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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.
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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) Netanyahu Rejects Trump’s Plan to Disarm Hamas
President Trump’s Board of Peace announced an agreement last month that aimed at Hamas giving up its weapons alongside an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
By Aaron Boxerman, Reporting from Tel Aviv, Aug. 9, 2026
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel last month in Jerusalem. Credit...Ohad Zwigenberg/Associated Press
The Israeli government has rejected a 15-point plan backed by the Trump administration aimed at disarming the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday.
President Trump announced the agreement between his Board of Peace and Hamas late last month, calling it a major breakthrough. Mr. Netanyahu’s office had expressed reservations, saying that the framework did “not reflect Israel’s positions,” but stopped short of outright rejecting it.
The U.S.-backed proposal envisions a phased process in which Hamas would hand over its weapons to a new Palestinian administration in Gaza in stages. In exchange, Israel would gradually withdraw from the more than half of Gaza that it still controls.
On Sunday, Mr. Netanyahu openly dismissed the plan, saying that Israeli forces “would not carry out any withdrawal until Hamas is disarmed.” It was a rare public break with Mr. Trump, with whom Mr. Netanyahu has had a dizzying and often unpredictable partnership.
“I want to be clear here — Israel is ruling out the 15-point plan,” Mr. Netanyahu said at a meeting of government ministers, according to a readout from his office, adding that Israel had conveyed its concerns to the Trump administration.
The Israeli prime minister — who faces a tough re-election campaign this fall — promised “absolute victory” over Hamas after the group led the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that ignited the war in Gaza. But nearly three years later, Hamas still controls parts of the territory that it has dominated for nearly two decades.
Israel and Hamas agreed to an initial U.S.-backed cease-fire in Gaza last October, and mediators hoped that would end the war. But the truce put off many of the most difficult questions — like Hamas’s control of the enclave — for later.
Mr. Trump’s peace plan for Gaza stipulated that Hamas would give up its weapons, a core Israeli demand. But armed resistance to Israel is a central tenet for the group, making it a major sticking point.
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2) Iran, Holding Firm to Strait, Steers Trump Back to June Deal
The Strait of Hormuz is Iran’s best leverage to get Washington to release Iran’s frozen assets, lift economic sanctions and end its naval blockade.
By Steven Erlanger, Aug. 9, 2026
Steven Erlanger, based in Berlin, has written about Iran and the Middle East since the Iranian Revolution.
Iran’s demands for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, as laid out in a statement on Saturday, are largely what President Trump had already agreed to do in the memorandum of understanding he signed on June 17. But Iran sees control over the strait as its best chance of getting Mr. Trump to deliver on those promises — and is not willing to give it up just yet.
For Iran, analysts suggest, denying Mr. Trump the ability to claim victory over the strait is the most efficient lever to persuade him to recommit to those agreements and to implement them. Keeping the strait largely closed keeps energy prices high and is also a way to ensure that Persian Gulf states, which depend on the strait for exports, will also encourage Washington to return to the memorandum.
The level of mistrust between Iran and the United States is so high that Tehran wants to ensure it gets the economic relief it has been promised, to enable reconstruction, before it gives up even partial control over the strait, said Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, founder of the Bourse & Bazaar Foundation, a think tank focused on economic diplomacy.
“Iranian officials are concerned that if the strait opens, Trump would walk away from this conflict without feeling the need to resolve it,” he said. “They want to use the strait as a commitment mechanism to ensure Trump implements the various provisions of the MOU.”
Ali Vaez, Iran project director for the International Crisis Group, compared the strait to a “sword of Damocles over Trump.”
“Iran wants to front-load benefits without surrendering its main leverage, which is Hormuz,” Mr. Vaez said.
Iran’s demands were listed on Saturday by Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council. He called for the United States to lift its naval blockade and sanctions on Iran’s oil and petrochemical exports, withdraw the U.S. military from around Iran, pay war reparations and release frozen Iranian assets, as well as end attacks on Iran’s allies in the region, including Lebanon, and threats against the country.
All those demands, except for reparations, are spelled out in the June memorandum. The demand for reparations is also a familiar one, and Iranian officials have said in local media that the issue is a bargaining chip to get as much sanctions relief from Washington as possible, Mr. Vaez said.
Iran’s negotiations with Oman on how traffic would move through the strait once it is open are essentially done, Mr. Vaez said. But Iran wants to tie the strait to the restoration of the memorandum, which would require further talks with the United States, he said. Any talks on the future of Iran’s nuclear program, which is one of the main reasons Mr. Trump said he began this war, are dependent on a restoration of the memorandum.
On Sunday, speaking to journalists, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi of Iran said, “Talks with Oman on the Strait of Hormuz are progressing well and in final stages as experts are working on maps.”
He continued, “However, an agreement with Oman does not mean reopening the strait, which remains dependent on fulfilling conditions conveyed through mediators.”
Part of the confusion stems from divisions within the Iranian system about how to proceed, which has led to the emphasizing of these demands, said Sanam Vakil, the director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House, the London think tank.
Some officials see diplomacy as the best path to economic reconstruction, she said. While others, the hard-liners, “are so skeptical and paranoid that they would prefer to hold on to their leverage rather than think of the economy,” gambling that Mr. Trump will not resume the war.
But the Iranians also see Washington as divided, she said, with some officials pushing for diplomacy and others for more bombing, and Mr. Trump “blowing one way or another.” There are also those in Washington who believe that once the strait is open, Mr. Trump would be tempted to walk away from the whole issue and leave Iran’s highly enriched uranium buried in the ground.
The Iranians “don’t want to do this for free,” Ms. Vakil said. “The strait is not about fees, it’s about control and leverage for the rest of the package.”
And it is about trust, Mr. Batmanghelidj said. Iran could have made more extreme demands, he said, but has chosen to try to return to the memorandum as the basis for a permanent end to the war. “What matters less is the particular figure or amount or concession, but what the U.S. can do to prove to Iran that it can make good on any of these commitments.”
The memorandum of understanding “is the floor from which everyone will try to build a structure for a deal,” Ms. Vakil said. “But we’re far away from that.”
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3) Inside the War on Hezbollah’s Finances
Israel and the United States aren’t just targeting the Lebanese militant group’s weapons. They’re going after its money.
By Euan Ward, Eric Schmitt, Ronen Bergman and Hwaida Saad, Aug. 9, 2026
Euan Ward reviewed internal banking documents and emails and, with the reporting team, spoke with dozens of Lebanese, U.S., Israeli and Hezbollah officials.
The aftermath of a strike in March on a building in Beirut that Israel asserted was linked to Hezbollah’s financial arm. Diego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York Times
When Israel launched its latest war against Hezbollah in March, the first targets the military warned it would strike were not weapons depots or underground command centers.
They were banks.
Israeli fighter jets leveled more than a dozen branches of a shadowy financial institution known as Al-Qard al-Hassan, long accused of operating as Hezbollah’s bank in Lebanon. More airstrikes followed on exchange shops that Iran used to funnel money to Hezbollah, its Lebanese proxy, and on gas stations that generated revenue for the group.
With these strikes, Israel was sending a clear message: Hezbollah’s money, not only its arsenal, was in the cross hairs.
The bombings capped the most aggressive campaign yet by Israel, the Trump administration and Lebanon’s own government to squeeze Hezbollah financially by disrupting the group’s funding channels, particularly from Iran.
For months leading up to the war, Lebanon’s government, under pressure from the Trump administration, worked to choke off the routes that the group used to receive and move money, such as Beirut’s international airport. Washington also pressed the Lebanese central bank to tighten controls over the country’s cash economy, which Hezbollah had long exploited.
Now, Hezbollah is grappling with its most severe economic strain in years, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times and interviews with Lebanese, U.S. and Israeli officials and Hezbollah insiders. Most spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing confidential intelligence assessments, diplomatic protocol or fear of retribution.
The war that began in March was the second in less than three years between Israel and Hezbollah, one of the world’s most heavily armed militias. In the previous conflict, which began in late 2023, Israel killed Hezbollah’s longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah, along with many other top figures in the movement.
Seizing that moment, leaders in Washington and Israel sensed that Hezbollah was vulnerable and coordinated their efforts to clamp down on its funding. They went after the financial networks that had long underpinned the group’s power, while also turning up the pressure on Lebanon’s government to disarm Hezbollah.
While the wars with Hamas in Gaza and Iran have drawn global attention, the financial squeeze on Hezbollah represents a quieter front in a campaign by Washington and Israel aimed at crippling Tehran’s ability to project power through its proxy militias across the Middle East.
Founded in 1982, Hezbollah has long stood as the crown jewel of that network.
The group’s finances are secretive, and the full extent to which the crackdown has affected its vast operations remains unclear. Both Hezbollah and its chief backer, Iran, have also proven resilient in the face of the efforts to weaken them, able to bounce back militarily and to find new ways to keep the money flowing.
Nevertheless, Hezbollah is struggling to finance its sprawling social welfare network, which has long underpinned its support among its Shiite Muslim base in Lebanon. The group has also increasingly prioritized military spending after Israel’s offensives took a heavy toll on its capabilities.
Hezbollah’s chief spokesman, Youssef al-Zein, told The New York Times in May that the group had halted the compensation payments it had pledged to supporters as it struggles to meet the needs of hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the war.
The State Department estimated before the war that Iran’s funding to Hezbollah was about $700 million per year, providing a majority of the group’s billion-dollar annual budget. Iran has increased its financial support for Hezbollah over the past year, according to Lebanese, U.S. and Israeli officials, but the money is still not enough to cover Hezbollah’s considerable war-related expenses.
“The scale of the battle’s demands and the displacement have placed significant burdens on Hezbollah,” Mr. al-Zein said. As a result, “resources are being managed according to priority,” he added. “There is undoubtedly pressure, but Hezbollah is able to overcome it.”
U.S. Pushes Lebanon to Get Tough
The crackdown on Hezbollah’s finances began in earnest in late 2024. Soon after a U.S.-mediated cease-fire halted the Israel-Hezbollah war, the sudden fall of the dictator Bashar al-Assad’s regime in neighboring Syria left the group more isolated than ever from Tehran.
Hezbollah had lost a crucial smuggling route at precisely the moment it needed money to rebuild and sustain its operations.
For decades, Hezbollah oversaw a state within a state in Lebanon — one that fed, housed and paid its loyal followers. It built a media network, established hospitals and schools, drew revenue from gas stations and pharmaceutical companies and amassed an arsenal more powerful than the state’s own military with Iran’s financial backing.
But when the Syrian land route into Lebanon was effectively severed, Iran scrambled to find other methods to finance the group, according to U.S. and Israeli officials and people familiar with Hezbollah’s finances.
Iran turned to Beirut’s airport, which for years had effectively operated under Hezbollah’s control and was used to receive Iranian funding and arms, according to a U.S. official and a senior Lebanese official briefed on the matter.
But U.S. and Israeli officials were on that trail.
Early last year, U.S. officials relayed an Israeli warning to Lebanon’s government. Iran was sending suitcases stuffed with U.S. dollars to Hezbollah on civilian flights to Beirut — in some cases carried by Iranian diplomats — according to two Lebanese officials and an Israeli official. U.S. officials declined to comment. The warning led Lebanon to suspend all flights from Iran, a measure that remains in place.
Hezbollah-affiliated airport staff were also removed from their roles, and the Lebanese authorities installed security officers who work in coordination with American officials, according to a U.S. official and two Lebanese officials.
When Ali Larijani, Iran’s national security chief, visited Lebanon last August, his meeting with Prime Minister, Nawaf Salam, showed just how much had changed inside the country.
“Our message to the Iranians was very clear,” Mr. Salam said in an interview with The Times not long after the visit. “We cannot allow the Iranians to interfere in our domestic affairs,” he added.
“This wasn’t music to their ears,” he said.
Mr. Larijani was killed months later in the U.S.-Israel war with Iran.
Lebanon Tightens Oversight of the Cash Economy
Washington then turned its sights on Lebanon’s central bank, an opaque institution that had long operated with little scrutiny. Lebanon operates on a largely cash-based economy, which the U.S. Treasury Department says Hezbollah has exploited to launder illicit funds and funnel money from Iran.
Last year, the Trump administration worked to influence the appointment of a new Lebanese central bank governor, according to a senior Lebanese official briefed on the process. U.S. administration officials did not respond to requests for comment on their role.
The new governor, Karim Souaid, quickly proved himself willing to move against Hezbollah. He sidelined or fired top bank officials suspected of ties to the group, ordering his office swept for listening devices and refusing to use bank-issued computers amid fears of surveillance, according to a senior central bank official and an internal memo obtained by The Times.
The central bank did not respond to a request for comment.
With the new U.S.-backed governor in place, the central bank started an investigation into the country’s largest money service businesses and their suspected use by Hezbollah to move funds, according to internal documents seen by The Times and the senior central bank official. Since the investigation began, the Lebanese authorities have tightened oversight of money transfers.
“Hezbollah was able to continuously generate substantial amounts of money through the abuse of those networks,” Brian E. Nelson, a former top Treasury official who oversaw sanctions on the group under the Biden administration, said in an interview.
Hezbollah’s media office called the claims that it had exploited Lebanon’s cash-based economy “false and entirely baseless.”
As large money service businesses came under greater scrutiny, Hezbollah continued to rely heavily on a less regulated network of exchange houses, which has rapidly become the primary channel through which Iran finances the group, according to a senior Israeli defense official and another person familiar with Hezbollah’s finances.
The funds move from Iran through the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and Iraq using hawala, an informal system of broker-to-broker transfers without the underlying cash necessarily crossing borders, these two people said.
When the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Lebanese money exchangers in last November, it said Iran had already funneled around $1 billion to Hezbollah that year, largely through the hawala method.
Hassan Moukalled, an exchanger whom the Treasury Department imposed sanctions on and described as a “key Hezbollah financial adviser,” told The Times that the international pressure had made it harder to move money but that Hezbollah was adapting.
“In a country like Lebanon, where there’s a large amount of cash, there are always possibilities,” he said.
Hezbollah Feels the Pinch
As the crackdown picked up speed, Hezbollah’s welfare system began to show signs of strain. Hezbollah officials and beneficiaries told The Times that while salaries are largely still being paid to its tens of thousands of fighters, some social services have been rolled back as the group triages its spending.
Hezbollah has tried to drum up cash where it can.
In February, weeks before the latest Israel-Hezbollah war began, the Treasury Department said that senior officials from Al-Qard al-Hassan, Hezbollah’s de facto bank, had established a chain of gold-trading companies to raise cash. Ledgers reviewed by The Times and assessments by analysts who track Hezbollah’s cash economy indicated that gold sales have climbed over the past year.
One reason Hezbollah wanted to turn gold into cash was that Israeli airstrikes had destroyed much of Hezbollah’s foreign currency and gold reserves, according to Israeli and U.S. officials.
Last year, Lebanon barred the country’s banks and brokerages from dealing with Al-Qard al-Hassan, further isolating Hezbollah from the formal financial system.
Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese people, many of them Hezbollah supporters, rely on Al-Qard al-Hassan for interest-free loans and war-related compensation payments. The organization describes itself as a charitable lending association rather than a bank, and its director has said that Hezbollah maintains separate organizational finances.
Still, the Trump administration is now pushing Lebanon’s government to shutter it altogether.
Hassan, a taxi driver from southern Lebanon whose daughter was married to a Hezbollah fighter killed during the recent wars, said that although she was still receiving the stipend earmarked for families of slain fighters, the organization is no longer covering some medical procedures. Like thousands of supporters whose homes were destroyed, Hassan said he was still waiting on promised financial support.
After the 2024 war, Hezbollah said Al-Qard al-Hassan would distribute $12,000 to $14,000 per household to families whose homes were destroyed. But those compensation payments, repeatedly delayed, have now been halted entirely, according to the Hezbollah spokesman, Mr. al-Zein.
“They are totally silent,” Hassan said.
Aaron Boxerman, Dayana Iwaza and Patrick Kingsley contributed reporting.
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4) One Bus’s Long, Strange Trip, and Why It’s Returning to San Francisco
The psychedelic bus whose passengers hit the road and fueled ’60s counterculture is coming back out. And to its owners, America sure could use it.
By Heather Knight, Visuals by Ricardo Nagaoka, Aug. 9, 2026
Reporting from Pleasant Hill, Ore.
Sixty years ago, the bus symbolized San Francisco’s counterculture revolution, the embrace of psychedelic drugs and the live-out-loud, love-your-neighbor ethos for which the era is remembered.
Among the rolling hills outside Eugene, Ore., down a winding gravel path and inside a big barn sits a school bus built in 1939. Its once-blazing colors have faded. Its roof is crumbling. Its windows are cracked. The only regular occupants these days are insects.
It might look like a hunk of junk, but the muted technicolor splotches tell the story of one of the most exuberant periods of San Francisco history.
Sixty years ago, this bus symbolized the city’s counterculture revolution, the embrace of psychedelic drugs and the live-out-loud, love-your-neighbor ethos for which the era is remembered.
With the nation once again facing war, polarized politics and cultural battles, Zane Kesey thinks some of that old bus magic is needed. And that is why he has agreed to send the bus, the one he helped cover in swirls of Day-Glo paint when he was 3, back to the city that spawned a movement.
“I would love to see it adored again,” he said. “And for people to feel that pure, innocent love that came out of it.”
His father, Ken Kesey, who died in 2001, had just written the novel “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” when he purchased the former school bus that a large Bay Area family had tricked out with beds, benches and a refrigerator for road trips. Mr. Kesey and his free-thinking friends, called the Merry Pranksters, painted the bus in psychedelic colors, cut a sun roof into it, added a powerful sound system and installed a balcony on top.
A sign on the back read, “Caution: Weird Load.” Above the windshield, where a bus typically displays its destination, somebody painted the misspelled word, “Furthur.” And the name for the bus stuck.
The pranksters set out on a cross-country trip, smoking weed, tripping on LSD and spreading the gospel of opening your mind, man.
The journey was documented in Tom Wolfe’s 1968 book, “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test,” hailed by The New York Times back then as not only “the best book on the hippies,” but also “essential.” The bus and its beatnik driver, Neal Cassady, appeared in the Grateful Dead song “The Other One,” which references “Cowboy Neal at the wheel of the bus to never-ever land.”
The bus became part of the landscape of San Francisco’s counterculture movement. In 1967, Mr. Kesey drove it into Golden Gate Park for the Human Be-In, a gathering to protest a California law banning LSD. The event was a precursor to the city’s Summer of Love later that year, during which tens of thousands of young, idealistic people poured into the city’s Haight-Ashbury neighborhood and the park to protest the Vietnam War and promote hallucinogenic drugs and free love.
Those days are long gone, and San Francisco is now known more for A.I. than LSD, more for billionaires than beatniks. But Zane Kesey aims to bring some of that old flavor back — with his dad’s bus.
So later this month, it will leave the Kesey family farm in Pleasant Hill, Ore., a short drive from Eugene, for the first time since 1969. A flatbed truck will carry it down Interstate 5 to California, over the Bay Bridge and into the city. In the dead of night, when the streets are quiet, it will trundle into Golden Gate Park and into its Hall of Flowers alongside the botanical gardens.
There, starting Sept. 5, the bus will be on display as part of a show called “Forever Grateful, Golden Gate Park,” put on by the Haight Street Art Center, which aims to preserve and showcase art and cultural artifacts from the city’s counterculture movement. The exhibit will also feature Jerry Garcia’s BMW, live performers, puppetry and storytelling.
Kelly Harris, the center’s executive director, visited the farm and said that while the bus looked like a relic now, it still exuded an energy that was “magical and connective.”
Roger McNamee, the chairman of the center’s board, called the bus “the Rosetta stone of San Francisco’s counterculture” and said he hoped that those who view it, including young people who have never heard of it, see parallels to today.
“There is this expectation that we will live in a world dominated by technology, dominated by capital, where everyone is expected to play their role and have very little control over their own futures,” he said in an interview, noting Mr. Kesey and his pranksters had decided not to conform and instead forged their own wild, joyful path.
“If everybody went and sat with this bus for a bit and thought about what it meant, I think they’d be happier,” Mr. McNamee said.
Zane Kesey, 65, sure hopes so. He is the kind of man who offers hugs to strangers, wears tie-dyed shirts and talks about the bus as if it were a person with feelings.
“She’s happy, you can tell,” he said, noting that the crescent-moon-shaped silver bumper, which was restored to its front for the journey to California, resembles a smile. “She’s thrilled to have people talking about her, paying attention to her and all that she meant.”
He has never known life without the bus, he said. He remembers getting blue paint in his hair when the pranksters decorated it. And he recalls riding on its balcony as Mr. Cassady practiced driving it, tearing around the bends a bit too fast.
“Dad was a magician, and the bus was just one of his tools,” Mr. Kesey said. “I didn’t know it was unusual. If you grow up in the circus, the circus is all you know.”
His father grew up in Oregon and moved to the Bay Area for a graduate writing program at Stanford University. As the 1960s wound down, he returned to his family farm to write, teach and raise his four children, and the bus has remained there ever since.
Zane Kesey gave a tour of the farm, including the small cemetery where his father and brother, Jed, are buried. Jed Kesey died at age 20 after a van carrying the University of Oregon wrestling team plunged off a cliff. Ken Kesey died at age 66.
Beyond the cemetery, past a thicket of trees and a now-dry creek bed, is the spot where the bus sat for many years, hidden from view with blackberry vines growing over it, before it was moved into the barn for protection.
According to Stephanie Kesey, Zane Kesey’s wife, the news anchor Walter Cronkite once came to the farm to film a story about the bus, and his cameraman plunged through a rickety wooden bridge and into the creek.
Officials with the Smithsonian have also visited, wanting the bus but leaving instead with a plywood sign that the Merry Pranksters used as a makeshift bulletin board on their bus trip and that was found covered in feathers in a chicken coop.
“A family of foxes occupied the rear seat of Furthur, moldering in a field, so Kesey decided to donate this sign instead of the bus,” reads the museum’s website.
Stephanie Kesey said the idea after the exhibit ends in late October is to store the bus in a Burning Man warehouse in the East Bay while a fund-raising campaign proceeds to restore it and permanently display it in San Francisco.
“I don’t think we’ll ever see it come back to the farm,” she said, adding that it was important for the public to view it again.
“Our need for color right now is very real,” she said. “And peace and love, exploration and kindness.”
Zane Kesey said his father would be a little sad that the bus is leaving the farm but thrilled that it is returning to San Francisco.
“You know San Francisco,” he said. “You leave your heart there.”
Stephanie Kesey grew a little misty and nodded.
“I think it’s going home,” she said.
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5) What to Know About the Tupac Murder, Trial and Suspect
Three decades after the rapper Tupac Shakur was killed in Las Vegas, a man who prosecutors say provided the murder weapon is scheduled to go to trial.
By Jonathan Abrams, Aug. 9, 2026
Tupac Shakur performing in 1994, two years before he was killed at the age of 25. Raymond Boyd/Getty Images
For decades, the identity of Tupac Shakur’s killers was one of hip-hop’s burning questions. A key figure in the East Coast-West Coast rivalry of the 1990s, Mr. Shakur was a hip-hop titan capable of penning sensitive ballads about his mother and visceral odes about his rivals when he was fatally shot in 1996.
The mystery faded in recent years as Duane Keith Davis, who goes by Keffe D, repeatedly stated that he was involved in the killing and wrote about it in “Compton Street Legend,” his 2019 memoir about gang life. His comments led the authorities to reopen the case.
Mr. Davis was arrested in September 2023 and has pleaded not guilty to one count of murder with the use of a deadly weapon. He is not accused of killing Mr. Shakur, but of providing the gun that was used in the drive-by shooting.
The trial is scheduled to begin on Monday with jury selection that may take up to a week. The prosecution and the defense will then outline their arguments in opening statements.
How did Tupac die?
Shortly after leaving a Mike Tyson fight in Las Vegas, Mr. Shakur was in a black BMW driven by Suge Knight, a founder of Death Row Records. At about 11:15 p.m., Mr. Knight stopped the car for a red light at an intersection just outside the Strip.
A white Cadillac pulled up next to the BMW and someone began shooting into Mr. Shakur’s vehicle. Four bullets struck the rapper, who died in a hospital six days later. He was 25.
What led to the shooting?
Before the Tyson fight, Mr. Davis had given a football player $4,000 to buy clothes at a mall in Southern California before he headed to college, Denvonta Lee, an affiliate of the South Side Crips, told a grand jury.
The football player was accompanied by Crips-associated gang members, who encountered members of their rival gang, Mob Piru Bloods, which was affiliated with Mr. Knight. The crews fought over a Death Row chain. Witnesses said one of the participants was Orlando Anderson, a nephew of Mr. Davis’s.
Mr. Anderson and Mr. Davis later attended the brief heavyweight bout between Mr. Tyson and Bruce Seldon. Afterward, Mr. Anderson found himself alone near the elevators in the MGM hotel.
Mr. Shakur and other Bloods gang members recognized Mr. Anderson, approached and began punching and kicking him.
The Crips sought immediate revenge. Later that night, according to prosecutors, Mr. Anderson or another man, Deandrae Smith, fired the weapon and killed Mr. Shakur.
“He wasn’t coming back to Compton with nothing being done,” Mr. Lee told the grand jury.
Who is the suspect?
Mr. Davis, 63, is the only person to be charged in connection with Mr. Shakur’s killing. The Cadillac’s three other passengers — Mr. Anderson, Mr. Smith and Terrence Brown — are dead. Mr. Anderson was fatally shot at a Compton carwash in 1998.
In his memoir, Mr. Davis claims to be a descendant of Nat Turner, the enslaved preacher who led a rebellion in 1831. He grew up in Compton, joining the South Side Compton Crips and becoming a key figure among the gang’s hierarchy.
Mr. Davis said in 2014 that he was diagnosed with colon cancer, and has since said that he is in remission. The authorities arrested Mr. Davis on Sept. 29, 2023, outside a home in Henderson, Nev. He told the police that he had moved there because of his wife’s job opening grocery stores in the state.
What is the evidence?
Hotel security footage captures Mr. Shakur and others confronting Mr. Anderson, establishing a motive for Mr. Shakur’s killing. Authorities also recovered items like computers and hard drives from Davis’s home.
However, it is mostly Mr. Davis’s detailed descriptions of how he orchestrated Mr. Shakur’s murder as retaliation for the brawl that will be used as evidence.
In his book, Mr. Davis wrote that Mr. Shakur’s entourage “crossed the line” by beating up Mr. Anderson and that he acted as a “shot caller” who provided a Glock .40. Mr. Davis made similar accounts during recorded interviews with law enforcement and on appearances in documentaries and podcasts.
Judge Carli Kierny has ruled that the book and Mr. Davis’s related statements are admissible evidence. Mr. Davis has since said that he had not written or even read his memoir and that he had made the claims to gain fame and fortune.
“They can’t even place me out here,” Mr. Davis told ABC News in an interview from jail. “They don’t have no gun, no car, no Keffe D, no nothing.”
Who is on the witness list?
It is not clear who will ultimately be called to testify, but prosecutors have filed a long list of potential witnesses that includes Mr. Shakur’s relatives and several notable names.
Those include Mr. Knight, who was wounded in the shooting and is serving a 28-year sentence for a fatal hit-and-run, and Gov. Joe Lombardo of Nevada, the former sheriff of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.
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6) The Places Where the Bombs Have Rarely Stopped Falling in Iran
While fighting has abated in much of Iran, near-constant U.S. airstrikes in Qeshm island and other southern spots have upended lives and livelihoods.
By Farnaz Fassihi and Shirin Hakim, Aug. 10, 2026
The reporters interviewed two dozen local residents, business owners, tour operators and fishermen in the south of Iran, including in Qeshm island, for this story.
“I would like the world to know that ordinary people have never wanted this war and are not on either side of it,” he said. “Yet they are the ones paying the highest price.”
The turquoise blue waters, white sandy beaches and dramatic cliffs on the island of Qeshm until recently drew millions of annual visitors and a devoted community of artists, investors and designers who helped turn the island into Iran’s hottest vacation spot.
It is so exquisite that it earned a UNESCO Global GeoPark designation because of its natural wonders, with names that seem out of a fairy tale: the Valley of Stars, the Hara Forest mangroves and the Hawksbill turtles of Shib Deraz.
But the war with the United States and Israel, now stretching into its sixth month, has upended life, leaving the once bustling destination desolate and its population struggling.
Farideh, 25, works in the tourism industry in Qeshm and said in a telephone interview from the island that everyone in the tourism sector had been affected and that the war never abated for the people of the south, unlike elsewhere in Iran, because of near-constant airstrikes. She said they lived in a perpetual state of alert.
“Many people owned boats and transported passengers, ran guesthouses, rented motorbikes to tourists or operated cafes. Almost all the cafes gradually closed, sometimes one or two a day. Some people simply packed up and left the island,” said Farideh, who, like everyone interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition that her last name not be used for fear of retribution.
Qeshm was one of Iran’s rare economic success stories, fueled by robust domestic investment that led to development and job growth. In 2025, nearly four million visitors traveled to Qeshm, and investment in the island grew by 241 percent compared with the year before, according to government data.
The tourism sector employed about 40 percent of Qeshm’s 150,000 people, and the island’s free-trade zone, allowing for imports and exports at minimal cost and free of tax, made Qeshm a trade hub.
But that has all changed, particularly as the U.S. bombing campaign has become largely focused on the south of Iran, targeting Iranian forces, installations involved in attacking vessels in the nearby Strait of Hormuz, and critical infrastructure used by civilians.
City dwellers who once hopped to the island for weekend and winter getaways have stopped coming, people say. The traditional houses turned into stylish boutique hotels, typically booked weeks ahead, remain empty. Cafes and restaurants along the beach, known for impromptu dance parties to the beat of local drummers, are mostly closed.
The island’s other main economic activity — fishing — has come to a near halt as fishermen fear venturing into the open sea, according to interviews with nearly two dozen residents, business owners and frequent travelers to Qeshm island.
“My life has been completely disrupted,” said Ali, 48, a fisherman on Qeshm reached by phone. “I have spent my entire life fishing. It was my only source of income, but at the moment, I have no income whatsoever.”
He said fellow fishermen from nearby islands and on the coast of the mainland faced a similar predicament. “We have fear, fear, fear,” he said. “Fear of terrible events and fear of war.”
Tayeb Mofidi, a member of Qeshm’s tourism board, told local media recently that the island’s economic distress had rippled widely, from hotel owners facing bankruptcy to the local fishing industry and handicraft market. He said some people had started selling personal belongings to survive.
“The situation is simply devastating,” said Hossein, a 29-year-old teacher from Qeshm. “The regional economy has practically come to a standstill.”
Endless War
For the south of Iran, the violence that first erupted with American and Israeli airstrikes on Feb. 28 never ended, except for two intervals, even as a fragile cease-fire held in other parts of the country. The U.S. military said it had targeted military and surveillance facilities, as well as infrastructure like coastal radar towers, ports and bridges.
But bombs have also landed on tunnels, ports, railways, harbors lined with fishing boats, factories and water desalination plants, according to videos, Iranian state media and officials. The U.S. military said just last month after the cease-fire collapsed that more than 1,000 new targets were hit in the south, with the strategy being to cut off the area from resupplying.
From April 8 — when Tehran and Washington announced a cease-fire and began negotiating over an interim peace deal — until July 30, the United States attacked the south of Iran almost nightly except for from April 8 to May 7 and then again from May 7 to 25, according to a review of statements from U.S. Central Command.
The fighting has followed a predictable pattern: Iran attacks ships trying to bypass its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. bombs targets in the south of Iran, and then Iran retaliates with drones and ballistic missiles against U.S. military bases in the region.
The south of Iran is the heart of the country’s oil and gas industry and home to major ports, refineries, energy and military installations, making it a vital region for the country’s economy and security. But it is also home to millions of civilians who are increasingly bearing the economic and human toll of the war.
The effects have been felt in many southern cities. In Jask, at least 100 fishing boats in the harbor were destroyed, local officials said, affecting the livelihood of more than 3,500 people. In Kenarak, 17 fishermen have been missing since May when their boat disappeared in the Sea of Oman after warning shots from an American helicopter, the state news agency IRNA reported.
In a wildlife preserve north of Bandar Abbas, airstrikes targeting a guard station killed three family members of a park ranger, according to the minister of environment and a video published on BBC Persian showing the destroyed facility.
“Since the attacks began, there has been a constant feeling of uncertainty,” said Reza, 28, a resident in Bandar Abbas, the largest city in southern Iran. “Even when Bandar Abbas itself is not being attacked, people are still worried because no one knows what might happen next.”
Fatemeh, 35, a mother of two small children in the city of Lar, close to Iran’s southern coast, said the repeated airstrikes and gnawing sense of uncertainty were taking a toll on her mental health. She said she has had panic attacks, shortness of breath and a feeling of hopelessness.
“Every time I hear the word ‘war,’ I immediately panic, and it continues for several days,” said Fatemeh. She added, “We have no way out. In front of us is an enemy attacking, and behind us a government that is brutal and making life difficult for people.”
For the residents of Qeshm, July 30 marked the moment when the abstract fear evoked by explosions in the distance became a tangible threat of being killed in your sleep.
In the early hours of that day, an enormous explosion rocked the island, rattling walls and windows like an earthquake. When neighbors and rescue workers arrived at the scene of the blast, they found a modest family house of mud bricks reduced to a pile of debris and a family of five trapped under the rubble. The bomb had created a giant crater.
A New York Times visual investigation found that the U.S. had dropped a 2,000-pound bomb, one of the most powerful weapons used in this war, on the house, located in a densely populated residential area in the village of Chah-Tangou. There were no military facilities in its vicinity.
The airstrike killed the father and mother and their 2-year-old son. It injured their two other sons, 8 and 14, according to official reports. The father, Gheysar Jaffari, had worked as a taxi driver. He had been struggling to find work and make ends meet during the war, according to comments by his relatives to Iran’s top newspaper Shargh.
“Under the blazing 125-degree heat, he drove around all day looking for a passenger,” Mr. Jaffari’s cousin told Shargh.
The Highest Price
Amir, 45, a businessman from Tehran, moved to Qeshm about 10 years ago with his family, drawn to the island by its slower pace of life, natural beauty and economic opportunities. He bought a property, renovated it and then began a business of converting homes into trendy hotels. He said there were challenges: a poor road network, inadequate medical care and spotty internet.
But the past year, Amir said, has been the hardest. First, the government shut down the internet to quell protests during a nationwide uprising crushed by brutal force in January, disrupting advertising and booking, which is mainly done through social media. Then came the war in February at the peak of the tourism season, and the financial losses piled up.
Daily power and water cuts, amid extreme heat, and travel difficulties because of damage to infrastructure have added to the misery, Amir said.
“I would like the world to know that ordinary people have never wanted this war and are not on either side of it,” he said. “Yet they are the ones paying the highest price.”
Abbas, 38, a surfer, tour guide and boat operator, said the island, its waters and its beaches were his home, and like many native residents, he could never leave it behind no matter how bad it gets. But he said it pained him to watch the years of work building a thriving economy slip away.
“People are deeply frightened, and feeling everyone else’s fear affects me too,” Abbas said. “It weighs on me.”
“I swear we are exhausted,” he said. “The best thing the government can do is make peace with the world.”
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7) Flock Cameras Can Track Every Car in America. Police Love Them. Citizens Don’t.
In Texas, there’s one thing liberals and conservatives agree on: They don’t want cameras trained on their cars.
By Fernando Alfonso III and Kashmir Hill, Aug. 10, 2026
Fernando Alfonso III, Texas editor, reported from Carrollton and Houston. Kashmir Hill is a technology journalist.
Driving down a road lined with strip malls outside Dallas, Philip, a 27-year-old cellphone tower repairman, was describing the exquisite piquancy of his homegrown hot peppers when he stopped midsentence.
“Flock!” he said, pointing to a traffic light pole at an intersection. Attached to it was a small black box with a camera that takes photos as cars drive by. It was a license plate reader made by Flock Safety, based in Atlanta, that alerts law enforcement when it spots wanted cars and allows officers to see where cars of interest have been.
Philip pulled into a strip mall, parked outside a dentist’s office and opened an app on his phone. The app, DeFlock, invites people to “view and contribute to an open map of public mass surveillance devices.” He zoomed in on the intersection on the digital map and plotted the location of the camera. Philip asked that his full name be withheld, because Flock’s chief executive, Garrett Langley, once called DeFlock “terroristic.”
To Philip, DeFlock is about pushing against the proliferation of cameras that capture the ordinary moments of ordinary people.
“And what is my way of pushing back? Education. Data,” Philip said. “Am I just being paranoid? No, they’re actually everywhere.”
Flock’s 120,000 cameras can be found alongside roads in every state but Alaska, allowing law enforcement officers to see within seconds where a car might be, and where it has been. The company has contracts with 7,000 law enforcement agencies, which is 40 percent of all departments in the United States.
Other companies sell license plate tracking services, but Flock, a private company valued at $8.4 billion, has become a lightning rod because of its rapid expansion, the ubiquity of its cameras, and a number of controversies involving its product.
A Texas officer used Flock’s cameras to track a woman across state lines who was suspected of self-administering an abortion. Officers across the country have abused their access to Flock’s cameras, including to track romantic partners, resulting in discipline and termination. Los Angeles and Dayton, Ohio, among other cities, recently suspended their contracts with Flock to prevent immigration authorities from accessing data from the cameras. Dayton resorted to covering the cameras with trash bags. In cities like Houston, Oakland, Calif., and Grand Junction, Colo., residents have taken matters into their own hands, with police reports and surveillance footage documenting Flock cameras being cut down, splattered with paint and even shot.
Flock’s pitch is simple: It can help the police find stolen cars, locate wanted people and solve crimes. One license-plate reader led to the arrest in Florida of a man who had threatened a mass shooting in Louisiana; another helped police find the man eventually convicted in an assassination attempt against Donald J. Trump.
But as its cameras have spread, so has the opposition. Americans are accustomed to surveillance cameras. They put them on their doorbells and tolerate them on street corners, offices and restaurants. What sets Flock’s cameras apart are that they are connected, creating a vast, searchable national network — often surprising residents who didn’t realize their local governments had signed up for them and raising fears of Big Brother-style surveillance. And they are hard to miss once you start noticing them.
“We all want, expect and deserve privacy. The problem is that we typically cannot feel, see, or experience the loss as it is happening,” said Danielle Citron, a professor of law at the University of Virginia. “Seeing those cameras is a punch in the gut — we see them and it says you have no room to just be, to go about your day feeling lost in the crowd.”
As Flock built one of the nation’s largest vehicle-tracking networks, Texas became a bellwether both for law enforcement’s adoption of the technology and for the growing backlash. Flock started selling its services to police departments in early 2020, installing a few dozen cameras in a suburb of Houston. Six years later, 700 departments in Texas contract with Flock. The opposition includes liberals worried about government surveillance, conservatives skeptical of expanding state power and privacy-conscious citizens and lawmakers concerned about how the network could be abused.
“It’s going to be an ongoing debate probably forever,” Mr. Langley, Flock’s chief executive, said in an interview. “We should have this debate and we should continue to evolve our point of view as a society of what we’re comfortable with and what level of safety we want.”
Citizens Against Surveillance
In late May, Hannah Foust’s neighborhood group chat was abuzz about a license plate reader that had been installed on her street in Carrollton, Texas, a suburb of Dallas.
Then another camera was spotted outside the recreation center, across from the community pool.
“All of us really got the ick,” Ms. Foust, 41, said.
Ms. Foust, who said she leans left politically, began posting about license plate readers on Reddit groups devoted to Dallas and Carrollton and started a digital petition to have the cameras removed from her community. By late July, she had collected roughly 800 signatures from neighbors, some of whom also spoke out against the cameras at a Carrollton City Council meeting on July 24.
“I’m very much your average American. I vote, but I’ve never organized or been really an activist in any way,” said Ms. Foust, who works in human resources and has two children. “I’m not committing any crimes, but I don’t want necessarily anyone, let alone government agencies or a private company, to have a view of where I drop off my kids, or what route is my favorite for my commute, or whether I prefer H-E-B or Kroger, or what house of worship I attend.”
Noticing cameras and posting about them on Reddit led a software engineer named Will Freeman to create DeFlock in 2024. He was on a road trip from the West Coast to Alabama and kept seeing cameras along the way. He decided to create a crowdsourced map to plot the devices in Huntsville, Ala., where he was living, and the project went viral. The app has been downloaded by more than 350,000 people, Mr. Freeman said, and the site says it has mapped 125,000 license-plate readers made by Flock and other companies.
Mr. Freeman, 27, now lives in Boulder, Colo., which also has a contract with Flock. The city says its 31 cameras have led to a 34.5 percent decline in motor vehicle theft and helped solve other crimes. Mr. Freeman, however, said he did not think that privacy should be sacrificed for safety. The cameras create an infrastructure for the government to track and harass critics, he said, even if most officers aren’t abusing their access.
Wanting to know when his own vehicle had been spotted, Mr. Freeman requested those records from the Boulder Police Department, which refused to provide them. In May, he filed a lawsuit against the city, saying the cameras created an unconstitutional “warrantless surveillance dragnet.” (The city declined to comment on the suit, but in legal filings has said “there is no reasonable expectation of privacy on publicly owned streets and sidewalks.”)
“It feels bad to always be watched and scrutinized,” Mr. Freeman said.
Across Texas, the opposition to the cameras has been bipartisan. Flock’s contracts have been canceled in liberal Austin as well as in Bandera, a conservative Hill Country town of about 900 people. The city said at least one of its cameras was vandalized.
In Congress, Keith Self, a Republican whose district lies north of Dallas, introduced a bill in July that would require federal law enforcement agencies to obtain a warrant before accessing or querying data collected by state and local surveillance systems, license plate readers among them.
“We have a surveillance state happening,” said Mr. Self, who is also a retired Army colonel and former county judge. “This is not a left issue, not a right issue. It is a personal issue.”
Surveillance as a Service
Mr. Langley, 39, started Flock because he was troubled by how easy it was to break into cars in his neighborhood in Atlanta. When he asked police why they were unable to catch the thieves, Mr. Langley said he was told they needed the perpetrators’ license plate numbers.
Mr. Langley, an electrical engineer, teamed up with two fellow Georgia Tech graduates to create a solution: cheap internet-connected cameras, powered by solar panels and paired with software to extract license plate numbers from photos.
When Flock was founded in 2017, it sold devices largely to homeowners’ associations. But in 2020, it began working with police departments. That year, Mr. Langley said, his S.U.V. was stolen, and Flock cameras helped locate it.
Flock charges around $3,000 per camera per year, Mr. Langley said. In exchange, the company installs and maintains the cameras, provides a searchable database of every vehicle that passes them, and sends alerts if the cameras spot cars on a so-called hot list — like the F.B.I.’s database of stolen vehicles and license plate numbers associated with missing or wanted people. In recent years, as artificial intelligence has advanced, Flock has added the ability to search for cars based on their make, type, color, or unique details, such as bumper stickers or visible damage.
Flock showed The New York Times how its technology works. After logging into the system, users must acknowledge they cannot search for license plates related to “reproductive care” offenses in 17 states and Washington, D.C. (Those places have expressly prohibited those searches, though a Flock spokeswoman said officers could do searches related to abortions in states only where abortion is illegal.) There is a similar warning about nine states that prohibit searching their cameras for “immigration enforcement.”
To perform a search, officers specify the type of crime, from animal cruelty to homicide. They then enter a license plate number or description of the vehicle, and a location, or simply go with the default: “All network(s) selected.” A search returns images of cars that are a match, along with exactly when they were spotted, where and on which law enforcement agency’s cameras. By default, the photos the cameras take are deleted after 30 days, though departments can change how long they retain them.
If a police department wants access to other cameras across the state or the country, it has to share access to its own. Most agencies search and share information nationally.
“Criminals don’t care where cities start and stop,” Mr. Langley said. “You can share with no one, and we have plenty of customers who do that.”
“You’ll solve less crime, but that’s OK,” he added.
Last year, when he was asked about the spreading opposition to Flock in a video interview with Forbes, Mr. Langley said he respected groups, like the American Civil Liberties Union, that are fighting the company in court, but called citizen groups like DeFlock “terroristic organizations” whose “primary motivation is chaos.”
This month, Tucker Carlson, the conservative commentator, and The Blaze, a far-right news outlet, mocked Mr. Langley’s equating a crowdsourced mapping project with terrorism.
Mr. Carlson said he had only recently become aware of the scale of Flock’s network after visiting DeFlock, which he told The Times had left him “horrified.” He said he was surprised such an expansive surveillance system had grown with so little public attention.
“Whether you’re libertarian, conservative, MAGA, progressive, everybody has an objection to Flock,” said Chad Marlow of the A.C.L.U.
Mr. Langley has since apologized for the terrorism comment. “Seeing people become active in their local communities is broadly really good,” he said in an interview.
Safety v. Privacy
Texas opposition may be attracting attention, but it hasn’t slowed Flock’s growth. Across the state, new cities are signing contracts faster than others are canceling them, said Jennifer Szimanski, a spokeswoman for the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas, a police union that represents more than 28,000 officers.
The reason, she said, is impressive results. Some Texas police departments recovered stolen vehicles by the hundreds after installing the cameras, she said, and in smaller municipalities, vehicle burglaries have all but stopped. Despite community complaints, officials in Harris County, which operates 480 cameras, and Carrollton — which operates 67 license-plate readers, including 19 from Flock — are not changing their minds about the cameras.
“If a supplemental investigative tool helps our officers solve crimes more effectively, provides value to our residents, and can be managed responsibly, then it’s something we’ll continue to consider,” said Carrollton’s mayor, Steve Babick.
Independent research on the cameras’ efficacy is sparse. A 2024 study found that Flock’s cameras increased officers’ case clearance rates by 9 percent — but 404 Media, among others, criticized the findings because Flock had partnered with the researchers and chose the agencies that were part of the study.
States are starting to create rules for how police can use the technology. To address the concern about rogue officers abusing the system, 13 states now have laws requiring audits of license plate reader systems to detect misuse by officers, according to a legislation tracker created by the Policing Project at the New York University School of Law.
Texas is not among them. Ms. Szimanski said that the risk of Texas officers’ misusing the system was no greater than with the other databases they have access to, and that Flock provides a log of every search, who conducted it and why.
Being able to search all the cars on the road across the country is certainly convenient for authorities, but Barry Friedman, a law professor and faculty director of the Policing Project, argues that creating a vast database of Americans’ movements is not constitutional.
“This is indiscriminate data collection, not targeting specific crimes,” Mr. Friedman said. “The reason we have a Fourth Amendment is that they didn’t think the government should just be able to go after anybody even if they did nothing wrong.”
Courts have thus far disagreed with that reading, but have signaled that as the technology expands, that could change. In one case, in which residents sued Norfolk, Va., for installing 172 Flock cameras, a federal judge ruled that license plate readers might one day become so ubiquitous that their use amounts to an unconstitutional dragnet search, but “not today.”
“I don’t think judges understand the country is now blanketed with these things and they’re all interconnected,” said Sid Thaxter, of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
The DeFlock map allows people to see where cameras are positioned along their regular driving routes, and it has been a “really valuable tool” for privacy groups and lawyers arguing against the spread of these cameras, Mr. Thaxter said. But volunteers can do only so much to document the spread of the surveillance state.
Philip, the DeFlock contributor from the Dallas suburbs, estimates he has mapped around 200 cameras in his community, a figure he called “both a lot and not a lot.”
He repairs radios on cellphone towers for a living, so he is “always looking around at infrastructure.” On his short commute to work, he estimates he passes nine Flock cameras.
Plotting cameras on a map is his form of protest. He has little interest in attending city council meetings, nor in destroying cameras.
“It’s kind of a hydra situation,” he said. “You chop down one, and 20 more take its place.”
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