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    Amid Tension Around H.H.S. Cuts, Kennedy Meets With Tribal Leader

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    At the very moment that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was set to take the stage, the governor of Gila River Indian Community was still standing at the podium, articulating his uneasiness around recent Trump administration moves.“Let me repeat that: We have spent a good part of this year providing education on why tribes have a political status that is not D.E.I.,” Gov. Stephen Roe Lewis said to a room of 1,200 people, who clapped and cheered.When it comes to cuts sought by what has been called the Department of Government Efficiency, “we need a scalpel and not a chain saw approach to making these changes,” he said. The Gila River Wild Horse Pass Resort and Casino in Chandler, Ariz., owned and operated by two tribes, was the latest stop on Mr. Kennedy’s Make American Healthy Again tour through three Southwestern states. Mr. Kennedy was set to host a “fireside chat” at the Tribal Self-Governance Conference, an event celebrating 50 years of tribal sovereignty under the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act.The act, passed by Congress in 1975, marked a shift away from federal government control, so that Native communities could run their own programs based on their unique cultural needs.Mr. Kennedy has long expressed a particular zeal for improving tribal health, citing his family’s long history of advocacy, his childhood trips to American Indian reservations, and parts of his own environmental career.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Chinese Woman Detained in Arizona Border Station Dies by Suicide

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      A woman detained by U.S. border officers for overstaying a visitor visa died by suicide while in custody, according to a Democratic congresswoman.A Chinese woman detained by U.S. border officers for overstaying a visitor visa died by suicide while being held at a border patrol station in Arizona, a Democratic congresswoman said.The woman had been taken into custody in California after officers determined that she had overstayed a visitor visa, Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington said in a statement, citing the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency. She was transferred to a patrol station in Yuma, Ariz., the statement said.Ms. Jayapal, a ranking member of the House subcommittee overseeing immigration, said initial reports from the agency had raised concerns about whether officers had properly conducted welfare checks on the woman. While welfare checks were logged, officials at the agency investigating the death could not verify whether the checks had actually happened, Ms. Jayapal said.“There is no excuse for why agents cannot verify if some of the necessary welfare checks occurred — or why some of the documented welfare checks were incorrectly reported,” Ms. Jayapal said, adding that she was concerned about the conditions in facilities where immigrants are detained.“Another preventable death only increases that concern,” she said.The woman had been in the country on a B-1/B-2 visa, according to the statement, a temporary visa for people visiting the United States for tourism or business.The Customs and Border Protection agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A spokesman for the agency confirmed the death of a 52-year-old woman to The Tucson Sentinel, and said that the woman had become “unresponsive in a cell” at the Yuma Border Patrol Station.Border Patrol staff provided medical assistance to the woman, the spokesman said in a statement to The Sentinel, and emergency medical services transported her to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead. An office overseeing the agency’s conduct was investigating the incident, the statement said, and the agency also reported the death to the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General.The exact circumstances around the woman’s initial detainment were not immediately clear. Border Patrol officials for the Yuma sector, which includes parts of California and Arizona, said last week on social media that they had arrested two Chinese people, one of them a 52-year-old woman, in Needles, Calif., on March 26.According to the post, agents searched a minivan during a vehicle stop and discovered that two Chinese nationals were “illegally present in the U.S.” The agency had planned to charge the two people under a law that makes certain people ineligible to receive a visa or enter the country, including on the grounds of suspected money laundering or other criminal activity.More than $220,000 in cash was also seized from the van, and the agency said it believed the cash was linked to illegal activity. But it was not immediately clear on Friday whether the woman arrested in Needles was the same woman who died while in custody.Christine Hauser More

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      Cory Booker’s anti-Trump speech on Senate floor enters 21st hour – live

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      Cory Booker, the Democratic senator from New Jersey, has now spoken for 21 hours on the Senate floor in opposition to the Trump administration.Booker has used his speaking slot to decry the Trump administration’s spending cuts, its attempt to abolish the Department of Education, the president’s attempts to bypass the judicial system and the removal of people from the US who speak out against the administration.He began his speech at 7pm ET on Monday night and will pass the 21-hour mark at 4pm on Tuesday. Booker has had help from Democratic colleagues, who have been asking him questions that have allowed him to have a break without yielding the floor.Booker is getting close to the all-time Senate record. In 1957, Strom Thurmond spoke for 24 hours and 18 minutes to filibuster the Civil Rights Act of the same year.During a Fox News interview this afternoon, Elon Musk made a last-minute appeal to Wisconsin voters in support of state supreme court candidate Brad Schimel.“A judge race, election in Wisconsin will decide whether or not the Democrats can gerrymander Wisconsin in order to remove two House seats from Republican to Democrat,” Musk said. “If you know people in Wisconsin, call them right now.”Republicans including Musk and President Donald Trump have backed Schimel, a former state attorney general, in hopes of turning the 4-3 supreme court conservative. Musk traveled to Wisconsin over the weekend, where he handed out $1m checks to two voters.A Pennsylvania man has filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk claiming the billionaire reneged on payments promised to canvassers during the 2024 election, the New York Times reports.Filed as a class action against Musk and his super PAC, the suit alleges Musk failed to pay the claimant $20,000 he was owed for collecting signatures.Musk told Pennsylvanians he’d pay $100 to those willing to sign petitions supporting free speech and gun ownership rights, and $47 for each signatory recruited, an amount raised to $100 in the final days of the election.Thousands are tuning in to watch Cory Booker hold the Senate floor as his marathon speech against the “grave and urgent” danger posed by the Trump administration closes in on the 22-hour mark.Just before 5pm ET more than 71,500 were watching along from Booker’s live feed on Youtube. Meanwhile, several news organizations, including AP, PBS, CBS – and of course the Guardian – had feeds of their own. Others tuned in through C-SPAN.Booker began speaking on Monday evening, vowing to remain on the Senate floor as long as he was “physically able”. His speech has already become one of the longest in Senate history.“These are not normal times in our nation,” Booker said as he launched into his speech. “And they should not be treated as such in the United States Senate. The threats to the American people and American democracy are grave and urgent, and we all must do more to stand against them.”National security leaders, including White House national security adviser Mike Waltz, conducted government business over personal Gmail accounts, the Washington Post reports.The Post cites documents it reviewed and interviews with three US officials that showed members of Donald Trump’s National Security Council had used the commercial email service, which is less secure than Signal, the service Waltz and other Trump administration officials used to coordinate a bombing attack on Yemen last week.“A senior Waltz aide used the commercial email service for highly technical conversations with colleagues at other government agencies involving sensitive military positions and powerful weapons systems relating to an ongoing conflict,” the Post reports. “While the NSC official used his Gmail account, his interagency colleagues used government-issued accounts, headers from the email correspondence show.”It continues: “Waltz has had less sensitive, but potentially exploitable information sent to his Gmail, such as his schedule and other work documents, said officials, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe what they viewed as problematic handling of information. The officials said Waltz would sometimes copy and paste from his schedule into Signal to coordinate meetings and discussions”We’ve been watching today as New Jersey senator Cory Booker enters his 21st hour of speaking during a marathon address designed to “disrupt” the “normal business of the United States Senate for as long as” he is physically able. Here’s what else is going on across the country.

      Voters are casting their ballots in Wisconsin and Florida in elections that may prove a symbol of Donald Trump’s popularity and Elon Musk’s clout.

      Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” is finalizing its shuttering of the US Agency for International Development, ordering the firings of thousands of local workers and US diplomats and civil servants assigned to the agency overseas.

      Thousands of Health and Human Services (HHS) employees across the country are being dismissed as the Trump administration began implementing its controversial workforce reduction plan. The plan could see 10,000 staff removed from the department.

      The firings at HHS have included staff who were working on the Food and Drug Administration’s bird flu response, Reuters reports.

      Congressman Jerry Nadler, a New York Democrat, has issued a statement strongly condemning the Trump administration for cancelling $400m in federal grants and contracts to Columbia Universitybecause of what it alleged was the college’s repeated failure to protect students from antisemitic harassment.

      US attorney general Pam Bondi announced that she has directed federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty for Luigi Mangione, the man accused of murdering UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside a Manhattan hotel in December.

      Republican House speaker Mike Johnson failed to block a bipartisan effort to change House rules to allow new parents in Congress to vote remotely after the birth of a child. The proxy vote resolution has been led by Anna Paulina Luna of Florida and Democratic congresswoman Brittany Pettersen of Colorado.
      Cory Booker, the Democratic senator from New Jersey, has now spoken for 21 hours on the Senate floor in opposition to the Trump administration.Booker has used his speaking slot to decry the Trump administration’s spending cuts, its attempt to abolish the Department of Education, the president’s attempts to bypass the judicial system and the removal of people from the US who speak out against the administration.He began his speech at 7pm ET on Monday night and will pass the 21-hour mark at 4pm on Tuesday. Booker has had help from Democratic colleagues, who have been asking him questions that have allowed him to have a break without yielding the floor.Booker is getting close to the all-time Senate record. In 1957, Strom Thurmond spoke for 24 hours and 18 minutes to filibuster the Civil Rights Act of the same year.First lady Melania Trump spoke at the International Women of Courage Award ceremony on Tuesday where she spoke about courage as “a strength that is based in love”.Trump, during a rare public appearance at the state department, recognized eight women from around the world for bravery, including an Israeli woman who was held hostage by Hamas. She said:
      I have harnessed the power of love as a source of strength during challenging times. Love has inspired me to embrace forgiveness, nurture empathy and exhibit bravery in the face of unforeseen obstacles.
      Congressman Jerry Nadler, a New York Democrat, has issued a statement strongly condemning the Trump administration for cancelling $400m in federal grants and contracts to Columbia Universitybecause of what it alleged was the college’s repeated failure to protect students from antisemitic harassment.The administration announced on Monday that a federal antisemitism taskforce is also reviewing more than $255m in contracts between Harvard University and the federal government, as well as $8.7bn in grant commitments to Harvard and its affiliates.“I strongly condemn former President Trump’s latest attacks on higher education cloaked under the guise of fighting antisemitism,” Nadler said in his statement on Tuesday.
      Withholding funding from Columbia and, potentially, Harvard will not make Jewish students safer … Make no mistake. Trump’s actions are not rooted in genuine concern for combatting hate.
      Nadler noted that the president’s record “is stained by praise for neo-Nazis, Holocaust deniers, and white nationalists”, adding:
      I call on our nation’s universities to reject President Trump’s demands and to fight back against these hostile acts. If necessary, these issues must be litigated in federal court to put an end to the illegal and unconstitutional actions taken by the Trump Administration.
      From Sam Levine in New York and Ashley Spencer in Daytona Beach, Florida:Andrew Julius, a veteran, cast his vote for Josh Weil, a Democrat, at the John Dickerson Community Center on Tuesday in a special election to determine who will replace Mike Waltz, the US national security adviser.
      I’m actually a fan of Josh Weil. I listened to him talk. I actually went to one of his town halls a couple of weeks ago at the church and I was like, all right, he seems like an educated person. He’s a teacher, level headed, doesn’t have those crazy conspiracy thoughts.
And so I felt comfortable saying, okay, I can vote for this guy instead of not voting at all.
      A former sonar technician in the navy, Julius said he was concerned over the recent disclosure that top Trump administration officials had used Signal to communicate about sensitive bombing plans in Yemen. He said:
      I had a top secret security clearance with my job in the Navy because I was a sonar tech. So we had to have a security clearance, and if I would have done just a fraction of a mistake or what was done with this whole Signal-gate fiasco, I would have been court martialed. I would have been court martialed, kicked out of the Navy, lost rank, lost pay.
      “It’s really concerning that no one has even taken responsibility like, hey, we messed up. That was a mistake. We shouldn’t have done that,” he added.The district is solidly Republican, and the GOP candidate, Randy Fine, is still the favorite to win. But recent polling has shown that the race may be closer than expected, prompting some Republican skittishness.Republican House speaker Mike Johnson tried – and failed – to block a bipartisan effort to change House rules to allow new parents in Congress to vote remotely after the birth of a child.The House, in a 206-222 procedural vote, fell short of the votes needed to adopt a rule that included language blocking a proxy vote resolution led by Republican congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna of Florida and Democratic congresswoman Brittany Pettersen of Colorado.“If we don’t do the right thing now, it’ll never be done,” said Luna, who gave birth to her son in 2023.Pettersen, with a diaper over her shoulder and her four-month-old son in her arms, pleaded with House colleagues. “It is unfathomable that in 2025 we have not modernized Congress,” she said. “We’re asking you to continue to stand with us.”Elon Musk’s cost-cutting team is finalizing the dismantlement of the US Agency for International Development, ordering the firings of thousands of local workers and US diplomats and civil servants assigned to the agency overseas, two former top USAID officials and a source with knowledge of the situation said on Tuesday.On Friday, Congress was notified that almost all of USAID’s own employees were being fired by September, all of its overseas offices shut, and some functions absorbed into the state department.The latest move by Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” will in effect eliminate what is left of the agency’s workforce.The Trump administration has fired staff who were working on the Food and Drug Administration’s bird flu response as part of its mass layoffs at the Department of Health and Human Services, Reuters reports.Among those fired today were leadership and administrative staff at the FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine, the news agency writes, citing a source.The center’s Veterinary Laboratory Investigation and Response Network tests raw pet food for bird flu. In recent weeks, the FDA has issued several pet food recalls after detecting bird flu contamination.The move will bring operations at the laboratory network to a halt, the source told Reuters.As egg prices have reached record highs, about a third of American consumers have stopped buying them in response to the rising costs, a new study suggests.According to research from Clarify Capital, 34% of Americans have stopped purchasing eggs as prices for the breakfast staple are becoming less affordable. On average, these consumers say they won’t begin buying eggs again until costs come down to $5 or less for a carton.The report compared the average price of eggs across all US states, observing a significant jump in 2018, when the average was $1.49. In 2025, that figure is sitting at about $5.18.The study found that nearly 95% of Americans have noticed the significant rise in egg prices, with shoppers reporting their perceived average as $7 a dozen. The average American said they would stop buying eggs when prices hit $8 a dozen.A comedian whose skit for White House reporters was canceled for fear of upsetting Donald Trump skewered the journalists who dropped her in a biting late-night talk show routine mocking their perceived subservience to the president.“I thought when people take away your rights, erase your history and deport your friends, you’re supposed to call it out. But I was wrong,” Amber Ruffin said during a brief appearance Monday on NBC’s Late Night With Seth Meyers.
      Glad to find that out now, because if they had let me give that speech, ooh baby… I would have been so terrifically mean.
      Ruffin was dropped at the weekend from the 26 April White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) dinner when the group decided its “focus is not on the politics of division”.As a comedy writer for Meyers and host of her own chat show on Peacock, Ruffin has frequently mocked or criticized Trump and his actions.When asked about more possible dismissals in the federal government, White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said:
      “The President has given the responsibility to his Cabinet secretaries to hire and fire at their respective agencies, and they reserve that right. You saw the Secretary of Health and Human Services announced more layoffs today. This is all part of the administration’s effort for a mass reduction in force in the federal bureaucracy here in Washington DC, to save American taxpayers money.”
      Ashley Spencer reports on the ground from Florida:At the Church of Christ in Daytona Beach, voters lined up to vote in Florida’s special election to replace Rep. Mike Waltz after he was appointed Trump’s national security advisor. At the church, Trump bumper stickers dotted the parking lot. But the campaign for Democratic candidate Josh Weil had a more robust table set up with flyers and resources than that of Republican Randy Fine, who is favored to win.“Calling all immigrants or noncitizens ‘illegal’ or calling them ‘criminals’ is insane,” said Victor Valentin, who volunteered for a political campaign for the first time and on behalf of Weil. “I’m a Hispanic man from Puerto Rico, and those are my fellow Hispanic folks also. These are great people that come here to work hard. They come here to educate their kids.”Meanwhile, a Fine campaign volunteer wore a shirt with Trump’s mugshot that said Never Surrender. The former Democrat said he supported Trump and key ally Elon Musk. “I want him to do what he’s trying to do,” he said of Musk. “Anybody who’s not happy with him is either brainwashed or a crook.”California attorney general Rob Bonta sent letters to 15 insurance companies reminding them that under AB 571, they cannot deny, cancel, or increase premiums on malpractice insurance for medical providers who offer abortion, contraception, or gender-affirming care in California.The letter sent to insurers requests proof of compliance, and Bonta also issued a general industry alert.“California has been and remains committed to protecting the right to choose and the right of individuals to access necessary medical care,” said Bonta. “Licensed providers that offer reproductive and gender-affirming care too often face significant obstacles in securing malpractice insurance — the California Legislature passed, and the Governor signed into law, AB 571 to tear down those barriers.”Leavitt was asked about the error regarding a Salvadoran national with protected legal status who was deported to El Salvador last month, despite his legal protections. The Trump administration acknowledged in court that his deportation was due to an “administrative error”.
      “The error you’re referring to was a clerical error,” Leavitt said on Tuesday. “It was an administrative error. The administration maintains the position that this individual, who was deported to El Salvador and will not be returning to our country, was a member of the brutal and vicious MS-13 gang.” More

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      in Elections

      Living Car-Free in Arizona, on Purpose and Happily

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      Last year, when Andre Rouhani and Gabriela Reyes toured Culdesac Tempe, a rental development outside of Phoenix, the place looked pretty sweet. It had winsome walkways, boutique shops and low-slung white stucco buildings clustered around shaded courtyards.The only surprise came when Mr. Rouhani, 33, a doctoral student at Arizona State University, asked about resident parking and was told there was none.The couple had two dogs, a toddler and another baby on the way. “Long story short, we decided that all the pros outweigh the cons,” Mr. Rouhani said in a recent phone interview. The family gave its car to Ms. Reyes’ father and moved into Culdesac in December. “We do really, really love it here,” Mr. Rouhani said. “It’s the best place I’ve ever lived.”50 States, 50 Fixes is a series about local solutions to environmental problems. More to come this year.Modeled on towns in Italy and Greece built long before the advent of cars, Culdesac Tempe is what its developers call the country’s first neighborhood purposely built to be car free. Tell Us About Solutions Where You Live

      We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in US Politics

      Arizona’s execution pitted experts against politicians. Experts lost | Austin Sarat

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      On Wednesday, 19 March, Arizona executed Aaron Gunches by lethal injection. As ABC News reports, he was put to death for “kidnapping and killing 40-year-old Ted Price by shooting him four times in the Arizona desert”.Gunches’s case was unusual in many ways, not least that he stopped his legal appeals and volunteered to be executed, then changed his mind before changing it again. His execution was scheduled to be carried out almost two years ago. It was put on hold when the Arizona governor, Katie Hobbs, commissioned an independent review of the state’s death penalty procedures after a series of botched executions.But over the last several months, she pushed hard to make sure Gunches died for his crime. She even fired the expert retired Judge David Duncan who she had chosen to do that review, before he could complete his report.Her decision to let Duncan go was shocking. At the time, she offered the following explanation: “Your review has, unfortunately, faced repeated challenges, and I no longer have confidence that I will receive a report from you that will accomplish the purpose and goals of the Executive Order that I issued nearly two years ago.”The governor also noted that the department of corrections, rehabilitation & reentry had conduct “a comprehensive review of prior executions and has made significant revisions to its policies and procedures”. But doubt about whether she could rely on a review conducted by the group which is in charge of the state’s executions in why she appointed Duncan in the first place.That is why I suspect that Hobbs tossed Duncan aside because she didn’t like the facts he was finding or the conclusions he seemed to be reaching.Facts are stubborn things, but, in our era, they can be tossed aside with little political cost and no regret. Why rely on expertise if it gets in the way of achieving a result you want to reach?Still, Hobbs’s unprecedented decision to “kill the messenger” was another low moment for a society increasing living by a line uttered by a newspaper editor in the classic movie The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence: “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”In the world of capital punishment, the “legend” to which politicians like Hobbs are attached is that it can make America a safer and more just place. They want us to believe that they embrace the death penalty to bring closure to family members of murder victims rather than to accrue political capital.Note what Arizona attorney general Kris Mayes said during a news conference following the execution: “An execution is the most serious action that the state takes, and I assure you that it is not taken lightly. Today, Arizona resumed the death penalty, and justice for Ted Price and his family was finally served.”After Gunches’s death, the sister of the man he murdered echoed that sentiment. Karen Price called the execution “the final chapter in a process that has spanned nearly 23 years”.Ted Price’s daughter added that Gunches’s death means that she will no longer have to revisit “the circumstances surrounding my father’s death” as she had to for over two decades of seemingly endless legal proceedings. “Today,” she said, “marks the end of that painful chapter, and I couldn’t be more grateful”.That chapter would not have ended if Governor Hobbs had been willing to listen to her own expert.Before being sacked, Judge Duncan prepared a draft of his report and wrote a letter to the governor’s office previewing his conclusions. He called lethal injection an unreliable method of execution and said: “Drug manufacturers don’t allow states to use the appropriate drugs.”Duncan had spent nearly two years reviewing Arizona’s use of lethal injections. As he explained, “Early on, I thought lethal injection would work. The more I learned about it I learned that that was a false hope.”Duncan told the governor that, in his view, using lethal injection was too risky. In his view, the best course would be for Arizona to adopt the firing squad because “it has the lowest botch rate.”That was not the news Hobbs hoped her expert would deliver, so she let Duncan go. It seems he just didn’t understand that she wanted him to ease the way toward a resumption of lethal injection executions rather than suggesting that the state should not execute anyone until it could adopt what he considered to be a better method.And Duncan was not the only one raising questions about Arizona’s resumption of lethal injection executions. Last January, law professor Corinna Lain, a leading expert on lethal injection, said: “The evidence is overwhelming that Arizona cannot lawfully carry out an execution by lethal injection at this time. Its pentobarbital protocol is sure or very likely to cause a tortuous death even in the best of circumstances.”She went on to say: “The circumstances here are far from optimal. The State is on the cusp of using an inexperienced, untrained team to inject likely expired drugs stored in unmarked mason jars that were produced by a company that does not make drugs for human consumption and that will be compounded by a pharmacy that the … (the state) itself has previously disavowed.”Disregarding expert knowledge is very much in fashion in many areas of American life, not just where the death penalty is concerned. The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols explains that “Trump allies make noises about expert failures … [and] demonize what its constituents believe was the medical establishment’s attempt to curtail civil rights during the coronavirus pandemic.” He argues that Elon Musk’s attack on civil servants is really an attack on the “very notion of apolitical expertise.”But, as Nichols explains, such doubt is not confined to Washington DC. It is found in the “homes of ordinary American families”. There, “knowledge of every kind is also under attack. Parents argue with their child’s doctor over the safety of vaccines. Famous athletes speculate that the world might actually be flat. College administrators ponder dropping algebra from the curriculum because students keep failing it.”So, it is not surprising that the attack on knowledge would infect decisions about how to end the lives of people condemned to death. Political leaders – including Democrats like Hobbs – know they can play into the burgeoning culture of disrespect for what experts have to say, so they dispense with Duncan and ignore Lain.The more publicly they display that disrespect, the more politically they can benefit.It wasn’t always this way when decisions had to be made about methods of execution. At the end of the 19th century, before New York decided to abandon hanging, the state convened a commission to consider and recommend alternatives.That commission sought out the best minds to help them make their decision. It chose the electric chair.The decision whether electrocution “would be by Alternating Current (AC) or Direct Current (DC)” was informed by a competition between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse, both pioneers in the development of electricity.That was then. Today, as the Arizona example shows, such expertise does not govern the choice of execution methods.In the wake of the Gunches execution, Governor Hobbs and the “down with experts crowd” may feel vindicated because nothing seemed to have gone awry. But they should not rest easy, and neither should any of the 112 inmates on Arizona’s death row.Studies have shown that lethal injection has the worst track record of any method of execution used in the last century in this country. That is why it is only a matter of time before an execution in Arizona proves the folly of ignoring experts and the insights they offer. More

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      Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the courage to brawl for the working class

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      Bernie Sanders is not running for president. But he is drawing larger crowds now than he did when he was campaigning for the White House.The message has hardly changed. Nor has the messenger, with his shock of white hair and booming delivery. What’s different now, the senator says, is that his fears – a government captured by billionaires who exploit working people – have become an undeniable reality and people are angry.“For years, I’ve talked about the concept of oligarchy as an abstraction,” Sanders, an independent who votes with Democrats and twice sought the party’s presidential nomination, said in an interview after a joint rally in Tempe, Arizona, with the New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The Vermont senator recalled Donald Trump’s inauguration, when the three wealthiest people on the planet – Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg – were seated in front of his cabinet nominees in what many viewed as a shocking display of power and influence.“You gotta be kind of blind not to understand that you have a government of the billionaire class, for the billionaire class, by the billionaire class,” he said. “And then, on top of all that, you’ve got Trump moving very rapidly toward an authoritarian form of society.”Two months after Trump was sworn in for a second term, Democratic activists and an increasingly vocal chorus of voters say they are terrified, angry and desperate for leadership. In something of a third act, the 83-year-old democratic socialist is stepping in to fill the void.But his aim is not only to revive the anti-Trump resistance movement – he wants a bottom-up overhaul of the American political system.“It’s not just oligarchy that we are going to fight. It’s not just authoritarianism that we’re going to fight,” Sanders told an arena full of supporters at Arizona State University on Thursday night. “We will not accept a society today in which we have massive income and wealth inequality, where the very rich have never done better while working families are struggling to put food on the table.”For weeks, voters have been showing up at town halls to vent their alarm and rage over the president’s aggressive power grabs and the Musk-led mass firings of federal workers. But they are also furious at the Democratic leadership, charging that their party spent an entire election season warning of the threat Trump posed to US democracy, and yet now appeared either unable or unwilling to stand up to him.At the rally in Tempe, several attendees demanded more defiance.“Them just holding paddle boards up and staying quiet or wearing pink blazers is not enough,” said Alexandra Rodriguez, 20, of Mesa, referring to the Democrats’ acts of protest during Trump’s address to Congress earlier this month. “I think they do need to be willing to go to extremes.”They also expressed outrage at the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, who, faced with what he called a “Hobson’s choice” between supporting a Republican-authored funding bill or inciting a government shutdown, wrangled a coalition of Democrats to pass the spending measure. The decision has unleashed a torrent of anger from his party’s base, forcing him to postpone a book tour as he defends himself against calls to step down as leader. On Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez’s western tour, the New York representative was interrupted by intermittent calls to “Primary Chuck!”“This isn’t just about Republicans, either. We need a Democratic party that fights harder for us, too,” Ocasio-Cortez said in Arizona, drawing some of the loudest, most sustained applause of the evening. She urged the crowd to help elect candidates “with the courage to brawl for the working class”.Democrats “absolutely need to get stronger”, Audree Castro, 52, said as she waited with her mother and aunt to enter the venue on Thursday night. “I want my democracy back.”In recent weeks, Democrats have sought to capitalize on the bubbling backlash to the disorienting opening months of Trump’s second term. Following Sanders’ lead, many Democrats are hosting town halls in Republican-held districts to draw attention to Musk’s slash-and-burn cost-cutting project and Republican proposals that would almost certainly result in cuts to social safety net programs.Robbie Lambert, 70, a retired special education teacher, said keeping up with the turmoil in Washington was beginning to feel like a full-time job. Just that afternoon, Trump had signed an executive order aimed at dismantling the Department of Education.“You feel helpless. It’s like, what can we do?” said Lambert, who was on vacation in Arizona and decided she had to attend the Tempe rally. “Coming together, talking with people here, makes you feel like you’re doing something.”The Arizona representative Yassamin Ansari, who attended Thursday’s rally, said she had been hearing similar calls for action from constituents across her district this week, including at an event with LGBTQ+ business leaders and an at-capacity town hall, where several people shared that it was the first political event they had ever attended.“People are really fed up,” Ansari said in an interview.For now, at least, Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez are the most prominent Democrats offering both a strategy to confront Trump and an alternative vision for the party.In 2024, Democrats lost support among young people and Latino voters – core constituencies – and recent polling found that the party’s popularity is at an all-time low. Few Democrats disagree that their party needs to course-correct, but how and to what degree remains a topic of intense debate.Supporters say the success of Sanders’ tour, which began last month in Omaha, Nebraska, is a clear sign that Democrats want the party to aggressivelyfight what they view as Trump’s encroaching authoritarianism – not “roll over and play dead”, as veteran strategist James Carville suggested in an op-ed. They also view it as an endorsement of Sanders’ policy agenda, arguing that his brand of economic populism is the right match for this turbulent political moment.According to a memo by Sanders’ longtime adviser, Faiz Shakir, the senator has raised more than $7m from more than 200,000 donors since February, and is drawing crowds 25% to 100% larger than at the height of his presidential campaigns in 2016 and 2020. On Friday, more than 30,000 people attended a rally in Denver – the largest audience Sanders has ever drawn, his team said.“We’re living in an intensely populist moment right now,” Shakir wrote. “It’s not ‘left versus right’. It’s ‘very top versus everyone else’.” The title of his memo: “It’s a populist revolt, stupid.”The joint appearance by the 35-year-old New York representative and the Vermont senator who she has said inspired her to run for office naturally raised the question: is Ocasio-Cortez the heir to the progressive movement Sanders has been building since before she was born? Several rally-goers in Tempe believed she had the potential to lead the party – and perhaps even the country.“When AOC has something to say, I listen,” said Jonas Prado, 32, a first responder.“I hope she’s the first woman president,” said Norman Ellison, 60, a mechanical engineer.There was also a tinge of wistfulness in the arena. Supporters dressed in old campaign t-shirts and hats and one person sported a pin that said, “Bernie was right.”Sanders, who has all but ruled out a third run for president, was in vintage form, delivering a blistering, 50-minute critique of the “top 1%” with the moral ferocity that has long endeared him to legions of politically disaffected supporters.The senator named names, accusing executives from the fossil fuel, insurance and pharmaceutical industries of being “major criminals”, while sharing stark statistics on wealth inequality in the US that elicited boos and gasps from the audience. At one point, Sanders cited an analysis released by his Senate committee that found the wealthiest Americans live an average of seven years longer than poorer Americans.“In other words, being working class in America is a death sentence,” he bellowed.Ocasio-Cortez’s opening remarks were no less visceral. She charged that Trump and Musk, his billionaire lieutenant, were “taking a wrecking ball to our country” and “screwing over” working people. “We’re gonna throw these bums out,” she declared.While both Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez share a political vision, their double act showcased the distinct styles of two progressive leaders at opposite ends of their career arcs.Ocasio-Cortez offered a more personal touch, weaving elements of her biography into her speech – something Sanders is typically loath to do. She spoke of her mother, who cleaned homes, and her father, whose death from a rare form of cancer plunged the family into economic uncertainty.“I don’t believe in healthcare, labor and human dignity because I’m an extremist,” she said, pushing back on the rightwing caricature of her. “I believe in these things because I was a waitress.”She said she empathized with Americans who felt overwhelmed and demoralized, and encouraged them not to give in to despair. “We won’t do that,” someone in the crowd yelled.When the event concluded, Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez left the arena to address an overflow crowd that hadn’t been able to get in.“This is where the future is,” said Sebastian Santamaria, 25, gesturing toward the empty podium adorned with a “Fight Oligarchy” placard. “As a person who has supported Democrats in the past, I don’t want to keep supporting you if it doesn’t look more like this.” More

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      in US Politics

      Democratic Senator Mark Kelly to let go of his Tesla over Musk’s federal cuts

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      The Arizona Democratic senator Mark Kelly announced he was ditching his Tesla car, because of brand owner Elon Musk’s role in slashing federal budgets and staffing and attendant threats to social benefits programs.“Every time I get in this car in the last 60 days or so, it reminds me of just how much damage Elon Musk and Donald Trump is doing to our country,” Kelly said, in video posted to X, the social media platform owned by Musk.Kelly also said he did not want to be “driving the car built and designed by an asshole”.Kelly and Musk first clashed recently after Musk responded to messages Kelly posted about a trip to Ukraine – criticizing Trump regarding military aid to Ukraine troops as they fight against Russian invaders – by calling him a “traitor”.Kelly called Musk “not a serious guy” and added: “Traitor? Elon, if you don’t understand that defending freedom is a basic tenet of what makes America great and keeps us safe, maybe you should leave it to those of us who do.”Musk is the world’s richest person but his focus is currently domestic, implementing brutal cuts through the so-called department of government efficiency, or Doge.Polling shows such cuts are unpopular. Musk’s move into politics has also had an adverse effect on some of his businesses, in the case of Tesla prompting boycotts and vandalism and seeing sales and shares fall. Earlier this week, it all led Trump to promote Teslas at the White House.On Friday, Kelly joined Americans including the singer Sheryl Crow in dumping his Tesla, alluding to his past as a Nasa astronaut by saying: “I bought a Tesla because it was fast like a rocket ship. But now every time I drive it, I feel like a rolling billboard for a man dismantling our government and hurting people. So Tesla, you’re fired!”In video shot near the Capitol, Kelly said he was driving to work in the car for the last time.View image in fullscreen“When I bought this thing,” he said. “I didn’t think it was going to become a political issue. Every time I get in this car in the last 60 days or so, it reminds me of just how much damage Elon Musk and Donald Trump [are] doing to our country, talking about slashing social security, cutting healthcare benefits for poor people, for seniors. It’s one bad thing after the next. [Musk is] firing veterans. I’m a veteran.”Kelly is also a former US navy pilot.“So I have a really hard time driving around in this thing,” he continued. “So I think it’s time for an upgrade today. So this is going to be my last trip in this car. There’s some things I really liked about it. There are things I didn’t like about it, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is … doing the right thing. I think it’s time to get rid of it.“You know, Elon Musk kind of turned out to be an asshole, and I don’t want to be driving the car built and designed by an asshole. So, looking forward to my new ride.”Kelly’s language reflected a trend of Democrats using profane language in an attempt to better communicate with voters, particularly on social platforms and podcasts, seeking to bypass traditional media.Lis Smith, a Democratic operative famous for her own F-bombs, told Politico: “Some of it is genuine, some of it is people trying to seem faux-edgy authentic.”On Friday, Musk did not immediately respond to Kelly. He did post complaints about vandalism done to Teslas and Tesla stores, one of which compared such actions to Kristallnacht, the “Night of the Broken Glass” in 1938 when Nazis in Germany attacked Jewish people and businesses.Musk remains the subject of controversy over his behavior at Trump’s inauguration, when he gave two Nazi-style salutes. More

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      Democratic congressman Raúl Grijalva dies aged 77

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      Democratic US representative Raúl M Grijalva of Arizona, who championed environmental protection during his 12 terms in Congress, died on Thursday of complications from cancer treatments, his office said.Grijalva, who was 77, had risen to chair the US House natural resources committee and was the top Democrat on the committee until earlier this year. He had been absent from Congress as he underwent cancer treatment in recent months.Grijalva’s office said in a statement: “From permanently protecting the Grand Canyon for future generations to strengthening the Affordable Care Act, his proudest moments in Congress have always been guided by community voices.”Another Democratic House member, Sylvester Turner of Texas, died last week from health issues.Grijalva, the son of a Mexican immigrant, was first elected to the House in 2002. Known as a liberal leader, he led the Congressional Progressive Caucus in 2008 and dedicated much of his career to working on environmental causes on the natural resources committee. He stepped down from that position this year, after announcing that he planned to retire rather than run for re-election in 2026.During his time in Congress, Grijalva championed protections for endangered species and wilderness areas, as well as stronger regulations on the oil and natural gas industries. He played a key role in writing the National Landscape Conservation System Act and the Federal Lands Restoration Act, which were passed and signed by Barack Obama.Grijalva had announced in April last year that he had been diagnosed with cancer but would be able to continue his work. He also sought re-election and won easily in the blue-leaning district. More

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      in Elections

      Trump’s Call to Scrap ‘Horrible’ Chip Program Spreads Panic

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      The president’s attack on the key tenet of the Biden administration’s industrial policy has set off concerns that he may claw back its funding.As President Trump addressed Congress last week, he veered off script to attack a sensitive topic, the CHIPS Act, a bipartisan law aimed at making the United States less reliant on Asia for semiconductors.Republican lawmakers had sought and received reassurances over the past few months that the Trump administration would support the program Congress created. But halfway through Mr. Trump’s remarks, he called the law a “horrible, horrible thing.”“You should get rid of the CHIP Act,” he told Speaker Mike Johnson as some lawmakers applauded.The CHIPS program was one of the few things to unite much of Washington in recent years, as lawmakers on both sides of the aisle worked with private companies to draft a bill that would funnel $50 billion to rebuild the U.S. semiconductor industry, which makes the foundational technology used to power cars, computers and coffee makers. After President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. signed it into law in 2022, companies found sites in Arizona, New York and Ohio to construct new factories. The Commerce Department vetted those plans and began to dole out billions of dollars in grants.Now, Mr. Trump is threatening to upend years of work. Chip company executives, worried that funding could be clawed back, are calling lawyers to ask what wiggle room the administration has to terminate signed contracts, said eight people familiar with the requests.After the speech, Senator Todd Young, the Indiana Republican who championed CHIPS, said he reached out to the White House to seek clarity about Mr. Trump’s attack because the criticism was “in tension” with the administration’s previous support.Senator Todd Young, the Indiana Republican who championed CHIPS, said he reached out to the White House to seek clarity about Mr. Trump’s attack, which he said was “in tension” with the administration’s previous support.Eric Lee/The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More