Trump Targets Birthright Citizenship Again, and Activists Describe Abuse in Israeli Custody

From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford, today's Friday, August 7th. Here's what we're covering. We have a few subjects that we're going to discuss, all important, but one in particular important to do with birthright citizenship. At the White House yesterday, President Trump took aim again at birthright citizenship, planning a pair of executive orders to try and restrict who can automatically become an American citizen. We had a very unfortunate decision in the Supreme Court concerning birthright was closed, but a very, very unfortunate decision. So we're making adjustments. The move came just weeks after the Supreme Court rejected the president's previous effort to end birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants. Trump's new orders are focused in part on limiting so-called birth tourism, where women travel to the U.S. so their newborns can become Americans, and it would put in place other restrictions on who could qualify for citizenship. For now, it's not clear how the orders would be enforced, and one department of Homeland Security official threw cold water on the birth tourism order specifically, telling the Times that it basically just restates existing immigration law. These renewed efforts to limit birthright citizenship will almost certainly face new litigation and court challenges. Still, experts say that the Trump administration is fundamentally reshaping the country's immigration policies, imposing more than 700 immigration restrictions. One professor at Cornell University told the Times, quote, "As a result, the United States has had negative migration for the first time in 50 years." Now two other updates on the administration. The Times has learned that the CIA has secretly set up a Cuba task force, turning up its pressure campaign on the Cuban government. The task force has begun adding case officers who recruit and manage spies, as well as officers who specialize in covert operations, according to people briefed on the plan. They say the task force is supposed to try and create fissures among the political elite in Cuba in the hopes of pressuring Cubans to replace leaders the White House sees as anti-American. For months, the administration has had a crippling oil embargo in place on the island, and Trump has said, quote, "I think I can do anything I want with it. It's moving forward with a plan to overhaul Head Start, a key federal child care program for preschool-age kids." Right now, Head Start, which is aimed at helping the nation's poorest families, serves about 700,000 children, and has a lot of regulations, like curriculum requirements for math and literacy, and ensuring kids get regular medical and dental screenings. But the Times has learned the administration plans to remove most of those, even a requirement that kids brush their teeth after meals. The administration says the changes will streamline things, and it estimates that by scrapping class size limits specifically, Head Start can serve an additional 200,000 children. Critics of the changes, though, see this as another attack on the program, after the White House tried and failed last year to block funding for it, calling Head Start Radical Indoctrination. Now, my colleague, Coral Davenport, who's been covering the proposed changes, says scrapping a lot of the regulations will fundamentally change the program. So, it does seem clear that with these changes in place, the program itself will have far a few more services. They will not necessarily have a guarantee of the quality of education, the health care, so there will be more kids in the program, but the program will do much less. The Department of Health and Human Services is expected to post the proposed changes for public comment in the coming days. They're expected to be implemented in Head Start classrooms sometime next year. Back in May, hundreds of activists sported a flotilla of votes and set off across the Mediterranean, toward the Gaza Strip. It was the largest in a series of similar efforts over the past two years, with the stated goal of getting food and aid to the war-ravaged territory. The group also hoped their trip would bring media attention to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, where international experts say Israeli restrictions contributed to famine. But within days, like with all the other recent flotillas, Israeli forces moved in, stopping the votes and apprehending the activists before they could make it to Gaza. While they were being held, Israel's national security minister posted a video of himself walking among the handcuffed activists and taunting them. And soon reports began to emerge that the activists had been physically abused by Israeli forces. Almost as soon as the allegations of abuse emerged, Israel officially denied them and said that the activists had been treated according to the law. And together with two of my colleagues, we interviewed at length two dozen of these activists who told us stories of abuse not just on ships in the Mediterranean, but also on Israeli soil. Their accounts were consistent and lined up with medical records that six of them gave us. Katherine Porter is part of the team at the time that's been speaking with some of the members of the flotilla, who said they were held on two Israeli navy votes in makeshift holding pens made of shipping containers. On top of the shipping containers were soldiers who were masked and armed, and they described at times being shot at by the soldiers with what they believed to be rubber bullets. The soldiers often, according to the activists, threw down flash grenades to move them around inside this open holding pen. The activists said that they accessed the holding pen through a darkened shipping container. And once they were pushed into it, they were greeted by Israeli soldiers that they said beat them, often punching in the ribs, kicking them in the back. And one of the activists, a woman from Australia, said she was raped inside the container. She said after being punched and kicked, a soldier pulled down her pants and underwear and inserted what she believed to be his hand inside her vagina. The activists also told us that the abuse had continued after they were brought to Israeli soil. Once they reached the port of Ash Dodd, they were taken off the ships, and many said the beatings continued. Katherine says that within a few days of being detained, all the activists were deported from Israel. The allegations from those in the Flotilla echo other accounts of abuse in Israeli prisons. A previous investigation by the Times found that dozens of Palestinians have died inside Israeli prisons, while others faced abuse, including beatings, broken bones, and electric shocks. One Palestinian told the Times that Israeli soldiers raped him with a stick in response to questions from the Times about how the Flotilla activists were treated. Israel's military and its prison service both rejected allegations of abuse. And the country's foreign ministry said the allegations had been, quote, "scripted in advance for one goal only," defaming Israel. The foreign ministry characterized the rape allegations specifically as an outright lie, but said Israel would investigate if it received an official complaint. For the Times, full reporting on the Flotilla go to nytimes.com. Yesterday, the tech giant Meta was ordered to pay more than $500 million in a major case about the safety of kids on its platforms. It is the largest financial penalty yet in Meta's ongoing legal battles over social media harm and addiction. The case was filed by the Attorney General of New Mexico, who accused Meta of not doing enough to stop sexual predators from messaging minors and misleading users about the safety of its platforms. Earlier this year, a jury in the state ordered the company, which owns Facebook and Instagram, to pay over $300 million. Now, the new fine of over $500 million comes on top of that, and the judge overseeing the case also ordered Meta to make changes to how young people use its platforms. That includes prohibiting Facebook and Instagram from sending push notifications to underage users in New Mexico from 10pm to 7am, and limiting the amount of time they can spend on the platforms to 90 hours a month, so roughly three hours a day. In a statement, a spokesman for Meta said that the company disagreed with the New Mexico ruling, which it planned to appeal, and that quote, "We remain confident in our record of protecting teens online." And finally, around the U.S. there's a growing number of so-called sober spaces, which are trying to offer a different way of dealing with addiction. They're built around things like fitness or meditation or social activities, and they're becoming increasingly popular. For example, the Phoenix in Boston is a free gym where members are asked to be at least 48 hours sober before visiting. It got rock climbing, weightlifting, etc. From 2020 to 2025, their new member enrollment climbed from about 20,000 people to over 420,000 people. The model isn't new, per se, but one researcher said it's having a bit of a renaissance. These places can work for people who feel like they need more than they're getting from other approaches to treating addiction. For example, the clinical approach is often limited to a short time period, like a set number of weeks in rehab, after which people can feel like they're on their own. And 12-step programs like AA aren't always a fit for everyone, with their emphasis on a higher power and often complete abstinence. Having a new place for people to go can help them break old habits. You're around different groups of people, and there's an activity that doesn't revolve around drugs or alcohol. Plus, people get to know you, learn your name, ask how you're doing. A staff member of the Phoenix Gym said she's seen that working. She said one new member showed up again less than 24 hours later, because he said it was the first time he had a group of people who cared whether he came back. Those are the headlines. If you'd like to play the Friday news quiz, stick around. It's just after these credits. This show is made by Will Jarvis, Margaret Kadefa, Jake Lucas, Jan Stewart, and me, Tracy Mumford, original theme by Dan Powell. Thanks to Isabella Anderson, Sam Dolanick, Miles McKinley, and Zoe Murphy. One last thing, if you are not yet subscribed to the Times, you have the chance to get full access right now for 30 days for free. You just download the Times app, and you'll be able to read, watch, listen to everything for 30 days. Now time for the quiz. Every week we ask you a few questions about stories the Times has been covering. Can you get them all? To start, we're going to play around of who's talking. Can you name these people who've been in the news this week by their voice? These landmarks and monuments belong to all of us, and they must be protected for generations to come. Who is that? And this is not the way of a civilized society. It is anarchy. This former Fox news host, Jeanine Piro, now the U.S. Attorney for DC, her office just recently dropped charges against people who she initially claimed vandalized the reflecting pool. Now she says the damage was actually caused by botched construction work. Next up, I went to law school that night, read textbooks on the late train home while I work days is a paralegal. Do you know who that is? We are keeping America safe and we are just getting started. That's Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general who is trying to get officially confirmed to the job. This week his nomination took a crucial step forward in the Senate. Next one. So coming back and donning the suit again, you know, it felt like the responsibility had gotten greater because there was a decision to be made. How about that? Do you know that is? That's the actor Tom Holland who is starring in the two biggest movies in the country right now. The latest Spider-Man movie and the Odyssey, meaning the box office is basically just 50 percent Tom Holland. Okay. Some of you have seen, you know, there's those cool kids on the internet. Last one here. They're doing the cool kid shatter, making fun of how I talk. This person has taken a lot of heat for her accent lately. Who is it? Let's be real. They're making fun of Michigan. That's Haley Stevens, who just narrowly lost one of the most expensive Democratic Senate primaries this year in Michigan. Throughout her campaign, some people praised her way of talking as authentic Midwest, while others accused her of exaggerating what is technically known as northern city's vowel shift. Next question. They're saying that chunks of the moon are going to be flying into the atmosphere. Early on Wednesday, space enthusiasts had their telescopes trained on the sky, hoping to catch sight of a rare collision. A certain object was on course to crash into the moon at more than twice the speed of a bullet, setting off a flash of light and plume of lunar dust. Your question, what object was it? The answer. Part of a SpaceX rocket. The rocket carried two private lunar landers up to space last year, then ended up a drift for a while before its unintentional collision with the moon. The incident feeds into an increasingly urgent conversation about what to do with space junk. As more things get launched up there, not only is some of it hitting the moon, more and more of it is falling back down to Earth. According to a study for the federal government, by the year 2035, so less than a decade from now, debris from SpaceX satellites alone could hit someone on Earth every two years. One last question. One of the world's smallest countries officially got a new name this week. The tiny island in the South Pacific that used to be spelled N-A-U-R-U, which a lot of Americans pronounced "nau-ru" is now "nau-a-ro" and A-O-E-R-O to more closely match the country's native language. We are going to ask you about five other countries that have gotten their names updated on the map, often as part of an effort to move on from colonial rule. You will give you the old name, see if you can identify the country. Ready? Sailon. That is now called Sri Lanka. Siam. That was switched to Thailand, though there has been talk over the years about going back. Now this is a tricky one. Upper Volta. That became Burkina Faso. How about Gold Coast? Gold Coast is now Ghana. And last one. What did the government of the Czech Republic start using as an official shorter version of their country's name? The answer to that? Czechia. Some of the people who pushed for the update a few years ago put up a statement saying, "Chachia might sound strange to people the first time they hear it, but so do numerous geographic names." Like Idaho. That's it for the news quiz. Our email is the headlines at nytimes.com, if you want to tell us how you did. I'm Tracy Mumford. The show will be back on Monday.