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      US sees spate of arrests of civilians impersonating Ice officers

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      Police in southern California arrested a man suspected of posing as a federal immigration officer this week, the latest in a series of such arrests, as masked, plainclothes immigration agents are deployed nationwide to meet the Trump administration’s mass deportation targets.The man, Fernando Diaz, was arrested by Huntington Park police after officers said they found a loaded gun and official-looking documents with Department of Homeland Security headings in his SUV, according to NBC Los Angeles. Officers were impounding his vehicle for parking in a handicapped zone when Diaz asked to retrieve items inside, the police said. Among the items seen by officers in the car were “multiple copies of passports not registered under the individual’s name”, NBC reports.Diaz was arrested for possession of the allegedly unregistered firearm and released on bail.The Huntington Park police chief and mayor accused Diaz of impersonating an immigration agent at a news conference, a move Diaz later told the NBC News affiliate he was surprised by.Diaz also denied to the outlet that he had posed as an officer with border patrol or Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice). At the news conference, police showed reporters paper they found inside his car with an official-looking US Customs and Border Protection header.The arrest is one of several cases involving people allegedly impersonating immigration officials, as the nationwide crackdown on undocumented immigrants intensifies.Experts have warned that federal agents’ increased practice of masking while carrying out immigration raids and arrests makes it easier for imposters to pose as federal officers.Around the country, the sight of Ice officers emerging from unmarked cars in plainclothes to make arrests has become increasingly common.In March, for instance, a Tufts University student was seen on video being arrested by masked Ice officials outside her apartment, after her visa had been revoked for writing an opinion article in her university newspaper advocating for Palestinian rights. And many federal agents operating in the Los Angeles region in recent weeks have been masked.In late January, a week after Trump took office, a man in South Carolina was arrested and charged with kidnapping and impersonating an officer, after allegedly presenting himself as an Ice officer and detaining a group of Latino men.In February, two people impersonating Ice officers attempted to enter a Temple University residence hall. CNN reported that Philadelphia police later arrested one of them, a 22-year-old student, who was charged with impersonating an officer.In North Carolina the same week, another man, Carl Thomas Bennett, was arrested after allegedly impersonating an Ice officer and sexually assaulting a woman. Bennett reportedly threatened to deport the woman if she did not comply.In April, a man in Indiantown, Florida, was arrested for impersonating an Ice officer and targeting immigrants. Two men reported to the police that the man had performed a fake traffic stop, and then asked for their documents and immigration status.Mike German, a former FBI agent and fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice, told the Guardian last week that the shootings of two Democratic lawmakers in Minnesota, by a suspect who allegedly impersonated a police officer, highlights the danger of police not looking like police.“Federal agents wearing masks and casual clothing significantly increases this risk of any citizen dressing up in a way that fools the public into believing they are law enforcement so they can engage in illegal activity. It is a public safety threat, and it’s also a threat to the agents and officers themselves, because people will not immediately be able to distinguish between who is engaged in legitimate activity or illegitimate activity when violence is occurring in public,” he said. More

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      Joe Biden and Kamala Harris attend funeral of slain Minnesota lawmaker

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      Democratic former Minnesota state house speaker Melissa Hortman was honored for her legislative accomplishments and her humanity during a funeral on Saturday that was attended by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.The former president and vice-president were joined by more than 1,000 other mourners.Hortman was shot to death during a pair of attacks two weeks earlier by a man posing as a police officer. Minnesota’s chief federal prosecutor has called the killing an assassination. The shootings also left her husband, Mark, dead and a state senator and his wife seriously wounded.“Melissa Hortman will be remembered as the most consequential speaker in Minnesota history. I get to remember her as a close friend, a mentor and the most talented legislator I have ever known,” Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz, said in his eulogy.Walz, who was Harris’s running mate in the 2024 White House election won by Donald Trump, added: “For seven years, I have had the privilege of signing her agenda into law. I know millions of Minnesotans get to live their lives better because she and Mark chose public service and politics.”Neither Biden nor Harris spoke, but they sat in the front row with Walz. Biden was also one of more than 7,500 people who paid their respects on Friday as Hortman, her husband and their golden retriever, Gilbert, lay in state in the Minnesota capitol rotunda in St Paul. Gilbert was seriously wounded in the attack and had to be euthanized. Biden also visited the wounded senator in a hospital.Dozens of current and former state legislators from both parties and other elected officials who worked with Hortman also attended.As House speaker, Hortman helped pass an expansive agenda of liberal initiatives such as free lunches for public school students along with strengthened protections for abortion and trans rights during a momentous 2023 legislative session. With the House split 67-67 between Democrats and Republicans this year, she yielded the gavel to a Republican under a power-sharing deal, took the title speaker emerita and helped break a budget impasse that threatened to shut down state government.Walz said Hortman – who was first elected in 2004 – saw her mission as “to get as much good done for as many people as possible”. And he said her focus on people was what made her so effective.“She certainly knew how to get her way – no doubt about that,” Walz said. “But she never made anyone feel that they’d gotten rolled at a negotiating table. That wasn’t part of it for her, or a part of who she was. She didn’t need somebody else to lose to win for her.”The governor said the best way to honor the Hortmans would be by following their example.“Maybe it is this moment where each of us can examine the way we work together, the way we talk about each other, the way we fight for things we care about,” Walz said. “A moment when each of us can recommit to engaging in politics and life the way Mark and Melissa did – fiercely, enthusiastically, heartily, but without ever losing sight of our common humanity.”A private burial for the Hortmans will be held at a later date.The Hortmans were proud of their adult children, Sophie and Colin Hortman, and the lawmaker often spoke of them.In a voice choked with emotion, Colin said his parents embodied the “Golden Rule”, and he read the prayer of St Francis, which his mother always kept in her wallet. He said it captures her essence. It starts: “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.”After the service, Walz presented the children with US and Minnesota flags that flew over the state capitol on the day their parents were killed.The man accused of killing the Hortmans at their home in the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Park on 14 June, and wounding Democratic state senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, at their home in nearby Champlin, surrendered near his home the night of 15 June.Vance Boelter, 57, of Green Isle, remains jailed and has not entered a plea to charges that could carry the federal death penalty. More

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      Ice arrests of US military veterans and their relatives are on the rise: ‘a country that I fought for’

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      The son of an American citizen and military veteran – but who has no citizenship to any country – was deported from the US to Jamaica in late May.Jermaine Thomas’s deportation, recently reported on by the Austin Chronicle, is one of a growing number of immigration cases involving military service members’ relatives or even veterans themselves who have been ensnared in the Trump administration’s mass deportation program.As the Chronicle reported, Thomas was born on a US army base in Germany to an American citizen father, who was originally born in Jamaica and is now dead. Thomas does not have US, German or Jamaican citizenship – but Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agency deported him anyway to Jamaica, a country in which he had never stepped foot.Thomas had spent two-and-a-half months incarcerated while waiting for an update on his case. He was previously at the center of a case brought before the US supreme court regarding his unique legal status.The federal government argued that Thomas – who had previously received a deportation order – was not a citizen simply because he was born on a US army base, and it used prior criminal convictions to buttress the case against him. He petitioned for a review of the order, but the supreme court denied him, finding his father “did not meet the physical presence requirement of the [law] in force at the time of Thomas’s birth”.From Jamaica, Thomas told the Chronicle: “If you’re in the US army, and the army deploys you somewhere, and you’ve gotta have your child over there – and your child makes a mistake after you pass away – and you put your life on the line for this country, are you going to be OK with them just kicking your child out of the country?”He added, in reference to his father: “It was just Memorial Day [in late May]. Y’all are disrespecting his service and his legacy.”In recent months, US military veterans’ family members have been increasingly detained by immigration officials, as the administration continues pressing for mass deportations.A US marine veteran, during an interview on CNN, said he felt “betrayed” after immigration officials beat and arrested his father at a landscaping job. The arrested man had moved to the US from Mexico in the 1990s without documentation but was detained by Ice agents this month while doing landscaping work at a restaurant in Santa Ana, California.In another recent case, the wife of another Marine Corps veteran was detained by Ice despite still breastfeeding her three-month-old daughter. According to the Associated Press, the veteran’s wife had been going through a process to obtain legal residency.The Trump administration has ramped up efforts to detain and deport people nationwide. During a May meeting, White House officials pressed Ice to increase its daily arrests to at least 3,000 people daily. That would result in 1 million people being arrested annually by Ice.Following the tense meeting, Ice officials have increased their enforcement operations, including by detaining an increasing number of people with no criminal record. Being undocumented is a civil infraction – not a crime.According to a recent Guardian analysis, as of mid-June, Ice data shows there were more than 11,700 people in immigration detention arrested by the agency despite no record of them being charged with or convicted of a crime. That represents a staggering 1,271% increase from data released on those in Ice detention immediately preceding the start of Trump’s second term.In March, Ice officials arrested the daughter of a US veteran who had been fighting a legal battle regarding her status. Alma Bowman, 58, was taken into custody by Ice during a check-in at the Atlanta field office, despite her having lived in the US since she was 10 years old.Bowman was born in the Philippines during the Vietnam war, to a US navy service member from Illinois stationed there. She had lived in Georgia for almost 50 years. Her permanent residency was revoked following a minor criminal conviction from 20 years ago, leading her to continue a legal battle to obtain citizenship in the US.Previously, Bowman was detained by Ice at a troubled facility in Georgia, where non-consensual gynecological procedures were allegedly performed on detained women. In 2020, she had been a key witness for attorneys and journalists regarding the controversy. According to an interview with The Intercept from that year, Bowman said she had always thought she was a US citizen.In another recent case, a US army veteran and green-card holder left on his own to South Korea. His deportation order was due to charges related to drug possession and an issue with drug addiction after being wounded in combat in the 1980s, for which he earned the prestigious Purple Heart citation.“I can’t believe this is happening in America,” Sae Joon Park, who had held legal permanent residency, told National Public Radio. “That blows me away – like, [it is] a country that I fought for.” More

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      Sudden loss of key US satellite data could send hurricane forecasting back ‘decades’

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      A critical US atmospheric data collection program will be halted by Monday, giving weather forecasters just days to prepare, according to a public notice sent this week. Scientists that the Guardian spoke with say the change could set hurricane forecasting back “decades”, just as this year’s season ramps up.In a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) message sent on Wednesday to its scientists, the agency said that “due to recent service changes” the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) will “discontinue ingest, processing and distribution of all DMSP data no later than June 30, 2025”.Due to their unique characteristics and ability to map the entire world twice a day with extremely high resolution, the three DMSP satellites are a primary source of information for scientists to monitor Arctic sea ice and hurricane development. The DMSP partners with Noaa to make weather data collected from the satellites publicly available.The reasons for the changes, and which agency was driving them, were not immediately clear. Noaa said they would not affect the quality of forecasting.However, the Guardian spoke with several scientists inside and outside of the US government whose work depends on the DMSP, and all said there are no other US programs that can form an adequate replacement for its data.“We’re a bit blind now,” said Allison Wing, a hurricane researcher at Florida State University. Wing said the DMSP satellites are the only ones that let scientists see inside the clouds of developing hurricanes, giving them a critical edge in forecasting that now may be jeopardized.“Before these types of satellites were present, there would often be situations where you’d wake up in the morning and have a big surprise about what the hurricane looked like,” said Wing. “Given increases in hurricane intensity and increasing prevalence towards rapid intensification in recent years, it’s not a good time to have less information.”The satellites also formed a unique source of data for tracking changes to the Arctic and Antarctic, and had been tracking changes to polar sea ice continuously for more than 40 years.“These are some of the regions that are changing the fastest around the planet,” said Carlos Moffat, an oceanographer at the University of Delaware who had been working on a research project in Antarctica that depended on DMSP data. “This new announcement about the sea ice data really amounts to blinding ourselves and preventing us from observing these critical systems.”Researchers say the satellites themselves are operating normally and do not appear to have suffered any errors that would physically prevent the data from continuing to be collected and distributed, so the abrupt data halt might have been an intentional decision.“It’s pretty shocking,” Moffat said. “It’s hard to imagine what would be the logic of removing access now and in such a sudden manner that it’s just impossible to plan for. I certainly don’t know of any other previous cases where we’re taking away data that is being collected, and we’re just removing it from public access.”The loss of DMSP comes as Noaa’s weather and climate monitoring services have become critically understaffed this year as Donald Trump’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) initiative has instilled draconian cuts to federal environmental programs.A current Noaa scientist who wishes to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation said that the action to halt the DMSP, when taken in context with other recent moves by the Trump administration, amounted to “a systematic destruction of science”.The researcher also confirmed that federal hurricane forecasters were left unprepared for the sudden change with only a few days of notice.“It’s an instant loss of roughly half of our capabilities,” said the scientist. “You can’t expect us to make accurate forecasts and warnings when you take the useful tools away. It frankly is an embarrassment for the government to pursue a course with less data and just pretend everything will be OK.”Scientists said the decision to halt the DMSP will result in immediately degraded hurricane forecasts during what is expected to be an above-average season as well as a gap in monitoring sea ice – just as Arctic sea ice is hitting new record lows.“This is a huge hit to our forecasting capabilities this season and beyond, especially our ability to predict rapid intensification or estimate the strength of storms in the absence of hurricane hunters,” said Michael Lowry, a meteorologist who has worked at Noaa’s National Hurricane Center and with the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “The permanent discontinuation of data from these satellites is senseless, reckless and puts at risk the lives of tens of millions of Americans living in hurricane alley.”The DMSP dates back to 1963, when the Department of Defense determined a need for high-resolution cloud forecasts to help them plan spy missions. The program, which had been the longest-running weather satellite initiative in the federal government, has since evolved into a critical source of information not just on the inner workings of hurricanes, but also on polar sea ice, wildfires, solar flares and the aurora.In recent years, the DMSP had struggled to maintain consistent funding and priority within the Department of Defense as it transitioned away from its cold war mission. The only other nation with similar satellite capability is Japan, and messages posted earlier in June indicate that scientists had already been considering a switch to the Japanese data in case of a DMSP outage – though that transition will take time.Neither Noaa nor the Department of Defense specified exactly which service changes may have prompted such a critical program to be so abruptly halted.In a statement to the Guardian, Noaa’s communications director, Kim Doster, said: “The DMSP is a single dataset in a robust suite of hurricane forecasting and modeling tools in the National Weather Service portfolio. This routine process of data rotation and replacement would go unnoticed in past administrations, but the media is insistent on criticizing the great work that Noaa and its dedicated scientists perform every day.“Noaa’s data sources are fully capable of providing a complete suite of cutting-edge data and models that ensure the gold-standard weather forecasting the American people deserve.”One Noaa source the Guardian spoke to said the loss of DMSP’s high-resolution data could not be replaced by any other existing Noaa tool.A statement from an official at US space force, which is part of the Department of Defense, said: “The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) operates the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) for the DoD on behalf of the US Space Force, who has satellite control authority.”The official went on to say that Noaa receives the data from the US navy’s Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center (FNMOC) and added: “While the Space Force does provide DMSP data and processing software to DoD users, to include the US Navy, questions about the reasons for FNMOC’s changes to DMSP data processing should be directed to the Navy.“Even as FNMOC is making a change on their end, the posture on sharing DMSP data has not changed. Noaa has been making this DMSP data publicly available, and many non-DoD entities use this data that is originally processed by FNMOC.“DMSP satellites and instruments are still functional. The data provided to FNMOC is just one way the DoD uses DMSP data. DoD users (including the Navy) will continue to receive and operationally use DMSP data sent to weather satellite direct readout terminals across the DoD.”The Guardian is approaching the US navy for comment. More

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      Anti-Trump conservative Don Bacon will not seek re-election to Nebraska congressional seat eyed by Dems

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      Republican congressman and vocal Donald Trump critic Don Bacon is reportedly not going to seek re-election during the midterm races in 2026.The conservative politician represents a swing district in Nebraska that includes Omaha, and word of his plans prompted Democratic figures to signal optimism that they could take the seat as the party tries to regain a House majority it has not had since 2023.Bacon’s decision was first reported on Friday by the outlets Punchbowl News and NOTUS before being confirmed on Saturday by the Washington Post. NOTUS and the Post cited anonymous sources familiar with the situation, with the former of those adding that Bacon would make a formal announcement in the coming days.While Bacon had not immediately commented on the reports, his verified social media account did engage with multiple posts expressing “good riddance” to him. He called the author of one such post “an idiot” and told another who claimed he was a thinly veiled Democrat that he was “the real Republican”, having supported the party since he was 13 in 1976.The second congressional district of Nebraska that Bacon represents voted for Kamala Harris when she lost to Trump during November’s White House race. It also voted for Joe Biden when he took the Oval Office from Trump four years earlier. And in May, Omaha elected its first-ever Black mayor: John Ewing Jr, who defeated three-term Republican incumbent Jean Stothert.Bacon’s politics have come to reflect those realities in his district to some extent. The retired US air force brigadier general in May demanded the removal of Trump’s defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, after he shared information about military strikes on Yemen in a Signal messaging app group chat that inadvertently included the editor of the Atlantic.Though the president chose to keep Hegseth in place despite the so-called Signalgate scandal, Bacon told the Post in an interview that he “would have been fired” at any point in his military career for doing what Hegseth did.Separately, in a Post opinion column, Bacon criticized the brutal job and spending cuts that the Trump administration has inflicted within the federal government since the president retook office in January. He filed a bill aiming to hand Congress control over tariffs rather than continue leaving that power with the president as Trump upended financial markets by imposing substantial levies on some of the US’s largest trading partners.Furthermore, he stood as the lone House Republican to vote against a measure that would take Trump’s executive order to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America” and make it law. “I’m not into doing silly stuff,” Bacon, who joined Congress in January 2017, wrote on social media. “It is sophomoric.”And he has said he and his family endured threats after he opposed Ohio Republican congressman Jim Jordan’s unsuccessful 2023 bid to become House speaker, which at the time had been endorsed by Trump in between his two presidencies.“I’d rather be a defender of the traditional conservative values than just be a team player,” Bacon said to Omaha’s KMTV news station in May. “I think – a team going in the wrong direction, you need somebody to speak up and try to stand for what’s right.”A statement distributed by Democratic congressional campaign committee spokesperson Madison Andrus on Friday said that Bacon’s foregoing re-election marked a “vote of no-confidence for House Republicans and their electoral prospects”.“The writing has been on the wall for months,” Andrus’s statement also said.In a separate statement, the Nebraska Democratic party’s chair, Jane Kleeb, said her party’s prospective candidates “truly represent the values of the district” Bacon’s seat is in.“We are ready for change,” Kleeb said. More

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      ‘It’s very concerning’: conservatives react to Zohran Mamdani’s New York primary showing

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      He is the democratic socialist who has been described as a gift to the Republican party.Zohran Mamdani’s stunning showing in the Democratic primary election for mayor of New York this week was seen by some as perfect fodder to whip up a new “red scare”. Donald Trump called him “a 100% Communist Lunatic”, writing on social media: “We’ve had Radical Lefties before, but this is getting a little ridiculous.”But at a gathering of religious conservatives in Washington on Friday, the first attendee interviewed by the Guardian expressed admiration for what Mamdani had pulled off in beating establishment favorite Andrew Cuomo.Kevin Abplanalp, who has worked on political campaigns, said: “He ran a fantastic ground game. I was very impressed with his grassroots work. Cuomo was a terrible candidate so it’s a combination of a repudiation of Cuomo and excitement over a younger guy with energy and different ideas.”Abplanalp, 49, executive director of the group Coalition for Liberty, added: “He’s a bit too socialistic for my taste but it is New York. They’ve had Marxists before. It is what it is.”Mamdani was endorsed by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, a leading progressive some believe could now be encouraged to mount a bid for the White House in 2028. But that prospect was met with complacency and ridicule at the Freedom & Faith Coalition’s Road to Majority conference.Abplanalp commented: “That is hilarious. I don’t think she has the requisite experience. We’ve had other presidents who don’t have the requisite experience: Jimmy Carter for one. Do people want to have another train wreck of someone that just talks a good game? There’s nothing on her résumé that screams executive capability.”The annual gathering was addressed by senators from Pennsylvania, Ohio and Oklahoma along with Virginia’a governor, Glenn Youngkin, and Trump’s border “czar”, Tom Homan. In the eyes of many delegates, Mamdani’s surprise victory was evidence of liberal eccentricity in New York that will not fly elsewhere.Andrea Moore, 55, from Virginia, said: “I’m a little surprised but at the same time it is New York.” She told an anecdote about an Uber driver who was upset about New York potentially giving people who illegally crossed the border “$2,000 a month of taxpayer money and the right to vote immediately”.As for Ocasio-Cortez running for president, she remarked: “I don’t think I’d fear it but I’d probably laugh about it.”Steven Perkins, 74, who is retired and from South Dakota, said: “It’s not just that we’re conservatives but we know our communities. You get out of the big core cities and people are pretty conservative and traditional and they aren’t ready for all of this much change to occur. There’s this big reaction. The Democrats better wake up.”Mamdani, 33, combined charisma and social media savvy with a policy agenda focused on New York’s affordability crisis. His plans include freezing rent for many residents, free bus service and universal childcare paid for by new taxes on the wealthy.Some at the Road to Majority conference found this affront to capitalism. Darin Moser, 56, from Mount Airy, North Carolina, said: “It’s very concerning. The United States was built on freedom and free markets and we need to stay on that because that’s what’s made us successful and the most successful nation in the world.”One attendee, who did not wish to be named, blamed the media for making socialism seem like the answer to their problems. He said: “If you repeat anything enough times people are going to believe it but it’s not been proven. Socialism or communism has proven to fail every time it’s been put into play. It comes around newly clothed but it’s the same worn-out policy.”The ascent of Mamdani, who would be New York’s first Muslim mayor, triggered an onslaught of Islamaphobic attacks across social media, including from some Republican members of Congress. Centrist Democrats remained nervous about backing him, fearful that he could damage the party in swing states.But in the view of Ronald Wilcox, 63, from Fairfax county in Virginia, Democrats have already embraced extremism and lost touch with reality. “The left has no limit to what they will vote for,” he said. “I trust no Democrat because there’s no limit to how bad a person can be and they’ll still support him.”Could the US ever elect a socialist president? Wilcox, who works in direct mail, replied: “I won’t say never but the mood of America, the new generation, is embracing Trump. The young generation is moving to conservative, the Asians are moving to conservative, the Latinos are moving to conservative because we share their values.” More

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      Zohran Mamdani has the Palestinian protest movement to thank for his win | Heba Gowayed

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      In a tremendous upset of politics as usual, Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old brown, Muslim, Democratic socialist who had little name recognition in February beat the poster boy of the Democratic party establishment, Andrew Cuomo, by a plurality of votes in the first round of the Democratic primary for mayor of New York City.What makes this win even more remarkable is that Mamdani has refused to back down from his vocal support for Palestinian liberation, a position that has long been a death knell for candidates within a party whose establishment is unabashedly pro-Israel.Mamdani’s victory shows that his support for Palestine is not a liability, nor irrelevant to his mayoral campaign. In fact, Palestine has moved to the heart of domestic politics thanks to an organized, grassroots movement of Palestinians and allies, students and activists, that paved the way for this mayoral win.Over the course of the last two years of genocide, protests and social media activism has shifted the national discourse around Palestine. A Quinnipiac poll has found that sympathy for Israel has reached an all-time low, with Pew showing that over 71% of Democrats aged 18-49 have a negative view.On Tuesday, the day of the Democratic primary (as well as the hottest day New York has seen in over 13 years), I stood on the corner of 146th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, trying to convince New Yorkers to rank Mamdani on their ballot. One of the leaders of our canvass was a student who was doxed for fighting for her university’s divestment from Israel alongside Mahmoud Khalil. Later that evening, after Cuomo’s concession, Mamdani’s campaign manager thanked Jewish Voice for Peace, whose chapters are integral in organizing against Israel’s genocide and apartheid, for its early endorsement of his campaign.While Cuomo was rich in money, receiving $26m in Super Pac funds as opposed to Mamdani’s $1.8m, Mamdani’s wealth was in the people already organized on issues of progressive politics, including Palestine.The Mamdani campaign’s “joyous” ground game, tens of thousands of people who volunteered to knock on over 1.6m doors, is not simply a story of individuals being organically moved to action by progressive politics or a charismatic candidate. It is instead a story of people who have for years been organizing to oppose an electoral system that marginalized them, who saw Mamdani as an alternative to “elected officials [who] endorse or overlook genocide” whether they organized through ethnic organizations like Desis Rising Up and Moving (Drum) or the Democratic Socialists of American (DSA).This is not a campaign that can be recreated with any fresh face, or just any economically progressive platform. Bernie Sanders is wrong to say that Kamala Harris would “be president of the United States today” had she simply had a platform geared towards the working class, and focused on knocking on doors.People came out for Mamdani because he rejected a party machinery whose establishment candidate, Cuomo, was literally part of Benjamin Netanyahu’s legal team. It mattered that Mamdani started his college’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter. It mattered that Mamdani said he would arrest Netanyahu, that he’d disband the Strategic Response Group of the NYPD, which I’d watched brutalize my Cuny college students as they protested. People came out to campaign for him, rain or shine, because he refused to decry the phrase “Globalize the Intifada” even as he endured vile smears and a death threat for it.If the mayoral race is a referendum on Israel, there was a record turnout for Mamdani. People who had not voted in prior elections showed up to the polls, with Mamdani winning in deeply Hispanic and Asian areas, and doing extraordinarily well among young people of all races. Polling showed him second among Jewish voters.Mamdani’s victory in the Democratic primary, however, is just one big step in what will continue to be a tough mayoral race. Perhaps the largest threat this campaign will face is the pressure placed on it by the pro-Israel machinery of the Democratic party. The senator Kirsten Gillibrand suggested he may be a threat to Jewish New Yorkers, Laura Gillen, a congressperson, called him “too extreme” and Tom Suozzi, another congressperson, said he had “serious concerns” about his campaign. Mamdani is reportedly scheduled to sit down for meetings with Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, who have so far declined to endorse him.Mamdani is also being targeted by the right. In a grossly racist action, the Tennessee Republican Andy Ogles called for Mamdani to be denaturalized and deported, posting on X “Zohran ‘little muhammad’ Mamdani is an antisemitic, socialist, communist who will destroy the great City of New York.” And even as she called his campaign “unique” and “smart”, Marjorie Taylor Green retweeted an AI-generated image of the Statue of Liberty covered head-to-toe in a black burqa saying, “This hits hard.”Mamdani’s very identity is a challenge to a two-party system that has normalized anti-Muslim hate, and through its prism anti-Palestinian repression and genocide. Trump began testing his mass deportation policy on the Palestinian students who led the movements that made the Mamdani campaign possible, including by kidnapping and imprisoning Khalil, the negotiator for the Columbia encampment. Trump justified his travel ban, which Mamdani’s home country Uganda may be added to in the coming months, as part of fighting antisemitism.What his pathway to victory in the primary shows is that his continued strength, and that of any other candidate hoping to secure a similar victory, will not rely on political endorsements. Instead, it will rely on him staying true to the authenticity that made this campaign resonate with millions of people in New York and around the world. More

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      Struggling in politics? Consider a war – the media will help | Margaret Sullivan

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      “You furnish the pictures. I’ll furnish the war,” was the storied response of the newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst to Frederic Remington after the illustrator was sent to Cuba to cover an insurrection and cabled back to the boss that there was little going on.Much has changed since that famous (if true) exchange of the late 19th century, in the heyday of sensationalism known as yellow journalism.But one thing that hasn’t changed is that there’s nothing like military conflict to capture the attention of the public, with plenty of help from the media. And the media – whether a tabloid newspaper or a cable news network – benefits, too.These days, Donald Trump’s recent strike on Iran has proved the point once again, with the media’s attention intensely focused on Operation Midnight Hammer, as it was dramatically dubbed.First the emphasis was on the threat of attacks to Iran’s budding nuclear arsenal, then on the possibility of all-out global war, then on the strikes themselves and then the announcement of a supposed ceasefire.All to the greater glory of Trump, at least as he tells it.For those who are trying to bring public attention to other important matters – even matters of life and death – that’s a frustrating reality.Jennifer Mascia knows this all too well.She is a founding reporter for the Trace, a non-profit news site dedicated to tracking the epidemic of gun violence in America and trying to do something about it, through exploring solutions.When elected officials in Minnesota were shot earlier this month – the former state House speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband were killed, and the state legislator John Hoffman and his wife were wounded – it was a huge story.Huge, but fleeting.“Pitted against a global conflict, domestic news doesn’t really stand a chance,” said Mascia, who previously contributed to the now-defunct Gun Report at the New York Times, begun by the then columnist Joe Nocera.That’s true for domestic news that, in an earlier era, would have commanded the media’s attention for many days, if not weeks. The Minnesota violence was even more newsworthy because of an early manhunt and disinformation swirling around the apparent assassin’s political leanings.Still, coverage seemed to disappear in the blink of an eye.“The Trump era has all but ensured that important news will get smacked out of the news cycle in favor of the latest development in Trumpworld,” Mascia wrote to me in an email, after we had talked by phone.Mascia is quick to clarify that she’s not suggesting that the media ignore what the chaotic president is doing.“It’s important that we cover Trump’s constitutional breaches. We shouldn’t become numb or complacent in the face of eroding democracy,” she said.But it was remarkable to see how quickly the Minnesota shootings faded from media attention. A CNN contributor herself, Mascia is often called in to provide perspective for “Day Two” of coverage after the initial reporting of gun-related news. But often these days, she notes, there is no Day Two.By then, the media has moved on.“Maybe if the Israel-Iran war wasn’t going on, we’d still be talking about it,” she said. “Anderson Cooper would be broadcasting from Melissa Hortman’s funeral. But instead, he’s in Tel Aviv.”And, of course, this extends to all sorts of other subjects, not just gun violence.Those who try to focus attention on voting rights, the rule of law, crucial supreme court decisions, widespread citizen action such as the vast “No Kings” protests – to mention just a few – may get a modicum of attention.But nothing compares to a show of military force. And Trump, always attuned to how he’s being perceived, is well aware of that.“A spectacular military success,” he crowed after the strikes. “A historic success,” echoed his defense secretary. Pete Hegseth couldn’t countenance being asked actual questions and claimed the press was trying to distort the story “for their own political reasons to try to hurt President Trump or our country”.Was the administration’s bragging accurate? Perhaps not, said intelligence reports that indicated the strikes may have only added months to the time Iran needs to produce the material for a nuclear weapon.But no matter.The strikes – from the lead-up to the aftermath – sucked up all the oxygen in the media universe for many days.Even by Thursday early afternoon, the top four news articles (plus one photo) on the Washington Post mobile app, for example, were Iran-related.And Fox News, of course, remained largely a cheering section.Whatever the effect on world peace, military conflict sure is good for ratings, as William Randolph Hearst knew in his bones.“Historians point to the Spanish-American war as the first press-driven war,” noted a PBS article accompanying the film Crucible of Empire.It wouldn’t be the last.

      Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture More