In These Times

12/16/2025

Back in April, Working People took a hard look at what many educators were already warning about—an escalating campaign by the Trump administration to intimidate, defund, and control higher education.

In this episode, host Maximillian Alvarez spoke with leaders from the AAUP about ICE abductions of international students, sweeping cuts to life-saving research, attacks on DEI programs, and the weaponization of antisemitism to criminalize protest—especially Palestine solidarity on campus.

What they describe isn’t isolated or accidental. It’s a coordinated effort to instill fear, demobilize faculty and students, and strip universities of their role as spaces for independent thought, dissent, and public knowledge.

Reviewing this episode, now, in December, makes clear how intentional—and how dangerous—these moves are. Organizing, as the guests emphasize, isn’t optional.

https://inthesetimes.com/article/higher-education-faces-threats-by-trump-administation-aaup

12/16/2025

Private equity landlords are borrowing tactics straight from the union-busting playbook—and tenants are pushing back anyway.

As renters across the country organize to demand safe, affordable housing, one major landlord has allegedly responded with threats, surveillance, retaliation, and even a notorious “union avoidance” law firm. From New Haven to Kansas City, tenants say they’re facing the same old tricks workers know all too well.

Rebecca Burns and Thomas Birmingham report on how tenant unions are growing—and why landlords are escalating.

https://inthesetimes.com/article/tenants-union-busting-landlord-capital-realty

12/15/2025

This piece ran earlier this year, but it feels even more urgent now.

In “I Am Not Afraid,” Adam Federman reports on the Trump administration’s escalating crackdown on protest—on campuses, in immigrant communities, and far beyond—and the people who are refusing to be silenced anyway. From FBI visits and doxxing campaigns to ICE detentions of students and organizers, this is a clear-eyed look at how dissent is being targeted from all sides, and how movements are adapting and pushing back.

As one activist puts it: “I am not afraid of you.”

That refusal to back down, even as the risks grow, is at the heart of this story.

If you missed it when it was published in June, it’s worth reading now—and sharing.

https://inthesetimes.com/article/trump-campus-protest-crackdown-ice

12/15/2025

As anti-q***r backlash intensifies and institutions quietly erase LGBTQ+ history, community archivists are refusing to let that history disappear. Groups like Invisible Histories and the Q***r Zine Archive Project are preserving photos, zines, digital records, and everyday stories that capture q***r life, resistance, and joy, especially in places most vulnerable to censorship.

Chicago-based writer, editor, performer and former In These Times intern from many, many, many years ago, Lindsay Eanet explores how citizen archivists are responding to state erasure with care, urgency, and creativity, and how ordinary people can take part in protecting q***r history for future generations.

Preservation is resistance. Storytelling is survival.

https://inthesetimes.com/article/fighting-anti-q***r-backlash-with-citizen-archivists

12/15/2025

The Trump administration says it supports coal miners. Its actions say the opposite.

A long-awaited rule to limit deadly silica exposure in coal mines—meant to slow the black lung epidemic devastating Appalachia—has now been effectively scrapped. The result? More preventable illness. More premature deaths. More families paying the price while industry lobbyists get what they want.

As Kim Kelly reports, this wasn’t an accident or a bureaucratic slip. It was a deliberate decision to put mining companies first and miners last—rolling back protections that experts say could have saved more than a thousand lives.

“They deserve to be able to breathe. They deserve to go home to their families.”

The administration didn’t listen.

Read this investigation on how a life-saving worker safety rule was taken off the table—and what it means for coal miners right now:
https://inthesetimes.com/article/the-trump-administration-has-found-a-sneaky-way-to-keep-killing-coal-miners

12/13/2025

Eleanor J. Bader uncovers the life of a Civil Rights icon, Pan-Africanist and reparations pioneer, Queen Mother.

https://inthesetimes.com/article/queen-mother-audley-moore-black-women-nationalism-africa-coalition-building-civil-rights-movement-reparations-biography

12/13/2025

Last month, voters repudiated MAGA in elections large and small across the country. Those of us on the left need a clear-eyed assessment of the political terrain and a vision that can look beyond the current fight.

This month voters repudiated MAGA in elections large and small across the country. Those of us on the left need a clear-eyed assessment of the political terrain and a vision that can look beyond the current fight.

12/13/2025

“You can’t bust our unions — we will not stop organizing.”

Rebecca Burns & Thomas Birmingham report on threats, surveillance & retaliation against members of the Tenant Union Federation and how they are fighting back.

Tenant union members say they’ve faced threats, surveillance and retaliation from their private equity landlord, which has retained a notorious “union avoidance” firm.

12/13/2025

“When I realized I wasn’t going to be allowed to leave, I slid onto the floor, thinking they would have to call an ambulance to help me up. They didn’t.”

Ottavia Spaggiari reports from inside the Texas boarding home system where abuse, neglect and exploitation are widespread.

As the United States faces the largest healthcare cuts in its history, Texas presents a frightening vision of the future of long-term care.

12/13/2025

"We didn’t come to this country to be a burden, we came to work and contribute. And being detained is the first thing that throws everything out of control."

Willian Giménez González is free, but he worries about thousands of others who were abducted from the Chicago area.

12/13/2025

"The yeshiva is a radical place in and of itself. It’s where Judaism is created, is discussed, where mutual aid happens."

As young people break with established Jewish organizations over Gaza, a new kind of Judaism is flourishing.

https://inthesetimes.com/article/jewish-diaspora-movement-antizionism

12/12/2025

Today is intern, Atarah Israel's last day with In These Times, and we are proud to present her exploration into the world of zine making, printing, and binding with Peter Bergman of IS Press in Chicago.

Reporting and Video Editing: Atarah Israel
Special thank you to Peter Bergman!