US VP JD Vance has encouraged the UK far-right to “keep on going” after fascist thug ‘Tommy Robinson’ told them to get ready for the “battle of Britain”. Around 40,000 racists turned out in London for a blatantly hateful rally, yet were given preferential treatment by police and politicians over the hundreds of thousands of peaceful anti-genocide marchers.

The Vance ‘Culture’

In a speech attacking immigration, Vance told White House reporters that “it’s ok to want to defend your culture” — by which he presumably means beery fat blokes shouting “Get your t**s out for the lads” and women dressing up in Muslim dresses to perform a racist strip. Is this worth ‘protecting’?:

The mob also distributed Islamophobic and other racist literature, while ignorant speakers gave speeches demanding the removal of ‘Islam’ from public institutions.

But then, Vance works for a ‘man’ who boasts of grabbing women by the genitals.

Meanwhile, Keir Starmer condemned the march for being hateful. But he and his lackeys call opposing mass murder and crimes against humanity ‘hate’, too — so nothing that comes out of his mouth is worth the foetid air it uses.

Featured image via Heather Diehl/Getty Images

By Skwawkbox

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Wanted genocidal war criminal and settler extremist Itamar Ben-Gvir’s arrogance is boundless. So much so that he has had himself filmed abusing and humiliating the 400 innocent volunteers of the humanitarian flotilla to Gaza that Israel abducted this week:

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The volunteers were trying to reach innocent Palestinians, whom Israel’s minister of national security wants dead or expelled, in Gaza where they are starving under Israel’s criminal starvation blockade.

Ben-Gvir compensating

The settler responded to the International Criminal Court (ICC) chief prosecutor’s application for a warrant for his arrest by announcing the illegal settlement of another stolen Palestinian area. The man is clearly compensating hard for something lacking in his body or soul, or most likely both.

Featured image via Amir Levy/Getty Images

By Skwawkbox

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The Telegraph has argued that people not in employment shouldn’t be able to vote, including people with disabilities and those who are sick. The paper posits that the “unemployable” should not be allowed “citizen rights”. It argues that increasing welfare payments is “bribery”.

Telegraph — bit extreme?

People with disabilities certainly need to be able to vote because otherwise they have no say in a far right party getting into power. This can have tragic outcomes. The Nazis murdered at least 250,000 people with disabilities from 1939-1945.

The job fairies

It’s standard for the corporate class to go on about unemployment welfare, but it’s a denial of reality.

There aren’t enough jobs for people to become employed, so it’s unclear what the Telegraph is proposing. There are 1.8 million people not in employment in the UK. And there are 9.1 million people economically inactive (also without employment but haven’t looked for a job in three months). That’s 10.9 million people without work.

And how many job vacancies are there? 705,000. That’s over 10 million people, including those who cannot work, the Telegraph expects to become employed at jobs that don’t exist.

Anything that benefits a group could be ‘bribery’

Why are policies that benefit the less well off or people with disabilities considered ‘hand outs’ or ‘bribes’? Meanwhile, policies that benefit the super rich are considered ‘good politics’.

In the 2023/24 year, some government subsidies to corporations totaled £32 billion. And in 2024 Labour announced a further £22 billion bung to the fossil fuel sector for carbon capture projects that don’t work. These could be described as ‘bribes’ to keep corporations on side.

In the UK, 28% of people with disabilities live in poverty — 8% higher than the average. Would lifting those people who cannot work out of poverty be considered a ‘bribe’? Nope, it’s called civilisation.

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By James Wright

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Authors Paul Holden and Andrew Feinstein — a former Mandela minister — have issued a statement demanding Keir Starmer come clean on what he knew about ‘Labour Together’s (LT) spying on them and other journalists. LT paid PR firm APCO to snoop on them as they were investigating LT’s sabotage, rigging and undeclared funding.

The pair were commenting in response to coverage in Democracy for Sale and the Financial Times that Starmer’s closest advisers were fully briefed on what LT and APCO were doing:

The articles in today’s media on Labour Together & the Labour Party’s investigation & surveillance of journalists including myself & my colleague Paul Holden, author of @StarmertheFraud, make it imperative that Starmer reveal exactly what he knew about these dirty tricks & when;… https://t.co/v4oGcWhIqa pic.twitter.com/MfFs1UDzSc

— Andrew Feinstein (@andrewfeinstein) May 20, 2026

In a joint statement demanding a full inquiry, Feinstein and Holden said that they had received “deeply disturbing” documents showing the “utterly false and highly defamatory” allegations LT and APCO made about them. The firms targeted family members, colleagues and friends — and the operation was run by Starmer’s party as well as by them.

And they say that the new coverage also blows apart the excuses and evasion of Starmer’s ministers and handlers about the spying:

Joint Statement: Paul Holden and Andrew Feinstein Regarding Labour Together, APCO and the Labour Party

On Wednesday last week we received documents from Labour Together following Subject Access Requests that we submitted to Labour Together in February 2026. The documents provided by Labour Together are deeply disturbing.

They show that Labour Together and APCO targeted us, our colleagues, our associates and Paul’s family with utterly false and highly defamatory allegations, and that this was done with the knowledge of the highest levels of the Labour Party. Indeed, we are now of the view that the operation to investigate us, our families and associates was effectively a joint operation run by the Labour Party, Labour Together and APCO.

This highly invasive campaign was launched because of Paul’s factually accurate reporting. This reporting raised serious questions about whether Labour Together and Morgan McSweeney deliberately failed to report £730,000 in donations to the Electoral Commission in violation of the law. It is now plain that Sir Keir Starmer benefited from the work funded by these donations and that they facilitated his rise to power.

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We are calling for a full inquiry into Labour Together.

We also call on Sir Keir Starmer to clarify his role in this scandal. Considering the documents that have been disclosed to date, we find it nearly inconceivable that Sir Keir Starmer did not know about this despicable project that included Labour Together reporting us to the National Cyber Security Center (NCSC), a part of GCHQ, based on utterly false and highly defamatory allegations. These highly defamatory allegations were then shared with at least one major newspaper outlet.

The newly released documents reveal six important facts.

First, they show that Morgan McSweeney and Paul Ovenden were aware of the APCO and Labour Together investigation into us from at least January 2024. McSweeney was the Labour Party’s head of campaigns and subsequently Sir Keir Starmer’s Chief of Staff in Number 10. Paul Ovenden was the Director of Labour Party communications and subsequently Head of Strategy in Number 10.

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The emails show Simons arranging a meeting between himself, Ovenden, McSweeney and Tom Harper, a senior APCO employee, to discuss the investigation into us. A third Labour employee was copied into the email, but, because of redactions, we do not know who this is. We ask the Labour Party to confirm who else was copied into this correspondence.

The excellent @PeterKGeoghegan and Democracy for Sale have confirmed with a Labour Party source that the intended meeting did take place.

Second, they show that APCO’s Tom Harper actively coached Josh Simons and Labour Together on how to submit a ‘crime complaint’ about us to the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), a part of GCHQ. Harper provided text for Simons to submit to the NCSC. The decision to complain about us to the NCSC was made only days after Simons had emailed McSweeney, Ovenden and Harper about APCO’s upcoming report into us, asking for a meeting to discuss its contents.

Third, Josh Simons has repeatedly claimed in public that he appointed APCO to investigate a ‘hack’ of Labour Together materials. But the new documents show that Labour Together and Simons did not conduct any meaningful cybersecurity review to establish whether materials had been hacked from Labour Together, or where else they may have been sourced from.

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Labour Together did, however, appoint a cybersecurity expert to review a potential hack in late 2025. This review, a summary of which has now been disclosed to us, shows that there was no ‘hack’ of Labour Together. This is obviously true, as we have repeatedly explained that the investigation into Labour Together was based on documents legally leaked from the Labour Party by whistleblowers concerned about misconduct by the Party’s most senior officials, open-source materials, and Freedom of Information requests.

Fourth, they show that Josh Simons and Labour Together told the NCSC that they were reporting us because they were concerned that Paul’s reporting ‘may be a co-ordinated effort to discredit Labour Together in order to undermine Mr McSweeney and by extension, Mr. Starmer in the run-up to next year’s general election.’ It is our view that this joint Labour Together, Labour Party and APCO operation was launched because Paul’s factually accurate reporting would have shed light on the highly problematic and unlawful aspects of Sir Keir Starmer’s rise to power.

Fifth, they show that APCO had sent a ‘case summary’ to Josh Simons of Labour Together on the 20th of November 2020, on the basis of which APCO were contracted by Labour Together two days later. The ‘case summary’, setting out a proposed scope of work, clearly identified us as journalists. From the very beginning, therefore, APCO and Labour Together knew that they were looking to investigate journalists – the very journalists who were reporting accurately on Labour Together, Morgan McSweeney and undeclared donations.

Sixth, they show that Simons wrote to an unknown person at the Labour Party in November 2023 asking for ‘intel’ on us. This shows that Simons’ immediate response to announcement of Paul’s book was to seek the assistance of the Labour Party. At the time, we were both Labour Party members. The reply to Simons’ request has been redacted in our documents. We call on the Labour Party to release all documents to us relevant to this scandal, and to confirm whether Josh Simons, Labour Together or APCO were provided with any of our private, personal information.

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It appears there are only three possibilities remaining. Starmer was either elbow-deep in Labour Together’s activities, or a complete puppet of those who were. Or, of course, both.

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By Skwawkbox

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Convicted fraudster Donald Trump just “forever barred and precluded” the US Inland Revenue Service (IRS) from investigating his tax returns to date.

The news comes as part of a $10bn lawsuit the US president levelled against the IRS as retribution for leaking his tax records between 2018 and 2020. The edict also applies to Trump’s family and his businesses.

Billionaire tax leaks

Back in 2023, former IRS contractor Charles Edward Littlejohn was convicted of illegally distributing the tax returns of many of America’s wealthiest individuals to two news outlets. Along with Trump, the documents also included returns for Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk.

In 2020, the New York Times published reports stating that US president paid between $0 and $750 in taxes over his first term.

The following year, ProPublica likewise reported that America’s 25 richest often paid less in tax that many of the working public. The outlet also published notable irregularities in Trump’s own taxes.

This leak violated the confidentiality clauses of IRS Code 6103, which are among the most stringent in US law.

As such, in January 2026, Trump filed a federal lawsuit to sue the IRS and Treasury Department for $10bn in damages. He included the Trump organization as a plaintiff, along with his sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr.

The suit alleged that the leak:

caused reputational and financial harm to Plaintiffs and adversely impacted President Trump’s support among voters in the 2020 presidential election.

‘Anti-weaponization fund’

On Monday 18 May, judge Kathleen Williams dismissed the case. That the same day, the Justice Department posted a settlement agreement for the lawsuit to its website. 

Williams admonished the Justice Department, along with the other government departments, for their lack of transparency in the run-up to the settlement. She stated that none of the agencies involved:

submitted any settlement documents nor filed any documents ensuring that settlement was appropriate where there was an outstanding question as to whether an actual case or controversy existed.

Monday’s settlement included an agreement for the US government to make a formal apology to Trump. It also included a provision to create a $1.776bn “Anti-Weaponization Fund”. This would apply to individuals who believe they have been targeted by the US government for political ends, i.e. Trump’s allies.

Acting attorney general Todd Blanche refused to rule out the possibility that it could extend to payouts for the 6 January rioters. He called the fund:

a lawful process for victims of lawfare and weaponization to be heard and seek redress.

Trump, meanwhile, stated that it was for “reimbursing people who were horribly treated.”

‘Slush fund’ for Trump allies

Predictably, swathes of the US political system have already called out the move. As AP reported:

Democratic lawmakers and ethics watchdogs slammed the creation of the fund, saying it was corrupt, opaque and had the potential to become a “slush fund” for the president and his allies. Even Republican lawmakers have expressed signs of discomfort about the fund’s creation, including Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who told reporters that he’s “not a big fan.”

Now, Monday’s settlement does state that Trump himself:

will not receive any monetary payment or damages of any kind

However, Trump appeared unsatisfied with this lack of a personal payout. On Tuesday 19 May, the Justice Department posted a single-page ‘addendum’ to the settlement. It effectively granted Trump immunity from tax investigations.

The document stated that United States are “FOREVER BARRED and PRECLUDED” from “prosecuting or pursuing, any and all claims” relating to tax returns submitted by the plaintiffs — Trump, his sons and their businesses — before 18 May 2026.

Likewise, the addendum — signed by Blanche — protects Trump from claims relating to “Lawfare and/or Weaponisation”.

Corruption and contempt — the Trump style

It seems superfluous, at this point, to highlight the extraordinary level of corruption on display here. Trump, who for all intents and purposes is the American government, has cut a deal with himself to grant himself immunity from investigations into his tax returns.

As a reminder, the US courts already convicted Trump of 34 counts of falsifying his business records. Now, as part of an opaque addendum to an already-bogus lawsuit, he’s blocked any further charges relating to his tax returns to date.

Glibly, we often state that the only certainties in life are death and taxes. However, given enough power, enough money, and enough corruption, the latter can be avoided completely. Those three traits are embodied in the disgusting slime Donald Trump.

Featured image via Win McNamee/Getty Images

By Alex/Rose Cocker

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On 17 May, the Israeli occupation approved a plan to establish what it calls a defence compound on the site of the former United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) headquarters in occupied East Jerusalem.

Site of demolished UNRWA headquarters will now become a millitary base for Israeli occupation forces

The proposal for the site in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of the city was put forward by the occupation’s defence minister Israel Katz. It will see the construction of an Israeli occupation forces (IOF) museum, a recruitment centre, and an office for the “Defence” Minister.

In January, Israeli occupation forces (IOF) stormed UNRWA’s headquarters, ordered staff to leave, and then used heavy machinery to raze it to the ground.

What was left was then set alight. Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of UNRWA, called the burning of UNRWA’s headquarters an unprecedented attack on the United Nations.

But, according to the 1946 Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the UN, the UN, its property, and its assets are immune from every form of legal process. UN premises, archives, and documents are “inviolable”, meaning they are legally off-limits to local authorities and protected from interference. And as a party to this treaty, “Israel” is obliged to honour and respect the inviolability of all UN premises. This includes those belonging to UNRWA.

Will the UN take legal action against Israeli occupation over actions against its headquarters?

Following the Knesset’s approval of the plans for the UNRWA site, the UN Secretary-General’s deputy spokesperson, Farhan Haq, said at his daily press briefing:

We are considering, with our legal office, what the next steps are, but we intend to make sure that all legal obligations are honoured. UNRWA sites are UN premises, and they are meant to be inviolable. We have raised concerns about exactly what’s happened to the site, the way it was invaded, the way it was taken over. And these concerns still apply.

UNRWA was formed in 1949. Its mandate is to provide aid and services to the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians forcibly displaced by the occupation during the formation of “Israel”, in 1948, until the implementation of Resolution 194. This resolution calls for the right of Palestinian refugees and internally displaced persons to return to their homes. There are currently almost six million registered with UNRWA.

But the Israeli occupation’s political goal is to forcibly displace Palestinians from the occupied territory, and ethnically cleanse Palestine. So there are ongoing attempts by the regime to dismantle UNRWA, and erase the status and history of Palestinian refugees both in the occupied territory and abroad.

This is why the zionist regime’s relationship with UNRWA has been hostile for many years. And this relationship has deteriorated further since the start of the genocide in Gaza. The agency has been relentlessly targeted by the occupation, with the aim of disrupting UNRWA’s work and permanently close it down.

Baseless accusations from the occupation — which have been heeded by the West, include claims the agency’s activities are used by Hamas as a cover for “terrorist” acts. The curriculum UNRWA uses in its education system has been accused of encouraging violence. And, according to the lies of the occupation, UNRWA employees also took part in Operation Al Aqsa Flood against “Israel” on 7 October, 2023.

UNRWA Legislation passed by Israeli occupation has a political motive

In October 2024, the Knesset passed legislation to ban UNRWA from providing any services whatsoever in so-called Israel. State authorities were also banned from having contact with UNRWA in both the Gaza Strip and occupied West Bank. This has seriously curtailed UNRWA’s activities there.

Then, in December 2025, a law was passed that required Israeli providers to disconnect or withhold water and electricity from UNRWA facilities. The provision of banking or financial services was also blocked to the agency. The Knesset also passed legislation that revokes diplomatic immunities, and also allows the Israel Land Authority to seize UNRWA-controlled land and offices, transferring UNRWA’s assets to the “state of Israel”.

Taking to X to boast of his proposal’s approval, Katz posted:

We outlawed this terror-supporting UN organisation and took the land, and now on its ruins we are building and strengthening Jerusalem—the eternal capital of the Jewish people.

As the international community debates statements of concern and legal obligations, crimes continue to be committed every hour of every day across occupied Palestine.

Absence of accountability ensures the occupation’s crimes continue

The terrorist state of Israel needs to be stopped. If international law means anything, then its violations cannot continue to be met with impunity, diplomatic cover, and empty statements of concern. The destruction of UN institutions, the targeting of refugees, and the ongoing dispossession of Palestinians demand urgent and concrete action from the international community.

But our governments continue to illegally arm, fund, and politically shield the Israeli occupation. They are enabling these crimes and undermining the human rights and democracy they continue to claim they defend. Until meaningful pressure is applied on “Israel” and it is isolated on the world stage, it will continue attacking Palestinians, their institutions and their rights with absolutely no fear of any consequences.

Featured image via Amir Levy/Getty Images

By Charlie Jaay

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BEZOS’ BLESSING: Mayor Zohran Mamdani found an unlikely supporter today for his push to raise taxes on rich property owners: Jeff Bezos, one of the wealthiest men in the world.

“The pied-à-terre tax is a fine thing for New York to do,” Bezos said in a wide-ranging interview this morning on CNBC.

The billionaire Amazon founder was referring to the new surcharge that the state — after prodding from Mamdani — is expected to levy on individuals who own secondary homes in the city worth more than $5 million. Bezos, who resides mainly in Miami, gave his thumbs up even though he owns multiple homes in the city — reportedly worth well over $5 million each — meaning he’s likely to be impacted by the new tax.

But Bezos, who ranks as the fourth richest man in the world, also had plenty of flack for the mayor and his democratic socialist philosophies.

On pied-à-terre, Bezos blasted Mamdani for releasing a social media video in which he stood outside billionaire hedge fund manager Ken Griffin’s Manhattan penthouse to tout the tax.

“To go stand in front of Ken Griffin’s house and act like he’s some kind of villain — Ken Griffin isn’t a villain,” Bezos said in the interview, which was shot inside his Florida space rocket manufacturing facility. “He hasn’t hurt anybody. He’s not hurting New York. In fact, quite the opposite. And so that piece of it isn’t right, and there was no reason to do that.”

Mamdani’s video stunt has triggered a sustained uproar from business leaders who say the video was in poor taste. They’ve also argued a pied-à-terre tax is flawed because it could drive the rich to sell their properties, depleting the local tax pool.

Griffin himself threatened to pull the plug on a $6 billion office development project in the city in response to Mamdani’s video. The mayor has since taken pains to meet with local business giants, like the chief executives of JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, though Griffin himself has so far rejected Mamdani’s entreaties for a sit-down.

While Bezos gave Mamdani an unexpected boost on the pied-à-terre front, the Amazon honcho’s gripes with the mayor went well beyond Griffin.

Mamdani has long favored raising income taxes on the rich — on both the state and federal level — arguing such hikes would create more revenue to fund services for the average person.

Bezos contends that’s nonsense and pointed to the fact that the city’s public school system spends about $44,000 on every student annually — a markedly higher sum than other major U.S. cities — with little to show for it in terms of educational outcomes.

“You could double the taxes I pay and it’s not going to help that teacher in Queens, I promise you,” said Bezos.

Instead, he said the focus should be on eliminating taxes altogether for low-income earners. “A nurse in Queens who makes $75,000 a year pays 12 — more than $12,000 a year in taxes. Does that really make sense?” he said. “So, people talk about making the tax system more progressive. How about we start by having the nurse in Queens not pay taxes?”

CNBC anchor Andrew Ross Sorkin pressed Bezos on whether billionaires like himself would need to pay more in income taxes if nurses and teachers are given a pass on their bills, given there might otherwise be a revenue shortfall. Bezos replied that is “certainly a perfectly valid policy debate.”

A spokesperson for Mamdani would not comment on Bezos’ support for the pied-à-terre tax. But responding to a CNBC clip of Bezos criticizing higher taxes on the wealthy, Mamdani wrote on X: “I know a few teachers in Queens who would beg to differ.”

Queens holds a special place in Bezos’ mind. In 2019, Amazon canceled plans to build a massive headquarters in Long Island City after progressives such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and former Mayor Bill de Blasio fought against awarding the mega-corporation $3 billion in public subsidies for the project.

Indeed, Bezos kept coming back to Queens in his CNBC hit, even while talking about what a great career choice he believes Amazon is for working class Americans.

“Amazon, we have our entry level wage for, in Queens, is $23 an hour,” he said. “That works out to be like $52,000 a year, and this is an entry level job that doesn’t require any educational attainment. It doesn’t require any preexisting skills. We will train you. It’s actually a great first job.” — Chris Sommerfeldt 

From the Capitol

ZOMBIE FIGHT: State lawmakers are expected to grant Mamdani the power to dissolve a Charter Revision Commission launched by his predecessor, providing him with a clear path to kill the controversial panel.

The new authority, set to be approved in a budget bill scheduled for a Thursday vote, will give Mamdani until June 1 to either approve or rescind the commission’s creation by former Mayor Eric Adams, two people familiar with the deal said.

The people, who were granted anonymity to discuss details of the yet-to-be released legislation, said Mamdani asked state officials to insert the language into the tax-and-spending plan. They also said Mamdani — who has for months sought a way to kill the Adams commission — is expected to use the authority to disband the panel once and for all.

Kayla Mamelak, Adams’ former press secretary who’s among several aides and political loyalists he appointed to the commission, told POLITICO on Wednesday that no one from the panel received a heads up from state lawmakers or the mayor’s administration about the new legislation.

Read more from POLITICO Pro’s Nick Reisman and Chris Sommerfeldt.

LANDFILL LATTE: A plastic cup tossed into the recycling bin at a Starbucks in Park Slope traveled 463 miles to its final resting place at Apex Landfill in Amsterdam, Ohio.

The cup’s long and winding road from eco-minded, brownstone Brooklyn to a tiny Ohio village underscores how little consumer plastic ends up getting recycled — even through a corporation that touts its sustainability cred.

The journey was tracked by Beyond Plastics, which released a report today documenting how it attached trackers to plastic cups in Starbucks recycling bins to see where they ended up. Not a single cup ended up at a recycling facility.

“When a company tells you something is being recycled and it isn’t, it doesn’t just mislead the customer, it also takes the pressure off for real solutions, which is using less plastic in the first place,” Judith Enck, president of Beyond Plastics, told reporters Wednesday.

The group, a non-profit that advocates for ending plastic pollution, is lobbying for the Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act to pass in Albany this session. The bill is aimed at reducing single-use packaging in New York and is sponsored by Assemblymember Deborah Glick and state Sen. Pete Harckham, both Democrats.

The cups in question are made of polypropylene, or No. 5 plastic. And while they are indeed recyclable, Beyond Plastics could only find a handful of commercial recycling operators in the country that claim to recycle post-consumer polypropylene.

Starbucks is already using fiber to-go cups in hundreds of its outposts across 14 states. The report calls on the coffee chain to use those cups nationwide. Starbucks pushed back on the report.

“Our cups are designed to be recyclable, and the ‘widely accepted for recycling’ designation reflects that,” Emily Albright, a spokesperson for Starbucks, said in a statement. “Obviously, recycling in practice also requires local community infrastructure. That’s why we work closely with others, including the recycling companies, to help expand access and help improve the system.” — Mona Zhang

FROM CITY HALL

EYES ON AI: Council member Julie Won is rolling out legislation that would establish an artificial intelligence oversight office in the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection.

The director of the office would be responsible for investigating “allegations of the use of artificial intelligence in violation of the consumer laws” and for implementing an “outreach and education campaign to raise public awareness regarding the use of artificial intelligence to harm the rights, safety, or interests of consumers.”

The Council has long attempted to regulate AI.

Won is running for Congress in the competitive Democratic primary to succeed retiring Rep. Nydia Velázquez. As part of her campaign, she’s put out a technology policy platform focused heavily on AI and using the technology “responsibly.”

“We have to change the public sentiment from being so afraid of becoming obsolete to making sure there’s protections so that people don’t become obsolete,” Won said in a recent interview.

The debate over the path forward for AI has reshaped elections across the country — especially in the Democratic primary for retiring Rep. Jerry Nadler’s seat, where millions of dollars have poured in from groups on both sides of the regulation conversation.

There’s no indication, though, that those entities are planning to get involved in this race, where Won is up against Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso and Assemblymember Claire Valdez. — Madison Fernandez

BUFFERING, PLEASE HOLD: City Council Speaker Julie Menin is planning to introduce a revised version of the “buffer zone” protest bill for educational facilities, scaling back the proposal after Mamdani vetoed the original measure in late April.

The new legislation narrows the definition of educational facilities to early childhood sites and most K-12 schools, explicitly excluding libraries, teaching hospitals and — notably — colleges and universities.

The bill, similar to the buffer zone protest bill for religious institutions, would require the NYPD to create and publicize security perimeter plans around those schools during protests. Both measures have undergone significant revisions compared to earlier versions, which initially proposed 100-foot buffer zones between protestors and the sites in question.

The changes mark a significant concession from Menin on the bill’s core scope, as she moves to address member concerns rather than attempt an override — despite saying she had the votes to do so.

“We have the ability to do an override, but to jam through an override on an issue where even members who were going to support the override had real concerns — I don’t think that’s a responsible path forward,” the speaker said. “It’s my job as speaker to build consensus.”

Changes to the school-focused bill also include replacing its original prime sponsor, Council member Eric Dinowitz, with Council member Elsie Encarnacion. Under the new version, Dinowitz will appear as second co-prime sponsor.

Menin pushed back on criticism that the revisions weaken the legislation.

“I don’t view it as a watering down. I actually view it as a strengthening,” Menin said. “It means we’re going to get more members involved in supporting this bill.”

The original proposal — part of the Council’s five-point plan to combat antisemitism — was driven in part by concerns over campus protests tied to Israel’s war in Gaza. Mamdani vetoed it in April, citing constitutional concerns and the bill’s broad definition of educational institutions, which he argued could have applied to libraries, museums and hospitals.

“The Mamdani administration has not seen the specific legislative language, and we look forward to reviewing it,” a spokesperson for the mayor said. “The Mayor believes New York City must remain a place where students can access their schools safely as well as exercise their constitutional right to protest.” — Gelila Negesse

IN OTHER NEWS

— CHECKERS, NOT CHESS: OpenAI is pivoting to a state-by-state lobbying strategy to shape AI regulation, aiming to build momentum as federal efforts stall. (POLITICO)

— CASE NOT CLOSED: Citizens Union, a government watchdog group, is urging the Manhattan district attorney to pursue state charges against Eric Adams despite the Trump administration dropping a federal case against him. (The New York Times)

— NO PLAYING AROUND: New York health officials say they are closely monitoring an Ebola outbreak in the Congo as international travel ramps up ahead of the World Cup. (Gothamist)

Missed this morning’s New York Playbook? We forgive you. Read it here.

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The inspector general of the US Department of War will investigate whether America’s ‘narco-terrorist’ boat strikes are war crimes. US attacks on alleged cartel smugglers have been carried out in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific since September 2025.

The bombings were seen as precursor attacks to the 3 January raid which saw Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro kidnapped by US special forces. Yet the strikes have continued well into 2026.

The NGO Airwars says there have been 193 deaths across 56 incidents. The US maintains killings have been legal. Many legal experts say this is patently untrue.

The inquiry aims to:

determine whether DoW Components followed the established framework of the six-phase Joint Targeting Cycle when conducting targeting operations in the U.S. Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM) area of responsibility.

Adding:

We may revise the objective as the evaluation proceeds, and we will also consider suggestions from
management for additional or revised objectives.

Sean Parnell, then-chief spokesperson at the Pentagon, said in November 2025:

Our current operations in the Caribbean are lawful under both US and international law, with all actions in complete compliance with the law of armed conflict.

The most recent strike was on 8 May. The US shared footage on social media:

On May 8, at the direction of #SOUTHCOM commander Gen. Francis L. Donovan, Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations. Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking… pic.twitter.com/YFLQNZufRx

— U.S. Southern Command (@Southcom) May 9, 2026

US hemispheric plans

US belligerence across the Americas has increased under Trump. This has included brinkmanship over Greenland, rumours of an invasion of Canada and threats against Cuba.

The CIA recently killed a mid-level cartel boss with a car bomb in Mexico City, reports say. The Mexican authorities claim they gave no permission for US covert operations inside their borders. Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are part of this project too.

Historian Nikhil Pal Singh wrote in Equator magazine on 14 January 2026:

From Venezuela to Minnesota, Trump is creating a borderless American power, collapsing the foreign and the domestic into a single domain of impunity

Singh accused Trump of conflating:

immigrants, drugs and free trade as sources of weakness coming from outside, “poisoning the blood of our country”.

All in a bid to combine:

the archaic geopolitics of a settler empire to the modern legal frameworks devised by his liberal predecessors.

The Latin American Center for Investigative Journalism investigated the backgrounds of 13 of those killed in ‘narco’ strikes:

finding they came from extremely poor communities across the region, with little or no apparent connection to organized drug networks. The reporting described the victims as day laborers who took work on the boats out of desperation, not as figures with any meaningful role in the drug trade.

The US war machine will investigate itself. And the Canary will await the findings with bated breath. But substantial evidence already suggests the new ‘war on drugs’ is very much like the old ‘war on drugs’. It is a war on the impoverished, the displaced and the racialised, waged by a increasingly erratic and violent empire. Trump wants to remake the Americas in his own bloodthirsty image — and that is precisely what he is doing.

Featured image via wong yu liang

By Joe Glenton

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UEFA issued a decision to ban Czech coach Petr Vlachovsky for life, after he was convicted of secretly filming female football players inside changing rooms and showers, in a case that caused widespread shock within European sporting circles, especially since minors were among the victims.

According to a report published by Reuters, the penalty includes permanently prohibiting him from practicing any football-related activity, with a formal request to the International Federation FIFA to generalize the decision globally.

A report by The Guardian newspaper stated that Vlachovský exploited his former position as coach of the women’s team at the Czech club Slovacko, in addition to overseeing the Czech women’s national team U-19, to install hidden cameras inside private player facilities over four years, where he filmed 14 players without their knowledge, and some of the victims were under the age of 18.

The newspaper added that during the investigations, the Czech authorities found child sexual abuse material (CSAM) on his electronic devices, which compounded the seriousness of the case and sparked widespread outrage in Czech sporting and human rights circles.

The Czech judiciary had convicted the coach in 2025, handing down a one-year suspended prison sentence, in addition to banning him from local coaching for five years, before UEFA intervened and decided to tighten the penalty by imposing a permanent ban on all football activities, according to Reuters.

The case reopened the discussion about the protection of players within women’s clubs and national teams, amid increasing demands for stricter supervision within sports facilities and the imposition of more stringent mechanisms to prevent the recurrence of such violations.

Featured image via Daniela Porcelli/Getty Images

By Alaa Shamali

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In the summer of 2026, the World Cup will be more than just another tournament added to the footballing archives; it may well become the final act for the greatest attacking trio of the modern era.

Legends Messi, Ronaldo, and Neymar — three names that haven’t just dominated titles and statistics, but have commanded the public imagination for over 15 years, to the point where the story of football is told through their journeys.

But what makes the 2026 World Cup exceptional is not just the history they have made, but the heavy questions each of them carries ahead of this final journey.

This World Cup is Messi’s final act

Messi enters this tournament from a completely different perspective than the others. The man who chased the World Cup for years, suffered final defeats, and bore the weight of comparisons and legacy, finally reached the summit and claimed the title at Qatar 2022. Consequently, his upcoming participation isn’t so much a search for glory as it is an attempt to protect the image of the “complete hero.”

Messi no longer has anything to prove, but he knows that history is unforgiving; it remembers not just who won, but how the stories ended. Thus, World Cup 2026 could turn into a final test: Can the greatest player of his generation conclude his journey while still capable of leading Argentina at the highest level?

Ronaldo’s gritty battle

For Ronaldo, the story is entirely different and perhaps more poignant, as he has achieved almost everything in his career except for the World Cup.

With five World Cup appearances, hundreds of goals, countless European titles, and individual dominance spanning a decade and a half, the World Cup trophy remains the sole void in his footballing legacy.

This makes the 2026 World Cup feel like his “final battle” against time, especially since the Portuguese legend built his entire career on the idea of defying the impossible. Ronaldo doesn’t just want to participate; he wants to prove that the legend can still be decisive even at forty. Every minute he plays will likely be surrounded by one question: Will he finally manage to seize the trophy that has eluded him throughout his career?

Neymar and the quest for global glory

The third figure, Neymar, represents the most complex and sensitive case. The Brazilian who entered the footballing world as the “heir apparent” has lived a contradictory career: moments of pure genius alongside recurring injuries, collective disappointments, and accusations of falling short of expectations.

Despite being Brazil’s all-time leading scorer, his global image has always been tied to the question: “What if?” What if injuries hadn’t stolen his prime years? What if he had actually led Brazil to global glory?

Consequently, the 2026 World Cup could be his final chance to rewrite the narrative completely, transforming his career from a story of unfulfilled talent into a completed legend at the final hour.

World Cup 2026 — the end of a star-studded era

This is perhaps where the true value of the upcoming World Cup lies; fans won’t just be watching a tournament, they will be witnessing the end of an entire era. It is an era that began with Messi and Ronaldo’s duopoly over the Ballon d’Or, saw Neymar rise as the face of footballing flair, and concludes with a generation raised on the rivalry between these three.

The 2026 World Cup might not grant all of them the dream ending they envision, but their final gathering on football’s grandest stage will be enough to make the tournament feel like the closing chapter of a story that changed the history of modern football.

Featured image via Philipp Schmidli/Getty Images

By Alaa Shamali

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