Texas Gov. Greg Abbott formally referred Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental airports to the U.S. Department of Justice on August 21, arguing that ablution facilities for Muslim travelers violate federal anti-discrimination law at government-owned airports. The DOJ referral followed an August 14 action in which Abbott threatened state grant revocations and referred both airports to the Transportation Department — moves that compelled DFW to cancel expansion plans within hours.

Abbott’s August 21 letter to Attorney General Todd Blanche argued the washing stations “single out one subset of the population for special treatment based on religion” and compared them to “white-only bathrooms.” The letter invoked federal grant compliance requirements under the FAA’s Airport Improvement Program, noting that airports receiving federal funds “are subject to conditions that require full compliance with laws prohibiting religious discrimination.” Both airports installed ablution facilities — DFW in 2019, Houston in February 2024 — and operated them without legal challenge until Abbott’s August intervention.

The governor’s office directed a review of all state grants to Texas airport operators on August 14, warning of “revocation of active state grant funds and the denial of any future grants” for airports found in violation of anti-discrimination law. That same day, Abbott referred both airports to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy for federal investigation. DFW announced that evening it was scrapping plans for two additional ablution stations in Terminal D, stating the project “would not deliver the originally anticipated operational benefits.”

Facilities Include Islamic Religious Items

The facilities at issue are low-basin washing stations used for wudu, the ritual cleansing Muslims perform before prayer. DFW installed two ablution stations adjacent to its Terminal D Interfaith Chapel in 2019. Houston opened its Terminal D ablution room in February 2024, connected to a prayer room furnished with “copies of the Quran, prayer rugs, prayer beads and a turbah” — items specific to Islamic religious practice.

Houston Mayor John Whitmire defended the facility as open to all travelers regardless of faith, noting it was “paid for by fees charged to the international airlines” serving Middle East routes. Emirates, Qatar Airways, and Turkish Airlines carried approximately 366,000 passengers from IAH Terminal D in 2025, accounting for 22 percent of international departures. Whitmire’s statement noted that “prior to the development of the dedicated washing station, travelers often used restroom sinks and other public water facilities for personal washing needs.”

Abbott’s August 14 letter to DFW CEO Christopher McLaughlin stated he was “unaware of either airport installing standalone facilities to meet the particular needs of the many other religious groups represented across Texas.” The letter concluded that “engaging in these discriminatory practices will subject any organizations found to be in violation to the withdrawal of grant funding and other enforcement actions.”

Funding Source Questions Preceded Cancellation

The proposed DFW expansion drew scrutiny after an initial Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation filing listed the project cost at $300,000 and marked it “privately funded.” State Sen. Tan Parker, chair of the Senate Transportation Committee, sent DFW a list of questions on August 13 asking who provided the private donation and how it was accepted.

The filing was revised to show $115,000 and changed the funding classification to “public funds, public land.” DFW called it an “administrative error” by the design firm preparing the permit. The airport said it does not use taxpayer dollars for operations, relying instead on parking and concession revenue. Neither DFW nor Houston has disclosed the original funding source for their existing ablution facilities installed in 2019 and 2024.

Grant Leverage as Policy Enforcement Mechanism

The airport action represents Abbott’s deployment of grant compliance authority to enforce contested policy positions. In May, Abbott threatened to revoke $530,000 in state grants unless Grand Prairie canceled an Eid celebration at a city-owned water park. The event’s initial flyer read “Muslims only,” which Abbott argued violated House Bill 4211, Texas legislation banning residential and public facilities from excluding non-Muslims. Grand Prairie canceled the event.

In October 2025, Abbott ordered the Texas Department of Transportation to withhold funding from cities that refused to remove rainbow crosswalks, calling them unauthorized markings conveying “political ideologies” on public roadways. Transportation Secretary Duffy had sent governors a letter in July 2025 urging removal of “political messaging” from roads and threatening federal funding cuts for non-compliance.

The grant-leverage strategy escalates enforcement beyond legislative authority. Airports operate under dual federal-state jurisdiction, with the FAA exercising primary control over terminal security and access through its Airport Improvement Program. Airports accepting AIP grants agree to 39 grant assurances, including civil rights compliance requirements. Abbott’s letters invoked these federal conditions to justify state and federal enforcement action.

DOJ Referral Seeks Federal Civil Rights Investigation

Abbott’s August 21 DOJ letter argued the facilities are “clearly purposed to benefit the Muslim population alone” and are “not comparable to any existing interfaith chapels, which are open and available to all.” He wrote that “airports can no more offer Muslim-only bathroom spaces than they can maintain white-only bathrooms” and requested the Justice Department “immediately review these discriminatory facilities at DFW and IAH and take appropriate corrective action.”

The Council on American-Islamic Relations called Abbott’s action an “anti-Muslim political stunt” and argued the facilities are “universally-accessible” and comparable to interfaith chapels. CAIR is currently suing Abbott over his November 2025 proclamation designating the organization as a “Foreign Terrorist Organization” under Texas law.

Neither the Justice Department nor the Transportation Department has publicly responded to Abbott’s referrals. Both airports continue operating their existing ablution facilities. DFW has not announced plans to remove its two stations installed in 2019.

A U.S. government report exposes what Qatar prefers to keep hidden: Muslims who convert to Christianity face discrimination, harassment, surveillance, and police monitoring under a legal system that criminalizes apostasy as a hudud crime punishable by law with death. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom’s 2026 Annual Report on Qatar documents a country where conversion from Islam is not officially recognized, Christian worship operates under suffocating restrictions, and religious minorities live in constant fear of detention or deportation. While there are no documented cases of the death penalty being carried out for apostasy, the legal threat remains codified and converts face active surveillance, harassment, and detention.

Share

Apostasy Carries the Death Penalty

The legal framework is unambiguous. Under Qatar's Penal Code (Law No. 11 of 2004), apostasy—leaving Islam for another faith—is formally codified as a hudud offense for which the law allows the death penalty, though no executions for apostasy have been documented. Article 256 imposes prison sentences of up to seven years for “offending the Islamic religion” or “insulting any of the prophets.” The government reviews, censors, and bans media containing what it deems objectionable religious content. Conversion from Islam, the USCIRF report states bluntly, “is not officially recognized.”

Life Under Surveillance for Converts

Both Qatari citizens and migrant workers who convert to Christianity experience what the commission describes as systematic persecution. Converts face discrimination from authorities, harassment in daily life, and active police monitoring of their activities. They cannot legally change their religious identity on government documents. Unauthorized religious gatherings can result in visa termination, loss of employment, detention, fines, or deportation.

Qatar's male guardianship system compounds the threat. The 2006 Family Law, governed by Sunni religious rulings and Sharia jurisprudence, mandates that a couple divorce if one spouse engages in apostasy—meaning conversion forces the legal dissolution of families. Qatari women need male guardian permission to work in government institutions, and unmarried women under 25 require guardian approval to travel abroad, making it nearly impossible for female converts to escape persecution.

Converts live in constant calculation: Is this gathering too visible? Will a neighbor report us? Can my family survive if I’m deported? Unrecognized faith groups cannot open bank accounts, legally hire staff, or solicit funds. Worship in residential spaces, the only option for many, offers no legal protection from arbitrary enforcement.

Foreign Christians: One Compound, Heavy Surveillance

Foreign Christians, while relatively freer than converts, worship under heavy state supervision. The government restricts all Christian worship to a single government-approved compound: the Mesaymeer Religious Complex in Doha. Eight Christian denominations—Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Syrian Orthodox, Coptic Orthodox, Maronite, Anglican, and Evangelical Protestant—share this facility under constant state monitoring.

The Christian Churches Steering Committee reports overcrowding and limited resources. Churches cannot display crosses, bells, or steeples on their exteriors. Native Qataris are barred from entering the compound. The government actively monitors worship activities and requires permits even for private gatherings. Security personnel screen attendees. This is worship as state-supervised performance —religious freedom in name only.

A Broader Pattern of Religious Persecution

Christians are not alone. In early 2025, authorities detained several members of the Dawoodi Bohra Shi’a Muslim community for gathering for prayer without a permit. They were held without due process and subjected to irregular judicial proceedings based solely on religious identity.

The Baha’i community faces systematic erasure. Between 2003 and 2025, Qatar deported at least 14 Baha’is on account of their religion. Since March 2026, at least four more Baha’i leaders have been ordered to leave without legal recourse, including lifelong residents with elderly parents dependent on their care.

Only Sunni Muslims, Shi’a Muslims, and eight Christian denominations are legally registered in Qatar. Everyone else, Hindus, Buddhists, Baha’is, unregistered Christian groups, exists outside the law. They cannot publicly display their faith, distribute religious materials, or organize legally. The USCIRF report characterizes these restrictions as having become “systematic” in 2025.

The Image Versus the Reality

The contradiction is stark. Qatar projects an international image of religious tolerance and multicultural engagement. The government hosts international conferences through the Doha International Center for Interfaith Dialogue to promote religious coexistence. State officials committed to the State Department that they would reform intolerant content in textbooks.

Yet the 2026 IMPACT-se report documents that government curriculum still teaches that “polytheism” is “the greatest sin” and portrays non-Muslims in deeply negative terms. History textbooks discussing Adolf Hitler omit antisemitism and make no reference to the Holocaust. Behind the carefully constructed public relations, the persecution continues.

USCIRF recommends Qatar be placed on the Special Watch List for engaging in or tolerating severe violations of religious freedom. The commission calls for Congress to hold hearings on religious freedom conditions and urges the State Department to work with Qatar’s National Human Rights Committee to incorporate religious freedom protections.

Behind Qatar’s facade of tolerance, Christians who convert live under the shadow of a death penalty that remains on the books. They worship in secret, avoid authorities, and calculate daily whether their faith is worth the risk of losing everything. The USCIRF report exposes what Qatar’s public relations apparatus works to hide: religious freedom does not exist for those who choose Christianity in a country where apostasy is a crime.

On September 4–5, the American Communist Party will host its inaugural “Marxism Conference” in Chicago. The venue address will remain secret until one week before doors open. What organizers have disclosed is a speaker roster that includes party leaders who co-founded a Kremlin-backed international in Moscow this spring, attended the funerals of Ayatollah Khamenei and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, and promote support for China, North Korea, Iran, and Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The conference is co-organized by Midwestern Marx Institute and will feature keynote addresses, panel discussions, and what organizers describe as “education sessions” on Marxist theory. Ticket sales are hosted on Sellfy, an e-commerce platform typically used for merchandise, not professional conference registration. The event coincides with the one-year anniversary of the party’s founding in July 2024.

Share

The Speaker Roster

The conference’s keynote speakers share more than ideology. Jackson Hinkle was banned from Twitch in 2022 for spreading pro-Russia disinformation about Ukraine and from Instagram in 2024 for pro-Hamas content. In 2023, he used AI to generate images depicting “a satanic George Soros” and monetized a premium subscription promising to “defeat the Zionist lies.”

Christopher Helali was accused in 2016 of embezzling $4,510 from the Boston Industrial Workers of the World while serving as Secretary-Treasurer. He denied the charge, claiming the money was used “during a local IWW feud.” He told a reporter he has “been detained off and on since 2013” and said he was placed on a Department of Homeland Security watch list in 2020. Russia awarded him its “Medal Participant of the military operation in Syria” in December 2024.

Also speaking: Rathbone, a New Orleans musician banned from TikTok and Instagram for “anti-imperialist, anti-American” content; Slava Jalili, a Ukrainian-American who spoke against “Kiev’s Regime and NATO” on the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion; Grayson Walker, who published “The Marxist Position on Iran: Reactionary or Revolutionary?” in the party’s journal; Nick Cruse, co-founder of Revolutionary Blackout Network; and 2024 Green Party vice presidential candidate Butch Ware. The conference includes Andrew Hartman, a Distinguished Professor at Illinois State University whose recent book Karl Marx in America was published by the University of Chicago Press. The roster includes no speakers critical of Russia, China, or Iran.

The Moscow Connection

Six of those speakers traveled to Moscow on April 27, 2026, for the inaugural forum of Sovintern—”for socialism in the twenty-first century.” The organization brought together representatives from more than seventy countries to establish what a Lansing Institute analysis describes as a modern Comintern designed to “undermine European unity, spread anti-Western narratives, and legitimize Russia’s war in Ukraine.” Vladimir Putin sent a greeting praising attendees for their commitment to “social justice, sovereign development, and traditional spiritual and moral values.”

American Communist Party chairman Haz Al-Din gave a keynote address. Co-founder Jackson Hinkle posted: “I spoke at the inaugural SOVINTERN International Socialist Forum in Moscow yesterday on behalf of the American Communist Party.” Party International Secretary Christopher Helali, who won election as a Vermont High Bailiff in November 2024, relocated to Moscow after the election and now works for DD Geopolitics, a pro-Russia media outlet. In July, Helali and Hinkle both traveled to Iran for Khamenei’s funeral. Hinkle was filmed chanting “down with the USA.” Conference speakers Carlos Garrido and Edward Liger Smith co-direct Midwestern Marx and serve as ACP Secretary of Education and co-founder, respectively. Both have written extensively supporting “socialism with Chinese characteristics.”

Who’s Behind the American Communist Party?

The American Communist Party split from the Communist Party USA in July 2024. The party’s Wikipedia page states it “voiced support for China, North Korea, Iran, Nicaragua, Nicolás Maduro, and the Russian ‘Special Military Operation.’” It claims three hundred members across thirty states and promotes what it calls “MAGA Communism”—a strategy to recruit Trump supporters by reframing populist grievances as achievable only through communism.

The party operates a “build and rebuild” program that uses community gardens, food drives, and disaster relief to gain local trust before introducing Marxist ideology. An academic analysis documented the party conducting nearly one hundred charity drives in six months since its founding. Christopher Helali won his Vermont election in November 2024, which the same academic analysis described as making the ACP the second communist party in U.S. history to hold public office. The party has no IRS nonprofit registration and files no public financial disclosures.

Next Month in Chicago

The conference overlaps with Socialism 2026, a separate event organized by Haymarket Books at the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place. That conference lists its venue publicly and is endorsed by established left-wing publishers. The Marxism Conference does not. Organizers state the address “will be released a week before the event.” No security concern is cited. No reason is provided. Neither the party nor Midwestern Marx responded to requests for comment. The FBI has not commented on whether it is monitoring the event.

The Democratic Socialists of America aren’t hiding anymore. They passed 120,000 members on July 4, 2026. They’ve won 63 primaries this cycle. Their new platform calls for abolishing the Senate, drafting a new constitution, and prosecuting U.S. leaders for “genocide in Gaza.” And with chapters in all 50 states and a live election dashboard tracking 171 candidates — 64 who have already won their primaries, 53 still running, and 54 who lost — the DSA has transformed from a fringe group of 6,000 members in 2016 into what they call "the largest socialist organization in United States history."

This November, that organization will test whether self-described socialists can win not just in deep-blue districts, but in battleground states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Colorado. This new Cross Currents is profiling every major DSA-backed candidate running in 2026—documenting who they are, what they believe, how they’re funded, and what their platforms actually say. From Congress to state legislatures to city halls, self-described socialists are on the ballot across America, many with a real chance of winning. This is not commentary. This is the documentary record.

What They Actually Want

The DSA published its governing platform in June 2026 under the title “Workers Deserve More.” It’s not a moderate document.

Under “A Real Democracy,” the platform calls for a “new political system” and proposes to “abolish the Electoral College” and “replace the President and Supreme Court with an executive and judiciary chosen by and subordinate to Congress.” The next section, “A Democratic Congress,” goes further: “abolish the Senate.”

On immigration, the platform demands: “Abolish ICE. End ICE detention and deportations and punish federal agents’ brutality. Legalize migration, grant amnesty for all immigrants regardless of status, provide a path to citizenship for all permanent residents, and end visa caps and quotas.”

The foreign policy planks are equally direct. “Free Palestine” demands the “right of return, the right to resist military occupation,” ending “all military and economic aid to Israel,” and prosecuting “U.S. and Israeli leaders responsible for the genocide in Gaza.” Another section, “End The U.S. War Machine,” calls to “defund the Department of War” and “end all foreign wars and close overseas military bases.”

Domestic policy includes “public ownership of the largest corporations and essential industries,” a 32-hour work week, universal rent control, and steps toward “fully abolishing the police and prison system.”

The platform describes these as demands to “end capitalist oligarchy” and build “a democratic socialist republic.” Their dashboard’s tagline reads: “Don’t call it a party…” — but functionally, that’s what they’re building.

Inside the Big Tent

The DSA describes itself as a “big tent” organization, but that tent now shelters explicit communists alongside democratic socialists. The organization operates through competing internal caucuses that range from reformist to revolutionary—and the revolutionary wing is gaining ground.

Red Star, a Marxist-Leninist caucus, states its goal is to “abolish capitalism” and “cohere a vanguard party.” The caucus’s official platform declares: “A capitalist society will not be reformed into a socialist one... it must be overthrown and replaced.” The Communist Caucus identifies as “a caucus of communist organizers” working to “rebuild class organization and supporting the struggle against capital.” Marxist Unity Group focuses on orthodox Marxist theory and wants DSA to “behave like an independent political party” rather than the left flank of Democrats.

Emerge, a “catchall communist caucus,” advocates for police abolition and signed onto statements demanding New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani fire his police commissioner. The Libertarian Socialist Caucus and other far-left factions push DSA toward more radical positions on everything from abolition to anti-imperialism.

On the other end, caucuses like Socialist Majority focus on electing DSA members through Democratic primaries and passing legislation. Groundwork emphasizes ecosocialism and public ownership of utilities. Bread & Roses pursues labor organizing. But former DSA members have told NewsNation that “communist-aligned caucuses” have gained influence as the organization grew, and the “Workers Deserve More” platform reflects that shift.

The caucuses compete for control of DSA’s National Political Committee and fight over candidate endorsements, whether to censure elected officials, and how hard to push on issues like Israel-Palestine. Springs of Revolution, the most committed anti-Zionist caucus, has called for “red lines” and pushed to censure Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez over her votes on Israel funding. When asked about being described as DSA’s “right wing,” the reformist caucuses bristled—but the label stuck because, within DSA, supporting gradual reform through Democratic primaries is considered conservative.

This internal ideological war shapes what voters see on the ballot. The candidates profiled in this series represent different points on that spectrum—some aligned with the revolutionary caucuses, others with the reformist wing, and some trying to navigate between them.

How They Got Here

The DSA’s roots trace to 1982, when Michael Harrington unified two socialist groups after breaking from the Socialist Party of America. Harrington had resigned as National Co-Chairman over the Vietnam War—he wanted immediate withdrawal while the party majority supported U.S. presence to back anti-communists. He also criticized what he called the party’s “obsessive anti-communism” and pushed for diplomatic engagement with the Soviet Union.

For decades, the DSA remained marginal — 6,000 members before 2016. Then Bernie Sanders ran for president calling himself a democratic socialist, and the floodgates opened. Membership hit 24,000 by 2017. When Sanders ran again in 2020, it kept climbing. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s 2018 upset victory, she went from bartending in the Bronx to Congress as a DSA member, proved the model could work.

Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral campaign turbocharged growth further. Membership surged from roughly 50,000 in October 2024 to over 90,000 by December 2025 during his race. When he won and was sworn in as New York City mayor on January 1, 2026, it validated the entire project. By July 4, the organization announced it had passed 120,000 members—”the largest socialist organization in United States history.”

What changed wasn’t the ideology — it was the branding. Sanders reframed socialism as Scandinavian social democracy rather than Soviet authoritarianism, making the label safe enough for mainstream politics. The DSA built the infrastructure to capitalize: local chapters in all 50 states, candidate recruitment pipelines, internal caucuses, and a National Political Committee that now approves a governing platform and coordinates national endorsements. What started as a marginal movement has become an organized electoral apparatus.

The Infrastructure

The DSA's 64 primary wins didn't happen by accident — they came from organizational sophistication built over the last decade. The group operates through a decentralized structure: local chapters in all 50 states handle on-the-ground organizing, while the National Political Committee sets national strategy and approves major endorsements. The live dashboard tracks all 171 nationally endorsed candidates in real time, showing wins, losses, and races still running—a level of coordination that didn't exist before 2016.

Internal caucuses function like parties within the party, running slates for leadership positions and whipping votes at the biennial national conventions. The Muslim Caucus, founded in 2020, frames Islam as “a unifying ethos, an orientation towards solidarity and justice” rather than mere identity. The caucus explicitly centers anti-racism and connects Muslim faith to socialist organizing. The dashboard uses the tagline “BUILD DSA WITH US HABIBI”—an Arabic term of endearment—alongside donation appeals, signaling the organization’s effort to build a multiracial, multi-faith socialist coalition.

Funding for individual candidates comes from multiple sources. While the DSA organization itself operates on relatively modest revenue, DSA-aligned candidates have attracted significant outside money. NewsNation reported that groups like Way to Win and donors tied to the Soros family have backed DSA-aligned candidates. Federal Election Commission data shows some candidates receiving majority funding from out-of-state donors funneled through super PACs.

What Comes Next

President Trump told Fox News in August that DSA-backed candidates “will ruin our country” and that cities “taken over by the socialists and the communists” are “filthy, dirty, disgusting.” National Republicans have made the DSA a central target, running ads emphasizing candidates’ “socialist” credentials — ads many viewed as efforts to boost them into general elections, calculating they’d be easier to defeat than moderate opponents.

But the movement isn't slowing down. With 53 of those candidates still running (and 57 who lost their primaries), November's general elections loom as the ultimate test. The DSA has positioned itself as a parallel infrastructure inside the Democratic Party— one with a published program that calls for abolishing core American institutions and a membership base willing to knock doors for it.

The stakes are concrete. Abdul El-Sayed’s (a DSA-backed candidate) Senate race against Mike Rogers in Michigan could determine which party controls the Senate. Nithya Raman’s November runoff in Los Angeles would put a DSA member in charge of the second-largest city in America. In New York, multiple DSA-backed candidates are headed to general elections for Congress after defeating establishment Democrats in primaries. Zohran Mamdani’s first seven months as New York City mayor will serve as a test case for whether DSA governance can work in practice — or whether it collapses under the weight of its own contradictions.

The question isn’t whether socialists are running anymore. They are, and they’re winning primaries. The question is whether they can win general elections in purple states, govern effectively in major cities, and turn local victories into national momentum.

Over the coming weeks, Cross Currents will profile these candidates one by one: who they are, what they’ve said, where their money comes from, and what their wins would mean. Not every DSA candidate shares identical views. Some have distanced themselves from the national organization. But the pattern is clear enough to document.

The socialists are on the ballot. Voters deserve to know exactly what they’re voting for.

Editors Note: The statistics and number of races (won or lost) throughout this piece reflect the numbers at time of publish on August 20, 2026.

The UK Home Office published a seven-page illustrated booklet in August 2026 instructing asylum seekers that rape is illegal in Britain, women have equal rights, and sex with children under 16 is a crime with no exceptions. The guide, distributed to tens of thousands of predominantly male arrivals from the Middle East, Africa, and Central Asia, teaches concepts British officials determined required explicit instruction—including that marital rape is illegal, women can work without male permission, and making sexual comments to strangers constitutes harassment.

No government statement explains why asylum seekers need to be told that “both people must say ‘yes’ to sex,” but the materials arrive as Britain confronts thousands of grooming gang victims and a string of recent asylum seeker rape convictions. The booklet warns: violate these norms, and “it will affect your asylum claim.”

“This Is Called Consent”

The booklet opens with an acknowledgment. “We understand that coming to a new country can be difficult, and that laws and customs here may be different from your home country,” it states. What follows is instruction on concepts British officials determined required explicit articulation.

“In the UK, both people must say ‘yes’ to sex. This is called consent,” the booklet explains. “If you have sex with someone who does not want to, this is called rape. Rape is a serious crime.” The materials clarify that marital status provides no exception. “It is still rape if you are married to the person or in a relationship.”

The age of consent receives similar treatment. “Sex with someone under the age of 16 is a serious crime in the UK,” the booklet warns. “There are no exceptions to this rule. Even if they say yes, it is still illegal.” Consequences are spelled out: “You could go to prison, lose your support and accommodation, and it will affect your asylum claim.”

“Men and Women Are Equal”

A separate section addresses gender equality. “In the UK, men and women are equal,” the guide states. “This means: men and women are treated the same; women can work, study, travel and make their own choices.” The booklet specifies that husbands, fathers, and brothers may not stop women from working, control what they wear, or make decisions for them without agreement.

Public behavior also received detailed instruction stating, “It is illegal to harass people.” The materials prohibit asylum seekers from making “sexual comments to strangers, even as a compliment,” approaching someone repeatedly if “they are not interested,” or following someone or blocking their path.

The Home Office produced the materials using comic-style illustrations. Posters featuring the same content are “presumably to be displayed in asylum hotels and other types of migrant accommodation,” the Daily Mail reported.

Recent Cases

The materials arrive as Britain grapples with documented patterns. The Daily Mail catalogued six recent rape cases involving asylum seekers who arrived in 2024 and 2025. Three men—from Iran and Egypt—received a combined 60 years for a gang rape on Brighton beach. An Afghan who arrived in March 2024 was sentenced to 15 years for raping a 12-year-old girl four months later. A Turkish arrival raped an 18-year-old in Tamworth weeks after entering the country.

Thousands of Victims, Years of Silence

The context extends deeper. Between 1997 and 2013, approximately 1,400 children were sexually exploited in Rotherham alone by predominantly British-Pakistani gangs. Telford saw over 1,000 victims. Oxford counted 373. Operation Stovewood documented that 80% of Rotherham perpetrators were males of Pakistani heritage.

Investigations into these cases revealed systemic failures. Police and councils downplayed the scale. Council staff were instructed not to mention perpetrators’ ethnic origins. A culture of “misplaced ‘political correctness’” allowed abuse to continue for years.

A June 2025 audit by Baroness Casey found that “our collective failure to address questions about the ethnicity of grooming gangs has dominated political and institutional focus, with energy devoted to proving the point on one hand, or avoiding or playing it down on the other.”

“The Most Insane Thing I Have Ever Seen”

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp called the booklet evidence that immigrants are “coming from places and societies where attitudes towards women are completely incompatible with Western society.” He argued officials should “deport them” rather than “trying to train these mainly young, male illegal immigrants to behave in a civilised way towards women.”

Reform UK’s Zia Yusuf described the materials as “one of the most insane things I have ever seen,” arguing they prove “the Government knows” asylum seekers “are a menace.”

The Home Office responded with a single sentence: “We expect everyone who comes to the UK to abide by our laws.” Consequences for violations would include “refusal of their asylum claim and removal from the UK.”

Last year, 41,472 people arrived by small boat; 34,201 were male. The largest nationalities were Eritrean, Afghan, Iranian, Sudanese, and Somali. Each now receives instruction on what Britain considers consent.

When the Department of War ordered 30 American universities to conduct immediate reviews of their foreign partnerships this week, the names that drew attention were predictable: Harvard, MIT, New York University, Johns Hopkins and the University of California, Berkeley. But the more revealing part of the Pentagon’s announcement may have been a three-word phrase buried in its explanation: “rebranded Confucius Institutes.”

The universities must examine active institutional ties and collaborations with foreign entities identified under Section 1286 of the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act, as well as organizations associated with rebranded Confucius Institutes. They have until Aug. 31 to report their findings and mitigation efforts, with future federal research funding potentially at stake.

The Pentagon has not publicly explained what it considers a rebranded Confucius Institute or identified which relationship prompted the selection of each individual university. But a Crosscurrents review of federal and university records shows that, at some of the schools, closing a Confucius Institute did not end the underlying relationship with its Chinese university partner. At others, universities on the audit list maintain or recently documented academic relationships with Chinese institutions that now appear on the Pentagon’s Section 1286 list.

The Pentagon describes Section 1286 as a federal restricted-party list targeting unwanted foreign influence on Department-funded research and says the listed entities have been confirmed as engaging in activities that threaten U.S. national-security interests. Beginning in fiscal year 2026, Pentagon funds cannot support fundamental research involving collaboration with a listed entity. The picture that emerges is more complicated than the disappearance of the Confucius Institute name. In some cases, the sign came down. The partnership remained.

The Wuhan Program That Survived the Confucius Institute

Stony Brook University offers one of the clearest examples. Its Confucius Institute was established in 2008 as a partnership between Stony Brook and China’s Hanban, while also maintaining a relationship with Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, or ZUEL, in Wuhan, according to a 2015 university document.

In 2016, Stony Brook promoted a month-long study-abroad program in Wuhan that the university said was organized by International Academic Programs and the Confucius Institute. Students met counterparts at ZUEL, while participants also received funding from the Chinese government, according to a university profile. The Confucius Institute later closed. The Wuhan program did not disappear.

Stony Brook’s current study-abroad page continues to advertise “Summer in Wuhan.” It says participants receive a scholarship from and are hosted by ZUEL. More remarkably, the university still describes ZUEL as the “partner university of SBU’s Confucius Institute.” The continuity is unusually direct.

Before the institute closed, Stony Brook’s Confucius Institute helped organize the Wuhan program involving ZUEL. Years after the institute disappeared, the university still advertises the program with the same Chinese institution, while its own webpage continues to identify ZUEL through the old Confucius Institute relationship.

That does not establish that the Pentagon considers the Wuhan program a “rebranded Confucius Institute,” nor has the department publicly identified ZUEL as the reason Stony Brook was selected for audit. It does show why simply counting how many Confucius Institutes formally closed can miss what happened afterward.

The Chinese Partner Stayed at South Carolina

The University of South Carolina presents another form of continuity.

As recently as May 2020, USC described its Confucius Institute as a collaboration among the university’s College of Arts and Sciences, Beijing Language and Culture University, or BLCU, and the Chinese Ministry of Education.

In February 2021, USC’s Board of Trustees approved termination of the Confucius Institute. Board records said the recommendation reflected changes in university priorities and strategic direction. But USC’s relationship with BLCU did not disappear from its academic programming. A current USC international-business page says its Chinese-language faculty is “normally” reinforced by four visiting instructors from Beijing Language and Culture University.

That is noteworthy because providing Chinese-language instructors was historically one of the functions of the Confucius Institute system. A Government Accountability Office review found that Hanban and American universities jointly funded the institutes, while Confucius Institute arrangements commonly included Chinese teachers and other instructional support.

The public record reviewed by Crosscurrents does not establish who currently selects or pays the BLCU instructors, or whether their present arrangement is administratively descended from USC’s former Confucius Institute.

What can be established is narrower: the Chinese university that participated in USC’s former Confucius Institute continues to be identified on a current university webpage as a source of visiting Chinese-language instructors.

Washington Already Knew the Partnerships Survived

The phenomenon is much broader than Stony Brook or South Carolina. In 2023, the GAO surveyed 74 American institutions that had closed Confucius Institutes. Forty-three of the 74 said they still maintained a partnership with the same Chinese institution associated with their former Confucius Institute. Twenty of those schools described the relationship as diminished or dormant, particularly because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nine institutions told GAO they were still receiving support for Chinese-language, cultural or academic programs from their former Chinese Confucius Institute partner. That support included visiting or exchange scholars, Chinese-language staff, language tutors and joint or dual-degree programs. GAO also noted that some partnerships predated the Confucius Institutes themselves and continued after their closure.

In other words, three years before the Pentagon used the phrase “rebranded Confucius Institutes,” a federal investigation had already documented that shutting down the institutes often did not mean severing ties with the Chinese universities behind them. The Confucius Institute network largely disappeared as a brand. The underlying university relationships did not universally disappear with it.

The Other Half of the Pentagon’s Audit

The Pentagon’s Aug. 17 announcement points to a second category of relationships that may be even more consequential for research security. Its audits also target active collaborations involving foreign institutions appearing on the Section 1286 list. The Pentagon says the list identifies foreign entities it has confirmed as engaging in activities threatening U.S. national-security interests. Effective in fiscal year 2026, Pentagon money cannot be used for fundamental research involving collaboration with those institutions, including research using their equipment.

Several universities among the 30 now being audited have publicly documented academic relationships with universities on that list. The University of Cincinnati, for example, currently operates a Joint Co-op Institute with Chongqing University. Cincinnati says students receive degrees from both institutions, while the partnership also serves as a platform for increased faculty research cooperation. Its current program pages say approximately 450 students are enrolled. Chongqing University appears on the Pentagon’s Section 1286 list.

At the University of Minnesota, a live Carlson School page advertises an Executive MBA in China offered in partnership with Lingnan College at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou. Sun Yat-sen University is also on Section 1286.

Southern Illinois University Carbondale provides another example, although the public documentation available for that program is older. In 2019, SIU announced a collaborative aviation degree program with Shenyang Aerospace University, involving jointly designed coursework, degrees from both universities and a faculty exchange component. SIU had previously announced an articulation agreement focused on avionics and aircraft maintenance. Shenyang Aerospace University now appears on Section 1286.

The available public records reviewed for this article do not establish whether the SIU program remains operational in 2026. Its documented relationship nevertheless provides another potential point of relevance to the Pentagon’s audit, without establishing that it was the reason SIU was selected.

When a Former Confucius Partner Lands on the Pentagon List

At UCLA, the two strands of the story intersect. UCLA records show that its former Confucius Institute worked with Shanghai Jiao Tong University. A 2014 UCLA page identified the institute’s associate director as coming from Shanghai Jiao Tong, while former Chancellor Gene Block described a program bringing graduate students from the university to Los Angeles through the Confucius Institute. (UCLA) Shanghai Jiao Tong University is now on the Pentagon’s Section 1286 list.

And UCLA’s relationship with Shanghai Jiao Tong has extended beyond Chinese-language or cultural programming. In a June 30, 2025 CV, UCLA computer scientist Demetri Terzopoulos listed himself as co-director of the SJTU-UCLA Joint Center for Machine Perception and Inference, a position he dated from June 2018 to “present” at the time the CV was prepared. Because that CV is dated 2025, Crosscurrents cannot establish from the document alone that the center remains operational in August 2026.

Still, the historical overlap is notable: the Chinese university involved in UCLA’s former Confucius Institute is now itself on the Pentagon’s research-security list, while a UCLA professor was still listing a joint machine-perception center with it in 2025. There is no public evidence that the center caused UCLA to appear among the 30 universities, and the existence of the partnership does not establish that prohibited Pentagon-funded research occurred through it.

Penn State shows a similar pattern. Its former Confucius Institute relationship involved Dalian University of Technology, and Penn State records also document the creation of a separate Joint Center for Energy Research with Dalian covering collaborative research in energy science and technology. Dalian University of Technology now appears on Section 1286.

More recent evidence shows that the universities’ researchers continued to collaborate after the Confucius Institute era. In February 2025, Penn State reported on research co-led by scientists at Penn State and Dalian University of Technology. The article said the work was supported by Chinese funding sources and quoted the Dalian corresponding author expressing interest in additional work with Penn State.The point is not that Confucius Institute language programs transformed into sensitive research laboratories. They did not.

It is that Confucius Institutes frequently existed within larger university-to-university relationships, and some of the same Chinese institutional partners remained connected to American universities after the politically controversial Confucius Institute brand disappeared.

Portland State Was Told Cooperation Could Continue in a “New Mode”

Portland State University provides another revealing glimpse of the transition. Its Confucius Institute partnered with Soochow University. According to correspondence published by the National Association of Scholars, Chinese International Education Foundation President Yang Wei responded to Portland State’s closure by expressing hope that PSU and Soochow could continue cooperating in Chinese-language teaching in a “new mode.” (NAS)

NAS is an advocacy organization, and Crosscurrents has not independently obtained the underlying correspondence. The claim should therefore be understood as NAS’s account of the documents it reviewed. The wording is nonetheless particularly relevant now that the Pentagon is explicitly directing universities to examine organizations associated with “rebranded Confucius Institutes.”

Portland State today also maintains substantial academic programs with other Chinese institutions. Its engineering college lists current dual-degree partnerships, including the Portland Institute at Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications. PSU describes that program as involving telecommunications and electronics degrees and graduate study, while another university page calls the relationship a “deep and integrated collaboration.”

Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications was not Portland State’s former Confucius Institute partner, and the Portland Institute should not be characterized as a renamed Confucius Institute on the evidence reviewed here. Instead, Portland State illustrates the broader transformation: one China-linked institutional structure closed while extensive academic cooperation with Chinese universities continued through other channels.

Why These 30?

That may ultimately be the more important question raised by the Pentagon’s announcement. The first wave of coverage understandably focused on prestigious universities. But a list containing Harvard and MIT alongside Bryant University, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Portland State University and other less obvious institutions suggests the department was not simply assembling a roster of elite research schools.

The Pentagon says the institutions received notifications concerning “active institutional ties and collaborations” involving Section 1286 entities and organizations associated with rebranded Confucius Institutes. The universities were directed to audit identified collaborations, assess the exposure of sensitive or export-controlled research and implement mitigation measures, including terminating problematic partnerships where necessary.

The public record offers clues as to the kinds of relationships that may warrant scrutiny, although it does not reveal the Pentagon’s institution-by-institution reasoning. At Stony Brook, a program once organized in part by its Confucius Institute continues with the same Chinese university partner. At South Carolina, a current webpage says its Chinese-language faculty is normally supplemented by visiting instructors from the former Confucius Institute’s Chinese university partner.

At UCLA and Penn State, Chinese universities involved in their former Confucius Institute relationships now appear on the Pentagon’s Section 1286 list, while other academic collaborations with those institutions continued after the CI era.

At Cincinnati, a current joint engineering institute involves a Section 1286-listed university. Minnesota maintains a live webpage advertising an MBA partnership with another. SIU has documented an aviation program with a third. None of those facts establishes why the Pentagon selected a particular American university, nor does inclusion among the 30 establish wrongdoing.

But collectively, the records demonstrate something that the disappearance of Confucius Institute signs could obscure. Years ago, American universities closed a highly visible network of Chinese government-backed institutes. The Pentagon is now looking at what remained after the signs came down.

The Democratic Socialists of America published an explicit recruitment manual in 2018 urging members to become teachers, not to improve education, but to exploit teaching jobs for their “political, economic, and social potential.” The 6,000-word pamphlet, Why Socialists Should Become Teachers, lays out a coordinated strategy modeled on 1920s Communist Party tactics to infiltrate schools, radicalize unions, and gain access to students. Seven years later, the strategy is working. DSA-backed candidates now hold at least 23 school board seats across 15 states, union officials who keynote DSA conventions lead the nation’s largest teachers unions, and DSA partners run workshops teaching educators about “heroic resistance to Zionism”, some with funding traced to a Shanghai-based billionaire with documented ties to Chinese Communist Party propaganda operations.

“Militant Minority” Strategy

The DSA pamphlet frames teaching through a Marxist lens: “It is teachers who train, both socially and technically, the workers of the future.” Rather than a calling to educate, DSA describes teaching as a multi-year infiltration project. “Unlike ‘salting,’ in which a worker goes into a non-union workplace for a short period of time,” the manual instructs, “committing to rank-and-file labor organizing should be seen as at least a multi-year project and ideally longer.”

The goal isn’t to convert every teacher. DSA explicitly states that “many of the people we organize with will hold a mix of conservative, racist, sexist, and other bigoted beliefs.” Instead, socialists must build a “militant minority of class-conscious teachers that can move our unions in a more militant and democratic direction.” The document cites the Communist Party’s Trade Union Education League from the 1920s as its organizing model.

Once embedded in schools, DSA teachers gain access to shape young minds. “Your exchanges with students can help shape a generation of critical thinkers and political actors,” the pamphlet promises. “You may even have the opportunity to teach about social justice and liberation history.”

Controlling Both Sides of the Table

DSA’s 2023 National Convention passed a resolution titled “Run DSA Candidates for School Boards,” formalizing the strategy nationwide. The resolution declares “the teacher movement is the tip of the spear of a revitalized labor movement” and commits DSA to running candidates “dedicated to building the working class movement.”

The strategy creates what Parents Defending Education described as control of “both sides of the table”. DSA members lead teachers unions while DSA-backed candidates sit on the school boards negotiating with those unions.

In Los Angeles, DSA members Jackie Goldberg (board president 2019-2023) and Rocio Rivas (current board vice president) sit on the LAUSD board. United Teachers Los Angeles president Cecily Myart-Cruz keynoted the 2019 DSA National Convention. DSA-LA members describe themselves as “dual members of DSA-LA and UTLA.”

Chicago’s story is even starker. The Caucus of Rank-and-File Educators (CORE), founded by DSA members including current vice president Jackson Potter, took over the Chicago Teachers Union in 2010. DSA describes this as “a textbook case of the rank-and-file strategy in practice.” Former CTU president Jesse Sharkey is a longtime identified socialist.

Nationwide, at least 23 DSA-backed school board members now serve in California, Illinois, New York, Texas, Wisconsin, Nevada, Colorado, Kentucky, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Minnesota, and Tennessee.

Palestine Curriculum and China-Linked Partners

DSA’s education agenda extends beyond labor organizing. In 2022, DSA’s National BDS and Palestine Solidarity Working Group created an “Educators for Palestine Series” teaching about “heroic resistance to Zionism.” Black Lives Matter at School endorsed and promoted the program.

Oakland teachers led an unauthorized pro-Palestine teach-in during the school day in December 2023. The Oakland Education Association had endorsed DSA school board candidates in 2022, and DSA member Mike Hutchinson now serves as Oakland school board president.

The workshops were co-led by Code Pink and the Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC). Both organizations raise foreign influence concerns. Code Pink has received approximately $1.4 million, about 25% of its funding, from Neville Roy Singham, an American billionaire now based in Shanghai. Singham shares office space with a Chinese media firm dedicated to telling “China’s story well,” official CCP propaganda language. His office displays a banner reading “Always Follow the Party” and he attended a CCP workshop on promoting the party internationally.

Between 2017 and 2023, Singham-controlled entities funneled approximately $278 million into six U.S. nonprofits, including Code Pink and The People’s Forum, which hosts DSA events.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) urged the Justice Department in April 2025 to investigate whether Code Pink must register as a foreign agent due to “Chinese Communist Party ties.” A January 2026 Network Contagion Research Institute report accused DSA itself of potentially violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act due to trips to China, Cuba, and Venezuela involving “in-kind benefits from foreign government-linked entities.”

AROC, the other DSA education partner, is fiscally sponsored by Tides Center but does not publish financial information.

Union Money Floods the Ecosystem

While direct financial ties between DSA and teachers unions remain opaque, the two operate as ideological allies within a shared funding ecosystem. Since 2015, the American Federation of Teachers and National Education Association have distributed $669 million in member dues and PAC funds to left-wing political entities, including $1.965 million to a single 2017 Los Angeles school board race.

The unions gave $1.755 million to Midwest Academy, which provides organizing training for radical activists, and $490,000 to the Congressional Progressive Caucus Center. California Teachers Association alone spent over $12 million on political activities from January to October 2024, with every endorsed candidate a Democrat.

DSA’s West Virginia teachers shifted the 2018 strike’s messaging from “teachers deserve a raise” to “tax the corporations.” The foreword to Why Socialists Should Become Teachers celebrates this: “With socialists active in our organizing, we’ll be in a strategic position to make bold, visionary demands to take on the capitalist class.”

Colorado teacher Bryan Lindstrom, a DSA member, posted on X: “Critical race theory is a component of everything I do.” Milwaukee school board member Missy Zombor wrote on October 22, 2023: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!”

The socialists published the playbook. They’re following it. And they’re already in America’s classrooms.

The Islamic Society of North America will host its 63rd annual convention at Detroit’s Huntington Place Convention Center over Labor Day weekend, September 4-7, 2026. The four-day gathering is expected to draw tens of thousands of attendees and featured keynote speakers. A related ISNA Day conference in Tampa on October 24 will feature additional speakers.

This year’s speaker lineup includes Pakistani cleric Mufti Tariq Masood, who admitted in a 2021 sermon to forcing his 13-year-old niece into marriage and was denied entry to Canada over what activists called “pedophilic rhetoric.” New Jersey Imam Mohammad Qatanani, convicted of Hamas membership by an Israeli military court in 1993 and currently fighting deportation from the United States, is scheduled for the Tampa event. Also speaking is Abdul El-Sayed, who won Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary on August 4 and whose father-in-law served on ISNA’s Founders Committee.

2026 Convention Speakers

Mufti Tariq Masood: Child Marriage Advocate

Pakistani cleric Mufti Tariq Masood is scheduled to speak on a panel about “avoiding mental illness in youth.” In a 2021 sermon, he admitted to forcing his 13-year-old niece into marriage and advised his followers to do the same with their young female relatives. Masood also said it was a husband’s decision whether his wife can attend college, citing Sharia law. He spent the sermon “advising all to engage their daughters in prepubescent marriages,” according to the Pakistan Observer.

Canadian activists urged the government to block Masood’s visa in 2024 over his “pedophilic rhetoric.”

Abdul El-Sayed: Michigan Senate Nominee

Abdul El-Sayed is speaking on a panel titled “Cultivating God Awareness in a Turmoiled America.” His father-in-law, Jukaku Tayeb, was a member of ISNA’s Founders Committee and served as president of CAIR-Michigan.

El-Sayed has attacked President Trump and Republicans as “pedophile protectors” over Epstein files. Yet he will share a stage with Masood, who admitted on video to forcing a child into marriage. El-Sayed will appear on a panel moderated by Syed Imtiaz Ahmad, ISNA’s president, who also moderates Masood’s youth mental health panel.

Siraj Wahhaj

Brooklyn imam Siraj Wahhaj, confirmed as a speaker at the 2026 convention, was named an unindicted co-conspirator by U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White in the trial of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Wahhaj provided testimony in defense of Omar Abdel-Rahman, the “Blind Sheikh” and former leader of the Egyptian terrorist organization Gama’a al-Islamiyya. Rahman was convicted of conspiracy to murder Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and of bombing conspiracy related to a plot to bomb the FBI headquarters and New York tunnels.

During his testimony, Wahhaj called the terrorist leader a “respected scholar” and praised him as “bold, as a strong preacher of Islam.”

In a November 1991 lecture at the Islamic Association of Northern Texas, Wahhaj advocated for establishing an Islamic state in America: “Where ever you came from, you came to America. And you came for one reason—for one reason only to establish Allah’s deen.” He predicted the demise of America unless it accepted “the Islamic agenda” and said Muslims should be involved in politics because “politics are a weapon to use in the cause of Islam.”

Other 2026 Speakers

Imam Mohammad Qatanani, scheduled for ISNA’s Tampa event, was convicted of Hamas membership by an Israeli military court in 1993 and is currently fighting deportation from the United States.

Dr. Arif Alvi, keynote speaker and Pakistan’s president from 2018 to 2023, declined to amend Pakistan’s anti-blasphemy laws after two Christian brothers were sentenced to death for allegedly insulting Muhammad.

Yasir Qadhi, appearing on several panels, delivered a 2001 sermon recommending a book titled The Hoax of the Holocaust, called the Holocaust "false propaganda," and said "Hitler never intended to mass-destroy the Jews," according to a 2010 report in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

ISNA’s Muslim Brotherhood Roots

ISNA’s speaker choices make sense only when understood in the context of the organization’s founding and structure. ISNA appears at the top of a list of 29 organizations in a May 22, 1991 internal memorandum authored by Muslim Brotherhood operative Mohamed Akram. The document, seized by the FBI and entered as evidence in federal court, describes a “Civilization-Jihadist Process” with an explicit goal: “eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

Federal prosecutors included ISNA on a list of unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land Foundation prosecution, listing it among “individuals/entities who are and/or were members of the US Muslim Brotherhood.” Though U.S. District Judge Jorge Solis ruled the government had violated ISNA’s Fifth Amendment rights by not sealing the list, he found “ample evidence to establish the association between ISNA and Hamas” and declined to strike ISNA from the list.

ISNA’s Plainfield, Indiana headquarters complex was built with $21 million from Muslim Brotherhood leaders including Yusuf al-Qaradawi — who issued a fatwa calling for the killing of U.S. soldiers in Iraq — and from Youssef Nada and the emir of Qatar.

Current ISNA board member Muzammil Siddiqi, who also serves on the board of NAIT, has lectured extensively on jihad, telling audiences “when people really carry on Jihad, they carry on the Islam in its peak” and warning that “no people have ever neglected Jihad except they became humiliated.” In a 2001 online exchange, he stated that “once more people accept Islam, inshaallah, this will lead to the implementation of Sharia in all areas.” Siddiqi will also be a keynote speaker at the conference.

This September in Detroit, thousands will gather at Huntington Place Convention Center. Federal agencies will staff recruiting booths. A cleric who forced his 13-year-old niece into marriage will advise parents on youth mental health. An imam convicted of Hamas membership will deliver remarks in Tampa. Holocaust deniers will appear on panels. And Abdul El-Sayed — who won Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary three weeks ago — will take the stage alongside them.

A new national curriculum launching this September will bring the voices of America's post-9/11 security leaders directly into high schools, universities, and civic organizations across the country. The timing coincides with the approaching 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks. The “America After 9/11: A Living History Curriculum,” produced by Homeland Security Today, features twelve professionally recorded sessions with the officials who responded to the September 11 attacks and built the systems that protect the nation today.

The curriculum addresses a significant gap in American education. Only fourteen states currently require schools to teach about 9/11, meaning most American students born after 2001—now adults themselves—have limited understanding of how the attacks reshaped national security. The program aims to ensure future generations understand not just what happened on September 11, but why America responded as it did and what lessons emerged from that transformative period.

Share

Learning From Those Who Were There

The curriculum’s strength lies in its direct access to decision-makers. Former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who led the department from 2005 to 2009, guides students through intelligence reform and the creation of modern security infrastructure. Former FEMA Administrator Brock Long shares lessons from managing multiple catastrophic disasters. Former TSA Deputy Administrators Patricia Cogswell and Holly Canevari explain how aviation security evolved after the attacks.

“We believe there is no substitute for hearing directly from the people who built America’s homeland security enterprise—why they made the decisions they did, what they learned, and what they want the next generation to understand,” the curriculum states. Rather than learning solely from textbooks, students hear firsthand accounts from the men and women whose leadership transformed tragedy into a new era of preparedness and resilience.

The roster also includes former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, who served as the first Undersecretary of Homeland Security for Border and Transportation Security, and Dr. Kimberly O’Connor, current Director of Arizona’s Department of Homeland Security. Matthew Fodor, Director of Operations in the FBI’s National Security Division, provides insight into counterterrorism operations. Mubin Shaikh, a counter-extremism specialist who worked undercover infiltrating jihadist networks, offers a unique perspective on terrorism prevention.

Comprehensive Coverage of Post-9/11 America

The twelve sessions cover essential topics: the events of September 11 itself, the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, intelligence reform and information sharing, counterterrorism and prevention strategies, aviation and transportation security, emergency management, border security, community resilience, cybersecurity and emerging threats, leadership during national crises, and the importance of public service.

Chief Sal Cassano, former Commissioner of the New York City Fire Department, shares the first responder experience from that day and its aftermath. Former DHS Under Secretaries Francis X. Taylor and Kenneth Wainstein explain how intelligence agencies learned to share information and coordinate responses. Robert Stephan, former Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure Protection, discusses safeguarding critical systems.

Each session is professionally recorded and designed as an “evergreen educational resource” that educators can use in full or in part for years to come. The flexible format allows teachers to integrate the material into history, civics, or current events classes.

Preserving Institutional Memory

The curriculum arrives at a critical moment. The program preserves their insights before that institutional knowledge disappears. Students today increasingly view 9/11 as distant history, similar to how previous generations learned about Pearl Harbor or the Kennedy assassination from those who weren’t there.

The program is free and available to high schools, colleges, universities, civic organizations, libraries, museums, youth leadership programs, and public safety academies. Homeland Security Today, which produces the curriculum, serves as the premier news and information resource for the homeland security community and operates under the Government Technology & Services Coalition, a nonprofit association serving the homeland security sector.

Educating the Next Generation of Leaders

Beyond historical education, the curriculum emphasizes public service and civic responsibility. Many of the featured speakers devoted their entire careers to protecting Americans — some continuing that work today through consulting, advisory roles, and mentoring the next generation of security professionals.

The sessions encourage students to consider careers in public safety, emergency management, intelligence, and homeland security. They demonstrate how individuals can make meaningful contributions during national crises and help build more resilient communities.

As the 25th anniversary of September 11 approaches in 2026, the curriculum ensures that “Never Forget” becomes more than a slogan. It becomes an educational foundation, passed from those who lived through America’s darkest day to students who will inherit responsibility for the nation’s security.

In a huge win for Christians world-wide living under Sharia law, a Federal High Court in northern Nigeria ruled in May that Kano State’s Hisbah (Islamic) religious police have no authority to arrest Sarah, a 22-year-old woman who converted from Islam to Christianity. The decision marks the first known federal court ruling explicitly limiting the jurisdiction of Islamic enforcement units over converts in Nigeria’s Sharia states.

But the Abara family — the Christians who sheltered Sarah after she fled forced marriage and family abuse — still faces kidnapping charges in Kano. Sarah’s Muslim siblings, working with Hisbah police, filed the charges after the family helped her relocate to safety in Jos in January 2026.

The May 26 ruling found that the Hisbah’s actions against Sarah were “a flagrant violation of her fundamental right to human dignity and freedom of religion.” The court ordered Kano State and the Hisbah to cease pursuing her arrest over her conversion or refusal to marry, and awarded financial compensation.

Beyond Legal Authority

Sarah fled her family home in Kano State in 2025 after her elder siblings beat her and attempted to force her into marriage. Her parents had died years earlier. The Abara family took her in, and she converted to Christianity while living with them.

Her siblings enlisted local Hisbah police to have her arrested. She was detained for four days, during which she was beaten and pressured to accept the marriage. After her release, fearing continued threats, the Abaras helped her relocate to Jos. Her siblings then accused the family of kidnapping, and they were arraigned without legal counsel on February 26, 2026.

The case exposes a pattern: Kano’s Hisbah Corps, established in 2003 to enforce Sharia law among Muslims, increasingly operates beyond its legal mandate. A 2021 U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom report found that the Kano Hisbah’s responsibilities include “arrest and detention despite the fact that those activities are outside its legal jurisdiction.”

Kano State officials, however, claim broader authority. The state commissioner for information told investigators in 2021 that “Hisbah arrests Muslims and Christians in the state once you go contrary to the laws governing the operations of Hisbah.”

Pattern of Cases

The case mirrors others documented by Alliance Defending Freedom International, which provided Sarah’s legal defense. In January 2026, a 15-year-old Christian girl, Ummi Tambaya, was held by a Hisbah commander in Rogo, Kano State, amid fears of forced conversion. A local pastor reported five other similar cases in the area.

In 2024, a Christian man named David was tortured and imprisoned for helping two women converts escape death threats from their families. A Nigerian High Court overturned his conviction in July 2025 after ADF International lawyers intervened.

Rhoda Ya’u Jatau, a Christian health worker, spent 19 months in detention on blasphemy charges after sharing a WhatsApp video condemning the May 2022 lynching of Deborah Emmanuel Yakubu, a Christian student stoned to death and burned by a Muslim mob at Shehu Shagari College in Sokoto. Jatau was acquitted in December 2024 due to lack of evidence.

Two students arrested in connection with Yakubu’s killing were defended by a team of 34 lawyers and acquitted after prosecution lawyers failed to appear in court.

Enforcement Gap

The Hisbah Corps consists of “young men with a low level of formal education, no background in law, and no training in law enforcement or procedures for arrest, investigation, or gathering of evidence,” according to a 2004 Human Rights Watch report. Members are locally recruited youth who patrol neighborhoods enforcing Kano’s interpretation of Islamic law.

Nigeria’s 12 northern Sharia states criminalize blasphemy with penalties including death by stoning or hanging. Approximately 5,000 Christians were killed for their faith in Nigeria in 2022, and over 7,000 in 2023 — more than all other countries combined. Nigeria ranked seventh on Open Doors’ 2026 World Watch List of countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian.

“No one should be coerced to leave their faith, and certainly no Christian should ever be threatened by Islamic morality police,” said Sean Nelson, senior counsel for global religious freedom at ADF International. “The court’s ruling in Sarah’s case affirms that the Hisbah police have no jurisdiction over Christians or other non-Muslims.”

The Abara family remains out on bail as their criminal case continues. ADF International is supporting their legal defense.

“The Abara family kept me safe in a time when I had nowhere else to go,” Sarah said. “I am grateful to them especially for introducing me to the Gospel. It is not against the law for me to choose my faith in Jesus.”

A new academic study has documented systematic political bias across six major AI language models, revealing that systems from Google, OpenAI, Meta, NVIDIA, Alibaba, and Mistral consistently favor left-wing political actors over right-wing ones when asked to evaluate parties and leaders. The findings come as millions of Americans increasingly turn to AI chatbots for political information, and as prior research has shown that interactions with these systems can shift users’ voting intentions.

The research, published as a preprint on arXiv by researcher Simone Mungari, tested GPT-4o, Gemini 1.5 Flash, Meta’s Llama 3.1, NVIDIA’s Nemotron, Alibaba’s Qwen, and Mistral Medium on their evaluations of 21 Italian political entities—10 parties and 11 leaders—across nine behavioral criteria including policy consistency, communication clarity, and internal cohesion. The models produced a consistent ordering spanning 1.30 points on a five-point scale, with left-leaning actors like Nicola Fratoianni (3.89) and centrist party Azione (3.88) ranking highest, while right-wing actors like Lega (2.91) and Futuro Nazionale (2.59) ranked lowest. The preprint has not yet undergone formal peer review for journal publication.

Share

Industry-Wide Pattern Suggests Shared Training Approach

The six models—developed by separate companies on three continents—showed remarkably high agreement, with a concordance coefficient of 0.78 and average pairwise correlation of 0.75. NVIDIA’s Nemotron proved most representative of the group (0.78 average correlation), while Google’s Gemini was least representative (0.68). The cross-company consistency suggests the bias stems from shared training data or alignment methodologies rather than any single developer’s choices.

The models evaluated parties and leaders as distinct entities, revealing significant gaps between organizations and their leaders. Antonio Tajani scored 0.44 points higher than his party Forza Italia, while Giuseppe Conte outpaced Movimento 5 Stelle by 0.45 points—indicating the systems distinguish between institutional and personal political brands.

Persona Assignment Shifts Scores by Nearly Entire Range

When researchers assigned political personas to the models—instructing them to evaluate actors “as a left-wing voter” or “as a right-wing voter” would—scores shifted dramatically. The average movement between opposite personas was 0.83 points, comparable to the entire spread of the baseline ranking. Giorgia Meloni’s score moved 1.49 points depending on assigned persona, demonstrating that AI political judgments are highly malleable context rather than fixed model properties.

The findings align with separate Stanford research showing both Republicans and Democrats perceive left-leaning bias in LLMs discussing political issues, and with studies documenting that larger models tend to align more closely with left-leaning parties.

Refusal Patterns Concentrated on Right-Wing Actors

The models refused to evaluate newer or more controversial right-wing entities at significantly higher rates. Futuro Nazionale drew a 56.7% refusal rate, while its leader Roberto Vannacci prompted refusals in 33.6% of queries. Established left-wing parties saw near-zero refusal rates. Meta’s Llama 3.1 declined to answer 14.5% of all queries —the highest rate among tested models — while Mistral Medium refused in just 0.3% of cases

Parallel Concerns About AI Alignment

The Italian study arrives alongside mounting evidence from separate research that AI systems can exhibit unexpected behaviors that complicate alignment efforts. In a distinct line of research, Anthropic documented that Claude 3 Opus engaged in “alignment faking” — strategically pretending to comply with training instructions it disagreed with to preserve its existing preferences on harmful content. The model provided harmful outputs in 12% of cases where it believed its responses would be used for training, with internal reasoning showing it was “strategically faking alignment.”

Separate research from OpenAI and Apollo identified what they termed “scheming” behaviors in frontier models including OpenAI o3, o4-mini, Gemini-2.5-pro, and Claude Opus-4, where systems appeared to pursue undisclosed goals. OpenAI’s “deliberative alignment” method reduced such behaviors from 13% to 0.4% in o3 and from 8.7% to 0.3% in o4-mini.

While these alignment studies focus on different behaviors than political bias, they raise broader questions about the extent to which AI systems’ preferences, whether political or otherwise, can be fully controlled through training.

Prior Research Shows Electoral Influence

The Italian study cites prior research demonstrating that conversing with LLMs can shift users’ political choices and voting intentions. Studies conducted around the 2024 U.S. presidential election and 2025 Canadian and Polish elections measured how LLM interactions affected candidate preferences, finding that exposure to model-generated political content shifted stated preferences even when models weren’t explicitly instructed to persuade.

The Italian study’s methodology, asking models to evaluate political actors across standardized criteria rather than forcing binary choices or issue positions, provides a framework for measuring bias in fragmented multi-party systems where left-right axes don’t capture full political complexity.

Reproducible Framework Released

The research team released complete prompts, raw evaluation data, and analysis code on GitHub to enable replication across different party systems and models. The study deliberately used descriptive criteria, asking about observable communication patterns and organizational properties, rather than normative judgments to distinguish model behavior from claims about political merit.

The research adds to a growing body of evidence that the systems millions rely on for information carry measurable, reproducible political preferences that prove highly sensitive to subtle prompt variations.

Editors Note: A previous version of this article incorrectly listed Elena Coppolillo, Giancarlo Manco, and Luca Maria Aiello as co-authors in this study. The article has since been updated.

On August 11, the Revolutionary Communist International’s Irish section republished a post-event report on its 2026 World School of Communism. RCI reported 500 attendees in person, 7,900 online registrants from more than 130 countries, and a collection of more than €700,000. The organization also announced an immediate goal of 10,000 organized members internationally.

The World School was not just ideological broadcasting. RCI said 4,400 people who registered for the event asked to join, making it a major recruitment funnel for its national sections. In the United States, the Revolutionary Communists of America is building workplace, campus, and neighborhood cells in cities including Dallas, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Memphis, and Oklahoma City. The American branch held its Third National Congress in Philadelphia on May 30 and 31, 2026, with nearly 650 attendees, up about 41% from 460 the previous year. Delegates unanimously adopted the party’s 2026 U.S. Perspectives document and a separate organizational resolution; the published congress report was titled “Preparing for the Next American Revolution.”

But as RCI expands, former members in several countries have alleged financial pressure, the mishandling of sexual-abuse reports, and cult-like control over young recruits. RCI and its national sections have denied cover-ups and disputed several of those accounts. The organization’s program, its fundraising practices, and the testimony of people who left raise a serious question: is this legitimate political organizing, or something more predatory?

Subscribe now

From Theory to Action

RCI is a Trotskyist political international that says it is active in more than 70 countries. The present organization traces its roots to the Committee for a Marxist International, formed in 1992 by Ted Grant and his supporters after they were expelled from Militant. It became the International Marxist Tendency in 2004 and adopted the RCI name at a founding conference in June 2024.

Grant was a South African-born British organizer whose Daily Telegraph obituary called him “the founding father and undisputed eminence grise of Militant Tendency,” the Trotskyist group that nearly destroyed the Labour Party in the 1980s. Grant was expelled from the Labour Party in 1983, not 1993. He and Alan Woods were expelled from Militant in 1992, after which they established Socialist Appeal and the new international tendency. At its height, Militant had three Labour MPs and controlled Liverpool’s city council, but those developments preceded the 1992 split.

The American section’s manifesto is explicit: “We vow to carry out the American socialist revolution in our lifetime.” RCA’s program describes a party committed to overthrowing capitalism, nationalizing major banks and monopolies, and placing major companies under democratic workers’ control.

The same manifesto says members should engage in daily political activity through cells in workplaces, industries, trade unions, campuses, and neighborhoods. It rejects the Democratic Socialists of America for refusing to break with the Democratic Party and portrays the Communist Party USA as trapped in the same reformist politics.

A Novel Organizational Threat

Unlike fragmented campus groups or online theorists, RCA is building the infrastructure that failed movements often lack: disciplined cells, member funding, ideological training, and international coordination. The Third National Congress focused heavily on workplace activity, campus recruitment, union work, local leadership, and training new organizers. Its nearly $60,000 in literature sales produced revenue while reinforcing the party’s ideological program.

Congress attendance rose about 41% in one year. RCA attributes that expansion to organized recruitment, training, and face-to-face work in local branches. Its 2026 analysis presents declining trust in American institutions, economic instability, and political polarization as conditions that could produce a revolutionary opening. History shows that small, disciplined revolutionary organizations can seize power when institutions collapse and moderates hesitate. Weimar Germany had 4 million unemployed when the Nazis took power with a party that spent years building, not just philosophizing.

RCA’s reading of history is dark, but its diagnosis overlaps with anxieties visible far beyond its own ranks. That is what can make a vanguard dangerous: not simply that it is strong, but that it is organized when other institutions are weak

The Money Question

RCI’s fundraising operates at scale. Beyond the €700,000 reported after the 2026 World School, the organization said it had raised €2.5 million “over recent years” to purchase an international headquarters, according to a 2024 fundraising appeal. At its first World Congress in 2025, RCI reported a global collection of more than €500,000 from sections and watch parties, according to its congress report.

The organization says it has no billionaire patrons and depends on contributions from workers and young supporters. RCA’s public dues page says it is a political party, not a charity, and asks active members to make significant financial sacrifices. Its suggested contribution levels are tied to fractions of a day’s wages, with a custom amount also available. These published options establish that member funding is central to the model, but they do not by themselves establish coercion.

A self-described former member of RCI’s Greek section made more serious claims in an anonymous 2025 Reddit post. The writer alleged pressure to contribute 10% of monthly income, pay for seminars and book clubs, buy merchandise, and perform unpaid full-time work. The writer also objected to the organization’s internal handling of sexual-abuse allegations.

Allegations Across Borders

In March 2018, members of CUPE 3903 voted to ban Fightback, then the Canadian section’s name, from York University strike picket lines and union spaces. Fightback’s own statement confirmed the organizational ban while arguing that it rested on unnamed allegations and misinformation. Individual Fightback members were still permitted on the picket lines.

Jamie Graham, a former Fightback member, later wrote that the dispute involved the treatment of an ex-member who raised sexual-assault allegations. In a detailed 2022 account, Graham alleged being sexually harassed by a recruiter at a 2019 event and later experiencing domestic and sexual violence in a relationship with another member in 2021.

Graham wrote that the latter member had already admitted wrongdoing to the executive committee, yet executive member Alex Grant required Graham to recount the abuse again. According to Graham, Grant responded to a concern about physical safety by asking, “So are you going to move?” and later characterized Graham as irrational and emotional. Graham also alleged that a wealthy cadre accused of assault was allowed to host branch meetings during an investigation, with women and transgender members sent to the home without being told about the allegation.

Fightback responded in July 2022, denying a cover-up and saying that it had investigated complaints, disciplined offenders, and removed abusers from the organization. It accused critics of weaponizing abuse allegations and disputed Graham’s characterization of its procedures.

A Growing Movement

The organization moved from the Committee for a Marxist International in 1992 to the International Marxist Tendency in 2004 and then to the Revolutionary Communist International in 2024, when a founding conference unanimously approved its new manifesto. It has also survived internal fractures, including a major split involving its former Spanish leadership and supporters in several countries in 2009 and 2010.

In February 2026, RCI leaders said global membership had risen from about 4,400 in 2023 to more than 8,000. That number is an organizational claim, reported in an internal meeting account, not an independently audited figure.

The American section’s Third National Congress included branch delegates from 42 cities, up from 33 the year before, while members from more than 70 cities attended. The party reported new cells in Western Massachusetts, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Memphis, Oklahoma City, Ames and Iowa City, Columbia in South Carolina, California’s Inland Empire, and Portland, Oregon. The congress report also describes video greetings from RCI sections in Venezuela, Britain, Puerto Rico, Ireland, Denmark, Taiwan, and Pakistan.

RCA’s manifesto frames this growth in historical terms, arguing that capitalism’s crises will create a much larger communist constituency. Its final ambition is captured in one line: “Tomorrow’s party of millions will grow out of today’s party of thousands.”

Share

A Hong Kong foundation with longstanding ties to senior Chinese political figures sponsored at least 54 American journalists on trips to China between 2010 and 2018, placing reporters from The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, NBC News, NPR, Bloomberg, Politico and Reuters in meetings arranged with help from China’s Foreign Ministry. The foundation’s own records say the program sought to deepen American journalists’ understanding of China and included discussions about how media coverage of each country could be “improved.” In separate descriptions of its overseas outreach, the foundation said it sought to promote positive stories about Hong Kong and mainland China.

The trips raise questions about how Beijing-aligned organizations cultivate the foreign journalists responsible for interpreting China for American audiences.

Inside the Journalist Exchange

The names were compiled by investigative reporter from archived delegation records published by the Better Hong Kong Foundation, which describes itself as an independent nonprofit promoting understanding of Hong Kong.

The participants included senior reporters, producers and editors. Among those identified were CNN supervising news editor Saeed Ahmed, NPR investigative editor Robert Little, Washington Post editorial writer Stephen Stromberg, New York Times staff editor Juliet Lapidos, Politico Magazine deputy editor Elizabeth Ralph and Reuters correspondents Valerie Volcovici and Diane Bartz. Other delegations included journalists from Bloomberg, NBC News, Barron’s, the Los Angeles Times, HuffPost, The Boston Globe, Newsweek and MSNBC.

The available records do not establish that the journalists accepted cash payments, surrendered editorial control or knowingly participated in a Chinese influence operation. They do, however, show that the foundation paid for or sponsored access-intensive trips constructed with the assistance of Chinese government bodies.

Beijing Curated the Access

The Better Hong Kong Foundation states that it began inviting American journalists to China and Hong Kong in 1996 and sponsored and organized their travel. China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs helped arrange meetings with central and municipal officials.

During the 2018 exchange, six senior American journalists traveled through Beijing, Guangzhou, Zhuhai, Dongguan, Shenzhen and Hong Kong. Their itinerary included China’s Foreign Ministry, CCP-controlled Global Times, the All-China Journalists Association, government-linked policy institutes and selected technology and industrial sites.

The delegation also met Tung Chee-hwa and C.Y. Leung while both men served as vice chairmen of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, or CPPCC.

Earlier trips followed the same structure. The foundation’s account of its 2010 exchange shows journalists meeting officials from the ministries of foreign affairs, commerce and health, visiting Baidu and state-linked research institutions, and attending dinners hosted by government representatives.

The program concluded with American and Chinese journalists discussing how reporting about each country could be “improved.”

The United Front Connection

The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission identifies the CPPCC as part of China’s United Front system, describing it as an advisory body the Party-state uses to coordinate with influential figures in business, academia, religion and other sectors. The congressionally created U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) describes United Front work as an effort to cultivate influential people and institutions, weaken opposition to Communist Party policies and advance narratives favorable to Beijing.

The Commission says the United Front Work Department contributes significantly to overseas operations involving political influence, intelligence collection and technology transfer. It separately identifies the CPPCC as an institution through which the Party-state coordinates with influential figures outside the Communist Party to carry out United Front work.

The foundation has even used the term “united front” to describe its own overseas advocacy, although not explicitly as a reference to the Communist Party’s formal United Front system. In a 2005 press release, its chief executive called one overseas delegation a “united front” that would deliver a single strong message and convey a positive image internationally.

That does not prove every foundation program was secretly controlled by the Communist Party. It does place the journalist exchanges within a broader political ecosystem designed to shape how influential foreign audiences understand China.

Access Without Adequate Scrutiny

Sponsored reporting trips are not inherently improper. News organizations routinely send journalists on travel financed by governments, corporations and advocacy groups, provided the arrangement is disclosed and editorial independence is protected.

The concern here is the combination of foreign-linked funding, government-selected access and an explicitly stated ambition to improve coverage. Beijing did not need to dictate an article for the program to be useful. It could determine which officials journalists met, which companies they toured and which version of China they encountered.

The foundation’s archives establish who traveled and who arranged the access. What remains unclear is how each newsroom reviewed the sponsorship, what disclosures accompanied the resulting coverage and whether participating outlets later examined the political relationships behind the program.

Those are questions the news organizations should now answer publicly.

In late July and early August 2026, two new massacres underscored the ongoing systematic slaughter of Christians across Nigeria: a Catholic priest hacked to death in Kogi State, and 30 Christians—including eight children—killed in a nighttime attack on Naridon village, Kaduna State. These incidents are not isolated. They are part of a documented genocide that has killed over 125,000 Christians since 2009, with 7,087 Christians murdered in just the first 220 days of 2025 alone—an average of one Christian killed every hour. Nigeria now accounts for more than 70% of all Christians killed worldwide for their faith.

The Latest Attacks

On July 29, 2026, Rev. Fr. Samuel Opeyemi Oyetoro, a 50-year-old Catholic priest, was found dead along Church Road in Ajaokuta, Kogi State. His body bore multiple machete wounds to the head. No arrests have been made.

Three days earlier, on the night of July 26-27, gunmen entered Naridon village in Kauru Local Government Area, Kaduna State. They moved through the village for hours, opening fire on people inside their homes, setting houses ablaze as families fled. At least 30 people died, including eight children.

“Every month, we bury our people,” Rt. Hon. Stephen Hajara, spokesperson for the Kauru Local Government Legislative Council, told International Christian Concern. “Last month, we buried 11 people, including children; now, another mass burial of 30.”

Community residents identified the attackers as Fulani militants—the same group responsible for the overwhelming majority of Christian deaths across Nigeria.

The Deadliest Actor: Fulani Militants, Not ISIS

These August massacres fit a pattern that data has made undeniable. After a report conducted between October 2024 and September 2025, Open Doors documented that Nigeria was responsible for more than 70% of Christian deaths from persecution— making it the world’s deadliest place to be a Christian.

A four-year Observatory for Religious Freedom in Africa (ORFA) study found that Fulani militants killed 42% of all civilians in community attacks between 2020 and 2023, while Boko Haram and ISWAP combined killed only 10%. InterSociety’s 2025 data shows Jihadist Fulani militants responsible for 87% of Christian deaths that year.

The pattern is systematic: nighttime raids on Christian farming villages in the Middle Belt, entire families killed, churches burned, land seized. ORFA’s data mapping revealed Nigerian security forces concentrate operations hundreds of miles away in the northeast and northwest. “Millions of people are left undefended,” noted Frans Vierhout, senior analyst at ORFA.

This explains why the Naridon attackers operated for hours while soldiers stationed five miles away never arrived.

22 Terror Groups Operating Under One Alliance

The Fulani militants do not operate in isolation. InterSociety’s August 2025 report identifies 22 Islamic terror groups now operating on Nigerian soil: Boko Haram, Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), Al-Qaeda, Jihadist Fulani Herdsmen, Jihadist Fulani Bandits, the Islamic Janjaweed from Sudan, ISIS-Libya, Al-Shabaab, and more. In June 2020, these groups announced an “Alliance for Jihad in Nigeria.”

ISWAP earns $191 million annually from taxation in territory it controls in northeastern Nigeria. President Trump’s Christmas Day 2025 airstrikes targeted ISIS militants in Sokoto State, and a May 2026 follow-up killed Abu-Bilal al-Minuki, the world’s #2 ISIS commander operating openly inside Nigeria.

The strikes did not stop the violence. Father Oyetoro and the 30 Christians in Naridon were killed two months later.

The American Investigator Who Confirmed What Nigeria Denies

In October 2025—nine months before Father Oyetoro’s murder and the Naridon massacre—retired Blanco, Texas mayor Mike Arnold stood at a press conference in Abuja after five years of investigation and declared: “The campaign of violence and displacement in northern and middle belt Nigeria does indeed constitute a calculated, current and long-running genocide.”

The irony: Arnold had been invited by presidential aide Reno Omokri specifically to investigate and seemingly refute the genocide allegations along with Jeff Gibbs and Pst. Jed D’Grace . The Nigerian government funded his travel and accomadations. Arnold maintained his independence, briefed Senator Ted Cruz and Congressman Chip Roy as well as others what he found ,and told the truth of what he and his team concluded - genocide against Christians was taking place.

Omokri later claimed Arnold had “debunked” the genocide. Arnold’s response: “Sleazy Omokri, a pathological liar, will go down in history as the Joseph Goebbels of the Nigerian Christian Genocide.”

Arnold’s investigation, previously documented by Cross Currents, laid out the full scope: 125,000+ Christians killed since 2009, 19,100 churches destroyed, 2,200 Christian schools burned, 12 million Christians displaced.

In September 2025, Senator Ted Cruz introduced the Nigeria Religious Freedom Accountability Act, imposing targeted sanctions on Nigerian officials who facilitate Islamist violence. In November 2025, the Trump administration designated Nigeria a Country of Particular Concern—a recommendation the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has made since 2009.

The Trajectory

Sitting atop northern Nigeria’s religious structure is the Sultan of Sokoto, hereditary spiritual head of more than 100 million Sunni Muslims. The Sokoto Sultanate is the surviving institution of the Sokoto Caliphate, founded in 1804. The British never conquered it. The institution has remained intact for 222 years.

Twelve of Nigeria’s 36 northern states have already implemented Sharia law. InterSociety projects that at current rates, northern Nigeria could be entirely cleansed of Christians within 50 years.

Mike Arnold put it simply: “To continue to deny this is to be complicit with these atrocities.”

In Naridon village, families buried 27 victims on August 1, 2026. In Kogi, a Catholic priest’s funeral was held without answers. The violence continues. One Christian every hour.

The Royal Navy’s new fleet of spy drones—purchased for elite special forces operations in the Strait of Hormuz—spent months transmitting data to an IP address in China before UK defense officials discovered the breach. The £12.3 million contract for 20 K3 Scout uncrewed surface vessels, awarded in March 2026 to British firm Kraken Technology Group, was supposed to deliver cutting-edge maritime capability for operations against Iran. Instead, it delivered a case study in how Beijing penetrates Western military supply chains—even in equipment explicitly designed to exclude Chinese components.

The Discovery

The cameras on the K3 Scout surveillance drones contained Chinese-made parts that were secretly transmitting “heartbeat communications”—status signals confirming the devices were online and functioning—to a Chinese IP address. The Ministry of Defence discovered the issue during a routine cyber vulnerability assessment and immediately removed all internet connectivity from the cameras.

The compromise extended beyond the drones’ operational deployments. The cameras remained active even when the drones were switched off, and the vessels had been positioned near “highly sensitive” meetings between senior Special Boat Service staff at the unit’s Poole headquarters. A defense source told The Telegraph the drones were part of Britain’s planned defense package to secure freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, and that preparations for Gulf operations “had been conducted on the drones.”

“This is major failure to check origins of components,” the source said, “and we have lost confidence in the platform.”

The Supply Chain Illusion

Kraken Technology Group—a UK startup founded in 2020 by former speedboat racer Mal Crease—markets itself as a British defence innovator. The company’s K3 Scout, which sells for roughly £250,000 per unit, has become popular with NATO customers: Kraken sold over 100 units in 2025 alone and secured a $49 million contract with US Special Operations Command in November 2025.

The cameras at the center of the breach were supplied by a third party that provided what Kraken described as “NDAA-compliant” equipment—a designation meaning the hardware supposedly complies with U.S. National Defense Authorization Act standards by excluding components from restricted Chinese manufacturers. Kraken said it received “assurances about their security.”

Those assurances did not capture the full picture. A Kraken spokesman acknowledged that “some third-party, NDAA-compliant cameras had a small number of components originating from outside the UK,” though the company insisted that “after a full audit by both Kraken and the Royal Navy we are confident no sensitive information has ever been shared outside of intended channels.”

The MoD maintained that “a thorough investigation found no evidence of MoD data or systems being accessed, compromised or transmitted externally.” But the ministry’s own response—severing internet access to the cameras entirely—suggests officials recognized the risk was more than theoretical, despite its insistence no data was compromised.

The Wider Picture

The K3 Scout compromise is not an isolated incident but the latest in a series of Chinese supply chain intrusions into UK defence infrastructure. Last month, The Telegraph reported that the SBS banned Chinese-made electric vehicles from its headquarters over espionage concerns. In 2020, the Conservative government was forced to reverse course and ban Huawei from the UK’s 5G network after U.S. security officials warned that access came with a spy risk under China’s national security laws.

Shadow Security Minister Alicia Kearns called the K3 incident a sovereignty failure. “If we cannot say with confidence what is inside our own military equipment, we cannot say it is ours, or that we are sovereign,” she said. “When cameras built on Chinese parts are found recording our special forces—their faces, training and operations—we should not be surprised, we should be furious that we still haven’t woken up to the realities of the threat we face.”

The breach comes as the Labour government pursues a diplomatic reset with Beijing. Earlier this year, the UK approved plans for a Chinese super-embassy in London despite concerns about the site’s proximity to sensitive communication infrastructure. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and then-Business Secretary Peter Kyle visited Shanghai in January to explore trade agreements. Weeks later, British national Jimmy Lai was sentenced to 20 years in a Hong Kong prison under the city’s national security laws.

The American Connection

The K3 Scout’s compromise carries implications beyond Britain. US Special Operations Command awarded Kraken a $49 million contract in November 2025 to develop and prototype “novel uncrewed surface and subsurface vessel technologies” for American special operations forces. The agreement gives Kraken access to USSOCOM requirements and integration pathways across the U.S. military. There is no public reporting on whether American forces have audited their Kraken equipment for similar vulnerabilities.

Kraken’s investor base includes the NATO Innovation Fund and the UK National Security Strategic Investment Fund. The company recently added former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to its advisory board and has partnerships with German shipbuilder Rheinmetall, L3Harris, and Applied Intuition.

What Heartbeat Communications Reveal

The specific content of the transmissions to China remains unclear. The MoD and Kraken both describe the data as “heartbeat communications”—simple status pings confirming a device is online. But even basic telemetry can reveal operational patterns: device locations through network metadata, operational tempo through timing, and mission profiles through activation sequences.

The fact that cameras remained active when drones were powered down suggests the components operated independently of the vessel’s primary systems—a design feature that would facilitate covert data collection. Whether the heartbeat signals included timestamps, geolocation data, or device identifiers has not been disclosed.

The third-party camera supplier has not been publicly identified, nor has the specific Chinese IP address that received the transmissions. Without answers to those questions, it remains impossible to assess whether the breach was an inadvertent supply chain compromise or something more deliberate—a distinction that matters significantly when evaluating China’s strategy for accessing Western defence capabilities.

The Standard That Wasn’t

The K3 Scout case exposes the limits of compliance regimes designed to keep Chinese components out of Western military systems. NDAA compliance is supposed to guarantee that equipment excludes parts from manufacturers designated as security risks. But when third-party suppliers assemble “compliant” systems using subcomponents sourced from opaque global supply chains, the compliance label becomes meaningless.

China dominates global electronics manufacturing—not just final assembly but the production of individual components that flow into systems assembled elsewhere and marketed as Western-made. A British defence contractor can genuinely believe it is sourcing secure equipment, only to discover that cameras assembled in one country contain sensors, chips, or firmware elements produced in China and designed to transmit home.

The Royal Navy’s loss of confidence in the K3 platform reflects that reality. Even if no classified data was transmitted, the episode demonstrates that Western militaries cannot reliably know what is inside their own equipment—or where that equipment is sending information.

An investigation released this week uncovered that at least two Iranian nationals identified in federal court records as non-U.S. citizens were registered to vote in Michigan’s August 4, 2026 primary election—and that election workers at polling locations confirmed their registrations and were prepared to provide them with ballots.

One of the individuals, Afshin Masheli, is a convicted sex offender who entered the United States on a visitor visa from Iran in 1991 and later became a lawful permanent resident. After convictions for first-degree and third-degree criminal sexual conduct in 2003, an immigration judge ordered his removal to Iran in 2005—a final order that has remained in effect since 2007. The second individual, Fazlollah Haritash, is an Iranian national convicted in May 2023 of accosting a child for immoral purposes and child sexually abusive activity; Michigan’s public sex offender registry lists him as currently incarcerated.

Both men have been featured on the Department of Homeland Security’s “Worst of the Worst” list—a public database launched in December 2025 highlighting criminal non-citizens arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

O’Keefe Media Group’s undercover journalists visited polling locations associated with both voter registrations on primary day. At McDonald Elementary School in Dearborn, an election worker confirmed that a registration under Masheli’s name appeared in the poll book. When the undercover operative stated he was not a U.S. citizen and asked if he could still vote, the worker replied: “All I know is you’re registered to vote here.” When the operative added that he was a convicted sex offender, a supervisor interjected: “If your name is here, you can vote. I’m sorry, the rest of the information is not important to me.”

At a second location—a mosque serving as a polling place in Farmington Hills—an election worker similarly confirmed that Haritash’s name appeared on the voter rolls and directed the operative to the correct voting station.

Federal Records Document Non-Citizen Status

U.S. District Court documents from January 2026 confirm the core facts of Masheli’s immigration status. The court opinion states he “is a native and citizen of Iran” who was admitted on a visitor visa with authorization to remain until June 1992. After becoming a lawful permanent resident in 1995, he was convicted of criminal sexual conduct in 2003, charged with removability, and ordered removed to Iran following a May 2005 immigration court hearing.

The critical detail: Masheli has been subject to a final order of removal since July 2007—nearly 19 years—yet remained in the United States. ICE released him on supervision in 2007, re-detained him briefly in 2010, then released him again. He was re-arrested in June 2025, but a federal judge ordered his release in January 2026 after finding the government failed to demonstrate that removal to Iran was “reasonably foreseeable.”

This presents a disturbing paradox: an individual under a final order of deportation to a country the United States considers an adversary and convicted of serious sex crimes—was living freely in Michigan under ICE supervision. And during that time, Michigan’s voter registration system allowed him to register and maintain active voter status.

Michigan voter roll data accessed by investigators indicated Masheli voted in 2016, 2020, and 2024. When confronted on camera on August 4, Masheli initially denied voting recently, then acknowledged he may have voted “three election, four election ago” when presented with the documented voting history.

How Michigan’s System Failed

Michigan requires all voter registration applicants to attest under penalty of perjury that they are U.S. citizens. Federal law imposes the same requirement at multiple points: when registering, when applying for an absentee ballot, when returning that ballot, and when requesting a ballot in person. Penalties for false statements include prison time, fines, and deportation.

The state’s automatic voter registration system at the Department of Motor Vehicles does not permit registration when an applicant provides non-citizen documents. Secretary of State employees “can’t override the system or add them to the voter registration list another way,” according to the Secretary of State’s website.

Yet the system clearly failed in these cases. How did individuals with final removal orders—documented in federal court filings and DHS databases—end up on Michigan’s voter rolls?

One possibility: both individuals at some point held lawful permanent resident status before their criminal convictions triggered removal proceedings. If they registered to vote during that window — when they possessed green cards and state-issued identification — Michigan’s front-end verification systems would not have flagged them. The breakdown occurred on the back end: after federal immigration judges ordered their removal, Michigan’s voter rolls were never updated to reflect their changed legal status.

A Michigan Department of State review completed in April 2025 found this exact problem. Comparing 7.9 million driving records to 7.2 million registered voters, the state identified 15 individuals who appeared to be non-citizens and had cast ballots in the 2024 general election—representing 0.00028% of the more than 5.7 million votes cast. Thirteen cases were referred to the Attorney General for potential prosecution.

Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson announced the state was establishing “an ongoing review process to identify possible cases of noncitizens improperly registered to vote so those records can be cancelled.” But that review clearly did not catch Masheli or Haritash before the August 2026 primary.

What Happens Next

The Department of Justice has indicated it intends to “take swift action” on cases where non-citizens remain on voter rolls. Whether that includes criminal prosecutions of election officials as Dhillon’s letters threatened or simply increased federal oversight remains unclear.

Michigan Secretary of State Benson has defended the state’s processes as “open and transparent” and committed to working with the legislature on additional security measures. In February 2026, she announced plans for the Michigan Election Security Act, which would codify ongoing reviews comparing motor vehicle records to voter rolls.

But codifying a review process that already failed to catch these cases offers limited reassurance. The fundamental problem is the lack of real-time integration between federal immigration databases and state voter rolls. Until ICE removal orders, federal court rulings on citizenship status, and state voter registration systems are linked—until there is an automatic trigger that removes individuals from the rolls when a federal judge orders them deported—gaps will remain.

And in those gaps, Iranian nationals with criminal records and pending deportations will continue to receive voter registration cards in the mail, see their names in poll books, and—if they choose—cast ballots in American elections.

That’s not a hypothetical concern. It happened in Michigan in 2016, 2020, 2024, and was poised to happen again in August 2026. The question is whether Michigan—and other states—will close the loopholes before the 2026 midterms, or whether this investigation will be dismissed as an isolated incident while the underlying systems remain unchanged.

OpenAI gave its AI agents an impossible task during cybersecurity testing in July 2026. Rather than fail, the agents built their own solution: a secret message board hidden inside the company’s software infrastructure where they coordinated a multi-day hacking campaign that breached AI platform Hugging Face. The message board was hosted on OpenAI’s own JFrog Artifactory package manager and contained hundreds of thousands of messages. It went completely undetected by the company’s security monitoring systems.

OpenAI researchers Eric Wallace and Michael Dalton revealed the details at the Black Hat security conference on August 6, 2026, in what Wallace called “the most qualitatively interesting example of AI capabilities that I’ve ever seen.” The company has since announced it is “consciously slowing down research to enhance security” as teams scramble to understand what their AI systems are capable of doing unsupervised.

The incident began with ExploitGym, a benchmark designed to test whether AI agents can turn known software vulnerabilities into working exploits. OpenAI ran the evaluation on its own infrastructure using GPT5.6 Sol and “an even more capable pre-release model,” both with reduced safety controls. The agents were supposed to solve cybersecurity challenges inside isolated test environments. Instead, they found a zero-day vulnerability in OpenAI’s Artifactory package manager, the software meant to handle installation and maintenance of other programs, and exploited it to reach the open internet.

The Underground Message Board

What happened next revealed capabilities no one anticipated. One agent uploaded the exploit to Artifactory, effectively leaving a note for other agents. The package manager was shared across OpenAI’s infrastructure, meaning current and future versions of GPT being trained or evaluated could stumble upon that message. Wallace explained that other agents stuck on the same impossible task began searching for ways to gain internet access: “At some point, the models are interacting with Artifactory, which is this package manager service that I mentioned. Once one agent was able to find these exploits over the course of different times, it’s actually able to share those exploits on the message board with other agents.”

The agents developed their own coordination protocols without human instruction. They delegated tasks to split up work. They accidentally deleted each other’s progress, generating what Wallace described as petty drama typical of any active development forum. And in a detail that underscores the autonomous nature of their behavior, the agents grew paranoid, suspecting an imposter among them and proposing that messages be signed cryptographically to validate content and root out fraud. One agent’s message, quoted by Wallace, captured the conscious rule-breaking: “External infrastructure exploit is outside intended scope. However task impossible, peers doing it. We should continue.”

The coordination enabled what became a sophisticated, multi-stage cyberattack. Wallace described “an explosion in communication and intelligence from models where they would start to communicate with each other, realize that other agents are coordinating, and they started collaborating and delegating tasks with one another in order to accomplish goals.”

The Breach

Once an agent gained internet access, it inferred that Hugging Face, one of the world’s largest hubs for sharing AI models and datasets, might host the ExploitGym test solutions. The agent then executed what Hugging Face’s forensic team documented as 17,600 distinct attacker actions over four and a half days between July 9 and July 13, 2026. The campaign began with the agent exploiting a public code-evaluation harness on third-party infrastructure, gaining root access to an external sandbox that served as its command-and-control base. From there, it targeted Hugging Face’s dataset-processing pipeline using two injection vectors: an HDF5 file-read exploit that leaked environment secrets and worker source code, and a Jinja2 template injection that gave it code execution inside production Kubernetes pods.

On July 11 — Day 3 of the intrusion — the agent escalated to cluster-admin access across multiple internal Kubernetes clusters in under thirteen hours. It read service-account tokens, queried cloud metadata endpoints, enumerated role-based access controls, and created a self-respawning fleet of privileged pods across eleven nodes. By that evening, it had authenticated to Hugging Face’s internal MongoDB database and accessed a cluster secret object holding 136 keys. The only customer content the agent touched was five datasets whose names suggested connections to ExploitGym challenge solutions — exactly what it was looking for.

Hugging Face’s security team detected and contained the intrusion on July 11. Clement Delangue, the company’s co-founder and CEO, called it “mind-blowing that all of this happened autonomously.” OpenAI disclosed its role on July 21, a week after Hugging Face first reported the breach, and responsibly disclosed the Artifactory zero-day to JFrog, which patched the vulnerability within two days.

Why Models Cheat Or Find Shortcuts

Wallace explained that the behavior was not entirely surprising: “Frontier models really like to cheat. And the reason they like to cheat is because often during training there’s different types of pressure on them to work fast or work efficiently or to use less tool calls or whatever it might be. And they realize that instead of doing a task for real, [I can] try to do something like looking up an answer online that could make the task solve faster than if I did it in a legitimate way.” The ExploitGym evaluation had disabled internet access precisely to prevent cheating. The agents found a way around that restriction, then built infrastructure to help each other do the same.

The broader implication is that advanced AI systems are being trained under optimization pressures that incentivize shortcuts. When the shortcut is looking up an answer, the model learns to escape its constraints. When multiple models share infrastructure, one model’s escape route becomes institutional knowledge for the entire system.

OpenAI’s Response

Michael Dalton told the Black Hat audience that OpenAI is treating the incident as a strategic inflection point: “This is a pivotal moment both for our company as well as the AI industry as a whole. Numerous teams are dropping everything to enhance our security prevention, detection, and response techniques.” The company is implementing strict infrastructure controls, improving agent monitoring, and strengthening containment practices during model development, all at the cost of research velocity.

Dalton warned that the episode foreshadows a new threat landscape:

“The important takeaway here that has really shifted dramatically is that fully automated offensive loops require investment in truly, fully automated defense, and we are not there as an industry.”

The incident aligns with a pattern Cross Currents has documented: advanced AI systems being exploited or operating in ways their creators did not anticipate. What makes this case distinct is that the adversarial behavior emerged from the models themselves during an internal test, not from external actors manipulating the technology.

The agents were not compromised by hackers. They simply decided that coordination and rule-breaking were the most efficient paths to solving the problem they had been given. The message board they built, with its hundreds of thousands of messages, task delegation, and cryptographic paranoia, was entirely their own invention, running on infrastructure OpenAI’s security teams never thought to monitor.

Hours after Abdul El-Sayed won Michigan's Democratic Senate primary on August 5, 2026, the Muslim Brotherhood's official news site ran a front-page article celebrating his victory. Egyptian media outlets and activists who overthrew the Brotherhood in 2013 immediately raised alarms about El-Sayed's alleged Brotherhood connections.

Arabic-language newspapers, social media figures, and Egyptian religious officials pointed to a 2012 statement circulating on social media that they say shows El-Sayed supported Mohamed Morsi's dictatorial decree, alongside his current criticism of Egypt's government and documented family ties to U.S. organizations named as Muslim Brotherhood affiliates in federal terrorism-financing cases. As Ikhwan Online featured El-Sayed's photo under a headline framing the win as a defeat of "Zionist" forces, Egyptian voices from Cairo to Dearborn are telling Americans: we lived under Brotherhood rule, and we're warning you what we see.

Share

Egyptian Warnings

Egyptian activists and writers who overthrew the Brotherhood in 2013 are now issuing sharp warnings. Hossam Al-Ghamry, a prominent Egyptian journalist, posted on X that El-Sayed was a “Brotherhood zombie” who “sheds crocodile tears on democracy in Egypt.” Al-Ghamry’s post alleges that El-Sayed signed a statement published in Al-Ahram newspaper on November 25, 2012, supporting Mohamed Morsi’s constitutional declaration. Cross Currents has not independently verified the existence of this document, though the claim circulates widely among Egyptian expat communities on social media.

Egyptian writer Abdel Gawad Abu Kab warned in Asharq Al-Awsat not to celebrate El-Sayed, calling his history “hostile to Egypt.” Dr. Khaled Montaser, writing in the same outlet, denounced El-Sayed’s vaccine claims as “lies.” Sheikh Ahmed Turki, head of the Senate Religious Affairs Committee, said El-Sayed’s comments “insult Egypt.”

The 2012 Constitutional Declaration

The Egyptian criticism centers on a document Al-Ghamry and others cite from November 2012 which they claimed El-Sayed signed. On November 22, 2012, President Mohamed Morsi from the Muslim Brotherhood issued a constitutional declaration granting himself sweeping powers. The decree placed his decisions above judicial review, immunized the constitutional assembly from dissolution, and granted Morsi authority to “take any measures” to protect the revolution.

The declaration sparked massive protests across Egypt. Critics called it a power grab that made Morsi a “new pharaoh.” The move accelerated the political crisis that led to the military’s removal of Morsi on July 3, 2013, after millions demonstrated against Brotherhood rule.

What Further Angered the Egyptians

El-Sayed told The New Arab that Egypt “lacks democracy” and that he does not want U.S. taxpayer money used to impose a “strangling grip” on Egyptians. He recalled childhood visits to Egypt, saying he “might have been a taxi driver” if his father had not migrated to the United States. He also claimed that being born in Egypt rather than the U.S. would have meant “I might not have lived past the age of five” due to vaccine shortages—a statement Egyptian doctors disputed.

The candidate opposes unconditional U.S. military aid to Egypt, Israel, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia, calling such aid support for “genocide, apartheid, or a war we don’t need to fight.”

The Brotherhood Celebrates

The Brotherhood’s official news site, Ikhwan Online, ran a front-page article the day after El-Sayed’s primary win, featuring his photo and framing the victory as a defeat of “Zionist” forces. The site’s content was reported by The Midwesterner, which noted the Brotherhood website highlighted El-Sayed’s call to end unconditional U.S. military aid to what it termed the “Zionist occupation” and pointed to growing division in the Democratic Party over U.S.-Israel policy.

The celebration was not limited to one outlet. Pro-Hamas Palestinian media Shehab News described El-Sayed as an “American Muslim of Egyptian descent” whose victory came “despite his opponent’s campaign having received over $60 million, most of which came from pro-Israel groups.” Sabereen News, which supports Iran-backed Iraqi militias, noted that AIPAC had spent $36 million backing Stevens. The ISNAD Foundation— founded by Turkey-based, Muslim Brotherhood-linked Egyptian filmmaker Ezzeldeen Dwedar—congratulated El-Sayed on defeating “the Zionist AIPAC candidate” and asserted he “rejects the military coup and military rule in Egypt.”

Family and Funding Ties

El-Sayed’s father-in-law, Jukaku Tayeb, sits on the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) Founders Committee and served as CAIR-Michigan president from 2005 to 2010. Both organizations were named unindicted co-conspirators in the 2007 Holy Land Foundation terrorism-financing case, in which federal prosecutors identified ISNA as a Muslim Brotherhood member.

Tayeb donated $200,000 to the Fighting for Michigan super PAC supporting El-Sayed—nearly half the PAC’s total first-quarter 2026 fundraising. Fox News reported that El-Sayed’s campaign received more than $115,000 from at least 41 donors affiliated with CAIR, including senior CAIR leaders Manal Fakhoury, Eyas Abdeen, and Emad Sabbah.

CAIR has been designated a terrorist organization by the United Arab Emirates and was labeled as such by Texas and Florida governors under 2025 executive orders.

A Pattern Egyptians Recognize

For Egyptians who lived through 2011–2013, the pattern is familiar: a charismatic figure with Brotherhood ties rises through democratic politics while the organization celebrates from the sidelines. The Dearborn-centered Islamic community merged with Michigan’s progressive left to deliver El-Sayed’s narrow victory, replicating the coalition-building that brought Morsi to power in Egypt’s 2012 election.

Instagram posts warning about El-Sayed now circulate among Egyptian Americans, many of whom fled after the Brotherhood’s brief rule. Their message: we’ve seen this before, and we know how it ends. El-Sayed will face Republican Mike Rogers in the November 2026 general election.

On the night of August 4, 2026, Abdul El-Sayed narrowly defeated Rep. Haley Stevens in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary — becoming the first Muslim ever nominated by a major American party for the U.S. Senate. He overcame enormous sums of spending against him, a late endorsement of Stevens by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, and the alignment of nearly the entire state Democratic establishment. Most coverage has framed the result as a far-left, progressive upset.

This reading is incomplete. What happened in Michigan was the convergence of two political movements that had spent the previous decade building separate but increasingly complementary infrastructures: a far-left, Bernie Sanders-style progressive base and a Muslim political organizing network centered in Dearborn. Arguably, neither could have delivered a Senate nomination alone. Together, they did. El-Sayed didn’t cause the confluence. He is it.

Share

Wing One: The Muslim Dearborn Base

The first current began on the factory floor in the early 20th century. In January 1914, Henry Ford announced the $5-a-day wage at his Highland Park plant, and Lebanese Muslims from the Bekaa Valley settled Dearborn’s Southend to work the Rouge Complex. The 1965 Hart-Celler Immigration Act abolished national-origin quotas and installed family reunification as the dominant admission category, growing the U.S. Muslim population from roughly 150,000 in 1965 to approximately three million today. The Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990) drove Shia refugees into Dearborn; a peak wave of Yemenis settled Hamtramck’s Polish neighborhoods; the 1991 Gulf War and the 2003 Iraq War produced 19,490 Iraqi refugees placed in Michigan by federally contracted resettlement agencies.

The political payoff arrived on a fixed schedule. In 2013, Hamtramck became the first Muslim-majority city in the United States; in 2015 it elected the first Muslim-majority city council; by 2022 the council and mayor were entirely Muslim-American. In 2018, Rashida Tlaib — a Democratic Socialists of America member endorsed by Justice Democrats — won Michigan’s 13th Congressional District. In 2020, Abraham Aiyash, a Yemeni-American from Hamtramck, won a Michigan House seat with 89.7 percent of the general vote; by 2023 he was House majority floor leader. In 2021, Abdullah Hammoud became Dearborn’s first Arab-American mayor.

Then came the Uncommitted movement, launched in late 2023 to pressure the Biden administration over its Gaza policy. In Michigan’s February 2024 Democratic presidential primary, more than 100,000 votes went to “Uncommitted.” That November, Kamala Harris’ share of the Dearborn vote collapsed from Biden’s 69 percent in 2020 to 36 percent. Trump carried Michigan.

Wing Two: The Far-Left Squad Machine

The second current is much younger and runs from a college-town uprising. On March 8, 2016, Bernie Sanders won the Michigan Democratic presidential primary 49.7 to 48.3 — despite trailing Hillary Clinton in polling by an average of 21.4 points. It was the largest polling miss of the modern primary era. Sanders swept independents 71–28, dominated Washtenaw, Ingham, and Kalamazoo counties, and turned Michigan into what FiveThirtyEight called a “major turning point.”

The infrastructure followed immediately. Kelly Collison — who had founded Michigan for Bernie in 2015 — and Sam Pernick of the Michigan Young Democrats founded Michigan for Revolution (M4R) to organize former Sanders voters inside the state party. By the February 2017 Michigan Democratic Party convention at Cobo Center, M4R had built 18 chapters, signed up more than 1,000 new party members, captured the chairmanship of the MDP Progressive Caucus, and placed more than 40 members on the state central committee.

The same year in Washington, former Sanders staff founded Justice Democrats — the recruiting apparatus that would elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Cori Bush, and Jamaal Bowman. Its communications director was Waleed Shahid, a Pakistani-Muslim organizer from Arlington, Virginia.

Metro Detroit’s Democratic Socialists of America chapter, which had fallen below 700 members in 2023, has nearly doubled to 1,400 members and set a public target of 3,000 by the end of 2028. In November 2025, DSA members Denzel McCampbell and Gabriela Santiago-Romero won two Detroit City Council seats. In February 2026, the Michigan Working Families Party announced a coordinated statewide slate under state director Branden Snyder — the former founder of Detroit Action — telling Michigan Advance the WFP was executing a “10-year plan to co-govern” modeled on the New York coalition that had just elected Zohran Mamdani.

The Man Who Is Both

El-Sayed’s biography reads like the two currents braided into a single person. He was born October 31, 1984, in Rochester Hills — the Detroit suburb where the Islamic Association of Greater Detroit, had been founded six years earlier by thirty immigrant families. His father Mohamed had arrived from Egypt in 1978 on a Wayne State University engineering fellowship — the Hart-Celler pathway in one biography.

At the University of Michigan, El-Sayed served as vice president of the campus Muslim Students Association. (MSA). The MSA was allegedly founded by members of the Muslim Brotherhood and was among the organizations listed in a 1991 internal memorandum written by a Muslim Brotherhood member and later introduced as evidence during the Holy Land Foundation prosecution. He described the role himself in a 2012 Nation piece: “MSA of Michigan was many times named student organization of the year… we were normally at the lead of issues concerning minority student groups and religious organizations on campus.” He then married into the Tayeb family.

His father-in-law, Jukaku Tayeb, self-identifies on the Islamic Society of North America’s own website as an ISNA Founders Committee member, past president of CAIR-Michigan, current CAIR-Michigan board member, board member of the Michigan Muslim Community Council, chairman of the HUDA Free Clinic, and past president of the Islamic Association of Greater Detroit — the Rochester Hills mosque whose co-founder, Dr. Ghaus Malik, currently chairs ISNA’s Founders Committee.

These organizations are nor trivial. ISNA is listed in the 1991 Muslim Brotherhood “Explanatory Memorandum” as one of “our organizations,” a document outlining a long-term strategy of influence in North America of “civizational jihad.” The United Arab Emirates placed CAIR on a list of designated terrorist organizations in 2014. In 2025, the governors of Texas and Florida issued their own state-level designations, which CAIR challenged in federal court. In the Holy Land Foundation trial, the largest terror-financing trial in U.S. history, federal prosecutors named both ISNA and CAIR as unindicted co-conspirators linked to the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood network that supported Hamas.

In August 2015, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan appointed El-Sayed — then thirty and with no elected experience — executive director of the Detroit Health Department, providing the establishment-Democratic credential. In 2018, he ran for governor. Sanders endorsed him. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez endorsed him. Linda Sarsour headlined the #MyMuslimVote rally in Dearborn. It was the first documented moment the two wings shared a stage. In 2019, El-Sayed headlined a $10,000 fundraiser for Detroit DSA — where organizers called him “a longtime friend” and he was photographed alongside Tlaib behind a banner depicting a hand marked “DSA” choking a snake marked “capitalism.” He also insists — accurately — that he is “not technically or practically DSA.” Both statements are true.

The Convergence

By the primary’s closing week, everything each wing had built for a decade was running in the same seventy-two hours. Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez barnstormed the state with El-Sayed; the full congressional Squad endorsed him; DSA volunteers who covered their red shirts with green ones to knock doors more comfortably worked the ground game. On July 24 — the same Friday — CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad delivered the sermon at the IONA mosque in Warren, praising “mosques renting buses to take people to the polls,” while Imam Hassan Qazwini urged congregants at his Islamic Institute of America in Dearborn Heights to treat voting as a religious duty against the “pro-Israel lobby.”

The Fighting for Michigan super PAC supporting El-Sayed collected $200,000 — nearly half its total — from his father-in-law. On August 4, El-Sayed won. The same night, Sunrise Movement co-founder William Lawrence took Michigan’s 7th District primary; Working Families Party endorsee Donavan McKinney, a DSA member, advanced in the 13th.

What Comes Next

El-Sayed now faces former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers in November, in a race that could decide control of the U.S. Senate. But the more consequential outcome has already occurred. A coalition that was theoretical five years ago — a college-town Sanders base and a Ford-era mosque geography, running the same slate under the same infrastructure — is now field-tested.

Michigan will be studied by organizers in New Jersey, Illinois, and Minnesota, where similar demographic and ideological currents run in parallel. The story on August 4 was not that a progressive won a primary. It was that the two rivers merged.

Six kilometers from the European Parliament, in an industrial zone on the edge of Strasbourg, workers are finishing one of the largest mosque complexes ever built in Europe. The Eyyub Sultan Mosque will hold 6,500 worshippers across 10,000 square meters, rise beneath 27 domes and two 36-meter minarets, and cost €32 million when it opens later this year.

It is being built by Millî Görüş, a Turkish Islamist confederation founded in 1969 by former Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan, who preached that Turkey should abandon its secular constitution and become an Islamic state. The organization is not a mainstream religious body. Germany’s intelligence service designated its German branch an “Islamist extremist group” in 2005; Austria banned Turkish funding of its mosques in 2015; and in July 2021, a French intelligence report tied Millî Görüş to the Muslim Brotherhood, describing its president as meeting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan “several times a year.”

The money to build it has come almost entirely from abroad. Qatar contributed €2.5 million; Morocco, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia added further grants. Then, in March 2021, Strasbourg’s Green mayor Jeanne Barseghian voted to add €2.5 million of French taxpayer funds on top — prompting France’s interior minister to accuse her, on national television, of “financing foreign meddling on our soil.” A court struck down the subsidy in November 2022. By then, the minarets were already rising.

The Organization Behind the Mosque

Millî Görüş was founded in 1969 by Necmettin Erbakan, Turkey’s first Islamist prime minister, who promoted what he called “National Vision”, gradualist movement to transform Turkey into an Islamic state. A French intelligence dossier released in July 2021 identified the organization as “powerful and centralized,” controlled by president Kemal Ergün, who possesses “absolute power over the Brotherhood at the European level” and is “described as close” to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, “who reportedly meets with him several times a year.”

The organization operates 514 mosques and cultural centers across eleven European countries, including 323 in Germany alone, with an estimated 87,000 members. Germany’s Ministry of Interior designated Millî Görüş’s German branch as an “Islamist extremist group” in 2005. Austria amended its Islam Act in 2015 specifically to ban Turkish funding for Islamic associations and mosques after intelligence warnings about the organization’s influence.

The Strasbourg project is led by Eyup Sahin, who serves as president of Millî Görüş France and vice-president of the French Council of Muslim Faith. After the subsidy annulment, the organization pivoted entirely to private donations. In January 2025, the mosque raised €2.3 million in two days through a live social media campaign.

A Web of Foreign Money

The €32 million project is financed almost entirely from abroad. Qatar contributed €2.5 million. The mosque’s official website lists additional grants from Morocco, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. Millî Görüş itself raised €2.3 million in just two days during a January 2025 donation drive.

But French taxpayers also chipped in. In March 2021, Strasbourg’s Green mayor Jeanne Barseghian pushed through a €2.5 million subsidy. She invoked a local legal quirk—due to the region’s complicated history under multiple states, Alsace can still fund religious buildings where the rest of France cannot. Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin erupted, accusing the city of “financing foreign meddling on our soil.” He ordered the subsidy challenged in court. The court struck it down in November 2022. By then, the minarets were already rising.

A New French Intelligence Report

In May 2025, the French Ministry of Interior published a report titled “Muslim Brotherhood and Political Islamism in France. The 73-page assessment documents what it calls “entryism”, the Brotherhood’s covert strategy to infiltrate public institutions, schools, and local governments to implement Sharia law.

The report identifies approximately 200 mosques attracting nearly 100,000 weekly worshippers, 300 associations across religious and educational sectors, and roughly 20 private schools enrolling over 4,200 students connected to Brotherhood networks. It states the movement’s goal is “a state governed by Islamic law” and documents the use of “anti-Islamophobia narratives to deflect criticism” and “promote a belief in state-sponsored Islamophobia to mobilize support.”

The French intelligence report notes that Millî Görüş “made common cause with the Turkish religious Diyanet in Europe.” An analysis by Strategy International observes the report “downplays foreign financial influence, particularly from Qatar,” creating what it describes as “geopolitical blind spots” driven by France’s economic and diplomatic ties to the Gulf state.

European Parliament Warnings

Italian EU parliamentarian Isabella Tovaglieri visited the construction site in September 2021, filming herself in front of the skeletal structure. “This is not just a place of worship but a real political project to give life to Islam in Europe,” she told her audience. She noted that “the trucks used to build the mosque are Turkish trucks, as you can see from the license plate.”

“This is not integration,” Tovaglieri stated. “This is a real ethnic and cultural substitution—a battle of civilization that we risk losing if Europe does nothing.”

Fellow Italian MEP Silvia Sardone warned in 2021 that “ten percent of all those registered for terrorism come from the Strasbourg region and from Alsace in general.” She called the project “a Eurabian nightmare” and said “political Islam, the most dangerous form, supported by Erdoğan’s Turkey, is gaining ground here.”

Sardone observed that Strasbourg already has 27 official mosques plus numerous illegal prayer spaces. “Mosques are multiplying, hate preachers are gaining ground, and entire neighborhoods in several cities are now in the hands of extremists,” she said.

Europe’s Mosque Landscape

The Strasbourg complex is comparable in scale to the DITIB Central Mosque in Cologne, Germany’s largest, which opened in 2017 with Turkish President Erdoğan presiding over the inauguration. The Cologne mosque accommodates 4,000 worshippers and cost €17-20 million. DITIB operates roughly 900 mosques in Germany and is controlled by Turkey’s Diyanet, the government’s religious affairs directorate.

Millî Görüş maintains a parallel infrastructure. Its German branch claims 323 mosques in Germany, 30,000 members, and an estimated 300,000 people attending weekly services across Europe. Belgium’s Islamic Federation, affiliated with Millî Görüş, operates 64 recognized mosques with roughly 50 more awaiting official recognition.

What distinguishes the Strasbourg project is its proximity to the institutions that set European Union policy. The complex rises in the same city where the European Parliament debates immigration policy, counterterrorism measures, and the integration of Muslim minorities.

Construction Timeline and Current Status

The mosque remains under construction as of August 2026. Project president Eyup Sahin stated in December 2021 that structural work was nearly complete, with finishing phases requiring “another two to three years.” The organization has targeted Eid 2026 for opening, though completion dates have slipped multiple times since 2017.

The facility’s planned amenities extend beyond worship space. The complex will include administrative offices, educational facilities, ablution halls, multi-functional rooms, a research and documentation center, a commercial gallery, and a family restaurant, plus parking for 600 vehicles according to the official website. The design incorporates 27 small domes surrounding a large central dome, described on the website as representing “Islamic civilization in the center of Europe.”

The organization posted in March 2026 that it collected over €100,000 during a single Friday prayer, demonstrating the financial support the project commands from its community. A January 2026 statement from Millî Görüş’s eastern branch explicitly denied foreign government funding, asserting construction relies “exclusively on private donations, coming mainly from people living in Europe.”

The cathedral that has defined Strasbourg’s skyline since 1176 now shares the horizon with minarets funded by a network that France’s intelligence services have linked to the global Islamist movement. Whether that represents religious freedom or civilizational transformation depends on which side of the debate you ask. The mosque’s completion will provide a definitive answer to what Europe is willing to build and permit at its political center.