Justin Bieber is sending fans into a frenzy after sharing a series of intimate family portraits on his Instagram stories along with clues of an imminent album drop.
On Thursday, the pop star posted predominantly black-and-white images that show Justin Bieber, 31, and his wife posing with their son, Jack Blues Bieber.
In one photo, Hailey Bieber, 28, leans into her husband, resting her chin on his chest while her eyes are closed.
Hailey Bieber at the Met Gala in New York on May 5.Michael Buckner / Penske Media via Getty Images file
Another shows Hailey Bieber carrying their son on her hip as she heads toward the interior of a shed while Justin Bieber stands outside pointing to the ground.
Each of the photos is paired with different tracks that hint at a possible layered meaning. The songs range from Chief Keef’s “Faneto” to Marvin Sapp’s “Never Would Have Made It.”
And that wasn’t all Justin Bieber was sharing. He also posted an image of a Times Square billboard that appears to contain a track list from what many believe (and hope and pray) is from a new album. Some of the song titles include “All I Can Take, “Therapy Session” and “Forgiveness.” If he is releasing a new album, it would be his first since 2021.
The singer’s fans were quick to react in the comments.
“It’s a Bieber Summer,” one thrilled user wrote in response.
“OMGGGG FINALYYY,” another expressed.
Meanwhile, another replied, “My Bieber Fever is a 112° rn.”
Justin Bieber’s posts also arrive amid ongoing speculation that he and his wife are facing challenges in their relationship.
“To be doing that all the while going on the internet every day and people being like, ‘They’re getting divorced’ and they’re this and ‘They’re not happy.’ It is such a mindf–k. I cannot even begin to explain it. It’s a crazy life to live,” she said.
Hailey Bieber also touched on feeling misunderstood by the public, noting, “I feel like I’ve fought so hard to try to get people to understand me, or know who I am, or see me for me. And people just don’t want to sometimes.”
She went on to comment, “There’s nothing you can do about that. I’ve been in a position where I’ve tried to tell my side of a story or correct a narrative or tell the truth of a lie, and then they go, ‘Well, she’s lying.’ Imagine how trapping that feels.”
The magazine included emailed quotes from Justin Bieber applauding his wife for handling the public attention she receives with grace.
“She’s in the spotlight, and has the attention because of her effortless knack for style, business, art, and fashion. And the way she makes being a mom and wife look easy,” he commented.
Texas state Sen. Angela Paxton on Thursday said she filed for divorce from her husband, state Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is challenging U.S. Sen. John Cornyn in a Republican primary.
“Today, after 38 years of marriage, I filed for divorce on biblical grounds,” Angela Paxton said in a post on X. She added that she made her decision “in light of recent discoveries.”
The state senator did not immediately respond to a request for comment for additional details. Ken Paxton’s office and campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Thursday.
Ken Paxton said in a post on X shortly after his wife’s announcement that he and his wife had “decided to start a new chapter in our lives,” following what he described as “countless political attacks.”
“I could not be any more proud or grateful for the incredible family that God has blessed us with, and I remain committed to supporting our amazing children and grandchildren. I ask for your prayers and privacy at this time,” he added.
The Paxtons faced scrutiny following a state Senate-led impeachment trial against Ken Paxton in 2023. He faced allegations of corruption and was eventually acquitted, but the trial also touched on allegations of infidelity. The attorney general’s former chief of staff — Katherine Cary — said that an alleged affair with another woman caused office tension, according to Austin-based KUT News.
On Thursday, the National Republican Senatorial Committee criticized Ken Paxton, who was first elected state attorney general in 2014, and said in April that he would challenge Cornyn for his Senate seat.
“What Ken Paxton has put his family through is truly repulsive and disgusting,” NRSC spokesperson Joanna Rodriguez posted on X. “No one should have to endure what Angela Paxton has, and we pray for her as she chooses to stand up for herself and her family during this difficult time.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., met with President Donald Trump at the White House on Wednesday to discuss Senate races.
Thune told NBC News on Thursday that the meeting “covered a whole range of races around the country.” A senior Republican strategist working on Senate races confirmed to NBC News on Tuesday that Texas was slated for discussion.
Asked whether he had a preference in the Texas race, Thune said: “We need an electable candidate that can win not just a primary, but a general, and we believe there’s a path there for Cornyn to win both.”
Cornyn was first elected to the Senate in 2002.
Trump hasn’t publiclyendorsed Cornyn in the upcoming election.
President Donald Trump on Thursday expressed support for flood alarms in Texas and said he thinks “everyone’s doing a great job” responding to a disaster that has left more than 100 people dead and 170 people missing.
“After having seen this horrible event, I would imagine you’d put alarms up in some form, where alarms would go up if they see any large amounts of water or whatever it is,” Trump told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker in a phone interview Thursday.
“But the local officials were hit by this just like everybody else,” the president said.
Trump will visit Texas on Friday, a week after the deadly flooding in Kerr County and other parts of the region, which saw the Guadalupe River surge to almost 30 feet in Hunt on July 4. That was higher than a 1987 flood disaster on the same river.
Among those confirmed or feared dead are 27 children and counselors at Camp Mystic in Hunt.
Earlier this week, Gov. Greg Abbott bristled at a reporter’s question about who was to blame for the scope of the disaster and the deaths, saying “that’s the word choice of losers.”
Trump said Thursday that “nobody ever saw a thing like this coming” and that “this is a once-in-every-200-year deal.”
“It’d be easy to blame them. I wouldn’t blame them,” Trump said. “I think from the standpoint of the future, you’d have to have some kind of an alarm and lighting system maybe.”
Trump also defended Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem and the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s response.
Trump has talked about possibly “getting rid of” FEMA. NBC News reported this week that Noem now requires that all agency spending over $100,000 be personally approved by her.
On Monday, FEMA officials created a task force to speed up the process of getting Noem’s approval, according to the reporting, which cited two people familiar with that unit.
“I don’t know anything about it,” Trump said when asked about the reporting and whether that delayed FEMA’s response.
“We were right on time. We were there — in fact, she was the first one I saw on television,” he said. “She was there right from the beginning, and she would not have needed anything. She had the right to do it, but she was literally the first person I saw on television.”
Trump said Noem “was right on the ball” and has “done a great job.”
In Texas on Thursday, the search for the missing continued. Search-and-rescue operations along the Guadalupe River have shifted to a recovery phase.
There were 120 people confirmed dead, and 173 people missing as of Wednesday evening, according to officials. Among the 120, Kerr County had 96 confirmed dead, 36 of whom were children.
Trump said that during Friday’s visit, he will express how much “I love those people.”
“Those people were with me right from the beginning, and it’s just a message of warmth, and I feel so terribly for them,” he said.
U.S. diplomats in Washington are bracing for cuts to the State Department workforce, with dismissal notices expected to hit inboxes as soon as Friday, according to three State Department officials with knowledge of the plans. The layoffs are part of a mass reorganization of the federal agency including the dissolution or merging of more than 300 bureaus and offices and a 15% reduction in employees.
“In April, the Secretary announced the largest reorganization of the Department in decades,” State Department Deputy Secretary for Management Michael Rigas wrote in an email sent to all agency employees Thursday evening. “The objective from the start was clear: focus resources on policy priorities and eliminate redundant functions, empowering our people while increasing accountability.”
Rigas said the terminations would be issued to affected employees soon, adding, “First and foremost, we want to thank them for their dedication and service to the United States.”
The restructuring has been in the works for months, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio notifying Congress in late May that as many as 1,800 U.S.-based workers would be cut from the approximately 19,000 employed by the State Department. More than 1,500 additional employees at the department took the Trump administration’s offer of a deferred resignation, which will carry their salaries and health care benefits through September.
Rubio said he was proud of the way the Trump administration had undertaken a reorganization that was arguably “the most deliberate way of anyone that’s done one.”
“The reduction of force is a consequence of the reorg. It’s not a consequence of trying to get rid of people,” Rubio told reporters Thursday during a press availability in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. “But if you’ve closed the bureau, you don’t need those positions.”
The terminations of employees at the State Department had been temporarily halted by a federal judge in California, but the Supreme Court ruled this week that the Trump administration’s plans to overhaul the diplomatic agency could move forward. The back-and-forth between the White House and the courts left thousands of civil servants and foreign service officers in limbo and unable to plan for their future.
One civil servant told NBC News on Thursday that she would welcome the ordeal finally being over. “We have known since the start it was coming. It was just a matter of when,” the diplomat told NBC News. “Every Friday morning, I wake up with dread. At least now we can move on.”
Asked about the resulting low morale at the State Department, a senior department official said the delays were unfortunate but outside of their control.
“The courts have delayed this reorganization, kept this uncertainty, unfortunately, over the workforce,” the senior official said. “That was not our intent. We want to move forward with this expeditiously, but obviously the administration has complied with all the court orders and injunctions.”
Two former senior career State Department diplomats told NBC News they were concerned about the collective loss of experience resulting from those taking early retirement and the impact of the layoffs on future recruitment for the U.S. diplomatic corps.
A senior State Department official said they were looking at how the agency recruits and retains talent as part of an executive order but the federal hiring freeze was still in place.
State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce praised the work of diplomats in the building for their commitment and patriotism but said this decision was not about the individual being targeted, but the need to reform a bureaucracy that has become too large to function.
“This is about making sure that the State Department is able to operate in a manner that makes it relevant and effective. That is what the American people want. It’s what all of us want, and in this dynamic, that’s exactly what we’re achieving,” Bruce said Thursday.
NBC News had previously reported that the State Department was conducting a review of U.S. missions overseas, including the potential closure of both consulates and embassies. But a senior State Department official said there are no plans for further cuts — for now.
“We don’t have any plans for that right now, but I think just good practice means a constant review and evaluation of how we’re doing our job,” the senior State Department official said.
The Justice Department announced Wednesday that it had sent more than 20 subpoenas to doctors and clinics involved in “performing transgender medical procedures on children.”
The department’s brief announcement did not name any of the 20 doctors or clinics, or say where they were. It also did not specify what constituted “transgender medical procedures,” but said its investigations “include healthcare fraud, false statements, and more.”
“Medical professionals and organizations that mutilated children in the service of a warped ideology will be held accountable by this Department of Justice,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement.
Also Wednesday, the Federal Trade Commission hosted an all-day workshop on the “dangers of gender-affirming care.” In his opening remarks, FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson suggested that such care is deceptive and requires greater scrutiny by the commission.
The workshop and the Justice Department’s announcement mark the latest escalation of the Trump administration’s ongoing campaign to restrict transgender rights and access to transition-related medical care.
The FTC’s panel on Wednesday featured more than a dozen speakers who criticized transgender health care, including people who received such care as minors and now say they regret it; doctors and psychologists who disagree with the current standards for providing such care; and political scientists and lawyers who oppose access to transition care for minors.
Claire Abernathy said she had a double mastectomy by her 15th birthday and detransitioned, or stopped identifying as trans, at 18.
“My doctors didn’t tell me that hormones would cause permanent side effects,” Abernathy, now 20, said. “They hid those effects from me. They worked to silence me when I tried to complain about this abuse. We need to make sure no more kids are sold products they can’t return.”
A common refrain from many of the panelists was that it is not possible for someone to be “born in the wrong body” and that there’s no evidence to support transition care as a treatment for gender dysphoria, or the medical term for the distress that results from the conflict between someone’s gender identity and sex assigned at birth.
Miriam Grossman, a child psychologist who has testified in favor of state legislation to ban access to transgender care for minors, said the idea that someone can know for sure that their gender identity is more authentic to them than their birth sex “is entirely unproven and unprovable.”
“There is no objective evidence of being born in the wrong body, and saying so misleads and takes advantage of consumers, and it impacts their medical decisions,” Grossman said.
Ferguson said the FTC’s statutory mandate is to “protect people from deceptive cures and health claims. He added that the FTC would post a public request for information next week based on what was learned at the workshop.
‘Not the FTC’s lane’
The workshop faced backlash from activists and also from some employees within the FTC, Reuters reported. Nearly 150 FTC employees signed a “statement of concern” dated July 2 regarding Wednesday’s workshop, writing that it “would chart new territory for the Commission by prying into confidential doctor-patient consultations.”
They added, “Simply put, in our judgment, this is not the FTC’s lane.”
On Thursday, three former FTC employees also opposed the workshop at an event held by Public Knowledge, a nonprofit that promotes free expression and an open internet.
Among them was Eileen Harrington, who worked for the FTC for nearly 40 years and served as its executive director from 2010 to 2012. She said that, through the workshop, the “FTC engaged in a kind of overreach that we haven’t seen for over 50 years.”
Harrington helped develop the FTC’s workshop process in 1992 when she served as director of the division of marketing practices there. Prior to a workshop, she said the FTC would issue a public statement about the topic to be explored, and then invite the public to submit comments. The FTC would also invite stakeholders with a variety of views to speak at the workshop.
“Yesterday’s event bears little resemblance to what we intended to create back in 1992 and to what the FTC has done over the years,” Harrington said, noting that the public was barred from attending in person and that the FTC handpicked people who were allowed to speak and who represented only one point of view.
Joe Simonson, a spokesperson for the FTC, criticized the Public Knowledge event in a phone interview with NBC News.
“I looked up who funds Public Knowledge, and I see it’s all big tech, and so it makes sense to me that a big tech-funded nonprofit, ostensibly devoted to copyright law, would be looking for any excuse to attack the Federal Trade Commission, even if it means standing against young men and women who say they were abused and mutilated by so-called medical professionals,” Simonson said.
He added that the reason the FTC workshop wasn’t open attendance was because the panelists received death threats.
Regarding criticism that the workshop only included one viewpoint, Simonson said, “Many of the panelists who appeared say they were victims of mutilation and abuse, and I don’t know who is on the other side of that.”
When asked about the majority of trans people, including youth, who say they don’t regret receiving treatment, Simonson said, “We’re not talking about those people. We’re talking about people who were abused and mutilated.”
Kellan Baker, executive director of the Institute for Health Research and Policy at Whitman Walker Health, a medical clinic in Washington, D.C., said he helped create Thursday’s event to provide perspectives that were left out of the FTC’s workshop.
“We wanted to hear from the parents who are in the position of caring for their children and wanting what’s best for their children,” Baker said. “We also wanted to hear from experts in transgender health.”
Some European countries have restricted access to such care, but only one, the United Kingdom, has indefinitely banned new prescriptions of puberty blockers to treat minors for gender dysphoria.
Twenty-five U.S. states restrict access to puberty blockers and hormone therapy for trans minors, though courts have permanently blocked restrictions from taking effect in Montana and Arkansas, according to the Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ think tank. Arizona and New Hampshire ban surgeries for minors, which are only recommended in rare cases. Seventeen states and Washington, D.C., have measures that protect access to transgender health care. The care is legal in an additional seven states that have neither protections nor bans on it.
There is no federal law restricting access to transition-related care. However, the Trump administration has sought to curtail it through a combination of executive orders and actions from federal agencies. In January, Trump signed a sweeping executive order aiming to prohibit federal funds from going to hospitals or medical schools that provide gender-affirming care to minors, though multiple judges have blocked that portion of the order.
Then, in an April memo, Bondi directed U.S. attorneys to use laws against female genital mutilation to investigate doctors who “mutilate” children “under the guise of care” and to prosecute these “offenses to the fullest extent possible.”
Former Olympic wrestler and MMA star Ben Askren is opening up about his recent, serious health issues, including that he “died four times“ and underwent a double lung transplant.
In an Instagram video posted July 9, he explained that he experienced the ordeal between May 28 and July 2 and does not remember anything from that time period.
“I actually read through my wife’s journal because … (I have) no recollection, zero idea, no idea what happened,” he in a video of him in a hospital bed.
“It’s like a movie. It’s ridiculous. So I only died four times, or the ticker stopped for about 20 seconds,” he continued. “That’s not ideal. You guys know that, but I got the double lung transplant. I made it to the other side of it, gaining quite a bit of strength. We’re going to use everything again.”
Askren has been in a Wisconsin hospital with pneumonia, the Associated Press reported. He coughed and struggled at times to speak in the video, where he said he’s lost 50 pounds over the span of 45 days.
“I was actually, honestly, yesterday, 147 pounds. I haven’t been 147 pounds since (I was) 15 years old,” he said.
Askren reiterated, “I don’t remember most of it,” and said the “most impactful” thing “was the love I felt from everybody.”
“It’s almost like I got to have my own funeral,” he added.
Askren, who was born in 1984, also vowed to work hard on his road to recovery.
“I’m more motivated than ever to get back and do what I can to help out the best I can to help out,” he said. “I love you guys, I appreciate you guys. It’s been tough, not only on me, but my whole family and my close community.”
Askren also posted a photo of himself in bed that was shared by MMA Uncensored, which said he had four heart attacks.
Prior to that, he won two NCAA Division I national championships while wrestling at the University of Missouri. He also was on the United States’ wrestling team at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.
According to his social media, the champion wrestler and MMA fighter suffered from a severe case of pneumonia and has been in the hospital for several weeks.
His wife, Amy, said in early June on social media that her husband was in the hospital in critical condition and required a ventilator due to a staph infection. She also shared that he would likely need a lung transplant.He was placed on the organ donor list on June 24.
In Askren’s July 9 update, he shared that he’d had four heart attacks and had received a double-lung transplant. He also said he’s lost 147 pounds over the past month and a half due to his health issues.
A grandmother planning to document ICE arrests at the San Diego courthouse instead became the story Tuesday after video of her own arrest began circulating.
An ICE agent accused the woman of pushing her. After she spent hours in custody, she denied that to NBC 7 on Wednesday.
The latest video to send shock waves from San Diego immigration court through the immigrant community is actually not of an immigrant, but, rather of a 71-year-old U.S. citizen, Barbara Stone.
Stone was handcuffed and held by federal agents for eight hours on Tuesday, according to her family.
“I have a large bruise there,” Stone said on Wednesday. “I feel mentally and physically traumatized.”
In a video of the incident, which was shared with NBC 7, viewers can see the moment tensions boiled over. An officer says Stone pushed her.
NBC 7 made several attempts to contact ICE about the incident but was referred to the Federal Protective Service, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security. FPS has not responded to a request for comment.
NBC 7 spoke with Stone’s husband, Gershon Shafir, the day his wife was detained.
“She is a soft-spoken person who was here to protect innocent refugees, and she is the last person in the universe who would hit an agent or interfere with their work,” Shafir said.
Stone was at the court to observe proceedings and how the federal agents act, which is legal and, according to Ruth Mendez of Detention Resistance, is a 1st Amendment right.
“The fear is very, very real here,” Mendez said, “and the volunteers that are showing up today are now coming, knowing that there might be a risk of our own detention.”
No charges have been pressed against Stone, but her family said her phone was confiscated.
Mendez worries there will be invisible impacts — like people deciding not to volunteer. In the video, an officer can be heard suggesting that more people could get detained.
“The message that it sent was very clear: For us to be afraid to come back and do the work that we’re doing,” Mendez said, adding that “all Americans should know that this is how their taxpayer money is being spent, and that it is really a crying shame. The people who are actually suffering are the people who are seeking asylum.”
For her part, Stone said she would volunteer again.
The Beatles legend announced July 10 on Instagram that he will be resuming his “Got Back Tour” later this year with a series of dates in North America.
Presale begins July 15 at 10 a.m. local. You can register for presale access at paulmccartneygotback.com.
Here’s a look at the upcoming tour dates:
Sept. 29 — Palm Desert, California — Acrisure Arena
Oct. 4 — Las Vegas — Allegiant Stadium
Oct. 7 — Albuquerque, New Mexico — Isleta Amphitheater
Oct. 11 — Denver — Coors Field
Oct. 14, Des Moines, Iowa — Casey’s Center
Oct. 17 — Minneapolis — U.S. Bank Stadium
Oct. 22 — Tulsa, Oklahoma — Bok Center
Oct. 29 — New Orleans — Smoothie King Center
Nov. 2 — Atlanta — State Farm Arena
Nov. 3 — Atlanta — State Farm Arena
Nov. 6 — Nashville — The Pinnacle
Nov. 8 — Columbus, Ohio — Nationwide Arena
Nov. 11 — Pittsburgh — PPG Paints Arena
Nov. 14 — Buffalo — KeyBank Center
Nov. 17 — Montreal — Bell Centre
Nov. 18 — Montreal — Bell Centre
Nov. 21 — Hamilton, Ontario — TD Coliseum
Nov. 24 — Chicago — United Center
Nov. 25 — Chicago — United Center
This will mark a continuation of the tour that began in the United States in 2022 and resumed in 2023 with stops in Australia, Mexico City and Brazil.
In 2024, McCartney took the tour to stops in Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Mexico, France, Spain and the United Kingdom. That leg of the tour ended in London less than a week before Christmas.
NEW YORK (AP) — On a recent afternoon, Mahmoud Khalil sat in his Manhattan apartment, cradling his 10-week-old son as he thought back to the pre-dawn hours spent pacing a frigid immigration jail in Louisiana, awaiting news of the child’s birth in New York.
“I cannot describe the pain of that night,” Khalil said finally, gazing down as the baby, Deen, cooed in his arms. “This is something I will never forgive.”
Now, weeks after regaining his freedom, Khalil is seeking restitution. On Thursday, his lawyers filed a claim for $20 million in damages against the Trump administration, alleging Khalil was falsely imprisoned, maliciously prosecuted and smeared as an antisemite as the government sought to deport him over his prominent role in campus protests.
The filing — a precursor to a lawsuit under the Federal Tort Claims Act — names the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the State Department.
It comes as the deportation case against Khalil, a 30-year-old recent graduate student at Columbia University, continues to wind its way through the immigration court system.
The goal, Khalil said, is to send a message that he won’t be intimidated into silence.
“They are abusing their power because they think they are untouchable,” Khalil said. “Unless they feel there is some sort of accountability, it will continue to go unchecked.”
Signs in support for Mahmoud Khalil are displayed at his home in New York.Yuki Iwamura / AP
Khalil plans to share any settlement money with others targeted in Trump’s “failed” effort to suppress pro-Palestinian speech. In lieu of a settlement, he said he would also accept an official apology and changes to the administration’s deportation policies.
In an emailed statement, Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, called Khalil’s claim “absurd,” accusing him of “hateful behavior and rhetoric” that threatened Jewish students.
A State Department spokesperson said its actions toward Khalil were fully supported by the law. Inquiries to the White House and ICE were not immediately returned.
Harsh conditions and an ‘absurd’ allegation
The filing accuses President Donald Trump and other officials of mounting a haphazard and illegal campaign to “terrorize him and his family,” beginning with Khalil’s March 8 arrest.
On that night, he said he was returning home from dinner with his wife, Noor Abdalla, when he was “effectively kidnapped” by plainclothes federal agents, who refused to provide a warrant and appeared surprised to learn he was a legal U.S. permanent resident.
He was then whisked overnight to an immigration jail in Jena, Louisiana, a remote location that was “deliberately concealed” from his family and attorneys, according to the filing.
Inside, Khalil said he was denied his ulcer medication, forced to sleep under harsh fluorescent lights and fed “nearly inedible” food, causing him to lose 15 pounds (7 kilograms). “I cannot remember a night when I didn’t go to sleep hungry,” Khalil recalled.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration publicly celebrated the arrest, promising to deport him and others whose protests against Israel it dubbed “pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity.”
Khalil, who has condemned antisemitism before and since his arrest, was not accused of a crime and has not been linked to Hamas or any other terror group. “At some point, it becomes like reality TV,” Khalil said of the allegations. “It’s very absurd.”
Deported for beliefs
A few weeks into his incarceration, Khalil was awoken by a fellow detainee, who pointed excitedly to his face on a jailhouse TV screen. A new memo signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio acknowledged Khalil hadn’t broken the law, but argued he should be deported for beliefs that could undermine U.S. foreign policy interests.
“My beliefs are not wanting my tax money or tuition going toward investments in weapons manufacturers for a genocide,” Khalil said. “It’s as simple as that.”
By then, Khalil had become something of a celebrity in the 1,200-person lock-up. When not dealing with his own case, he hosted “office hours” for fellow immigrant detainees, leaning on his past experience working at a British embassy in Beirut to help others organize paperwork and find translators for their cases.
“I’m pretty good at bureaucracy,” Khalil said.
At night, they played Russian and Mexican card games, as Khalil listened to “one story after another from people who didn’t understand what’s happening to them.”
“This was one of the most heartbreaking moments,” he said. “People on the inside don’t know if they have any rights.”
Lost time
On June 20, after 104 days in custody, Khalil was ordered released by a federal judge, who found the government’s efforts to remove him on foreign policy grounds were likely unconstitutional.
He now faces new allegations of misrepresenting personal details on his green card application. In a motion filed late Wednesday, attorneys for Khalil described those charges as baseless and retaliatory, urging a judge to dismiss them.
The weeks since his release, Khalil said, have brought moments of bliss and intense personal anguish.
Fearing harassment or possible arrest, he leaves the house less frequently, avoiding large crowds or late-night walks. But he lit up as he remembered watching Deen taking his first swim earlier in the week. “It was not very pleasant for him,” Khalil said, smiling.
“I’m trying as much as possible to make up for the time with my son and my wife,” he added. “As well thinking about my future and trying to comprehend this new reality.”
Part of that reality, he said, will be continuing his efforts to advocate against Israel’s war in Gaza, which has killed more than 57,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. On the day after his arrest, he led a march through Manhattan, draped in a Palestinian flag — and flanked by security.
As he poured Deen’s milk into a bottle, Khalil considered whether he might’ve done anything differently had he known the personal cost of his activism.
“We could’ve communicated better. We could’ve built more bridges with more people,” he said. “But the core thing of opposing a genocide, I don’t think you can do that any differently. This is your moral imperative when you’re watching your people be slaughtered by the minute.”
A Delta jet experienced engine problems on what was supposed to be a trans-Atlantic flight and landed on an island in the middle of the ocean, where the nearly 300 travelers and crew had to spend the night, officials said Thursday.
Flight 127 left Madrid on Sunday, bound for New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, when it had “to divert to Lajes, Azores (TER) after indication of a mechanical issue with an engine,” according to an airline statement.
A satellite image of the Azores, a Portuguese archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean. Planet Observer / Getty Images
The Airbus A330 had 282 customers and 13 crew members on board, Delta said.
The passengers and crew “deplaned via stairs at TER” and “were accommodated overnight in area hotels and provided meals,” the airline added.
They were taken off the island in Portugal’s Azores archipelago on a new aircraft on Monday.
“The flight landed safely, and we sincerely apologize to our customers for their experience and delay in their travels,” Delta said.
