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City Electric: My Mayor Muslim, My Bagel Jewish
After the greatest comeback in NBA finals history - 29 points! - "the greatest shot in Knicks history" - Anunoby's last-second tip-in - some divine intervention - a Pope Leo jersey - and a smudging to erase the vile Trump stench, the New York Knicks are in sight of their first title in over 50 years. "Bedlam at the Garden!" ESPN exclaimed. And across the city, now a jubilant, unified sea of orange and blue watch parties, viral chants, rare hope against hope. One fan: "The city feels alive. Thank God for the Knicks."
The Knicks had won a remarkable 13 straight playoff games, last losing in April, before the seven-game finals against the San Antonio Spurs; of those, they won the first two, only to fall to Trump Disaster Syndrome - everything he touches dies - in the third. In Wednesday's nail-biter of a Game 4, they began their historic rally in the second half, chipping away at a seemingly hopeless 29-point deficit, gaining ground in the 4th quarter and, with a stunning 1.2 seconds left, taking it 107-106 after OG Anunoby gently tipped in a Jalen Brunson shot that ricocheted short. The epic win leaves the Knicks within one game of a championship they haven't won since 1973, when their city looked like this. Now, residents say, it's "electric."
The Knicks' success has created frenzied joy in a city beset by high prices, traffic snafus and years of sports heartaches - amidst which long-suffering Knicks fans, says one, "have endured, a specific species of human that should be studied." They also present a unified front in a city split between baseball's Yankees and Mets and football's Jets and Giants. New Jersey will host this year's World Cup finals, but its tribute to "the beautiful game," long plagued by scandal and corruption, is already marred by a racist regime hassling, interrogating or barring players, officials, journalists and fans from Somalia, Senegal, Haiti, Iraq, Iran and other dark-skinned locales, with a looming threat of ICE goons in attendance.
In contrast, the come-from-behind Knicks have done what sports at their best should: bring people together. New York's rush hour has become a vast sweep of blue and orange caps, jerseys, hoodies, with a “Please win before I die” t-shirt from Old Jewish Men. Strangers on streets and subways do a peculiarly New York call-and- response: “Let’s go Knicks!” to “Knicks in five!” Bar and neighborhood watch parties pop up, some using bedsheet screens. One was just held at a Brooklyn funeral home - "If things go wrong, there's room for grief" - with a poster board for fans to write the names of those they're missing, "just like the the guy down the street and the lady in the bodega...so people know they're not alone.
The finals have given a boost to legit pan-sports nerd - "New Yorkers can smell a phony" - Mayor Zohran Mamdani. A rabid Arsenals fan, he's heavily promoted the World Cup - choosing Morocco to win in The Guardian's Bracketology game - "The heart wants what it wants" - offering $50 tickets to 1,000 New Yorkers, celebrating the vision of Brazilian, German, Ecuadorians who will "watch together, celebrate together, shout at referees together - respectfully." With the Knicks, he's likewise praised how Knick fever has "lit this city up" and relished his role as head, albeit ambivalent, cheerleader against a common sports foe. Asked in April about a possible win, he said, "As a New Yorker, I can't wait. As the mayor? Absolute chaos."
Again, he's all in. As a candidate, he interviewed Knicks fans and made Go-Knicks videos. During the finals, he's turned up at watch parties, put hand-painted cutouts of former Knicks greats at City Hall, visited a Knicks-hued subway stop, touted the $90 million in revenues from each home game, sported a Knicks jersey under his suit jacket and signed a symbolic executive order repealing bedtimes for kids during the finals. While resale ticket prices to home games have obscenely soared to over $8,000, and many courtside seats are reportedly gifted to local celebrities, Mamdani shelled out $1,000 for a standing room only ticket to the Monday game - unfortunately, the one hijacked by the Narcissist-In-Chief.Like New Yorkers didn't hate him enough already, Trump's random, clueless attendance saw watch parties cancelled, hours-long lines, bags banned, fans and even players (understandable, given most are black) TSA-wanded, and a blocks-wide, NYPD-enforced "frozen zone" that turned the area outside Madison Square Gardens from "a showcase of unbridled humanity to a post-apocalyptic wasteland" - all for him to be thunderously booed as he smirked, saluted and promptly fell asleep until his granddaughter poked him awake. It probably didn't help when those who'd waited in line for hours also got to see fucking Jared Kushner, "patron saint of failing upward," respectfully, infuriatingly escorted in by police.
Before Wednesday's game, a fan thoughtfully burned sage outside the Garden "to remove the sulfuric stench and bad vibes" from Pres. Poopy-Pants' visit. The Knicks also reportedly got help from on high: From the three "Nova Knicks” - Brunson, Hart, Bridges - who graduated from Catholic Villanova, and Pope Leo XIV, who earned a math degree there in 1977. To ensure his blessing, die-hard Knicks fan Spike Lee had earlier worn a custom Knicks jersey - "Pope Leo #14" - he'd had "P🏀PE LE🏀" sign at the Vatican last year. Thus, the surreal 29-point comeback, and "the most iconic shot in the history of New York basketball" - per OG, "right hand from God." The Nation's Dave Zirin: "With the Trump Stench Gone, the Knicks Make History."
- YouTube www.youtube.com
What Ben Stiller courtside called “the most insane comeback I’ve ever seen” left astounded fans and MSG staff roaring, leaping, open-mouthed with joy and shock. Within minutes of the buzzer, thousands of blue-and-orange-bedecked fans had surged into the city streets, chanting "Knicks in five!" and, in a few feral instances, "Fuck you Wemby!" A Knicks robot chased some Spurs fans, cops arrested a few rowdy fans, the Empire State Building glowed in orange and blue. The New Yorker's David Remnick couldn't sleep after "the greatest Knicks win ever" and OG's "most astonishing shot in franchise history"; he got up at 3 a.m. to grimly doomscroll on "the truth machine to see if this had really happened," and finally "realize it was true."
"Curb your enthusiasm," he warned, and yes, Larry David was courtside, thrilled. "At least a little." Remnick noted that Saturday is the fifth game, and anything can still happen. Fandom, he added, "is complicated, also mostly a matter of patience. Real fandom is about endurance and waiting." Likely nothing that MD Ahnaf Hossain, a 23-year-old Knicks fan and TikToker with smart marketing skills, doesn't know. Reveling in a moment of sportsmanship "bringing a type of love we haven’t seen in the city for a long, long time,” he created a hip-hop, Haiku-like anthem to celebrate its unity in toxic, racist, divisive times. “I grew up with Jews, Muslims, Haitians, Pakistanis, Bengalis,” Hossain said. “I just had to bring everyone together.”
His first "pure New York City poetry" came after the Knicks lost the third game. He wrote and recorded, "My mayor Muslim/My bagel’s Jewish/My Christian Dior/Knicks in four." It got over 7 million views. After Wednesday's impossible win, he filmed an updated version: "My mayor still Muslim/My bagel’s still Jewish/The pope’s on our side/Knicks in five." Meanwhile, his mayor, Mamdani, posted his own response to the win: “SPEECHLESS. LFGK,” aka "Let's fucking go Knicks." He also made a brief, giddy video. "The energy in our city is incredible," he said. "Time and again, people have doubted the Knicks. Time and again, the Knicks have proven the doubters wrong... I have just three words for my fellow New Yorkers. Knicks in 5."
Jun 12, 2026
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'Hands Off the Arctic,' Say Wilderness Defenders as Trump Holds Alaska Oil and Gas Lease Sale
The Trump administration is set Friday to sell oil and gas drilling leases on 689,000 acres in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a pristine and protected area in northeastern Alaska's coastal plain known for its massive biodiversity and held sacred by its Indigenous inhabitants.
The US Department of the Interior's (DOI) Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is offering 60 tracts in the ANWR to fossil fuel companies that submitted bids by Wednesday. The lease sale is the first of four in the ANWR mandated under the One Big Beautiful Bill signed by President Donald Trump last year and follows two previous sales this decade, one of which saw little interest during Trump's first term and another that generated no bids during the tenure of former President Joe Biden.
The sale is part of Trump's "drill, baby, drill" fossil fuel agenda and follows last October's reopening by the DOI of 1.56 million acres of the Coastal Plain to oil and gas leasing. The move reversed the Biden administration's 2023 cancellation of all existing oil and gas leases in the ANWR and ban on drilling across 13 million acres of the adjacent National Petroleum Reserve.
The Trump administration also recently transferred approximately 1.4 million acres of public lands along the Dalton Utility Corridor from the BLM to the state of Alaska, a move one conservationist warned "will only help corporate polluters transform Alaska into an industrial wasteland... for the sake of expanding the portfolios of mining and oil and gas companies."
The ANWR is home to Indigenous peoples, primarily the North Slope Iñupiat and the Gwich’in. The former are generally supportive of fossil fuel development, arguing that it provides jobs and revenue and boosts self-determination, while the latter broadly opposes drilling.
The Gwich'in call the area “the sacred place where life begins" and rely upon its rich biodiversity—especially its 200,000-strong porcupine caribou herd—for their survival. ANWR boasts some 270 animal species, including musk oxen, Arctic foxes, snow geese and other migratory birds, and all of the world’s remaining South Beaufort Sea polar bears.
While the American Petroleum Institute, the nation's leading fossil fuel lobby, welcomed Friday's lease sale, calling Alaska's oil and gas "key to America's energy security," Kristen Moreland, executive director of the Gwich'in Steering Committee, countered that "some places are too important to sacrifice."
In a Thursday call with reporters, Moreland said that "tomorrow's lease sale is about much more than economics or development. It is about whether our voices, our culture, and our way of life matters."
Conservationists also denounced the lease sale, which Earthjustice—part of a coalition challenging the DOI's policy in federal court—called "another effort to sell out our public lands to boost corporate profits, while Indigenous communities, wildlife, and future generations carry the risk."
US Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said Friday on X that "America's public lands—including the incredible Arctic National Wildlife Refuge—belong to all of us. But now the Trump-Vance administration is auctioning it off to their Big Oil cronies that already have plenty of other areas to drill."
In a video posted Thursday on social media, US Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) called ANWR "the crown jewel of our American National Wildlife Refuge system."
"Tomorrow, the Trump administration is gonna try to lease the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil drilling. So I've got a message for all the oil majors out there," the senator said. "I understand you have a job to do. That job never involves drilling in American national parks or national wildlife refuges. Don't bid."
Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.) also posted a video addressing the lease sale and arguing that Big Oil—part of an industry that spent nearly $450 million during the 2024 election cycle on campaign donations, lobbying, and other efforts to elect Trump and down-ballot Republicans—is "calling the shots."
The Alaska Wilderness League said on X that "no matter how the administration and oil industry spin today’s lease sale, the outcome doesn’t change: weak demand, shrinking interest, and a story that keeps collapsing under its own promises."
"The Arctic is not for sale, never has been, never will be," the group added. "Hands off the Arctic."
Jun 05, 2026
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Former Governors Call Trump SNAP Cuts a 'Ticking Time Bomb' as Hunger Surges
Several US senators who formerly served as their states' governors on Tuesday warned that the cuts to food aid in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act are a "ticking time bomb" for millions of Americans.
In a joint statement, Sens. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Mark Warner (D-Va.), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), and Angus King (I-Maine) drew on their experiences as governors to outline how the changes made to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in the GOP's 2025 budget law would soon handcuff state governments' ability to deliver essential assistance.
"Starting October 2027, most states will be required to pay 5% to 15% of SNAP benefit costs for the first time," the senators said. "The Congressional Budget Office projects this will shift more than $35 billion from the federal government to states between 2028 and 2034, with states expected to respond by cutting another $7 billion in food assistance."
The senators said that the GOP's SNAP cuts mean states "will be forced to raise taxes, cut education, healthcare, or transportation, or restrict access to SNAP itself," with some being "forced to drop the program entirely."
They then pointed to numbers showing that "SNAP participation is already declining at alarming rates, with over 3.5 million people leaving" the program since the passage of the GOP budget law.
The senators' warnings about the impact of the SNAP cuts came shortly after a study from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York showing food insecurity in the US reaching its highest levels since the Covid-19 pandemic.
The New York Fed researchers said their study found "a remarkable increase in food insecurity, particularly among lower-educated and lower-income households and households with young children,” as well as “a contemporaneous increase in pessimism among the same groups, along with a sharp decline in job-finding expectations."
Despite this, Trump-appointed US Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins last month described millions of people losing their access to SNAP as a positive sign that "America is back in business."
When confronted by Rep. Shontel Brown (D-Ohio) about this during a House Agriculture Committee hearing last week, Rollins baselessly claimed that all of the people who had been removed from SNAP had been added to the program fraudulently, including “200,000 dead people.”
Jun 09, 2026
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Trump Official Lies That 'No One Was Kicked Off' SNAP as Millions Lose Food Aid—Including Kids
The head of the US Department of Agriculture on Wednesday falsely told senators that "no one was kicked off" the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, claiming that the millions of people—including many children—who have lost federal nutrition assistance in recent months were no longer eligible for aid or decided not to apply for it.
USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins declared that "no one in Washington or in America wants to see a family go hungry," but insisted that anyone who is no longer receiving SNAP benefits has "chosen not to reapply or they're an able-bodied adult that can either work for 20 hours a week or volunteer."
Rollins' testimony conflicts with a growing number of anecdotal reports and expert analyses showing that families across the United States are losing SNAP benefits at the fastest rate in decades. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) estimates that at least 700,000 children have lost SNAP since President Donald Trump signed into law a Republican budget package last summer, enacting the largest-ever cuts to the federal nutrition program.
Rollins: No one was kicked off of SNAP. If they are not on SNAP, they have chosen not to reapply or they are an able bodied adult that can work. pic.twitter.com/eaiVO9XRwb
— Acyn (@Acyn) June 10, 2026
"Did 700,000 children simply not apply?" Rachel Sabella, director of the No Kid Hungry New York campaign, asked in response to Rollins' remarks.
Katie Bergh, a CBPP policy analyst, pointed to recent reporting by NBC News, which spoke to a mother of two in Arizona who said her "benefits stopped without warning three months ago" after the state began implementing new eligibility requirements included in the Republican budget law.
"It's been really hard," the mother said. "We've been going to food banks every week... We're eating less, we're eating more frozen stuff."
Rollins, a multimillionaire, has openly celebrated the massive and rapid decline in SNAP participation during Trump's second White House term, claiming that the roughly 4 million people who have been "moved" off the program are closer to realizing "the American dream"—even as hunger grows to levels not seen since the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.
"This is a celebration of work and the dignity of work," Rollins told senators on Wednesday.
But CBPP concluded in an analysis released in late April that the "dramatic" loss of SNAP benefits across the country "cannot be explained by a rapid improvement in people’s economic well-being or reduced need for help affording food."
"Labor force data show that the unemployment rate was flat between July 2025 and March 2026, the most recent data available," the think tank observed. "A more likely explanation for why people are losing access to food assistance is that states are now facing new challenges as they respond to the cuts in [the Republican budget law]—the largest in the program’s history."
Jun 10, 2026
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World's Richest Man Elon Musk Denounced for Stoking Violence After Knife Attack in Belfast
Politicians in Northern Ireland and across the United Kingdom on Wednesday were denouncing mobs of masked rioters who had spent Tuesday night setting fire to properties, buses, and cars in Belfast and forcing immigrant families to flee their homes in fear, following a stabbing attack in which a Sudanese immigrant is the suspect.
But along with the groups of anti-immigration agitators in the Northern Ireland capital and elsewhere in the country, local leaders reserved particular condemnation for one man who was thousands of miles away from the violence and who, as one member of Parliament said, has likely "never been to and possibly never heard of North Belfast" before he began inciting the mobs there: tech billionaire and right-wing megadonor Elon Musk.
After a graphic video of Monday night's attack on a Belfast man, Steven Ogilvy, circulated online Tuesday, Musk used his platform, X, to share a post by far-right, anti-immigrant activist Tommy Robinson in which Robinson had listed places where his supporters could gather to protest "yet another invader attack on our people."
"Only by protesting REPEATEDLY and LOUDLY will there be any change!!" said Musk.
He also shared a post by MP Rupert Lowe of the far-right Restore Britain Party, which appeared to include a screenshot of the video of the knife attack and was captioned, "Millions must go."
At Novara Media, investigative journalist Paul Holden said far-right politicians and their supporters were pushing the "central lie" that "immigrants are an 'alien culture.'"
"'We've imported an alien culture that venerates bloodlust.'... That's not true," he said. "That fundamentally isn't true."
Protests against immigration spilled over into rioting in Belfast on Tuesday night.
The violence broke out after a 30-year-old Sudanese man was charged with attempted murder — which led Elon Musk and Restore's Rupert Lowe to call for the deportation of "millions".
On Novara… pic.twitter.com/7TYm2HPevU
— Novara Media (@novaramedia) June 10, 2026
After Musk, the world's richest person, broadcast the call to his 240 million followers in X, immigrant families in Belfast had to be escorted by emergency responders out of their homes as masked mobs set fire to their neighborhoods as well as creating roadblocks by moving garbage cans and setting them ablaze.
Sudanese business owners in central Belfast were forced to close their stores and lock them with steel shutters before 4:00 pm on Tuesday out of fear of being attacked. The Belfast Islamic Center canceled evening prayers.
“We are telling our congregation to go home, don’t go out, look after your children, don’t share rumors, and do listen to the authorities,” Ameer Ibrahim, a project manager, told The Guardian.
Anna Turley, a member of Parliament and chair of the Labour Party, suggested in an interview with Times Radio that Musk was one of many "bad faith actors who are sitting often many, many miles away. It’s easy for them to stoke these things up.”
Asked if she was referring to the Tesla CEO, Turley said, "He’s not living in the kind of communities where we’re seeing this kind of activity. He’s not at risk."
“He has a responsibility, everyone in public and civil life has a responsibility to call for calm and not to stoke grievance or hatred or division or tension that puts vulnerable people and our communities at risk," she added.
The suspect in Monday night's knife attack has been named as Hadi Alodid, a 30-year-old man who claimed asylum when he entered Northern Ireland in 2023. Nearly 4 million people have been forced to flee Sudan since 2023, when fighting broke out between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces, exacerbating disease outbreaks and the country's economic and political instability.
Alodid has authorization to stay in the UK until 2028. He was charged with attempted murder and possessing a knife in a public place. Authorities say there is no indication that the attack was related to terrorism. He appeared in a magistrate court Wednesday where a judge refused Alodid bail and adjourned the case until July 8.
The victim of the attack lost his left eye and sustained injuries on his face and back, according to The Guardian.
His family released a statement through Phillip Brett, who represents Belfast North in the Legislative Assembly, saying that they were "completely devastated by the horrific attack on our loved one" and emphasizing that the violence that rocked the city overnight Tuesday was "not welcome."
“We have many migrants who make a deeply valuable contribution to our country, including in our healthcare system and hospitality sector, and we depend on them to make our country work," said the family. "We do not want this terrible tragedy to be used to divide people or fuel hostility.”
John Finucane, a member of Parliament from North Belfast who represents Sinn Féin, told Sky News that Musk's decision to urge anti-immigrant mobs to gather in response to the attack was "not fair for the victim. It's not fair for the people of North Belfast who are trying to sew themselves back together after what they witnessed."
Sinn Féin MP John Finucane tells Sky's @cathynewman that Elon Musk's comments on the Belfast stabbing are 'not fair for the victims' pic.twitter.com/TujgQfJEgX
— Sky News (@SkyNews) June 9, 2026
"They need our support," he said. "They do not need to be used for a wider political agenda."
Turley told LBC Wednesday that Musk's posts on the attack were "appalling."
"Anyone that is seeking to drive and exploit a situation like this to drive their own political agenda is grievously wrong and doing damage,” she said. “We’ve seen children, families having to flee their homes on the streets of Belfast last night... We do not want to see this kind of disruption, damage, thuggery, violence on our streets, and anyone that is seeking to whip that up should be condemned.”
Rob Blackie, a former London mayoral candidate for the Liberal Democrats Party, called on the UK to take "government action" to hold Musk accountable, including by regulating X.
"Thugs burning out people in Belfast can't be ignored," said Blackie. "Elon Musk is a national security threat."
Jun 10, 2026
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'War Crimes': Analysis Suggests US Bombed Water Facilities Used by 20,000 Iranians in Precision Strike
As temperatures in the village of Bemani, Iran, near the Strait of Hormuz, reached above 100°F this week, two water facilities were struck by bombs, cutting off the drinking water supply for 20,000 people in the area.
An analysis by The New York Times late Wednesday indicated that the attack on the drinking-water storage facilities appeared to be a precision strike by the US, raising questions about whether the Trump administration intentionally attacked civilian infrastructure, which would constitute a war crime under international law.
As the provincial water authority in the area reported that two storage tanks had been destroyed in an attack early Wednesday, US Central Command said on social media that the US Air Force and Navy had used "precision munitions" to strike "Iranian air defense, ground control stations, and surveillance radar sites near the Strait of Hormuz."
Esmaeil Baqaei, a spokesperson for the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, posted a video of damage to one of the facilities, whose light blue pipes were consistent with water infrastructure.
"As part of its aggression against Iran, the US military has deliberately struck vital civilian water infrastructure in Sirik, Hormozgan, destroying two reservoirs with a combined capacity of 2,500 cubic meters," said Baqaei. "These facilities supplied drinking water to more than 20,000 residents across ten villages. This is not collateral damage—it is a calculated war crime and a flagrant violation of human rights and international humanitarian law. The US must be held accountable for committing such systematic brutal attacks on civilian life-sustaining infrastructure."
The analysis of the strikes came as the US waged more attacks Wednesday night and early Thursday, including on an oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman and against Iranian radars and air defenses.
In its analysis, the Times said commercial satellite imagery showed two water facilities in Bemani whose descriptions matched those given by Abdolhamid Hamzehpour, the chief executive of the province’s water authority, on Wednesday, when he reported the structures had been damaged by missiles.
Hamzehpour said in a statement that the high temperatures in the area were “unbearable” for residents without drinking water, and said that mobile water tanks had been deployed to nearby villages.
The roof of one of the facilities collapsed, according to videos released by Iranian state media, and the center of the roof of the other structure appeared to have been struck by a bomb.
The Times noted that both buildings were remotely located, with no other infrastructure located in the immediate vicinity, suggesting a likely precision strike.
Tasnim, a semiofficial news agency in Iran, released photos of bomb fragments that it said were recovered from the site. Researchers with the Open Source Munitions Portal identified the fragments as parts of a GBU-39 bomb, which is used by the US Air Force.
The precision-guided bomb was "consistent with the damage shown in the footage of the damaged building: a clean hole punched through the building’s roof and limited blast damage around it," reported the Times.
Alleged U.S. airstrikes overnight hit two water storage reservoirs in Iran's Sirik County, Hormozgan Province, reportedly leaving many without water.Images of remnants posted by Iranian media show the remains of a U.S.-made GBU-39 air-delivered bomb.osmp.ngo/osmp2336/
[image or embed]
— Open Source Munitions Portal (@munitionsportal.bsky.social) June 10, 2026 at 3:30 PM
The bombing came as President Donald Trump complained that Tehran was taking too long to finalize a peace deal. The US and Iran have each carried out attacks this week, raising doubts about a ceasefire deal that was reached in April following Trump's threats to wipe out Iran's civilization.
"Trump is so angry that Iran will not give him a deal that he is telling the US military to commit war crimes," said Phillips P. O'Brien, a professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews. "Destroying a drinking water facility is not an attack on a target of war, but a mafia-style operation designed to harm the Iranian people."
Jun 11, 2026
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Despite Court Protection Orders, Trump Admin Deports Refugees to War-Torn Central African Republic, Putting ‘Lives at Risk’
“It’s hard to fathom how deeply evil this is,” said Sen. Chris Murphy.
Jun 12, 2026
The US government advises Americans not to travel to the Central African Republic "for any reason." But it just deported nearly two dozen people to the war-torn country, including several refugees who fled persecution in other nations.
On Friday morning, Human Rights First's deportation flight tracker reported that a plane used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had landed in Accra, Ghana, after departing from Louisiana the previous day and was believed to be en route to the CAR's capital, Bangui.
Per The New York Times on Thursday, the administration was preparing to deport "at least two Iranian women who had sought refuge in the United States" as well as "migrants from Afghanistan and Syria."
According to their lawyers, several of the migrants had received court orders from judges prohibiting their deportation to their home countries, citing the risk of persecution there.
A lawyer for one of the Iranian women told the Times that neither of them has a criminal record and that they both have been granted court protection due to fear of threats to their freedom or lives if they returned to Iran. One is a Christian convert, and the other is a pro-democracy activist.
According to Reuters, just the activist ended up on the flight from Louisiana. But the Christian woman is still at risk, along with another Iranian national.
Human Rights First's @ICEFlightM is monitoring this egregious situation, and we urge our policy makers to decry this life-threatening flight and other deals that send people seeking safety back to the very harms from which they fled.
https://t.co/ABZZMTQNuS
— Human Rights First (@humanrights1st) June 11, 2026
The burden of proof to receive what is known as a “withholding of removal” status from an immigration judge is even higher than that needed for migrants to qualify for asylum.
Those seeking their deportations to be halted must demonstrate that it’s more likely than not that their life or freedom would be threatened if they returned to a specific country due to their race, religion, nationality, or political or social affiliation.
In order to get around orders protecting these migrants from deportation to their home countries, the administration is instead dumping them in what have been described as "third countries."
The flight departed on Thursday is the first US deportation flight to the CAR, which is one of the poorest countries in the world and is reeling from a civil war that's displaced more than a million people both inside and outside the country.
The country is under the State Department's highest travel advisory, warning US citizens not to go there "due to risk of unrest, crime, kidnapping, landmines, health, and terrorism."
This is the @StateDept travel advisory for the Central African Republic.
The United States—a self-proclaimed nation of refuge—is about to send refugees here. https://t.co/uxfexS5S73 pic.twitter.com/pvYyxIQHdN
— Sarah Pierce (@SarahPierceEsq) June 11, 2026
"People on this flight proved to a judge that they were likely to be persecuted in their home countries," said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council. "This is profoundly unjust."
Human rights law experts Anjli Parrin and Savi Arvey wrote on Wednesday for Just Security that the administration was putting "lives at risk" by sending these migrants to a dangerous country where they know nobody and where basic healthcare infrastructure hardly exists.
They said the administration's deportation of these migrants "is the latest example of its dangerous and potentially life-threatening strategy: using secretive deals with countries to expel asylum seekers and migrants with no legal or personal connection to the places where they are being sent."
"Since early last year, the US government has signed a growing number of third-country forced transfer agreements with over 30 countries worldwide to expel and deport people to places where they have no legal or personal ties," they said.
"These deportations are often carried out in secrecy and without any semblance of due process," they added. "Individuals are often not given any advance warning or the opportunity to challenge their deportation to a third country—with many only discovering they are being sent to a country they may have never heard of while airborne."
Emily Trostle, a lawyer for the Iranian activist, told Reuters that the migrants facing deportation to the CAR "have absolutely no connection to this place."
“These individuals are being removed from the United States and abandoned in a country where they have no status, no connection, and no support network,” she said. “We fear they will ultimately be forced to return to the countries they originally fled.”
According to Human Rights First's Third Country Deportation Watch, governments around the world have been given $44 million from US taxpayers to receive these migrants. More than 19,000 people, it found, have been deported across 24 countries.
Most of them have been sent to Mexico, but the US has also shipped migrants to some of the poorest, most unstable nations in sub-Saharan Africa, including Eswatini, Equatorial Guinea, and Sierra Leone. Many have faced arbitrary detention and torture or been returned to the country where they fled persecution.
In order to avoid having to allow over 1,000 Afghans who fought alongside US soldiers to settle as refugees in the US as planned, the Trump administration is reportedly trying to ink a deal with the Democratic Republic of the Congo to take them instead, but the plan was stalled amid public backlash, and the administration is seeking other options.
It's hard to fathom how deeply evil this is, and that we have people running our country who get sick pleasure from sending women fleeing violence in Iran to an African country in the middle of a brutal civil war. https://t.co/JaN8z2LFI2
— Chris Murphy 🟧 (@ChrisMurphyCT) June 11, 2026
The Iranian American Legal Defense Fund said on Thursday that the deportation of Iranian nationals was a “potentially fatal action,” as they could face danger in the CAR or be sent back to Iran.
Another person scheduled to be deported to the CAR was an elderly man from Syria, whose immigration attorney, Margaret Stock, told the Times that he had scars all over his body due to torture in his home country.
He is a Sufi Muslim and feared persecution if he returned there, and is in danger of lacking access to care for his diabetes if sent to the CAR. According to Stock, he received an emergency temporary order halting his deportation.
Sen. Chris Murphy (Conn.), the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee in charge of funding for the Department of Homeland Security and its immigration agencies, responded to the Times report on the deportations with outrage.
"It's hard to fathom how deeply evil this is, and that we have people running our country who get sick pleasure from sending women fleeing violence in Iran to an African country in the middle of a brutal civil war," he said.
Reichlin-Melnick agreed: "Evil is the right word for... taking people who are safe in the United States, who have proven to a judge they would be persecuted in their home country, and dumping them in a random country in the middle of a civil war."
"No previous administration would have done this, despite it likely being legal," he added.
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'Straight-Up Intimidation Tactics': Kash Patel's FBI Raids Ohio Voting Rights Organization
"This is an unprecedented attack on democracy," said US Rep. Shontel Brown.
Jun 12, 2026
A voting rights organization in Ohio is accusing the federal government of waging a large-scale intimidation campaign after the group was raided by the FBI on Thursday.
MS NOW reported on late Thursday that FBI agents searched the Cleveland offices of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, an organization that helps register voters.
In addition to raiding the group's offices, sources tell MS NOW that "agents also fanned out across the state, showing up at the homes of the group’s leaders and staff members, carrying some subpoenas and seeking information and electronic devices."
MS NOW's sources also expressed concern that the raid was not a legitimate law enforcement operation but "part of the Trump administration’s efforts to sow doubt and distrust in voting integrity in key swing states ahead of the midterm elections."
In an interview with MS NOW, Ohio Organizing Collaborative board member Prentiss Haney accused the feds of using "straight-up intimidation tactics."
“They had agents all across the state going to civil rights leaders and community leaders’ doors intimidating them, coming and demanding that they talk about literally anything they would ask,” said Haney, who added that agents asked leaders "if they’re committing voter fraud, just on their doors, in front of their houses with their children, and just following them to work and school.”
In a separate interview with local public radio station WVXU, Haney described the FBI raid as a "full-on assault."
"This is not normal business," Haney said. "I mean there's no reason for over 100 agents to be knocking on the doors of everyday Ohioans, demanding and accusing people of voter fraud as if it was a witch hunt."
Rep. Shontel Brown (D-Ohio) said she was "alarmed and outraged" by the FBI raid, which she alleged was part of an effort by President Donald Trump and FBI Director Kash Patel to disrupt the 2026 midterm elections.
"This is an unprecedented attack on democracy: These raids must end immediately," Brown said. “Unfortunately, this appears to be part of a systematic effort by Trump and Kash Patel’s FBI to attack our elections and perpetuate more myths of voter fraud—all to undermine and challenge any election result that Trump does not agree with. It’s an attack on the people."
The Trump administration has waged a multi-faceted attack on voting rights ahead of the midterm elections.
In March, Trump signed an executive order instructing the United States Postal Service (USPS) to not deliver ballots in any states that have not given the federal government access to its voter lists, which critics have warned could lead to the "virtual elimination of mail-in voting."
A Tuesday court filing by the US Department of Justice, meanwhile, argued that states have the power to purge voter rolls at any time ahead of an election and do not have to abide by the 90-day “quiet period” established in the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).
If adopted, this policy could result in states deeming voters ineligible without giving them sufficient time to challenge the decision.
Trump has also successfully lobbied Republicans in several states to engage in unprecedented mid-decade gerrymanders with the goal of creating more GOP seats in Congress.
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Trump Sanctions on Cuba's Oil Company Expected to Worsen Humanitarian Crisis
"The US regime's secretary of state, driven by ambitions of conquest, presidential aspirations, and the vengeful sentiments of the elitist clique that propelled his political career, now further tightens the economic and energy stranglehold against Cuba," said the island's foreign minister.
Jun 11, 2026
Amid mounting global calls for President Donald Trump to end his administration's "economic genocide" in Cuba, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday announced sanctions against the state-owned oil and gas company, a move expected to worsen the island's fuel shortage and related humanitarian crisis.
Trump, in recent months, has repeatedly threatened to "take" Cuba and ramped up the 65-year US embargo against the country, including by imposing an oil blockade—disrupting food supplies, healthcare, education, transportation, and more—and issuing a May executive order that Rubio cited in his statement about the sanctions against Union Cuba-Petroleo (CUPET).
Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants and a longtime advocate of regime change on the island, claimed Thursday "that like every resource on the island, energy has long been weaponized by Cuba's communist government as a tool of both repression and self-serving regime kleptocracy."
"While the Cuban people have suffered fuel shortages and blackouts because of decades of under-investment in critical infrastructure," Rubio continued, "Cuba's communist leaders have diverted energy resources to line their own pockets: reselling countless barrels of scarce energy on the secondary market, hoarding energy supplies for its military, intelligence, and repressive forces, and rationing energy as a tool of social control."
Warning of the new sanctions' likely impact, William LeoGrande, a Cuba expert at American University in the United States, told The Associated Press: "It appears that they're all in on strangling the Cuban economy... Their policy is a contradiction. They claim they don't want to create a humanitarian crisis, although that's exactly what they’re doing."
As some Florida Republicans in Congress celebrated the secretary of state's announcement, Cuban officials fired back, with Bruno Rodríguez, Cuba's foreign affairs minister, taking aim at Rubio in a social media post.
"The US regime's secretary of state, driven by ambitions of conquest, presidential aspirations, and the vengeful sentiments of the elitist clique that propelled his political career, now further tightens the economic and energy stranglehold against Cuba," he wrote in Spanish. "To justify it, he does not resort to excuses prepared by his State Department, but to the usual crude lies, the most aggressive, uncouth, and rabid among Cuba's enemies."
Ernesto Soberón, Cuba's permanent representative to the United Nations, accused Rubio of "peddling crude lies" while the US ambassador to the UN, Mike Waltz, "mindlessly parrots the claim that the blockade does not exist and is, therefore, not primarily responsible for the suffering of the Cuban people."
"The cynicism of top US officials knows no bounds," Soberón said. "Stop the collective punishment of the Cuban people."
This week alone, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk, the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, and thousands of Italian medical professionals have spoken out against the US blockade of Cuba.
“The fuel restrictions imposed since early 2026 and recent tightening of extraterritorial sanctions, taken together, are directly harming Cubans, especially the most vulnerable," said Türk. "Children are dying because doctors lack access to essential medical supplies and medicines. This is unacceptable. These sanctions must be lifted immediately."
The Trump administration's targeting of CUPET came a week after it sanctioned Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, his wife, and three other individuals.
"We just want them to be a nicely run country," Trump told journalists in the Oval Office last week, when asked whether those sanctions were meant to accelerate Cuba's collapse. "The country is starving, and it's got no energy, it's got no oil, it's got no money, it's got nothing. It's got a beautiful piece of land. You could have beautiful resorts."
Trump said that Cuba had already "sort of collapsed" and "we're going to handle that as soon as we've finished" military operations in Iran. He added, "I like to do one thing at a time."
Earlier this week, Elena Gutiérrez, a Mexican American activist at Global Exchange, wrote for Foreign Policy In Focus about returning from three trips to the island this year "with my heart a little more broken, but also with a stronger conviction that we need to defend Cuba."
"But can US citizens truly stop the madness their own empire imposes on them and on the rest of the world? Let us hope so, because only the people of the United States—and no one else—can carry out the transformations their own country needs," according to Gutiérrez. "Only then will Cuba, the United States, Mexico, and the rest of the world be free."
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