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Born in rural Ohio, Howard Keylor attended a one-room country schoolhouse. He became a mem-ber 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.
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The Trump administration is escalating its attack on Cuba, cutting off the island’s access to oil in a deliberate attempt to induce famine and mass suffering. This is collective punishment, plain and simple.
In response, we’re releasing a public Call to Conscience, already signed by influential public figures, elected officials, artists, and organizations—including 22 members of the New York City Council, Kal Penn, Mark Ruffalo, Susan Sarandon, Alice Walker, 50501, Movement for Black Lives, The People’s Forum, IFCO Pastors for Peace, ANSWER Coalition, and many others—demanding an end to this brutal policy.
The letter is open for everyone to sign. Add your name today. Cutting off energy to an island nation is not policy—it is a tactic of starvation.
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Petition to Force Amazon to Cut ICE Contracts!
https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-amazon-end-contracts-with-ice/?source=group-amazon-labor-union&referrer=group-amazon-labor-
Amazon Labor Union
Over 600,000 messages have already been sent directly to Amazon board members demanding one thing: Amazon must stop fueling deportations by ending its contracts with ICE and DHS.
ICE and DHS rely on the data infrastructure provided by Amazon Web Services. Their campaign against immigrants and those who stand with them depends on the logistical, financial, and political support of companies like Amazon.
But workers and communities have real power when we act collectively. That’s why we must expose Amazon’s role in the deportation machine. Help us reach 1 million messages and force Amazon to act by signing our petition with The Labor Force today:
Tell Amazon: End contracts with ICE!
On Cyber Monday 2025, Amazon workers rallied outside of Amazon’s NYC headquarters to demand that Amazon stop fueling mass deportations through Amazon Web Services’ contracts with ICE and DHS.
ICE cannot operate without corporate backing; its campaign against immigrants and those who stand with them depends on the logistical, financial, and political support of companies like Amazon. Mega-corporations may appear untouchable, but they are not. Anti-authoritarian movements have long understood that repression is sustained by a network of institutional enablers and when those enablers are disrupted, state violence weakens. Workers and communities have real power when they act collectively. That is why we must expose Amazon’s role in the deportation machine.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) rely on Amazon Web Services (AWS) as its most commonly used cloud platform. DHS and ICE cannot wage their attack on immigrants without the critical data infrastructure that Amazon Web Services provide, allowing the agencies to collect, analyze, and store the massive amounts of data they need to do their dirty work. Without the power of AWS, ICE would not be able to track and target people at its current scale.
ICE and DHS use Amazon Web Services to collect and store massive amounts of purchased data on immigrants and their friends and family–everything from biometric data, DMV data, cellphone records, and more. And through its contracts with Palantir, DHS is able to scour regional, local, state, and federal databases and analyze and store this data on AWS. All of this information is ultimately used to target immigrants and other members of our communities.
No corporation should profit from oppression and abuse. Yet Amazon is raking in tens of millions of dollars to fuel DHS and ICE, while grossly exploiting its own workers. Can you sign our petition today, demanding that Amazon stop fueling deportations by ending its contracts with DHS and ICE, now?
https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-amazon-end-contracts-with-ice/?source=group-amazon-labor-union&referrer=group-amazon-labor-
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End Texas Torture of Revolutionary Elder Xinachtli
Organization Support Letter
Letter to demand the immediate medical treatment and release of Chicano political prisoner Xinachtli (Alvaro Hernandez #00255735)
To the Texas Department of Criminal Justice,
We, the undersigned organizations, write to urge immediate action to protect the life, health, and human rights of Xinachtli (legal name Alvaro Hernandez). Xinachtli is 73-year-old Chicano community organizer from Texas who has spent 23 years in solitary confinement and 30 years incarcerated as part of a 50-year sentence. His health is now in a critical and life-threatening state and requires prompt and comprehensive medical intervention.
Since his conviction in 1997, Xinachtli has spent decades in conditions that have caused significant physical and psychological harm. As an elder in worsening health, these conditions have effectively become a de facto death sentence.
Xinachtli’s current medical condition is severe. His physical, mental, and overall well-being have declined rapidly in recent weeks. He now requires both a wheelchair and a walker, has experienced multiple falls, and is suffering from rapid weight loss. He is currently housed in the McConnell Unit infirmary, where he is receiving only palliative measures and is being denied a medical diagnosis, access to his medical records, and adequate diagnostic testing or treatment.
A virtual clinical visit with licensed medical doctor Dr. Dona Kim Murphey underscores the severity of his condition. In her report of the visit, she wrote: "Given the history of recent neck/back trauma and recurrent urinary tract infections with numbness, weakness, and bowel and bladder incontinence, I am concerned about nerve root or spinal cord injury and/or abscesses that can lead to permanent sensorimotor dysfunction."
Despite his age and visible disabilities, he remains in solitary confinement under the Security Threat Group designation as a 73-year-old. During his time in the infirmary, prison staff threw away all of his belongings and “lost” his commissary card, leaving him completely without basic necessities. He is experiencing hunger, and the lack of consistent nutrition is worsening his medical condition. McConnell Unit staff have also consistently given him incorrect forms, including forms for medical records and medical visitation, creating further barriers to care and communication.
A family visit on November 29 confirmed the seriousness of his condition. Xinachtli, who was once able to walk on his own, can no longer stand without assistance. He struggled to breathe, has lost more than 30 pounds, relied heavily on his wheelchair, and was in severe pain throughout the visit.
In light of these conditions, we, the undersigned organizations, demand that TDCJ take immediate action to save Xinachtli’s life and comply with its legal and ethical obligations.
We urge the immediate implementation of the following actions:
Immediate re-instatement of his access to commissary to buy hygiene, food, and other critical items. Immediate transfer to the TDCJ hospital in Galveston for a full medical evaluation and treatment, including complete access to his medical records and full transparency regarding all procedures. Transfer to a geriatric and medical unit that is fully accessible under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Xinachtli requests placement at the Richard P LeBlanc Unit in Beaumont, Texas. Approval of Medical Recommended Intensive Supervision, the release program for individuals with serious medical conditions and disabilities, in recognition of the severity and progression of his current health issues. Failure to act will result in the continued and foreseeable deterioration of Xinachtli’s health, amounting to state-sanctioned death. We urge TDCJ to take swift and decisive action to meet these requests and to fulfill its responsibility to safeguard his life and well-being.
We stand united in calling for immediate and decisive action. Xinachtli’s life depends on it.
Signed, Xinachtli Freedom Campaign and supporting organizations
Endorsing Organizations:
Al-Awda Houston; All African People’s Revolutionary Party; Anakbayan Houston; Anti-Imperialist Solidarity; Artists for Black Lives' Equality; Black Alliance for Peace - Solidarity Network; Columbia University Students for a Democratic Society; Community Liberation Programs; Community Powered ATX; Contra Gentrificación; Diaspora Pa’lante Collective; Down South; DSA Emerge; Entre nos kc; Fighting Racism Workshops; Frontera Water Protectors; GC Harm Reductionists; JERICHO MOVEMENT; Jericho Movement Providence; Montrose Anarchist Collective; NYC Jericho Movement; OC Focus; Palestine Solidarity TX; Partisan Defense Committee; Partido Nacional de la Raza Unida; PDX Anti-Repression; Red Star Texas; Root Cause; San Francisco Solidarity Collective; Shine White Support Team; Sunrise Columbia; UC San Diego Faculty for Justice in Palestine; Viva Palestina, EPTX; Water Justice and Technology Studio; Workshops4Gaza.
Sign the endorsement letter for your organization here:
https://cryptpad.fr/form/#/2/form/view/MiR1f+iLiRBJC7gSTyfhyxJoLIDhThxRafPatxdbMWI/
IMPORTANT LINKS TO MATERIALS FOR XINACHTLI FREEDOM CAMPAIGN:
PHONE BLAST: Your community can sign up for a 15-minute-long call shift here: bit.ly/xphoneblast
FUNDRAISER: Here is the link to Jericho's fundraiser for Xinachtli: http://givebutter.com/jerichomovement
CASE HISTORY: Learn more about Xinachtli and his case through our website: https://freealvaro.net
CONTACT INFO:
Follow us on Instagram: @freexinachtlinow
Email us:
xinachtlifreedomcampaign@protonmail.com
COALITION FOLDER:
https://drive.proton.me/urls/SP3KTC1RK4#KARGiPQVYIvR
In the folder you will find: Two pictures of Xinachtli from 2024; The latest updated graphics for the phone blast; The original TRO emergency motion filing; Maria Salazar's declaration; Dr. Murphy's report from her Dec. 9 medical visit; Letter from Amnesty International declaring Xinachtli's situation a human rights violation; Free Xinachtli zine (which gives background on him and his case); and The most recent press release detailing who Xinachtli is as well as his medical situation.
Write to:
Alvaro Hernandez CID #00255735
TDCJ-W.G. McConnell Unit
PO Box 660400
Dallas, TX 75266-0400
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Self-portrait by Kevin Cooper
Funds for Kevin Cooper
Kevin was transferred out of San Quentin and is now at a healthcare facility in Stockton. He has received some long overdue healthcare. The art program is very different from the one at San Quentin but we are hopeful that Kevin can get back to painting soon.
For 41 years, an innocent man has been on death row in California.
Kevin Cooper was wrongfully convicted of the brutal 1983 murders of the Ryen family and houseguest. The case has a long history of police and prosecutorial misconduct, evidence tampering, and numerous constitutional violations including many incidences of the prosecution withholding evidence of innocence from the defense. You can learn more here .
In December 2018 Gov. Brown ordered limited DNA testing and in February 2019, Gov. Newsom ordered additional DNA testing. Meanwhile, Kevin remains on Death Row at San Quentin Prison.
The funds raised will be used to help Kevin purchase art supplies for his paintings . Additionally, being in prison is expensive, and this money would help Kevin pay for stamps, books, paper, toiletries, supplies, supplementary food, printing materials to educate the public about his case and/or video calls.
Please help ease the daily struggle of an innocent man on death row!
An immediate act of solidarity we can all do right now is to write to Kevin and assure him of our continuing support in his fight for justice. Here’s his address:
Kevin Cooper #C65304
Cell 107, Unit E1C
California Health Care Facility, Stockton (CHCF)
P.O. Box 213040
Stockton, CA 95213
www.freekevincooper.org
Call California Governor Newsom:
1-(916) 445-2841
Press 1 for English or 2 for Spanish,
press 6 to speak with a representative and
wait for someone to answer
(Monday-Friday, 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. PST—12:00 P.M. to 8:00 P.M. EST)
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Dr. Atler Still Needs Our Help!
Please sign the petition today!
https://www.change.org/p/texas-state-university-give-tom-alter-his-job-back
What you can do to support:
—Donate to help Tom Alter and his family with living and legal expenses: https://gofund.me/27c72f26d
—Sign and share this petition demanding Tom Alter be given his job back: https://www.change.org/p/texas-state-university-give-tom-alter-his-job-back
—Write to and call the President and Provost at Texas State University demanding that Tom Alter be given his job back:
President Kelly Damphousse: president@txstate.edu
President’s Office Phone: 512-245-2121
Provost Pranesh Aswath: xrk25@txstate.edu
Provost Office Phone: 512-245-2205
For more information about the reason for the firing of Dr. Tom Alter, read:
"Fired for Advocating Socialism: Professor Tom Alter Speaks Out"
Ashley Smith Interviews Dr. Tom Alter
—CounterPunch, September 24, 2025
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 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
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Resources for Resisting Federal Repression
https://www.nlg.org/federalrepressionresources/
Since June of 2020, activists have been subjected to an increasingly aggressive crackdown on protests by federal law enforcement. The federal response to the movement for Black Lives has included federal criminal charges for activists, door knocks by federal law enforcement agents, and increased use of federal troops to violently police protests.
The NLG National Office is releasing this resource page for activists who are resisting federal repression. It includes a link to our emergency hotline numbers, as well as our library of Know-Your-Rights materials, our recent federal repression webinar, and a list of some of our recommended resources for activists. We will continue to update this page.
Please visit the NLG Mass Defense Program page for general protest-related legal support hotlines run by NLG chapters.
Emergency Hotlines
If you are contacted by federal law enforcement, you should exercise all of your rights. It is always advisable to speak to an attorney before responding to federal authorities.
State and Local Hotlines
If you have been contacted by the FBI or other federal law enforcement, in one of the following areas, you may be able to get help or information from one of these local NLG hotlines for:
Portland, Oregon: (833) 680-1312
San Francisco, California: (415) 285-1041 or fbi_hotline@nlgsf.org
Seattle, Washington: (206) 658-7963
National Hotline
If you are located in an area with no hotline, you can call the following number:
National NLG Federal Defense Hotline: (212) 679-2811
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Articles
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1) My Son Never Turned 7. Because of Choices in Washington, Others Won’t Either.
By Zain Habboo, May 13, 2026
Ms. Habboo is a nonprofit executive and co-founder of the Rakan Stormer Research Fund at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C.
Xiao Hua Yang
My son Rakan was 5 years old when I first said the word “cancer” to a doctor. They looked at me the way doctors sometimes look at mothers, as if I were afraid of my shadow. It was allergies, they said. Gas. The ordinary explanations for an ordinary child. But I knew his energy was off. I knew my boy.
We were in Jordan for the summer when my husband noticed that Rakan’s spleen was protruding. My childhood pediatrician told us not to worry, to enjoy a few days at the beach, then get a CT scan. There was a cloud over the whole trip that none of us could name. We already knew, in the way parents know things their minds won’t let them say out loud.
Most CT scans take less than five minutes. Rakan’s took nearly an hour. I remember breaking down in that room. I remember a nurse holding me while I sobbed, telling me it would be OK. I remember the word “mass” being repeated, and not knowing what it meant, and yet knowing it was the end of everything.
Rakan fought his cancer, a rare form of pediatric kidney cancer known as diffused anaplastic Wilms’s tumor, with a ferocity that lives in me to this day. Multiple surgeries. Multiple rounds of chemotherapy. Radiation. But every time we took one step forward, the universe pushed us two steps back.
He died almost exactly one year after his diagnosis, at age 6, on the fourth floor of Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C., surrounded by the doctors and nurses who had become our family.
Afterward, I remember asking the doctor what we could have done differently. He said: We did everything we could. Only more research would get us to a cure for the tumor that killed my son. In the 10 years since, I have raised money for more cancer research and told Rakan’s story to anyone who would listen.
Here is what I need you to understand about pediatric cancer research: It is already the orphan of the oncology world. The percentage of federal cancer research funding that goes toward childhood cancers numbers in the single digits. Treatment protocols for some pediatric cancers haven’t changed in decades. The “popular” cancers — the ones with celebrity galas and pink ribbons and adult celebrity patients — get money and attention. The ones that take children languish. And yet around 15,000 children are diagnosed with cancer in this country every single year.
But what was already bad is now getting worse.
That path to curing pediatric cancers is closing. Not because we have run out of ideas or new treatments to try, but because the Trump administration made a choice to cut funding for pediatric cancer research and undermine the institutions that once made America the envy of the world when it came to health innovation.
In March, funding expired for the Pediatric Brain Tumor Consortium, a 26-year-old network that provides children access to experimental treatments. The following month, President Trump released his 2027 budget, which proposed cutting funding for the National Institutes of Health by 12 percent.
Already under this administration, we’ve seen a hollowing of support for research and science. Last year, hundreds of National Institutes of Health research grants were canceled or suspended. And the agency continues to fund research at a much slower pace than usual. A recent analysis found that as of late March, the National Cancer Institute had earmarked less than a third of what it would have for new grant funding by that point in a typical year under the Biden administration. Researchers who would have been guaranteed funding in any normal year are being told there is no money.
I want to be precise about this, because the administration will be precise in its denials: There is no single executive order that says “we are cutting childhood cancer research.” What there is instead is death by a thousand cuts, each one individually deniable, collectively lethal. A proposed cap on indirect costs for research that would make clinical trials impossible to run. Mass layoffs and resignations at the N.I.H. that have gutted institutional knowledge. Grant freezes. A leadership vacuum at the very agencies charged with saving children’s lives.
Children will die from this. Not metaphorically. Not eventually. Children who are sick right now, whose parents are scanning clinical trials the way I once scanned them, will find those trials closed. Parents will be told there is no study for their child’s particular cancer. They will stand on a hospital floor somewhere and ask a doctor what else could have been done.
Rakan would have been 16 last month. He had big, beautiful eyes and a wicked sense of humor, and he was perfect, the way 5-year-olds are perfect. I will never know what kind of young man he could have grown up to be. We should strive to spare other parents this pain, and we can. It’s not too late to restore funding to cancer research and save thousands of children’s lives. What else is the point of all this wealth and technology that our country has amassed, if not to put it to work saving the lives of little boys like Rakan?
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2) ‘Quite Brutal,’ ‘Not Friendly’: What People in China Say of Trump
Residents in four Chinese cities described a mixture of amusement and anger, blaming U.S. tensions for a slowing economy and rising fuel prices.
By Ana Swanson, May 14, 2026
Ana Swanson covers international trade. She spent the week in China, reporting from four cities around the country.
President Trump at the state banquet in Beijing on Thursday. Kenny Holston/The New York Times
Even for everyday people in China, President Trump’s influence looms large.
A steel trader in the southern city of Fuzhou said his business had been depressed by the trade war. A taxi driver in northern China complained that the increase in global gas prices amid the war in Iran meant he had to pay more at the pump.
At a shopping mall in Beijing, Sunny Sun, a woman who was invested in stocks, said she was watching her portfolio, wary of the impact of announcements from the president’s summit with Xi Jinping, the Chinese leader.
“There’s definitely some uncertainty in the market sentiment, because Trump is the kind of person who says one thing today and another tomorrow when he gets back to the United States,” Ms. Sun said. “His words can actually stir up things globally.”
‘Like Stand-Up Comedy’
Some residents were surprised to hear that Mr. Trump was visiting China, but all knew who he was. They cited his attempted assassination, his business record, his refusal to wear face masks during the pandemic, his campaign against Iran, and, of course, his tariffs.
“He’s a rather interesting person,” said Milly Zhu, a 34-year-old who works in film and TV promotion and was walking in a shopping mall in Beijing. “Some of his words and actions, for example regarding China, seem like stand-up comedy to people in China,” she said.
“Our President Xi might be considered, in comparison to Trump, more serious,” she added.
Often, their views were negative. Yang Saixiang, a 47-year old worker at a nail salon in a shopping mall in Fuzhou, said the Iran war had worsened her views and that many Chinese people disliked Mr. Trump.
“He’s not friendly to China,” she said. She said tariffs and the U.S.-China trade war had dampened earnings for her customers, and she questioned why the United States could not simply change presidents. “I think at his age, he doesn’t need to be president anymore,” she said.
‘He’s Quite Brutal’
Peng Shuiming, an 18-year-old hairdresser who sat outside the Fuzhou mall playing games on his phone, said the war with Iran had further soured his opinion on the United States, which was already poor.
“My impression of him isn’t very good; he’s quite brutal,” he said of Mr. Trump.
Mr. Peng said he was indifferent to Mr. Trump’s visit, and that whether China needed the United States was a “matter of choice. I feel China is quite powerful,” he said.
Zhang Lei, a 40-year-old taxi driver in Jinan, Shandong Province, argued that China was already wealthy, with little need for foreign goods, and that it should be more assertive.
“The fact that he’s taking the initiative to visit China means that China can control him, right?” he said of Mr. Trump. “It means that this trade war isn’t just unsuccessful for China, it means that the U.S. is also struggling.”
‘Better to Avoid Tariff Wars’
Some of the negative views of the United States appeared to be based on misinformation circulated on social media. One woman cited a report that beggars in the United States eat human flesh, while Mr. Peng mentioned that his view on the United States had worsened after seeing a report during the pandemic about the United States dumping bodies in the sea.
Others seemed to blame Mr. Trump and the trade war for broader weakness in the Chinese economy, some of which was likely linked to the current real estate downturn, or other reasons.
Chen Gang, a 42-year-old steel trader in Fuzhou, said tense relations between the United States and China were hurting his business. He sells steel to the construction industry, but the sector is shrinking.
“It would be better to avoid tariff wars and just cooperate amicably, without all this back and forth,” he said.
Mr. Chen said that Chinese leaders should be “polite and courteous” to Mr. Trump — at least on the surface. “People say nice things on the surface, but what they really mean behind the scenes is another matter. That’s how it is in business,” he said.
‘We Want to Get Along Well With the United States’
Many expressed hope that the meetings between Mr. Trump and Mr. Xi would set the United States and China on a more stable path. Almost all characterized China as inherently peaceful.
“We don’t want war, we want peace,” Ms. Zhu said. “We want to get along well with the United States, and we want to develop our economy. Only peace can create a better economy.”
In Jinan, the northern Chinese city, Shen Jianmin, a 74-year-old retiree and former farmer who was relaxing in a public plaza on Wednesday, said that Mr. Trump tended to stir up trouble for no reason. But he said the visit was a positive development.
“It’s good that the U.S. is coming to China, right?” he said. “The friendship between the two countries is good.”
“Everyone wants a good life; which ordinary person wants to fight? When you’re constantly at war, it’s the ordinary people who suffer,” he added.
Li You contributed research.
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3) Why the Migrant Child Crisis Is Roiling the California Governor Race
The Times broke the story that has become a dominant line of attack against Xavier Becerra, the Democratic front-runner. Here are five things to know about it.
By Hannah Dreier, May 14, 2026
Hannah Dreier spent two years reporting on the growth of child labor throughout the United States.
In the first years of the Biden administration, thousands of children crossed the border alone and ended up working in some of the most dangerous jobs in the country. Migrant children as young as 13 suffered chemical burns on overnight factory shifts, had their limbs mangled by conveyor belts or fell to their deaths from roofs.
I broke this story in 2023. I didn’t expect that three years later, the reporting would become a major line of attack in the California governor’s race.
Opponents of Xavier Becerra, the Democratic front-runner, have been excoriating his tenure as secretary of Health and Human Services, the federal agency that was responsible for finding safe homes for those children. In the past two weeks, campaigns have spent more than $6 million on commercials in English and Spanish using my reporting (and even my voice, taken from interviews I did), according to AdImpact, a tracking service.
One ad says that “more than 85,000 migrant children went missing” under his watch. Another says that during Mr. Becerra’s tenure “kids suffered from forced labor, trafficking and abuse.”
Mr. Becerra has called the allegations “Trump lies.”
There has been spin on all sides. With just weeks to go before the June 2 primary, here’s what we reported — and what we didn’t.
Did children disappear on Mr. Becerra’s watch?
In debates, Mr. Becerra has been grilled again and again about the whereabouts of 85,000 children who went “missing” while he ran H.H.S.
The children didn’t vanish. But the reporting found serious breakdowns in how H.H.S. vetted sponsors and safeguarded children.
H.H.S. is responsible for children when they first cross the border. Caseworkers care for them in government shelters, vet the adults who come forward to take them in and then follow up with a phone call a few weeks later to check in.
Early in the Biden administration, so many children were entering the country that Mr. Becerra began urging staff members to move them more quickly through shelters, which could be crowded and makeshift. Employees told me they loosened protections that had been in place for years, including in screening sponsors. The department denied this and said it had never compromised safety.
During this time, H.H.S. did not reach a third of released children with a follow-up call. That came to about 85,000 children.
Some of those children, I found, were working in dangerous jobs. But there were also many ordinary reasons children did not answer calls. Some had changed phone numbers. Others screened unknown calls or feared they were in trouble. Often, H.H.S. called only once and never tried again.
What exactly happened to migrant children?
In 2021 and 2022, children migrated to the United States in record numbers, usually from impoverished towns in Central America. Most of them were not reuniting with parents but living with sponsors who often encouraged, helped or even forced them to work. Thousands ended up in punishing jobs that were illegal for minors — cleaning slaughterhouses or working at lumber mills or in roofing.
This failure went far beyond H.H.S. Labor Department inspectors did not effectively enforce child labor laws. Schools declined to report that their students were working long hours in jobs that should have been off-limits. Multinational companies ignored young-looking faces on their factory floors.
When the first article was published, H.H.S. defended its actions. It said it wanted to release children from shelters swiftly, for the sake of their well-being, and that it couldn’t be held accountable for everything that happened after they left.
Within H.H.S., many staff members were angry with Mr. Becerra. Again and again, they sent up reports, including some that reached his level, warning that children appeared to be at risk.
This week, the same H.H.S. employees told me they were frustrated that the California race seemed fixated on claims about 85,000 “missing” children. What troubled them more, they said, was that the government rushed to release 250,000 children and then did so little to find out what became of them.
Did children die?
Children did die after being sent to their sponsors. Others were catastrophically injured.
Here are just a few I found: Andrés Toma, 16, fell to his death three months after being sent to live with an uncle. Antoni Padilla, 15, lost the ability to speak after falling from a roofing job. Marcos Cux, released by H.H.S. at age 13, was working at a chicken plant when a machine tore open his arm. When I met him, it hung limply by his side. It’s unclear whether these children received H.H.S. follow-up calls, or whether a call would have mattered.
Children and parents both consistently told me they had not imagined how dangerous the work would be, or how relentless.
Child workers were mostly living adult lives, expected to contribute to rent and pay off debts, allowed to go to school only after working night shifts, or not allowed to go at all. In other words, the kind of situations H.H.S. was supposed to screen out.
Some sponsors told me they believed that they were doing children a favor by helping them migrate and support their families. But many also kept careful tallies of what the children owed, including for their clothes, meals and lodging, and charged monthly interest.
What does Mr. Becerra say now about this?
Earlier this week, my colleague Laurel Rosenhall, who is covering the governor’s race, gave Mr. Becerra a chance to address the criticism. She asked him what conclusions voters should draw about his ability to manage a crisis as governor.
Mr. Becerra cited President Trump’s policy of child separation — which was carried out by the Department of Homeland Security, not H.H.S. — and told her he had done better by migrant children. But he said that he could not be held responsible for what happened to children after they left federal custody.
“What employers did, after they left our care, after they left our jurisdiction, where the exploitation of children may have occurred, was not on my watch,” he said. “While those kids were with us, they didn’t get exploited. While those kids were with us, they were cared for, and we’re very proud of what we did.”
There’s a debate about how long H.H.S. should be held accountable for what happens to the children it releases.
The department is required by Congress to ensure children are released only to adults who will provide for their well-being and shield them from trafficking and exploitation. But unlike the foster care system, H.H.S. is not required to support children until they reach adulthood. Under Mr. Becerra’s leadership, the department generally released children, made a follow-up call and then closed their files.
What has happened to the children?
After our reporting, the White House moved quickly to fix many of the problems, including strengthening sponsor vetting and making sure children could call a hotline for help if they were in trouble.
H.H.S. overhauled how it followed up with children. Caseworkers began visiting sponsors’ homes and offering children comprehensive post-release services and some legal help. The Labor Department also began cracking down on employers.
The changes were driven by President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who instructed his aides to take immediate action after the first article was published.
Mr. Becerra was repeatedly called before Congress and questioned by both Republicans and Democrats. But then, as now, he said that what happened to the children after they were released from H.H.S. shelters was not his responsibility.
Laurel Rosenhall contributed reporting.
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4) Trump Cites Inaccurate Data to Downplay Economic Toll of Iran War
He has minimized soaring gas prices, rising inflation and the American economy’s need for the Strait of Hormuz.
By Linda Qiu, Reporting from Washington, May 14, 2026
Gas prices have risen about 53 percent higher than they were at the start of the war on Feb. 28. Credit...Gabriel V. Cárdenas for The New York Times
President Trump has for weeks downplayed the economic toll of his war with Iran, citing a bevy of inaccurate statistics.
His remarks to reporters in recent days underscored his approach, as he asserted that the economic hardship Americans might face was not a factor in his negotiations to end the conflict. “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation,” he said. “I don’t think about anybody. I think about one thing: We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. That’s all.”
Kush Desai, a White House spokesman, said the president had always been clear about the war’s temporary disruptions to the economy as inflation rises.
“The administration remains laser-focused on cutting costs and accelerating growth on the home front,” Mr. Desai said. “As these policies continue taking effect, and as traffic in the Strait of Hormuz normalizes after the Iranian nuclear threat is neutralized, both energy prices and inflation will drop again.”
Here’s a fact check.
What Was Said
“Now with all of this, inflation is much lower than it was under Biden. Biden had the highest inflation in the history of our country. Inflation is nothing by comparison, but our inflation is just short term. Because if you go from before, just before the war, we were for the last three months, 1.7 percent.”
— Mr. Trump in remarks to reporters on Tuesday
False. Mr. Trump is exaggerating the rate of inflation under the Biden administration and understating the rate of inflation under his own administration.
Inflation did reach the highest point in four decades — not in the “history of the country”— in the summer of 2022, at about 9 percent that June. But inflation reached higher points in the 1910s, 1970s and 1980s. Inflation had fallen to 3 percent in January 2025, when Mr. Trump took office.
In the three months before the United States attacked Iran on Feb. 28, inflation reached 2.7 percent in December, 2.4 percent in January and 2.4 percent in February — not 1.7 percent, as Mr. Trump said.
After the war began, inflation increased to 3.3 percent in March and again to 3.8 percent in April. Those figures are all higher than inflation at the end of the Biden administration.
What Was Said
“Oil is down 25% or $30 per barrel since Sleepy Joe”
— Mr. Trump in a social media post on May 8
This is misleading. Mr. Trump shared a chart that showed the price of oil at $120 a barrel under Mr. Biden and $90 under Mr. Trump, comparing the highest point of gas prices under the Biden administration with a recent low under his administration.
The price of Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil, rose to $120 per barrel in June 2022, but had fallen to about $80 a barrel by January 2025, when Mr. Trump took office. The price continued to fall in Mr. Trump’s first year back in office, before surging at the onset of the war in Iran.
On Friday, when Mr. Trump posted his chart, Brent crude had risen to $101 a barrel.
What Was Said
“Well, no, gas prices have come down today. Have you looked? They’ve come down very substantially today.”
— Mr. Trump in remarks to reporters on May 7
False. Government and independent data sources show that the opposite is true. Gas prices have continued to climb.
Gas prices rose to $4.56 a gallon on May 7, according to the AAA motor club, from $4.54 a day earlier. That was about 53 percent higher since the start of the war on Feb. 28, when the national average price of gas was $2.98.
Gas prices averaged $4.45 per gallon in the week ending on May 4, according to the Energy Information Administration, a government statistical agency. That was about 52 percent than the $2.94 in the week ending on Feb. 23.
What Was Said
“We don’t use the strait. We don’t need it. In fact, boats are coming up to Texas, Louisiana and Alaska and filling up with oil. We don’t need the strait.”
— Mr. Trump in a May 5 interview on the syndicated news show “Full Measure”
This is exaggerated. Mr. Trump has a point that a tiny amount of oil imported to the United States travels through the Strait of Hormuz. But he is wrong that the United States does not use the waterway at all.
The Energy Information Administration estimated that in 2024, the year with the latest available data, the United States imported about 500,000 barrels of crude oil per day through the Strait of Hormuz, equal to about 7 percent of total crude oil and condensate imports and 2 percent of consumption.
The United States also relies on the strait to import and export other goods.
The United States imports about 12 to 17 percent of several commonly used materials for fertilizer (monoammonium phosphate, diammonium phosphate and urea). About 22 percent of aluminum imports and about 25 percent of helium imports also travel through the Strait of Hormuz.
The Persian Gulf accounts for nearly 20 percent of all American exports of sauces and condiments, 20 percent of waterborne passenger cars and 15 percent of trucks, according to the Congressional Research Service.
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5) In Qatar, Energy Sector Damage Is Severe, and the Way Back Will Be Long
Iranian strikes and a blockade have paralyzed Qatar’s gas engine, creating a technical bottleneck likely to stall exports for years.
By River Akira Davis, May 14, 2026
River Davis reported this article from Doha, Qatar. She has reported on the energy industry from Japan, Southeast Asia and Alaska.
A liquefied natural gas production facility in Qatar’s Ras Laffan Industrial City. Qatar is one of the world’s largest exporters of L.N.G., but Iranian attacks have crippled its production. Picture Alliance/DPA, via Associated Press
In Doha, the stranded gas tanker Rasheeda has become a dark joke.
For more than two months, the vessel has drifted in circles in the Persian Gulf near the Strait of Hormuz, carrying the liquefied natural gas that serves as the lifeblood of Qatar’s economy. Residents track the ship on maritime apps and ask one another: “Where is Rasheeda today?”
The looping tanker has become a symbol of the paralysis gripping global energy supplies — a crisis that has cost Qatar billions in lost revenue and helped create energy shortages worldwide.
Qatar, one of the world’s largest exporters of liquefied natural gas, has seen its industry hobbled since war erupted in the Middle East nearly 11 weeks ago and Iranian strikes damaged critical infrastructure. Even facilities that remain intact have shut down because fuel cannot move through the closed Strait of Hormuz.
Since the war began, ships have tried just about everything to get out of the gulf, from calling in high-level diplomatic favors to hand-stitching Pakistani flags, hoping ties to the country mediating the U.S.-Iranian negotiations might secure safe passage.
During a week in Qatar, I interviewed more than a dozen people with knowledge of Qatar’s L.N.G. operations. Sensitivity in Qatar about the scarring of the energy industry is high. So most of the people requested anonymity to speak openly about QatarEnergy — the powerful state-owned energy giant that is the backbone of the economy. The details and observations about the state of Qatar’s L.N.G. industry stem from these conversations.
The consensus from these discussions was that even if the strait reopened tomorrow, Qatari L.N.G. exports would remain crippled for months and most likely impaired for years.
The biggest obstacle is technical. Replacement parts for infrastructure damaged by Iranian attacks can take up to five years to procure. At the same time, global shipping companies no longer trust the route through the strait, potentially leaving much of Qatar’s remaining exports stranded.
QatarEnergy did not respond to requests for comment.
The damage to Qatari gas infrastructure was inflicted in March, when Iran launched a barrage of drones and missiles at Ras Laffan, the country’s L.N.G. production hub. Most were intercepted, but three of the 20 projectiles penetrated defenses and struck L.N.G. trains — the massive liquefaction units that supercool gas for transport.
Rashid Al-Mohanadi, a former engineer who worked on one of the damaged units, remembered the night of the attack. Looking north from his home outside Doha, he saw the sky over Ras Laffan flash with interceptor missiles. The explosions rolled outward like shock waves, rattling the windows and doors of his house. When he stepped outside, the horizon was thick with black smoke.
“That was the moment I realized something had gotten through,” he said.
The facility was already largely idle because Iran had shut the Strait of Hormuz weeks earlier. Experts say the timing most likely spared the plant from further damage, as the lines were not operating under full pressure. Even so, Iran appeared to have hit what engineers describe as the “heart” of L.N.G. liquefaction trains.
The two heavily damaged units accounted for about 17 percent of Ras Laffan’s production. QatarEnergy has indicated that restoring full capacity could take three to five years. Some analysts believe that the estimate is high, but most agree that the recovery will take years.
The strikes appeared to have damaged the main cryogenic heat exchangers, precision machines that perform the final cooling of the gas and whose manufacturing is dominated by a single U.S. company, a unit of the conglomerate Honeywell. Replacement units can take four to five years to obtain.
The heat exchangers are a relatively small target within the Ras Laffan complex, which is more than twice the size of San Francisco, suggesting the strike was aimed at inflicting lasting damage.
Even for infrastructure that survived, getting fuel to market will remain difficult. Unlike the United Arab Emirates and Oman, which have coastlines on the Arabian Sea or Gulf of Oman, Qatar is uniquely vulnerable. All of its maritime infrastructure sits deep inside the Persian Gulf, leaving it without an alternative route to open water.
Roughly 1,600 vessels remain trapped near the Strait of Hormuz, carrying L.N.G., oil and fuel byproducts. After reports that Iran was allowing Pakistani-flagged vessels through, some crews stitched together makeshift flags from scraps of cloth found on board. It did not work.
For shippers, the danger will persist even if a cease-fire holds. Tehran has claimed to have seeded the waterway with undersea explosives. Until international mine-clearing units or Iranian authorities provide credible guarantees of safety, shipping companies are likely to be reluctant to risk their crews’ lives.
The Philippines, which supplies much of the world’s merchant-mariner work force, has begun directing crewing agencies to stop sending Filipino sailors into the conflict zone. Fears of further Iranian aggression and a lack of insurance coverage for such voyages threaten to keep vessels away. That leaves QatarEnergy in a bind.
Qatar cannot simply restart production until it secures commitments from shipping lines to return for new cargoes. If gas continues to accumulate with nowhere to go, storage tanks could overflow, forcing shutdowns that risk permanent damage. Because of that bottleneck, the entire export system is unlikely to return to normal for at least three to four months after the strait reopens.
The full extent of the damage is still unclear, but given the scale of the repairs required, “we’re talking reduced production until the end of the decade,” said Henning Gloystein, a managing director for energy at Eurasia Group, a political risk research firm. “It’s a significant tightening of the market.”
Even if the immediate crisis is resolved, many in the energy industry think that the Strait of Hormuz will not return to what it was. Support is growing for enormous infrastructure projects designed to bypass the strait, potentially redrawing the Middle East’s energy map.
One frequently discussed proposal is a pipeline across the Arabian Peninsula to a new liquefaction and export terminal in Jeddah on the Red Sea. Another would extend pipelines south to the Omani port of Duqm, allowing Qatari gas to be loaded directly onto ships in the Arabian Sea.
But pipelines carry geopolitical risks of their own. Relations between Qatar and Saudi Arabia — through which any overland route would have to pass — are warm now but scarred by a yearslong rift in which the kingdom cut off diplomatic and transport ties. Pipeline infrastructure is also vulnerable to missile and drone attacks.
For now, the immediate urgency is reopening the waterway itself. “Priority No. 1 is getting the strait open,” said Mr. Al-Mohanadi, the engineer who used to work at Ras Laffan. “Then it becomes about finding a mechanism to keep it open.”
After nearly a decade at a QatarEnergy-Exxon Mobil joint venture, Mr. Al-Mohanadi joined the Doha-based Center for International Policy Research as a vice president. He said one option was to create a multilateral maritime insurance “piggy bank” — a private and sovereign-backed fund that would insure ships transiting dangerous waterways such as the strait.
He also said there was growing pressure for Asia’s largest energy consumers to take a more active role in regional maritime security. For decades, the United States has served as the Gulf’s de facto guarantor, maintaining military bases across the region. Mr. Al-Mohanadi argues that the burden should increasingly be shared by Asian “middle powers” most dependent on Middle Eastern energy exports.
“We’re in a period of history where it’s a jungle, and that is threatening global energy security and entire economies,” he said recently over a late-night coffee at a hotel overlooking the waters off the northern tip of Doha Bay.
Near the end of our conversation, Mr. Al-Mohanadi opened a maritime tracking app on his phone. He typed in “Rasheeda,” and out emerged a rendering of the tanker, still endlessly circling the gulf. “Poor Rasheeda,” he said, looking down at the screen. “At this point, she must be so tired.”
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6) Her Two Sons Disappeared. Her Search Made Her the Voice of Mexican Mothers.
One of the most prominent activists for Mexico’s disappeared recently found the remains of one missing son. Now she has turned her attention to finding the other.
By James Wagner, Photographs by Fred Ramos, May 14, 2026
Reporting from Los Mochis, Juan José Ríos and other small towns in Sinaloa, Mexico
Cecilia Flores during a search for her missing son last month in Juan José Ríos, Mexico.
When she arrived at the field in northern Mexico where she has been searching for her son’s remains, Cecilia Flores kissed a large banner emblazoned with his face. Big letters on it proclaimed, “Your mother is fighting because she loves you.”
Ms. Flores was leading a team of fellow mothers, archaeologists and criminologists all searching in the relentless sun one April morning for people who have gone missing. An excavator dug trenches 4 feet deep and as long as 180 feet.
Ms. Flores’s son Alejandro disappeared in 2015, when he was 21. She has been searching this area on and off for the past four years after receiving an anonymous tip that her son’s remains were in this field in Sinaloa State, where other bodies have been unearthed.
“If I find my son, I’m going to make an altar here,” Ms. Flores said.
This is the constant agony of searching mothers, or “madres buscadoras” as they are known in Mexico. Few are more prominent than Ms. Flores, 53, the founder of several groups including the Madres Buscadoras de Sonora, or the Searching Mothers of Sonora, a state in northwest Mexico.
Many mothers go years without finding their loved ones, and some never do. Ms. Flores, a mother of six, has two sons who both disappeared.
But in late March, prosecutors in Sonora called her to say that they might have located her other son, Marco Antonio, who went missing in 2019 when he was 32. Her hopes had been raised and then dashed five times before over the years. But she rushed over to the search site and helped with the dig.
In a heartbreaking video that received nearly a million views online, she held up a femur bone in the desert that DNA tests later confirmed to be from her son. The authorities said bone fragments, clothes and shell casings were found on the property of a deceased man who they presume had participated in Marco Antonio’s disappearance.
Marco Antonio’s remains were found just 300 feet away from where Ms. Flores said she and her daughters had searched three years before, based on a tip from a man who called her from prison. But they stopped looking when they mistook the sound of motorcycles from a nearby farm for cartel members riding up to threaten them, a grim reality that Ms. Flores has faced before.
Women searching for the disappeared have repeatedly been killed in Mexico, including last weekend.
“It wasn’t the right time to find him,” she said.
For nearly a decade, Ms. Flores has been one of the key faces of a crisis in Mexico, where more than 133,000 people have vanished. Nearly all disappeared in the past two decades, many at the hands of criminal groups or colluding officials.
The disappearances have hung like a cloud over the administration of President Claudia Sheinbaum, who has vowed justice for all of the missing and has overseen some encouraging changes but is under increasing pressure to do more.
While government statistics show homicides have dropped by roughly 40 percent under Ms. Sheinbaum, who took office in October 2024, the number of missing people has more than doubled since 2016, climbing steadily over the years.
Ms. Sheinbaum sparred with a United Nations body of experts last month over its scathing report concluding that disappearances in Mexico were widespread and systemic, and often involved the complicity of the authorities.
“They want to pretend that nothing happens, that everything is dropping, when it’s not true,” Ms. Flores said of the Mexican government while standing in front of a statue of St. Jude, the Catholic patron saint of impossible causes. “Every day, people go missing.”
Despite living under constant threat, Ms. Flores is unafraid to speak her mind.
Recently, she posted a video on social media asking Joaquín Guzmán Loera, known as El Chapo, the infamous leader of the Sinaloa Cartel who is now in a U.S. prison, for tips to help locate her son. She included her address. She said she believed that Mr. Guzmán “was a good person for helping the poor a lot” and should now help mothers.
The disappearances have hung like a cloud over the administration of President Claudia Sheinbaum, who has vowed justice for all of the missing and has overseen some encouraging changes but is under increasing pressure to do more.
While government statistics show homicides have dropped by roughly 40 percent under Ms. Sheinbaum, who took office in October 2024, the number of missing people has more than doubled since 2016, climbing steadily over the years.
Ms. Sheinbaum sparred with a United Nations body of experts last month over its scathing report concluding that disappearances in Mexico were widespread and systemic, and often involved the complicity of the authorities.
“They want to pretend that nothing happens, that everything is dropping, when it’s not true,” Ms. Flores said of the Mexican government while standing in front of a statue of St. Jude, the Catholic patron saint of impossible causes. “Every day, people go missing.”
Despite living under constant threat, Ms. Flores is unafraid to speak her mind.
Recently, she posted a video on social media asking Joaquín Guzmán Loera, known as El Chapo, the infamous leader of the Sinaloa Cartel who is now in a U.S. prison, for tips to help locate her son. She included her address. She said she believed that Mr. Guzmán “was a good person for helping the poor a lot” and should now help mothers.
Once Marco Antonio was buried, Ms. Flores moved from Sonora State back to Sinaloa into her mother’s modest two-bedroom house to dedicate herself to finding Alejandro. She tried to search for him before, but she said she paused when local cartel members showed up at her mother’s house twice asking for her.
“I live with a lot of fear that something happens to her,” Ms. Flores’s mother, Marcela Armenta, 70, said in tears.
Ms. Flores has had round-the-clock police protection over the past few years. But she said she still worries about corrupt authorities in Mexico.
“The problem isn’t that they take me,” Ms. Flores said. “The problem is that they do it right in front of my family. I don’t want my mother to become a searching mother herself.”
Still, Ms. Flores is very public about her mission. She lists her phone number on social media. She goes live from her Facebook accounts while out on digs, often in dangerous or remote areas. Recently she narrated as other mothers and her brother used a flour-and-water mixture to glue missing persons posters to poles in small towns. She made sure they stuck them facing a local outdoor bar frequented by the “bad guys.”
She uses her large social media following to earn a living and raise money to fund her search groups, selling jewelry, makeup and more.
While in the town of Corerepe, Ms. Flores’s group attracted attention in part because of her police escort. Men on motorcycles, probably working for the cartels as lookouts, rode by frequently.
In several places, Ms. Flores said she and other mothers have put up missing posters only to discover them gone later. She said it was like pushing a boulder up a hill.
“We’re fighting apathy, bureaucracy and re-victimization by women and men who don’t like what we’re doing because they think it’s a waste of time, and that we’re looking for criminals who don’t deserve to be alive,” she said.
To María Isabel Zavala Monrreal, 53, whose 22-year-old son disappeared in Juan José Ríos in 2013, Ms. Flores is a source of strength and inspiration in the search for her son’s remains. She said her husband has never helped her search in part because he wants to leave the past alone.
“It’s a fight every time I come search,” she said, crying. “I’ll never stop looking.”
Gathering for searches is a therapy session of sorts for the mothers.
As the excavator buzzed nearby in the Sinaloa field, Ms. Flores, Ms. Zavala Monrreal and other mothers sat commiserating in the shade.
In one of the trenches, Ms. Flores found a bit of tattered green cloth. She pulled out her phone to show a photo of Alejandro wearing a green polo shirt the day he disappeared.
“Maybe it’s him,” she said.
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7) In a City of Big Dreams, Many Young Adults See a Cloudy Future
A bleak job market. Rising rents. Huge debt. In New York and other cities, traditional milestones of adulthood feel further away for some 20- and 30-year-olds.
By Troy Closson, May 14, 2026
Troy Closson, who covers young people, spoke to more than two dozen young adults, economists, work force leaders and career coaches in New York City.
Soban Ali moved to New York eager to make his way in a new city. Like so many other young adults, he discovered hardship and disappointment. Tessa Belle Dillman for The New York Times
It was around No. 87 when Soban Ali started to lose track of all his job applications.
He had moved to New York City, eager to start life away from the Washington area, where he was born and raised. But seven months after arriving, he was laid off from his job at a federal contractor during last fall’s government shutdown. So he started a spreadsheet: “The Great Job Hunt of 2025.”
He applied to roughly 450 openings. He landed upward of 10 interviews. He still doesn’t have a full-time job.
Now, Mr. Ali, 24, feels guilty telling friends he can’t join them for dinner. He wants to start a family one day, but worries. “I can’t even afford myself, so how am I going to afford someone else?” he said. And he laments that he can’t pursue some of the hobbies that have always brought him joy, such as hip-hop dance. Classes are too expensive: about $25.
“It’s this existential depression and existential dread of, ‘What am I going to do with my life?’” said Mr. Ali, who earns $18 an hour working part-time at an after-school program. That’s just $1 more per hour than minimum wage.
He wonders about five years from now: “Am I going to be making a good, livable income? Or am I going to be flipping burgers?”
It’s a rough time to be a young adult. Young college-degree holders face their worst spring in the U.S. job market since the coronavirus pandemic.
And if headwinds are blowing across the United States, they can feel like gale-force squalls in New York, one of the world’s most notoriously expensive cities.
Rents here are surging faster than in the rest of the country. Postings for entry-level jobs in New York City plummeted by more than 37 percent between 2022 and 2024. And student loan debt is rising: In no state do young adults between 25 and 34 hold more average debt at almost $38,000.
Mark Levine, the city comptroller, summed it up.
“Young people are facing a triple whammy.”
‘PLS HELP A GIRL OUT’
New York’s allure is unmatched. The city attracted more college graduates between 2021 and 2024 than Los Angeles and Chicago combined. About one in four New Yorkers — or more than 2.1 million residents — are between 18 and 34 years old.
That popularity as a landing spot helps foster the city’s competitive hiring market.
Today’s job market is nowhere as rough for young adults as it was during the Great Recession in the late 2000s or the depths of the pandemic. But the city’s unemployment rate for 22- to 27-year-olds with a college degree has risen to about 7.3 percent, slightly higher than for peers with no degree — and higher than national rates for their age group.
Those numbers fail to capture those who are stuck in low-paying work that doesn’t use their credentials — like Natalie Lui, a finance and marketing graduate who went from being an I.T. analyst at an investment bank to working part-time at a gym’s front desk.
Ms. Lui estimated that she has applied to at least 300 full-time positions. She put a call-out on TikTok: “please comment literally ANY and most effective ways to get a job in NYC. PLS HELP A GIRL OUT.”
“It took a lot out of me to even post that online,” said Ms. Lui, who turns 26 this summer and worries about affording health coverage after she’s kicked off her family plan. “But it’s come to that.”
In interviews, many young adults said that they felt lost at a moment when the path to a comfortable life appears filled with fresh obstacles.
The traditional milestones of adulthood — marriage, financial independence, living without roommates — seem ever more distant. And many young adults feel burned out by knowing that their résumés may never be read by a person and that artificial intelligence could upend the skills needed to succeed.
“I’m trying to figure out what it is: Is it an experience thing?” asked Mirko Mormile, 27, a Brooklyn College alumnus who was raised in the Bensonhurst neighborhood and studied business. He is a full-time digital content creator — “not entirely by choice,” he said — after applying to other work over the past year.
“Is it, am I not good enough?” said Mr. Mormile, who is living with his grandfather, helping to care for him after a fall.
The growing angst among young adults has led to crowdfunding pleas on GoFundMe and inspired punchlines for stand-up routines.
“I left my job this year, and I moved to New York cause I wanted to try unemployment on the most difficult level,” one comedian, Josh Martier, quipped during a recent set.
“Let me tell you, that city has not disappointed.”
One 22-year-old said that she arrived in New York last year with her cat and a suitcase, dog-sitting in exchange for housing. She couldn’t find work in Chicago after dropping out of college.
She had applied to more than 1,000 jobs, from marketing openings to positions at Trader Joe’s and Starbucks, but couldn’t get in the door. She worked as a stripper, but business was slow. So she began sex work.
Many of her friends are unemployed. One joined the military because he couldn’t find other work, and was recently deployed to Bahrain. “That’s just what our generation is,” she said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss her sex work.
“I feel like no one cares.”
$7 coffee and soaring rents
But let’s say you succeed in finding a well-paying job. Congratulations: The reward is a cost of living crisis that devours your paychecks.
Utility bills are rising, and food prices in the New York City area surged by 56 percent between 2012 and 2022, faster than in the rest of the nation. The cost of a Citi Bike membership jumped by 41 percent during the past six years.
And a large cup of coffee can push $7 after tax.
“Even just the little things that young people find joy in aren’t really affordable anymore,” said Rosaury Valenzuela, 30, an alumna of City College of New York who lost her job with a nonprofit organization in October and has struggled to find listings that offer a living wage.
She misses simple conveniences, like buying food at a single grocery store. Now, she needs to visit four, shopping around for low prices. And she said that it feels like the cost of a night out in the city has tripled — or quadrupled.
For Ms. Valenzuela and many others, housing costs are also a burning issue as rents rise quicker than wages.
The apartment hunt is especially suffocating in a city where — as Eric Kober, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, put it — “the system is very much stacked against young adults,” with limited vacancies and few affordable options.
Carla Marie Davis, 34, a digital content creator born and raised in Brooklyn, has sometimes spent well over half her income on rent. She wanted to live alone but couldn’t find a budget-friendly studio or one-bedroom rental in or near her neighborhood, Bedford-Stuyvesant.
So she looked into homeownership through the city’s affordable co-ops for lower-income residents and discovered that she needed far more assets to qualify. It took two years to find a co-op in her price range.
“It shouldn’t take the stars aligning perfectly and having all the luck in the world,” she said, grateful for the newfound stability. Her parents had already moved to Atlanta to live more comfortably, and she was “nearly pushed to the point of leaving” herself a few years ago.
Perhaps no American city is defined by its trade-offs quite like New York. Tight living quarters and eye-popping prices are the cost of living in a dynamic metropolis.
But some work force leaders fear that today’s tribulations threaten to prevent young native New Yorkers from staying and dissuade all but the wealthiest transplants from settling.
They say it would be a blow to the city’s culture and economy. Already, residents between 26 and 35 are twice as likely to move out as the rest of the population.
Among them was Gabriel Perez Silva, a 29-year-old photographer who recently left for Burbank, Calif., after more than seven years in New York. He traded a Brooklyn apartment whose bathroom he said was “crashing in on itself” for more work opportunities and better value. He’s closer to a park and even has a hot tub.
“My quality of life has completely skyrocketed,” he said.
Yet Mr. Perez Silva and other young adults still saw the city’s charm.
Deanna Richards, 27, aspires to act on Broadway, but had to put her aspirations on hold and prioritize stability after facing two bouts of unemployment within six months last year. She shares a roughly $1,000-a-month rent-controlled apartment with her boyfriend, and said she would not be able to survive without it.
Still, she relishes the city’s arts scene and industrious spirit: “It helps push me in moments where I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, what am I doing?’ ”
Kirsten Noyes contributed research.
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8) Trump’s War Is Punishing the Poor, Starting at the Gas Pump
By Jeff D. Colgan, May 14, 2026
Mr. Colgan is a professor of political science at Brown University.
The cruelty of high fuel prices isn’t just about the cost, but also about the unequal burden it places on American households. Energy costs have been walloping the working class since the United States and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28. And things could get a lot worse this summer, with prices rising ever higher the longer the Strait of Hormuz remains closed to shipping.
My research team at Brown University built a website to track the rising, real-time energy costs of the war with Iran. By mid-May, higher prices for just two energy products — gasoline and diesel fuel — added nearly $40 billion in costs to American consumers. That’s more than the Pentagon’s cost estimate of its military operations, now approaching $29 billion.
Before the attack, the average price for a gallon of gasoline in the United States was $2.98. Since then, the average price has soared to about $4.50 a gallon. That average smooths over a lot of regional variation. In California, prices have climbed past $6 per gallon. Colorado had an increase of more than $1.50 per gallon since February, lifting prices from below the national average to above it.
The rise in diesel fuel prices, critical to commerce, has been even sharper. Diesel is up by more than 50 percent. Even if you don’t purchase diesel directly, you’re paying a premium for other daily goods, because many of them are transported using trucks, locomotives and other engines that run on diesel fuel. If you buy a package online, you’re paying for diesel indirectly. Farmers are feeling it, too. There’s no escape in the air, either, with FedEx and UPS imposing surcharges as a result of rising jet fuel prices.
On average, each U.S. household has paid an extra $295 because of higher gasoline and diesel fuel prices since the war began. That’s more than a week’s worth of groceries for the average household. The burden falls hardest on poorer people, who are using less fuel than richer households, but whose costs make up a far larger portion of their budgets.
According to our analysis, Americans in the bottom 18 percent have had to spend at least half a week’s income to pay off the higher price of fuel since the end of February. As a result, they are cutting back on the gas they use, while households with incomes above $125,000 barely reduced their real gas consumption.
Fuel prices are likely to remain elevated for months, even if the fighting stops. Oil tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz will remain low until Iran grants passage, either explicitly through an agreement or simply in practice, without acknowledgment. But even if the strait opens again, many insurers will be wary of allowing ships to transit it — just as the insurers were after the Houthis previously threatened shipping in the Red Sea.
Moreover, Iran might continue to charge a toll or tax on tankers for moving through the strait, which would get passed on to refiners. And don’t forget the physical damage already inflicted on the oil production equipment and processing facilities in the Persian Gulf, some of which will take years to repair or reconstruct. All these supply constraints push prices up.
Without a resolution soon, experts expect the fuel crisis to get much worse. Energy producers have been shielding the markets from the full impact of the conflict by drawing down their inventories, in hopes of refilling storage tanks when supply constraints ease. But global inventories will reach critically low levels by the end of May, just as the summer driving season ramps up. That could drive oil prices higher — up to $200 per barrel, according to some analysts.
Suppose that gasoline prices rise to $5 per gallon across the United States. That would mean an extra $513 per household from Memorial Day to Labor Day, compared with what consumers were paying before the war began, bringing the total gas bill for a typical household to $1,558 over the course of the summer.
If gasoline prices top $6 per gallon on average — a real possibility if oil goes to $200 per barrel — that would mean an extra $825 per household. Just for gasoline. Other fuels, such as diesel and jet fuel, will skyrocket. Those prices will, in turn, affect the prices of everything else, from groceries to air travel. Tomato prices are already up nearly 40 percent.
Extra energy costs are bound to have a political effect. High gasoline prices are visible, posted on thousands of roadside signs nationwide. Americans saw them rising soon after President Trump ordered the attack on Iran. That makes it difficult for Mr. Trump to avoid blame.
And it could spell trouble for the Republicans in the November midterm elections. No one should doubt Mr. Trump’s uncanny ability to shift the conversation away from potentially damaging topics, but even he may struggle with the anger voters feel every they time they fill their tanks.
They’re not being unreasonable. Americans can and should hold Mr. Trump accountable for the mess he has created in the Persian Gulf. Despite claiming to be the party of national security, the Republicans have proved to be poor shepherds of the national interest. In the case of Iran, their missteps are having direct, visible consequences for Americans’ pocketbooks.
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9) The C.I.A. director travels to Cuba as the U.S. intensifies pressure.
By Julian E. Barnes, Michael Crowley and Frances Robles, Julian E. Barnes, Michael Crowley and Frances Robles have been covering the escalating tensions between the Trump administration and Cuba, May 14, 2026
John Ratcliffe, the C.I.A
John Ratcliffe, the C.I.A. director, traveled to Cuba on Thursday, a day after Havana admitted that its fuel oil supplies have been exhausted for consumers and businesses.
Mr. Ratcliffe made the visit to deliver a warning to the government that it had to make economic changes and stop allowing Russia and China to operate intelligence posts in Cuba, U.S. officials said on Thursday.
Mr. Ratcliffe is the highest-ranking Trump administration official to visit Cuba. His trip is part of a multifaceted campaign to escalate pressure against the Communist government and fulfill President Trump’s demand for regime change.
In a statement, the C.I.A. said that Mr. Ratcliffe had traveled to Havana to personally deliver President Trump’s message “that the United States is prepared to seriously engage on economic and security issues, but only if Cuba makes fundamental changes.”
The C.I.A. said Mr. Ratcliffe had met with Raúl G. Rodríguez Castro, known as “Raulito” or “El Cangrejo” (the Crab), the influential grandson of former president Raúl Castro. Mr. Ratcliffe also met with Lázaro Álvarez Casas, the minister of the interior, as well as the head of Cuba’s intelligence services, a C.I.A. official said.
At the same time, federal prosecutors in Miami were working toward securing an indictment of the elder Mr. Castro, who remains a force in the country’s politics, according to several people familiar with the matter. The scope of the indictment and the number of defendants is being debated, but it could include drug trafficking charges and accusations connected to Cuba’s downing in 1996 of planes run by the humanitarian aid group Brothers to the Rescue, two of the people said.
Mr. Ratcliffe arrived in Cuba the day after Vicente de la O Levy, the minister of energy and mines, announced that oil supplies for domestic use and power plants had been exhausted.
“We have absolutely no fuel oil, absolutely no diesel,” he said. “In Havana, the blackouts today exceed 20 or 22 hours.”
The lack of oil has forced people to rely on charcoal or even wood to cook, and some people have taken to the streets, banging on pots and pans to express their frustration.
The Cuban government has been grappling with a severe energy crisis for more than two years because of crumbling infrastructure and a dwindling oil supply from Venezuela, its longtime benefactor.
Venezuelan fuel stopped flowing to Cuba entirely in January, after the United States seized Venezuela’s leader and took control of its oil industry. Later, the Trump administration imposed an effective blockade barring all foreign oil from reaching Cuba, which had also received shipments from Mexico.
A delivery of an estimated 730,000 barrels of oil from Russia last month permitted by the Trump administration provided a brief reprieve.
The administration also has been working on the Castro indictment for months. The effort is being led by Jason A. Reding Quiñones, a Trump ally who serves as the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida.
The Cuban government said the United States had requested Thursday’s meeting. Cuban officials stressed that their country did not constitute a threat to U.S. national security and should not be included on a list of state sponsors of terrorism, Cuba’s state-controlled newspaper, Granma, reported.
“Once again it was made clear that the island does not harbor, support, finance or permit terrorist or extremist organizations; nor are there any foreign military or intelligence bases on its territory, and it has never supported any hostile activity against the U.S. nor will it allow any action to be taken from Cuba against another nation,” the Cuban government said.
The Trump administration has not explicitly said what political or economic changes it wants to see in Cuba, but the broad goal is apparently to end the Communist Party’s lock on political and economic control. A C.I.A. official did not outline the economic steps the United States is seeking.
The visit was particularly remarkable because of the longstanding animosity between Cuba and the C.I.A. In 1961, the C.I.A. organized the failed Bay of Pigs invasion and in subsequent years was known to have made several attempts to kill Fidel Castro.
“A visit by the C.I.A. director is astounding in the present setting of the Trump administration’s regime-change efforts,” said Peter Kornbluh, who co-wrote a book on the history of secret talks between the two nations. “At the same time, the gravitas of such a high-level delegation signals that a dialogue between Washington and Havana is continuing and could still yield nonviolent results.”
He noted that the visit was not unprecedented: John Brennan, who ran the C.I.A. during the Obama administration, visited Cuba during secret talks to restore diplomatic relations.
William LeoGrande, who wrote the book with Mr. Kornbluh, said that Mr. Ratcliffe’s visit was “extraordinary given the unprecedented level of hostility the Trump administration has demonstrated toward Cuba.”
“The strategy of previous negotiations with Cuba have has been to offer Havana carrots,” Mr. LeoGrande said. “Trump’s strategy is to beat the Cubans with a stick until they cry uncle.”
Mr. Trump has flexed American power to cut off foreign oil shipments to Cuba, whose ramshackle economy has been thrown into crisis. The United States has also increased military and intelligence reconnaissance flights around the island as part of what is expected to be a larger U.S. military buildup.
American officials, led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, have had private talks with Cuban leaders in the hope that economic desperation will force them to make concessions they have long resisted.
In late April, a delegation of State Department officials visited Havana to press Cuban leaders, including Mr. Rodríguez Castro, on a potential diplomatic deal.
In public remarks, Mr. Rubio has suggested that the United States might settle for broad economic reforms to Cuba’s socialist system rather than dramatic changes to its political structure.
But in an interview on Wednesday with Fox News, Mr. Rubio said he doubted it was possible “to change the trajectory of Cuba as long as these people are in charge in that regime.”
During his visit, Mr. Ratcliffe’s most concrete demand was for Cuba to close the intelligence listening posts that Russia and China operate there, and that Mr. Trump has singled out. According to a C.I.A. official, Mr. Ratcliffe also held out Venezuela as an example of a collaborative relationship with the United States.
In the executive order on Cuba that Mr. Trump issued in January, he criticized the Cuban government for hosting “Russia’s largest overseas signals intelligence facility, which tried to steal sensitive national security information from the United States.” The executive order was less direct on China.
Russia opened the intelligence post during the Cold War, but temporarily shut it a quarter century ago, only to reopen it in 2014. The Russian post is in Lourdes, and the Chinese station is in Bejucal.
While Russia, China and Cuba have denied they operate intelligence posts on Cuba, current and former American officials say the facilities exist and allow for the interception of some U.S. communications.
President Miguel Díaz-Canel of Cuba did not comment on Mr. Ratcliffe’s visit, but publicly accepted an offer of humanitarian aid in a social media post on Thursday.
A day earlier, he acknowledged that the energy situation was “particularly tense.”
“This dramatic worsening has a single cause: the genocidal energy blockade to which the United States subjects our country,” he said on X.
The blackouts have forced Cubans to wake up at odd hours when the power is briefly on to make coffee, charge telephones and cook the next day’s meals. If the electricity goes out in the midst of cooking, they must turn to charcoal.
Eliannis Urgellés López, 40, of Guantánamo, also in eastern Cuba, uses an electric stove to cook but has a ready supply of charcoal for when the power goes out.
Ever since oil deliveries from Venezuela ended, she said, a good chunk of her government salary goes to buying charcoal.
“Venezuela was the lifeline for everything,” she said.
Hermes Marian, 53, who drives refinery employees to work each day in Santiago de Cuba, a city in the eastern part of the island, said the United States’ oil blockade was unjust.
“It can’t be right — it’s not right,” Mr. Marian said. “Here, it’s the people who are suffering.”
Reporting was contributed by Ed Augustin from Cuba, and Alan Feuer, Glenn Thrush and Tyler Pager.
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10) Stop Looking for an ‘Offramp’ in Iran
By Carlos Lozada, Opinion Columnist, May 15, 2026
Photo Illustration by Evan Hume for The New York Times
The war with Iran had barely been joined when the search for an offramp began.
“Exclusive: Trump Floats ‘Offramps’ After Attacking Iran,” Axios reported on Feb. 28, the same day that the United States and Israel started bombing targets. “It’s Too Soon for Iran ‘Offramps,’” the Wall Street Journal editorial board countered the next day, suggesting that Iran’s military capabilities needed to be destroyed before the Trump administration looked for an exit sign.
Other news outlets soon adopted the metaphor. “As the Iran War Continues, What Are the Potential Offramps for Trump?” NPR asked. BBC News reported that “Trump’s Iran Strategy Is to Pursue Two Offramps at Once,” a driving strategy I would not recommend. The Times described the eventual cease-fire agreement in early April as “an 11th-hour offramp,” and PBS’s “Washington Week With The Atlantic” convened last week to discuss “Trump’s Struggle to Find an Offramp From the Iran War.”
It is a seductive image. An offramp implies a safe and easy exit from a highway, an especially appealing option if it turns out the highway isn’t taking you where you’d originally hoped. Too many traffic jams, accidents or potholes in this “little excursion,” as President Trump called the conflict with Iran? Just take the offramp back to normality — and leave the war behind.
Even the administration uses the term. “Iran is looking for an offramp following your powerful threat,” Steve Witkoff, a U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, said to Trump in a March cabinet meeting, referring to the president’s warning that he would “obliterate” the country’s power plants if Iran’s leaders did not reopen the Strait of Hormuz. (They didn’t comply, and he didn’t follow through.) And David Sacks, a venture capitalist and influential White House technology adviser, has argued that Trump should just claim victory and “get out” of the conflict. “We should try to find the offramp,” Sacks said.
Except an offramp from war rarely returns you to the roads you once drove or the world you once knew. The United States will find no offramp to a prewar status quo. The conflict has changed the maps, and all roads now lead somewhere new.
The war has revealed the Iranian regime to be far more resilient and capable than American authorities, enamored with the speed of the operation against Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, had expected. Iran may emerge not just emboldened by standing tall against a superpower but also empowered with new leverage over a global economy as vulnerable as ever to fragile supply chains and vital choke points. The war has depleted the American weapons arsenal, rendering us less ready to respond to potential crises elsewhere; it has also shown how cheap drone technology is changing the nature — and raising the costs — of modern warfare.
The conflict has also delivered an economic windfall to President Vladimir Putin of Russia, increasing the country’s oil revenue and loosening sanctions. It has strengthened the hand of China — expanding its influence in regional energy markets, enhancing its global sway and perhaps whetting its appetite for an excursion of its own in, say, Taiwan. Two decades ago, the United States lectured China on the need to become a “responsible stakeholder” in the international system. Now, as Trump and President Xi Jinping meet in Beijing, which country has the more credible claim to that role?
By weakening the already feeble ties between Washington and its traditional allies, the war has undercut any remaining American pretensions to global leadership. Trump is abandoning NATO, de facto if not de jure, and the “rupture” to the global order that Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada warned about this year is now evident to all.
We are now in the third month of a war that Trump pledged would last only a few weeks, a fight that he often bragged was “ahead of schedule.” Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel signaled in recent interviews that the battle is hardly over, and Iran’s maximal demands — reparations from Washington, sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz, an end to sanctions — show how far-off any offramp really is.
Just ask Vice President JD Vance, reportedly an early skeptic of war with Iran, who was recently reduced to calling the conflict “a little blip” during a speech in Iowa. Pretending the war doesn’t matter much may be the most foolish version of an offramp; Trump, too, has dismissed the conflict as a “miniwar.”
American leaders have long fantasized about offramps from war, even if they have used different terms. Richard Nixon promised “peace with honor” as a path out of Vietnam; Barack Obama pledged a “responsible transition” of U.S. forces out of Afghanistan. The Clinton administration listed an “exit strategy” as an essential component of planning for any military deployments in its National Security Strategy of 1994. “Do we have timelines and milestones that will reveal the extent of success or failure, and, in either case, do we have an exit strategy?” it asked.
In a 1998 Foreign Affairs essay, Gideon Rose decried the “delusion” of the exit strategy. “The idea of an exit strategy contributes to a false notion that military interventions are mechanical tasks like building a new kitchen,” he wrote, “rather than strategic contests marked by friction and uncertainty.” The fixation on the exit strategy can signal a lack of resolve to the enemy; if America’s leadership is focused on getting out, our opponents can dig in their heels, as Iran is doing, and just wait us out.
The exit-strategy imperative also makes the departure of U.S. forces an objective — rather than a consequence — of a successful military operation, thus mixing ends and means. “The key question is not how we get out,” Rose argued, “but why we are getting in.” And that is a question that the Trump administration, with so many competing explanations and justifications, has not clearly answered in Iran.
An offramp is an even weaker version of an exit strategy. At least the exit strategy carries the pretense of strategic consideration, of a goal that is articulated and weighed alongside others. But when you just want to get off the highway as soon as possible, any ramp will do. It is as unsurprising as it is appalling that, according to Reuters, the administration has asked its intelligence agencies to assess how Iran would react if Trump simply declared victory and moved on from a war he reportedly finds boring.
Trump promised no more forever wars; Iran could be his whatever war.
Any offramp looks distant today. The president has called Iran’s latest list of demands a “piece of garbage,” derided the Iranian leaders as “stupid people” and declared the cease-fire struck in early April to be on “life support.” Next month it will be one year since Trump affirmed that Iran’s nuclear program had been obliterated by Operation Midnight Hammer, yet he remains stuck in neutral in a war that has accomplished virtually none of his stated objectives and that risks leaving Iran in a stronger geopolitical position and less damaged militarily than the administration has claimed.
Even some face-saving agreement — one that allows Trump to say he won and to assure Americans that his deal is better than the one the Obama administration negotiated and Trump ripped up during his first term — will not undo the damage the conflict has caused or the weakness it has revealed.
In war, offramps are rarely well marked or well paved.
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11) Deported Despite DACA: Dreamers Face Uncertainty Under Trump
The administration has said DACA isn’t a right to stay in the United States “indefinitely.” One man with DACA was detained and deported to Mexico in a matter of days.
By Miriam Jordan, May 15, 2026
Miriam Jordan has been reporting on DACA since the program was established in 2012 for undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children.
Martin Padilla’s wife, Cynthia, relocated for several months to be closer to the border so she and the couple’s children could visit Mr. Padilla after he was deported. Gabriel V. Cárdenas for The New York Times
There had to have been a mistake, Martin Padilla recalled telling the immigration agents.
An inspector in the oil and gas industry, he was about to fly to Sacramento for work when the agents pulled him aside at Corpus Christi International Airport in Texas last August. Stopped at the security X-ray scanner, he told them he had DACA status, referring to the Obama-era program designed to protect undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as young children. His DACA card, he said, was in his wallet.
It didn’t matter.
Within hours of the Aug. 5 encounter, Mr. Padilla had been detained. Days later, he was deported to his native Mexico, leaving behind his American wife, their three children and the family’s new home.
Mr. Padilla, 35, is among about 500,000 people enrolled in DACA — the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program — which is supposed to shield them from deportation and allow them to work legally. And he is one of the dozens of DACA recipients who have been expelled from the country by the Trump administration.
The swift effort to deport Mr. Padilla underscores the tenuous state of many immigration protections under President Trump as he seeks to deliver on his pledge to deport millions of people and remake the country’s immigration system.
The federal government has all but ended the resettlement of refugees. The system for weighing asylum claims has been brought to a near standstill. And the Supreme Court will soon decide whether the Trump administration can end Temporary Protected Status for more than a million people from some of the world’s most troubled nations.
Mr. Padilla’s lawyers challenged his deportation, arguing in a federal court filing that his due process rights had been violated. After seven months, Mr. Padilla was allowed to return to the United States.
“My focus is getting back to work and providing for my family,” he said in an interview.
But Mr. Padilla is hardly out of jeopardy. There is an outstanding deportation order that was issued to his family when he was a child. The Department of Homeland Security said that order was a basis for his detention last year, even though DACA was intended to protect him. And the agency also cited two D.W.I.s over the last 14 years, which can be considered by immigration authorities even though neither led to a criminal conviction.
With the Trump administration working to weaken a wide range of protections, DACA recipients are realizing that the program, born of bipartisan support for a generation of young undocumented immigrants, is no longer the reliable shield it seemed to be for most of the last two decades.
Mr. Padilla’s experience makes clear just how much has changed and just how uncertain the future may be for the half million people who currently have DACA.
Since Mr. Trump took office last year, 650 DACA recipients have been taken into custody by ICE, and nearly 90 percent of the people arrested had previously been charged with or convicted of a U.S. crime, according to D.H.S. Lawyers contend the Trump administration is relying on minor infractions and decades-old deportation orders to justify detentions and removals of a protected group.
Neither Mr. Padilla or his lawyer received an official explanation for his deportation, they said.
“It seems so arbitrary that they decided to pick him up,” said his lawyer, Danielle Claffey. “The whole purpose of deferred action is to defer someone’s removal, even if they have a removal order.”
In response to an inquiry from The New York Times, D.H.S. said Mr. Padilla was a “criminal,” citing two D.U.I. charges and a deportation order from 2003, when he was 12. Records show that a D.W.I. charge in 2012 was dismissed. A 2023 guilty plea for another D.W.I. was discharged by a judge without a conviction.
The case challenging his deportation never reached a hearing in court, Ms. Claffey said, because the Department of Homeland Security chose to resolve the matter by facilitating Mr. Padilla’s return.
Created by the Obama administration in 2012, DACA was intended as a stopgap until Congress could pass legislation, known as the Dream Act, to provide legal status for a generation of young immigrants who were brought to the United States through no choice of their own.
For many so-called Dreamers, the United States is the only home they’ve known. Former President Barack Obama described them as “Americans in every way but on paper.” DACA enabled them to obtain driver’s licenses, pay in-state college tuition and build careers. Many are now in their 30s.
But the program has been legally vulnerable because it was established by executive action, not by Congress. Arguing that Mr. Obama had overstepped his authority, opponents have been challenging DACA in federal court since the program’s inception.
Still, across the previous three presidential administrations, recipients were assured “deferred action,” meaning the government would not pursue their deportation.
In a letter to Senate Democrats in February, Kristi Noem, then the homeland security secretary, justified the arrest and deportation of DACA recipients by saying that the program “comes with no right or entitlement to remain in the United States indefinitely.”
In a statement, D.H.S. said that any person covered by DACA “may be subject to arrest and deportation for a number of reasons including if they’ve committed a crime.”
Last month, the Board of Immigration Appeals, which is part of the Justice Department and oversees immigration courts, ruled that DACA status doesn’t prevent recipients from being deported.
The decision deepened the fear and uncertainty gripping Dreamers.
Many were already facing delays in renewing their “deferred” status and accompanying employment authorization. Historically, these renewals, required every two years, have taken weeks to process. But monthslong waits have become common, and that is costing some recipients their livelihoods. Lawyers and advocacy groups report a surge of calls from panicked nurses, teachers and others forced out of jobs.
Yadira Valles, a nurse in Albuquerque awaiting her renewal, cared for patients recovering from brain and spinal surgeries — until her work permit expired a month ago.
“I left my unit short a nurse, not because I wanted to but because I was forced to,” she said. “Without help from my family, I couldn’t keep my home, pay utilities and buy groceries.”
While a lapsed work permit can mean a career on hold and earnings lost, for DACA recipients like Mr. Padilla, the Trump administration’s approach meant sudden expulsion.
In the early hours of Aug. 18, he stood on the tarmac at an airport in Harlingen, Texas, a deportation hub. Chained at the waist, wrists and ankles, he tried once again to plead his case. His DACA was current, he told the people transporting him, to no avail.
“I was like, oh my God, I have been here all my life, I have a home, I have a U.S.-citizen wife and three U.S.-born kids,” he recalled thinking as he shuffled up the stairs to the plane.
He landed in southeastern Mexico disoriented, a stranger in the country of his birth. His wife sent him money, and he flew north to Reynosa, across from McAllen, Texas, to be closer to his family.
Mr. Padilla and his wife, Cynthia, have been married since 2015. But it was not until June 2024 that she started the paperwork to sponsor him for a green card, a process that can take years.
As his lawyer worked to have him returned to the United States, Mr. Padilla found a job at an American-owned manufacturing plant.
His wife locked up their house near Corpus Christi and moved in with relatives near McAllen. Relocating allowed her and their children, 10, 7 and 4, to cross the border on weekends to visit Mr. Padilla. Their youngest, a girl, cried every time she parted ways with her father.
Mr. Padilla’s lawyer filed a complaint in federal court in December. Before the judge ruled, government lawyers agreed in February to admit Mr. Padilla back into the United States. A week later, an ICE official emailed Ms. Claffey, saying that Mr. Padilla would be detained on arrival. This led to several more weeks of limbo, until ICE agreed not to immediately detain him.
On April 24, Mr. Padilla was admitted through the port of entry at Brownsville, Texas.
When U.S. agents dropped him off at a bus stop, they wished Mr. Padilla good luck, he said. One reminded him to keep his DACA active. Mr. Padilla remembers thinking, “It was active.”
With Mr. Padilla able to earn only a fraction of what he had been making before his deportation, his family relied first on savings, then on credit cards, to keep up mortgage and car payments during his absence.
“If this had gone on another month or two, we would have been in serious trouble with our home,” he said.
He and his wife are aware his immigration saga won’t be truly over until he has a green card.
“All I want to do is fix his status,” Ms. Padilla said. “He is a great husband, father and worker.”
Sheelagh McNeill contributed research.
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12) U.S. Migrants Deported to Congo: ‘Where on Earth Is This Place?’
They were shackled and sent to Kinshasa by the Trump administration. Now they face a dangerous choice: Go back to Latin America or stay in Africa.
By Ruth Maclean, Emiliano Rodríguez Mega, Pranav Baskar and Justin Makangara, May 15, 2026
Ruth Maclean reported from Dakar, Senegal, Emiliano Rodríguez Mega reported from Mexico City, Pranav Baskar reported from New York and Justin Makangara reported from Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo.
“Many accuse the Congolese government of granting President Trump too many favorable deals, including preferential access to Congo’s abundant minerals.”
Hugo Palencia was deported from the U.S. to Kinshasa, the Democratic Republic of Congo, last month. Justin Makangara for The New York Times
Hugo Palencia said he was delivering meals in Aurora, Colo., for DoorDash and Uber around this time last year. Now, he is in a hotel in the Democratic Republic of Congo, dazed by a journey that he said took him in shackles from the United States to a Central African country that he had barely heard of before last month.
Mr. Palencia was deported to Congo on April 16 along with 14 other migrants from Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, he said. They were all taken to a large hotel outside Kinshasa, the capital city.
“I’m on the other side of the world,” Mr. Palencia said.
The migrants’ odyssey was suddenly thrust in front of the courts this week when a judge ruled that one of them, Adriana Maria Quiroz Zapata of Colombia, was likely deported to Congo illegally. The judge said Ms. Zapata had been sent to the African nation even after it told the Trump administration it could not accept her because of a medical condition. The judge has ordered immigration officials to return Ms. Zapata to the United States.
Mr. Palencia, 25, and other deportees who spoke to The New York Times in interviews at the hotel said they were presented with a choice when they arrived. Officials from the United Nations’ migration agency, or I.O.M., told them they could return to their home countries in Latin America or stay in Congo and hope for the best, he said.
They were given seven days to decide.
The Trump administration’s so-called third-country deportation policy has sent thousands of migrants from the United States to far-flung nations other than their own. In many cases, migrants are stripped of their passports and phones, locked in foreign detention centers and kept in legal limbo.
The administration is counting on the threat of being sent to a country like Congo, South Sudan or Cameroon to act as a deterrent for those planning to come to the United States illegally. In some cases, these nations may be more dangerous than the migrant’s home country, making that threat all the more palpable.
A lawyer for the deportees, Alma David, said several of them had U.S. protection orders making it illegal for the U.S. to repatriate them, for fear of their safety. Though the Trump administration has described U.S. deportees as “barbaric criminals,” none of the migrants at the hotel in Congo has a criminal record in the United States, according to the Congolese government.
The Department of Homeland Security did not comment on the 15 Latin American migrants deported to Congo. In a statement to The Times, the agency said, “Anyone who has been deported received full due process.”
Another woman from Colombia, who requested anonymity for safety reasons, said that she and the other migrants had been told that if they agreed to go home, they would be protected by the I.O.M. and allowed to stay in the hotel for “as long as necessary.”
If they did not accept the offer, she and Mr. Palencia said, agency officials told them they would be on their own and would have to pay for their own accommodations. The deportees are currently on a three-month tourist visa, which does not allow them to work in Congo, the woman said. But they have been allowed to leave the hotel, with supervision.
In a statement to The Times, the I.O.M. said it does not force anyone to return to their home countries. It added that the seven-day deadline is the I.O.M.’s minimum period of support, and that the agency could extend assistance beyond those days.
Sitting on a plastic chair by the pool bar on his first night at the hotel, Mr. Palencia spent some of the little money he had on a Corona to remind himself of home in Colombia.
“We’re all wondering whether we’re more afraid to return to our countries, or to be here in a country like this,” Mr. Palencia said. A U.S. judge had ordered his deportation in 2023 after he entered the country illegally twice, he said, but the judge shielded him from being sent back to Colombia, citing the risk of torture. Instead, the authorities sent him to Congo.
The I.O.M. deadline expired more than two weeks ago and most of the migrants have agreed to go home, Mr. Palencia said.
While they wait inside the hotel’s high, barbed-wired walls, the migrants can swim, play tennis, lounge and walk the tree-lined grounds. The electricity and water are sporadic and the occasional rat scurries past, but there is air conditioning, as well as en suite bathrooms and three meals a day, all paid for by the I.O.M. and the U.S. government, according to Congolese authorities.
But the hotel is not luxurious, and the atmosphere was sometimes tense. The Times saw dozens of Israeli military instructors and Congolese soldiers on site.
Navigating Congo outside the hotel would also be a challenge. Kinshasa is one of the continent’s biggest and most high-energy cities, but with aging, inadequate infrastructure and multiple languages. Its traffic is legendary; the yellow minibuses that bounce over its potholed roads are known as the Spirit of Death.
Congo is also grappling with one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, and many Congolese have questioned why their government has agreed to accept United States’ deportees when the country’s own urgent problems include millions of displaced people.
“This decision is detrimental to the interests of the Congolese,” wrote Jean-Claude Katende, a prominent human rights lawyer and commentator who has been highly critical of the agreement.
Many accuse the Congolese government of granting President Trump too many favorable deals, including preferential access to Congo’s abundant minerals.
In a rare news conference held last week, Félix Tshisekedi, the Congolese president, said he had imposed certain conditions on the United States before accepting the migrants; the deportees couldn’t be “bad boys.” But he had agreed to take them, he said, “simply because it’s what the Americans wanted.”
“They dreamed of living the American dream, and now they’re living the Congolese dream,” he joked.
It did not take long for Mr. Palencia to agree to go back to Colombia, having judged that the risks in Congo were higher than those he faced at home, he said. “I know nothing of Congo, except the music, which Colombian musicians sometimes cover, translated into Spanish,” he said. “Ideally, I would have been sent straight home.”
“This country is three times as insecure and dangerous as my native country,” he added.
While the migrants are unlikely to feel the effects of the ongoing conflict in eastern Congo, they could face threats largely associated with some of world’s poorest countries: a crumbling health system, dangerous roads, entrenched corruption and tropical diseases like malaria.
The woman from Colombia said she could not go back home. She described being kidnapped and tortured by an armed group, with the complicity of an ex-partner who worked for the government. Seeking asylum in the United States, she crossed the border alone from Mexico in September 2024, and was immediately arrested by U.S. authorities, she said.
She said she had spent a year and a half in Eloy Detention Center in Arizona, trying to navigate the immigration process without a lawyer. She was granted a protection order by a judge last year, she said, but was arrested by I.C.E. officials in March during a routine immigration appointment. (The Times verified the woman’s immigration history and torture protection order with government documents and court records.)
“Where on earth is this place?” she remembered thinking when she found out she was being sent to Congo. “I said, ‘I’m scared to go there. I don’t want to be sent to Africa. You can’t do this to me. What you’re doing isn’t legal.’”
Ms. David, the lawyer, said I.O.M. officials had informed the Colombian woman that she will continue to receive assistance from the agency based on her circumstances, even though she has refused to go back home. The lawyer also said that U.N. migration officials have offered to put her in touch with a separate U.N. agency that processes asylum claims.
The deportees have grown close in the few weeks they have spent together in Congo. They take walks and stay up late waiting to call their families back home. Most spend their days indoors, to escape the tropical heat and the thunderstorms. “We are united,” the Colombian woman said. At night, they danced and sang together to vallenato — accordion-heavy Colombian folk music — or Latin trap.
To pass the time, Mr. Palencia plays Christian Nodal and Yuri Buenaventura songs on YouTube. When he talks to his family members, they sometimes cry over the phone, he said. He finds it difficult to comfort them.
“No human should live in this kind of unspoken prison,” he said. “You don’t know how your child or your spouse woke up, how your family is. It’s very hard when your family depends on you.”
Stranded in Congo, the Colombian woman is terrified of what’s next. Every night, she speaks to her 10-year-old daughter, but has not yet told her that she’s in Congo. She doesn’t want the child to worry, she said. For now, she pretends that she is still living a normal life in the United States.
Hamed Aleaziz contributed reporting from Washington.
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