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) Inside the Hantavirus Isolation Unit Where 15 Americans Wait
The National Quarantine Unit in Nebraska is now the temporary home for many of the Americans who had been passengers on the MV Hondius.
By Sonia A. Rao, Reporting from Omaha, May 11, 2026
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/11/us/nebraska-quarantine-hantavirus-ship-americans.html
The Davis Global Center, at the University of Nebraska Medical Center campus in Omaha, houses the National Quarantine Unit. Dylan Widger/Getty Images
They arrived around 2:30 in the morning on Monday, their government plane stopping on the pavement at the Omaha airport. One by one, they shuffled out, wearing masks and carrying plastic bags holding a small set of their belongings.
They were quickly assessed by a team of doctors, loaded onto shuttle buses — with adequate distance kept between them — and driven to the National Quarantine Unit, the only federal center of its kind in the country.
For 15 of the 18 American arrivals who had been on the cruise ship MV Hondius and were possibly exposed to the hantavirus — a pathogen that can be deadly and for which there is no widely available vaccine — this was now their home, at least for a while.
Three of the roughly 150 passengers from various countries on their ship, which departed Argentina in April with a destination of the Canary Islands, died from the virus, and several others became ill or tested positive, officials said.
Dr. Michael Wadman, the medical director of the National Quarantine Unit, was one of the doctors who greeted the Americans at the airport. “They were really pleasant, in good spirits and grateful to be home,” he said. But he also said, “They were very tired.”
The National Quarantine Unit, part of the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, was designed to safely isolate and monitor people who have been exposed to infectious diseases. It opened in 2020, when it hosted around a dozen Americans who tested positive or had been exposed to the coronavirus on the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan.
The unit consists of two hallways with 20 single-occupancy rooms, each with a specialized air pressure system designed to prevent contaminated air from flowing out. Every 300-square-foot room has a full bed, exercise equipment, a window, Wi-Fi and video technology. It also has an autoclave, a machine designed to sterilize waste. The unit is staffed by Dr. Wadman and a team of more than 100 doctors and nurses, who slept very little this weekend as they prepared for the passengers’ arrival.
A building across the street houses the biocontainment unit, which is designed to treat people with symptoms of a disease or who have an actual illness. That unit, which can fit a maximum of 10 people, was activated in 2014 to treat patients who had come from West Africa with Ebola.
The biocontainment unit is one of 13 such centers in the country. And it is hosting one of the Americans from the cruise ship who tested positive for the hantavirus. The other two U.S. passengers who arrived on Monday, one person experiencing mild symptoms and that person’s partner, were transferred to a hospital in Atlanta, in case more people in the quarantine unit begin to show symptoms.
The patients are not wearing masks, but the doctors interacting with them are wearing full personal protective equipment, covered head to toe — including air-purifying respirators, full coveralls and shoe covers, said Dr. Angela Hewlett, director of the biocontainment unit.
As of Monday afternoon, all the patients in the Omaha units were doing well, their doctors said. The group, ranging in age from late 20s to 80s, had been assessed for any immediate medical needs and were recovering from the long journey. None were showing symptoms of the hantavirus, which can include headache, nausea, coughing and congestion. The one person in the biocontainment unit had been tested again and was awaiting results.
Their quarantine period could last up to 42 days, but health officials said at a Monday news conference that, once the passengers had been fully assessed, it was likely that they could choose to leave early and quarantine at home if they wanted. But it was unclear when exactly they would be allowed to make that choice.
For now, they are not allowed visitors, aside from the doctors and nurses monitoring them. A psychologist will facilitate virtual meetings with the group so people can talk about what they have experienced; the first one is scheduled for Tuesday afternoon.
One thing that Dr. Wadman has noticed about these individuals, he said, is their adventurous spirit. The MV Hondius was a less traditional cruise than most, he said, with passengers looking to be involved in birding or other wilderness activities. The passengers he has spoken to so far have told him they were craving physical activity after being cooped up on the cruise ship for so long.
“They’re an active group,” he said.
And one of them, at least, is pleased with the accommodations. Angie Vasa, the director of isolation and quarantine for special pathogens at Nebraska Medicine, a health care network that helps operate the units, said that one man who was in quarantine expressed surprise at the quality of his quarters.
“‘I’m so glad that these rooms are so nice,’” she recalled him saying.
Her response: “Welcome to Nebraska.”
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2) Trump Is Fighting the World’s Stupidest Culture War
By Thomas B. Edsall, May 12, 2026
Mr. Edsall contributes a weekly column from Washington, D.C., on politics, demographics and inequality.
Aleksey Kondratyev for The New York Times
On the day our oil-stained president returned to the White House, he began an all-out assault on clean energy. Today, 16 months later, he and his party are paying a significant political price while American consumers are stuck with the bill.
That bill, according to one scholarly estimate, totals $1,508 per household since President Trump took office for the second time (in after-tax dollars). And as the president does not need reminding, that’s with the congressional elections six months away and the cost of living the voters’ top concern.
As if that were not enough, these same voters, when they fill up their cars, are confronting the costs of Trump’s choice to go to war with Iran, at a national average of $4.52 a gallon — that’s $90.40 for a 20-gallon tank.
Trump has severely, but not fatally, wounded the American renewable energy industry, which is falling further behind China. At the same time, he is doling out tax dollars by the millions to keep dilapidated coal-fired power plants open.
What gives?
The Clean Economy Works Project Tracker maintained by E2, an organization that describes itself as “a national, nonpartisan group of business leaders, investors and others who advocate for smart policies that are good for the economy and good for the environment,” working in collaboration with the Natural Resources Defense Council, found that during the Biden administration 10 renewal energy projects were canceled, closed or downsized in 2023, with an investment value of $1.02 billion and 2,122 lost jobs; in 2024, it was 15 projects, with a value of $2.47 billion and 8,346 lost jobs.
In 2025, Trump’s first year back in office, the number of closed, canceled or downsized projects rose to 61, with a value of $34.76 billion and 38,031 lost jobs.
The barrage of executive orders and memorandums Trump issued on Jan. 20, 2025, demonstrated the intensity of his prioritization of fossil fuels while gutting federal support of clean, renewable energy.
In a presidential memorandum, Trump ordered the withdrawal “from disposition for wind energy leasing all areas within the Offshore Continental Shelf” and the “temporary cessation and immediate review of federal wind leasing and permitting practices.”
In a separate executive order, Trump declared that “it is the policy of the United States” to
“encourage energy exploration and production on federal lands and waters, including on the Outer Continental Shelf, in order to meet the needs of our citizens and solidify the United States as a global energy leader long into the future.”
The new official policy was also to eliminate the “electric vehicle mandate” and terminate “where appropriate, state emissions waivers that function to limit sales of gasoline-powered automobiles.”
The order did not stop there. It rescinded 12 executive orders issued by President Joe Biden calling for the adoption of pro-environmental and pro-renewable energy policies and for reducing dependence on oil, gas, coal and other fossil fuels.
Another executive order issued that day declared that the national policy of the United States was to “expedite the permitting and leasing of energy and natural resource projects in Alaska” while rescinding all Biden actions calling for protection of Alaskan land.
And to “prioritize the development of Alaska’s liquefied natural gas (L.N.G.) potential, including the sale and transportation of Alaskan L.N.G. to other regions of the United States and allied nations within the Pacific region.”
Trump clearly took office fully armed to conduct his attack on clean energy. He issued another executive order calling for the immediate withdrawal of the United States “from the Paris Agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.”
The attack has been relentless.
Last July 4, Trump signed into law the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which terminated over time seven clean energy tax credits while phasing out tax credits for wind and solar projects and clean hydrogen production.
Leah Stokes, a professor of environmental politics at the University of California-Santa Barbara who calculated the total household cost I mentioned earlier, replied to my queries with a detailed accounting of how she reached the $1,508 per household cost of Trump’s energy policies and concluded her email by saying:
“The big story here is corruption. Trump is doing the bidding of the fossil fuel industry and enriching his friends because they got him elected.
“I cannot fathom why else he’s keeping open these old, dirty, expensive coal plants that were otherwise slated to close in places like Michigan. Someone is getting very rich off these decisions, and everyday Americans are paying the price.”
Among the increased household expenses Stokes listed:
“Electricity bills: Trump’s war on clean energy is raising energy costs for American families. Princeton’s REPEAT Project projects annual household energy costs rising up to $415 by 2035. Electricity prices rose more than twice as fast as overall inflation in 2025.
“Keeping uneconomical plants online: In some regions of the country, Trump has jacked up electricity bills even more by keeping old, expensive and dirty coal plants running when they were supposed to shut down. Using emergency grid powers, Trump has ordered utilities to keep uneconomical coal plants running that were slated for retirement.
“Already, $308 million has been spent keeping these plants online. The Campbell coal plant in Michigan alone costs $615,000 a day to keep running. Indiana plants forced to stay open are costing utilities roughly $200,000 a day. In Colorado, the Craig plant was already broken down when the order was issued; Grid Strategies estimates it will cost $85 million per year to keep running. If the administration extends these orders to more plants, Grid Strategies estimates the total cost to customers is $3-6 billion per year. Trump has issued a government mandate to keep expensive, outdated, dirty plants alive — and then sent households the bill.
“Gas. According to Brown University’s Iran War Energy Cost Tracker, everyday people have already paid an extra $37 billion for gasoline and diesel — about $285 per household — because of Trump’s war.”
In addition to direct increases in household expenditures, Stokes described a wide range of adverse consequences brought about by Trump’s energy policies, including:
“Investment: $29 billion in canceled manufacturing investments and more than 39,000 jobs lost in 2025 alone. E2’s Clean Economy Works Project Tracker, which includes deployment projects beyond manufacturing, estimates $34.8 billion canceled in 2025, with nearly three dollars canceled for every one dollar newly announced.
“China: The United States is ceding leadership in solar, batteries, E.V.s and grid storage at the same moment China is doubling down on clean technology through its new Five-Year Plan. China announced 101 new clean-tech demonstration projects in March 2025.
“Tariffs: Trump’s tariff policy is raising costs in both directions — blocking cheap clean energy while making it more expensive to build. Tariffs on solar cells and modules from Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia — which together supplied roughly 80 percent of U.S. solar photovoltaic imports — now range from 14 percent to 3,500 percent. At the same time, tariffs on transformers, cables, and grid equipment are driving up utility capital costs that get passed directly to ratepayers.
“Climate damages: Trump’s policies will add an extra seven billion tons of emissions to the atmosphere through 2030 compared to the U.S. Paris Agreement target. Using the Biden EPA’s own social cost of carbon, that will result in $1.6 trillion in global climate damages.”
Jeff Colgan, director of the Climate Solutions Lab and a professor of political science and international and public affairs at Brown, added another cost to Trump’s attacks on clean energy: diminished national security.
“For the second time in five years,” he wrote by email:
“geopolitics is creating a crisis for fossil fuels — but the price of sunshine and wind remain free. Renewables have a national security advantage over fossil fuels, in addition to environmental advantages. People talk about renewables as “unreliable” because they are intermittent (no sun at night, variable wind speeds) but it sure looks like geopolitics makes fossil fuels less reliable rather than more.”
Atlas Public Policy, a consulting firm that advises clients on clean and renewable energy strategies and infrastructure, released a report this month, “The Race for Clean Energy Leadership.”
A subhead clearly states what Atlas found: “China Builds Clean Manufacturing While the United States Falls Further Behind.”
China, according to Atlas:
“has built enormous manufacturing capacity domestically, and increasingly, grown production abroad to skirt trade restrictions and assert itself as the global leader in the future of energy. After China ($509.7 billion), the United States ($236.1 billion) is second for announced investment.”
The analysis cited the 2024 annual report issued by the bipartisan U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, which was created by (and reports to) Congress.
The commission report found that not only is the United States falling way behind China on energy, but that the United States is becoming increasingly dependent on China. As a result, Atlas continued:
“The strength of Chinese manufacturing and innovation in many parts of the clean energy supply chain, including battery components and solar components, means countries are increasingly reliant on China.
“Policies that discourage clean energy manufacturing and deployment in the United States risk weakening the country’s position in the global clean energy supply chain, creating space for China to consolidate its market leadership.”
The United States, the report continued, “has seen a drop in clean manufacturing investment in recent years,” which “coincides with Congress removing demand-side incentives such as tax credits for electric vehicles, solar and wind turbines as well as the Trump administration terminating the Greenhouse Gas Reduction fund and reorienting the Department of Energy’s Loan Program Office toward fossil fuels.”
A May 10 Substack post by Jan Rosenow, a professor of energy and climate policy at the University of Oxford, where he heads the energy program at the Environmental Change Institute, reveals the stubborn shortsightedness of Trump’s policies.
While America's energy costs surge, over the past quarter century the wholesale cost of energy in Spain has fallen from the top ranks in Europe to the lowest ranks. How so?
“Twenty-five years ago, a third of Spain’s electricity came from coal. Today, coal is effectively gone. Gas, which surged in the 2000s as the replacement, peaked above 30 percent of generation in the late 2000s and has since been pushed back to roughly 19 percent. Nuclear has held steady around 19 percent, hydro and bioenergy together around 14 percent and the remaining capacity” — around 45 percent — “has been steadily filled by wind and solar.”
Rosenow concluded:
“This is the clearest example in Europe of the price effect that renewable advocates have been describing for years finally arriving in the data. More wind and solar on the grid means fewer hours when gas is the marginal plant. Fewer of those hours means a wholesale price that is decoupled from the gas market for most of the day. And a wholesale price decoupled from gas, in 2026, is a cheap one.
“Spain is now a working demonstration that you can take an electricity system that was 33 percent coal a generation ago, 30 percent-plus gas a decade ago, and run it on roughly 44 percent wind and solar with the resulting wholesale prices among the lowest in Europe.”
What makes Trump’s energy policies so egregious is that there is no credible justification for them.
Instead, three factors appear to be driving his decisions.
The first is Trump’s “deal” (his word) with the fossil fuel industry in April 2024 that he would gut Biden administration policies restricting the oil, gas and coal industries if the companies and their executive ponied up $1 billion for his election campaign.
The second is that Trump and many elected Republican officials see green energy as a liberal attempt to weaken oil and gas industries, or, as Trump put it, “This is all a scam, a giant scam.”
The third is the most petty. From 2006 to 2014, Trump bitterly fought plans to install wind turbines a mile from his Scotland golf course in Aberdeen. At an April 2012 hearing before the Scottish Parliament, Trump warned:
“Windmills are so unattractive, so ugly, so noisy and so dangerous that, if Scotland does this, I think that it will be in serious trouble. I think that you will lose your tourism industry to Ireland and lots of other places that are laughing at what Scotland is doing.”
In February 2014, a Scottish civil court judge, Lord Doherty, ruled against Trump and granted approval for Aberdeen Offshore Wind Farm Ltd. to go forward with the project. The ruling left a deeply bitter taste in Trump’s mouth that lingers on.
He was unable to block the wind turbines in Aberdeen Bay, but he is determined to make such projects here as difficult and costly as possible.
A key element of Trump’s reward to oil companies for their contribution to his and other Republican campaigns has been his effort to cripple the electric vehicle industry.
In doing so, Trump is trashing free-market principles treasured by traditional conservative Republicans. He has adopted a MAGA industrial policy that goes beyond government propping up one group of special interests to include a deliberate effort to snuff out competing industries.
Julie McNamara, federal energy policy director at the Union of Concerned Scientists, wrote by email that Trump, simply on the basis of personal grievances and political ideology, “is ceding opportunity after opportunity for the U.S. to be a leader in the global clean energy transition, and all the benefits such leadership can afford.”
Amanda Levin, director of policy analysis at the Natural Resources Defense Council’s science office, elaborated:
“Trump’s efforts to block clean energy solutions could not have come at a worse time for American consumers. With surging electricity demand and higher costs at the pump due to a war in the Middle East, Americans need access to low-cost, efficient and clean energy options now more than ever.
“The administration’s war on clean energy has undermined U.S. energy independence (making the country more vulnerable to the kinds of oil price shocks we’ve seen these past two months), contributed to higher energy costs for U.S. households and weakened the country’s global standing and industrial competitiveness.”
Why has Trump been so focused on undermining the electric vehicle industry?
Michael Gerrard, a law professor at Columbia who focuses on climate, environmental and energy law, provided the rationale in an email responding to my queries:
“The greatest threat to the demand for oil is electric vehicles. Trump has — through the One Big Beautiful Bill — eliminated the tax credits for E.V.s and charging stations.
“Through the Congressional Review Act, he has killed (for now, at least) the California waiver — the use of a provision of the Clean Air Act that allows California to adopt stronger emission standards than the federal standards.”
Gerrard suggested another motive behind Trump’s energy policies:
“He sees the fossil fuel industry as central to American dominance, and its workers as the heart of his base; he loves to pose in front of coal miners, see here, and calls them to many of his bill-signing ceremonies.
“He sees fossil fuels as manly and renewables as woke.”
Where does all this leave the country?
Stuck with a president committed to policies that amount to national self-sabotage, a man driven by personal grievance and reckless promises to campaign contributors, devoid of any real concern for America’s long-term energy needs.
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3) U.S. Intelligence Shows Iran Retains Substantial Missile Capabilities
Secret new assessments say Iran has operational access to 30 of its 33 missile sites along the Strait of Hormuz, suggesting that its military remains far stronger than President Trump has asserted.
By Adam Entous, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, May 12, 2026
Adam Entous, who covers national security issues, reported from Washington and Brussels. Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, who cover the White House, reported from Washington.
Missile displays in Tehran in 2024. According to classified U.S. intelligence assessments, Iran retains roughly 70 percent of its prewar missile stockpile. Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times
The Trump administration’s public portrayal of a shattered Iranian military is sharply at odds with what U.S. intelligence agencies are telling policymakers behind closed doors, according to classified assessments from early this month that show Iran has regained access to most of its missile sites, launchers and underground facilities.
Most alarming to some senior officials is evidence that Iran has restored operational access to 30 of the 33 missile sites it maintains along the Strait of Hormuz, which could threaten American warships and oil tankers transiting the narrow waterway.
People with knowledge of the assessments said they show — to varying degrees, depending on the level of damage incurred at the different sites — that the Iranians can use mobile launchers that are inside the sites to move missiles to other locations. In some cases they can launch missiles directly from launchpads that are part of the facilities. Only three of the missile sites along the strait remain totally inaccessible, according to the assessments.
Iran still fields about 70 percent of its mobile launchers across the country and has retained roughly 70 percent of its prewar missile stockpile, according to the assessments. That stockpile encompasses both ballistic missiles, which can target other nations in the region, and a smaller supply of cruise missiles, which can be used against shorter-range targets on land or at sea.
Military intelligence agencies have also reported, based on information from multiple collection streams including satellite imagery and other surveillance technologies, that Iran has regained access to roughly 90 percent of its underground missile storage and launch facilities nationwide, which are now assessed to be “partially or fully operational,” the people with knowledge of the assessments said.
The findings undercut months of public assurances from President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who have told Americans that the Iranian military was “decimated” and “no longer” a threat.
On March 9, 10 days into the war, Mr. Trump told CBS News that Iran’s “missiles are down to a scatter” and the country had “nothing left in a military sense.” Mr. Hegseth declared at a Pentagon news conference on April 8 that Operation Epic Fury — the joint U.S.-Israel campaign launched on Feb. 28 — had “decimated Iran’s military and rendered it combat-ineffective for years to come.”
The intelligence describing Iran’s remaining military capacity is dated less than a month after that news conference.
Asked about the intelligence assessments, a White House spokeswoman, Olivia Wales, repeated Mr. Trump’s previous assertions that Iran’s military had been “crushed.” She said that Iran’s government knows that its “current reality is not sustainable” and that anyone who “thinks Iran has reconstituted its military is either delusional or a mouthpiece” for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
Ms. Wales pointed to a social media post from Mr. Trump on Tuesday declaring that it was “virtual treason” to suggest that Iran’s military was doing well.
Joel Valdez, the acting Pentagon press secretary, responded to questions about the intelligence by criticizing news coverage of the war. “It is so disgraceful that The New York Times and others are acting as public relations agents for the Iranian regime in order to paint Operation Epic Fury as anything other than a historic accomplishment,” he said in a statement.
The new intelligence assessments suggest that Mr. Trump and his military advisers overestimated the damage that the U.S. military could inflict on Iranian missile sites, and underestimated Iran’s resilience and ability to bounce back. The New York Times reported last month that U.S. officials believed that Iran could regain as much as 70 percent of its prewar missile arsenal. The Washington Post reported last week on U.S. intelligence showing that Iran retained about 75 percent of its mobile missile launchers and about 70 percent of its prewar missile stockpile.
The findings underscore the dilemma Mr. Trump would face if the fragile month-old cease-fire in the conflict collapses and full-scale fighting resumes. The U.S. military has already depleted its stocks of many critical munitions, including Tomahawk cruise missiles, Patriot interceptor missiles, and Precision Strike and ATACMS ground-based missiles, and yet the intelligence suggests that Iran retains considerable military capability, including around the vital Strait of Hormuz.
The passageway carries roughly a fifth of the world’s daily oil consumption, and the U.S. Navy now maintains a near-continuous presence transiting and patrolling it. The U.S. military’s Central Command said in a social media post on Sunday that more than 20 American warships were enforcing the blockade against Iran.
If Mr. Trump ordered commanders to launch more strikes to take out or diminish those Iranian capabilities, then the U.S. military would have to dig even deeper into stocks of critical munitions. Doing so would further undercut U.S. stockpiles at a time when the Pentagon and the major arms makers are already struggling to find the industrial capacity to replenish American reserves.
Mr. Trump and his advisers have repeatedly denied that U.S. munitions stocks have been drained to dangerously low levels. In private, Pentagon officials have offered similar assurances to anxious European allies. Those allies have purchased billions of dollars of munitions from the United States on behalf of Ukraine, and they are concerned that those munitions will not be delivered because the U.S. military will need them to replenish its own stocks — a worry that would only intensify if the president orders a return to hostilities with Iran.
In testimony on Tuesday to a House appropriations subcommittee, Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, “We have sufficient munitions for what we’re tasked to do right now.”
The joint assault on Iran by the United States and Israel inflicted considerable damage on Iran’s defenses and damaged or destroyed many strategic sites around the country. Many of Iran’s senior leaders have been killed, and its economy is staggering under the pressures of the war, leaving questions about how long it can sustain its hard line on a negotiated end to the conflict and the halt on nearly all oil tanker traffic and other shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
But Iran’s apparent ability to retain substantial military capacity has exacerbated concerns among U.S. allies about the wisdom of the war and generated criticism among Mr. Trump’s anti-interventionist supporters who opposed getting into the conflict in the first place.
The intelligence assessments on Iran’s capabilities point to the consequences of a tactical choice made by U.S. military commanders.
When American forces struck Iran’s hardened missile facilities, the Pentagon, faced with limited stocks of bunker-busting munitions, opted to try to seal off many of the entrances rather than trying to destroy the entire sites with all of the missiles inside, officials said, with mixed results.
Some bunker busters were dropped on Iran’s underground facilities, but officials said military planners faced a difficult choice and needed to be cautious in using them because they needed to preserve a certain number for U.S. operational plans for potential wars in Asia with North Korea and China.
As The New York Times previously reported, the United States expended roughly 1,100 long-range stealth cruise missiles in the war — close to the total supply that remains in the American stockpile. The military also fired more than 1,000 Tomahawk missiles, roughly 10 times the number the Pentagon procures in a year. And it used more than 1,300 Patriot interceptor missiles during the war, which accounts for more than two years of production at 2025 rates.
Replenishing those stockpiles will take years, not months. Lockheed Martin currently produces around 650 Patriot interceptors a year. The company has announced plans to ramp up production of the crucial air defense weapon to 2,000 a year. But doing so will not be easy. And the industry’s ability to produce rocket motors cannot be scaled up as quickly as Mr. Trump has demanded, officials said.
Sean Parnell, the chief Pentagon spokesman, said the military has everything it needs to carry out its mission. “We have executed multiple successful operations across combatant commands while ensuring the U.S. military possesses a deep arsenal of capabilities to protect our people and our interests,” he said in a statement to The Times.
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4) With Trump in China, Mideast War Simmers Without End in Sight
Before leaving Washington on Tuesday, the president reiterated threats to decimate Iran if it doesn’t agree to a deal to resolve the conflict.
By Aaron Boxerman, May 13, 2026
As President Trump arrived in China on Wednesday, U.S. negotiations to end the conflict in the Middle East have stalled and the American-Israeli military objectives in the war appear to be out of reach.
“We have Iran very much under control,” Mr. Trump told reporters in Washington on Tuesday, repeating a threat to decimate Iran unless its leaders agree to a deal on the country’s nuclear program.
Yet talks seem to be deadlocked with the two countries unable to agree on constraints on Iran’s nuclear enrichment.
The president also appeared to brush off the growing economic impact of the conflict, as Iran’s de facto blockade of the Strait of Hormuz rattles global energy markets.
“The only thing that matters when I’m talking about Iran, they can’t have a nuclear weapon,” Mr. Trump said on Tuesday. “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. I don’t think about anybody.”
Iranian state media said this week that, in response to a U.S. proposal to end the war, Iran had demanded that the United States recognize its sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz, end sanctions and pay war reparations. Mr. Trump castigated the Iranian response as “TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE.”
Experts on Iran say that those demands suggest the country’s clerical rulers feel emboldened, believing that they have prevailed in the war by surviving a U.S.-Israeli attempt to overthrow them.
Since the two sides agreed to a cease-fire last month, the United States has imposed a blockade on Iranian ports in an effort to compel Iran to relinquish control of the Strait of Hormuz, through which about a fifth of the world’s oil and gas shipments once flowed. That appears to have had little success in forcing Iran’s hand in negotiations.
And while Mr. Trump and his defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, have said that Iran’s military capabilities have been decimated during the war, U.S. intelligence agencies have privately painted a very different picture.
Iran has retained roughly 70 percent of its prewar missile stockpile, according to the assessments. They also said that, despite extensive U.S. and Israeli bombardment, Iran had restored access to most of the missile sites it maintains along the Strait of Hormuz, and still fields about 70 percent of its mobile launchers.
Israel and the United States launched a joint attack on Iran in late February, setting off a war that quickly engulfed much of the Middle East. Iran retaliated by firing volleys of ballistic missiles and drones at Israel and across the Persian Gulf, drawing in many of the United States’ Arab allies.
Soon after the outbreak of war, Lebanon opened up as another front in the conflict after the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah began firing rockets at Israel. The Trump administration has nominally declared a cease-fire in Lebanon, which was one of Iran’s demands for a broader truce, but intense fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has largely continued.
On Wednesday, at least 12 people, including a mother and two children, were killed in southern Lebanon in a series of Israeli airstrikes on vehicles, the Lebanese health ministry said. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the strikes.
Also on Wednesday, the Israeli military said in a statement that it had targeted Hezbollah weapon storage facilities and rocket launchers in southern Lebanon, where Israeli troops still occupy a broad swath of the region. Hezbollah fighters have increasingly targeted Israeli soldiers in the country’s south with low-cost, fiber-optic drones.
Euan Ward contributed reporting.
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5) Wholesale Prices Jumped in April, in Latest Sign of War’s Economic Ripples
The Producer Price Index rose in April at its fastest pace in four years, government data showed, a day after consumer prices showed inflation was surging.
By Ben Casselman, May 13, 2026
Increasing pushback against so-called dynamic pricing in states across America. Caroline Gutman for The New York Times
The Producer Price Index, a measure of the costs that businesses pay for goods and services, rose 1.4 percent in April and was up 6 percent from a year earlier, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Wednesday. It was the fastest one-month increase in the index since March 2022.
The news came one day after the government reported that the better-known Consumer Price Index rose 3.8 percent in April from a year earlier, the fastest pace of inflation in nearly three years.
The producer index typically gets less attention than the consumer index, which measures the prices paid by everyday shoppers. But economists watch the measure closely, especially during periods of global disruption, because it gives an early look at how costs are filtering through the supply chain.
The U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, which began in late February, has driven up energy prices around the world. That, in turn, has pushed up costs for manufacturers, which rely on oil and natural gas to fuel their plants and as a raw material for many of their products. And it has raised the cost of shipping those products by land, sea and air.
Still, the ripple effects of the war on the U.S. economy initially appeared relatively modest. The Bureau of Labor Statistics initially reported that producer prices rose just 0.5 percent in March, which economists took as an encouraging sign that the energy price shock was not setting off a broader inflationary spiral similar to the one seen during the coronavirus pandemic.
The data released on Tuesday, however, calls that optimism into question. The increase in March was revised up slightly, to 0.7 percent. And April’s gain was nearly triple what forecasters had expected.
Energy prices paid by producers jumped 7.8 percent in April after rising 10.1 percent in March. And the price increases weren’t limited to energy. “Core” producer prices, which exclude energy and other volatile categories, rose 0.6 percent from March and were up 4.4 percent from a year earlier. That suggests that the oil-price shock, as well as the lingering effects of President Trump’s tariffs, are working their way through the supply chain.
“These numbers show ample evidence of both tariff-related pass-through and the energy price shock rippling widely through the economy, suggesting that consumer price inflation may get significantly firmer in the months to come,” Stephen Stanley, chief U.S. economist at Santander, wrote in a note to clients.
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6) What You Need to Know About the Federal Gas Tax
President Trump said he would like to suspend the 18.4-cent-a-gallon tax, but it’s a move that may save drivers only a few dollars a month.
By Emmett Lindner, May 13, 2026
Gas prices have climbed more than 50 percent since February. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
President Trump this week proposed suspending the 18.4-cent-a-gallon federal tax on gasoline in an attempt to bring down pump prices. But that is unlikely to rein in fuel costs by that much, and it’s not even clear that Congress would go for it.
The federal gas tax makes up a small amount of the total price that drivers pay at the pump — around 4 percent right now. The national average for regular gas was $4.50 a gallon on Tuesday, up more than 50 percent since the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran began.
Here’s what you need to know about Mr. Trump’s proposal.
What is the federal gas tax?
The federal fuel tax was meant to be temporary when President Herbert Hoover signed it into law in 1932 to help pay for national defense spending. But persistent budget deficits kept it in place, and the money it raises is used for road maintenance through the Highway Trust Fund.
The tax rate has not changed since 1993. The federal tax rate for diesel is slightly higher, at 24.4 cents a gallon.
Because the tax rates on gas and diesel have not changed for decades, the revenue they raise does not come close to meeting road maintenance needs. As a result, Congress often uses additional funds to pay for the federal government’s share of road maintenance.
“The idea is funding highway maintenance, but it doesn’t quite fund highway maintenance,” said Ted Kury, the director of energy studies at the University of Florida’s public utility research center. “Periodically, you’ll find that the government makes additional contributions.”
How much would it save drivers at the pump?
A suspension of the tax would not necessarily mean a gallon would cost 18.4 cents less for drivers.
The fuel is generally taxed at a terminal before it’s distributed to gas stations, which makes it easier for the federal government to collect.
If drivers see any relief, “it’s going to have to be because that producer is then reducing the price that it charges to the gas station,” said Michael Negron, an economics fellow at the Center for American Progress, a research group.
“I would think that there would be some reduction — it’s not clear that it would be in the exact amount” of the suspended tax, said Mr. Negron, who worked on economic policy in the Biden administration.
In March, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, another research group, estimated that suspending the tax would reduce federal revenue by $2.4 billion a month, and save families earning less than $53,000 a year about $5 a month.
Mr. Trump acknowledged on Monday that the drop would be slight. “It’s a small percentage,” he said, “but it’s, you know, it’s still money.”
Suspending the tax could also have other consequences. If the federal government did not replace the forgone fuel tax revenue, there would be less money to repair highways, ultimately causing more wear on cars.
Have fuel taxes been suspended before?
While several administrations have proposed suspending the tax, presidents need Congress to approve the action — and that has never happened.
In 2022, when gas prices spiked after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, President Joseph R. Biden Jr. asked lawmakers to temporarily remove the tax. But lawmakers in Congress said it was a bad idea.
“Like moving anything in this Congress, you’re going to need the votes to do it,” Mr. Negron said. “Nobody wants to create a hole in the Highway Trust Fund, and you also have the fact that you can’t guarantee that it’s going to result in lower prices.”
But, Mr. Negron added, lawmakers may decide to suspend the tax if prices keep rising.
What else is making gasoline expensive?
States can also tax gasoline, and federal and state taxes made up, on average, about 18 percent of the cost of regular gasoline in January, according to the Energy Information Administration. By far the biggest factor is the cost of crude oil, which accounts for more than half of the total.
But state taxes vary, and can add a huge burden for some drivers. As gas prices have soared, some states, including Indiana, have suspended their fuel taxes. States have also allowed for the sale of winter-blend gasoline, which tends to be cheaper than summer blends, at other times of the year. But many refiners had already switched to summer blends, which produce less pollution than winter blends when burned.
Local competition and refining and distribution costs also contribute to prices at the pump. The biggest factor, for now, is how long the war chokes off energy supplies from the Persian Gulf.
“The most important thing that could be done is just a speedy resolution of this conflict,” Mr. Negron said.
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7) Gulf Countries Arrest Shiite ‘Traitors’ Amid War With Iran
Dozens of Gulf citizens have been accused of belonging to Iran-linked terrorism cells as the war accelerates a shift toward deeper authoritarianism in the region.
By Vivian Nereim, Reporting from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, May 13, 2026
In Kuwait, officials arrested six people who they said were plotting to assassinate the country’s leaders. In the United Arab Emirates, the authorities accused 27 men of belonging to a secretive terrorist organization. And in Bahrain, the government has stripped dozens of their citizenship.
The allegations may be different, and in many cases vague, but all these men have one thing in common: They are Shiites, members of one of two major branches of Islam, according to their governments and human rights activists.
After the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran began on Feb. 28, Iran retaliated by launching thousands of attacks at Gulf states that host U.S. military bases. Some of those countries have since arrested dozens of Shiite citizens, calling them traitors loyal to Shiite-led Iran.
Scholars and rights activists say there has been a surge in nationalist rhetoric in the region that has echoes of past eras when sectarianism was more widespread. It also underlines the ways that the war has accelerated a shift toward deeper authoritarianism in several of the Gulf monarchies.
“It is understandable that at times of war, nationalism increases, but this is a form of rabid nationalism that is exclusionary and subjugates a significant minority of citizens who have complained for years about discrimination,” said Ala’a Shehabi, a Bahraini academic and pro-democracy activist.
Gulf governments typically reveal little information about cases related to terrorism and national security. Such trials are rarely open to journalists, and counterterrorism laws are broad enough to encompass political dissent. That makes it difficult to determine the details of the accusations levied against the men who were arrested, or the veracity of the charges.
Sectarianism has often played a role in the political tensions between Iran and its Arab neighbors. Iran is majority Shiite, with Twelver Shiism as its state religion. Most of the royal families on the Arab side of the Gulf are Sunni, members of the other main branch of Islam, and rule over Sunni-majority populations, with Shiite minorities. Other countries in the Middle East, like Iraq and Lebanon, also have mixed Sunni and Shiite populations.
Since the 1979 Iranian revolution, the Iranian government has often portrayed the Gulf’s royal families as puppets of Western imperialism, and in some cases, has sought to stoke dissent among local Shiites.
While the status of Gulf Shiites differs from country to country, many have long complained of marginalization and discrimination. In Bahrain — where a Sunni royal family rules over a Shiite-majority population — the government violently crushed a pro-democracy uprising more than a decade ago.
Yet in recent years, rhetoric portraying Shiites as a “fifth column” seeking to undermine the state had largely faded away, and several Gulf governments had been working to repair their relationships with Iran, viewing it as a pragmatic way to foster regional stability.
The war has shattered that fledgling diplomacy. As Iran’s attacks struck energy installations, hotels and residential towers, killing at least 19 civilians, Gulf countries have accused some of their own citizens — largely Shiites — of undermining national security.
The authorities in Kuwait announced they had foiled at least three terrorism cells linked to Hezbollah, a Shiite militant group in Lebanon that is backed by Iran, including one that officials said included five Kuwaiti citizens plotting to assassinate the state’s leaders. The Kuwaiti Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Announcements of arrests in the Emirates and Bahrain have been more opaque.
In Bahrain, the authorities announced on April 27 that they were withdrawing Bahraini citizenship from 69 individuals, including dependents, whom they accused of “glorifying or sympathizing with the hostile Iranian acts, or engaging in contacts with external parties.” All of them were Shiite Bahrainis of Persian descent, according to the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy, a human rights group in London, which researched their backgrounds and interviewed some of them.
And on Saturday, Bahrain’s interior ministry announced the arrest of 41 people, saying that they had belonged to an organization linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. The same human rights group said in a statement that the arrests had included 37 Shiite clerics, and called the accusations of links to Iran “a blatant pretext for launching an ugly campaign of persecution against the Shia faith in the country.”
Ms. Shehabi, the Bahraini academic and activist, said that “hate speech is becoming so acute that some Sunnis with Shia names have published statements declaring their sect and loyalty to the ruling families.”
“The harder that Iran hits a Gulf state, the harder it cracks down on its Shia citizens, treating them as a fifth column and accusing them of terrorism,” she said.
In a statement to The New York Times, the Bahraini government said that it “is rightly acting against those few individuals in Bahrain who pose a threat.”
“Under Bahraini law, all persons are subject to equal treatment, without regard to personal characteristics, gender, or religious background,” the government added.
It said that all of those arrested were “suspected of committing violence, inciting violence” or of “threatening national security, including by sharing sensitive information or intelligence to hostile actors.”
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Shiite militants were blamed for attacks in several Gulf countries — “real terrorism in a sense, real bomb attacks,” said Toby Matthiesen, a senior lecturer in global Islam at the University of Bristol.
Since the war with Iran began, none of the Gulf countries have reported any domestic terror attacks, Mr. Matthiesen said, although such attacks could not be ruled out. Without more clarity on the substance of the charges, he added, the discourse around the arrests suggested a return to state-sanctioned sectarianism, combined with a hyper-nationalistic message to “rally around the flag.”
That trend has been most visible in the Emirates. In April, the authorities announced that they had arrested 27 men who belonged to a “secret Shiite terrorist organization” affiliated with Iran. A statement published by the official Emirati news agency accused them of engaging in “activities to harm national unity and destabilize the country,” saying that they had tried to recruit Emirati youth, “incite against the U.A.E.’s foreign policy” and “portray the country negatively.”
An official video accompanying the announcement purported to show materials confiscated from the men, including a small drone and wads of cash. The display also included everyday symbols of Shiism, including turbans worn by Shiite clerics, academic books and decorative banners commemorating the martyrdom of the prophet Mohammed’s grandson, Hussein, whom Shiites revere.
The government published the detained men’s photographs alongside their first and middle names — unusual in a country that typically only releases the initials of defendants to protect their privacy. On social media, pro-government commentators swiftly began to name and shame the men, in some cases calling them traitors who deserved to be executed.
“The fact that the state decided to release images of arrested individuals before they have undergone a fair trial suggests a verdict has already been reached to villainize them and their communities,” said Mira Al Hussein, an Emirati sociologist based in Britain.
Ms. Al Hussein lamented “the state of paranoia” that the Emirates has descended into as it has become more politically repressive in recent years.
She said that a Shiite friend back home had told her that the community was “on a knife’s edge” and that “if society rejects us, we don’t know what to do.”
Shiite religious leaders in Pakistan also estimate that as many as thousands of Shiite Pakistanis have been deported from the Emirates since mid-April, as Pakistan’s ties to the Emirates have deteriorated.
The Emirati foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment.
On April 24, a religious sermon televised across the Emirates warned listeners against people who betray their nation.
“Have they not realized that wise leadership has cared for them, and encompassed them with goodness,” said the preacher, Abdullah Ibrahim Abdul-Jabbar.
He urged worshipers to report anyone they suspect of betrayal — “even if that person is among those closest to him.”
“The homeland is more precious than everything, and love for it does not admit division between two loyalties,” he said.
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8) Europe Tries a Trumpian Tactic With Trump: No Apologies
Stuck with the fallout from America’s war in Iran, European leaders have criticized the president publicly. When he’s been angered, they haven’t backed down.
By Jim Tankersley, Reporting from Berlin, May 13, 2026
Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany is one of several European leaders who has openly criticized President Trump. Annegret Hilse/Reuters
In the days after he infuriated President Trump by criticizing America’s war in Iran, Friedrich Merz, the chancellor of Germany, professed affection for the United States. When the Pentagon abruptly said it would pull 5,000 troops from Germany, Mr. Merz and his aides projected calm.
What Mr. Merz did not do was apologize.
In refusing to back down, Mr. Merz was adopting what has by now become a widespread tactic among European leaders who have provoked Mr. Trump’s wrath during the war.
European leaders are struggling to influence the course of the conflict and to manage its economic and security consequences. They are venting those frustrations, with little remorse.
If that move seems familiar to Mr. Trump, it should be. It is one of his favorites.
The president has built and sustained a political brand, in part, on a don’t-back-down approach. The list of comments and actions he has been asked to apologize for, but has not, is lengthy and ever-growing.
It includes calling Senator John McCain, who spent five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, “not a war hero”; a wide range of comments disparaging people from other countries, like Haiti and Somalia; and, most recently and still ongoing, a feud with Pope Leo XIV.
The pope has repeatedly criticized the war the United States and Israel are waging against Iran, without apology. Mr. Trump has sought to equate that criticism with a desire for Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon — a charge he also leveled at Mr. Merz after his remarks this month that the United States had “no strategy” in Iran.
The Vatican has long opposed nuclear weapons, Pope Leo noted last week. “If someone wants to criticize me for proclaiming the Gospel, let him do so truthfully,” the pope told reporters.
Leaders across Europe similarly brushed off Mr. Trump when he reacted angrily to their criticisms of the war, their refusal to allow the United States full use of European military bases to launch attacks on Iran, and their unwillingness to meet his demands to send military force to open shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz.
Keir Starmer, the domestically embattled British prime minister, told an interviewer last month that he was “fed up” with pressure from Mr. Trump over the war.
Giorgia Meloni, the Italian prime minister, was once seen as a key European ally of the president but increasingly finds Mr. Trump to be a weight on her political fortunes at home. She called his criticism of Pope Leo “unacceptable.”
After a meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio last week, which appeared intended to smooth relations between the countries, Ms. Meloni did not back off the comment. She said she and Mr. Rubio had shared a “frank dialogue, between allies who defend their own national interests but who both know how precious Western unity is.”
Mr. Merz used similar language after his comments to a group of German high school students this month, in which he said Iranian negotiators had “humiliated” the United States. The comments appeared to spur the surprise Pentagon announcement that it would relocate 5,000 of the about 35,000 U.S. troops in Germany.
Pressed by an interviewer, Caren Miosga, on the German public television network ARD, soon after the troop withdrawal announcement, Mr. Merz acknowledged a rift with Mr. Trump over the comments but did not apologize for them.
“We have a different view of this war, that is no secret,” Mr. Merz said, when asked if he would make the same comments again about Mr. Trump and the war. “I am not alone in that.”
Domestically, Mr. Merz has faced almost no pressure to back off his criticism of Mr. Trump. The war remains unpopular in Germany and across Europe. It has pushed up gas prices. Its rising economic toll appears to have helped Germany’s three opposition parties in Parliament gain in the polls — the far-left Die Linke, the center-left Greens and the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD.
Still, some analysts say the chancellor could have chosen his words more carefully.
“You cannot humiliate this president or be seen to be doing that,” said Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook, a political analyst in Berlin, who wrote a German book about Mr. Trump, “The American Wake-Up Call.”
Mr. Merz, she noted, criticized Mr. Trump with a German-language expression that is akin to saying that the Iranians played the president for a fool. “There is no other way that the White House would have read that,” she said.
In his television interview, Mr. Merz did not answer directly when asked if he would still phrase his criticism in the same way. He also suggested he could mend fences with the president.
“I am not giving up work on the trans-Atlantic relationship,” Mr. Merz said, “and I am not giving up cooperation with Donald Trump, either.”
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9) A Texas City Bet Big on Industry. Now It’s Running Out of Water.
Rising demand, municipal dysfunction and drought have pushed Corpus Christi to the edge of a water emergency, offering a cautionary tale for the rest of the country.
By Lauren McGaughy, Photographs by Meridith Kohut, May 13, 2026
Reporting from inside Corpus Christi City Hall, on a boat on the Nueces River and around the town of Sinton, Texas
Corpus Christi’s industrial port has been expanding, but new water sources have not been keeping pace, especially amid a drought that has stretched on far longer than local officials expected.
The mayor of Corpus Christi called an emergency meeting last month to deliver a dire warning: The city, among the largest in Texas, was running out of water. City leaders had to make a plan, and fast.
“Every day of delay increases uncertainty,” the mayor, Paulette Guajardo, told the City Council. Officials had warned that demand for water could outstrip supply within months.
Corpus Christi, a coastal city of more than 300,000 and home to a large industrial port, is not alone in grappling with water shortages. Half the nation is dealing with a persistent drought, according to federal data, at the same time as industrial water demand has risen because of growing needs from power plants and data centers.
But Corpus Christi’s struggle to respond could serve as a warning to cities around Texas and across the country, officials said.
“This is actually the canary in the coal mine,” said Charles Perry, a Republican who chairs a committee on water in the Texas Senate.
Faced with a looming water crisis, Gov. Greg Abbott has threatened a state takeover, saying he may be forced to “run that city.” President Trump, during a visit last month, promised the city federal support for water projects.
Corpus Christi’s water problem has been building for several years. Its port and industrial corridor have expanded with the encouragement of the state and local government. New water sources have not kept pace. Then came a major, ongoing drought, now in its fifth year.
Major industrial companies, which use half the city’s water each day, have recently taken some steps to reduce consumption, like using more internally recycled water and cutting back on fleet vehicle washes, industry representatives said. But city officials said the companies have not made drastic cuts.
Bob Paulison, executive director of the Coastal Bend Industry Association, which represents companies with local footprints like Citgo and Valero Energy, said simply shutting down industry is not a viable option.
“There are hundreds of billions of dollars of investment at stake,” he said in an interview, “and the future of an entire region.”
Failure to address the crisis would ripple far beyond Corpus Christi. The city supplies water to about half a million customers in seven counties and the industrial companies that produce products like jet fuel, plastics and steel.
But the City Council, which is tasked with fixing the problem, has been wracked by infighting and high turnover. There is an effort to remove the mayor from office, and even mundane policy discussions devolve into sniping. At the emergency meeting last month, some council members questioned the mayor’s focus on a desalination project that, they said, would not solve the city’s immediate water problems.
“It’s clearly dysfunctional,” Peter Zanoni, the city manager, said in an interview.
Without a quick solution, there has been an all-out scramble for water in recent months. Residents have been asked to conserve as the city drills new wells. Even the school district is looking at drilling. All of the projects could cost around $1 billion, which would increase the city’s debt by 50 percent. Officials have also discussed building multiple desalination plants similar to those used in the Middle East to turn seawater in drinkable water.
Many residents have prayed for rain or, in some cases, even a hurricane. A city program to sell plastic barrels so residents can “catch the rain” at home proved so popular that officials sold out their supply last month. More are on the way.
“God willing, the rain will come,” a city councilwoman, Sylvia Campos, said after the emergency meeting.
Almost everyone agrees on how Corpus Christi got here. The city relies on surface water to provide much of its supply. But after years without significant rain, the lakes have dwindled. Two nearby reservoirs recently dipped below 10 percent capacity, and a third briefly dropped below 50 percent last month.
City officials said a Level 1 water emergency may be declared in September, which means there are just six months until demand exceeds supply. That could trigger mandatory water cutbacks of as much as 25 percent for some customers.
Corpus Christi has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on infrastructure projects over the last five years, said Mr. Zanoni, the city manager. But the city’s water plan, he said, was not designed to handle the current drought, which has lasted nearly five years.
By last summer, he said, he stopped hoping a storm would save them, and realized “this is going to be a serious event.”
City leaders have discussed desalination as a possible long-term solution. Water experts have called it a “drought-proof” option. City officials, however, estimate the desalination plant would not provide drinkable water until late 2029.
The City Council remains divided on the issue. It voted to shelve a desalination project last year after the cost ballooned over $1 billion. The project was renewed at a lower price and under a new firm. The council now wants to ensure the project will be environmentally safe before moving forward. Some residents and council members oppose it altogether because it would be built in Hillcrest, a historically Black neighborhood near the port.
“They put industry as a priority, and not the citizens,” said Monna Lytle, 71, who grew up in Hillcrest.
She worried a desalination plant would further harm her neighborhood, which is already flanked by refineries and industrial storage facilities and has dwindled to about 80 households.
The City Council is scheduled to consider the plant’s next steps in June. At the same time, the council is looking into misconduct allegations against Mayor Guajardo related to a hotel development project.
Carolyn Vaughn, a conservative councilwoman, blamed Ms. Guajardo for the “bickering” on the council, adding that the high turnover has hurt the council’s ability to conduct long term planning. Council members serve two year terms. “We’re doing the best that we can,” she said.
Ms. Guajardo has denied any wrongdoing. She said the removal effort is about “water and my refusal to accept further delays on seawater desalination.”
The city requested $500 million in federal funding for desalination through its congressman earlier this year, Mr. Zanoni said, including for the Hillcrest plant supported by the mayor.
Mr. Trump addressed the city’s needs during his recent visit, vowing in a television interview to help.
“It’s one of the most vibrant places in the country,” Mr. Trump said of Corpus Christi. “We’re not going to say, ‘it’s vibrant, but we’re not going to give you water.’”
A White House spokeswoman said federal officials have offered to meet with lawmakers and industry leaders to discuss the matter further.
The state has offered low-interest loans for the desalination plant. The governor has also tried clearing away some hurdles, including fast-tracking permits from state environmental regulators, to help the city accomplish its short-term fixes — like tapping into underground water.
Over the past year, the city has drilled 15 wells on land it bought in rural parts of Nueces County, where the city is located. It has also gone further afield, planning a massive new groundwater project with 24 wells in neighboring San Patricio County.
The city has faced resistance over these efforts.
“They’re pushing their emergency off on us,” said Kelly Harlan, who is part of a group of Nueces County residents trying to create a new local government entity to manage groundwater drilling in the area. He said water levels in rural wells have already dropped since the city began drilling nearby.
The nearby city of Sinton — population 5,500 — has taken Corpus Christi to court over its attempts to tap into their underground water. “It’s kind of like the bully in the neighborhood,” said John Hobson, the city manager in Sinton.
Mr. Zanoni, of Corpus Christi, said he hoped its groundwater projects would prevent a serious water emergency in the coming months.
“If everything goes our way, we should be OK,” he said, sitting in a city hall office. “We should make it.”
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10) French Hantavirus Patient Is Critically Ill as Outbreak Reaches 11 Cases
The woman, who was a passenger on the MV Hondius, was breathing with the help of an artificial lung, officials in Paris said.
[No author listed[ May 13, 2026
Passengers after disembarking from the MV Hondius on Monday. Jorge Guerrero/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
A French woman with hantavirus who had traveled on the MV Hondius cruise ship was critically ill on Wednesday, officials said, as the number of identified cases in the outbreak climbed to 11.
Health officials around the world are monitoring disembarked travelers from the ship and any of their close contacts for symptoms of the virus. The World Health Organization said on Tuesday it had identified eleven cases of hantavirus, three in people who had died. It said nine of the cases were confirmed to be hantavirus and that two more were “probable.”
Officials at a briefing on Wednesday in Stockholm by the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control said that the patient in France was one of three people to be critically ill. Gianfranco Spiteri, an epidemic expert at the agency, said the woman did not have symptoms when she left the ship.
Xavier Lescure, an infectious disease specialist at Bichat Hospital in Paris, where the woman is being treated, had previously said the she had severe symptoms and was breathing with the help of an artificial lung.
Pamela Rendi-Wagner, the agency’s director, noted that the virus had a long incubation period of six weeks. She recommended that the ship’s passengers be held in quarantine for that length of time after disembarking.
The W.H.O. has said that its officials expect to see more hantavirus cases “given the dynamics of spread on a ship” and the long incubation period, even as the risk of a larger outbreak remains low.
All of the cases identified so far have been among the 150 passengers and crew aboard the MV Hondius, a Dutch-registered cruise ship that was in the South Atlantic when an outbreak began on board.
Health authorities have been identifying people to have close contact with the passengers and asking them to quarantine too.
On Tuesday, a hospital in the Netherlands said 12 of its employees could have been exposed to the virus while processing blood and urine samples from an infected patient. It said that they would enter preventive quarantine for six weeks as a precaution.
The MV Hondius departed for an Atlantic adventure cruise from Argentina last month. Within days, a 70-year-old Dutch man developed symptoms. He died onboard the ship on April 11 and his 69-year-old wife became ill and died on April 26 in Johannesburg, South Africa, while attempting to fly home to the Netherlands. On May 2, a German woman also died aboard the ship after developing flu-like symptoms. The W.H.O. said her body later tested positive for the virus.
Hantavirus is a rare family of viruses carried by rodents. The outbreak on the ship involved the Andes subtype, the only type known to spread among humans. It affects those who are in prolonged, close contact with someone with the virus. Early symptoms can resemble those of flu, but as the illness progresses it can cause shortness of breath and, in severe instances, lung or heart failure.
The W.H.O. believes that the Dutch couple had been infected with the virus before boarding the ship.
The MV Hondius anchored off Spain’s Canary Islands on Sunday and passengers and crew began evacuating to their home countries for quarantine and monitoring. Spanish authorities said 32 crew members will remain on the ship until it docks in the Netherlands.
In the United States, 18 Americans from the cruise ship are being monitored at medical facilities in Nebraska and Georgia. On Tuesday, the Department for Health and Human Services said that one member of a couple who was sent to a hospital in Atlanta with mild symptoms had tested negative for the Andes strain of hantavirus.
It said that the 16 others who had been transferred from the cruise ship to a medical facility in Omaha remained asymptomatic, including one person who had tested “mildly” positive for the virus.
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11) 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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