hormuz, will be reopened soon.
The Fed typically ignores or “looks through” supply shocks because they historically tend to affect prices only temporarily. John C. Williams, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, appeared to back this approach in remarks on Thursday. He acknowledged that continuing supply chain disruptions caused by the war were worrisome, but he estimated that the impact on inflation could peak in a few months.
But other officials have begun to question whether the look-through approach is the right one, given that the war with Iran is the fourth shock in five years to push inflation further from the Fed’s 2 percent target. The U.S. economy has weathered a series of events that have raised prices, including the Covid-19 pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Mr. Trump’s global trade war.
Since 2021, inflation has been higher than the central bank would like. Expectations about inflation in the next five or 10 years still reflect confidence that the central bank will eventually succeed in bringing inflation down to 2 percent. But the longer inflation stays above that target, the more likely that confidence could begin to ebb.
With the labor market on firmer footing than just a couple of months ago, more Fed officials have embraced the possibility that rates may need to rise to get inflation fully under control.
“I want to be clear about my risk assessment: The risks remain tilted toward higher inflation,” said Lisa D. Cook, a Fed governor, in remarks on Wednesday. “I am prepared to raise rates, if the expected disinflation does not appear in a timely manner.”
That followed a speech last week from Christopher J. Waller, another governor, who made clear that he could “no longer rule out rate hikes further down the road if inflation does not abate soon.” That, he added, was “especially true if measures of inflation expectations, some of which have risen lately, show signs of becoming unanchored.”
The specter of higher rates comes amid a leadership transition at the Fed. Kevin M. Warsh, whom Mr. Trump picked to replace Jerome H. Powell as chair, was sworn in to the top job at the Fed last week. Mr. Trump has long berated the Fed for not lowering rates quickly enough.
Mr. Trump has hinted he will try to ease up on his pressure campaign now that Mr. Warsh is at the helm. At Friday’s swearing-in ceremony, which was held at the White House for the first time since 1987, the president said he wanted Mr. Warsh to be “totally independent.”
But that leeway could quickly disappear, especially if the Fed begins to more seriously consider rate increases, which would make all types of borrowing more expensive.
Traders in federal funds futures markets expect the central bank to eventually raise rates early next year.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
3) Five Takeaways From Our Investigation Into Texas School Police
The state’s ambitious school policing initiative has few safeguards to prevent overreach by officers.
By Clare Amari, Kristian Hernández and Asher Lehrer-Small, May 28, 2026
This article was reported in collaboration with The San Antonio Express-News as part of The New York Times’s Local Investigations Fellowship.
Anabelle Jaramillo is among the thousands of students in Texas who have had physical encounters with school police officers in recent years. Meridith Kohut for The New York Times
Anabelle Jaramillo’s first and only encounter with the police officers in her Texas high school happened when she was accused of stealing a $13 classroom doorbell in 2024.
Anabelle, a 17-year-old honor student, told an assistant principal that she had accidentally knocked the bell loose, she said in an interview. Still, the administrator called the officers, who arrested the teen for theft. When Anabelle pulled away, the officers wrestled her onto her belly and handcuffed her.
The student, who is asthmatic and has panic attacks, gasped for air on the floor for three minutes, video footage shows.
Anabelle is among the thousands of students in Texas who have had physical encounters with school police officers in recent years. Many of these interactions have occurred since state lawmakers passed legislation in 2023 requiring an officer on each public school campus.
To understand how this initiative has played out, The New York Times’s Local Investigations Fellowship collaborated with The San Antonio Express-News to examine thousands of pages of records describing use of force in schools. We also reviewed more than two dozen videos of police encounters on campuses and interviewed hundreds of students, educators, parents and officers.
Here are five takeaways from our reporting:
When it comes to school policing, Texas is different.
School districts across the United States have police officers assigned to their campuses. Most are employed by municipal police departments or sheriff’s offices. In Texas, however, nearly 400 of the state’s more than 1,000 public school districts have a different approach: Instead of tapping local police agencies for officers, they created their own departments.
School-district police departments are not unheard-of in other states, but typically only large school systems have them. In Texas, many small- and medium-size districts do, too.
The officers who work for these departments have the power to make arrests and usually carry firearms. Their chiefs report to the superintendent of schools.
After the 2022 massacre at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas made a major investment in school officers.
The shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde left 19 students and 2 teachers dead. The grief was felt in every corner of the state and across the nation. A year later, lawmakers in Texas approved the legislation requiring an officer on every campus, saying it would help prevent similar tragedies.
After the law passed, annual spending on school security statewide increased to more than $1.3 billion from about $900 million. The number of officers trained to work in schools rose to more than 11,000 from about 8,000, an analysis of state police certification data shows.
In recent interviews, dozens of students, parents and educators said that they welcomed the presence of police in their schools. Many raised concerns about violent fights and school shootings.
School officers across Texas have used physical force on students thousands of times in recent years.
The state does not maintain an official count of use-of-force episodes in schools. But our reporters found that school officers across Texas used physical force at least 2,600 times from January 2022 through December 2025.
That number — which we calculated by requesting use-of-force data and records from hundreds of school districts and police agencies — is an undercount. Some districts and departments ignored our requests or declined to share the information. About 200 provided some data, but few of them provided comprehensive figures.
Officers used heavy-handed tactics in response to misbehavior or often minor misconduct.
A state law in Texas says that school districts should not assign officers to handle “routine student discipline.” But our reporters found that school officers grabbed, tackled and used Tasers or pepper spray on students in response to misconduct that often appeared to be minor.
We were able to obtain case-level records for more than 450 episodes in which officers had used physical force in schools. Many of them began over misbehavior such as swearing, vaping or schoolyard scraps. More than 100 times, students were left with bruises, scrapes or other injuries. About two dozen of the overall cases involved students in elementary school who were handcuffed or restrained in other ways.
Police chiefs told our reporters that force was sometimes necessary when students were likely to hurt themselves or others. One chief said his officers used force largely to restrain or redirect students.
Texas has embraced school policing without establishing a clear system of oversight and accountability.
Regulatory agencies in Texas do not have the power to routinely review school officers’ actions and weigh in on possible overreach. State officials said that school boards and police agencies were responsible.
But many school boards play limited roles in police matters. Two dozen board members from across Texas said they did not believe law enforcement oversight was within their purview. Additionally, many use-of-force policies used by school-district police departments lacked specific guidance on handling students.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
4) Cuba Just Lost Its Next Best Chance for Fuel
A Russian tanker seemingly en route to Cuba with a lifeline of fuel has changed direction, a painful development for the island suffering under a U.S. oil blockade.
By Jack Nicas, May 28, 2026
Jack Nicas has been tracking fuel tankers trying to challenge the U.S. blockade on Cuba.
Yankiel Perez carried buckets of water on Monday outside a building in Havana. Credit...Jorge Luis Banos/Associated Press
Cuba’s desperate wait for fuel seems to have just gotten longer.
A Russian tanker that had appeared headed to Cuba — with 242,000 barrels of badly needed diesel — has turned away from the island and now appears to be on its way to South America.
The diversion is a brutal development for the Cuban government and its people, who have been enduring a worsening energy crisis since the Trump administration imposed an effective oil blockade against the island in January.
Russia has so far been the only nation allowed to break that blockade, with a March shipment of 730,000 barrels of crude oil. That oil, however, has largely already been used, and Cubans had hoped they were about to receive a new lifeline. But with the tanker’s left turn, any more help will now most likely take weeks to arrive, if it ever does.
Pentagon and U.S. Coast Guard spokespeople declined to comment, but expressed puzzlement at the tanker’s new route.
The Russian government did not respond to a request for comment.
Ernesto Soberón Guzmán, Cuba’s ambassador to the United Nations, said that while he didn’t have details on the Russian tanker, Cuba was counting on Russia to help it survive what he called an illegal U.S. blockade.
“It’s hypocritical — cynical — that on one hand they talk about making efforts to open the Strait of Hormuz and so on, while on the other hand they are effectively imposing a naval blockade against Cuba,” Mr. Soberón Guzmán told The New York Times on Wednesday, referring to the U.S. government. “A fuel blockade that in practice constitutes an act of war.”
The tanker’s detour is a victory for the Trump administration, which has been trying to strangle Cuba into making major changes to its political and economic system. Cuba has said it has now depleted its fuel reserves and is surviving off domestic oil production, solar power and small fuel shipments to private enterprises on the island.
As a result, daily life is becoming increasingly difficult. Electricity works just a few hours a day, Cubans are cooking with charcoal and firewood, aid distribution is complicated by a lack of gas, and fuel is essentially available only on the black market, where it can cost upward of $40 a gallon.
Cubans are bracing for the summer heat, when demand for power generally increases, while the Trump administration is hoping the situation forces Cuban officials to accept U.S. demands.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio denied that the United States was responsible for the crisis. “The real reason you don’t have electricity, fuel or food is because those who control your country have plundered billions of dollars, but nothing has been used to help the people,” he said in a video addressed to the Cuban people last week.
Washington has been intensifying its pressure campaign. Last week, the Justice Department charged Raúl Castro, Cuba’s former president, with murder stemming from the 1996 downing of two civilian planes near Cuba that killed three American citizens.
The U.S. government halted shipments of Venezuelan oil to Cuba after intervening militarily in the South American nation. President Trump then threatened tariffs on any nation sending fuel to Cuba. And in one case, the U.S. military escorted a tanker away from the island.
Up until changing its route this week, the Russian tanker, called the Universal, showed numerous signs that it was headed to Cuba. On March 31, the same day that the last Russian tanker arrived in Cuba, the Universal left Russia loaded with diesel, according to Kplr, a ship-tracking data firm. Its destination was left vague.
Shortly after, Russian officials confirmed they were sending a second tanker to Cuba. “We won’t abandon the Cubans,” Russia’s energy minister, Sergei Tsivilyov, told reporters.
The Universal passed through the English Channel on April 9 and continued straight toward Cuba until April 21, when it suddenly stopped in the Atlantic Ocean, according to ship-tracking data. The ship then drifted, largely in place, for a month — until it abruptly headed south this week.
Pausing in the middle of the ocean for so long is highly unusual. Fuel tankers operate on strict schedules to deliver their cargo. But it followed the same pattern as another recent ship carrying fuel for Cuba.
The Sea Horse, a tanker owned by a Chinese firm, spent weeks drifting in the Atlantic this year before it gave up and delivered its cargo elsewhere. The ship’s owners had feared consequences from the U.S. government, The New York Times reported.
The United States and the European Union have imposed sanctions against the Universal for its links to Sovcomflot, a Russian state-owned shipping company.
Jorge Piñón, a University of Texas researcher who studies Cuban energy, said that the Universal’s diesel would have been an enormous, albeit temporary, lift for Cuba. Trucks and tractors need the fuel, but Cuba can’t produce it from its domestic oil.
Mr. Piñón estimated that the ship’s cargo, which was likely to be donated to Cuba, was worth $25 million. “So now Russia is going to make a pretty hefty profit,” he said.
Lazaro Gamio, Eric Schmitt and Christiaan Triebert contributed reporting.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
5) Guatemala Agrees to Joint Strikes With U.S. Against Drug Gangs
The deal is part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to press Latin American countries to agree to joint operations inside their borders.
By Maria Abi-Habib and Eric Schmitt, May 28, 2026
“One of the next countries that the Defense Department intends to press to accept joint military action is Honduras, said two of the people familiar with the plans. The Trump administration is targeting Guatemala and Honduras to pressure Mexico into accepting joint counterdrug operations, those two people said. While Washington has been pushing for U.S. boots on the ground and drone strikes, President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico has staunchly rejected the requests. The White House’s broader strategy is to normalize an American military presence across Latin America to gain leverage over Mexico, according to the two people.”
Maria Abi-Habib reported from Mexico City and Eric Schmitt from Washington and Miami.
Security forces outside a prison in Guatemala City after a wave of riots and gang violence in January. Credit...Daniele Volpe for The New York Times
Guatemala has agreed to carry out joint strikes with the United States military inside its territory to target drug trafficking groups, according to three people familiar with the talks, in a further expansion of the Trump administration’s military campaign across Latin America.
Last week, President Bernardo Arévalo of Guatemala agreed to both airstrikes and other military action in a call with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, two of those people said, with operations to start as early as next month. It was unclear what other military activities could be included in the agreement.
Guatemala has formally requested “cooperation in operations led by Guatemalan security forces against drug trafficking organizations” in a letter to Mr. Hegseth, Mr. Arévalo’s office confirmed in a statement to The New York Times. His office said that Mr. Arévalo and Mr. Hegseth spoke by phone on May 19 to finalize terms but did not disclose specific details.
Guatemala would become the second country in the region to allow joint military action against criminal groups inside its borders; Ecuador agreed to a similar deal earlier this year. Under that arrangement, U.S. forces are advising and assisting Ecuadorean troops on raids and airstrikes against suspected drug gangs that have turned Ecuador into one of the deadliest countries in Latin America.
One of the next countries that the Defense Department intends to press to accept joint military action is Honduras, said two of the people familiar with the plans.
The Trump administration is targeting Guatemala and Honduras to pressure Mexico into accepting joint counterdrug operations, those two people said. While Washington has been pushing for U.S. boots on the ground and drone strikes, President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico has staunchly rejected the requests. The White House’s broader strategy is to normalize an American military presence across Latin America to gain leverage over Mexico, according to the two people.
That strategy is being advocated by Stephen Miller, Mr. Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security adviser, as well as Joseph M. Humire, for now the Pentagon’s top policy official for homeland defense and the Americas, the two people said.
Mr. Miller chairs a bimonthly meeting — called a “wins” meeting — at which various government agencies report on recent successes, with the Pentagon’s death toll from boat strikes regularly highlighted as one of the biggest, according to those two people and one other person familiar with the meeting.
The people interviewed for this story spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
The White House denied the characterization of Mr. Miller’s so-called wins meeting. “The administration continues to work to carry out the President’s agenda,” the White House said in a statement to The Times.
The deal with Guatemala, which has not yet been publicly announced, is part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to press countries throughout the region to allow joint operations inside their territories, according to those three people and a fourth person with knowledge of the strategy. Nearly 20 Latin American countries are already part of the Americas Counter Cartel Coalition, which was formed earlier this year by the Trump administration to target cartels and organized crime across the Western Hemisphere.
President Trump met with conservative and right-wing Latin American leaders in Florida in March, promising that together they would “eradicate the criminal cartels plaguing our region.”
The U.S. military is “knocking the hell out of them where we can, and we’re going to go heavier,” Mr. Trump told the leaders. “We need your help, you have to — just tell us where they are.”
The administration has deployed U.S. military resources to the region on a scale not seen in decades and designated more than a dozen Latin American and Caribbean groups as foreign terrorist organizations.
Joel Valdez, the acting Pentagon press secretary, declined to comment on any agreement with Guatemala, citing operational security.
So far, most countries in the coalition have been reluctant to allow the Pentagon to strike inside their nations because of concerns about domestic backlash, said three of the people familiar with the effort.
While many citizens across Latin America want their governments to do more to curb drug-related violence, they remain weary of the U.S. military operating inside their countries after decades of intervention by Washington, including bloody political coups.
In January, a delegation from the Pentagon, including Mr. Humire, visited Guatemala to meet with the country’s president and defense minister. They agreed to “reaffirm the strong alliance” between their security forces, according to the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala, but neither government released more details.
At a security conference at Florida International University earlier this month, Mr. Humire said new regional partnerships like the Americas Counter Cartel Coalition have given countries in the region a “platform to be able to elevate their partnership with the United States.”
“The Department of War wants to work with other countries, but they have to show that will and capacity to go after the problem set,” said Mr. Humire, referring to what the administration now calls the Department of Defense. “Part of what we’re doing is showing you that we are going to win.”
Earlier this month, Guatemalan military officials were hosted on the aircraft carrier Nimitz as the Pentagon sent equipment and troops to help train Guatemalan forces.
Last September, the Pentagon began striking boats in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean, in what it said was an effort to deter drug traffickers from using those routes. So far there have been 59 strikes that have killed at least 196 people, according to a tally by The Times, though the Trump administration has given scant evidence that the targets were drug smugglers.
Experts say the boat strikes may be illegal and carry legal risks for the Pentagon. An expansion of that effort inside Latin American countries may come with even more legal risk, people familiar with the effort said.
Former U.S. officials have said that even if the Defense Department’s leadership approved the strikes, the lower-ranking officers who actually carry them out could be held culpable for killing drug trafficking suspects who may in fact be innocent.
“As with the boat strikes, depending on the facts, further attacks could amount to premeditated killings outside of armed conflict, which some of us lawyers would refer to as murder,” said Brian Finucane, a former State Department lawyer who specializes in the laws of war. “Congress never authorized any of these strikes. So U.S. personnel who participate in these actions could face consequences down the road, after the Trump administration.”
Even if U.S. forces only provide intelligence or other logistical support to Latin American countries to conduct their strikes, they could be culpable for aiding and abetting violations of U.S. and international law, he said.
The U.S. military strikes are part of a shifting strategy in Washington’s war on drugs, which has traditionally been carried out by the Department of Justice and its Drug Enforcement Administration. The antidrug effort has long been seen as a law enforcement issue, with Washington prioritizing the arrest of suspects — whose interrogation can help investigators dismantle smuggling networks — rather than killing them, as in a conventional war.
Many Latin American countries have been bombarded with various requests from the Trump administration that they have tried to accommodate, to placate the region’s superpower. Guatemala last year agreed to accept planeloads of deportees from other countries who were expelled from the United States, and then repatriate them back to their home countries.
While the Pentagon has hailed its joint strikes in Ecuador as an important game-changing chapter in its war against drugs, the operations have not always worked out as planned.
In March, one of those strikes hit a cattle and dairy farm, a New York Times investigation found, not the drug trafficking compound that Mr. Hegseth boasted about when he said the United States was “now bombing Narco Terrorists on land.”
Jody García contributed reporting from Guatemala City, Guatemala.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
6) Online Scams Have Evolved in the A.I. Era. Here’s What to Do.
A criminal could be masquerading as a celebrity, web store or family member asking for your money. Detecting scams requires a new approach.
By Brian X. Chen, May 28, 2026
Brian X. Chen is the author of Tech Fix, a weekly column about the tech we use.
Derek Abella
An email riddled with typos. A customer service agent with a thick accent. A blurry Craigslist photo.
Those used to be telltale signs of internet scams. But today, thanks to generative artificial intelligence, those red flags have mostly vanished. Low-cost chatbots, image generators and voice-cloning tools make it simple for criminals to produce pristine copy, create seemingly legitimate websites and even replicate identities.
A.I.-powered internet scams have become so convincing that I confess I almost fell for one. While mindlessly scrolling through TikTok videos, I came across an ad for a pair of Hoka sneakers marked 80 percent off. When I tapped on it, a website loaded that looked like an authentic clearance outlet for the shoe brand.
But after I added the shoes to the shopping cart, my Spidey sense went off. A quick web search revealed that users on Reddit had been scammed by this site; Hoka had even published a warning about a surge of fake web stores masquerading as its brand.
These look-alike websites are one of several A.I.-fueled internet scams that have recently been on the rise, security experts say. The F.B.I. reported last month that cybercriminals had defrauded Americans of nearly $21 billion last year, with about $893 million in losses linked to A.I.
Because A.I. makes it effortless to build websites and digital avatars, we may have to rethink our approach to protecting ourselves from online fraud.
“Instead of looking for indicators of what’s bad, now you need to be verifying if it’s good,” said Mark Beare, a general manager for Malwarebytes, an internet security firm. “It’s not a Nigerian prince anymore. It’s a look-alike site for REI or eBay or any one of those known, reputable brands.”
Scam ads have been so rampant that legal complaints against the social media giant Meta are mounting. Last month, the Consumer Federation of America, a nonprofit advocacy group, filed a complaint accusing Meta of misleading users about its efforts to combat scams. The complaint cited examples including scam ads for baby gear and free phones. California’s Santa Clara County filed a similar lawsuit against Meta this month.
In response, Meta said that last year, it removed 159 million scam ads and took down nearly 11 million accounts on Facebook and Instagram associated with known producers of scams. It added that it was investing in new technology to combat scams.
A TikTok spokeswoman said that the company prohibited deceptive practices and misleading content in ads, and that attempts to defraud users were not allowed on the platform. She added that in the fourth quarter of 2025, 97 percent of violating spam content that TikTok removed was taken down before users reported it.
Other than fake stores, scammers have used A.I. to pretend to be someone close to their victims, including family members and old flames. To put it another way, A.I. has made it possible for criminals to tailor their attacks to be more personal than ever before.
Here’s what to know about the most common A.I. scams and what to do.
A.I. Cat Fishers and Impersonators
Everyone is familiar with the text message coming from an unknown number saying something along the lines of “It’s been a long time. How have you been?” Engaging with the sender could end with a phone conversation and the scammer asking for cash. Today, that conversation is likely to shift to a video call because fraudsters have discovered they can use A.I. tools that digitally transform them into someone else.
“It’s very easy and very cheap to do a real-time Zoom call with whole body replacement and voice changing in a way that’s completely realistic,” said Andrew Yoon, a researcher at CivAI, a nonprofit that teaches people about A.I.’s capabilities.
This scheme could take on different forms depending on the victim’s interests and weaknesses. A lonely male may be tricked into believing that an attractive woman from his past is hoping to reconnect. A job seeker could be duped by a phony A.I. interviewer into doing work for a bogus company.
And because phone numbers are easy to fake and the names and contact information for our relatives are publicly available online, the scams can get much more personal. A mother could receive a fraudulent text message from her son’s phone number and eventually get on a video call with an A.I. simulation of him, where the impersonator asks for money.
Mr. Yoon suggested a low-tech antidote: Have conversations with family members, especially any older relatives inexperienced with tech, to discuss the possibility that they might get a call from an impersonator. Establish a secret safe word that can be used to test whether someone is real, whenever in doubt.
The Fake Celebrity
Since the arrival of instant video generator apps like OpenAI’s Sora, social media has been flooded with A.I.-fabricated slop. Fake videos featuring Hollywood celebrities and high-profile business executives are widespread because so many images and videos of them are available on the web to help A.I. models generate near-perfect imitations.
Some scammers have tried to exploit celebrities by using their star status to market nonexistent products. Deepfake videos of the chef Gordon Ramsay, for instance, circulated on social media in the last few years endorsing a cookware giveaway; victims who thought they were paying a small shipping fee for free frying pans were handing their credit card numbers to criminals.
Abusers also generated deepfake videos of Richard Branson, the founder of the Virgin Group, to lure his fans into making phony investments. It happened so often, he posted an Instagram video educating his followers on how to spot these types of scams.
Mr. Branson’s advice was spot on. Trust only information from official sources — for example, in the case of Mr. Branson, a webpage published on Virgin.com. Blue checkmarks on social media sites are not foolproof indicators that people are who they claim to be, so don’t let them lure you into shady get-rich-quick schemes.
The Cloned Store Brand
Ads that direct you to A.I.-generated scam sites, like the sneaker shop that almost tricked me, are prolific on social media. The ads may be directly relevant to your personal interests — for instance, if you encounter a fake store selling a bicycle.
That’s because the scammers pay for ad space on TikTok and Instagram to leverage the same tools that real marketers use to target ads at people with relevant interests, said Mr. Beare of Malwarebytes. Criminals can afford to spend those dollars on ad-targeting because — unlike real brands — they have no product to ship.
There are ways to quickly determine whether an online store posing as a brand is fake. A simple method is to do a Google search for the store’s web address and see what people are saying about it on sites like Reddit.
For more thorough scam detection, you can also ask an A.I. chatbot for help. Malwarebytes recently teamed up with OpenAI and Anthropic to connect its free scam-detection app to the ChatGPT and Claude chatbots. You can paste a web address and screenshots into the chatbots and ask Malwarebytes to run an analysis on whether a site is legitimate.
If that sounds like too much work, there’s one age-old piece of conventional wisdom that is still true in the era of A.I.: If something seems too good to be true, it probably is.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
7) This Is Why Your Groceries Are So Expensive
By Sandeep Vaheesan and Claire Kelloway, May 29, 2026
Mr. Vaheesan is the legal director at the Open Markets Institute. Ms. Kelloway is the institute’s program manager for fair food and farming systems.
Eric Ruby
Prepare for sticker shock as summer barbecue season heats up: The price of beef is sizzlingly high. Grilled sirloin will cost more than $14 a pound, on average, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, up 20 percent since last year.
This month, President Trump considered, and then halted, a plan to reduce tariffs on beef from some nations, including Argentina, to bring prices down. But such moves would not be enough to fix the core problem: a highly concentrated sector that has controlled our meat supply for much of the past century. More than 45 percent of all U.S. cattle passed through just 11 meat processing plants in 2025, and the top four packers sold 80 to 85 percent of all domestic beef in 2024.
In March, Senator Chuck Schumer, the minority leader, introduced a bill to break up dominant beef-packing corporations, which include JBS, Tyson Foods, Cargill and National Beef. The Trump administration, which has otherwise been allergic to regulatory enforcement against big corporations, recently announced investigations into beef packers as well as egg processors, which raised prices sharply during the avian flu outbreak, for possible antitrust violations.
But those investigations will matter only if regulators follow up on their findings with aggressive legal actions. Mr. Schumer’s bill is the kind of structural solution, with potential bipartisan appeal, that has been in short supply.
The entire U.S. food system is remarkably consolidated, exploitative and fragile. Two companies sold half of all fresh bread in 2020; two others controlled an estimated two-thirds of all baby formula in 2022; and two companies produced about 60 percent of all carrots in 2023. Result? Food prices remain elevated after rising about 30 percent between 2019 and 2025, as corporations took advantage of pandemic supply chain disruptions to raise prices and, critically, profits.
Such intense concentration was not inevitable. It’s a product of decades of failure to enforce anti-merger laws that have been on the books since 1890. Beginning with the Reagan administration, federal regulators under both Republican and Democratic presidents took a largely hands-off approach to corporate consolidation. The Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission adopted Wall Street’s view that mergers generate efficiencies and promise lower consumer prices.
That was baloney. Fewer competitors often lead to higher prices. But the corporations have successfully defended their bigger-is-better argument for decades, which is one reason we have industrial pig farms polluting our countryside.
There have been many attempts to rein in the food giants. Meat, sugar and egg processors have all been accused of price-fixing, and food giants have paid out plenty in legal settlements. But antitrust enforcement has largely fallen short.
The Goliaths have maintained their grip on the markets while engaging in the same anti-consumer business tactics they have mastered. Farmers still struggle with rising costs and stagnant prices for their crops and livestock, while consumers face an illusion of choice at a higher price.
Despite the recent formation of a food antitrust task force, the Trump administration has largely gutted government capacity to take on food corporations, and it walked back some moderate steps to change harmful business practices.
Consider a federal lawsuit against Agri Stats, a data collector and consulting company that was accused of facilitating the sharing of competitively sensitive information among major meat processors and advising them on pricing. According to what one meat processing executive said in the lawsuit, Agri Stats’s advice essentially amounted to: “Just raise your price.” And they did: Turkey processing margins increased 300 percent in just three years. Citing such data, the Justice Department under Joe Biden sued Agri Stats.
The appetite for enforcement changed under Mr. Trump. This month, the Justice Department proposed a settlement that would allow Agri Stats, under court supervision, to continue to facilitate information sharing among producers in the pork and poultry industry, provided it shares that information more broadly and doesn’t distribute certain types of data related to prices and output (Agri Stats did not admit to any wrongdoing).
Solving the food sector’s woes will require much more radical medicine. It has been done before. In the 19th century, farmers being squeezed by middlemen helped pressure Congress into passing the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act, which outlawed monopolies and made it a crime for competing companies to restrain trade through price- and wage-fixing or divvying up markets.
In 1920, the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department pressured the Beef Trust, a concentration of five meatpackers that then commanded as much as 75 percent of the industry, to sell off its stockyards and transportation facilities and divest from retail stores. The government also substantially reduced or prevented further concentration across the food industry through the postwar years. By 1956, the four largest beef packers, including former Beef Trust members, had just 30 percent of the market.
That all began to change in the 1980s, when the federally blessed buyout boom put big mergers back on the table; they haven’t stopped. In recent years, Brazil’s JBS bought Swift & Company as well as Cargill’s pork business; Tyson bought IBP, Keystone Foods and Hillshire Brands; China’s WH Group acquired Smithfield Foods; and the Kraft-Heinz merger created a grocery behemoth that may have, for once, become too big to even manage.
The government needs to take steps to rein in these companies. Mr. Schumer’s bill is a good start. Congress should also extend financial and technical support to help seed new competitors capable of vying with the big meatpackers, which the Biden administration attempted to do. To maintain open markets in the long run, regulators must also ban unfair business practices that can be used to secure and maintain dominant positions.
Without far-reaching change, the government, farmers and consumers will be doomed to fight an endless battle against corporate combines. Consumers will keep paying too much, and farmers will continue to get too little. By enforcing the law, Mr. Trump could deliver for the public and some of his most loyal supporters. Short of that, we need Congress to, once again, carve up this oligopoly.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
8) New York Wants to Restrict ICE Enforcement. ICE Has Other Ideas.
New York leaders changed state immigration laws to hold federal agents accountable for their deportation tactics, but their efforts will face opposition from the Trump administration.
By Grace Ashford and Hamed Aleaziz, May 29, 2026
New legislation adopted by New York State lawmakers bars federal immigration agents from wearing masks, as they did last year at a staging area in Lower Manhattan. Credit...Todd Heisler/The New York Times
Roughly a week after Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York announced new restrictions on federal immigration agents, including a mask ban, the Department of Homeland Security made clear it was girding for battle.
In an internal memo, the department’s general counsel assured agents that they were “not legally required to comply with state and local mask prohibitions while carrying out their official duties.”
The memo, dated May 15 and reviewed by The New York Times, added that officers should “freely perform their authorized duties without concern for state interference or fear of prosecution.”
The guidance signals that the agency has no intention of cooperating with a wave of legislation across the country that aims to curtail immigration enforcement after the deaths of two Americans at the hands of immigration officers in Minneapolis.
New York is the latest to join the fray, enacting legislation that bans masks, allows Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to be sued for constitutional violations, and prohibits agents from searching “sensitive locations” like hospitals and schools without a warrant signed by a judge.
“If you are enforcing the law, you should not be hiding from it,” Jen Goodman, a spokeswoman for Ms. Hochul, said in response to the news that the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, was already preparing to disregard New York’s mask ban. “Any ICE agent who comes to New York and violates our laws will be held accountable.”
The state will also prohibit informal and formal arrangements, called 287(g) agreements, between counties and ICE that had allowed the federal agency to use local law enforcement and jails to arrest and detain people suspected of being in the country illegally.
In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security said it does not comment on leaked materials. But it called mask bans like New York’s “despicable and a flagrant attempt to endanger our officers,” arguing that agents wear face coverings only to protect themselves and that under the Constitution, state and local politicians “do not control federal law enforcement.”
“To be crystal clear: We will not abide by unconstitutional bans,” the statement said.
The Trump administration’s border czar, Tom Homan, said earlier this month that New York’s legislation would make his agency’s work “more dangerous and less efficient.”
“When I lose those 287(g) programs, I lose those jails, that means I’ve got to send more officers into the street to look for more people you released,” he said in an interview with The Washington Examiner.
Lawmakers and immigrant advocates say that New York’s legislation, which was included in the state budget formally passed Wednesday evening, does not go far enough. Even though informal agreements between ICE and local law enforcement are prohibited, there is nothing in the law explicitly preventing the police from calling immigration officials after, for instance, a traffic stop involving someone potentially subject to deportation.
Ms. Hochul, who fought against creating a blanket rule to ban such calls, said on Thursday that police officers still should not be calling immigration just because someone is speaking Spanish.
“Why would you call ICE in that situation?” she said. “That is not your job.”
The tension reflects the ambition and limitations of a multistate effort to curtail the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown — some of the most visible pushback to federal power during President Trump’s second term — and previews how the politically charged issue may play out in the midterm elections.
With the president’s approval ratings falling, Republicans are trying to keep immigration concerns at the forefront of their political messaging, as they successfully did in pushing Mr. Trump to victory in 2016 and 2024. But the two deaths in Minnesota this year, as well as an increasing number of deaths in ICE custody, has complicated the narrative and emboldened states across the country to take legislative action.
California, Colorado, Washington and Wisconsin have introduced bills that would allow residents to sue immigration agents in state court for constitutional violations. Federal employees currently have broad impunity, making accountability all but impossible.
In September, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California signed two pieces of legislation, one of which prohibited ICE agents from wearing masks and another that required that they display identification.
California’s mask ban was overturned by a federal judge on constitutional grounds because it treated federal law enforcement differently from state law enforcement. A companion measure requiring both local and federal agents to display identification was also recently blocked by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
New York’s legislation was written with those decisions in mind. Both the mask ban and the private right to sue apply to both state and federal officials, which lawmakers hope will be enough to withstand the inevitable legal challenge.
“Where federal power ends and the state’s begins is a challenging line to find in the best of times,” said Senator Zellnor Myrie, a Democrat, who helped craft the package. “We tried very hard to learn lessons from across the country and ensure that what ultimately became law would stand as firmly as possible in the face of a legal challenge.”
The largest operational impact in New York is likely to be the rule preventing immigration agents from using local jails for detention.
“Now we can’t even buy a bed from the local sheriff,” Mr. Homan told The Washington Examiner. “So we arrest somebody that’s in a county in New York, we have no bed, which means we’ve got to fly that person out.”
But he added that Mr. Trump’s domestic policy law “gave us, you know, unprecedented amount of transportation money.”
The agency has considered opening a large detention facility in New York, as it has in other states. But a potential location in Chester, in Orange County, was abandoned after opposition from residents of the county, which President Trump won in 2024 by eight points.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
9) After New Push by the Bolsonaros, U.S. Labels Brazilian Gangs as Terrorist Groups
Following through on threats, the Trump administration has designated Brazil’s two largest drug gangs as terrorist groups.
By Ana Ionova, Reporting from Rio de Janeiro, Published May 28, 2026, Updated May 29, 2026
Members of the Red Command being arrested last year in Rio de Janeiro. The U.S. designated the gang a terrorist group on Thursday. Mauro Pimentel/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The United States plans to designate Brazil’s two biggest drug gangs as terrorist groups on Thursday, after months of aggressive lobbying by the sons of the jailed former president, Jair Bolsonaro, a close ally of President Trump’s.
The move comes just days after two of Mr. Bolsonaro’s sons, one of whom plans to run for president later this year, visited Mr. Trump at the White House.
Following the meeting on Tuesday, Flávio Bolsonaro, who will seek the presidency in lieu of his father, told reporters that he had again asked Mr. Trump to label the Brazilian gangs as terrorist groups.
The Trump administration appeared to grant that request with the designation on Thursday. In a statement, the U.S. Department of State said that the Brazilian gangs, the First Capital Command and the Red Command, would be labeled terrorist groups effective June 5.
“Their influence and illicit networks extend far beyond Brazil’s borders, across our region and into our country,” the statement said.
The State Department did not answer emailed questions about the timing of the decision or Flávio Bolsonaro’s visit but said the Brazilian groups operated in over a dozen U.S. states and presented “a threat to our public safety.”
The terrorist designation threatens to once again strain ties between the Western Hemisphere’s two largest nations, which have only recently begun to repair relations.
It has raised concerns among Brazilian officials that the United States may be trying to sway its upcoming election by helping another Bolsonaro. Flávio Bolsonaro has said he will challenge President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a leftist, in October and has accused Mr. Lula of being soft on crime.
On social media, Flávio Bolsonaro was quick to celebrate the terrorist designation, taking credit for influencing the Trump administration’s decision and sharply criticizing Mr. Lula’s handling of crime.
The Trump administration has labeled more than a dozen Latin American gangs terrorist organizations since last year, as part of a campaign to target criminal groups that American officials say threaten the United States. The designations mean the U.S. government can impose broad economic sanctions on the groups and entities linked to them.
The Brazilian gangs export large quantities of cocaine to Europe and other parts of the world, but experts say they do not play a major role in trafficking drugs to the United States.
Mr. Lula has opposed the designation, casting it as meddling in his country’s internal affairs and arguing that there are better ways to combat organized crime, such as empowering the police, better coordinating international operations and going after the financial assets of gangs.
Just before the designation, Celso Amorim, Mr. Lula’s chief foreign policy adviser, said the Brazilian government was working hard to dismantle organized criminal networks but again dismissed designations as a tool in that fight.
“Organized crime must be combated with the utmost energy and determination,” Mr. Amorim said at a security forum in Moscow. “Equating organized crime with terrorism, however, is not helpful.”
Criminal networks have become a major concern for Brazilian voters ahead of elections and the U.S. designation could put a spotlight on the issue of security. This could help Flávio Bolsonaro, just as voter support has appeared to waver on the heels of a scandal linking him to a disgraced banker who is under investigation in a vast scheme involving fraud.
The U.S. designation could cause a major headache for the banking sector because it could allow the United States to impose sanctions on Brazilian institutions that may have done business with the gangs.
Experts say this is a major risk because the Brazilian gangs have managed to infiltrate the formal economy, amassing stakes in gas distribution, real estate, commodities and cryptocurrency. This leaves Brazilian financial institutions vulnerable.
Last year, Mr. Trump used tariffs and sanctions to try to keep Jair Bolsonaro, the former president, out of prison on charges of overseeing a coup after losing the last election in 2022, to Mr. Lula. Mr. Bolsonaro was ultimately convicted and sentenced to prison. Mr. Trump later dropped many of the tariffs and sanctions, easing diplomatic tensions.
But the issue of organized crime has again strained relations in recent months, after Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Brazil’s foreign minister that the Trump administration planned to label the gangs as terrorist groups and asked Brazil to do the same, according to officials with knowledge of the conversation.
Mr. Lula visited Mr. Trump in Washington earlier this month, but the Brazilian leader said the issue of designations had not been discussed.
Adam B. Ellick contributed reporting.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
10) This Is How to Stop Trump’s Vindictive Prosecutions
By Andrew Weissmann, May 29, 2026
Damon Winter/The New York Times
In President Trump’s second term, the Department of Justice has accelerated the pace of flimsy indictments against high-profile targets, including James Comey, the former F. B.I director, and Letitia James, the New York attorney general.
John Brennan, a C.I.A. director in the Obama administration who has criticized Mr. Trump, hasn’t been indicted, but he’s under investigation by the Justice Department. This week we learned of reports that even E. Jean Carroll, who won civil sexual abuse and defamation cases against Mr. Trump, may feature in a criminal investigation.
What these cases have in common is that they involve Mr. Trump’s perceived enemies. What the indictments have in common is that although they met the very low standard for bringing felony charges before a grand jury, it is very unlikely that those cases will meet the much higher standard for a later conviction at trial.
In an administration where prosecutors can be counted on to proceed in good faith — and to follow the Justice Department’s own rules — cases like these should be vanishingly rare. Right now, however, we can’t bank on that. All these examples have at least a whiff of prosecutorial vindictiveness.
But there is a way to fix this.
The problem results from the difference between the standard for obtaining an indictment, which is probable cause, and that for obtaining a conviction, proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Moreover, for indictments, probable cause need be found by only 12 of a quorum of 16 to 23 grand jurors, in contrast to the unanimity required for a guilty verdict at trial.
The Justice Department has an internal rule that, were it adhered to, would deal with this. It prevents prosecutors from seeking an indictment without first determining that the case can be won later at trial and on appeal. During my tenure at the department, I never sought or approved an indictment if the case being presented to the grand jury did not already meet that threshold. After all, you want to bring only cases that you are confident you can win — that is, unless your real aim is subjecting people to bogus charges.
This provision is a critical limitation on seeking abusive or weak indictments, but it is not a law. And if there is anything that Mr. Trump’s two terms have taught us, it is the need for enforceable laws to restrain executive action.
Under current law, people like Ms. James and Mr. Comey wind up suffering the public opprobrium of a criminal indictment, as well as the waste of significant time, energy and money to defend themselves against questionable charges. While they battle these cases, and even if they’re exonerated, the chilling effect of their being charged in the first place can be felt by countless others. On top of that, the American taxpayer is on the hook for the cost of all the work that the Justice Department puts in on cases that in any other administration almost certainly wouldn’t have been brought.
So what is the solution?
Congress can require that grand juries no longer be instructed that they can find a criminal charge based on mere probable cause. Instead, a higher factual standard, such as “clear and convincing” evidence — a standard sometimes applied in the civil law — should be necessary to vote in favor of a criminal charge. Such a law, modeled on the Justice Department’s internal guideline, would bridge the wide gap between the low-level burden that prosecutors have to meet for bringing an indictment and the highest burden under the law required for a criminal conviction.
Mr. Trump’s Justice Department could hardly validly complain about such a new law. Increasing the standard to obtain a grand jury indictment would not change what responsible prosecutors are already doing now. And the law would address what the acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, says he himself fears: Speaking this year at the Conservative Political Action Conference, he said, “Everybody’s afraid that the next administration, if we don’t win, we’re going to all be investigated and indicted.”
I was struck by this remark for a personal reason. During Mr. Trump’s first term, I worked on the team led by the special counsel Robert Mueller that investigated claims that Russia interfered in the 2016 election. Many of us assumed, correctly, that we would be subject to later investigation by the Trump administration. But we kept our heads down and did our work, guided by our highly principled special counsel.
Indeed, the investigation of the investigators came to pass: After Mr. Mueller delivered a final report in 2019, another special counsel, John Durham, led a yearslong investigation at the behest of Attorney General Bill Barr that generated a lot of furor but found no wrongdoing on the part of the Mueller team. In fact, he did not contest the basic findings of our investigation.
It was a vindication of the team and a win for the rule of law, but it hasn’t deterred the current administration from its spree of dubious inquests. The only thing that might change that is if Congress steps in and changes the law to raise the bar for initiating indictments.
Prosecutors will still need to meet the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard at trial. But by making it harder for charges to be brought on spurious accusations by the current or any future Justice Department, such a law would help thwart questionable investigations and indictments.
Some might contend that the refusals by grand juries to indict Ms. James, or the six members of Congress who last year urged service members not to follow unlawful orders, mean that reform is unnecessary — that we should leave it to grand jurors to sort this out, not raise the burden on prosecutors. Similarly, they may argue that trial juries should be the last fail-safe — that they should be the remedy for careless or fishy indictments.
That would still leave us with the problem of indictments being used as tools of retribution and intimidation. Not all grand juries have refused to indict under the current low standard: While the administration’s first case against Mr. Comey was dismissed, Mr. Blanche was able to get a grand jury to indict him based on his nebulous social media “86 47” seashells post. Even for people like Mr. Comey and Ms. James, who intimately know how the criminal process works and the judicial limits on prosecutorial power, it can be intimidating to have one’s life turned inside out. Add the inevitable doxxing and threats, and the pressure can be overwhelming.
Mr. Blanche knows all this. He should have no qualms about moving to a higher legal standard, unless he thinks the point is to put the squeeze on those whom Mr. Trump sees as adversaries. Congress can and should take this weapon away from the executive branch of any administration.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
11) Latest Indicator of Political Discontent: 43% of Voters Dissatisfied With Both Parties
Persistent frustration over the economy and foreign policy has left many Americans feeling politically homeless, and young voters are particularly frustrated.
By Ruth Igielnik, May 29, 2026
“Forty-three percent of voters are dissatisfied with both major political parties, according to a recent New York Times/Siena poll — the latest sign that the frustration that has built over the last decade will continue to roil American politics for the foreseeable future. …Overall, the Times/Siena survey found that just 26 percent of voters felt satisfied with the Democratic Party and that 33 percent felt satisfied with the Republican Party. …Eighty percent of dissatisfied voters said the economic and political system needed major changes or to be torn down entirely, and 77 percent said the economic system was generally unfair.
Forty-three percent of voters are dissatisfied with both major political parties, according to a recent New York Times/Siena poll — the latest sign that the frustration that has built over the last decade will continue to roil American politics for the foreseeable future.
The survey’s findings highlight the risks for both parties heading into the midterms and the next presidential election, with Democrats deeply discontented with their own party and an increasingly unpopular Republican president continuing to consolidate support among his loyalists.
The results come as Americans’ political disillusionment seems only to be deepening. It has been nearly a quarter-century since a majority of voters thought the country was headed in the right direction. Trust in the government and many other institutions remains near all-time lows, and there have been several recent high-profile incidents of political violence. While ideas like significant overhauls of the parties still face stiff headwinds, the level of dissatisfaction with the status quo has created better conditions for such efforts than has existed in a long time.
Overall, the Times/Siena survey found that just 26 percent of voters felt satisfied with the Democratic Party and that 33 percent felt satisfied with the Republican Party.
Alienation is felt most intensely among younger voters; nearly two-thirds of respondents under the age of 30 expressed dissatisfaction with both parties. Young voters are increasingly likely to identify as politically independent — a recent report from Gallup had the number of independents at a three-decade high — and, so far, they are more likely to remain that way as they age than they were in previous generations.
“Both parties are the same,” said Max Cook, 24, a college student in San Diego. “They both have the same level of corruption. They both take lobbying money. It’s different lobbying, but the same corruption.”
Mr. Cook said he did not vote in 2024 because he did not care for either major party candidate. He added he leaned toward Republicans as the “lesser of two evils” but worried that neither party was putting America first.
He is far from alone. Many dissatisfied voters lament that Washington is focusing too heavily on foreign affairs. Nearly two-thirds of those unhappy with both parties want politicians to “pay less attention to problems overseas and concentrate more on problems here at home,” compared with 47 percent of those who are satisfied with at least one of the political parties.
The idea of putting America first was a central component of the rise of the Tea Party and President Trump’s brand of politics. The dissatisfaction with foreign policy evident in the poll speaks to the magnitude of the risk Mr. Trump is taking with the war in Iran, even as he brushes aside complaints about the war’s effects on the economy, and his steadfast support for Israel.
The question of how much the American government should support Israel has already upended the Democratic Party, contributing to its defeat in 2024. And the poll found that it was one of the issues that most divided Republicans, too: Thirty-eight percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents said they wanted the party to move away from Mr. Trump on Israel.
About 80 percent of dissatisfied voters in the poll opposed economic and military aid to Israel, and references to Israel came up time and time again in follow-up conversations.
“Donald Trump said he was going to drain the swamp, and if anything, it’s gotten worse,” said Dakota Janssen, 26, a machinist from Saratoga County, N.Y., who identifies as a libertarian. “And Democrats don’t end up doing what they say they’re going to do.”
“There’s a lot of corporate greed that goes on,” he added. “A lot of foreign donations from Israel.”
With widespread concern about the nation’s economy, candidates as politically disparate as Mr. Trump and Mayor Zohran Mamdani of New York City have been able to engage dissatisfied voters through populist messaging. Eighty percent of dissatisfied voters said the economic and political system needed major changes or to be torn down entirely, and 77 percent said the economic system was generally unfair.
“I don’t care which party I’m voting for as long as they’re representing people instead of corporations,” said Tai Vetrone, 18, of Waltham, Mass.
While voters who are satisfied with at least one party were less likely to want to overhaul the system, the desire for significant change is widespread, showing the opportunity for dissatisfaction to spread further.
Mr. Vetrone, who said he leaned Democratic, likes the message of people like Mr. Mamdani, but feels that some Republicans have also captured the spirit of economic populism.
In the survey, dissatisfaction was felt most acutely among Democrats. Forty-four percent said they were unhappy with the Democratic Party, compared with about a quarter of Republicans who said the same of the Republican Party.
This dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party has resulted in a rejection of several establishment candidates in primary elections over the last year. Progressive candidates like Graham Platner in Maine and Mr. Mamdani in New York were once seen as operating on the fringes of the party, and are now being discussed, however fancifully, as the future of the Democratic Party.
But as American politics becomes more polarized, the parties risk alienating the electorate. A majority of dissatisfied voters want the Democratic Party to move toward the ideological center, while a staggering 90 percent want the Republican Party to move away from Mr. Trump.
“The parties have gone pretty wide on the spectrum of left and right, while most people are more in the middle and agree with points on both sides,” said Patrick Tehonica, 25, a construction worker in upstate New York who said he voted for Mr. Trump in 2024, but felt he had not had good choices. “I don’t really feel like I have a political home.”
Going forward, the question is whether dissatisfied voters will look for other options or opt entirely out of the system.
“I don’t vote for federal elections,” said Elizabeth Arias, of Seattle, who added that she used to vote mostly for Democrats. “I only vote for my local elections.”
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
12) The Politics of the Downwardly Mobile Professional Class
The debate over whether Graham Platner is “working class” comes at a time when more and more people are at risk of falling into it.
By Noam Scheiber, May 29, 2026
Noam Scheiber covers labor and workplace issues for The Times.
Photo illustration by Chantal Jahchan
Graham Platner, the Democratic candidate in Maine’s Senate race, says he understands the plight of his state’s working class because he is working class.
Platner, who works as an oyster farmer, talks regularly about getting by on $60,000 a year while living in a modest two-story house in the town where he grew up. He has described suffering from PTSD after three tours with the Marines in Iraq and one with the Army in Afghanistan. When he’s not wearing a rugged flannel shirt on the campaign trail, he often exposes his tattooed arms.
Critics have seized on a different set of biographical details: The biggest customer of Platner’s oyster farm appears to be his mother’s high-end restaurant. He purchased his house with a $200,000 mortgage from his father, an Ivy League-educated lawyer, who recently helped pay for a trip for his son and daughter-in-law to Norway for fertility treatment. Before he served in the Middle East, Platner did a brief tour at an elite Connecticut boarding school.
At the outset of her ultimately doomed primary campaign against Platner, Maine’s Democratic governor, Janet Mills, had a habit of saying she knew almost nothing about her opponent, “other than that his dad was a prominent attorney and his mother a successful business owner,” according to The Portland Press Herald.
Conservatives have gone even further, insinuating that Platner has been cosplaying as a working stiff in order to sneak his woke agenda past voters. The historian and commentator Victor Davis Hanson highlighted past social media posts in which Platner identified as a communist and, separately, said that rural white people “actually are” racist and stupid. (Platner later apologized for many of his posts.)
Such skepticism reflects how much class has become a political fault line in America. As President Trump has built a following among voters without a college degree over the past decade, his success has heightened the political competition over who best represents the working class, and has exacerbated an already bitter debate over who belongs to it.
Often these disputes are based on the assumption that a person is either authentically working-class or not — a kind of binary logic that can disqualify Platner. “This is not a salt-of-the-earth guy coming up from a hardscrabble existence,” Tony Buxton, a former Maine Democratic Party official who backed Ms. Mills, told The New York Times. “If he’s an oysterman, I’m a florist, OK? Because I raise roses and give them to my wife.”
But as the debate over Platner’s authenticity has raged these past few weeks, it’s failed to capture a new reality: The contours of “working class” are increasingly difficult to draw neatly. Much of our understanding of class was forged in the middle of the last century, when more than a quarter of American adults worked in manufacturing, and when affluence and privilege, or their absence, were far more discernible to the naked eye.
Since then, class distinctions in America have become more muddled and porous. The steady rise of knowledge work led to an increase in the population of those who were neither workers nor bosses. In this century, the downward mobility of many in this solidly middle-class group further complicates the picture.
Among the expensively educated, there is no more famous chronicler of class than Karl Marx, who held that there were effectively two, inherently antagonistic, categories — capitalist and worker. Marxist thought essentially waved out of existence the 19th-century middle class of small-time farmers, shopkeepers and doctors. They were petite bourgeoisie — a relic of an earlier age that would fade away under industrial capitalism.
There was one problem for these predictions: the 20th century. Instead of shriveling, the middle class swelled. College professors and architects; therapists and social workers; admen, accountants and middle managers — by the early postwar era, there were millions of people in the United States alone who weren’t business owners, but who weren’t exactly rank-and-file workers, either.
Some Marxists went to elaborate lengths to force these professionals into the square peg of Marxist theory. But by the 1970s, when the educated middle class made up around a quarter of the work force, many on the left were in the mood for a reappraisal. In a pair of essays that would frame the debate for decades, the writers Barbara and John Ehrenreich argued that there was, in fact, a third class: the professional-managerial class, or P.M.C.
The P.M.C., the Ehrenreichs conceded, was something of a contradiction. Its members worked for bosses who preferred to pay them as little as possible, and to spend less money on what the P.M.C. thought was important — like craftsmanship and basic research — so that more would flow to the bottom line. This put the P.M.C. at odds with capital.
But through its work in mass marketing and research and development and government agencies and nonprofits, they observed, the P.M.C. mostly helped to keep the existing class structure in place. “Their actual attitudes often mix hostility toward the capitalist class with elitism toward the working class,” the Ehrenreichs wrote.
The authors argued that membership in the P.M.C. often passed from one generation to the next through a common culture, like shared views on education, child-rearing and gender roles. But they believed the P.M.C. ultimately had more in common with the working class than with the capitalists, and urged the two groups to forge an alliance.
Critics derided their approach. To the left, an alliance was unnecessary. Class was defined by your relationship to the means of production. If you grew up privileged but ended up working on a farm or in a factory, then you were working class.
To the right, an alliance was laughable because class was essentially inherited. The son or daughter of college-educated professionals who decided to work on a farm or in a factory was playacting, or maybe working out some liberal guilt.
In the end, the debate appeared to be settled by the Ehrenreichs’ bad timing. The 1980s and ’90s were boom years for the P.M.C. The returns on a college degree were exploding, and knowledge work was taking over the economy. More than ever before, the professional classes could think of themselves as entitled to affluence and prestige; yuppie was a status people strove for. An alliance with the working class sounded delusional, as the conservative critics had claimed.
Then the P.M.C. hit hard times.
In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, unemployment among college grads surged to its highest rate in decades. Layoffs swept through the knowledge economy. Foreclosures piled up.
The Ehrenreichs published a new essay, saying that financial precariousness was bringing about what their cheerleading had failed to do. The P.M.C. was poised to join forces with workers.
Some portions of the P.M.C. — like laid-off journalists and adjunct professors — were collapsing into the working class, they pointed out, forced to take retail jobs to pay the bills. Others, like increasingly unfashionable middle managers, could see where the trend lines were headed. Either way, more and more members of the professional class no longer needed to be sold on the idea that they shared interests with workers.
And it was even more obvious to the youngest members of the P.M.C. — Platner’s generation. By 2020, a majority of college grads under 35 approved of socialism, according to Gallup. A report on the Occupy Wall Street movement, which rose to prominence in 2011, found that the activists were disproportionately young and college educated. A large portion had been laid off in the past few years and “were carrying substantial debt.”
In some cases, the merger between the P.M.C. and the more traditional working class was relatively smooth. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose mother was a domestic worker and who did stints as a bartender and waitress after graduating from Boston University, rarely saw her bona fides questioned.
The alliance even notched some concrete wins. Over the last few years, a mix of downwardly mobile P.M.C.ers and members of the more traditional working class have formed labor unions at previously nonunion companies like Starbucks, Apple and Trader Joe’s. Around the same time, graduate students and factory workers represented by the United Automobile Workers formed an alliance to elect more militant union leadership, which then led the U.A.W. into a bruising but largely successful strike against the Big Three automakers.
But often there has been friction. In some corners of the left, “P.M.C.” has become an epithet aimed at fellow progressives. “People were using the term as a term of abuse,” said Gabriel Winant, a writer and labor historian at the University of Chicago.
The sniping reached a fever pitch during the 2020 presidential primaries, when the slightly less affluent college grads backing Bernie Sanders derided the slightly more affluent college grads backing Elizabeth Warren as members of the P.M.C. Winant, who analyzed the tensions, noted that some Sanders supporters appeared anxious about whether they were sufficiently working class.
“There is a kind of class composition of the new socialist left that is a source of discomfort for its members,” he said, alluding to the prominence of college graduates in these circles. “It results in a kind of performative disavowal.”
Platner’s story is particular. He has struggled with alcohol, as well as PTSD. He is both a business owner and a worker. Still, he straddles these class tensions on the left. He was not only the son of local elites, but also the grandson of a prominent architect whose archives were stored at Yale University. But in addition to serving in the military, he tended bar while at George Washington University — from which he never graduated — and, like many in his generation, struggled after college. He has said he moved in with his mother after returning to Maine in 2016, depressed and penniless.
As a candidate, Platner doesn’t invoke sociological concepts like “P.M.C.” When asked to justify his claims to a working-class identity, he nods at the Marxism of an earlier era: In a world where oligarchs have seen their financial assets balloon into the hundreds of billions, pretty much anyone who draws a paycheck qualifies as a worker. “I know it’s an expansive definition of ‘working class,’” he told The Times. “But I think you need to have an expansive definition when we have the most expansive margin of wealth inequality in the history of the country.”
The Ehrenreichs would not go this far. They argued that differences between the P.M.C. and the working class could not be wished away. “People are falling into the working class, yet culturally not entirely falling into it,” John Ehrenreich said in an interview. He added that Platner was a good example of a person “not fitting any useful model.” (Barbara passed away in 2022.)
But the Ehrenreichs did think these differences could be bridged. And like Platner, they recognized that the deep inequalities of the post-2008 economy were widening the political appeal of populism.
“In the coming years, we expect to see the remnants of the P.M.C. increasingly making common cause with the remnants of the traditional working class for, at a minimum, representation in the political process,” they wrote after the Great Recession.
John Ehrenreich said he had become more pessimistic since then, noting the rightward drift of many in the working class.
Still, Platner appears as well positioned as any son or daughter of the P.M.C. to navigate the challenges of such a coalition. While he once advertised his sympathies for revolutionaries and freedom fighters, his politics today are less radical chic than lunch-pail Sanders-ism: support for universal health care, universal child care, affordable housing, affordable college. And a general disdain for the ruling class — “the corporate interests, the billionaires, the D.C. elites and the establishment politicians,” as he puts it.
It doesn’t hurt that many of Platner’s friends and neighbors hail from the traditional working class. Or that, from a distance, it is hard to distinguish him from them.
Then again, he is far from the only downwardly mobile member of the P.M.C. living in Maine. And the downward mobility is no less real for those who earn a Ph.D. in art history than it is for those who farm oysters.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
