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We Support Dockworkers Blocking Weapons on October 30, 2026
Unions representing workers at 40 ports in Europe and the Mediterranean are calling for an international day of action on October 30. Read more here. |
| World Federation of Trade Unions |
We Support Dockworkers Blocking Weapons on October 30, 2026
Unions representing workers at 40 ports in Europe and the Mediterranean are calling for an international day of action on October 30. Read more here.
Statement from the World Federation of Trade Unions:
Ports For Peace – Jobs With Dignity
Following the Third International Meeting of Mediterranean and European Dockworkers’ and Port Workers’ Unions, held in Istanbul in May 2026, the participating unions have launched a common international day of action on 30 October 2026.
The meeting focused on the struggle against wars, genocide and military aggression, while also addressing the challenges facing dockworkers and port workers, including wages, working conditions, automation projects, and occupational health and safety.
The participating organizations, CGT Ports and Docks (France), ENEDEP (Greece), LAB (Basque Country), Liman-İş (Turkey), ODT (Morocco), and USB (Italy), representing workers in more than 40 Mediterranean and European ports, are calling on dockworkers and port workers to mobilize together on 30 October 2026.
This mobilization is based on the Istanbul Declaration, adopted unanimously by the participating organizations and now fully endorsed by ORSA Porti of Gioia Tauro (Italy), which has joined our international network.
The declaration sets out the following demands:
· An immediate end to the genocide of the Palestinian people and recognition of an independent Palestinian state, recognized by the international community, within the 1967 borders and with East Jerusalem as its capital.
· An end to the US-Israeli wars of aggression in the West Asia and against Iran, and full solidarity with the peoples of Cuba, Venezuela and Sudan, alongside support for the right of all peoples to resist occupation and to self-determination.
· Ports must not be used for the transport of arms, ammunition, military equipment or troops destined for war zones.
· They must not become military bases for NATO, the United States or the European Union, nor serve as tools for shipowners and monopoly groups.
· No to the war economy, government rearmament plans, and the project of militarization of ports and strategic infrastructure from EU. Public resources must be used to meet people’s social needs, not to finance war.
· Collective agreements must guarantee real wage increases, secure employment, reduced working hours, and fair pension provisions.
· Technological progress, mechanization, automation and artificial intelligence must not be used to eliminate jobs or undermine workers’ rights. Dockworkers and port workers say NO to automation.
On October 30, all actions will be united as part of a common international struggle to stop wars, genocide and the militarization of ports at a very critical moment in history, while defending workers’ rights and better working conditions. Each union will decide the most appropriate form of mobilization according to its national circumstances, starting from strike action and from a shared commitment to prevent the loading of death and destruction.
The signatory trade unions of the Istanbul Declaration call on ALL dockworkers’ and port workers’ unions to join this international mobilization. We are ready to meet with organized groups of dockworkers and port workers from any other ports interested in becoming part of this common struggle.
CGT FNPD France – ENEDEP Greece – LAB Basque Country – LIMAN-IS Turkey – ODT Maroc – ORSA Porti Italy – USB Italy
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NOVEMBER 1-7
WEEK of GLOBAL RESISTANCE
to STOP U.S. IMPERIALISM & GENOCIDE
This year SHUT DOWN DRONE WARFARE (SDDW) Fall Actions will be a "Kick Off for A New Campaign": We want to help build a stronger network of global communities working in coordination to STOP U.S Imperialism & Genocide. Several other national organizations are already co-sponsors. (see below) This global call to action in the fall is only the beginning. We invite national and international organizations to sign on as sponsors/endorsers of the week and to plan simultaneous actions at U.S. Bases, Weapons Industries and AI Data Centers around the world. Organize actions for one day, or numerous days during or near the Week of Global Resistance. We recommend planning actions during weekday commute hours, if possible, when personnel are going into and out of military bases, weapons industry workplaces, AI Data Centers, etc. Educate, educate, educate and encourage resistance from within. Please spread the word: Help us get more sponsors & endorsers! More details to come soon.
"Week of Global Resistance" Co-sponsors: ShutDownDroneWarfare.org, BanKillerDrones.org, Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space, and Witness Against Empire.
Will your organization sponsor or endorse? Please contact: toby4peace@sonic.net
The above global call to action is part of SDDW Fall Action Week:
SHUT DOWN DRONE WARFARE! (SDDW)
ShutDownDroneWarfare.org
SDDW Fall Action Week:
NEW: Simultaneous Actions at both Creech AFB & Holloman AFB!
November 1-7, 2026
Nov.1-7, Creech AFB Fall Action, Indian Springs, NV
Nov. 4-6, Holloman AFB Fall Action, Alamogordo, NM
17 years of persistent resistance! Come for all or part of Fall Actions!
Shut Down Drone Warfare (SDDW) Campaign is Co-Sponsored by Veterans For Peace, Ban Killer Drones & CODEPINK
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We need as many people there as possible to carry our message - no more of our tax dollars for endless wars. Can we count you in? Sign up here:
https://www.codepink.org/novdc26
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To Iran’s Political Prisoners, trapped “Between Two Blades of a Scissors”
Open letter
August marks the anniversary of the 1988 mass executions in Iran, a horror that echoes in the country’s current surge in death sentences. It also marks the August 19 anniversary of the UK- and U.S.-orchestrated coup against the prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953. Amid the current, indiscriminate waves of U.S.-Israeli military assaults against Iran, this letter of solidarity denounces the repression of the Iranian people and their political prisoners by forces both at home and abroad.
To our fellow activists, students, thinkers, workers, artists, and other prisoners of conscience held behind the walls of all detention centers across Iran:
We write to you from a place of deep solidarity, our hearts heavy with the knowledge of the struggle you face within Iran’s prisons: the torture, the systematic neglect, the enforced silence, and the brutal reality of sham trials and executions. As former and current political prisoners, activists, and scholars committed to the global project of abolition, anti-authoritarianism and anti-imperialism, we see you across the distances of geography and the silence of censorship and internet blackouts. And we stand in solidarity with you, as you are at the intersection of two sources of oppression.
On one side, you face the Islamic Republic that, from its inception, enforced absolute social and political control based on an exclusionary ideology. It is a system that claims to counter imperial power while using its very logic of domination and systems of carcerality, torture and execution. On the other side, you face the aggression and violence of the very imperialist and Zionist forces the Islamic Republic purports to stand against. The U.S. and Israel instigate brutal wars, destroy civilian infrastructure, kill innocent schoolgirls, and treat you as collateral damage in their pursuit of regional dominance. We remember the horror of June 23, 2025, when Israel struck the Evin prison complex, flattening its hospital ward, transgender section, and visitor center. You best exposed this dual oppression when you voiced that you “feel stuck between the two blades of a scissors, the evil regime that imprisons and tortures [you] and a foreign force dropping bombs on [your] heads in the name of freedom.”
In the past year, we witnessed both blades of the scissor sharpen. We see the arbitrary arrests and the horrific wave of state executions. We see the deepening criminalization of the working class and unemployed, the targeting of Kurds, Arabs, and Baloch, and the scapegoating of Afghan migrants: all desperate attempts to kill the spirit of people they cannot contain. This is the logic of carceral states everywhere: when they fail to address the crises people face, they simply attempt to criminalize or disappear the people themselves.
We see the same logic of domination when Israel uses “administrative detention” to hold Palestinian political prisoners for years without charge. We see it when Israeli authorities celebrate a new law that allows them to execute the Palestinian political prisoners they cannot dominate. We see it in the ICE detention centers where the U.S. government imprisons our people in the pursuit of a political agenda of racist exclusion or detains our political activists for daring to speak against the U.S.-backed Israeli genocide. We see it in the history of the U.S. targeting freedom fighters, particularly Black, Indigenous, Puerto Rican and other anticolonial organizers, locking them away for decades to crush movements for national liberation and sovereignty. And we see the connections between these carceral systems sharing intelligence and governance techniques, such as when the USP Marion prison in Illinois became a blueprint for prisons built in Iran and Israel in the 1960s. Whether it is a border wall or a prison gate, the goal is the same: to silence people through fear, domination, and isolation.
Your struggle is as global as our collective dreams of freedom and dignity. We stand with you, and we reject the false binary of imperialism and hollow anti-imperialism. We invite global civil society and anti-imperialist activists and organizations to extend their unconditional support and solidarity to all incarcerated kin fighting for our collective liberation, to build relationships with Iranian political prisoners and uplift their voices, to put pressure on the Islamic Republic by challenging its narrative, and to call upon that government to immediately stop all the executions and free all political prisoners.
The Iranian authorities must stop their inhumane practice of death and incarceration now. And the U.S. and Israel must end their barbaric wars and brutal sanctions that knowingly devastate our communities.
In solidarity and with love,
Alberto Toscano, emeritus professor of critical theory, Goldsmiths, *University of London
Angela Davis, former political prisoner, distinguished professor emerita, *University of California, Santa Cruz
Bernardine Dohrn, retired professor of law, *Northwestern University
Bill Ayers, professor, *College Unbound
Cherríe L Moraga, distinguished professor emerita, University of California, Santa Barbara, Chicana feminist writer, and activist
Dan Berger, professor of comparative ethnic studies, *University of Washington Bothell
Hossam el-Hamalawy, Egyptian socialist, scholar and former political prisoner
Jairus Banaji, historian, research professor, SOAS, *University of London
Jason Stanley, professor of philosophy, *University of Toronto
Judith Butler, distinguished professor in the Graduate School, *University of California, Berkeley
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, author, From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation, professor of African American studies, *Princeton University
Michael Löwy, emeritus research director of sociology at the* Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris
Michael Mansfield, human rights and civil liberties Bbarrister
Mumia Abu-Jamal, current political prisoner, educator, journalist and activist
Ricardo Jiménez, social activist, former Puerto Rican political prisoner
Ruha Benjamin, professor of African American studies, *Princeton University
Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Graduate Center, *CUNY
Walden F Bello, international adjunct professor of sociology, *State University of New York at Binghamton
Yasin al-Haj Saleh, Syrian writer, political dissident, and former political prisoner in Syria
* Organizations for identification purposes only
** Signatories are sorted alphabetically
—The Guardian, August 20, 2026
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/ng-interactive/2026/aug/20/iran-political-prisoners
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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.
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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 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 *..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........* *..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........* |
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. Alter 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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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) Thousands of Immigrant Children, Alone and in Court, Face Deportation
For years, the government has helped secure lawyers for minors who arrive at the southern border. But a contract dispute has forced many children to face immigration judges on their own.
By Jazmine Ulloa and Madeleine Ngo, Oct. 15, 2026
The reporters attended in-person and virtual hearings in Arizona and New York, reviewed court records and interviewed more than 20 former and current federal officials, nonprofit leaders and immigration lawyers.
“In Texas, a 7-year-old agreed to voluntarily leave the country without a lawyer present to explain the legal consequences of the decision. In Arizona, an immigration judge ordered a 1-year-old baby appearing without a lawyer to file an asylum application, according to court filings. The baby’s mother, a 17-year-old who is an unaccompanied minor herself, appeared with the child in court.”
Unaccompanied minors appeared virtually at an immigration court in New York. Todd Heisler/The New York Times
The faces of the six migrant children beamed into a Manhattan courtroom on large screens. All had crossed the U.S.-Mexico border alone. All were facing potential deportation. And none had lawyers.
The minors — five boys and a girl, ages 13 to 17 — fidgeted in their seats, dressed in jeans, T-shirts and sweatshirts, as an immigration judge ran through her script. Where were their parents? Were they afraid to return home? Had they found a lawyer?
At times, a lawyer acting as a court adviser interjected from another screen to recommend that the judge grant the children more time to find counsel. The judge, Lisa W. Ling, pressed ahead, often with little more than a nod.
“Do you want the voluntary departure?” she asked a 15-year-old boy from Guatemala during the September hearing.
“Yes, that’s fine,” he replied. It was unclear if the boy knew that meant he was giving up on obtaining legal immigration status and agreeing to leave the country.
The scene in Manhattan has been playing out in courtrooms nationwide for months. In Texas, a 7-year-old agreed to voluntarily leave the country without a lawyer present to explain the legal consequences of the decision. In Arizona, an immigration judge ordered a 1-year-old baby appearing without a lawyer to file an asylum application, according to court filings. The baby’s mother, a 17-year-old who is an unaccompanied minor herself, appeared with the child in court.
Unaccompanied minors went without legal representation in about 55 percent of nearly 50,000 immigration cases completed as of August this year, the highest percentage since 2019, according to an analysis by the Vera Institute of Justice, a nonprofit research group.
Deportation orders for the children who Vera identified as unaccompanied minors have also surged, topping 7,300 in July, up from 3,500 in May. By comparison, that number was 2,000 in January 2025, according to the group.
The surge in deportations comes amid a monthslong contract battle between the Trump administration and the network of nonprofits that have long provided legal services to migrant children who have arrived at the southern border without their parents or guardians. (Vera held the federal legal services contract until December 2023.)
For decades, the young and vulnerable population has posed deep humanitarian and political challenges for both Republican and Democratic administrations. The minors make perilous journeys north alone, facing higher risks for trafficking and exploitation along the way and once in the United States. A New York Times investigation in 2023 found thousands working dangerous jobs at meatpacking plants and construction sites in violation of child labor laws.
Inside the nation’s immigration courts, they face another set of vexing obstacles. Many children do not have adult guardians to guide them through complex legal claims, and because many may be in pursuit of work or schooling, motives that do not qualify for asylum, they may be unshielded from deportation unless a lawyer can identify other protections.
Although migrant children do not have a right to court-appointed representation, under a 2008 law meant to protect children against human trafficking, the federal government is required to ensure unaccompanied minors have representation “to the greatest extent practicable.”
That responsibility lies with the Office of Refugee Resettlement, or ORR, part of the Department of Health and Human Services. Officials say they have sought to overhaul their contract to enforce basic oversight of legal services, as they push to clear backlogs, curb fraudulent claims and increase vetting to protect migrant children from abuse and trafficking.
ORR has been in a dispute with the Acacia Center for Justice, a group that had a $200 million contract with the agency to provide legal services for migrant children. The agency allowed that contract to expire at the end of July, arguing that Acacia had refused to share new data to allow it to verify its legal services. Acacia and its nearly 100 legal services subcontractors said the data the administration is seeking is privileged, attorney-client information and assert that the government had improperly cut off funding.
Child advocates say the contract dispute has resulted in unrepresented minors filling courtrooms across the country at a time when the administration is speeding up immigration cases with little notice. With many judges saying they are under intense pressure to deport more people, many minors have been stranded in detention for longer periods of time, and others have been returned to dangerous home countries, lawyers said.
In response to questions about the number of minors going without representation, Emily Hilliard, a spokeswoman for the Health and Human Services Department, said claims that unaccompanied children “are being sent to immigration court without access to legal support do not accurately describe ORR’s role or the legal services available to eligible children in its care.”
“Dedicated public servants are working around the clock to safely reunite these children with their families,” she said.
The contract dispute has prompted a turbulent search for a new legal services provider. In August, officials awarded a contract to Our Rescue, an anti-trafficking group with little immigration court experience. The Acacia Center, which most recently held the contract, filed a formal protest, temporarily blocking Our Rescue’s contract. Officials then considered hiring Pentagon lawyers before abruptly scrapping the plan.
In a quiet federal notice published in late September, the administration indicated it planned to use Health and Human Services’ own lawyers to represent migrant children, a move that former department officials say would be a conflict of interest.
For now, ORR has hired the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, or U.S.C.R.I., to provide legal services through December. But the organization’s lawyers had formally represented only 12 children as of early September and a few dozen children by mid-month, according to court testimony and filings. Instead, in the vast majority of cases, U.S.C.R.I. lawyers have appeared as friend-of-the-court advocates, or neutral voices who can inform children of their rights but do not represent them.
Back in the Manhattan courtroom last month, the limitations were clear. A U.S.C.R.I. lawyer remained silent for much of the morning, at times reminding Judge Ling that the contract dispute had kept the agency from being able to secure lawyers for unaccompanied minors on her docket.
In the cases of the six children who appeared in a group, two of the boys agreed to voluntarily leave the country at their own expense. A 13-year-old girl from Honduras refused, saying that she did not fear returning to Honduras but that she had never known her parents and hoped to go to school in the United States.
Although Judge Ling noted the girl might be eligible for a special immigrant status for abused, abandoned and neglected children, she said that process could take years through a state family court. But the girl would need a lawyer to file the case there.
“Based on what you are saying, you are only eligible for voluntary departure,” Judge Ling told the girl. When the child still refused, the judge ordered her deportation.
For years, both Democratic and Republican federal lawmakers sought to ensure all children and teenagers in U.S. immigration custody received shelter, social services and access to a fair legal process. But that bipartisan consensus cracked as hundreds of thousands of unaccompanied minors crossed the southern border during the Obama and first Trump administrations, fleeing rising poverty and violence in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. Many came to reunite with relatives or in the hopes of finding work.
In his second term, the Trump administration has put up new barriers for young migrants to obtain deportation protections and increased its vetting of immigrant relatives and guardians, discouraging many from coming forward. It also has sped up children’s asylum claims, sometimes with only a day’s notice, lawyers said.
Robert Carey, who served as ORR director in the Obama administration, acknowledged that not all unaccompanied children were eligible for immigration relief. But he saw the contract dispute as part of a “systematic dismantling” of guardrails meant to guarantee them a fair process.
“Essentially, there was a wall between enforcement and child protection, and that wall has fallen pretty dramatically,” he said. He added that ORR operated under a simple premise during his tenure: “Not every child deserves asylum, but every child deserves to be heard.”
For 17-year-old Jairo, one of the six on the screen in the Manhattan courtroom, the search for a lawyer was an urgent scramble against a tight deadline.
He had told The Times at a prior hearing that his family had paid smugglers to drive him north in a series of van trips from Guatemala.
He was afraid to return home, he said, and he and an older cousin had been desperately searching for counsel. The boy asked that his full name be withheld for fear of retaliation by U.S. authorities.
Now before Judge Ling again, he asked for more time, saying they had just found a lawyer whose name he could only remember as “Kevin.”
Judge Ling granted him two more weeks.
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2) The Glaciers Are Collapsing. This Is What We Must Do.
By Bibek Raj Kandel and Daniel Schrag, Oct. 16, 2026
Mr. Kandel is an adviser to the government of Nepal. Dr. Schrag is a professor of geology and public policy at Harvard.
Atul Loke for The New York Times
At 9:10 a.m. on Aug. 26, a school staff member burst into a classroom in the town of Nuwakot, Nepal, shouting that a wall of water was coming down the valley from the mountain above. Rajendra Dawadi, the school’s principal, ordered the roughly 900 students then on campus to run for higher ground, put the students who had just arrived back on their buses and told the drivers to leave. By 9:23, about 13 minutes after the first warning, the school was gone, swept away along with the rest of the valley floor. Every student survived.
Most of the people in the valley were not so lucky. High above the school, a mass of rock and glacier ice, by some estimates as much as seven billion cubic feet, broke from the north face of Langtang Lirung, a mountain peak near the Nepal-China border, and thundered downhill. It is most likely the largest such collapse ever recorded in the Himalayan mountains.
More than 7,000 people are dead or missing, many probably buried under feet of debris. As the country mourns them and begins to rebuild, it’s also coming to terms with the fact that such a disaster could easily happen again.
Climate change is causing glaciers across the Himalayas to retreat and permafrost to thaw, making these mountains more dynamic and less stable. What if the communities living in them could be warned long before the next glacier collapses? That’s the opportunity we see: International scientists could use artificial intelligence to monitor vast quantities of satellite images and then send out an alert to evacuate when the warning signs are there. Building such a system is a way for wealthy countries to help remedy a problem — the increase in climate disasters — that they have created by burning an overwhelming share of the fossil fuel humanity has used to date.
You might think that the best option would be for communities at risk of glacial collapse and flooding to retreat and relocate. But the river corridors most exposed to these hazards are Nepal’s best sites for producing hydroelectricity; at least a dozen hydropower projects were damaged or destroyed in this one event.
Nepal cannot easily forgo the revenue and electricity these rivers offer. Its per capita electricity consumption is among the lowest in the world, and hydroelectricity remains the best opportunity to support economic growth with clean energy. The country is already racing to develop other sites, with a goal of increasing the 4,300 megawatts of installed capacity today to 30,000 megawatts by 2035. But it can no longer plan as though these valleys are safe. Every dam, tunnel and workers’ camp built below a glacier is now a wager against the stability of the mountain above it, and the odds are changing.
Here the international scientific community may have something concrete to offer. Satellite radar had recorded Langtang Lirung’s slow-motion instability for months: Data going back to January show the slope creeping downhill and accelerating in the weeks before it failed. But no one looked at the data until it was too late.
Spotting that kind of signal in one mountain, after disaster strikes, is one thing. Doing it continuously, across the thousands of glaciers and rock slopes scattered through the Himalayas, is a different scale of problem. It’s also exactly the kind of problem new artificial intelligence tools are suited to. Machine learning can now sift through enormous volumes of satellite imagery automatically, day after day, flagging the handful of slopes accelerating among thousands that are not.
It will take a big effort by glaciologists and geomorphologists around the world to design and test such a system, but deployed at scale, it could give communities in Nepal not 13 minutes, but hours or days. It could give agencies time to plan evacuations rather than improvise them. And such a system could be used to address similar risks in other Himalayan countries including China, India, Pakistan and Bhutan.
Climate risk is not Nepal’s to solve alone. Its contribution to the greenhouse gas emissions warming the planet is negligible, yet the mountain communities living beneath these unraveling massifs are among the poorest people on earth, suffering a disproportionate share of the consequences. Climate finance funds, such as the United Nations Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage, established in 2022 after the torrential floods in Pakistan, were designed with exactly these disasters in mind. Contributions from wealthier nations could be used to make Nepal more resilient, but the fund is woefully underfunded and slow to process claims. New money is needed for development of monitoring systems, disaster planning and, in the most exposed valleys, new roads and escape routes that let people get away from the river.
The heavy monsoon rains will return next summer, and the glaciers above these valleys will keep retreating as global temperatures rise. The protections Nepal needs will take years to build, and the countries most responsible for the warming can afford to pay for them. The question is how many disasters Nepal will endure before they do.
Bibek Raj Kandel is an adviser to Nepal’s minister of energy, water resources and irrigation. Daniel Schrag is a professor of geology at Harvard University and a professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School.
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3) Caracas Is Eerily Safe. State Death Squads Made Sure of It.
Crime plunged after police raids killed thousands. Venezuela is now withdrawing from the International Criminal Court as it investigates this blood-soaked campaign.
By Simon Romero, Photographs by Adriana Loureiro Fernandez, Oct. 16, 2026
Simon Romero was based in Caracas when it was one of the world’s deadliest capitals. He returned this year to report on the changes taking place across Venezuela.
Visitors to a former safe house used by an armed gang in Cota 905, a neighborhood in Caracas.
Crime used to be so out of control in Caracas that Miguel Dao, a professional kidnapping negotiator, was hired to secure the freedom of three different captives in a single day. But it’s been three years since Mr. Dao has had a single kidnapping to negotiate.
The homicide rate in Caracas has plummeted in recent years, a remarkable shift for a city once known as the world’s murder capital. Street robberies are rare. Kidnappings, both extended high-ransom cases and “express” abductions lasting about a day, have all but disappeared.
Mr. Dao, a former director of Venezuela’s equivalent of the F.B.I., said he was a critic of the country’s authoritarian government. But he called the sharp decline in crime under its watch an “accomplishment by any measure.”
“I applaud them for this triumph,” said Mr. Dao, 77, who owns a law firm in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital. “I just don’t know if it will last.”
The devastating earthquakes in June underscored how fragile the newfound sense of peace might be when fears emerged that the city’s social fabric might fray. But crime has remained largely under control, and visitors in the aftermath were astounded by how safe Caracas felt.
The sense of safety in the capital, and in some other parts of Venezuela, ranks among Latin America’s biggest security turnarounds.
This shift is often overshadowed by changes in another authoritarian country, El Salvador, where President Nayib Bukele reduced crime largely through mass incarceration, inspiring imitators around the region.
Different factors — some the stuff of nightmares — drove Caracas’s security gains.
Bypassing the legal system, police squads executed thousands of poor young men, according to United Nations investigators, in a campaign targeting the demographic most likely to join criminal gangs. Mass migration also played a role, with gang members constituting a small percentage of the millions who fled Venezuela’s economic collapse.
I lived in Caracas when it was still one of the world’s deadliest cities. Talk of kidnappings dominated dinner parties. People stopped going at out night. Fatal assaults by smartphone thieves grew so common they were called “Death by Blackberry.”
Reporting from the city’s morgue, I wrote about how Venezuela had more than 16,000 murders in a single year, three times the number of civilian deaths from violence during the same period in Iraq, when the war there was raging.
Hugo Chávez, then Venezuela’s leader, responded by denouncing me on national television. My family and I went into hiding until he focused his ire on something else. When we left Venezuela in 2011, the ever-present fears over violent crime were woven into the fabric of daily life.
When I returned to Caracas this year, I was stunned. A city legendary for instilling fear in hardened travelers felt safer than other large Latin American cities, like Bogotá or São Paulo.
Multiple walking tours were reintroducing Caraqueños to their own city. In well-lit plazas, couples lounged on benches well after dusk. Nightlife was back with a vengeance in former no-go zones.
One of the strangest aspects of this new normal was how little regular people, and Venezuela’s leaders, talked about it. Instead, many in Caracas seemed focused on simply making ends meet. Unlike in El Salvador, the authorities weren’t constantly boasting about the reduction in crime.
Luiz Izquiel, a criminologist, attributed this ambivalence to the brutal methods the government used to bring crime rates down. (Venezuela’s government did not respond to several requests for comment.)
“It’s one thing for Bukele to boast of creating one of the world’s largest prisons,” Mr. Izquiel said, alluding to CECOT, the prison complex that is a symbol of El Salvador’s security policies.
“It would be quite another if Delcy were to celebrate killing thousands of Venezuelans in the name of peace,” he added, referring to Delcy Rodríguez, who replaced Nicolás Maduro as Venezuela’s leader this year.
Around a decade ago, Mr. Maduro started what he called Operations for the Liberation of the People, ushering in highly militarized police raids into low-income areas. The stated objective was to dismantle armed gangs.
But instead of reducing crime through the judicial system, the strategy consisted largely of extrajudicial executions. It primarily targeted young men, describing the justification for their killings under the bureaucratic label of “resistance to authority.”
Venezuelan security forces killed at least 6,856 people in just one 18-month period in 2018 and 2019, United Nations investigators found, then often manipulated crime scenes to make it look as if the victims had been resisting arrest.
The International Criminal Court responded with its own investigation. But in July, Venezuela said it would withdraw from the I.C.C., following the example of countries like the Philippines and Burundi, which also left while under the court’s scrutiny.
The Trump administration, which wields exceptional control over Venezuela’s government, has supported the move as it tries to dismantle the I.C.C., driven primarily by the court’s warrants against Israeli leaders and the potential for the I.C.C. to examine the U.S. military’s conduct.
Trump officials announced sweeping new sanctions on the I.C.C. this month after Norway awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to Navi Pillay, a lawyer who served as a judge on the court.
Legal experts say the I.C.C. retains jurisdiction over the atrocities in question even as Venezuela seeks to leave the court. Meanwhile, those who lost relatives in the police raids are still picking up the pieces.
Millanyela Fernández said Richard Jesús Briceño, her son, was 23 and had no criminal record when a police unit swept into their neighborhood of La Vega in 2021 and fatally shot him before her eyes.
“They forced my son to his knees and shot him right in the chest, through the heart,” said Ms. Fernández, 46, a maid. “I opened the window and screamed at him not to kneel down. But he followed their orders, and they killed him.”
Venezuela’s new leader Ms. Rodríguez made an unusual mention of the security gains in January, saying the country’s homicide rate had reached a low point of 3 per 100,000 people in 2025.
It’s undeniable that security has improved in Caracas and much of the rest of the country, but criminologists expressed skepticism over that figure, which would give Venezuela one of the lowest murder rates in the Americas.
Venezuela’s government did not provide data to support her assertion, and it’s been years since authorities published comprehensive crime statistics or even census data.
Along with the dearth of reliable information about criminal activity, the authorities have made it clear that anyone publicly criticizing security policies, or even asking about the current situation, could face consequences.
In one case last year, a journalist, Nakary Mena Ramos, was detained for months after interviewing people over whether street robberies were on the rise because of the return of deportees from the United States.
That case exposed another hypersensitive issue for authorities: mass migration’s role in easing unlawful activity, and the potential for crime to return as deportations rise.
Some in Caracas view the calm as a temporary reprieve relying on hard-line policies that are starting to ease. Ms. Rodríguez recently announced a plan to remove police checkpoints in cities around Venezuela, potentially eliminating a deterrent.
Even so, other factors have contributed to the decline in crime.
When Venezuela’s economy cratered, many people simply had less money and fewer valuables to steal. Street crime also lost some of its allure when Venezuela informally adopted the U.S. dollar and began introducing electronic payment systems. The lack of local currency in circulation reduced opportunities for muggings and express kidnappings.
After incursions into low-income areas, the authorities also raided prisons, which had become the operational headquarters for some gangs.
The result, some Caraqueños say, is a veneer of safety in which the street gang era has been replaced by an institutionalized system in which police and military forces wield control over both territory and extortion rackets.
On the ground in Cota 905, a labyrinthine squatter settlement, people are trying to adapt. Until 2021, the area functioned as a self-governed criminal stronghold where gang members stashed kidnap victims.
Then the authorities embarked on a multiday operation that killed or scattered the leadership of the gang controlling Cota 905. Security forces hunted down and killed the gang’s leader, Carlos Luis Revette, better known as El Koki.
Dozens of other innocent young men were killed in the police raids, residents said. The trauma over so much bloodshed lingers even as Cota 905 became much safer.
Now walking tours take visitors deep into the area. The day-trippers, mostly from moneyed parts of Caracas, dance salsa with residents before the outing ends in a half-destroyed watchtower that was El Koki’s base of operations.
Neyda Cuauro, who sells soft drinks to visitors, said she and her neighbors had no idea how long the new calm would last.
“It’s safer now, but look how we got here,” said Ms. Cuauro, 44, pointing at her front door, still stippled with the impacts of gunfire from the police raids. “No wonder our children run when they see the police.”
Isayen Herrera contributed reporting.
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4) Israeli Settlers Attack Palestinians and Washington Post Journalist in West Bank
In the latest surge of violence, settlers targeted Palestinians during the olive harvest, a cultural touchstone and economic lifeline in the Israeli-occupied area.
By Azam Ahmed, Oct. 16, 2026
Azam Ahmed reported from the village of Khirbet Abu Falah where he and a team from The New York Times witnessed the violence.
Heidi Levine, an American photographer working for The Washington Post, in the emergency room of a hospital in Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, on Friday. Ahmad Gharabli/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Dozens of masked Israeli settlers on Friday attacked a group of Palestinians while they were picking olives in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, seriously injuring several people, including a veteran Washington Post photographer covering the harvest.
Shortly after 8 a.m. during the start of the harvest, the settlers, dressed in black, descended on the village of Khirbet Abu Falah, a small hamlet of fewer than 6,000 people northeast of Jerusalem, according to residents and the mayor.
A team of New York Times journalists arrived on the scene around 9:30 a.m. and witnessed the attack. Armed with slingshots and batons, the settlers launched heavy stones at the Palestinians and set trees ablaze, sending dense columns of smoke into the sky and prompting residents to flee. At least one settler carried a firearm.
Panic ensued as the settlers pressed closer and some young residents squared off with them, trying to defend their neighbors.
Videos of the attack, which were verified by The Times, show that the photographer, Heidi Levine, 63, who was wearing body armor with large press tags, was trapped behind the settlers. They began to beat her with bats and sticks, kicking her as she was prostrate on the ground, according to the videos.
We saw Israeli military forces arrive amid the ongoing attacks and begin pressing residents back from the olive fields, which stretch across several acres along the outskirts of the village. They fired dozens of rounds of tear gas. The sound of live fire rang out.
Medics from neighboring communities raced into the swarm to rescue the injured as tear gas filled the area, where dozens of other journalists and activists had gathered.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said three Palestinians were also wounded. Ms. Levine was transported to a hospital in the area of Ramallah, a city in the West Bank. “While we are relieved that Heidi has received medical care and is safe, we are outraged by this unwarranted attack on a journalist doing her job,” The Post said in a statement.
Doctors have said Ms. Levine has a broken rib and lacerations on her legs, rear end and hip, as well as a serious cut on her left hand, according to Michael Milner, her son.
The Israeli military said soldiers and border police officers were dispatched to the area of Khirbet Abu Falah after receiving a report of a confrontation. It said that a female foreign journalist was injured, adding that all circumstances surrounding the incident would be examined.
“Attacks and violence against innocent civilians are grave and unacceptable acts that require a coordinated, multi-agency response,” the military said.
The office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said in a statement in English: “The facts surrounding the confrontation near Abu Falah, during which Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine was allegedly assaulted, remain unclear and are under investigation.”
Since the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, settlers have intensified their attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank, a campaign of violence that has emptied out entire villages and instilled fear in communities. In recent weeks, their assaults have focused on the olive harvest, a cultural touchstone in the West Bank, with hundreds of villages relying on it as both a communal rite and economic lifeline.
Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights group that monitors settler violence, said it has documented 82 violent incidents against harvesters, 135 instances of crop theft, and 39 of damage to or destruction of trees.
The village of Abu Falah has been subjected to several settler attacks in recent weeks, according to the mayor, Nazem Saleh Shuman. In one incident last week, he said, settlers burned three cars.
“This is our land, we were born here, our ancestors come from here, and we’ve lived here all our lives,” he said. “We believe in this place and we take care of it. We have nowhere else to go.”
In the chaos after Friday’s attack began, we saw several men race past a group of Israeli soldiers right near us. The soldiers then chased the men, including a member of a local council, Abed Aljaber Obied, who had a hand-sized red garden tool in his back pocket. Our photographer took a picture of him running away from the soldiers.
We raced after them and heard rounds being fired. Moments later, we saw the man lying wounded on his back, bleeding, the plastic garden tool beneath him.
The mayor identified the man as Mr. Obied, adding that he had been injured by the military.
The military in its statement said it acted to break up the confrontation upon arriving at the scene and “fired warning shots into the air and subsequently toward a suspect who ran toward them carrying a sharp object and posed a threat to them.” The military did not identify the subject.
People crowded around to check Mr. Obied’s condition. The soldiers pushed them away, while another placed a tourniquet around his leg. A third soldier screamed at the injured man to present his identification, and warned that he would not let the medics take him if he did not.
The military eventually let him go, and he was in stable condition.
After the ambulance left with Mr. Obied, the soldiers remained on the scene. An armored truck with a multi-barrel tear gas launcher attached to its roof fired dozens of rounds, leaving the crowd heaving.
“This place became unlivable,” the mayor, Mr. Shuman, said after the attacks. “This is a residential place, where the people live next to their fields, next to their land.”
“But it’s become a hell for us,” he added.
Adam Rasgon, Aaron Boxerman, James McManagan and Aric Toler contributed reporting.
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5) The 53-Year-Old in a Suit Who’s the Face of France’s Youth Protests
Bally Bagayoko, the mayor of a working-class suburb near Paris, has been a regular presence at student demonstrations, prompting both applause and condemnation.
By Catherine Porter, Oct. 17, 2026
Catherine Porter has interviewed Bally Bagayoko several times since April and observed him at a student rally in Paris.
Bally Bagayoko, the mayor of St.-Denis Pierrefitte-sur-Seine, France, standing between protesters and police officers this month during a student demonstration in Paris. Le Pictorium, via Alamy
During a student demonstration this month in eastern Paris, a row of riot police officers pushed their shields against a group of young male protesters.
Wedged between the boys and the police was a tall man, dressed in a gray suit and lavender tie. He spread his arms wide, shielding the boys, and screamed, “Stop!”
That was Bally Bagayoko, the mayor of St.-Denis Pierrefitte-sur-Seine, one of Paris’s most populous and diverse suburbs, known for a basilica and the national stadium, as well as for high rates of poverty and crime.
Mr. Bagayoko has become a household name in France since students started to blockade their schools roughly a month ago, calling for better conditions — protests that were amplified by rallies and unrest on Saturday across France.
Footage of Mr. Bagayoko at the protests has featured regularly in social media and television news programs, to both applause and condemnation. His supporters have called him Spiderman, a comic-book superhero who has become a symbol of youth protests across the world. Others, including right-wing politicians, have accused him of inciting violence and have called for him to be removed, particularly after he said that “violence at some point can be legitimate,” though “every time it can be avoided, that’s better.”
For Mr. Bagayoko, 53, the backlash is a sign that his political opponents see his far-left party as a threat in next year’s presidential election. His party leader, Jean-Luc Mélenchon — buoyed by votes from cities, like Mr. Bagayoko’s, with higher numbers of immigrants — could make the runoff.
“They believe a victory could come from the working-class neighborhoods embodied by this atypical mayor,” Mr. Bagayoko said in an interview, speaking about himself in the third person. “So they have to smear him. They have to disqualify him.”
Critics say Mr. Bagayoko inflames division and should take the blame for acts of vandalism by protesters at school blockades that he has attended. Valérie Pécresse, the center-right head of the regional authority that contains St.-Denis, suggested that he should pay about $110,000 to repair a damaged gate at a school in his city.
“Let the mayor take responsibility for his actions,” Ms. Pécresse said on social media.
The criticism of Mr. Bagayoko started the night of his unexpected election in March.
He was part of a wave of new mayors of color elected in the sprawling suburbs north of Paris. Mr. Bagayoko’s victory attracted particular attention because St.-Denis Pierrefitte-sur-Seine is home to roughly 150,000 citizens, more than any other area on the edge of Paris.
Hours after his win, Mr. Bagayoko was interviewed live on national television. A clip of the interview was truncated and misleadingly described by far-right politicians and journalists. He said he was now the mayor of “la ville des rois,” or “the city of kings” — France’s former kings and queens are buried in the city’s basilica. But the incorrect descriptions said he had called it “la ville des noirs,” or “the city of Black people.”
Then, on national television, the founder of a far-right media outlet, Frontières, falsely claimed that drug dealers had pushed for Mr. Bagayoko’s election. “Whose pockets are you in, Mr. Mayor?” the founder asked.
The following week, CNews, a television channel known for broadcasting far-right views, discussed Mr. Bagayoko’s election and his proposal to ban the police from using rubber bullets. A guest on the channel, noting that humans were “part of the great ape family,” compared the mayor with a “hunter-gatherer” leader “whose role is to establish authority.”
The next day, a host on the channel described Mr. Bagayoko’s intention of asserting control over the police as “very tribal.” The Paris prosecutor’s office opened an investigation into the channel for “public insult based on origin, ethnicity, nationality, race or religion,” an accusation that CNews rejected.
Throughout it all, Mr. Bagayoko remained calm and kept smiling. As a Black man, he said in an interview, “No one would have forgiven me for losing my temper on a TV set.”
The onslaught made clear to him, he added, that France has yet to truly accept that citizens of an African background, like Mr. Bagayoko, are full members of French society. Black French, often descended from immigrants from France’s former colonies, are underrepresented in positions of power.
“France still has a problem with its own children,” he said. “Because I am French.”
Unlike many Black leaders in France, Mr. Bagayoko has made the issue a focus. Since his election, he has organized two large rallies to denounce racism in France, and in August, he helped start an initiative to make the issue part of the debate in the coming presidential election.
Rokhaya Diallo, a journalist, filmmaker and prominent antiracism activist in France, said, “Tackling systemic racism in France is very taboo.”
“We don’t see many Black, proud politicians who are not afraid of naming racism,” she added.
Mr. Bagayoko is also facing two judicial investigations. The first concerns whether he, earlier in his career, was given a patronage job at the city’s transportation agency, an accusation he has denied.
The second concerns claims that he incited violence after his comments last month about the legitimacy of violence during protests.
Nonetheless, Mr. Bagayoko’s popularity — and social media following — has surged, with supporters comparing him with Zohran Mamdani, the left-wing mayor of New York.
“He’s our Mamdani. He represents the same hope for people,” said Maxime Beauchamps, 21, a communications student who joined those surrounding Mr. Bagayoko at a recent rally, thanking him and asking for selfies and hugs. The crowd at several points chanted: “Bally, président! Bally, président!”
Many said they saw him as a role model. “He shows us that just because we come from working-class neighborhoods or from ‘disadvantaged backgrounds,’ as they say in sociology, it doesn’t mean we can’t succeed,” said Aya Guetib, 17.
‘We Are Fully French’
Born in 1973, Mr. Bagayoko grew up in a housing project in St.-Denis. He was the second of eight children to parents from Mali, which was ruled by France for much of the 20th century.
Since their father worked long hours as a mechanic, Mr. Bagayoko and his older brother helped their mother raise their siblings in their crowded apartment, according to a younger brother, Yaya Bagayoko. He would go over his siblings’ homework and attend their school meetings, and he registered them for basketball camp in the summer so they were not hanging out in their neighborhood and getting into trouble, said Yaya, 50.
“Bally has always been the rock in the family,” Yaya added. “He can be super nice, but with us, he was pretty strict.”
Mr. Bagayoko earned a bachelor’s degree in geopolitics and a master’s in science and technology. His thesis, he said, was on the mind-set of people living in working-class suburbs like St.-Denis.
He played semiprofessional basketball, and coached children in the sport in St.-Denis.
In 2001, the Communist mayor of St.-Denis, Patrick Braouezec, recruited Mr. Bagayoko to his electoral slate. Mr. Bagayoko was elected to the City Council, swiftly becoming deputy mayor and remaining a fixture in city politics ever since.
Ms. Diallo, the filmmaker, said: “There is no way you can do anything in St.-Denis without knowing him. He’s part of the local fabric.”
In 2017, Mr. Bagayoko joined the far-left France Unbowed, attracted, he said, by the party’s criticism of police violence, racism and Islamophobia.
After his election to the mayoralty in March, he made youth-focused policy a key part of his mandate.
The city expanded a free school lunch program, offered free school supplies to elementary-school students and began a free bike program for 15-year-olds to make commuting to distant high schools easier.
After the protests started last month, he was among the first politicians to join student blockades, including at his own alma mater in St.-Denis.
While others criticize the students for vandalizing their schools, Mr. Bagayoko’s position is that the real violence is performed by the state.
It is a form of systemic violence, he contends, to offer a subpar education — missing teachers, overcrowded classrooms, decaying infrastructure — to children from already underprivileged backgrounds. That, he says, breaks a fundamental promise of the French Republic of equality for all citizens.
“We grew up with an ideal, which is to say that the Republic must be fair to everyone, and it isn’t,” he said.
He also accuses the police of using disproportionate force against student protesters, saying officers were more aggressive against those from working-class neighborhoods.
“There is a contempt directed at these kids from working-class neighborhoods,” he said.
Mr. Bagayoko expresses ambivalence about his role within the French state.
In his office, he has kept a portrait of President Emmanuel Macron on the floor, instead of on the wall, as it is in most public offices in France. He said this summer that booing the national anthem was understandable, when “France dishonors itself through its international actions,” including by not going far enough in its criticism of Israel. And when he wades into protests with students, he makes a point to not wear his three-colored sash — the symbol of elected officials in France. It makes him feel separated from people, he said.
But he has been clear to hold a French national flag when marching in protests, surrounded by young people who, like him, are the children of immigrants.
The message he is sending, he says, is, “We are fully French, regardless of what some people might think.”
Giulia Imbert contributed reporting
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6) He Was a Top Voice on Palestinian Liberation. Filmgoers Are Listening.
A new documentary on Edward Said, the Palestinian American literary critic and activist who taught for decades at Columbia, brought New Yorkers together in a fraught political moment.
By Sara Aridi, Oct. 17, 2026
Maiken Baird, left, directed the documentary on Edward Said, and Sarah Mowaswes, center, was one of its producers. Mr. Said’s daughter, Najla Said, right, was also part of the filmmaking process. Dave Sanders for The New York Times
Outside the crowded entrance of the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center, Gisella Castagna sat at the front of a line.
Ms. Castagna, a Barnard student, had arrived about four hours early to snag a ticket last month for a sold-out 8:45 p.m. screening of “Edward Said: Between Worlds,” a documentary about the Palestinian American scholar and activist.
Mr. Said died in 2003, before Ms. Castagna, 21, was born. But his ideas on Palestinian self-determination have resonated with her recently, particularly as she helped organize the pro-Palestinian encampments at Columbia University.
“A lot of us do point to his words,” she said.
After the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks in Israel that killed about 1,200 people and the war in Gaza that killed roughly 68,000 Palestinians thrust the Israeli-Palestinian conflict back into the spotlight, Mr. Said’s words — which he shared through countless lectures, columns and books — have found new life.
The film, which made its U.S. premiere at the New York Film Festival, comes after a cease-fire last year between Israel and Hamas, but tensions have not subsided. Israeli strikes have continued; public figures have been criticized for taking sides, or not; and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel is under pressure ahead of an election this month.
The screening was a homecoming of sorts: Mr. Said was a fixture of the Upper West Side as a professor at Columbia University for nearly 40 years.
In the documentary, Mr. Said narrates his life story through video and audio clips pieced together by the Danish American filmmaker Maiken Baird and Sarah Mowaswes, one of its producers.
“Between Worlds” opens with grainy 8-millimeter home videos from 1930s Jerusalem. Viewers see archival news clips about the creation of Israel and the displacement of Palestinians, and Mr. Said moving from Cairo to Massachusetts and eventually New York. After the Arab-Israeli War of 1967, the film shows Mr. Said becoming politically active, writing about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and working alongside organizers and leaders.
Ms. Baird, 60, was inspired to make the film after Oct. 7, 2023. “I just couldn’t help but think back on Edward Said, how much I had learned from him,” she said. Growing up, she was told about the Nazi occupation of Denmark and the creation of a Jewish state, but became curious about what had happened to the “native inhabitants of the land,” she said. Years later, she read Mr. Said’s 1979 book “The Question of Palestine.”
“Then it all came together,” she said.
Ms. Baird approached Mr. Said’s widow, Mariam C. Said, and daughter, Najla Said, who became a consulting producer on the movie. “It seemed like the perfect way to bring him back at the right time,” his daughter said.
Ms. Baird, whose father was friends with Mr. Said, grew up overhearing their conversations, which partly influenced her to study at Columbia in the 1980s, where she said Mr. Said was “the most popular professor.”
Off campus, things were more complicated. In 1989, an essay he wrote was criticized as promoting terrorism. In 2001, he faced backlash after he was photographed throwing stones toward an Israeli guardhouse in Lebanon. His office had been vandalized; death threats were common. One clip in “Between Worlds” shows that he faced opposition from Arabs who thought he was too moderate.
Ms. Mowaswes, 32, said in an email that “the sheer fact that he is a Palestinian born in Palestine is considered ‘controversial’ to some.”
Making an independent film is never easy, but “the issue with getting this kind of narrative funded in America is that you’re not going to get any institutional support,” Ms. Baird said. Most of the funding, she added, came from people who hoped to start nuanced dialogue about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
On the night of the premiere, the theater was packed with some of Mr. Said’s old friends and colleagues. The Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha, who founded the now destroyed Edward Said Public Library in Gaza, walked out holding back tears. He said it was “enraging” to see that the issues Mr. Said addressed “continue to unfold today.”
Victor Kovner, who met Mr. Said in the 1980s, said, “It was thrilling to see him.”
Mr. Kovner, 89, is a founder of J Street, an organization that supports Israel and “the security and freedom of both Israelis and Palestinians,” according to its website. Though he and his wife, Sarah Kovner, are in favor of a two-state solution, that did not get in the way of their friendship with Mr. Said.
“You could talk about it with him,” Ms. Kovner said. “You could disagree but not in a way that was disagreeable.”
Reflecting on the war in Gaza, Mr. Said’s widow said her husband “would have been appalled, because all of his writings are about humanism.” Yet others at the screening said he would have been heartened to see growing support for Palestinians.
Ms. Baird is hopeful that more audiences will be drawn to Mr. Said’s story.
“Even if they don’t like what they’re hearing,” she said, “they have to acknowledge his humanity and his truth.”
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7) Corporate Tax Revenue Falls Even as Profits Soar Under Trump
The annual decline was about $70 billion. Companies are writing off billions in A.I. investments, taking advantage of tax cuts that President Trump signed into law.
By Andrew Duehren, Reporting from Washington, Oct. 17, 2026
A law signed by President Trump last year lets companies claim larger deductions in the year they make new investments. Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times
Corporate tax revenue has fallen precipitously under President Trump even as companies’ profits have surged to record highs, a divergence that began after Republicans approved tax breaks allowing firms to write off the cost of their investments more quickly.
Revenue from the corporate income tax, which applies to the profits made by the largest and most sophisticated companies in the United States, fell roughly 15 percent, to $381 billion, in the fiscal year that ended on Oct. 1, according to data released on Friday by the Treasury Department. The roughly $70 billion drop followed a similar decline the previous year. Corporate tax revenue is down more than quarter from 2024, the last full fiscal year of the Biden administration.
Corporate income tax revenue
Behind the decrease are the tax cuts that Republicans passed and Mr. Trump signed last year. That law lets companies claim larger deductions in the year they make new investments, a change made as many of the country’s largest technology firms began pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into artificial intelligence projects, including data centers.
The cuts have reduced corporate tax revenue even more sharply than analysts projected. Company leaders, locked in a frenzied race to build more powerful A.I. models, have said they plan to keep increasing their investment spending, potentially depressing corporate tax revenue for years to come. The additional investment may also supercharge firms’ profits, enlarging the gap with the taxes collected from those earnings.
“It’s very unusual to see a divergence of that magnitude, but it’s not surprising in the sense that we know what’s causing it,” said Peter Berezin, the chief economist at BCA Research, an investment research firm. “A.I. spending is projected to increase for the next few years, so these companies will be able to write off even more of their spending. If they didn’t have huge profits, that would be one thing. But they do.”
The fall in corporate tax revenue is just part of the deterioration in the nation’s fiscal situation. The difference between government spending and revenue neared $2 trillion last fiscal year, as military spending increased and higher interest rates raised the cost of payments on the federal debt. The debt held by the public, more than $32 trillion, is now nearly equivalent to the annual output of the economy, a level not seen since the years after World War II.
The deficit is growing even though the economy remains relatively strong and unemployment low. Corporate profits have only swelled in recent years, powering stock indexes to record highs, a development that might be expected to increase corporate tax receipts. Revenue from the individual income tax grew last fiscal year.
But in their tax cut, Republicans made a series of changes allowing companies to reduce the amount of earnings subject to tax. They changed the timeline over which companies can write off the cost of new investments, as well as research and development costs. Rather than deducting the cost of new computing equipment over several years, for example, companies can now write it off immediately.
Businesses aggressively lobbied Congress for this seemingly minor accounting tweak because it improves the economics of new investment. Academic researchers found that the tax break, when previously in place, did help generate additional investment, which can help power the economy overall.
That was before the competition to dominate A.I. technology unleashed hundreds of billions of dollars in spending on chips, data centers and the electrical systems that power them. Major companies like Microsoft, Google and Meta appear so committed to sharply increasing their investment that the tax break may not be having much of an effect on their plans.
“These companies’ leaders aren’t really acting as if they’re feeling constrained in their investment behavior right now,” said Matt Gardner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a liberal think tank. “It seems pretty uncontroversial to say that we are rewarding these companies for what they were going to do anyway.”
The tax break applies to investment spending broadly, not just to data centers and other A.I.-related expenses. While the tax change could encourage additional business investment in other sectors, the A.I. rush is so significant that it may be crowding out other capital expenditures. Financing the build-out of A.I. infrastructure has helped push up interest rates, making borrowing for new investments more expensive across the economy, while the prices of other business inputs have also increased.
“It looks like we are at a point for the macroeconomy of having about as much investment as we can,” said Gabriel Chodorow-Reich, a Harvard economics professor who co-wrote a paper finding that the tax break helped increase investment. “In that circumstance, increasing the marginal incentive to do investment may end up ultimately increasing the price of investment, rather than producing more total investment.”
On the campaign trail, some Democrats have started to attack Republicans for voting to approve the tax break, painting it as subsidy exclusively for data centers. Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, has proposed excluding components for data centers from the investment incentive.
That has worried proponents of the tax incentive, which has historically enjoyed a measure of bipartisan support. They argue that the accelerated write-offs will, over a longer time frame, still spur additional business investment. The drop in tax revenue should be temporary, they said, as companies exhaust the deductions they can claim on their investments.
“To the extent that we think this investment is occurring because there are very large profits to be had, when those profits are had, they will be taxed, and that’s how we should want the tax system to work,” said Erica York, a senior economist at the Tax Foundation, a think tank that generally supports lower taxes.
But the government’s payday may be years away if the A.I. investment cycle continues unabated. One economist, Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh at Columbia University, has estimated that total spending on A.I. infrastructure between 2025 and 2032 will exceed $10 trillion.
Then there is the question of whether the A.I. investments will actually become profitable.
“If we realize data processing is a commodity, and we can have open-source models that charge way, way less, then there’s a big bubble and the whole thing bursts,” said Jeff Hoopes, a professor of accounting at the University of North Carolina.
“You end up not generating as much revenue,” he said, adding that the revenue would not have materialized in that case under the previous tax approach, either.
The decline in corporate tax revenue is an early indicator of how A.I. could reshape the tax system. As companies and investors profit off A.I., those earnings would, under current law, face lower tax rates than the wages paid to workers, who may also be displaced by the technology. That could, in the long run, curb tax revenue overall.
On Wall Street, excitement about A.I. is tempered by concerns about the deficit. Beyond the tax cuts passed through Congress, the Trump administration has taken several regulatory steps that could reduce tax payments for companies, including by weakening a measure aimed at limiting corporate tax avoidance.
David Kelly, the chief global strategist at J.P. Morgan Asset Management, said the economy didn’t need the business tax breaks that Republicans passed last year.
“If you’ve just drunk five cups of coffee, a sixth cup of coffee isn’t going to do you much good,” he said. “You’re stimulating something that doesn’t need stimulating.”
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