Politics
Mamdani’s Nakba Day video that never was
DAYS THE BUDGET IS LATE: 48
WOULD HAVE IF HE COULD HAVE: Mayor Zohran Mamdani planned to appear in a video he released over the weekend to commemorate the displacement of Palestinians that occurred in connection with the State of Israel’s creation.
He only opted against being in the video — which drew backlash from local Jewish leaders — because he fell ill, he said this morning at a Bronx press event.
“I was intending to be there as part of it,” Mamdani told reporters. “However, I did fall sick, and we didn’t want to create any kind of complication for her.”
Mamdani was referring to Inea Bushnaq, a woman who lived in the British Mandate for Palestine as a child and was featured in the video released on the mayor’s official social media handles late Friday.
In the 4-minute video, Bushnaq, filmed in her home in New York City, recalls how she was nine when she and her family had to flee their home in East Jerusalem in 1948 during the “Nakba,” an Arabic word that translates into “catastrophe” and denotes the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians upon the establishment of Israel. “The Zionists were coming into Jerusalem,” Bushnaq says in the video.
Local Jewish leaders, including a member of Mamdani’s transition team, were outraged by the video, arguing it provided a one-sided, overly simplified account of the region’s history.
As noted by The Forward’s Jacob Kornbluh, many Jews around the world contend the displacement of Palestinians did not just occur at the hand of Israeli forces. Rather, they point to neighboring Arab states, including Egypt and Syria, which launched military attacks in response to the new Jewish state’s creation in the wake of the Holocaust.
At his press conference today, Mamdani was asked for a response to the criticism that his team’s video excluded critical context.
“I firmly believe that acknowledging any one people’s pain does not preclude you from the acknowledgement of another people’s,” he said. “When it comes to New Yorkers like Inea and so many others, not only has their pain never been acknowledged, but so often we have seen that even their identity is up for debate, and my message to each and every New Yorker is that this is a city for you and that we will continue to be proud of everyone who calls it home.”
His comments come as he’s set to host a reception commemorating Jewish American Heritage Month at Gracie Mansion tonight. The mayor’s release of the Nakba Day video has led some Jewish leaders to boycott the event. They include Mark Treyger, a former City Council member who now leads the Jewish Community Relations Council, and Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, the FDNY’s chief chaplain and the executive vice president of the New York Board of Rabbis.
Assemblymember Sam Berger, a Democrat who represents large Jewish communities in Queens, was still incensed by the video when asked about it this afternoon.
“The mayor has spent his career bending reality with his policies and his budget, so it’s no surprise he’s trying to bend history too,” he said in a statement to Playbook.
The decision by Mamdani to release the video on Nakba Day is part of his longstanding record of aligning himself with Palestinian rights and struggles.
As a candidate last year, Mamdani, the city’s first Muslim mayor, faced criticism for refusing to initially denounce the phrase “globalize the intifada,” which many see as a call to violence against Jewish people. As mayor, he has said he’s committed to combating all forms of hate, including antisemitism, while also continuing to accuse Israel of perpetrating a genocide against Palestinians in Gaza as part of the war launched in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 terror attack.
Gustavo Gordillo, the co-chair of the New York City Democratic Socialists of America, of which Mamdani is a member, celebrated the video, saying it’s consistent with the chapter’s “history of standing up for Palestinian solidarity.”
“Representing the historic struggle of the people of the city is part of the mayor’s job, and I think that’s what he was doing here,” Gordillo said. — Chris Sommerfeldt and Jason Beeferman
FROM THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL
BETH DAVIDSON VS. BETH DAVIDSON: Beth Davidson’s congressional campaign has made it crystal clear on her website she absolutely supports establishing term limits — but if you ask her in person you may get an answer that sounds completely different.
Davidson, who’s running in the Democratic primary to unseat Republican Rep. Mike Lawler, says on the “priorities” section of her campaign website that she wants to “enact term limits and stronger ethics rules, to keep career politicians and corrupt insiders in check.”
But at a candidate forum in Ossining earlier this month, when she and her Democratic rivals were asked whether they would “support term limits for U.S. representatives and senators,” Davidson responded, “I actually don’t.”
“Some districts have members that have served them a long time. Some we’re done with after two years. I think it has to be up to the voters,” Davidson explained.
When asked about the discrepancy, Davidson’s campaign said the language on her campaign website is consistent with her support for term limits in the U.S. Supreme Court.
“Beth has clear plans to take on corruption in DC, including enacting term limits for Supreme Court Justices, banning stock trading by Members of Congress, and ending Citizens United to keep special interests and corporations out of our elections,” her campaign manager Ellen McCormick told Playbook.
Davidson was the only major candidate at the forum who opposed term limits for members of Congress, with her opponents Cait Conley and Effie Phillips-Staley supporting the idea. — Jason Beeferman
From the Capitol
TRAIN DREAMS: Gov. Kathy Hochul this morning visited the state office building in Lower Manhattan where negotiators for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Long Island Railroad and five striking unions are meeting. As of mid-afternoon, no deal to end the LIRR strike had been reached.
In a video posted on social media, the governor said the morning commute had gone “smoother than expected” and that she was fighting to “protect our taxpayers and our commuters from having to pay hundreds of dollars more.”
Outside, picketers — one of them wearing a t-shirt that said “Fuck You, Pay Me” — chanted slogans like, “New York is a union town, Janno Lieber shut it down.” Lieber is the head of the MTA.
Hochul has so far appeared to stake out a more pro-MTA position than Gov. Mario Cuomo did during the last LIRR strike in 1994, which was also a gubernatorial election year. To quickly end the strike, Cuomo — whose son Hochul succeeded as governor — brokered a deal that gave the unions what they wanted.
But Hochul also appears to be keeping her political distance while blaming President Donald Trump for the strike.
In 1994, The New York Times reported that Cuomo was “positively hyperactive in confronting” the strike by cancelling public appearances, including a ticker-tape parade for the New York Rangers who had just won the Stanley Cup. The Times said he’d also “placed round-the-clock telephone calls to the top negotiators, members of Congress, Long Island leaders and the aides he sent to the bargaining table.”
This time around, Hochul has never publicly mentioned the possibility of Congress intervening. Trying to go that route is a nightmare for labor-friendly Democrats: Railroad unions are still bitter about when President Joe Biden got Congress to head off a freight rail strike in 2022. There were crickets from Congress last year when a union of train engineers went on strike and idled New Jersey Transit trains.
Trump said Sunday that until a day after the LIRR strike had begun he’d “never even heard about it.” (The president in September and again in January issued executive orders to create three-member panels to investigate the dispute and issue reports — a standard move in any rail labor dispute.) On Sunday afternoon, federal mediators summoned both sides to negotiations at the MTA headquarters. Those lasted late into the night and resumed this morning.
Hochul’s argument is that the Trump administration last year released the unions from one part of the mediation process early, a maneuver that set up a series of cooling off periods that ended Saturday, when the strike began. The part of the process she’s referring to allows federal officials to indefinitely keep unions in mediation without the ability to strike as long as there’s a reasonable chance of a settlement. Some of those mediations lasted for years.
This time around, all five unions and the MTA participated in mediation sessions between March 2024 and July 2025 before they were released in August. — Ry Rivard
FROM CITY HALL
FOOD DESERT: Mamdani’s plan to open a city-owned grocery store next year in Hunts Point could be a boon for access to healthy food in the bodega-dominated South Bronx, where diabetes and obesity rates far exceed citywide averages.
Hundreds of bodegas are spread throughout four ZIP codes in the South Bronx, accounting for 35 percent of all food establishments in the area, according to a Health Department analysis released last month. While most of the bodegas offered fresh produce, a third of them sold no fresh vegetables besides onions and potatoes — and, overall, healthy meal and snack options were limited, the analysis found.
For every supermarket in the South Bronx, there are four fast food restaurants and six bodegas, the analysis found.
In Hunts Point, the average cost of a standard grocery basket — which includes staples like eggs, deli beef, tomatoes, lettuce, bread, potatoes, milk and bananas — was $39.20 last year, but up to half of those items were generally unavailable, according to the analysis.
“Making sure every New Yorker can buy fresh, affordable groceries in their own neighborhood is a key part of our affordability agenda,” Mamdani said in a statement Monday.
The Economic Development Corp. is preparing a request for proposals for private operators to manage the Hunts Point grocery store and an additional store in East Harlem, which was announced in April and is slated to open by 2029. — Maya Kaufman
IN OTHER NEWS
— FRONT AND CENTER: Puerto Rico has emerged as a key issue in the race to succeed Rep. Nydia Velázquez, as rival progressive camps clash over the district’s political future. (THE CITY)
— PRISON REFORM: Still awaiting appointments from Hochul to reach a quorum, New York’s Committee on Correction is unable to meet or vote, delaying jail reform implementations. (New York Focus)
— LUIGI TAKES A HIT: A Manhattan judge ruled that the gun and notebook seized from Luigi Mangione will be admissible at his upcoming murder trial, while excluding items obtained during an initial warrantless search. (The New York Times)
Missed this morning’s New York Playbook? We forgive you. Read it here.
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A Bradford grooming-gang has been jailed for a total of 188 years for the four-year-long sexual abuse of a teenage girl. The abuse took place between 2007 and 2011, when the victim was aged between 14 and 18 years. In total, 15 men were found guilty of 88 counts of rape at Bradford Crown Court.
All men appear – from their names and appearance – to be Muslims of South Asian heritage. Most of the gang members hail from Bradford, while some are from nearby towns such as Keighley, Halifax and Batley. The victim gave a harrowing testimony. She said her childhood had been stolen from her and that the horrific abuse she suffered would always live with her.
The latest Bradford grooming-gang case follows the trial of another grooming gang, operating in nearby Kirklees. Twenty people were jailed for a total of 277 years for the sexual abuse of three young girls (one of whom was just 12 at the time) during the 1990s and 2000s. Judging by their names and appearance, 19 of the 20 convicted were ethnic-minority Muslim men. The exception was 45-year-old Donna Lynn, who was convicted for controlling prostitution. The oldest of the 20 convicted was 87-year-old Ibrahim Khalifa, from Bradford.
Grooming gangs are a nationwide scourge. But the recent wave of convictions in West Yorkshire illustrates, once again, a vital aspect of the scandal – namely, that grooming gangs have flourished in segregated Muslim communities, especially among those of Pakistani heritage.
Last year’s national audit on grooming gangs by Baroness Louise Casey drew attention to precisely this problem. It concluded that there was enough evidence to show that ‘disproportionate numbers of men from Asian ethnic backgrounds among suspects for group-based child sexual exploitation’. She urged the authorities to make far more of an effort to explore why it appeared that men of Asian, and specifically Pakistani heritage, were disproportionately represented among perpetrators. Only then can we better understand and tackle grooming-gang activity.
Casey’s findings built on the work, published in 2020, of social-work academics Kish Bhatti-Sinclair and Charles Sutcliffe. They showed that men with Muslim-sounding names, especially of Pakistani heritage, ‘dominate [group localised child sexual exploitation] prosecutions’.
It’s clear that any national statutory inquiry into the grooming gangs must explore the societal and cultural drivers of grooming-gang activity. And it appears that West Yorkshire, and especially Bradford, are key areas for investigation. Above all, it is essential to shine a light on poorly integrated Muslim communities, many of whom originate from the district of Mirpur in Azad Kashmir.
While Mirpur is a part of Kashmir, its inhabitants predominantly share their customs and culture with Punjabis, Pakistan’s majority ethnic group. Certain attitudes are prevalent among men from Mirpur, including violent misogyny and a tendency towards religious supremacism. It appears that communities originating from this area now live in West Yorkshire, and many have formed patriarchal clans along kinship lines, reinforced by cousin marriage.
The emergence of Mirpuri-heritage grooming gangs over the past few decades highlights the dangers of segregation, including familial insularity, multi-generational cohesion and tight-knit community networks based on cultural codes of ‘secrecy’ and ‘protection’. It seems as if certain attitudes and sentiments prevalent among communities in Mirpur have persisted and even been exacerbated thanks to de facto segregation in the UK.
This all needs looking at, honestly and openly. The authorities have been paralysed by political correctness and in thrall to identity politics for far too long. We need to explore, without fear, the social and cultural factors driving grooming-gang activity. Or else we will continue to put the most vulnerable children in our society at risk.
Rakib Ehsan is the author of Beyond Grievance: What the Left Gets Wrong about Ethnic Minorities, which is available to order on Amazon.
Graham Platner was far from establishment Democrats’ first choice to take on GOP Sen. Susan Collins. But they’re lining up behind him now — even if some are doing so begrudgingly.
With votes still being counted in Maine on early Wednesday morning, Platner looked to be winning just shy of three-quarters of the Democratic primary ballots. The strong showing marks a stunning political journey for the oysterman despite his many scandals — and it’s likely to quell murmurs from national Democrats that he could be pushed to withdraw from the race and replaced by another candidate.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who had recruited Gov. Janet Mills for the must-win Senate race — only to watch her drop out in April after trailing Platner in polls and fundraising — expressed confidence in the oysterman’s candidacy Tuesday.
Still, he wasn’t exactly effusive and focused most of his attention on defeating Collins.
“Susan Collins has never been more vulnerable after she voted with Trump 96 percent of the time, confirmed his far-right judicial nominees, and took millions from special interests while voting to rip health care away from Mainers,” Schumer and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair Kirsten Gillibrand said in a statement. “In November, Maine voters will elect Graham Platner, and we will win a Senate majority.”
Senate Majority PAC, the super PAC aligned with Democratic leadership, similarly sought to draw contrast between Platner and Collins.
“The difference between the two couldn’t be plainer: Platner’s agenda supports working people and families, while Collins upholds Washington’s status quo,” spokesperson Lauren French said in a statement.
Even avowedly centrist Democrats focused on the importance of defeating Collins and winning back Senate control — though they continued to hint their concerns that Platner could blow it for them.
“This is a must-win seat,” said Lanae Erickson, senior vice president at Third Way. “Susan Collins has done nothing more than carry water for Trump. If we fail to beat her this year, that’s an own goal.”
Platner’s resounding win might quiet some of his Democratic dissenters, but he’ll still have to hold together a broad coalition to defeat Collins and shore up Democratic and independent voters — a group the Republican senator has long overperformed with — who may remain skeptical of his candidacy in light of his many controversies. And the same Democrats who have been worried about his candidacy remain concerned that more hits might be coming about his past.
Republicans didn’t waste time unloading on Platner and his long list of scandals in a preview of what’s to come for the next five months.
“Platner is easily the most toxic candidate of the cycle and the fact that Democrats have embraced him in service of a radical socialist agenda has placed the final nail in the coffin of their chances to win Maine in November,” Republican National Chair Joe Gruters said in a statement.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee released a new digital ad contrasting Collins and Platner that highlights his tattoo and profile on the messaging app Kik, while the Senate Leadership Fund launched a website running through much of the opposition research about him.
Republican groups, led by the SLF and the pro-Collins Pine Tree Results PAC, have already booked nearly $70 million in TV ad time in Maine from now through the general election, according to data from AdImpact, which tracks political advertising. Democrat groups have $26 million booked so far.
Platner, in a victory speech in Blue Hill, Maine, on Tuesday night, argued that the focus on his past had proven to be the wrong strategy.
“The national pundits, the political establishment, they keep looking for that one story, that one headline, that one moment in my life that they can define the campaign by,” he told a crowd of cheering supporters. “But in trying so hard to understand me, they failed to understand that this is not about me at all. This is a movement about us.”
Progressives bet big on Platner, arguing establishment candidates were part of Democrats’ failed strategy against Collins in previous elections and that Platner’s insurgent candidacy was worth the risk. His campaign drew unprecedented grassroots attention in Maine, with large crowds attending his events across the state.
Progressives who had long backed Platner’s candidacy were taking a victory lap Tuesday night.
“Tonight should be a wake-up call for a Democratic establishment that has spent too long underestimating the appeal of economic populism and outsider politics,” said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which was an early endorser of Platner. “Platner’s November victory will set the Democratic Party on a bolder economic-populist course.”
Platner’s Tuesday primary win followed a tumultuous week for his candidacy. He enters the general election for one of the nation’s most closely watched Senate races still shaking off the latest scandal: a New York Times report featuring accounts from several of his ex-girlfriends alleging disturbing past behavior. One woman also claimed Platner had known one of his tattoos resembled a Nazi symbol when he got it.
Platner denied ever being physically violent but admitted to being a “bad boyfriend” in past relationships. He has also denied knowing the tattoo, which had covered up last fall, was related to the Nazis.
The story, which came on the heels of reporting that Platner had exchanged sexual messages with women while married, ignited another firestorm surrounding his candidacy just days before the primary. Some Democrats immediately came to his defense — including fellow progressive California Rep. Ro Khanna, who appeared alongside Platner at a campaign event in Maine in the days following the allegations.
“We reject, unequivocally, misogyny. But you know who else rejects it? Graham Platner,” Khanna said at the rally. “He understood that those years that he came back were not the best years of his life.”
Khanna also told NBC News that Platner should apologize to the women.
Platner drew some more big-name support in the immediate lead up to the primary: Sen. Brian Schatz, likely to be the next Democratic Whip, held a virtual fundraiser for Platner over the weekend, his first public indication of support. Left-leaning Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota gave Platner a major boost on Monday amid the controversy, writing in a post that he would win “because he has connected with Mainers on what they really care about” and “because he’s not part of the Washington establishment.”
Still, others like Sen. Elissa Slotkin, a potential 2028 presidential candidate, deflected on answering questions about the allegations and expressed deep frustration: “I look forward to the day where I am not answering every single week a question about bad behavior by another dude,” she told MS NOW this past weekend.
Not every Democrat was quick to line up behind Platner on Tuesday night. Mills, in a lengthy statement, did not mention the oysterman. Despite having suspended her campaign, she had reminded voters up until Election Day that she remained on the ballot.
“I am grateful to Maine people and incredibly proud of what we have accomplished together. I will continue to fight with everything I have to improve the lives and livelihoods of Maine people,” the two-term governor said.
Liz Crampton contributed to this report.
Former Nevada Assembly Majority Leader Teresa Benitez-Thompson won the Democratic primary for the state’s 2nd Congressional District on Tuesday, giving the party a serious candidate in its attempt to flip the red seat.
The northern Nevada district is currently represented by GOP Rep. Mark Amodei, whose retirement prompted crowded primaries on both sides. It encompasses Reno as well as numerous rural “cow counties” and was won by President Donald Trump by 14 points and 11 points the last two elections. The district has never been represented by a Democrat.
But Democrats are hopeful that this is the kind of seat that could become competitive in a large enough blue wave, as Nevada struggles under the weight of Trump’s economic agenda.
Beneitez-Thompson beat out seven Democrats in the primary, who mostly cast themselves as antagonists to Republicans in Washington and vowed to work to decrease high costs of living that have hit Nevadans particularly hard.
She served a decade in the state Assembly, finishing as majority leader. After she was term-limited in 2024, she worked as chief of state for Attorney General Aaron Ford, who is running to challenge GOP Gov. Joe Lombardo. Before entering politics, Benitez-Thompson worked as a social worker and funded her college education with beauty pageant scholarships.
During the primary, she earned the influential endorsement of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters for her vow to repeal right-to-work laws. She has also spoken out against federal funding cuts under the Trump administration that she says have harmed rural communities, like the U.S. Forest Service scaling back its presence in Nevada.
Leaked military documents show how AI helps Israel’s killer drones target and surveil Palestinians. The algorithms also allow the settler-colonial military to gather information and build a sharper picture of the ‘battlefield’.
The technology is added on to Hermes drones which patrol occupied Palestine. Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported in June:
The algorithm independently analyzes the intelligence gathered by the drones’ sensors and cameras, automatically detecting targets, classifying them and deciding whether to track them or pass them on – to the command center, air force pilots or troops on the ground.
The paper said the leaked files “reveal a previously unreported system known as Server in the Sky, or SITS”.
Running on a computer installed on a drone, the “onboard” analytics software uses algorithms to carry out a wide range of unmanned missions that utilize AI analysis and decision-making.
The technology is terrifying, particularly for Palestinians and Lebanese people who live under Israeli military occupation.
Haaretz wrote:
The server and the analytics it runs also allow the drone fleet to be managed autonomously, handing over tasks as the drones surveil a defined sector, shifting the burden among these unmanned aircraft to maintain continuous visibility.
For example, if cloud cover suddenly blocks one drone’s view, or another must break off to dodge a ground-to-air missile, coverage passes automatically to another available drone.
Israel intelligence tech: How does it work?
Journalists said that the documents corroborated reports from ex-military whistleblowers from an organisation called Breaking the Silence.
That testimony exposes “what one source calls the growing ‘algorithmicization’ of the IDF’s unmanned systems”.
The technology can be fitted to both Hermes 450 and Hermes 900 drones. These also carry missile payloads. Hermes are the workhorse of the occupation forces and pose a familiar threat to the people of Palestine and Lebanon.
The system forms a key part of Israel intelligence and surveillance known as wide area persistent surveillance, or WAPS.
Israeli officials confirmed to Haaretz it has been used in the Gaza genocide and and the illegal invasion of Lebanon.
The [surveillance] payload is mounted on the Hermes 450 or 900, holding a set of 10 advanced cameras that use electro-optical sensors that can visually capture – in real time and from a single drone – 80 square kilometers (31 square miles).
So-called “intelligence forensics” allow Israel to “play back video in real time and in retrospect, pulling together different vantage points”.
Analysts use this function to “trace an object back to its point of origin, or reconstruct a chain of events after the fact”.
Elements of the technology are automatic, though reporters said it wasn’t clear what that meant.
What we learnt in 2024
+972 Magazine detailed the Israeli military’s use of AI in April 2024. The Israeli-Palestinian-led outlet warned:
Formally, the Lavender system is designed to mark all suspected operatives in the military wings of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), including low-ranking ones, as potential bombing targets.
However:
During the early stages of the war, the army gave sweeping approval for officers to adopt Lavender’s kill lists, with no requirement to thoroughly check why the machine made those choices or to examine the raw intelligence data on which they were based.
It seems improbable that civilians were not pulled into Israel’s killing machine as part of the process given such indifferent oversight. The same drones are used by countries like India, Brazil and Singapore and even for EU border surveillance. Showing once again that Israel’s genocidal assaults on Palestine and Lebanon are a laboratory for killing technology with global implications.
Featured image via Oren Ravid/ Getty Images
By Joe Glenton
In northern Nigeria, US-backed airstrikes have killed dozens of civilians, locals say.
The US previously announced that 175 Islamic State militants had been killed in May. US Africa Command (AFRICOM) has a large neocolonial footprint on the continent.
Drop Site News reported this week:
The strikes were part of an expanding war between the Nigerian government and local Islamist groups which has drawn the increased involvement of the Trump administration, with little scrutiny. Metele, a remote community in northern Borno State near the Nigeria-Niger border, has long been affected by insurgent activities.
Reporters added:
Security sources and local residents have frequently identified the area and its surroundings as locations where fighters affiliated with the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) operate.
At the time, AFRICOM chief general, Dagvin Anderson, said:
As President Trump shared last night, AFRICOM in coordination with the Armed Forces of Nigeria, bravely and valiantly conducted a successful mission that resulted in the elimination of Abu-Bilal al-Minuki, and multiple other ISIS leaders.
Nigeria: Dozens killed and injured
Reports from the ground tell a different story. Metele’s village head, Zannah Abba Aji, told Drop Site News:
The community experienced a tragic airstrike attack recently which caused heavy casualties and destruction in Metele.
Many innocent civilians were affected during the incident.
Aji compiled a list of 27 civilians killed in the strikes, including 12 women and children.
Doctor Adam Asil Tijjani confirmed that “several noncombatants had been killed in the strikes”. He told Drop Site:
…two women and four children received in the aftermath of the bombings had died from their injuries there.
Those injuries included:
…burns, fractures, shrapnel wounds, and trauma-related injuries.
Eyewitness Goni Ahmed also described the horror:
First, we heard aircraft overhead. Shortly afterward, there were loud explosions that shook the ground. After the blasts, I could hear people shouting, crying, and calling for assistance. The sounds of panic and confusion continued for quite some time.
In the moments before:
Children were playing, women were preparing meals, and there was nothing to suggest that anything unusual was about to happen.
Civilian Protection Center of Excellence scrapped
The Trump administration intentionally axed a new civilian casualty accountability unit called the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence, Propublica reported in March.
The civilian protection mission was dissolved as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made “lethality” a top priority.
The outlet added:
Dismantling the fledgling harm-reduction effort, defense analysts say, is among several ways the Trump administration has reorganized national security around two principles: more aggression, less accountability.
The US practice of training local forces and backing them with airpower has shattered communities across the world. Trump cancelling a US accountability monitor has certainly compounded the issue.
However, the truth is, this is a US approach to ‘counter-terrorism’ that has thrived under both Democratic and Republican administrations.
The suffering in Africa barely figures in the grand calculations of empire, whoever is running it on the day.
Featured image via Ahmed Kingimi/ Reuters
By Joe Glenton
Fascist Israeli security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has told a meeting of Netanyahu’s cabinet that the occupation regime needs to abduct more Lebanese women and children.
He told his fellow monsters ministers that killing many Lebanese resistance fighters is good but that “arresting their women and children”…
This is what hurts them most.
Ben-Gvir/Israel’s actions met with impunity and silence
As the International Committee of the Red Cross notes, collective punishment of civilians is unequivocally a war crime. The minister is used to getting away with committing and inciting war crimes.
So far, the UK government has not condemned this one. Or even mentioned it.
Featured image via the Canary
By Skwawkbox
MONEY TALKS: Sherif Soliman, Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s budget chief, privately briefed members of the Democratic Socialists of America on the state of New York City’s finances last week — a move that could raise ethical concerns, according to a person at the meeting and a prominent government watchdog.
The meeting, billed as a “debrief” on the DSA’s “Tax the Rich Campaign,” was held on June 1 at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple in Clinton Hill. An invitation to the event obtained by Playbook encouraged people to sign up to become dues-paying DSA members in order to participate in the briefing.
During the gathering, Soliman told DSA members he has “the privilege of working alongside our mayor to lead the Office of Management and Budget,” according to the person who attended the closed-door affair and was granted anonymity to divulge details about it.
“So I have the power of the purse,” the OMB director added, per that person’s retelling.
Soliman, the mayor’s lead negotiator in budget talks with the City Council, then delivered a 10-minute presentation on how Mamdani’s administration has plugged a multibillion-dollar municipal deficit this year using savings initiatives, state funding commitments and new revenue generators, including a new tax on wealthy homeowners, said the person.
Soliman’s participation in the DSA confab is a strong sign of the deep ties between Mamdani and the socialist group, which the mayor has said remains his “political home.”
A former city government official, granted anonymity to speak candidly about an issue he didn’t have direct knowledge of, said the briefing Soliman delivered sounds like the sort of detailed budget breakdowns mayoral administrations usually reserve for Council members as part of financial plan negotiations.
Under city ethics law, a non-elected public servant like Soliman cannot use “any city resources,” such as their “city title” or “city personnel,” for “any non-city purpose,” according to a municipal government handbook.
Richard Briffault, a former chair of the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board, said there are scenarios where it’s okay under the law for senior municipal employees to deliver remarks in their official capacity at events hosted by political organizations.
But given that last week’s DSA forum included a membership drive component, Briffault said that Soliman’s participation — and use of his full city title — could raise legal concerns. “This strikes me as maybe on that line of using his title to promote a political organization,” he said.
Briffault said the situation would be even more serious if Soliman used municipal resources, like staffers or city government time, to help prepare for the briefing. If no city resources were used, he said, any violations at play would likely be minor.
“If there was anything wrong, it was likely minimally wrong,” he said.
Mamdani spokesperson Dora Pekec would not say whether Soliman — who delivered budget testimony before the City Council this morning (more on that below) — used city staff or other resources in preparation for his DSA presentation. She also would not say whether he consulted the Conflicts of Interest Board beforehand.
Pekec, however, did say it’s common for mayoral administration officials to “engage with a wide range of external stakeholders on matters concerning the city.”
Due to confidentiality protocols, the Conflicts of Interest Board doesn’t comment on possible ethical infractions involving individual city government employees.
Speaking in general, Carolyn Miller, the board’s executive director, said it “might” be an ethics law violation for a public servant to use their title in connection with a political club event where participants are encouraged to become dues-paying members.
“However, meetings of political clubs are also gatherings of City residents, and there may be circumstances where a presentation by a City official about a City policy issue (such as a DOHMH official speaking about virus transmission and prevention) would have a City purpose for which the use of City title would be appropriate,” Miller wrote in an email. — Chris Sommerfeldt
From the Capitol
HOMAN SPEAKS: Trump administration border czar Tom Homan insisted today that the upcoming surge of ICE agents into New York won’t be like Minneapolis.
“You will not see a Minnesota,” he told SiriusXM’s Chris Cuomo in an interview. “I will not let Minnesota happen.”
Concern is high among Democrats that an aggressive enforcement effort in New York will create similar unrest that led to the deaths of two U.S. citizens earlier this year in the North Star State.
Flooding New York with federal immigration enforcement agents would be a different prospect, though — something Gov. Kathy Hochul’s administration has been bracing for since the start of the year.
Homan maintains that the stepped-up enforcement is needed after Hochul and the Democratic-led Legislature approved a package of measures meant to put legal guardrails around Trump’s deportation campaign.
The New York-focused push will be “well planned,” Homan said.
“It’s gonna be a controlled operation,” he said. “It’s gonna be a targeted enforcement operation. Every day we leave the office and we know exactly who we’re looking for, more likely where we will find them, because we have a targeted operation.”
On X, Hochul said the measures she backed would not provide “sanctuary” for dangerous criminals.
“We will continue working with federal authorities to target violent offenders,” she said. “But we will not stand by if ICE floods our communities with agents, separates families, and turns our neighborhoods into the backdrop for a campaign of fear.” — Nick Reisman
FROM CITY HALL
RED WHITE AND BLUE: French jets with red, white and blue exhaust plumes flew over the Hudson River and the Statue of Liberty this morning as part of the country’s 250th birthday present to America. The Patrouille de France, the French equivalent of the Blue Angels, are touring the region and expected to be back in New York for a multinational armed forces review on July 4 that President Donald Trump is expected to attend.
During a Monday press conference at the French consulate on the Upper East Side, Brigadier General Pierre Gaudillière, head of the Liberté 250 mission, said planning for the flyovers began months ago to celebrate a military alliance that dates back to when the French provided aid to George Washington during the Revolutionary War.
“As Americans observe our 250th anniversary, it is especially meaningful to have one of our oldest allies helping us mark the occasion in our skies,” U.S. Air Force Maj. General Ricky Mills told reporters.
Asked about ongoing rifts over the Iran war, both Mills and Gaudillière emphasized ongoing cooperation.
“In some arenas of the world, we can share the premises where our forces are deployed and sometimes the missions differ for political reasons,” Gaudillièr said. “But there still is a very strong bond between the French and the American air and space forces.” — Ry Rivard
COUNCIL’S WISH LIST: Council Speaker Julie Menin telegraphed some of the body’s budget priorities during a four-hour hearing today.
The marathon session with the Office of Management and Budget nearly finishes the latest round of oversight hearings before lawmakers begin final negotiations with the Mamdani administration. The Council must then approve the final spending plan before the start of the fiscal year on July 1.
“The Council and administration can agree to fund many programs for the success, health and safety of all New Yorkers,” Menin said before rattling off some of lawmakers’ top priorities.
She specifically name-checked the Fair Fares program, which provides discounted public transit fares to lower-income New Yorkers. She floated the idea of bringing the budget for the Department of Parks and Recreation in line with historic spending. She wants to expand the New York City Kids RISE program, which helps young New Yorkers start scholarship funds early. And Menin wants to funnel more money to oversight agencies like the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection and the Department of Investigation.
While Mamdani just got through precariously balancing the city’s finances with a major assist from Albany, Menin’s beancounters predict the city will have around $2 billion in even more revenue this fiscal year and next to pay for some of the Council’s asks. — Joe Anuta
FROM THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL
ZONED OUT: Assemblymember Grace Lee’s sleek white Tesla has accumulated two dozen parking, bus-lane and speed-camera tickets around the city over the past three years — and her car-less political opponent is trying to make it an issue as they compete for an open Lower Manhattan state Senate seat.
Records from howsmydrivingny.nyc show Lee’s vehicle has been fined $1,800 by the city in the last three years. Four of the six school-zone speeding tickets her car has received came at the exact same location — right by P.S. 97 at FDR Drive and East Houston Street, which is located in the senate district she’s running to represent. She also snagged a parking ticket for the “misuse” of her Assembly parking placard, something Niou said indicates her callous attitude toward the law.
“People make mistakes, but abusing her placard and getting six school zone speeding tickets in just the last three years, seems like she doesn’t care about the danger and doesn’t believe that the law applies to her,” former Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou, who is challenging Lee for retiring state Sen. Brian Kavanagh’s seat, told Playbook in a statement.
Lee was part of previous pushes to tighten restrictions on drivers in the state and city. She joined city officials in 2024 to applaud the lowering of speed limits in the city, and the same year appeared with Hochul to celebrate a state law expanding red light camera programs.
“In Lower Manhattan, where heavy traffic and busy pedestrian areas meet daily, these expanded and newly established programs will reduce accidents and hold reckless drivers accountable,” Lee said at the time. “Together, we are building safer streets for all New Yorkers by protecting lives and preventing tragedies.”
Lee’s campaign spokesperson Austin Shafran responded to Niou’s attack in a statement.
“This attack reeks of desperation from a flailing candidate who’s been absent from the community and doesn’t have much of a record of public service to run on,” he said. — Jason Beeferman
IN OTHER NEWS
— BLANK SLATE: After pressure from Mamdani and tenant organizers, a landlord agreed to forgive millions of dollars in back rent for 5,100 apartments. (Gothamist)
— MOM AND POP: A Long Island official is pushing a resolution that would require the use of the words “mother” and “father” in town code in response to a state bill on surrogacy that seeks to remove those labels. (New York Post)
— UNEQUAL BURDEN: A new report finds New York City’s property tax system, which Mamdani campaigned on fixing, places the tax burden more on rent-stabilized buildings than high-end homes. (The City Reporter)
Missed this morning’s New York Playbook? We forgive you. Read it here.
Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) politicians have maintained they were correct to stand alongside masked men who hurled racist and sectarian abuse at a peaceful pro-Palestine march.
MP for Upper Bann, Carla Lockhart, incongruously claimed that she showed “real leadership” by joining a 300-strong pro-genocide mob, which jeered relentlessly metres away from the roughly 1,500-strong Palestine-backing contingent.
The latter were taking part in the Great March for Gaza, an event raising money for Palestinians still being murdered by Israeli Occupation Forces. Part of the march on 6 June passed along a towpath beside the largely unionist town of Scarva, prompting hostility from some residents.
Lockhart said she was there to “ensure calm heads prevailed and no one was hurt or injured in what had the potential to be a volatile situation”.
She further claimed to have averted “an absolute bloodbath” through her actions on the day. If the situation needed calming, it was only because the DUP had done everything imaginable to whip things up to fever pitch prior to the march.
The party suggested the march route had been “deliberately chosen to provoke tensions”. In fact the organisers, Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign Ireland (IPSC Lurgan), had selected a route that would avoid contentious areas to the maximum extent possible.
DUP stir confected outrage then play mediator
On the day of the march, Lockhart dishonestly attempted to link the march to republican paramilitaries. She also suggested the slogan ‘From the River to the Sea‘ is a “hate crime given its meaning is to exterminate the land of Israel and its inhabitants from off the face of the earth”.
Of course, its actual meaning is simply a call for one democratic state between the sea and the Jordan river, with equal rights for all who live there. The outrageous falsehood that it is anything else is purely Zionist propaganda, intended to whip up hostility to those trying to stop so-called ‘Israel’s’ holocaust in Gaza.
Lockhart published footage of herself speaking to Scarva residents prior to the Great March for Gaza’s arrival.
In it, she does request calm, and urges residents not to engage in violence. However, it’s a bit rich to get people as riled up as possible beforehand, then swoop in at the last minute and act like the stateswoman. You can’t take credit for defusing the very tension which had been partly created by your own actions.
It’s a little like when people celebrate Britain for ending slavery. You can’t do something obviously wrong for ages, then expect everyone to laud you when finally, belatedly, you cease your shameful behaviour.
At Stormont, DUP MLA, Diane Forsythe, was flipping her lid over what she described as an “excessive” policing.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) was indeed out in force, bringing riot cops and water cannons to the scene. They described it as a “appropriate and proportionate policing operation“. This seems about right, given the numbers present on each side, and the wild rhetoric going out from loyalist groups beforehand.
March exposes nature of those for/against genocide
On the one hand, we’re told by the DUP that “an absolute bloodbath” was on the horizon. Yet on the other hand, we’re supposed to believe a large police presence was “excessive”. This is the non-logic of a party that knows how to whip up confected, sectarianised outrage but does nothing of actual use for their constituents.
IPSC Lurgan correctly said the march was neither “intimidating, sectarian or provocative”. It pointed out what all available footage shows — that participants were “peaceful, dignified and disciplined throughout”. This didn’t stop Forsythe outright lying.
He said:
…when the Palestine walk appeared, [they] unfurled their banners and chanted at the crowd [opposite]…
No such event occurred at any stage. In reality, the two groups on either side of Newry canal provided an unmatched depiction of those for and against the Gaza holocaust.
On one side, those waving the Zionist entity’s flag, hate-filled and throwing disgusting abuse, shoulder to shoulder with politicians that allow the slaughter in Gaza to continue. On the other, an entirely peaceful humanitarian procession, doing what little they can to support those enduring some of the worst crimes in human history.
Featured image via the Canary
Carmarthenshire County Council has rejected Bryn Bach Coal Ltd’s second attempt to expand and extend the currently dormant Glan Lash opencast coal mine, about 15 miles north of Swansea. This followed hundreds of hand-written and online objections from residents in the county.
The decision reflects a clear, strategic commitment to climate leadership, rare habitat protection, and safeguarding the health of surrounding communities.
There are no live applications for new coal mines, and only two active coal mines remain in the UK. One is a large underground mine in Aberpergwm, Glynneath, the other a small underground mine called Ayle Colliery in Northumberland. There is a further proposal (pre-application stage) to mine the Bedwas coal tips of waste coal.
Coal emissions
The proposed expansion was the mining company’s second application. And it followed unanimous rejection by councillors of the company’s first application in September 2023.
The second application reduced the amount of coal to be mined from 95,000 tonnes to 85,000 over 5.4 years, with a slightly smaller area to be excavated. However, the latest application remained incompatible with Wales’ coal and protected habitats policies.
Rejecting this application has prevented the release of hundreds of thousands of tonnes of CO2 and methane. It also avoids exhaust emissions from years of heavy machinery use.
The would-be commercial buyers of this coal, as listed by the mining company, sell anthracite coal to burn on the international market, undermining the company’s claims that coal from Glan Lash would not be burned.
Selling Glan Lash coal on the international market would fuel dependence abroad on the world’s number one dirtiest fossil fuel, whilst the UK itself transitions to greener, cleaner industry and air quality.
Habitats and planning
Beyond emissions, an independent ecologist’s report outlines in stark terms how the mine expansion would have destroyed a further 2.5 hectares of woodland, including sections of listed ancient woodland, as well as over 400 metres of precious hedgerow habitat.
It also would have delayed the excavated area’s restoration (which planning permission originally required by 2019) by a further 5.4 years. The mining company originally committed to start restoring the site in 2018. But it delayed this with successive attempts to extend mining instead.
These delays have coincided with the deterioration of protected habitats on the site such as those supporting threatened marsh fritillary butterflies, whose numbers have plummeted across the UK by 64% since just 2005.
This refusal paves the way to require the company finally to return the land for the benefit of nature and local communities.
With the closest homes just 30 metres from the edge of the opencast site, the application was also clearly incompatible with the 500 metre minimum buffer zone. Welsh government policy requires this to protect surrounding communities from excessive noise, dust, and air pollution and disturbance.
Carmarthenshire Planning Authority’s decision reflects alignment with the Welsh government’s positions on coal, climate, and nature recovery, the UK government’s commitment to prevent new coal mining licences, and the international movement to phase out coal.
Local campaigner Philip Hughes said:
Following yet another year of record-breaking temperatures we are so grateful that Carmarthenshire County Council has rejected the application.
As was mentioned by so many residents visiting the petition stall, we need to keep fossil fuels in the ground, create green jobs, and protect our beautiful county.
Agreeing this application would have been disastrous on so many levels. Coal is our heritage but it is not our future.
Daniel Therkelsen, campaigns and communications manager of Coal Action Network, said:
We congratulate the Local Planning Authority on making the right decision for Carmarthenshire’s sustainable future.
We worked alongside local campaigners to secure this outcome, and we’ll continue to engage with the Authority on the restoration to ensure it is delivered to the standard promised, and to avoid the tragic outcome currently unfolding at the Ffos-y-fran ex-opencast coal mine site, also in South Wales.
Featured image via Coal Action Network
By The Canary
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