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The Bay Area Demo Legal Collab and friends are hosting a Grand Jury education and training event. Join us for a political history of how Grand Juries are used for political repression, hear from Grand Jury resisters and learn how to plan for repression for yourself and your community.
In the Bay Area there have been recent FBI visits, Grand Jury subpoenas and investigations into our political movements. If you are contacted by the feds or other law enforcement agencies you should exercise your rights and reach out to legal support:
· You do not have to open your door or let FBI or other agents into your home without a warrant.
· You have the right to remain silent and the right to an attorney: you do not have to talk to FBI or other agents or answer their questions. It can be dangerous to do so. Say, "I do not want to answer questions without my lawyer. Please slip your card under the door and my lawyer will call you."
· For legal help, call the Bay Area Federal Defense Line, 415-285-1041 and someone will return your call within 48 hours.
The Bay Area Federal Defense line can help connect you to a lawyer if you are contacted by agents related to progressive political activism. It is sponsored by the Bay Area Demo Legal Support Collaborative- a joint effort of Legal Solidarity Bay Area, NLG-SF, Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, Anti-Repression Committee, and Oaklaw.
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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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VIDEO:
What Cubans Really Think About Trump
By Jeff Seal, May 28, 2026
Mr. Seal is a comedian and a visual journalist.
Born in rural Ohio, Howard Keylor attended a one-room country schoolhouse. He became a member of the National Honor Society when he graduated from Marietta High School.
After enlisting in the U.S. Army, Howard fought in the Pacific Theater in World War Two, during which he participated in the Battle of Okinawa as a Corporal. The 96th U.S. Army Division, which Howard trained with, had casualty rates above 50%. The incompetence and racism of the military command, the destruction of the capital city of Naha and the deliberate killings of tens of thousands of Okinawan civil-ians – a third of the population - made Howard a committed anti-imperialist, anti-militarist and anti-racist for the rest of his life.
Upon returning to the United States, Howard enrolled in the College of the Pacific, but dropped out to support Filipino agricultural workers in the 1948 asparagus strike, working with legendary labor leader Larry Itliong. He became a longshore worker in Stockton in 1953. As a member of the Communist Party, Howard and his wife, Evangeline, were attacked in the HUAC (McCarthy) hearings in San Francisco. Later, Howard transferred to ILWU Local 10. In 1971 he, along with Brothers Herb Mills, Leo Robinson and a ma-jority of Local 10’s members, opposed the proposed 1971 contract which codified the 9.43 steadyman sys-tem. This led to the longshore strike of 1971-1972, which shut down 56 West Coast ports and lasted 130 days. It was the longest strike in the ILWU’s history.
In Local 10 Brother Keylor was a member of the Militant Caucus, a class struggle rank-and-file group which published a regular newsletter, the “Longshore Militant”. He later left the Militant Caucus and pub-lished a separate newsletter on his own, the “Militant Longshoreman.” Howard advocated deliberate defi-ance of the “slave-labor” Taft-Hartley law through illegal secondary boycotts and pickets. Running on an open class-struggle program which called for breaking with the Democratic and Republican Parties, form-ing a worker’s government, expropriating the capitalists without compensation and creating a planned economy, Howard won election to the Executive Board of Local 10 for twelve years.
The Militant Caucus was involved in organizing protests and boycotts of military cargo bound for the military dictatorship in Chile in 1975 and 1978 and again in 1980 to the military dictatorship in El Sal-vador. The Caucus also participated in ILWU Local 6’s strike at KNC Glass in Union City, during which a mass picket line physically defeated police and scabs, winning a contract for a workforce composed pri-marily of Mexican-American immigrants.
In 1984, Brother Keylor made the motion, amended by Brother Leo Robinson, which led to the elev-en-day longshore boycott of South African cargo on the Nedlloyd Kimberley. In 1986, Howard again partici-pated in the Campaign Against Apartheid’s community picket line against the Nedlloyd Kemba. When Nel-son Mandela spoke at the Oakland Coliseum in 1990 after his release from prison, he credited Local 10 with re-igniting the anti-Apartheid movement in the Bay Area.
Other actions Brother Howard initiated, organized or participated in included the 1995-98 struggle of the Liverpool dockworkers; the 1999 coastwide shutdown and march of 25,000 in San Francisco to de-mand freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal; the 2000 Charleston longshore union campaign; the 2008 May Day anti-imperialist war shutdown of all West Coast ports; the shutdown of Northern California ports in pro-test of the murder of Oscar Grant; the blockades of Israeli ships to protest the war on Gaza in 2010 and 2014; the 2011 ILWU struggle against the grain monopolies in Longview; Occupy Oakland’s march of 40,000 to the Port of Oakland, and countless other militant job actions and protests. Throughout his life, Brother Keylor always extended solidarity where it was needed. He fought racist police murders and fas-cist terror, defended abortion clinics, and fought for survivors of psychiatric abuse. Having grown up in Appalachia, he has always been an environmentalist, and helped shut down a Monsanto facility in Davis in 2012, as well as fighting pesticide use and deforestation in the East Bay.
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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) The Maduro Case May Be About to Take a Hairpin Turn
By Michael Rips, July 21, 2026
Mr. Rips is a lawyer and writer.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/21/opinion/nicolas-maduro-court-extradition.html
Cristiana Couceiro
A lot has happened in the half year since U.S. Special Forces kidnapped President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela and his wife, Cilia Flores, but if you can think back that far you might recall that the Trump administration insisted the mission wasn’t an invasion; it was an “extradition.” It was a legal matter, that is, to be followed by a criminal trial. Many legal scholars, commentators and government officials lined up to endorse that choice as lawful, despite Venezuela’s immediate insistence to the contrary. But when Mr. Maduro’s case next makes its way to court, on July 22, federal prosecutors could encounter one rather significant obstacle: Our courts don’t have the authority to handle his case. And the law that says so was signed by the United States of America.
If the United States honors its agreement, it could well be forced to release its prized captive.
The reason dates back to the first decades of the 20th century, when a topic that seems dry and legalistic today — international arbitration — was an exciting and idealistic cause, championed as a modern, rational tool of justice with the power to change the world.
President William Howard Taft felt so strongly about its promise that he spent part of his 1909 Inaugural Address extolling its virtues: “We favor every instrumentality, like that of the Hague tribunal and arbitration treaties, made with a view to its use in all international controversies, in order to maintain peace and to avoid war.” He advocated the practice throughout his presidency and, when he left the Oval Office, went on to serve as an international arbitrator. President Woodrow Wilson also took up the cause. His secretary of state, William Jennings Bryan, proposed permanent independent commissions to resolve disputes between nations. Taft, Wilson and Bryan had good reason to look for new ways to maintain peace: The world was descending into war.
Years later, when peace was restored, the United States began including arbitration clauses in many treaties. One of those was a 1922 extradition treaty between the United States and Venezuela. It states, in part, that “all differences between the contracting parties relating to the interpretation or execution of this treaty shall be decided by arbitration.” Approved by the Senate and ratified by the president, that document has the force of law.
Well, there sure are “differences between the contracting parties” today. The government of Venezuela is playing along with the Trump administration when it comes to oil exports, but it has publicly insisted that Mr. Maduro’s capture was illegal under international law — and that would include the extradition treaty.
A dispute of this nature should clearly trigger the 1922 treaty’s arbitration clause. According to its stipulations, Judge Alvin Hellerstein, who is overseeing Mr. Maduro’s trial, must suspend the proceedings and send the matter to a panel of independent evaluators to examine the treaty and decide whether it has been honored. Should the arbitrators conclude that Mr. Maduro’s capture violated the treaty, the United States would be required to release him.
Does it sound far-fetched? The Supreme Court has affirmed the principle again and again in cases spanning more than a century.
The first was in 1886, when the justices ruled that the prosecution of William Rauscher, who had been extradited from Britain, had violated the terms of the two nations’ extradition treaty, because the charges on which he was tried were not the same as those for which he was handed over. Thanks to the court’s insistence that the prosecution had to conform to the treaty, Rauscher prevailed.
The second was in 1927, when no less an authority on the matter than former President Taft — by then the chief justice — weighed in on the fate of some British men who had been arrested on the high seas. In this case he ruled against the crew, but he took time to affirm that, despite the prosecution’s claim to the contrary, “the right of the court” to hold foreign defendants “for trial” was indeed dependent on the treaty between the two nations.
A third instance was in a 1992 case in which a Mexican citizen and resident was kidnapped at the request of the Drug Enforcement Administration and taken to Texas, with the intent to try him in federal court. The question of whether his prosecution would be valid went all the way to the Supreme Court, where the justices allowed it — but reinforced the principle in United States v. Rauscher: A defendant “may not be prosecuted in violation of the terms of an extradition treaty.”
In each of these varied cases, the message was the same: When interests clash over the scope of an extradition treaty, the first step is to examine carefully the intent of those who signed the treaty. In those three cases, the treaty in question allowed the court to perform that examination. The treaty with Venezuela, however, gives that responsibility to arbitrators.
The trial cannot legally proceed without this step.
I asked David Sloss, a prominent legal scholar and the editor of “The Role of Domestic Courts in Treaty Enforcement,” how shocking it would be, from a legal perspective, if the case got bounced out of court into arbitration. He said not very. Referring the Maduro case to arbitration would track with “the approach that courts routinely apply,” he wrote me, “when they dismiss claims based on contracts that include an arbitration clause.”
Once the arbitrators have the Maduro case, the next step would be for them to determine whether Mr. Maduro’s kidnapping and extradition were lawful by the terms of the 1922 treaty.
Because treaty interpretation is a rarefied branch of the law, with different rules than might apply in individual countries, I wanted to learn exactly how these international arbitrators would handle the case. I asked Steven Ratner, one of the nation’s leading experts in this arena. He told me that unless otherwise directed, arbitrators would follow something known as the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, and, in addition to considering laws that have developed between the two countries since that time, would scrutinize the treaty in terms of “the relevant rules of international law of 1922.” Those rules, adopted in the immediate aftermath of World War I, uniformly and emphatically condemned the invasion of one sovereign state by another.
It is hard to imagine that any arbitrator acting in that spirit would declare a dead-of-night kidnapping lawful under the treaty, especially since the target was a head of state.
The operation is already in violation of international law; any attempt by the United States to sidestep arbitration would make it blatantly illegitimate by the United States’ own laws, too.
Whatever the outcome of arbitration, it is that process that will give legitimacy to the case, vindicate the principles of international law and in that way reduce the potential for future conflict between the two nations — an outcome that might frustrate President Trump, but which would have greatly pleased Mr. Taft, Mr. Wilson and Mr. Bryan.
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2) Mamdani Calls Netanyahu a ‘War Criminal’ and Calls on U.S. to Arrest Him
Mayor Zohran Mamdani challenged the United States to execute an international arrest warrant against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, which New York itself cannot do.
By Liam Stack, Published July 21, 2026, Updated July 22, 2026
Mayor Zohran Mamdani said that New York cannot arrest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, but the United States should. Credit...Dave Sanders for The New York Times
Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday night challenged the federal government to execute an international arrest warrant against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, calling him a “war criminal” and “the architect of a horrific genocide against the Palestinian people” in a striking video statement.
The mayor said the city Law Department explored whether the New York Police Department could arrest the Israeli prime minister during his expected visit to the city in September but that the city did not have “independent legal authority” to do so.
The mayor’s announcement came days after he told Lulu Garcia-Navarro last week on “The Interview,” a New York Times show, that he had been in “active conversation” with the city’s lawyers about executing a warrant issued for Mr. Netanyahu in 2024 by the International Criminal Court.
On Tuesday, Mr. Mamdani said in the video that those conversations had led his administration to determine that it did “not have the independent legal authority to enforce this warrant.”
Seated between the flags of the United States and New York City, Mr. Mamdani looked directly into the camera and solemnly told New Yorkers that Israel’s prime minister had no place visiting New York.
“Benjamin Netanyahu is not welcome in New York City, nor is any other war criminal at large,” Mr. Mamdani said. “While we cannot end the genocide on our own, we can decide whether our silence will become another weapon, and we can examine every tool we have to defend the humanity and dignity of all people.”
There appears to be no chance of federal law enforcement arresting Mr. Netanyahu in the near future. President Trump said on Monday that the Israeli leader, whose country is a longtime American ally, would not be arrested in the United States “in any way, shape, or form.”
And the United States is not a member of the International Criminal Court, which blunts the impact of the court’s warrant.
On Tuesday night, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, criticized Mr. Mamdani’s video in a statement posted online.
“Enough with the blood libels,” Mr. Danon said. “You were elected to serve New Yorkers, not Hamas’ propaganda. Do your job!”
Mr. Mamdani had said during his mayoral campaign that he would order the Police Department to arrest Mr. Netanyahu if he were to visit New York, as the prime minister is expected to do in September for the United Nations General Assembly.
But the legal ability of the mayor to order such a move has long been in doubt. After he discussed the possibility with The Magazine last week, Mr. Mamdani was denounced by Mr. Netanyahu’s office, which said he “should focus on fixing the damage his policies have caused New York.”
“Mamdani appears interested in diverting public attention from his follies and attacking the leader of the Jewish state and the only democracy in the Middle East,” the prime minister’s office said in a statement on Sunday.
The mayor was also denounced on Monday by Mr. Danon, who said in an address to the General Assembly that there was “no legal basis” for Mr. Mamdani to order the arrest of Mr. Netanyahu. Mr. Danon accused him of engaging in “political theater” to energize his “radical base.”
The international court issued arrest warrants for Mr. Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, in 2024 on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, where more than 70,000 people have been killed in a war that began after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel.
The I.C.C. warrants accused both Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Gallant of having “intentionally and knowingly deprived” the population of Gaza of food, water, fuel and medicine, which both Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Gallant have denied.
The court also issued an arrest warrant for Hamas’s military chief, Muhammad Deif, for crimes against humanity, but Israel said it had killed Mr. Deif in an airstrike before the warrant could be issued.
Israel’s conduct during the war in Gaza has been described as genocide by Israeli and international human rights groups, as well as by two separate United Nations commissions, one of which issued its findings last month.
Israel has rejected those findings, and Mr. Netanyahu’s office said on Sunday that “Israel has taken unprecedented wartime measures to minimize harm to civilians while confronting Hamas.”
But Israel’s actions in Gaza have left it deeply isolated on the global stage and increasingly unpopular in the United States, its most important ally.
According to the Pew Research Center, polls show that a majority of Americans now hold a negative view of Israel, including majorities of adults under the age of 50 in both political parties. Among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, that number rises to 80 percent.
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3) Government Overhauls Teen Pregnancy Program to Focus on Marriage and Starting Families
The administration canceled federal grants to organizations across the country, accusing them of encouraging premarital sex. New criteria say programs should stress abstinence.
By Jan Hoffman, July 22, 2026
A few weeks ago, Rena Dixon, the head of Fact Forward, a South Carolina nonprofit that offers adolescent health and sex education classes, got a letter from the Trump administration with crushing news. The government was terminating the organization’s $1.6 million grant from a federal program to reduce teen pregnancies, effective immediately.
The administration’s priorities, it said, do not align with “content that encourages, normalizes or promotes sexual activity for minors.”
The move is the latest in a campaign that began in the first Trump administration to defund or overhaul the 16-year-old, $100 million initiative. Courts blocked the effort in 2018, but this time the administration, which abruptly canceled 53 of the program’s 67 grants last month, has been taking steps to be on firmer legal ground.
The letter from the assistant secretary for health accused Fact Forward of including lessons with “advice on making condom use more pleasurable” and discussions that normalize “use of pornography.” A video, it said, contained a “scenario of adolescents engaging in sexual activity.”
“That information was just not true,” said Dr. Dixon. The organization had never used the lessons specified, she said. The video “is about one teen telling another that she had had sex, and her friend responding, ‘That’s a big no-no!’”
In interviews, other directors also said that the government had distorted their content. They pointed out that the grant had required them to use courses from a federally approved list shown by research to be age-appropriate and effective.
Healthy Futures of Texas, a nonprofit that serves teenagers in Dallas, San Antonio and the Rio Grande Valley, won renewal of its grant less than a year ago, following a rigorous federal review of its material.
“Today those same materials are being cited as the reason for termination, with no opportunity to address those concerns,” said Ginger Mullaney, the organization’s chief executive. “So we’re all struggling a little bit to understand.”
Now dozens of grant holders face an existential dilemma, as they wrestle with whether to submit applications due this week for the next round of grants, under the administration’s new rules.
The new criteria say that grant recipients must teach abstinence as the only means to prevent teen pregnancy. Courses must stress the importance of marriage and procreation and instruct young people how to safeguard their fertility. They make scant reference to preventing sexually transmitted infections and virtually none to lesbian, gay and transgender sexuality.
The Department of Health and Human Services declined to comment on the new requirements or the litigation. But these conditions mirror blueprints laid out in Project 2025 as well as in other position papers by the Heritage Foundation, which argue that teen pregnancy prevention programs falsely presume that adolescent sex is inevitable and also undermine parental authority.
Last week, three programs that lost funding and a nonprofit that works with them filed a lawsuit in federal court against the Department of Health and Human Services and its secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The programs seek to block the terminations and the new requirements that, they say, create an ideologically based framework that violates the intent of the federally mandated one.
“Congress plainly did not intend H.H.S. to focus on teaching young women strategies to become pregnant in a pregnancy prevention program,” wrote Democracy Forward, a national legal advocacy nonprofit, in the lawsuit.
The five-year projects funded by the Teen Pregnancy Prevention grants had supported topics in sex education, including consent, decision-making and healthy relationships, adjusted for age as well as a local community’s values and culture. Locations ranged from schools to juvenile detention centers to foster care settings. The programs also hold communication workshops with teens and trusted adults.
The teenage birthrate has been plummeting steadily for over two decades. Researchers say explanations are varied, but include increased teen access to forms of long-acting birth control, abortion pills and even smartphones.
Public health scholars and bipartisan congressional committees have also attested to the influence of the federal prevention programs on teen behavior, including delayed sexual initiation.
The birthrate among girls 15 to 19 has dropped by more than 65 percent during the time the program has been in effect, to 11.7 births per 1,000 in 2025 from 34.3 births per 1,000 in 2010, according to the latest provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Yet at a time when the overall American birthrate is declining, a trend decried by many conservatives and others, the new, 89-page grant application requires programs to draw from a curriculum known as “sexual risk avoidance,” which connects abstinence during the teenage years to maturity and readiness for marriage and parenthood.
It often lifts language almost wholesale from The Body Literacy Project, a curriculum praised by some conservative thinkers and religious leaders as an alternative to public school sex education. The project’s website says its courses were developed to align closely with the administration’s priorities for the teen pregnancy prevention program.
Applicants must provide separate modules on male and female reproductive health. Young women should recognize “ovulation as the central event and primary indicator of hormonal health and fertility.” Although gynecologists often prescribe birth control pills to treat irregular cycles and extreme menstrual pain, courses must include “an overview of approaches to managing menstrual health concerns, including the advantages and disadvantages of ovarian suppression.”
Body literacy courses for boys should include strategies for managing “spontaneous arousal in ways that support self-regulation, health and future fertility.” And they should address “how repeated or artificially stimulated arousal may affect neural development and behavior over time.”
Layoffs and cancellations
Fact Forward’s federal grant covered 80 percent of its pregnancy prevention project. Since receiving the termination letter, Dr. Dixon had to lay off half her staff and cancel training for local educators and programming for teen summer activities. The organization reaches some 6,000 young people ages 13 to 21.
“When people hear teen pregnancy prevention program, they think it’s all about raining condoms from the sky,” said Dr. Dixon, who has a doctorate in public health. But in conservative states like South Carolina, where state law requires public school health classes to emphasize abstinence, Fact Forward operates within tight boundaries and has a faith advisory board.
It runs workshops in church basements, teen clubs, public libraries, health care centers and college campuses. Recently, it sponsored “Game Changers,” a daylong summit for 300 middle schoolers with sessions on reproductive health, consent and healthy relationships, with a break room set up like an arcade.
In Bozeman, Mont., Bridgercare, a center that provides adolescent reproductive health care and education, just lost its $1 million federal pregnancy prevention grant. In summertime, it trained school nurses and health teachers from across the state, and established a corps of teen educators.
Em Williamson, 18, was among a group of teens who led discussions about puberty with sixth graders, about consent with eighth graders and about safe sex and birth control with high school students. In private schools and sororities, she explained how to use condoms correctly.
After her own middle school health teacher erroneously warned about contracting a sexually transmitted infection from a toilet seat, Ms. Williamson said she became determined to arm students with the knowledge and skills to make their own decisions about sex, urging them to communicate with supportive adults.
“I also say that abstinence is the only 100 percent way to prevent pregnancy and the contraction of S.T.I.s,” Ms. Williamson said. “Except that we don’t expect that everyone will be choosing abstinence.”
In compliance with Montana’s strict parental opt-out laws, Bridgercare educators provided materials to parents in advance of sessions. Students who showed up in class were those whose parents did not object.
Stephanie McDowell, Bridgercare’s executive director, has two teenagers. “I want my kids to get good sex ed in school, where they’re all getting accurate information together. Then they can talk about values with each other and the adults they trust. But the removal of this funding makes the decision for me as a parent about what education will now be available."
The grant cancellations and new application criteria reflect a tactical shift from July 2017, when the first Trump administration, without explanation, alerted all 81 grantees in the program that their federal funding would end in a year. In 2018, federal courts ordered the funding to be restored, saying the terminations were at odds with the health department’s own regulations.
This time, the administration is trying to lay a foundation to argue that the newly terminated programs run afoul of the government’s priorities. Last year it issued executive orders and a statement of priorities, barring pregnancy prevention programs from promoting material that “depicts, describes, exposes or presents obscene, indecent or sexually explicit content, including content that encourages, normalizes or promotes sexual activity for minors.”
Since the federal grants began in 2010, teen birthrates in South Carolina have dropped 59 percent. Yet as of 2024, when the latest federal data was completed, the state still ranked at No. 11 nationwide in teen births. Dr. Dixon, like some other program directors, has decided to adjust to the new criteria; the funding is too crucial. Fact Forward will turn in its application this week.
“It’s a real disservice to what we know works best in our state,” Dr. Dixon said. “But if I can keep some of our programs from closing so that young people are still hearing about healthy relationships, something is better than nothing. I don’t know if we’ll be successful, but at least I’m going to try.”
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4) How Donald Trump Jr.’s 1789 Capital Is Cashing In Without Apology
The fledgling firm, run by the president’s oldest son and his partner Omeed Malik, has made investments in A.I. and defense technology that have tripled in value in just months.
By Maureen Farrell, July 22, 2026
Maureen Farrell is a finance reporter who traveled to Miami, Palm Beach and San Francisco to report this article.
Omeed Malik, left, and Donald Trump Jr. Credit...Chandan Khanna/AFP, via Getty Images (Malik); Alex Brandon/AP (Trump)
As the Republican National Convention was wrapping up in July 2024, Republican heavyweights crowded into a rooftop bar with views of the Milwaukee skyline. In a sea of suits, Donald Trump Jr. made a beeline for a man in a black T-shirt: Shayne Coplan, the 26-year-old founder of Polymarket, the prediction market betting site.
The president’s son told Mr. Coplan he was impressed with Polymarket and how its results, not the polls, reflected what he was hearing from voters about his father’s prospects of returning to office. That rooftop meeting marked the start of a lucrative relationship, showing how Donald Trump Jr. and his business partner Omeed Malik invested in a company whose fortunes would be affected by President Trump’s policies — a scenario that has played out repeatedly as their investment firm, 1789 Capital, has grown.
In the case of Polymarket, the government had banned it from taking monetary wagers from U.S. residents, but last year a federal regulator granted it an operating license in the United States. Worth $300 million when 1789 invested, the platform is now valued at $15 billion.
“He just took sort of the approach that we did, which is like, ‘Fuck all you guys,’ ’’ Donald Trump Jr. said of Mr. Coplan and of his own critics in an interview with The New York Times about investments he’s worked on during his father’s second term.
Dating back to the first Trump administration, members of the Trump family have faced criticism for mixing business with politics. But what sets apart the latest moves by Donald Trump Jr. is how he and Mr. Malik, through 1789 Capital, are cashing in on the policies of the current administration openly and without apology.
Many of the companies 1789 has invested in have large government contracts while others, like Polymarket, have benefited directly from new Trump policies or rollbacks of existing laws. The firm bought shares in some of the most coveted private companies before many went public, including SpaceX, Anduril, Cerebras and Reflection AI, often by leveraging their political and business connections to secure a stake or to help boost the companies’ sales.
Just two years ago, 1789 managed a few hundred million dollars. It now oversees more than $3 billion. Its main investment fund generated returns of roughly 200 percent as of June 30, according to a person familiar with the firm’s performance. While still early in its investment cycle, those returns eclipse the average returns of about 21 percent from venture capital firms started in 2023, according to PitchBook, a provider of financial data.
Angela Lee, a venture capital professor at Columbia Business School, said she’s never seen a firm started by first-time fund managers raise so much money. “Any way you cut it, it’s unprecedented,” she said. One plausible explanation for the firm’s rapid success, she said: “People are paying for proximity to power.”
Mr. Trump and Mr. Malik, a former Democrat and banker, openly embrace their connections to President Trump’s broader circle of donors, influential supporters and high-ranking officials, but they scoff at questions of whether any of their success comes from direct access to the president.
As a private citizen, the president’s son said, he is free to invest however he wants and is doing nothing illegal. He said he talks to his father only “every few weeks,” never discusses business with him, and holds “no policy position and no role within the administration whatsoever.” Mr. Malik frequently mentions that he’s never even “set foot in the White House.”
In interviews, executives at companies 1789 is invested in said they have never seen the firm seek special treatment from the administration, but said they view being involved with 1789 as a way to get close to the Trump orbit.
Mr. Malik said both he and Mr. Trump know the people involved in the administration “on a personal basis” and that helps them position their investment strategies to benefit from White House policies.
Their approach is distinct from that of Mr. Trump’s brother-in-law, Jared Kushner, who had been involved in early peace negotiations with Iran while his private investment firm was seeking to raise funds from U.S. allies in the Middle East. (His firm later said it would not seek additional money from allies while Mr. Kushner was volunteering for the administration.)
Jessica Tillipman, the associate dean for government procurement law studies at George Washington University School of Law, said there are few actual rules for family members of the president, though many of them have gone to great length to avoid even the appearance of cashing in on the Oval Office. (Hunter Biden’s overseas business dealing were a recent exception.)
“A lot of this is based on norms,” she said. “The challenge we have is that when there’s no interest in kind of respecting the norms and from an optics perspective, that is troubling.”
A Former Democrat Goes for Trump
Mr. Trump and Mr. Malik first met at a barbecue in the Hamptons during the summer of 2018. They were introduced by Kimberly Guilfoyle, Mr. Trump’s former fiancée and the current United States ambassador to Greece.
Mr. Malik was in the middle of starting a new broker-dealer firm after a messy departure from his job at Bank of America.
A former corporate lawyer, Mr. Malik joined the bank in 2012 and within a year, at age 33, had become the bank’s youngest-ever managing director. He worked in the prime brokerage department and built a roster of hedge fund clients, including George Soros, Scott Bessent and Marc Lasry’s Avenue Capital.
In early 2018, the bank said in a regulatory filing that Mr. Malik was “discharged” for “personal conduct in violation of firm standards.” Mr. Malik filed an arbitration claim against Bank of America alleging defamation and discrimination. Within a few months, Mr. Malik settled with the bank for more than $10 million, according to a person familiar with the undisclosed deal.
While on Wall Street, Mr. Malik had been an active fund-raiser for Democratic candidates, including Hillary Clinton and Joe Kennedy III.
During their first meeting in the Hamptons, Mr. Trump said he found common ground with Mr. Malik politically. “I can play the radical on Twitter,” he said in an interview in Miami. “But I’m pretty reasonable. I grew up in New York City. I see all sides.”
By 2020, Mr. Malik started attending Trump re-election events and donated roughly $100,000 to the campaign. Together, the two men hashed out a set of shared ideals, they said, that would eventually form the basis for some of their investment strategies at 1789.
In their opinion, much of the infrastructure that makes America work, including banking and the mainstream media, were excluding conservative viewpoints. They also worried about China’s growing influence.
Ahead of the 2020 election, they coauthored an opinion column in The Daily Caller, a conservative online publication, about the need for the United States to take back control of its manufacturing supply chain and prevent American firms from investing in China-controlled companies like TikTok.
In early 2021, with the Biden administration in power and frustrated by Covid restrictions, both men moved from New York to Palm Beach, Fla., with their families. Mr. Malik became a member of Mar-a-Lago.
A Firm in Overdrive
Within a year of his move, Mr. Malik pitched his deepening network of Republicans on starting a new investment firm called 1789 Capital, named after the year the Bill of Rights was written.
His two co-founders and investors were Rebekah Mercer, a top donor to Republican causes whose father once ran the hedge fund Renaissance Technologies; and Christopher Buskirk, a co-founder of the Rockbridge Group, a secretive network of wealthy Trump supporters. (Vice President JD Vance is also a Rockbridge co-founder.)
By late 2023, 1789 Capital had raised roughly $100 million from investors, including more than $15 million that Mr. Malik, Mr. Buskirk and Ms. Mercer had put in. Mr. Malik set up an office a few miles down the road from Mar-a-Lago.
Less than a week after his father’s re-election, Mr. Trump took the stage at a Rockbridge event in Las Vegas and told several hundred donors that he was joining 1789.
With the president-elect’s son on board, the firm went into overdrive.
The two men met potential investors in South Korea and the Middle East. They became regular speakers at major investor conferences in Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
Flush with new investments, 1789 quickly deployed money into a wide range of companies, including many that are now benefiting from Trump administration policies aimed at ensuring that military weapons, raw materials and critical technologies are developed in the United States and not in China.
Among them are defense contractors Anduril and Hadrian and Axiom Space, a company that’s looking to build a commercial successor to the International Space Station.
Last fall, 1789 invested in Vulcan Elements, a rare earths magnet manufacturer, then valued at about $200 million. A few months later, the company landed a $620 million loan commitment from the Defense Department. The company is now worth roughly $2 billion.
The timing of 1789’s investment prompted an inquiry by Democrats in Congress about whether the firm exerted any influence in the decision to extend the federal loan. A spokeswoman for the Democratic members on the House Natural Resources Committee, which is scrutinizing the deal, said the inquiry is ongoing.
But Mr. Malik said he learned about Vulcan Elements’ federal loan from a company news release issued after 1789 made its investment; Mr. Trump said he has never met or spoken to anyone at the company.
The two men say they made the reasonable assumption that Vulcan Elements, one of the few private American producers of rare earth magnets used for cellphones, cars, and planes, would be a winning investment during an administration focused on promoting U.S.-based companies in critical sectors. (Their firm invests only in private U.S. companies and doesn’t take controlling stakes.)
“It’s not like it takes a genius to figure this out,” Mr. Trump said. “I don’t have inside information.”
‘Good for America’
For companies looking to leverage their ties to the Trump administration, an investment from 1789 is seen as a stamp of approval.
On a recent investor call, the chief executive of the 3-D printing company VulcanForms repeatedly invoked 1789 Capital’s investment, implying that the financial firm’s political proximity could help bring about opportunities for the start-up, according to one person on the call.
Mr. Malik was unaware of that investor call and said he can’t police what companies he invests in say about the firm.
The reality is that 1789’s connections can transform a company’s fortunes dramatically — as it did for a small artificial intelligence developer called Reflection AI.
Last year, 1789 invested in the little-known company, which builds so-called open source systems. These systems allow Reflection’s clients to create their own A.I. models rather than rely on ones created by the likes of OpenAI and Anthropic.
Building a successful and enduring open source A.I. system is a priority for Silicon Valley. Reflection A.I., 1789 believed, had the potential to become an American-made alternative to DeepSeek, an open source system developed by China.
The company made its first investment in Reflection AI in the summer of 2025, when it was valued at $3.5 billion.
Mr. Malik then tapped his network to find Reflection AI one of its first customers: the large South Korean conglomerate Shinsegae Group.
When the Rockbridge Group opened an international outpost in South Korea last year, it named Shinsegae’s chairman, Chung Yong-jin, as one of the founding board members. A few months later, he attended a Christmas party at Vice President Vance’s house in Washington. Shinsegae is also an investor in 1789.
In March, Reflection AI and Shinsegae jointly announced a plan to build a multibillion-dollar data center in South Korea that will house the tech company’s open-source models.
The data center, which would be used by Shinsegae and also the Korean government, was described in a joint news release by the two companies as pivotal moment in U.S.-Korean relations. The Commerce Department designated the data center as the first flagship project under its new “American AI Exports Program.”
This spring, 1789 hosted an online webinar for Reflection AI’s executive team and dozens of potential investors. Participants were told they had a week to write checks, which had to be larger than $5 million. As is common in private investments, investors would pay a fee to 1789 for access to the deal.
With a current $25 billion valuation, Reflection AI is now worth seven times more than when 1789 made its original investment last summer.
In a prerecorded video for that webinar, Donald Trump Jr. described Reflection AI as “good for America.”
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5) Deep in This Lake, a Contagious Cancer Is Spreading
Transmissible tumors have been reported in a handful of animal species, but never before among fish. Is it possible in humans?
By Carl Zimmer, July 22, 2026
For over a decade, something strange has been happening in a lake straddling the border of Vermont and Quebec.
Lake Memphremagog is home to brown bullhead catfish, and in 2012, anglers began noticing that some of them were covered in velvety black growths. Wildlife biologists eventually determined that the fish had skin cancer.
So-called melanomas are exceedingly rare in catfish, but more than a third of the bullheads carried them. Now, researchers think they know why: A contagious form of cancer is spreading through the lake, they reported on Wednesday.
The outbreak started with a single catfish, the scientists believe. It developed a tumor, which shed cancer cells into the water. Those cells invaded other catfish, in effect beginning a plague.
Researchers have found contagious tumors in only a tiny, seemingly random collection of species: dogs, Tasmanian devils and a few kinds of clams and other shellfish. But those discoveries have been enough to raise a host of provocative questions.
Some scientists have asserted that transmissible cancers are new species in their own right. Others have even argued that some species of animals might have gotten their starts millions of years ago as cancer cells.
The discovery of the first transmissible cancer in fish is now prompting scientists to wonder how widespread the phenomenon may actually be. “Is this really as rare as we think it is, or are we just not looking?” asked Julie Dragon, a geneticist at the University of Vermont and an author of the new study.
Dr. Dragon did not set out to find a contagious cancer. In 2014, biologists at the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department enlisted her to help figure out why Lake Memphremagog’s brown bullhead catfish were getting sick.
Ultraviolet light is a common cause of melanomas. But it seemed unlikely that catfish, which live in lake-bottom mud and are mostly active at night, would suffer from astronomically high levels of melanomas.
Dr. Dragon and her colleagues investigated several other possibilities, including the effects of pollution from a nearby landfill and infection with microbes, which can sometimes trigger cancer. But pollutant levels were low in the fish, and there was no evidence of cancer-causing viruses or bacteria.
Dr. Dragon decided to take a close look at the DNA of the catfish, as well as the mutated DNA in their tumors. Certain genetic variations can make animals (and people) highly vulnerable to cancer.
She expected that each cancer cell would be genetically most similar to the catfish it came from. Instead, all the cancer cells were closely related to one another, not to the animals on which the tumors were growing.
“I said, ‘We made a mistake. This can’t be right,’” Dr. Dragon recalled. The researchers started their analysis all over again and got the same result. The tumors did not arise from the catfish that carried them.
Each time they looked at DNA from a new fish, that pattern grew only stronger. The scientists began to consider a disturbing possibility: The catfish were victims of a contagious form of cancer.
As far back as the Renaissance, scholars speculated that cancers could be contagious. In 1603, the Portuguese physician Rodrigo de Castro envisioned tumors “exhaling a horrible vapor” that could transmit cancer to new victims.
When modern scientists discovered that cancer mostly arises from mutations in our own DNA, the notion of “catching” cancer fell out of favor. It wasn’t until the early 2000s that firm evidence emerged that a few transmissible cancers were real.
Dogs are hosts to one of them, known as C.T.V.T., short for canine transmissible venereal tumor. During sex, these cancer cells can spread from one dog to the other. Studies of the DNA in these tumors suggest that the malignancies all descend from a single dog that lived several thousand years ago.
C.T.V.T. is rarely lethal. The same is not true for a contagious cancer spreading among Tasmanian devils.
That illness, devil facial tumor disease, takes advantage of frequent and bloody fighting. When a Tasmanian devil bites off tumor tissue from another, the cancer cells will travel through its body to its own face.
This cancer only arose in recent decades, but it has already pushed Tasmanian devils to the brink of extinction.
In 2015, along the Atlantic coasts of Canada and the United States, researchers found soft-shell clams and other species devastated by a leukemia-like cancer. Infected clams shed cancer cells into the seawater, it turned out, and healthy clams nearby sucked them up.
More recently, scientists have found transmissible cancer in shellfish in the Pacific, as well as in European waters. Now, Dr. Dragon and her colleagues believe they have found a new contagious cancer in an entirely new host.
They are convinced that all the tumors in Lake Memphremagog came from a single ancestral cancer cell. The mating strategies of the brown bullheads may have given the melanoma cells a chance to spread, as the catfish crowd together in shallow water to spawn.
“They’re all on top of each other,” Dr. Dragon said. In these scrums, the spawning catfish can bite or scratch one another, and their wounds may expose them to floating cancer cells.
Michael Metzger, who studies contagious cancers in clams at the Pacific Northwest Research Institute in Seattle, observed that this is the first time a transmissible cancer has been discovered spreading in fresh water. Cells usually survive only in salty fluids.
“It makes us rethink how these things work,” said Dr. Metzger.
Dr. Dragon has also found hints that catfish in other parts of the Northeast may have suffered from the same cancer. Some of those clues came from the 19th-century journals of naturalist Henry David Thoreau.
Thoreau claimed he often came across catfish in Massachusetts rivers covered with spots. In 1858, he described one he saw on a visit to the Assabet River: “Nearly half the head, from the snout backward diagonally, is covered with an inky-black kind of leprosy, like a crustaceous lichen,” he wrote.
Dr. Dragon and her colleagues are now searching for transmissible cancers in catfish beyond Lake Memphremagog. And the scientists would welcome communications from anglers and biologists who have caught catfish with black, raised tumors.
They can email images of the whole fish along with its growths, along with information about where the animal was caught, to julie.dragon@med.uvm.edu. Dr. Dragon also asks that they freeze the whole fish if possible. Should she and her colleagues want to inspect the fish, they will make the arrangements to receive it.
“It’s hard to say if every black spot is our tumor, but we won’t know until we test them,” Dr. Dragon said.
Peter Emerson, another author of the study and a fisheries biologist at the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department, recommended that anglers refrain from eating bullheads with tumors.
“We don’t have any evidence that the fish are unsafe to eat,” he said. “We just prefer to be cautious.”
For now, there’s little research to indicate that contagious cancers are circulating among people. But it’s conceivable that one will surface someday, said Elizabeth Murchison, an expert on transmissible cancers at Cambridge.
“This finding does reinforce the idea that transmissible cancers could emerge anywhere, including in our own species,” Dr. Murchison said.
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6) A Peptide Showdown: F.D.A. Scientists May Clash With Kennedy’s Agenda
Agency scientists are advising against allowing widespread use of several peptide injections. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, has said people should be free to experiment.
By Christina Jewett and Dana G. Smith, July 23, 2026
“The 19-member committee evaluating that data and other information includes a traditional roster of pharmacists and academic scientists and doctors — but also six people who sell or dispense peptides. F.D.A. advisory panels are intended to be neutral bodies of outside experts; it is highly unusual to appoint people to them who market the products that they are voting on. ‘There seems to be a fingerprint of R.F.K. on this committee, is my impression,’ said Paul Knoepfler, a University of California at Davis biologist who studies F.D.A. oversight of unproven treatments. He added: ‘To me, the makeup of this committee seems pretty striking.’”
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. before a House Subcommittee on Health on Capitol Hill in April. Credit...Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times
A Food and Drug Administration advisory committee hearing on Thursday and Friday may set Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., known for embracing unproven wellness trends, on a collision course with agency scientists who have deep expertise on drug safety.
At issue is whether the F.D.A. should allow specialized pharmacies to produce seven peptide injections that the agency banned three years ago over safety concerns. The injections, some of which Mr. Kennedy has used and trumpeted, are currently sold as “research grade” products not meant for widespread use. Despite the restriction, they are marketed online for a wide range of claimed benefits, from tendon repair to brain health.
In documents prepared for the hearing, F.D.A. scientists advise against allowing broader use, saying that the risks and benefits of the peptide drugs under consideration are poorly understood and have not been sufficiently studied.
The 19-member committee evaluating that data and other information includes a traditional roster of pharmacists and academic scientists and doctors — but also six people who sell or dispense peptides. F.D.A. advisory panels are intended to be neutral bodies of outside experts; it is highly unusual to appoint people to them who market the products that they are voting on.
“There seems to be a fingerprint of R.F.K. on this committee, is my impression,” said Paul Knoepfler, a University of California at Davis biologist who studies F.D.A. oversight of unproven treatments. He added: “To me, the makeup of this committee seems pretty striking.”
The Department of Health and Human Services defended the selections. “All committee members underwent the same ethics review and vetting process required of all FDA advisory committee members,” the department said in a statement. “Candidates that could not meet existing ethics requirements were removed from consideration.”
Soon after President Trump tapped Mr. Kennedy to take a health leadership role, Mr. Kennedy pledged to end the F.D.A.’s “war” on peptides and other restricted items. Thursday’s hearing begins the first potent test of whether he will follow through.
The outcome carries incredible weight, said Dr. Pieter Cohen, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School who studies agency oversight.
“It’s going to reposition the F.D.A. in a much weaker position if they cave to this kind of political pressure,” he said. “Because there’s no reason these peptides should be approved.”
F.D.A. advisory committee votes are nonbinding. A committee’s input is typically considered by F.D.A. scientists and officials who make a final recommendation to the agency’s commissioner. However, the health and human services secretary has the authority to overrule the agency’s decision.
That rarely happens, but in conversations about peptides, Mr. Kennedy has expressed an interest in making the final decision and has leaned toward adding the peptides back to the compounding list, according to two people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to speak publicly.
Peptides are chains of amino acids that prompt cells to perform actions like decreasing inflammation or increasing collagen production. Some peptides that have been fully vetted by the F.D.A. include drugs like insulin or GLP-1s.
But unproven peptides with names like BPC-157 and MOTS-c have gained a foothold on social media, where users show off their “stacks,” or combinations of peptides, and extol their virtues for weight loss, muscle building and glowing skin. They are often referred to as “peppers” to avoid content moderation.
Some are backed by studies in rodents or in a petri dish suggesting that they could help with wound healing, osteoporosis or inflammation. But a similarly limited set of studies suggests they could cause harm, such as severe allergic reactions or the potential to enhance tumor growth.
There is little to no data on how these peptides work in humans.
“We’re missing safety, we’re missing efficacy — we’re missing the critical evidence,” said Dr. Eric Topol, a cardiologist and the founder of the Scripps Research Translational Institute.
“I don’t have a bias that the peptides are bad, necessarily,” he added. “I just want to see the evidence, and we don’t have any.”
On Thursday morning, public testimony featured people who said that the peptide BPC-157 helped them or their patients. Watchdog groups warned against eroding F.D.A. standards.
Dr. Anant Vinjamoori, chief medical officer at Hims and Hers, a major online medication provider, told the committee that the company would offer peptides and “benefit commercially” from them if F.D.A. added them to the compounding list.
“I’m not going to tell you that the evidence for BPC-157 is strong,” he said. “It isn’t, and I won’t over claim it.”
He added: “What I’d ask is that you not read thin as non-existent.”
He said the benefits could exist on a cellular level and offer an option for patients who have failed to improve from traditional therapies.
F.D.A. records show that the six committee members who sell peptides include self-described longevity physicians who market peptides for overall health, and even for some specific diseases. Some of their clinics also offer other unproven treatments such as ozone therapy and energy healing.
One member, Dr. Gabriel Alizaidy, is the scientific director at Maximus, a telehealth company that sells growth hormone peptides for about $200 per month. The company received a warning letter from the F.D.A. over its claims about compounded weight-loss medications.
Another panelist is Bobby Harshbarger, a Tennessee state senator and pharmacist. His mother, Representative Diana Harshbarger, Republican of Tennessee, who is also a pharmacist, wrote to Mr. Kennedy in November urging him to allow wider use of some of the peptides under consideration Thursday and Friday.
On a podcast last year with Gary Brecka, a biohacker who sells peptides on his website, Mr. Kennedy said the F.D.A. should “just do the science” on items like peptides and unproven stem cell treatments, “but not tell people, and not tell physicians, what they can and cannot prescribe.”
“If you want to take an experimental drug, you can do that,” Mr. Kennedy said. “You ought to be able to do that.”
More recently, Mr. Kennedy has said that the 2023 ban on the peptides has forced people to use gray-market peptides that present safety concerns. Adding them to the list of compounds that can be made in regulated pharmacies would increase safety, he has argued.
But Scott Brunner, the chief executive of the Alliance for Pharmacy Compounding, said that traditional manufacturers of pharmaceutical ingredients had never made these peptides.
He said that would be unlikely to change if Mr. Kennedy reverses the ban, given widespread jitters among compounding pharmacies about using peptides that were “never authorized for use in human drugs.”
Mr. Brunner said he would propose at the hearing on Thursday that the peptides be added to the list of items that pharmacies can compound, but in a process that includes guardrails such as safety tracking, disclosures about risks and mandatory reporting of serious adverse events.
Doing so, he said, would mean “allowing state-licensed pharmacies to prepare the substances as a means of blunting the illicit markets.”
To prepare for the two-day meeting, F.D.A. scientists performed reviews of each of the seven peptides. One initial obstacle they discovered was that even though each peptide had a single name, in practice, it tended to refer to a mixed bag of formulations.
What patients actually get “may offer distinct properties,” the F.D.A. said in its analysis of one peptide, and “represent a safety risk for patients” who get a different substance than what a doctor had in mind.
Scientists also noted that some peptides marketed as longevity tonics may also promote cancerous tumor growth.
They also suggested that patients pursuing peptide therapy for serious conditions could miss out on treatments that were carefully reviewed and deemed effective. They flagged one small study of the peptide BPC-157 for people with ulcerative colitis that suggested benefits that the agency scientists found unconvincing for “a serious chronic disease that may cause life-threatening complications.”
Dr. Pinchas Cohen, the dean of the University of Southern California Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, is scheduled to present his research at the meeting but said he is “very conflicted” about the issue.
Dr. Cohen (no relation to Dr. Pieter Cohen) was the first to publish on one of the peptides being debated, MOTS-c. He thinks the peptide is safe and may be beneficial for muscle and metabolic health, but he would prefer to develop the molecule as a drug through the traditional pathway.
Still, he added, “Since tens of thousands of people want this and other peptides, to protect them, I think it will be beneficial to semi-legalize this process.”
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7) ‘We Will All Die From Ebola Here’: Virus Stalks Crowded Camps in Congo
There are a million people displaced by violence in the epicenter. They live in dangerous conditions and are fighting the virus with very little clean water.
Visuals and Text by Finbarr O’Reilly, July 23, 2026
Finbarr O’Reilly spent two weeks reporting from Ituri Province, the heart of the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Four deaths happened in just 24 hours.
The families were told they needed to bury the bodies themselves. Workers at the morgue were too busy to help. Nineteen people had already died in the camp that month, many more than usual.
Here in the camps dotted around Ituri Province, the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the virus appears to be spreading among the cramped tents that house more than a million displaced Congolese.
Despite an influx of aid and health workers since the outbreak was first officially declared in May, the battle against Ebola remains a staggering challenge, and the camps are a stark example. Sanitary conditions are dire. Access to basic nutrition is limited. Patients vanish down winding alleys. Tracing people who may be infected is a Sisyphean task.
With the death toll from Ebola skyrocketing in Congo, attention has turned to these camps, where some of the country’s most vulnerable people live after fleeing violence elsewhere in the Ituri Province. More than 80 percent of new Ebola cases in eastern Congo are being detected outside known contact lists, World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said this month.
Many of the new infections are happening in communities where people have little to no access to health facilities — communities like these camps.
Recent strikes by unpaid health workers, attacks on Ebola treatment centers and highly mobile populations have made matters worse. Congo’s health ministry has recorded 2,423 confirmed Ebola cases and 967 confirmed deaths as of this week. The W.H.O. has said the real numbers may be two to four times higher.
By far the biggest problem in the camps is the severe lack of water, according to officials at two different camps in the province. It makes one of the central pillars of fighting Ebola — proper sanitation to halt the spread of the disease — next to impossible
One camp, called Kigonze, is home to 20,000 and only a handful of communal water stations. Residents stack yellow containers while waiting their turn at the spigot.
At the Tsere camp in Rwampara, just outside Bunia, the provincial capital, more than 6,400 people share a single water tank. Latrines overflowing with feces have not been maintained since they were built in 2023, residents said.
“During Ebola, we need to wash our hands all the time to avoid contamination,” said camp president Esther Mave. “But how can we do that here when we don’t have taps and sinks and soap?”
The lack of sanitation in the camps is in part due to the recent foreign aid cuts under President Trump. Data compiled by the United Nations showed that funding for toilets and hand-washing stations in Congo was cut by more than half between 2024 and 2025.
At least 55 people had already died in Kigonze between early April and late June, according to Etienne Dz’Djo Ndrutsi, the site’s president, who added that the camp usually averaged just two deaths per month. At least four of those deaths were confirmed Ebola cases, he added. But many more families had declined testing for lack of trust in the authorities after years of neglect.
“We need more beds to put all the dead bodies,” Mr. Ndrutsi said. “I’m afraid we will all die from Ebola here in this camp.”
Dozens of women and children recently crowded together under a corrugated metal roof of a building made from sticks and mud as they pressed against the coffins of three people who had died in past 24 hours at Kigonze.
The dead — two men and a woman — had all shown symptoms of Ebola, including fever, headaches and vomiting, but swabs taken from their corpses had yet to be tested for the virus, which is highly infectious in dead bodies.
Women stroked the caskets as they sang and wept. Hundreds more swarmed the coffins as they were carried past makeshift shelters. Crowds then clambered onto a truck transporting the bodies for burial. Mourners sat atop the caskets while children ran behind the truck as it bounced along the road toward the cemetery.
Camp residents are displaced from their homes because of decades of violence between rival ethnic militias and armed groups vying for land, control of lucrative trade routes and access to gold and timber.
For residents, Ebola is just another threat.
Renewed fighting in Ituri has displaced 361,000 people since December, bringing the total number of displaced in the province to 1.3 million, according to the U.N. Insecurity has also hampered humanitarian efforts in the region.
“When there are clashes, children have been shot and killed in the crossfire. Another picked up an explosive and was killed,” Ms. Mave said.
Dr. Jean Kaseya, the director general of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, said that the response to the outbreak needed to address more than just the health crisis to effectively reach people in the camps.
“The humanitarian response is critical today, as important as the health response,” he said. “Because we will not defeat this Ebola outbreak without dealing with the humanitarian issue.”
As international aid has arrived, camp residents who languished for years with little outside help have looked on skeptically. The contrast is stark at Tsere, located 200 yards from a new clinic run by the medical charity Alima.
“We can see them building an Ebola treatment center across the street, but they haven’t done anything here yet,” said Baudouin Unega, a 74-year-old camp resident. “They come, they do investigations, then they go away. They tell us there is no more funding, just to be patient.”
Camp residents work as laborers on local farms and sell firewood, but even that lifeline has frayed during the epidemic. Many local farmers have fled the virus, leaving the displaced with even fewer sources of income. “We want to leave the camp,” Mr. Unega said. “Nobody wants to live here, but there are no funds for us to leave.”
As he spoke, the Tsere camp recorded another death. Espérance Raciu Ucwimungu, 40, died of Ebola-like symptoms on a recent afternoon. Her sister Chantal Imani, 32, and daughter, Wivine Biwiga, 23, grieved outside the one-room hut they had shared with Ms. Ucwimungu.
Despite deplorable conditions and the fear of Ebola hanging over the camps, life goes on. Children chase each other through narrow alleyways. Markets do a brisk trade in basic goods. Women wash laundry and braid each other’s hair in the shade.
On the evening of the recent funerals in Kigonze, 18-year-old Isaak Dieume pressed a worn trumpet to his lips. Children gathered around, and women preparing a meal nearby looked on as he played a gentle tune.
Crisp notes hung in the air, their metallic sound offering a moment of joy on an afternoon of sorrow and loss.
Caleb Kabanda contributed reporting.
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