Friday, August 28, 2026
Washington Post Ordered to Rehire Fired Columnist Karen Attiah - The New York Times
Washington Post Ordered to Rehire Fired Columnist
(I unsubscribed from my years long subscription to the Washington Post due to it's ongoing racist decisions and policies)
"An arbitrator ordered the newspaper to reinstate Karen Attiah, who was fired after posting about “white men who espouse hatred and violence” following Charlie Kirk’s killing.
A private arbitrator has ordered The Washington Post to rehire the opinion columnist Karen Attiah, who was fired in September over her social media posts about the assassination of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk. It also ordered the company to compensate her with back pay.
Sarah Miller Espinosa, the arbitrator, said in a written decision Thursday that The Post “did not have good and sufficient cause” to terminate Ms. Attiah and “violated” its labor agreement, according to a copy of the decision shared with The New York Times by Ms. Attiah’s lawyers.
“The Washington Post failed to establish the grievant engaged in gross misconduct,” Ms. Espinosa wrote.
In a statement, Ms. Attiah said that she hoped the decision “sends a message to journalists and media institutions everywhere that freedom of expression is always worth fighting for.” She said that she was “willing to go back” to her work at The Post, which she called “one of the world’s most storied newspapers.”
“This decision confirms what we’ve said from the start: I was doing my job as an opinion writer, and this was wrongful termination,” she said, adding that she was “relieved to finally have that record set straight.”
A spokeswoman for The Post said that the company respects the arbitration process and declined to comment further.
The decision is the result of a yearlong fight between The Post and Ms. Attiah, who last year accused the company of violating its labor agreement and social media policy when it fired her for posts she said were within her purview as an opinion columnist. A clause in the agreement allows employees to submit disputes for arbitration.
Arbitration is generally considered binding in most disputes, though courts have occasionally overturned decisions after courtroom findings of fraud or other improprieties. The Post’s labor agreement says that arbitration is binding, though both the company and the employee retain their legal rights.
The Washington Post said in its termination letter that Ms. Attiah’s posts about Mr. Kirk had harmed “the integrity” of the organization and violated standards requiring employees to use social media with civility and respect.
Ms. Attiah’s remarks about Mr. Kirk’s assassination, which she posted to the social network Bluesky on Sept. 10, the day he was shot, responded to the outpouring of grief after the shooting. “Refusing to tear my clothes and smear ashes on my face in performative mourning for a white man that espoused violence is … not the same as violence,” Ms. Attiah wrote in one of the posts.
The Post’s opinion section has been in flux since early last year, when Jeff Bezos, the newspaper’s owner, moved to reorient the section to focus on “personal liberties and free markets.” Some readers canceled their subscriptions and accused Mr. Bezos of attempting to curry favor with the Trump administration.
Lawyers for The Washington Post and Ms. Attiah made their arguments before Ms. Espinosa in June during a hearing that included testimony from Ms. Attiah; Adam O’Neal, then the opinion editor at The Washington Post; and Wayne Connell, the company’s chief human resources officer. Ms. Attiah was represented by the Washington-Baltimore News Guild and Democracy Defenders Fund, a nonprofit co-founded by the lawyer Norman Eisen.
In his testimony, Mr. O’Neal said that he saw Ms. Attiah’s posts the morning after Mr. Kirk died and sent them to Mr. Connell, according to a transcript of the hearing obtained by The New York Times. “Karen’s social media feed yesterday and today is beyond the pale, completely unacceptable for someone associated with Opinions,” Mr. O'Neal wrote, according to the transcript.
Soon after, Mr. O’Neal and Mr. Connell met with Will Lewis, then the chief executive of The Washington Post, to discuss the posts, according to the transcript. They ultimately decided to fire Ms. Attiah.
During her testimony, Ms. Attiah defended her social media posts, saying that they were part of her work for The Post, “commenting on our discourse on political violence,” Ms. Attiah said, according to the transcript.
In a statement, Mr. Eisen called the decision “a landmark victory for one of our nation’s crusading journalists.”
Corrected on
Aug. 24, 2026
An earlier version of this article misidentified the name of a group that is defending Karen Attiah. It is Democracy Defenders Fund, not Democracy Defenders Action."
RFK Jr. accusing Shapiro of lying about measles deaths is truly galling
RFK Jr. accusing Shapiro of lying about measles deaths is truly galling
“Robert F. Kennedy Jr. accused Josh Shapiro of fabricating two measles-associated deaths in Pennsylvania, despite Kennedy’s history of vaccine misinformation. Shapiro urged vaccination cooperation; health officials verified the cases.
It’s quite the charge coming from someone who made a career of promoting skepticism of scientific data and spreading misinformation.
There’s a terrible irony baked into Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s latest feud. For the last several days, he’s been engaged in an angry back and forth with Gov. Josh Shapiro over the Pennsylvania Democrat’s announcement Tuesday of two measles-associated deaths in his state. According to the state’s Department of Health, neither of the two individuals were vaccinated against the disease.
After all, here we have a man who has made a literal career out of promoting skepticism toward scientific evidence and spreading misinformation.
Kennedy has taken offense at Shapiro’s “unseemly rush” to hold a press conference in Pennsylvania’s Lancaster County, as he put it in a post on X. The secretary even said that “the deaths may even have been altogether fabricated by one of the Governor’s hopeful staffers.” Such a major accusation would be eyebrow-raising from anyone but is particularly galling coming from Kennedy. After all, here we have a man who has made a literal career out of promoting skepticism toward scientific evidence and spreading misinformation. But his attacks on Shapiro can’t deflect from the role he’s played in encouraging Americans to reject vaccination.
“The performance was a replay of the Democrats’ COVID playbook: fearmongering, misinformation, finger-pointing, and the weaponization of infectious disease fears for political gain,” Kennedy wrote in his X post. He also accused Shapiro of refusing to share information about the deaths with the Centers for Disease Control or the County Health Department. Shapiro pushed back in his own post to “set the record straight,” writing that in a phone call ahead of Tuesday’s press conference, he told Kennedy that “what would be most helpful is if he would join me in encouraging people to get vaccinated and stop spreading misinformation.”
Two factors are driving this online tit-for-tat. First is the term “measles-associated deaths.” Kennedy and Lancaster County Commissioner Josh Parsons, a Republican, have suggested the phrasing means Shapiro is overhyping these two deaths. The Pennsylvania Health Department, along with Shapiro’s office, told Politico in an emailed statement that it “uses the term ‘measles-associated’ when laboratory or epidemiologic evidence of measles is present, but the disease may not be assessed by the medical certifier or coroner to be the immediate cause of death.”
The other is a claim from Parsons that the county coroner’s office “currently has ZERO reported cases where measles is the immediate cause of death,” and only one death of a person who had measles. It feels silly to have to say, but regardless of whether it was the direct cause of death or not, the mere presence of measles in the community is a major problem. That’s especially true when vaccination rates have been falling across the U.S. And the Pennsylvania Health Department did confirm to Politico that “one of the two deaths is the one Parsons referred to: an infant with a positive measles test.”
It is also difficult to take Kennedy’s supposed umbrage seriously after watching footage of his 2021 visit to Lancaster County.
“What is the cure for measles? Cure for measles is chicken soup and vitamin A, and neither of those things can be patented,” he told the crowd at an Amish country fair. (Unsurprisingly, his claims about the miraculous powers of vitamin A have not stood up to scientific scrutiny.) Kennedy went on to praise the attendees for rejecting vaccination and warned: “To all of you people who are Amish in here today, they are coming for you because they cannot stand the fact that you are healthy.”
Amazingly, Kennedy even wants credit for the current measles outbreak not being worse. During a press conference Wednesday, he said that the U.S. is “doing a better job than any country in the world in controlling the measles outbreak.” Left unsaid in that claim is that America’s low case rate is both almost entirely due to our extremely high vaccination rate. In contrast, countries with the highest ongoing measles outbreaks are those where it is exceedingly difficult to vaccinate vulnerable populations. The CDC’s websiteeven says that new outbreaks in the U.S. are largely due to “unvaccinated international travelers.”
Amazingly, Kennedy even wants credit for the current measles outbreak not being worse.
Despite Kennedy’s accusation of “fabrication,” Pennsylvania Health Secretary Debra Bogen posted on X Wednesday that her department’s “Epidemiology team thoroughly investigated and verified both individuals tested positive for measles.” Kennedy’s effort to undercut those findings is only prompting further mistrust toward public health officials. It’s maddening then to hear him claim the opposite, that his work is meant to restore the public’s trust that he and his allies worked so hard to erode.
The reality is that Kennedy’s attacks on vaccine safety and efforts to pare back vaccine requirements are actively harmful. Measles cases have surged in the U.S. to their highest in 30 years. The proper response to the deaths in Pennsylvania would be to offer increased monitoring assistance and stress the importance of vaccination to prevent further spread. Kennedy’s PR offensive against Shapiro shows how misguided his priorities remain.“
Thursday, August 27, 2026
ICE Agent Released From Texas Jail After Minnesota Loses Court Fight
ICE Agent Released From Texas Jail After Minnesota Loses Court Fight
"The state had sought to have the agent extradited from Texas to answer charges in Minneapolis related to an on-duty shooting that wounded an immigrant.
An immigration officer facing state charges in connection with a shooting in Minneapolis was released from jail on Thursday after Republican officials in Texas prevailed in an extradition battle with their Democratic counterparts in Minnesota. It is unclear whether the agent will ultimately answer those charges in court.
The officer, Christian Castro of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, had been jailed for the last three months in Cameron County, Texas, while Minnesota officials sought to have him sent north to face assault charges related to a shooting in January that wounded a Venezuelan immigrant.
Sheriff Manuel Trevino of Cameron County said Mr. Castro was released just before 7 a.m. local time.
The case has tested the limits of state powers in an era of deep political mistrust.
It is rare for federal agents to face state criminal charges for on-duty conduct, and the Trump administration has argued that the charges Minnesota prosecutors have filed against Mr. Castro are illegitimate. It is also exceedingly rare for one governor not to act on a request from another to extradite a criminal defendant, as Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas has done.
Because Mr. Castro did not agree to leave Texas, where he lives, Minnesota officials needed Mr. Abbott to approve a request to extradite him. But Mr. Abbott, a Republican, has so far declined to act on the request from Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, a Democrat. Because Texas law limits detention in extradition cases to 90 days, Mr. Castro had to be freed on Thursday.
Minnesota officials have said they were worried that Mr. Castro would flee to Mexico if he was released, and they filed a lawsuit asking a federal judge to force the Texas governor to act. But Mr. Abbott’s lawyers said he needed more time to determine whether Mr. Castro was eligible for extradition. The judge sided with Texas on Wednesday, finding that there was no proof that Mr. Abbott was acting in bad faith.
Mr. Castro was among the thousands of federal agents sent to Minnesota last winter as part of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, which resulted in violent clashes between agents and residents, thousands of arrests and three shootings.
Mr. Castro was accused of shooting a Venezuelan man, Julio C. Sosa-Celis, on Jan. 14 after a long car chase and short foot pursuit with Mr. Sosa-Celis’s roommate.
State prosecutors said Mr. Castro fired through the door of a home, striking Mr. Sosa-Celis in the leg. They charged Mr. Castro in mid-May in state court in Minneapolis with four counts of assault and one count of falsely reporting a crime.
Mr. Castro, who returned to Texas shortly after the shooting, did not travel to Minnesota to face the charges. He was arrested in Texas in late May on a warrant from Minnesota.
Mr. Castro has not publicly addressed the charges against him, and he did not respond to requests for comment through a jail messaging system in recent months.
In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, federal officials backed Mr. Castro and accused Mr. Sosa-Celis and his roommate, who is also from Venezuela, of engaging in a sustained attack with a broom and a shovel.
Days after the shooting, Mr. Sosa-Celis and his roommate were charged in federal court with assaulting a law enforcement officer. But federal prosecutors dismissed that case in February after investigators determined, based on a video of the encounter, that agents had likely lied about the events that led to the shooting.
Federal officials have said they were investigating the agents involved in the shooting, though no federal charges have been announced.
Mitch Smith is a Chicago-based national correspondent for The Times, covering the Midwest and Great Plains.
Ernesto Londoño is a Times reporter based in Minnesota, covering news in the Midwest and drug use and counternarcotics policy. He welcomes tips and can be reached at elondono.81 on Signal."
ICE Arrests Soar as People With No Criminal Record Are Increasingly Targeted
ICE Arrests Soar as People With No Criminal Record Are Increasingly Targeted
“ICE arrests reached record highs in July, targeting mostly people without criminal records. Daily arrests approach 2,000 under Markwayne Mullin, aided by expanded agents and 287(g) partnerships. Detentions and deportations rise, with flights peaking at 329.
July ’26
1,600
avg. daily
arrests
A surge in immigration arrests this summer has swept up thousands of people who had not previously been the focus of President Trump’s mass deportation campaign. They included people married to U.S. citizens, people who had entered legally and were pursuing an asylum claim, and others with a temporary legal status that the administration pushed to revoke.
A majority of the immigrants arrested in July were people who were accused of violating civil immigration laws but who had not been charged with or convicted of a crime, an analysis of newly released federal data shows. The share with a past violent criminal conviction fell to less than 4 percent.
ICE arrests of people with no criminal history have risen fastest
No criminal charges
Mullin
confirmed
Pending
charges
Trump takes
office
Violent conviction
Note: Chart shows the seven-day rolling average of ICE arrests of people the agency recorded as having a past criminal conviction, criminal charges or neither. Violent crimes were determined based on categories from the National Crime Information Center.
Overall, immigration arrests rose to record highs with 43,000 ICE arrests in June and 49,000 in July. Two fatal shootings involving Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, in Texas and Maine, drew outrage but did not meaningfully slow the pace of arrests.
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said that the administration was keeping its promises to arrest and deport criminals and that anyone in the country illegally was a target for enforcement.
The new data contains details on every ICE arrest through Aug. 5 and offers the fullest picture yet of how the agency’s activities have shifted since public backlash forced a retreat from the aggressive tactics seen in Minneapolis early this year. It was obtained by the Deportation Data Project, an academic group, through a public records lawsuit and analyzed by The New York Times.
After his confirmation this spring, the secretary of homeland security, Markwayne Mullin, promised quieter but more effective enforcement. ICE now appears closer than ever to meeting a recent goal of 2,000 daily arrests.
“They have more officers, more money, more detention space, more local partners and better systems,” said Claire Trickler-McNulty, a former senior ICE official. “And they’re finally putting all the pieces together to build out this deportation machine.”
A wider focus
Immigration arrests are near all-time highs in almost every state. Even sparsely populated Montana and Vermont saw spikes, with arrest rates more than doubling.
But the surge was strongest in Florida and Texas, two states with large unauthorized immigrant populations and leaders friendly to the Trump administration’s crackdown.
July arrests were highest along the southern border
ICE arrests per 100,000 residents
Note: Map shows arrests by state and territory, and by ICE field office in areas of California, New York and Texas, where more detailed data is available.
ICE is making more than 380 arrests a day in Texas and more than 230 a day in Florida, with each state up by more than 100 arrests a day from the spring.
All the same, the increase has affected states led both by Republicans and by Democrats. New Jersey and New Mexico have seen arrests double, despite both states passing laws this year that restrict government cooperation with ICE.
More agents, more arrests
ICE appears to be hitting new arrest records in a couple of ways: The agency has hired thousands more agents — growing to 29,000 employees in June, up from about 21,000 when Mr. Trump took office, according to data from the Office of Personnel Management. And it has relied more on state and local law enforcement partners.
ICE has rapidly expanded a program to deputize local police officers to arrest immigrants. The share of people detained through the program, known as 287(g), is now around 14 percent, the data shows.
Local partners are carrying out a growing share of ICE arrests
Notes: Chart shows the seven-day rolling average of ICE arrests and the share with the arrest method labeled as “287(g) program.”
Florida has tallied at least 15,000 arrests through the program under Mr. Trump, the data shows, and Texas has notched nearly 10,000. But the program has been particularly important in smaller states like Wyoming and West Virginia, where ICE’s presence is more limited. The share of 287(g) arrests in both states is now more than 50 percent.
Detentions and deportations rise
Under Mr. Mullin’s tenure, the number of people in ICE detention initially declined but has slowly ticked back up.
The agency has not yet reached its stated goal of 100,000 detention beds, but with several new detention facilities opening this fall — and the possibility of reviving a plan to convert warehouses into detention centers — it appears poised to expand detention significantly in the next year.
ICE detention population ticks back up
66,000 people in detention
Notes: The chart shows the number of people in ICE detention each day.
Deportations have averaged well over 1,000 people a day since last summer, and there are signs that they are picking up speed. The number of deportation flights began rising in the spring, and in July reached a record of at least 329 flights out of the country, according to ICE Flight Monitor, a tracking effort run by Human Rights First.“
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)