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Netanyahu pleads his case at the U.N. to an audience of mostly empty seats
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pleaded his country's case to the world at the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday before an audience of mostly empty seats.Allegations of Israeli genocide in Gaza are not only false but "the biggest lie of the century," Netanyahu said in a defiant speech that asserted his nation's right to wage war against Iran — and was not heard by scores of delegates who trooped out before he started speaking.Netanyahu, his voice rising in emphasis, said attacking Iran "was one of the easiest decisions I've ever had to make" and denounced as "moral cowards" a mass of delegates who walked out of the U.N. General Assembly when he took the podium to speak."In defending itself, Israel is also also defending many of the countries whose delegates just left this hall," Netanyahu said. "In fact, I want you to know that many of their leaders even thank us privately for taking out Iran's nukes."When Netanyahu walked to the rostrum, a mix of cheers, boos and mass walkouts erupted. Scores of delegates marched out and a majority of visible seats sat empty afterward. "Order in the hall, please," General Assembly President Khalilur Rahman said repeatedly."If there are any other moral cowards who have not yet left the hall, please do so now," Netanyahu said. His speech came after a week filled with speeches by world leaders accusing Israel of genocide and war crimes in Gaza.Netanyahu told world leaders Thursday that attacking Iran "was one of the easiest decisions I've ever had to make" and denounced as "moral cowards" a mass of delegates who walked out of the U.N. General Assembly when he took the podium to speak."In defending itself, Israel is also also defending many of the countries whose delegates just left this hall,” Netanyahu said. “In fact, I want you to know that many of their leaders even thank us privately for taking out Iran's nukes."When Netanyahu walked to the rostrum, a mix of cheers, boos and mass walkouts erupted. Scores of delegates trooped out and a majority of seats sat empty afterward. "Order in the hall, please," General Assembly President Khalilur Rahman said repeatedly. "If there are any other moral cowards who have not yet left the hall, please do so now," Netanyahu said. The Palestinian Mission to the U.N. said in a message to many of the 193 U.N. member nations to bring as many staff as possible to the assembly hall and "collectively walk out of the assembly" once the Israeli prime minister is announced."This will send a clear message to Netanyahu and his government that no one is willing to aid, abet, or be complicit in its genocide and war crimes and illegal occupation, which all peace-loving states and peoples demand must come to an end," the message said.Israel rejects allegations that it committed genocide and war crimes and is illegally occupying Palestinian territory. All Israeli settlements are illegal under international law, but the Israeli government insists they are legal.Netanyahu, who is prone to using visual aids during his General Assembly speeches, at one point held up a pager while reminding the audience of Sept. 17, 2024, when Israel remotely detonatedthousands of pagers that had been distributed to the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon. The pager attack wounded more than 3,000 people and killed 12, including two children.He reminded the assembly of the scale of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack in which Hamas militants killed about 1,200 people. "This is equal to 40,000 innocent Americans slaughtered in less than 24 hours," he said, or 16 times the death count on the 9/11 attacks that left nearly 3,000 people dead in New York.Netanyahu thanked U.S. President Donald Trump for taking decisive action against Iran, and he insisted Israel would prevail: "We will continue to win because we have no other choice."Netanyahu followed the Palestinian president’s remote speechPalestinian President Mahmoud Abbas also addressed the U.N. General Assembly earlier Thursday, delivering prerecorded remarks from his office in Ramallah after the United States denied him and other top Palestinian officials visas to attend the gathering for the second year in a row.The 90-year-old leader’s popularity at home and relevance abroad have both waned. But in his remarks, Abbas made clear he did not intend to quietly accept being sidelined."We will not leave our homeland. We will not accept displacement. And we will not allow anyone to decide our future on our behalf," Abbas said.Though world leaders have repeatedly invoked the plight of Palestinians in speeches throughout the week, Abbas urged the international community to take more tangible action against Israel.“How long will some countries continue to remain silent about Israel, or continue supplying it with weapons that it uses against our people? The world has witnessed the enormous cost in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank,” Abbas said. "What, then, is the international community waiting for before it acts to protect the Palestinian people?"Netanyahu is in the city of a mayor who wants him arrestedIn past years, Netanyahu has used his General Assembly speech to both denounce the United Nations as biased and make Israel’s case to world leaders. His address — scheduled for prime time in Israel — is the cornerstone of an abbreviated trip to the United States unfolding under the shadow of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani calling him a "war criminal" and pushing for his arrest.Mamdani has acknowledged that New York does not have the authority to execute an International Criminal Court warrant but urged federal authorities to do so.Israel has grown increasingly isolated throughout the war in Gaza. The war began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants attacked Israel, killing around 1,200 people and kidnapping 251. At least 73,922 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s subsequent offensive, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, part of the Hamas-run government whose numbers are generally considered reliable by the international community.A ceasefire agreed to by Israel and Hamas last October halted the heaviest of the fighting and led to the release of the remaining hostages yet further steps have since stalled. Israel maintains control of most of Gaza and continues to carry out airstrikes on Palestinians near military-held zones. Hamas not disarmed or relinquished power and there has been no progress toward reconstruction in the mostly destroyed territory.As Abbas spoke, the Israeli delegations’ seats in the General Assembly hall sat vacant. "The Palestinian people face one of the most dangerous periods in their history," Abbas said.In Gaza, he said, "Neighborhoods, cities, refugee camps, institutions, schools, universities, hospitals, mosques, and churches have been destroyed. Every foundation of life, and the future of entire generations, has been targeted."Though negotiations have not taken place for years, Abbas urged the international community to push for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and said Palestinians could live "alongside the state of Israel."Netanyahu has said no Palestinian state will be established while he is Israel's leader and has argued that the Palestinian Authority is not a partner for peace.Netanyahu dismissed incidents of Israeli settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank as a "handful of young juvenile delinquents" throwing stones, chopping down olive trees and lighting fires."I can't stand that. I won't stand for vigilantism," the prime minister said before accusing foreign leaders and the international press of distorting the scale of violence in the West Bank.Netanyahu's government is dominated by settlers and their allies, including the Cabinet minister who oversees the police. There have been few arrests of settlers involved in attacks on Palestinians.Abbas’ support has waned over the yearsSince 2005, Abbas has led the Palestinian Authority, which is the internationally recognized representative of the Palestinian people. But his support among Palestinians has withered during years of corruption and anger toward the authority’s security cooperation with Israel.Under Abbas, Palestine has been recognized as a country by a majority of U.N. member states. But on the ground in the West Bank, the mostly symbolic moves have not affected Israel's decades long military occupation. Throughout the war in Gaza, Abbas and the authority have been largely sidelined from negotiations over the territory’s postwar future.The international community has instead backed Trump's plan for a group of apolitical administrators to govern Gaza under the Board of Peace. Yet Abbas said the territory could not remain politically separate from the West Bank and east Jerusalem for the long term.He said the Gaza Strip, east Jerusalem and the West Bank needed to be governed by "one state, one government, one law and one legitimate entity authorized to bear arms."Israel captured the West Bank and east Jerusalem in the 1967 war, and the Palestinians want both as part of their future state. The Palestinians and much of the international community view the settlements as illegal and as an obstacle to creating a viable, contiguous Palestinian state.Associated Press reporters Jennifer Peltz and Edith M. Lederer contributed.
CNN, MS NOW and Politico allowed back at the White House after judge blocked Trump's ban
CNN, MS NOW and Politico journalists were allowed back at the White House Thursday, nearly a week after President Donald Trump banned them. The reinstatement came after a judged ruled that the administration had to temporarily restore their access.White House reporters Betsy Klein of CNN and Laura Barrón-López of MS NOW immediately began reporting live on the air after they were allowed onto the White House grounds Thursday afternoon. Both media outlets pointed to the on-air reporting when asked for comment. Politico wrote shortly afterward that one of its reporters was granted access, too.The media outlets scored a victory overnight when U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly reinstated the outlets' access for 14 days while their legal challenge proceeded.Yet on Thursday morning, reporters from the banned outlets were still prohibited from entering the White House. Shortly after, Kelly then ordered the administration to respond in writing by 12:30 p.m. after journalists from the three media outlets were turned away. After receiving Stopperich's filing, the judge denied the news organizations' request for an emergency hearing.It was not clear why the journalists were initially still barred from entering. The White House did not immediately respond to NBC News' request for comment.In the administration's court filing shortly before the deadline, White House press operations director Micah Stopperich presented a timeline the administration's activity to reinstate the journalists' access.Stopperich said her team was told at shortly after 7 a.m. to restore access "to affected reporters by turning on their hard badges," and soon after, they began to do so. Secret Service indicated shortly after 9 a.m. that the journalists' passes were "back on," and they were dropped off at the entry gate for pick up within the hour.Trump announced his ban on the three news outlets in a post on Truth Social on Friday, saying it was "a result of their constant 'reporting' FAKE NEWS!"Kelly wrote in his temporary restraining order that Trump's directive was most likely unconstitutional. He wrote that the plaintiffs are likely to succeed in their lawsuit against the administration, at least on the grounds that their credentials were revoked last week without due process.Trump, the judge wrote, did not dispute that the outlets "did not receive notice and an opportunity to be heard before their hard passes were revoked.""This is a strong ruling vindicating freedom of the press, due process and the rule of law. We greatly appreciate the court's swift action," the attorney representing the news outlets, Ted Boutrous, said in a statement.Thursday's order rejected the White House's argument that banning the outlets was motivated by national security concerns, saying the administration offered little proof to back up the claim."Certainly, that is not what President Trump said when he announced that he was 'banning' Plaintiffs from the White House — instead, he focused on the alleged lack of truthfulness and negativity of Plaintiffs' reporting," Kelly wrote.Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office a short time after the post, Trump referred to his directive as "the ban on the free press.""I don't want them in my office. I don't want them here," he said.He said the policy was not in response to a particular report, but because of "cumulative stories over the last few years.""They purposely write negative news. And they do that because they want to try and diminish the Republicans and a Republican administration," he said. "If they could straighten themselves out, I'd love it," he added.The outlets said in their suit challenging the ban that Trump's remarks show the policy was motivated by "retaliation" and "intended to cow" the outlets "into changing their reporting and threaten other journalists lest they suffer the same fate."In letters to the news outlets on Tuesday, the White House accused them of publishing "sensitive security information, and misinformation," which "undermines the President's ability to safeguard the national security."The White House cited specific articles about munitions stockpiles impacted by the Iran war and sanctions against Russia, as well as one about a request for $1 billion in funding for East Wing renovations that the president had said would be fully funded by donors, and another about negative "vibes" at the recent Republican midterm convention. Trump administration Sep 23 Defending Trump media ban, DOJ cites national security and says White House access is a 'privilege' Trump administration Sep 19 MS NOW, CNN, Politico say their journalists were denied access to White House after Trump ban Addressing the "extraordinary" standard that the government argued gave it the right to revoke the outlets' passes without prior notice, Kelly wrote that the sorts of stories cited in the letters "are routine," and stretch back months or even years.NBC News previously reported that Trump's Friday announcement caught a number of high-level White House aides off guard. A senior White House official defended the move to NBC News earlier this week, saying: "Nobody close to the President was surprised at his action to hold the fake news accountable."The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the White House Correspondents' Association and a group of 49 news and media organizations — including NBCUniversal Media LLC, the parent company of NBC News — filed a legal brief in the case Wednesday backing the three outlets.The filing said the president's stated reasons for the ban "are transparently viewpoint discriminatory" and "inconsistent with the First Amendment.""The ban at issue in this case does exactly what longstanding D.C. Circuit precedent" has said the government can't do, the filing said — "prohibited three news organizations from access to the entirety of the White House and its grounds due to the content of their reporting."It also clashes, the filing said, "with bedrock Supreme Court precedent, which recognizes that 'even though a person has no 'right' to a valuable governmental benefit,' the government 'may not deny a benefit to a person on a basis that infringes his constitutionally protected interests — especially, his interest in freedom of speech.'"
First Thing: Trump welcomes Xi to Washington amid tensions over trade, AI and Taiwan
State visit takes place at same time as UN general assembly, which Chinese leader has avoided. Plus, meet the people who are real-life Pokémon 'professors'Don't already get First Thing in your inbox? Sign up hereGood morning. Donald Trump has welcomed Xi Jinping to the US, greeting the Chinese leader on the asphalt at Joint Base Andrews at the start of his state visit. Xi's trip coincides with the UN general assembly in New York, but he is not attending the gathering.The pageantry will continue with a formal welcome on the South Lawn of the White House, private tea with the US president and first lady, and a tour of the National Archives, among other special events. The White House also invited major tech leaders to a state dinner being held for Xi.What will the two leaders discuss? Amy Hawkins notes in this explainer that topics are likely to include the development of AI technology, frosty trade relations and Taiwan.What developments have there been in US-China relations? The US treasury secretary, Scott ⁠Bessent, announced that the US ⁠and ​China agreed on Wednesday to extend the so-called Busan ⁠agreement, a temporary trade truce between the world's two biggest economies.Who else has been invited to the US? The US has invited Vladimir Putin to take part in the G20 meeting scheduled to take place in Miami in December, in what would be the Russian leader's first attendance at such a summit since he launched his invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said: "We hope that's an invitation he'll accept."Why is Israel facing a water supply crisis? Israel is facing weeks of water shortages after an exceptional algae bloom crippled much of its desalination capacity, in a crisis scientists say was triggered when Israeli attacks destroyed much of Gaza's wastewater infrastructure, causing a huge discharge of untreated sewage. Continue reading...
IRS considers adding immigration status question to Form 1040
Every year, millions of taxpayers file a Form 1040, the most commonly used federal tax document that has long been viewed as a routine calculation of income, deductions and credits. But next year's form could include a new question on citizenship and work-authorization, marking the first time ever that an individual’s tax return asks filers to affirm their immigration status.Immigrants, including undocumented immigrants, are required to file taxes and use the same IRS forms that U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents file. Paying taxes has long ​been seen as a key criteria for undocumented immigrants to obtain legal status.The IRS published a draft of the 2026 Form 1040 that includes a question on status asking whether the filer — or their spouse, if filing jointly — are U.S. citizens, U.S. nationals, or are legally authorized to work in the country. The yes-or-no question appears below the filing status section, in a box titled "other information."The draft was released for public review and has not been finalized. Legal experts warn that if the rule is implemented, if could deter undocumented immigrants from filing, which not only impacts their ability to obtain legal status but also has fiscal consequences for the U.S. Treasury. It remains unclear how the information would be used, and the IRS did not respond to requests for comment.It comes as the Trump administration ramps up its sprawling immigration enforcement effort. Last year, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, signed a controversial information-sharing agreement which allows U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to submit names and addresses of immigrants inside the U.S. illegally to the IRS for cross-verification against tax records. The arrangement has been the subject of multiple lawsuits and led to the resignation of the IRS’s acting commissioner. Trump Administration Sep 11 Trump administration proposes census overhaul to exclude some immigrants and race data Immigration Aug 6 Trump signs immigration actions to limit birthright citizenship, curb 'birth tourism' What could the IRS do with this information?Joseph Malouf, a Maryland attorney and legal contributor for Telemundo, said the proposed question could be tied to determining which taxpayers qualify for certain tax credits.In August, the Treasury Department and the IRS proposed regulations aimed at limiting eligibility for certain federal tax credits, including the Child Tax Credit, the American Opportunity Tax Credit, the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Adoption Tax Credit."That's the excuse they're using to try to implement those changes, saying, 'Look, the reality is we can't calculate correctly without the information,'" Malouf said in an interview with “Noticias Telemundo Ahora.”However, federal ​law already prohibits undocumented immigrants from many entitlement programs, including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other benefits covering ​education funds and housing. In fact, research from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy shows that undocumented immigrants pay billions in annual taxes — including federal, state, local and sales taxes — that funds those programs despite being barred or having limited access to those public benefits.The proposed question also raises concerns about privacy and about how the information collected by the IRS could be shared with other government agencies.Malouf said he believes the proposal could face legal challenges based on federal laws governing the confidentiality and sharing of taxpayer information.Section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code generally protects the confidentiality of tax returns and taxpayer information, though it sets out some exceptions that allow those data to be shared under certain circumstances.Earlier this year, a federal judge determined that the IRS had broken the law "approximately 42,695 times" by illegally disclosing information from thousands of taxpayers to ICE as part of the two agencies’ information sharing agreement.Malouf also raised a concern related to the Fifth Amendment, questioning whether the form could force some people to provide information that could later be used against them."The government has described people who are undocumented as people who have committed a crime: being in the country illegally. The first question I ask myself is how this form is consistent with the Fifth Amendment in terms of you admitting that you're undocumented in the country; that would be admitting to a crime," Malouf said.The changes to the form could also scare some immigrants and discourage them from filing their returns, Malouf said."This is going to make a lot of people not file their tax forms out of fear they'll be deported if they do," he said.NBC’s Danielle Abreu contributed to this report.
What to expect in Southern California and Mexico from powerful Hurricane Polo
Hurricane Polo delivered heavy rain on Mexico’s Pacific coast Thursday as the powerful system appeared on a track to deliver indirect impacts to Southern California this weekend. Polo has changed between Category 4 and 5 strength and was expected to skirt Mexico’s coast over the next few days. Rain and strong winds had already started to pummel the coast with waves crashing onto the normally pristine beaches.Polo briefly dropped to Category 4 status, but was at Category 5 early Thursday with winds at 160 mph. The hurricane was moving northwest at about 7 mph, a key factor in what kind of rain and wind damage it may produce in Mexico. Long Beach 16 hours ago Long Beach declares local emergency as Hurricane Polo threatens already damaged Peninsula Weather Aug 17 This El Niño could be one of the strongest. What that means for SoCal and what it doesn't “It’s picking up a little more movement,” said NBCLA meteorologist Belen De Leon. “Yesterday, it was stationary, but it’s still moving very slow. The reason why that’s important is because this is a major hurricane that has very strong winds. It is just dumping rain at a very slow pace. It is not moving quickly, which is what we wish.”In a 9 a.m. Thursday update, the National Weather Service said Polo remains a powerful hurricane, but turning more westward. “A mid-level ridge building westward from northern Mexico should steer the hurricane generally westward for the next 36 hours or so,” according to the National Weather Service statement. “After that, a mid-latitude trough moving eastward across the northeastern Pacific should prevent the ridge from building farther west, with Polo likely to recurve northward and northeastward around the western end of the ridge.”By the weekend, the storm appears likely to shift north and maintain hurricane status to start next week. “That’s a Category 3 impacting our friends in Baja California and Cabo San Lucas,” De Leon said. “So, this is not directly headed our way, but indirectly we’re expecting tropical swells from this hurricane and Hurricane Odalys.Wind speed probabilities for Hurricane Polo. Hurricane Odalys, which has had winds of 90 mph, also was expected to indirectly impact Southern California. Odalys was centered about 1,110 miles west-southwest of the southern tip of Mexico's Baja California peninsula.In Long Beach, the city was bracing for more high surf along the peninsula that was slammed earlier by what w had been Hurricane Marie. High tides influenced by Marie also caused damaged along the coast in Dana Point and other seaside communities.Southern California will see the main impacts from Polo Sunday through Tuesday with high surf and dangerous rip currents. Morning high tides could reach 7 feet.More coastal erosion and flooding are possible in Southern California.Polo is not expected to reach Southern California, but areas of greatest concern for coastal flooding include the Peninsula and Belmont Shore in Long Beach, Avalon and Malibu. Coastal flood advisories could be issued early next week. Impacts largely depend on Polo’s track and intensity.Stray showers are possible. Warm weather is expected through Saturday with high temperatures 5 to 10 degrees above normal. A cooling trend is expected to begin Sunday as a trough moves onshore over Northern California.Winds arrival times for Hurricane Polo.Farther west in the Pacific, Tropical Storm Nolo was churning about 285 miles south of South Point, Hawaii. It was forecast to become a hurricane by Thursday night and was expected to approach the Big Island as early as Friday. A hurricane watch was issued for Hawaii County, which covers the entire island.The storm could drop up to 20 inches of rain on Maui and up to 35 inches on the Big Island.The series of hurricanes come as the weather phenomenon El Nino prompts concerns. As El Nino traditionally dampens the Atlantic hurricane season, it tends to rev up tropical cyclone activity in the Pacific, with moist air and little wind shear.Moonlight illuminated Hurricane #Polo yesterday as it intensified over the eastern Pacific. NOAA's #NOAA21 and NOAA/NASA's #SuomiNPP satellites captured this nighttime view of Polo's cloud structure on September 22, 2026.By September 23, Polo was Category 4 with 150 mph… pic.twitter.com/aU50flVjNy— NOAA Satellites (@NOAASatellites) September 23, 2026 Polo could bring flooding and mudslides to Mexico's Pacific coastMexican authorities were busy preparing shelters and clearing people from beaches, while coastal residents stacked sandbags in front of their businesses in fear that they might get swept away.Much of the fear from locals came from hurricanes in past years that devastated cities along the Pacific coast, namely Hurricane Otis in 2023 which unexpectedly plunged Acapulco into turmoil for weeks."People here are scared because we already went through this with Otis. So many people said it wouldn't happen and then it did. After that, you're left on edge," said Acapulco bartender Gonzalo Ramírez.Guerrero state was particularly at risk of life-threatening flooding and mudslides, the hurricane center said.Polo was swirling about 195 miles west-southwest of Zihuatanejo early Thursday and was moving northwest at 9 mph. A turn west-northwest was forecast for later in the day, taking it further out to sea, before turning northwest Saturday.The storm had maximum sustained winds of 155 mph, and was expected to remain a major hurricane for the next few days. Hurricane-force winds extended up to 40 miles from the eye and tropical-storm-force winds extended up to 125 miles.In recent days, there had been speculation about whether Polo would touch ground. On Thursday morning, projections from the U.S. National Hurricane Center show Polo could potentially arc back east as a weakened storm and hit Baja California on Tuesday.The region most under threat from Polo is further south, along the coast of Michoacan and Guerrero, which is rural and mountainous, scattered with a few small tourist towns and ports. Much of the area is marked by poverty and residents routinely complain authorities abandon them to fend for themselves during natural disasters.Mexico's government has called for evacuations in some areas and set up shelters for those affected. Thousands of military and Red Cross personnel have been deployed to the region as a preventive measure.Another hurricane could hit Hawaii as soon as FridayThe National Weather Service said Tropical Storm Nolo would likely strengthen before closing in on the Big Island on Friday or Saturday.The storm has the potential to be a major hurricane, John Bravender, a weather service warning coordination meteorologist, said during a news conference Wednesday afternoon.While high winds are expected, Bravender said the main concern is the possibility of flash flooding. He said 20 to 30 inches of rain could fall through Saturday on southeastern parts of the Big Island, the same region hit hard in August by Hurricane Lala."That by itself could cause catastrophic flooding, but when you put that on top of grounds that we've been raining off and on for the last couple of months … that rain could cause even more damage," Bravender said.He urged preparation across all Hawaii islands in case the storm's trajectory shifts."You need to take action now," Bravender said. "Today is really the last dry day you have to get ready."Hawaii County Mayor Kimo Alameda told residents in a video message on social media that they should start preparing now for the storm. He urged people to put together an emergency kit with food, water and medications, trim vegetation and clear drains."This is a very serious situation," he said. "We do believe that the rain is going to come. It’s coming already."The governor issued an emergency proclamation Tuesday and more than 230 Hawaii National Guard members have been activated, said Maj. Gen. Stephen Logan, adjutant general of the state's Department of Defense.Kauai's electric cooperative urged residents to prepare for "the possibility of prolonged power outages," and to store nonperishable food and potable water.Over 100 Kauai households remain without power from Hurricane Lowell, which passed west of the island on Sept. 7.Hawaiian Electric, the state's primary utility, said crews would return to at-risk areas in preparation for the coming storm.
ICE has wasted tens of millions to carry out Trump's mass detention agenda – report
US GAO documents array of costly problems as ICE pursues controversial plans to rapidly increase detention capacityUS Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal agencies have wasted tens of millions of dollars pursuing controversial plans to rapidly increase detention capacity – and the total will likely rise due to ongoing mismanagement, congressional investigators warned on Thursday.The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) documented costly problems in several initiatives ICE has pursued since Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025 and ordered the mass arrest and deportation of people whom his administration has deemed should be forced out of the country. Continue reading...
Gavin Newsom condemns Democrats' 'climate hushing', predicts Trump's downfall and expects AOC to run in 2028
Democrats must show links of climate shocks to 'kitchen table' issues, California governor saysIt's a mistake for Democratic politicians not to talk about climate change, and the reason they don't is "because they don't know how to talk about it", the California governor, Gavin Newsom, said on Wednesday in an interview with the Guardian and the global journalism collaboration Covering Climate Now.Speaking on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting and New York Climate Week, Newsom also predicted that the midterm elections in November would bring "the end of Donald Trump's presidency as we know it". To prevent Trump from stealing those elections, voters must turn out in such overwhelming numbers that he "couldn't possibly contest" the outcome. If the US president nevertheless declares a national emergency or otherwise attempts to invalidate the results, Newsom said, then "we the people have to step up. The courts have to intervene. Congress has to do its job and stand up for the rule of law." Continue reading...
How the Smithsonian became the latest front in Trump's culture war
In November 2021, the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History opened an exhibit called "The Electric Dr. Franklin," describing "Benjamin Franklin's pioneering contributions to electrical science." The exhibit explained that, prior to becoming an abolitionist, he had enslaved people in his household. "Benjamin Franklin's remarkable scientific accomplishments were, in part, enabled by slavery," it declared. The exhibit speculated that Franklin may have used enslaved people in his electrical research. "Franklin wrote about experiments in which he took shocks and used family and friends in these ways, although he seldom identified who in particular assisted him," stated the exhibit, which closed in 2025 but can still be found online. "Indentured servants and enslaved people in his household could also have been used, although we may never know for certain."It was an eye-catching conjecture: one of the most revered of the Founding Fathers subjecting people held against their will to possibly painful shocks. And it was one of many details singled out for criticism in a blistering 162-page White House report released in July that argued that the museum had fallen victim to an "ideological capture" that "moved the Museum's mission away from straightforward historical education and scholarship toward an extreme political activism that seeks to transform our country."For decades, the Smithsonian Institution, which draws some 15 million visitors every year to its assemblage of 21 museums — bounty that has no real global peer — has managed to stay mostly above the political fray. There have been occasional exceptions, such as the uproar over the National Air and Space Museum's planned 1995 exhibit of the Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. By and large, though, the institution maintained bipartisan support as the guardian of America's history, ingenuity and natural heritage, even as political polarization spread and culture wars raged. But that institutional exceptionalism is now imperiled as never before. In March 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order declaring that the Smithsonian had succumbed to "divisive, race-centered ideology." This July 4, timed to coincide with the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, came the White House report. Later in July, two House committees held back-to-back hearings on the report, where Republican members took turns lambasting the museum's director, Anthea Hartig, and forcing her to answer questions about exhibit items such as a "chrome and rubber crotch harness" designed for sadomasochistic sex. That week, Trump signed an executive order instructing the Department of the Interior to erect signs outside the museum "warning visitors about the ideological capture" on display there. The signs have yet to go up, but in late August, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum sent a letter to the Smithsonian's Board of Regents declaring that other federal agencies "cannot in good conscience continue to support the Smithsonian under current leadership."The Smithsonian is independent of the executive branch, governed by a 17-member board led by the chief justice of the Supreme Court and with six members of Congress, three from each party, serving with nine private citizens and the vice president. But it depends on the federal government for 62% of its funding, receiving more than $1 billion per year, and warnings of deep budget cuts have grown ever louder. Finally, on Sept. 8, Smithsonian secretary Lonnie Bunch, the first African American person to lead the institution, announced he was stepping down at age 73, saying "it has been stressful."Seen from one vantage, the battle over the Smithsonian is but another example of Trump attempting with characteristic bombast to put his stamp on Washington institutions, alongside shuttering the Kennedy Center, replacing the East Wing of the White House with a huge ballroom and planning a 250-foot arch near Arlington National Cemetery. But unlike some conflicts initiated by Trump, this one has been festering for years, independent of him, with complaints lodged by board members before he returned to office. The American history museum, the main focus of the administration's ire, has wrestled for years with how, or even whether, it should present a unifying national narrative, an ambivalence that left it susceptible to the administration's broadside. Meanwhile, the Smithsonian underwent a political awakening during the 2020 upheaval over the COVID-19 pandemic and murder of George Floyd that echoed responses in academia and other progressive realms.This left it exposed to a new administration that viewed itself as a corrective against perceived woke excesses. "I said over and over again that there's going to be a day of reckoning," recalled Garret Graves, a Republican former congressman from Louisiana who served on the Smithsonian board in 2023 and 2024, in an interview. "You can either participate in it, help guide the Smithsonian back to something that makes more sense, or you can have an abrupt shift. I didn't realize my words would ring as true as quickly as they did." Now, in the year that was supposed to be a crowning celebration of the nation's 250th anniversary, the Smithsonian is instead in Trump's crosshairs. And the question of how the country's premier history museum should tell the nation's story is suddenly up for grabs.The National Museum of History and Technology opened on the National Mall in 1964. Its mission, said former assistant secretary of the Smithsonian Remington Kellogg that year, was to "awaken" a "clear understanding of the inspiring story of the United States — its origins, struggles, development, traditions, strength." As the name reflected, the museum contained duelling missions from the start, showcasing American technological advances and telling a more general historical story.In 1980, it was renamed the National Museum of American History, but the tension lingered. "It started out as a technology museum, and even now it has a lot of equipment, and to move from that to American history, that's a huge change," said Ivan Selin, a former chair of the museum's board. "Unless you're going to throw everything out and start over again, you're going to have a very incoherent thing. Unless you have a clear strategy, you're going to have some apples and oranges."Two decades after the name change, the lack of a unified approach had become an issue. In 1999, David Brooks wrote a scathing critique in the Weekly Standard, lamenting that the museum had so little on display about the nation's defining moments (the Constitutional Convention, the Lewis and Clark Expedition, the Great Depression, etc.) and prominent figures who shaped them (Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., etc.). "It ignores or virtually ignores most of the major events in American history," he wrote. "This is a museum of multicultural grievance, which simply passes over any subject, individual, or idea, no matter how vital to American history, that does not have to do with the oppression of some ethnic outgroup or disfavored gender." In 2001, in response to such critiques, the Smithsonian convened a blue-ribbon commission of historians and others led by Richard Darman, a former top aide in Republican White Houses. In 2002, the commission released its report, declaring that the museum "requires what its own leadership has described as a 'transformation.' It lacks aesthetic appeal, organizational coherence, and the perception of substantive balance." The report recommended, among other things, a chronological introductory exhibit that contains "central theme lines for the examination and interpretation of American history" and that "should celebrate America's remarkable strengths and achievements while also treating fairly and responsibly the ways in which America may have failed to meet the high standards it has proclaimed for itself." This would prove easier said than done. For one thing, the museum's physical structure itself has never been coherent — "an awkward attempt to marry the classical and the modern, the building is legitimately neither," wrote New York Times architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable at its opening. "It's a challenging space," Brent Glass, who became director shortly after the blue-ribbon report in 2002, told ProPublica.Above all, though, the commission's recommendations faced resistance among the museum's curators to the sort of great-man-of-history approach that Brooks and others were hankering for. There had been a trend in museum science away from this, and away from straight chronology. "There was this whole museum movement to get away from a march through time, to a more episodic or specific sort of story," John Gray, who succeeded Glass in 2012, told ProPublica. "It wasn't done to get away from the story; it was finding a way to get people interested."In addition, the museum's curators tended to be specialized in material culture — collecting and studying the museum's several million objects and artifacts — rather than in conceptual storytelling. To make up for this, Gray's team tried to enlist several leading academic historians to instill more of an overarching narrative structure. But they declined, saying they were concerned that such an approach could seem triumphalist and provide fodder for an America-first agenda. "We tried to organize [the museum] around ideas and ideals, ideals that were aspirational," Gray said. "And we failed many times." The museum's eventual solution was to divide the national story into subject areas, each represented by a standing exhibit: "American Enterprise" on business and innovation, "American Democracy" on politics," "Many Voices, One Nation" on immigration, "The American Presidency," "The Price of Freedom" on the nation's wars, "Entertainment Nation" on culture, "America on the Move" on transportation.Developing these required extensive debate, said the former directors. Some donors supporting the enterprise exhibit were upset that it devoted so much space to the role of slavery in American business. In crafting "The Price of Freedom," the museum consulted with veterans' groups to try to avoid a backlash like the one that arose on the Enola Gay. This effort succeeded, Glass said, despite the exhibit's candor about the darker elements of the nation's military history. "People can handle complexity," he said. "They don't feel bad about the country when told the whole story, and they're grateful that they have access to the information."Scattered throughout the museum are countless highlights: the desk on which Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence; the top hat Lincoln wore to Ford's Theatre on the last night of his life; the actual lunch counter from the 1960 Greensboro, North Carolina, Civil Rights sit-in; and, in a recent addition, a gunboat sunk during the Revolutionary War that is being restored on-site. But the overall effect can be disjointed and disorienting. And, with the museum's dim lighting, dated technology and underutilized areas, it can feel at times as if one is wandering in a past-its-prime shopping mall or in the forgotten corner of an airport terminal.It's a stark contrast to the National Museum of African American History & Culture, which opened in 2016 under the direction of Bunch and, notably, has a clear chronological design. Of course, said Selin, the former American history museum board chair, the African American museum and the National Museum of the American Indian, which opened in 2004, have the advantage of a more focused subject, leaving it even less clear what remains for the American history museum, where attendance has declined in recent years. "You can find nowhere in any Smithsonian document a theory of what should be in the American history museum or the more particular museums or how many of these particular museums there should be," Selin said. "There's no charter whatsoever that says how they fit together."In March 2020, the Smithsonian shuttered its museums for the pandemic. A few months after that, Washington and other cities erupted in protests over Floyd's murder in Minneapolis. Bunch, who became secretary of the Smithsonian in 2019, and other top officials embarked on a push to rethink the institution's priorities, as reflected in the minutes of the Board of Regents meetings, which were now being held online. Bunch "briefed the Regents on his efforts to navigate the dual pandemics caused by the Coronavirus and issues surrounding race, racism, and racial identity," the minutes of the June 2020 meeting stated. He announced the launch of "Smithsonian Cares," a digital resource that would "provide tools and guidance to empower and inspire conversations about diversity, equity, access and inclusion." That October, the board discussed "the potential creation of a Chief Diversity Officer position, a review of organizational processes and policies that may have inadvertently created barriers to inclusivity, integrating and standardizing DEAI training across the organization, strengthening supervisory DEAI skillsets, increasing senior leadership's focus on inclusivity, and identifying funding and resourcing strategies to implement DEAI efforts across the Institution's functions and operations." In February 2021, Bunch told the board that the Smithsonian's five strategic priorities would include positioning it as a "trusted source for critical conversations and helping the nation grapple with important issues like race and identity."As the meeting minutes show, the institution's elevation of identity was being encouraged by the newly installed Biden administration. In October 2021, the Smithsonian's Office of Government Relations reported that the Smithsonian had "brought objects from the National Museum of American History to the White House for a temporary display recognizing Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Pride Month." Three months later, the office stated that it "continues to work closely" with the White House on "diversity, accessibility, access and inclusion efforts." The Smithsonian noted plans for exhibits at the White House to mark "Black History Month in February, Women's History Month in March, Asian-American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month in May, LGBTQ in June and Hispanic History Heritage Month in September."The post-2020 shift extended to the various museums, which started to reopen to visitors in spring 2021. To cite just one example, the National Portrait Gallery revised the signage for a portrait of Henry Laurens, South Carolina's delegate to the Continental Congress, to reflect that he had made his wealth through chattel slavery. "When Floyd was killed, everyone acknowledged that now is the time to ask: What are the stories that we're telling and were we being honest and fair in recounting those stories? We all looked at it through this lens," Kim Sajet, who became the director of the Portrait Gallery in 2013, told ProPublica. "Everyone felt energized by that. We can't change the past, but we need to acknowledge what happened in order not to repeat it in the future."But the new direction caused misgivings for some conservative supporters of the institution, such as Graves, who joined the regents as one of the three Republican congressional appointees in 2023. Graves told ProPublica that he had high regard for Bunch — "his accomplishment with the African American museum was remarkable" — but that he became worried that the Smithsonian was operating within a bubble. Its staff were living in a metro area that had voted overwhelmingly against Trump (and museum employees are generally among the most left-leaning of any profession), yet they were charged with presenting exhibits to visitors from all over the country and the world, a disconnect that the institution seemed insufficiently aware of. Many board meetings would kick off with tours of a certain museum, and Graves and a fellow Republican appointee, Adrian Smith of Nebraska, would often be taken aback by what they saw. "Seventy-five percent of the time Adrian and I would be walking around and say, 'Are you kidding me?'" Graves said. "It wasn't interpreting science or history. It seemed to have an agenda, and that's not what a museum should be." What was missing, he said, was a sense of the nation's achievements. "This country is a remarkable experiment," he said. "We've had some grave sins, but my gosh, America is a net victory for the world. It's unbelievable what happened here in 250 years and it's worth celebrating."Graves retired from Congress at the end of 2024. In his farewell address to the regents that October, he warned against allowing the Smithsonian to become seen as affiliated with one party or ideological bent. "I felt like they were causing sustainability problems for the institution," he said. "Politicizing the Smithsonian is an awful, awful idea, because then you only receive funds when there's a Democratic majority. This is America's museum and there should not be anything partisan about it." One week later, Trump won the election to return to the White House.In his first term, Trump largely ignored the Smithsonian. In 2017, Bunch gave him a tour of the new African American museum, which Bunch recounted later in his memoir: "The president paused in front of the exhibit that discussed the role of the Dutch in the slave trade. As he pondered the label I felt that maybe he was paying attention to the work of the museum. He quickly proved me wrong. As he turned from the display he said to me, 'You know, they love me in the Netherlands.' All I could say was let's continue walking."It took little time for Trump to make clear that, as on other fronts in his second term, things would be different this time around. First came the March 2025 executive order, which directed Vice President J.D. Vance to rid the Smithsonian of "improper ideology." Two months later, Trump said that he was firing Sajet at the Portrait Gallery, calling her "a highly partisan person, and a strong supporter of DEI, which is totally inappropriate for her position." The Smithsonian noted that Trump did not have the authority to remove Sajet, but she left anyway, hoping to spare the institution.In August 2025, the White House issued a 120-day ultimatum to replace "divisive or ideologically driven language with unifying, historically accurate and constructive descriptions," but with little follow-up, and for nearly a year, it looked as if the storm may in fact have passed. Then came the White House report on the American history museum, with such an exhaustive litany against Hartig, its director since 2018, and Bunch that it made plain the authors had been scouring their public statements and the museum. (Through a spokesperson, Bunch declined to be interviewed. Museum representatives did not respond to requests to speak to Hartig.) In addition to citing the Franklin exhibit, the report noted that an exhibit called "Girlhood (It's Complicated)" had included "the pages of a 6-year-old girl's diary where she expresses fear about 'getting boobs' and wishes for her nonexistent 'penis to grow.'" Another exhibit, on gay history, had "included a two-piece chrome and rubber crotch harness designed for sadomasochism."It criticized the museum for having trained staff using the "Museums as a Site for Social Action Toolkit," a 200-plus-page roadmap on how to "truly transform the museum space," which is linked "with white supremacy, hetero-patriarchy, abuse of labor, colonization, imperialist theft of art and artifacts, destruction or absencing of alternative ways of interpreting or representing art and artifacts, structural racism and other oppressions." Above all, though, the report criticized the museum on grounds that echoed Brooks and the 2002 blue-ribbon commission, saying that it failed to offer visitors a unified narrative of the nation's history. "That story should be a basic consensus view that is not ideological or politicized, but presents the facts of history — what actually happened — as accurately as possible with minimal present-day bias," the report stated. "It should tell the whole story of a nation, including the good and the bad, so Museum visitors can understand the development that led our nation to where it is today."For years, the Smithsonian had avoided major conflagrations partly by engaging in what one former official called the "care and feeding" of members of Congress on the two committees with purview over it, Appropriations and House Administration. If there was a potentially controversial exhibit, the museum would bring members over for a preview tour, so they had some context for complaints they might receive. But these efforts were on hold for a while because of the pandemic closures, and the Smithsonian's government relations office experienced heavy turnover, as one of its directors had cancer and another died suddenly.This context, combined with the fuel provided by the White House report, helped explain the level of vitriol that Hartig faced when she appeared at the two hearings in late July. Even by the standards of today's decorum-less Congress, the hearings were wild affairs. At the first, held by the House Oversight Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency, Chair Tim Burchett, a Tennessee Republican, kicked things off by playing a lengthy string of video clips of Hartig offering tribal land acknowledgements at the start of her speeches. "I'm wondering, have you ever planned on deeding any of your personal property or property of the Smithsonian to any of these tribes?" he asked Hartig.She adopted a conciliatory tone, saying the Smithsonian "takes the concerns raised in the White House Domestic Policy Council's report seriously" but that "it does not fairly or accurately characterize the full body of work at the museum." She assured the committee, "I love the United States of America. I consider it the privilege of my career to help preserve its treasures and serve the American people."This did not assuage committee Republicans. Burchett displayed museum images including the crotch harness and the diary mention of the 6-year-old girl wishing for a penis. "Ma'am, I mean, you have pictures of bondage. You have some overtly sexual things up there," he said. "I'm not a fan." Rep. Nancy Mace, a South Carolina Republican, pressed the point: "Are images of sexual fetishes appropriate for children? Yes or no?" Rep. Brandon Gill, a Texas Republican, noted that the toolkit that the museum used for staff training had referred to "politeness" as a feature of "white supremacy culture."Those defending Hartig were hardly less outspoken. David Blight, a Yale historian also testifying, compared the White House's attacks on the Smithsonian to the German Third Reich, saying "their model may indeed be Joseph Goebbels' committee on enlightenment, which is what the Nazis called their committee that tried to control museums." Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a Texas Democrat, opened her remarks by saying, "Welcome to the White Pride Committee." Rep. Kweisi Mfume, a Maryland Democrat, vowed to sacrifice his life for the Smithsonian. "We will not let you destroy that museum," he said. "No matter how long it takes, how many battles are required, how much effort is needed, we will not allow that to happen unless you find a way to kill all of us and walk over our bodies to change history."The next day's hearing, before the House Administration Committee, was more of the same. The bipartisan consensus around the Smithsonian appeared to lie in tatters.On a recent Sunday, a group of visitors made their way into the centerpiece exhibit at the National Mall entry to the history museum, the giant Star-Spangled Banner that was flying over Fort McHenry in 1814 and inspired Francis Scott Key to write what became the national anthem. For safe-keeping, the flag is displayed in very low light, giving the chamber a sacred feel, like a cathedral crypt. "Oh my god, it's huge," said one woman. "I am shivering," said another. "It's insane," said a third.Every day, the museum, for all its imperfections, still makes a strong impression on many visitors. But its longstanding search for identity helped make it a target for an administration looking for weak spots, and now its future and that of the entire Smithsonian hangs in the balance. Three of the nine citizen slots on the Board of Regents are vacant, and three more will be next month. Whoever the remaining members of the board — which include Vance — select to fill those slots will help determine who is chosen to replace Bunch as secretary, and the institution's future course. Much will depend on how much Chief Justice John Roberts, at the head of the board, decides to engage.Any large institution can benefit from reassessment, and the Smithsonian and the American history museum in particular may well be overdue, especially as yet another focus area is about to be cleaved off, for the National Museum of the American Latino, scheduled to open early next decade. What gives so many supporters pause is for that reevaluation to happen under Trump, who hasn't shown a lot of interest in how the various museums interact, much less in the nuances and subtleties of history."There will be a moment," Sajet said, "when the American people will have to stand up and decide, is this what they want?"
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Star Trek: Strange New Worlds — 4x10: "Tomorrow's Enterprise" (Paramount+)
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