But a prominent Jewish Republican in Florida, Rep. Randy Fine, responded to a Jewish Telegraphic Agency request for comment without condemning the group chat.

“Given your stories are fabricated, you don’t need me to comment to make them up,” Fine, who is part of the party’s far-right flank, said via a text. Fine has previously objected to JTA coverage of him.

James Fishback, a fringe GOP gubernatorial candidate who has courted the online far right, meanwhile told JTA, “I condemn all forms of hatred.” He also said that one of the chat’s participants, whose social media profile reportedly claimed he was a Fishback campaign staffer, had no association with the Fishback campaign.

The racist and antisemitic content in the WhatsApp chat of the Florida International University College Republicans club was first reported by the Miami Herald and the Floridian, a local conservative outlet.

The reports mark the second time in months that a Young Republicans group chat was revealed to have featured Nazi jokes and racist comments. The revelations come as the party is experiencing deepening divisions over antisemitism and sentiments about Israel.

Chat participants last fall used the slur “kike” to refer to Jewish women and babies, said they would “definitely not marry a Jew,” renamed the chat in reference to the imagined “Nazi heaven” of Agartha and joked about undergoing “reverse Zionism” to a Nazi paradise. They also used a racist epithet to discuss killing Black people in the manner of mass Jewish extermination during the Holocaust, according to reports about the texts.

Participants included the secretary of the Miami-Dade GOP, who also started the group chat and, according to The Floridian, reportedly sought to recruit racist and antisemitic participants into the party. The president of Florida International University’s chapter of Turning Point USA, the conservative group founded by Charlie Kirk, and the school’s former College Republicans recruitment chair also participated.

The Florida GOP as well as the Miami-Dade County GOP’s Jewish chair condemned the chats. In a statement, the Jewish chair, Kevin Cooper, indicated that the Miami-Dade GOP had started removal proceedings against its secretary, Abel Alexander Carvajal, who started the chat.

“The Republican Party of Florida consistently stands against racism, antisemitism, and bigotry in all its hateful forms of expression,” the Florida GOP said in a statement that called the chat “repugnant,” adding that the party would be conducting an internal review.

“Anyone associated with this chat should resign immediately,” Cooper told the Miami Herald, adding, “Racism and antisemitism have no place in the Republican Party. I am proud to be the first Jewish chairman of the Miami Dade Republican Party, which is comprised of a diverse group of members from every race and background.”

Carvajal said he had been unaware of the offensive messages. “Had I known and had I seen some of these messages I would have called the police,” he told The Floridian, adding that he would not resign because “the messages that were stated were not mine.” He also told the Miami Herald that he had not glanced at the group chat in months and said, “I’m at a loss for words.”

“Racism, antisemitism, and hatred of any kind have no place in our party, our community, or our country, and the language that has been revealed falls far below the standard expected of anyone in a leadership role,” Miami-Dade’s GOP chapter said in a statement.

Sen. Rick Scott; the president of FIU; and several local GOP elected officials joined the chorus denouncing the texts and antisemitism specifically. The university says it will also open an investigation into the chat, which primarily included FIU students.

Ian Valdes, the president of FIU’s Turning Point USA chapter, posted several of the texts that spoke negatively of Jews, including “I would def not marry a Jew lmao.” He had also renamed the group “Gooning in Agartha,” using an online slang term for extreme masturbation.

“Chances are you could have a little kike running around,” another chat participant, former FIU College Republicans recruitment chair Dariel Gonzalez, told Valdes after the latter discussed having sex with Jewish women. Gonzalez added a lewd admonition against sex with Jews.

Florida GOP Rep. Byron Donalds, who is Black and has President Donald Trump’s endorsement in his current gubernatorial bid, also condemned the chats. Donalds is polling in the lead of a crowded GOP field for governor that also includes James Fishback.

“Everyone has the First Amendment right to say what they want — even when it’s vile and offensive. But free speech doesn’t entitle someone to hold a leadership position within the Republican Party or the conservative movement,” Donalds said in a statement. “The comments reported run counter to the values our party stands for. The Republican Party rejects racism, antisemitism, and bigotry.”

The Florida revelations came after the statewide New York Young Republicans chapter was disbanded last fall after antisemitic and racist messages between chapter leadership were leaked to the press. Those chats at the time were condemned by GOP leaders including House Speaker Mike Johnson, though Vice President JD Vance notably declined to denounce them.

Two months later, a gala for the New York City Young Republicans chapter hosted several far-right and antisemitic figures, while a Jewish GOP councilmember scheduled to receive an honor backed out. (Similar chat scandals have also befallen Young Republicans chapters in North Dakota and Kansas.)

Jews hold several prominent roles in Florida’s Democratic Party, including state chair Nikki Fried; current Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Jared Moskowitz; U.S. Senate candidate Alexander Vindman; and Lev Parnas, a former Trump figure who has swapped parties and is running for Congress in the state’s 27th district, which is located entirely within Miami-Dade County. Several figures associated with the far right are also running for office in the state as Republicans, including former U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn (running for Congress) and pardoned Jan. 6 rioter Jake Lang (running for Senate).

Miami-Dade County’s mayor, Daniella Levine Cava, is a Jewish Democrat currently facing a recall effort that is being supported by the county GOP.

For more info, go to JTA.org. 

At the time of that trade that sent out guard Kyle Lowry and a lottery-protected future first-round pick, Rozier already had been investigated by the NBA for potential involvement in a gambling scandal. The league and Hornets were aware of that investigation at the time of the deal, with the Heat not provided with such details.

In response to Rozier being placed on NBA leave the morning after the Heat’s Oct. 22 season opener against the Orlando Magic, with Rozier arrested in Orlando, NBA Commission Adam Silver said he would seek to determine  equitable compensation for the Heat being left in the dark.

That compensation arrived Monday, with the league informing the Heat they would receive as additional compensation from the Hornets a second-round pick in this coming June’s draft that Charlotte is owed from either the Golden State Warriors or the Denver Nuggets. Based on the current standings, that second-round pick is to come from the Warriors. Entering Monday’s play, that pick would be at No. 44.

The Heat otherwise do not hold a second-round pick in June’s draft. The Heat technically would receive the Brooklyn Nets’ second-round pick if it is No. 55 or higher, but that would require the Nets to finish with one of the league’s top five records, with that possibility already eliminated.

What the resolution does not resolve is the Heat remaining hamstrung by the first-round pick due the Hornets. That pick conveys in 2027 if it is not among the first 14, which are the lottery picks. Otherwise it goes to the Hornets unprotected in 2028.

Because of NBA rules prohibiting teams from trading away successive future first-round picks, it means the obligation to the Hornets means the Heat currently cannot trade with 2026, ’27, ’28 or ’29 first-round picks.

Rozier remains on the Heat roster and payroll, although he can be waived at any time should the team desire to add an additional player.

During the NBA Cup final rounds in Las Vegas, Silver said of the Heat’s situation in the Rozier case, “In terms of Miami, this is an unprecedented situation. “I think I’m incredibly sympathetic to the Heat and to their fans. But I think we’re going to try to work something through, work this out with them.”

Silver also said, “But there’s no obvious solution here, would just say that there’s no doubt at the moment they have a player that can’t perform services for them. And as to the draft pick they conveyed — obviously he hasn’t been convicted of anything yet, either, but this is an unfortunate circumstance.

“But sometimes there’s unique events and maybe sometimes they require unique solutions. We’ll be looking at this with the Heat and the other teams in the league and see if there’s any satisfactory relief, but at the moment there is none.”

Then came Monday’s decision.

LAS VEGAS (AP) — When his parents were about his age, they bought their first home. But for 27-year-old Brian Torres Suazo, that milestone feels like a distant dream, despite a secure job with union wages and down payment assistance.

Torres Suazo expects to continue sharing an apartment with roommates for the foreseeable future, kept on the sidelines of homeownership by stubbornly high costs, even in cities once known for their affordability, such as his native Las Vegas.

He’s not alone. In a restless electorate frustrated by high prices, the cost of housing stands out. Democrats are pushing to channel this anger into support for their quest to chip away at Republicans’ unified control of Washington, maintaining their focus on economic concerns even when war with Iran dominates the news.

Their path cuts through Nevada, a perennial swing state won by Republican Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election and now home to closely contested U.S. House races.

“I would be paying more — a lot more — in mortgage than I am for rent right now,” said Torres Suazo, a food runner on the Las Vegas Strip. Sometimes he feels like politicians aren’t listening to people like him. “It’d be nice if more people that knew what it’s like to work for a living could be in those rooms to make decisions,” he added.

Housing affordability isn’t just a coastal concern

In all directions from the Strip, tract homes with sharp-angled roofs and earthy paint schemes sprout from the desert by the dozen. Streets to nowhere snake through the dirt, ready for future homes. Wooden signs dot roadsides advertising homes from the $300,000s for a townhome to over $1 million for big houses in the most desirable suburban neighborhoods.

Housing costs have long been a potent political issue in pricey metropolitan areas like New York and San Francisco, but now the issue is popping up virtually everywhere.

During the coronavirus pandemic, white-collar workers newly empowered to work remotely cashed out their equity in high-priced cities and bid up prices across Sun Belt cities like Las Vegas, Phoenix, Dallas, and Charlotte, North Carolina. At the same time, near-zero interest rates drove a wave of refinancing that gave existing homeowners mortgage payments that now seem impossibly low.

Almost 40 million people visited Las Vegas last year, and gamblers wagered $14 billion at Clark County casinos, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. The steady flow of people and cash attracts dreamers and strivers with the promise of a good job and an affordable home.

The population of Clark County, which includes Las Vegas, grew 17% to 2.4 million between 2014 and 2024. The country as a whole grew 6% over that period.

“If you ask locals who grew up here, some of them feel that housing is out of reach for them,” said Las Vegas real estate agent Tony Clifford. “You talk to somebody from out of state – Northwest, West, California – we’re still so cheap compared to them.”

Home prices and mortgage rates have ticked down from historic highs in much of the country, and real estate agents say Las Vegas is now considered a buyer’s market. Houses are staying on the market longer, and more sellers are accepting discounted offers or offering concessions, such as covering closing costs. But monthly mortgage payments are still much higher than they were before the pandemic.

In Las Vegas, resale home prices rose 53% between December 2019 and the same month last year, according to the Case-Shiller index. The index tracks homes that have previously sold, excluding new construction, which makes up more than a quarter of the Las Vegas market.

In Las Vegas, the median home sale price rose 65% between the first quarter of 2020 and the same period last year, reaching $393,000, according to Federal Reserve data. It ticked down to $379,000 during the fourth quarter last year.

Nationally, 30-year mortgage rates followed a similar trend, bottoming out at 2.65% nationally in 2021 before peaking in 2023 at nearly 8%. They’ve settled around 6% this quarter.

Still, even with rates and prices stabilizing, they remain higher than they were before the pandemic. The median resale house at the prevailing interest rates with 20% down would cost $2,300 per month in December 2025, double the figure from December 2019.

Big investors are buying up houses

Large investors own about 11% of single-family home rentals in Las Vegas, according to the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution, compared with about 3% nationally.

They’re increasingly becoming bipartisan targets as they buy and rent out single-family homes, though economists generally discount the benefits of constraining them. Trump and Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, the leading Democratic candidate for governor, are both among a growing cadre of officials calling for limits on corporate homeownership.

“People live in homes, not corporations,” Trump said in a social media post in January, calling for Congress to ban large institutional investors from buying houses. He’s also pressured the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates and proposed extending mortgage terms to 50 years, privatizing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and allowing homebuyers to tap retirement or Education Savings Accounts for a down payment.

Ford’s housing plan, released last month, also calls for banning algorithmic pricing of rents, tackling regulatory barriers that block or slow new construction and seeking to unlock federal land for homebuilding. The federal government owns 84% of the land in Nevada.

Nevada’s Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo, who is one of the most vulnerable incumbent state leaders in the country, has tried to address the problem, announcing last month that his administration has approved $64 million to boost a dozen housing development projects, mostly in the Las Vegas and Reno areas, along with assistance for homebuyers.

The midterms may hinge on affordability

Democrats are making affordability the central plank of their pitch to voters in November, arguing that Trump has failed in his campaign promise to bring prices back down despite Republican control of Congress. They believe anxiety over the cost of living has been a major factor in their victories in a series of off-year elections, including the races for governor of New Jersey and Virginia as well as special elections down the ballot.

Many Americans say Trump is focusing on the wrong priorities, according to multiple surveys, including a January AP-NORC poll, and they largely think Trump is neglecting the issue of costs at home.

Trump was reelected in large part because of economic concerns, but recent polling shows that the bulk of Americans aren’t seeing benefits from his policies yet, and most don’t think he’s paying enough attention to the issue.

A large share of registered voters see the economy as one of the top issues facing the country, and a recent New York Times poll found that about half of registered voters say Trump’s policies have made life for most Americans “less affordable.”

The issue will remain salient in November even as the Iran war raises interest in foreign policy, said Democratic strategist Paul Begala, one of the architects of Bill Clinton’s 1992 strategy that emphasized domestic economic concerns during a time of global upheaval from the first Gulf War and the fall of the Soviet Union.

“Trump’s refusal to raise the minimum wage, and his willingness to raise the cost of health care, electricity, hamburger, and now gas, is a two-edged sword that will cut down a large number of congressional Republicans,” Begala said.

Housing is a thorny political issue. Rooted homeowners like high prices that inflate their net worth, at least on paper, a reality that Trump has nodded to repeatedly this year, assuring homeowners he wants to keep their values high.

But those prices become handcuffs if they want to move on but are priced out of the bigger homes or better neighborhoods they’re eying.

Michele Niemeyer feels trapped in the condo she bought for more than $500,000 just off the Strip. The homeowners association fee just went up to $686 a month, straining her budget, and the value of her unit has plummeted. But the neighborhoods that were in her budget when she bought the condo are now out of reach.

“I want to move,” Niemeyer said. “I just don’t know where.”

The results of the survey, taken recently by Israel’s Jewish People Policy Institute, suggest that American Jews are more supportive of the war than Americans overall. Multiple recent surveys found that about 60% of American voters opposed the military action, with support significantly lower among Democrats, historically the party of most Jewish voters.

A partisan shift was apparent in the JPPI survey, with near-total support for the war from those who describe themselves as politically conservative. Still, 57% of “leaning liberal” Jews said they support the war. Self-identified “strong liberals” were the only group of U.S. Jews to say they oppose the war, with only 28% backing it.

The survey of 692 American Jews drew from a panel maintained by JPPI that aims to reflect the denominational distribution of U.S. Jews. The institute says its polls reflect the sentiments of “connected” Jews because its panel includes fewer intermarried Jews, more Jews who are affiliated with denominations and more Jews who have lived in Israel than demographic data would suggest is representative of U.S Jewry overall.

The JPPI survey finds that American Jews are more like Israeli Jews than like U.S. voters overall. An Israel Democracy Institute poll found that 93% of Jewish Israelis supported the military operations against Iran.

Iran has long waged a campaign against both Israel and the United States, but while it has struck at U.S. targets around the world, Israel is geographically in its crosshairs. Its missiles killed dozens of Israelis during a 12-day war last year and have killed more than a dozen already during the current war, which has expanded to much of the Middle East.

President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have indicated that in addition to ending Iran’s nuclear ambitions and demolishing its military infrastructure, they want the nearly 50-year-old Islamic Republic regime to fall. The JPPI poll found that only a quarter of U.S. Jews say regime change should be a primary goal of the war, compared with 58% who say the war should seek to “eliminate nuclear program, ballistic missile capabilities, and support of terror.”

American Jews polled by JPPI also said they expected the war to increase both antisemitism (52%) and anti-Israel sentiment (45%) in the United States. Already, the war has sparked debate over whether Trump was forced into the conflict by Netanyahu — a narrative they both have rejected. The survey found that 72% of American Jews believe Trump needed no convincing, while only 14% believe Netanyahu was the primary driver of military action against Iran.

For more info, go to JTA.org. 

World leaders have tried and failed to curb climate change by appealing to nations to act for the common good. Now, the Iran war and its costly energy crunch have some experts wondering if selfishness and nationalism may be a more likely way to save the planet, by boosting support for homegrown renewables over imported fossil fuels.

Bombed refineries, disrupted shipping channels for oil and liquefied natural gas and skyrocketing fuel prices should point even the most reluctant leaders to a cleaner fossil free future, hope some experts.

But others are dismissive, noting the same speculation emerged, and then quickly flopped, as recently as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. That prompted some European nations to replace gas with even dirtier coal.

“Just wishful thinking,” said Stanford University climate scientist Rob Jackson, who tracks global emissions of carbon dioxide.

The head of the United Nations will argue otherwise on Monday.

“The turmoil we are witnessing today in the Middle East makes it evident that we are facing a global energy system largely tied to fossil fuels — where supply is concentrated in a few regions and every conflict risks sending shock waves through the global economy,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said in an email to The Associated Press. “In past oil shocks, countries had little choice but to absorb the pain. Now they have an exit ramp.

“Homegrown renewable energy has never been cheaper, more accessible, or more scalable,” Guterres said. “The resources of the clean energy era cannot be blockaded or weaponized.”

Going alone versus together

Annual U.N. climate conferences aimed at global cooperation have accomplished little. The most recent meeting in Brazil, known as COP30, ended with a statement that didn’t even mention the words “fossil fuels,” much less include a timeline to reduce their use. Guterres said then that he “cannot pretend that COP30 has delivered everything that is needed.” Under President Donald Trump, whose attack on Iran has sparked new energy concerns, the U.S. didn’t even participate in the Brazil meeting.

Even though renewable energy use and new installations are soaring globally, outpacing fossil fuel growth, the world continues to increase its fossil fuel use every year with emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide and methane rising to new highs year after. That’s driving atmospheric warming that increases costly and deadly extreme weather, including dangerous heat, around the world.

“The bottom line is that for at least another five years and maybe longer, emissions reduction will in fact be dealt with largely unilaterally,” said Michael Oppenheimer, a Princeton climate and international affairs professor. “If countries see the Israel-U.S.-Iran war as a further reason to head for the exits on fossil fuels by loosening domestic opposition to the necessary policies, that will be accomplished unilaterally at the domestic level.”

A moment of opportunity may be here

Caroline Baxter, director of the Converging Risks Lab at the Council on Strategic Risks in Washington, said there has already been a “dramatic slowdown” in the movement of fossil fuels to various ports due to the conflict. And for countries like Japan or South Korea that depend on tankers arriving in their ports to deliver energy, this is a really big deal, she said.

Baxter said she “wouldn’t be surprised” if some shift to green energy because of the conflict, if only because renewable energy offers more stability than fossil fuels do.

“I think there is an opportunity, rightly or wrongly, for countries to really turn inward and try to power themselves in a way that cuts off their dependence on other nations for that source,” said Baxter, who was U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for force education and training from 2021 to 2024 under the Biden administration.

Baxter said if she’s right and if “everyone does it in their backyard,” it will limit future climate change “without the thorny diplomatic negotiations and the glad-handing and the machinations behind closed doors” of international climate conferences.

The war will lead to more solar panels and heat pumps installed in coming months, said energy analyst Ana Maria Jaller-Makarewicz, of IEEFA Europe.

A reality check from Ukraine: ‘Exactly the wrong lesson’

More skeptical analysts point to the Russian invasion of Ukraine a few years ago, which put a massive kink in Europe’s natural gas supply, yet didn’t change the world’s fossil fuel dependence. Politicians often pivot to other fossil fuels to address war-oriented energy insecurity, such as coal, which releases even higher amounts of heat-trapping gases.

“We have seen this at the European level where actors post-2022 slowly wanted to move away from the energy transition which is exactly the wrong lesson,” said war studies lecturer Pauline Heinrichs at King’s College in the United Kingdom.

Just as Europe did then, many countries, like China and India — already the world’s No. 1 and No. 3 carbon-emitting countries — could turn to more coal use, said Ohio University’s Geoff Dabelko, an expert on climate and conflict, and University of St. Andrews’ Neta Crawford, author of “The Pentagon, Climate Change, and War: Charting the Rise and Fall of U.S. Military Emissions.”

War and militaries pollute the air

Whatever happens with nations’ energy choices, the war itself will spike emissions.

Even before it began, reports showed that the world’s militaries are responsible for 5.5% of Earth’s heat-trapping emissions each year, more than any country except China, the United States and India.

Crawford, co-founder of the Costs of War project at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, said fighter jets consuming vast quantities of fuel, releasing carbon dioxide and other pollutants, is just one example.

“The consequences of war on emissions will far exceed any incremental offset in emissions due to increased enthusiasm for a green transition,” she said.

Borenstein reported from Washington and McDermott from Providence, Rhode Island.

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

WASHINGTON (AP) — As Congress responds to President Donald Trump’s attack on Iran, lawmakers who served on the front lines of Iraq and Afghanistan are making their voices heard in a war debate that has taken on intensely personal meaning.

Many admit mixed feelings, taking satisfaction in seeing vengeance taken on the leadership of an Iranian regime that has targeted U.S. service members for decades, yet fearful that another generation of soldiers could soon face the same combat experiences that they did.

“Do I take gratification? You know there’s the Marine side of me: Yeah, of course,” said Arizona Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego, whose company suffered some of the heaviest losses on the U.S. side during the Iraq War. “I know they killed a lot of American soldiers, American Marines. But do I also understand that I have a responsibility not to let my lust for revenge drive my country into another war?”

Experiences in the post 9/11 wars are also coloring the decisions of the Trump administration, given that top officials, including Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, were once deployed to Iraq.

Gallego, like others on Capitol Hill, leaned heavily on his firsthand experience of fighting in the wars after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks as he assessed the Iran conflict. Lawmakers wore bracelets etched with the names of friends killed in battle, told stories of coming under attack from Iran-backed militant groups and reflected on their own life-changing injuries suffered during combat.

Veteran lawmakers are wary of war

While the initial votes on Iran saw Congress divide mostly along party lines, with Republicans backing Trump’s actions and Democrats warning of an extended conflict, veterans in both parties share deep reservations about entering the conflict.

“As somebody who knows a lot of friends that didn’t come home and a lot of Gold Star families, that’s why the week before the attack, I was actually one of the ones that was talking about caution and why we needed to avoid at all costs getting into another long, drawn-out Middle Eastern war,” said Republican Rep. Eli Crane of Arizona, a former Navy SEAL who left college to enlist the week after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Crane said his concerns were partially assuaged by briefings from the Trump administration that indicated to him the president is not planning a drawn-out war. He voted against a war powers resolution that would have halted attacks on Iran unless Trump got congressional approval.

But Crane said wars are never straightforward. “I’ve been on military operations that did not go to plan many times, and so I understand the nature,” he said, adding that he was calling for the Trump administration to approach the conflict with “humility and caution.”

Gallego and other Democrats worried that it was too late for that approach. They paid tribute to the six U.S. military members who were killed in a drone strike in Kuwait and worried that there could soon be more American casualties.

“War is dirty, and mistakes happen,” Gallego said. The longer the conflict drags on, he added, the more chance there will be for U.S. military members to be killed. He said he saw that in Iraq when friends would be killed by seemingly random shots from enemy combatants.

Still, many Republicans argued that it was necessary to attack Iran to stop a regime that for decades has helped train and arm militant groups throughout the Middle East. Republican Rep. Brian Mast, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, led the debate on the House floor against the war powers resolution.

Mast, who served as an Army bomb disposal expert, now uses prosthetic legs after receiving catastrophic injuries from an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan. “Me especially, many of my other colleagues, no one wants to see our military go into combat or war,” he said.

Then he added, “But Iran’s terror, which has caused the deaths of thousands of Americans, it has to stop.”

Trying to push soldiers to forefront of war debate

Important questions loom for Congress as the conflict with Iran unfolds and spreads to other parts of the Middle East. The price for the operation is already likely running into the billions of dollars, likely forcing the Trump administration to soon seek billions in funding from Congress. The outbreak of war has also scrambled global alliances and the future of U.S. foreign policy.

Shadowing it all is the potential of another drawn-out conflict. Lawmakers said they owe it to their fallen comrades to ensure that doesn’t happen.

“To me, it’s to speak out. It’s to say another generation should not go fight in an open-ended, ill-conceived regime change war in the Middle East,” said Democratic Rep. Pat Ryan, his hand moving to a bracelet etched with the names of friends who were killed during his two Army combat tours in Iraq.

Others remembered how frustrated they became with Washington during their service, especially as soldiers tried to fight with insufficiently armored vehicles and not enough troops.

“I know what it was like to be on the very end of the receiving line of the decisions made in Washington,” said Democratic Rep. Jason Crow, who entered the Army as a private before being promoted to a captain and deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Crow said that front-line soldiers often suffered “because people stopped asking tough questions. People stopped being held accountable. Congress stopped voting on it.”

Another veteran, Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, said that was one of the reasons she sought a congressional seat in the first place. As a Blackhawk helicopter pilot with the Illinois National Guard, Duckworth lost her legs when her helicopter was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade in Iraq.

“I ran for Congress so that when the drums of war started beating once again, I’d be in a position to make sure that our elected officials fully considered the true cost of the war,” she said. “Not just in dollars and cents but in human lives.”

That was October 2023. Hefets, a 60-year-old psychoanalyst who moved from Israel in 2002, was standing by herself because Berlin authorities had barred activist groups from holding pro-Palestinian demonstrations after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel. By carrying a sign alone, she believed she was circumventing the ban on assembly.

But the police said her sign itself was an offense. Since then, Hefets has been detained four more times while protesting Israel’s actions in Gaza, all for the language on her signs. The offenses were logged in police reports as hate speech and included on the surging list of antisemitic incidents in Germany since 2023.

For Hefets, the penalties carry an obvious irony.

“It made me feel like a Jew,” she said. “This is the first time in my life that I really felt what it meant to be a Jew, and in the minority being persecuted.”

Germany has cracked down on speech and demonstrations that assert support for Palestinians and accuse Israel of atrocities, even since Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire in October 2025. Hefets’ detainments were part of a national policy toward antisemitism, defined over decades in the shadow of the Holocaust and sharpened recently under the helm of Felix Klein, the first federal commissioner for combating antisemitism.

Klein announced last month that he will leave his post, which he has held for eight years, this summer to join the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris. He leaves behind a proposal to criminalize chants that could be interpreted as calling for Israel’s destruction, such as “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”

The proposed legislation is currently being reviewed by the Ministry of Justice, and its future may rest in the hands of the next antisemitism commissioner, who has yet to be announced.

Whoever is chosen for the role will face down a fraught debate over Germany’s historic allegiance to Israel and the legal boundaries of pro-Palestinian speech. Many Jews say they feel safer under such bans, including the Central Council of Jews in Germany, which recommended Klein for his appointment as antisemitism czar. Some human rights groups and pundits have objected, however, saying the bans limit free speech and criminalize legitimate expressions of support for the Palestinian cause.

The next commissioner will also have to grapple with Jewish intellectuals, artists and activists like Hefets, who say that Germany’s antisemitism enforcers are suppressing Jewish voices that don’t fall in line.

The first swell of dissent from Jews came soon after Oct. 7. In an open letter published in the German newspaper “Die Tageszeitung” on Oct. 22, 2023, 121 Jewish writers and artists living in Germany condemned Hefets’ arrest and bans on pro-Palestinian demonstrations.

“Virtually all of the cancellations, including those banning gatherings organized by Jewish groups, have been justified by the police in part due to the ‘imminent risk’ of ‘seditious, anti-Semitic exclamations,’” said the letter. “These claims, we believe, serve to suppress legitimate nonviolent political expression that may include criticisms of Israel.”

Emily Dische-Becker, the Germany director of the international group Diaspora Alliance and a Jewish German-American from Berlin, said Klein’s proposal to outlaw slogans like “From the river to the sea” could cement a sacrifice of free speech, ultimately harming Jews and other minorities.

“I do not think that treating antisemitism as a state of exception to our democratic laws and constitutional rights is going to help combat antisemitism,” she said.

For Klein, there is no contradiction in a German officer arresting a Jewish person for antisemitism. “It doesn’t really matter who is the person who spreads antisemitism,” he said in an interview. “Although it sounds odd at first sight, antisemitism can also be spread by Jews.”

Klein also dismissed efforts to distinguish between anti-Zionism and antisemitism.

“In Germany, we hardly ever talk about anti-Zionism. The political notion hardly exists,” he said. “We talk about Israel-related antisemitism. When someone says, ‘I’m only anti-Zionist, I’m not antisemitic,’ I think in most of the cases, anti-Zionism is also a form of antisemitism. They say Israel, but they mean Jews.”

Germany’s grip on speech about Israel is rooted in a decades-old effort to expunge the taint of its Nazi past. During the 1980s and 1990s, the country formalized a process of “Vergangenheitsbewältigung,” or reckoning with the Nazi era through memorials, education and narratives about German identity. Key to this identity — and to Germany’s rehabilitation — was a special responsibility toward Israel.

Former Chancellor Angela Merkel summed up this bond in 2008. Speaking to the Knesset on the 60th anniversary of the founding of Israel, she said Israel’s security was part of Germany’s “Staatsräson,” or the reason for the existence of the state.

Now deeply ingrained in German politics, that concept has become a tool in the prosecution of pro-Palestinian protesters accused of antisemitism. Last year, immigration authorities ordered the deportation of three European nationals and one U.S. citizen over their alleged activity at pro-Palestinian protests. Three of the orders cited “Staatsräson,” although the protesters’ lawyer said the word had no legal standing.

Disputes over Israel recently erupted at the Buchenwald concentration camp memorial, as both Israel’s critics and its defenders claim the Holocaust for their terrain. The anti-Zionist group Kufiyas in Buchenwald announced a demonstration at Buchenwald on April 11, the anniversary of its liberation, in protest against a German court’s decision that the site could refuse entry to visitors who wear a Palestinian keffiyeh.

The court said it was “unquestionable” that wearing a keffiyeh to send a political message “would endanger the sense of security of many Jews, especially at this site.” Meanwhile, the protesters argued that their campaign encompasses the “descendants of Holocaust survivors,” including Buchenwald inmates, and said the site has become a place of “historical revisionism and genocide denial.”

The group also said the memorial had suppressed other voices that criticized Israel, including the Israeli philosopher Omri Boehm, who was slated to give a commemoration speech at Buchenwald last year. Boehm, the grandson of Holocaust survivors and a critic of the Israeli government, was disinvited after pressure from the Israeli embassy in Berlin.

The planned Buchenwald protest was condemned by the European Jewish Congress, and Klein said it marked a “new low point in the unfortunately all-too-common reversal of perpetrator and victim roles.”

Klein’s office, titled in full the “Federal Government Commissioner for Jewish Life in Germany and the Fight against Antisemitism,” was created in 2018. Germany has since produced a web of antisemitism commissioners, with 15 installed at the state level and others assigned to universities and cultural institutions. The only Jewish state czar, Stefan Hensel of Hamburg, resigned at the end of 2025. (Hensel, who cited rising antisemitic threats in his decision to step down, converted to Judaism shortly before he started the job in 2021.)

According to Klein, the chief target of this antisemitism-fighting bureaucracy is clear: the pro-Palestinian movement. “The most common and most dangerous form of antisemitism in Germany, like in other countries, is Israel-related antisemitism,” he said.

Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office records the political origins of antisemitic crimes. In 2024, it said that antisemitism driven by left-wing extremism rose a dramatic 172%, from 40 incidents the previous year to 109. Another category titled “foreign ideology” was reported to spur 1,940 incidents, a 63% increase from 2023.

But by far, right-wing extremism drove the most antisemitic crimes, a total of 3,016. Though that figure fell slightly from 2023, the office said that right-wing extremism also constituted the majority of offenses “in every previous year.”

The publicly available statistics do not break down responsibility for different types of antisemitic incidents, from hate speech to property damage to violence, and how many were reported to have Jewish victims.

Nevertheless, Dische-Becker criticized Klein’s office for “decoupling” its focus from far-right activity. She noted that the nationalist Alternative for Germany party or AfD, which has welcomed neo-Nazis to meetings, is rapidly becoming one of the country’s most popular parties and could win in some state-level elections this year.

Klein has support from the Central Council of Jews in Germany, a representative body whose 100,000 members comprise about half of the total Jews living in Germany. The group has said that “From the river to the sea” means “the annihilation of Israel and the expulsion and destruction of the Jews living there,” adding that Germany has an “urgent duty” to clarify that definition. The Central Council did not respond to requests for comment in time for publication.

Israel is an “existential concern” for many German Jews, according to A. Dirk Moses, a scholar of genocide, memory studies and modern Germany at the City College of New York. The Central Council emphasizes that it views the well-being of Jews in Germany as “dependent on the robustness of the Israeli state,” Moses said.

Even when German Jews do not fully align with the Central Council’s platform, he added, they often weigh language about Israel against the risk of undoing Germany’s progress in confronting the Holocaust.

“It’s the fear that you will give ammunition to antisemites in Germany, who will say, ‘Ah, the Jews are committing genocide too, just like our grandparents did, so we don’t owe them anything,’” he said.

The Central Council of Jews in Germany represents a population of Jewish families who largely arrived as refugees from Soviet countries and rebuilt Jewish life in Germany after the Holocaust. Many came in poverty and depended heavily on community structures, including the Central Council, which is state-funded. Today, Jewish retirees still depend on basic social security at 10 times the rate of the average German, said Dische-Becker.

Many of these Jews also carry the memory of Soviet anti-Zionist campaigns, which employed antisemitic propaganda, shut down Jewish life and targeted Jews as ideologically suspect.

“The communities that are part of this umbrella organization are overwhelmingly older, post-Soviet migrants,” said Dische-Becker. “They have an experience of Soviet anti-Zionism that was antisemitic, and oftentimes they lean very right-wing.”

Johanna Vollhardt, a social psychologist at Clark University affiliated with the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, grew up in Germany’s Reform Jewish movement. She experienced the marginalization of Reform Judaism, which was born in Germany in the early 19th century and destroyed there by World War II, only gaining formal recognition by the Central Council and state funding in the early 2000s.

She viewed the Reform movement as part of a vast, diverse ecosystem of Jewish ideas that was stamped out, and remains stifled by policies like Klein’s proposal.

“To me, it’s important to emphasize this pluralism that was destroyed in the Holocaust and not allowed to rebuild,” said Vollhardt. “This is part of the lack of support for the expression of anti-Zionist Jewish thought, or any other non-Zionist, non-mainstream Jewish thought.”

Over recent decades, younger, richer and more politically liberal Jews have moved to Germany, particularly Berlin. Among them are up to 30,000 Israelis, including some who left Israel out of frustration and anger at their government.

Many of the Jewish artists and intellectuals who came from outside Germany have been caught in the clampdown on alleged anti-Israel or antisemitic expression.

According to data compiled by Diaspora Alliance, Jews were involved in 25% of the performances, exhibits and artistic expressions canceled in 2023 for allegations of antisemitism — despite making up less than 1% of the country’s population. (Palestinian, Muslim and Arab communities were penalized the most.)

Candice Breitz, a Jewish South African artist who has lived in Berlin since 2002, had an exhibition canceled by the Saarland Museum’s Modern Gallery in November 2023. The exhibition centered on sex workers in Cape Town and was unrelated to Israel. Organizers said she had signed a letter from the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement and had not condemned the Oct. 7 attack.

Breitz denied both claims. She said she was not a supporter of BDS, and wrote on Instagram before the museum’s decision, “It is possible to fully condemn Hamas (as I do, unequivocally), while nevertheless supporting the broader Palestinian struggle for freedom from oppression, discrimination and occupation.”

Deborah Feldman, the Brooklyn-born ex-Orthodox Jew and author of the bestselling book “Unorthodox” who moved to Berlin in 2014, said she saw invitations to promote her latest book canceled in 2023. The book, titled “Judenfetisch” or “Jew Fetish,” argued that Germany’s guilt over the Holocaust had distorted its relationship to Jews and Israel.

Other Jewish intellectuals who don’t live in Germany say they have been shunned from coming. The Russian-American writer M. Gessen had a prestigious award from the Heinrich Böll Foundation pulled in December 2023, following an essay in The New Yorker comparing Gaza to a Nazi-era Jewish ghetto (and criticizing Germany’s constraints on pro-Palestinian views). Gessen ultimately received the award after the original ceremony was canceled.

In 2024, Nancy Fraser, a philosophy professor at the New School in New York, was disinvited from a visiting position at the University of Cologne over her signature on a letter titled “Philosophy for Palestine.” The university said that Fraser’s job offer was rescinded because the letter called into question “Israel’s right to exist as an ‘ethno-supremacist state’ since its foundation in 1948.”

Iris Hefets is a founding member of Jüdische Stimme für gerechten Frieden in Nahost (Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East), a pro-Palestinian organization roughly comparable to the anti-Zionist Jewish Voice for Peace in the United States. It is much smaller, with membership in the hundreds, and counts only Jews as members, unlike the U.S. group. But membership surged after Oct. 7, 2023, said Hefets.

In 2024, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution declared Jüdische Stimme an extremist organization. (The same agency designated the AfD as an extremist group in 2025.)

As a result, newer Jewish immigrants have peeled off from Jüdische Stimme. They don’t want to risk being questioned about their role in an extremist organization while applying for citizenship, said Hefets.

She called it “perverse” to see “Jews being accused of antisemitism by Germans who have Nazi grandparents.” Through her detainments, she believes, German officers were signaling that their “Vergangenheitsbewältigung” was complete; they had finished reckoning with the past.

“What Germany is saying now is actually that Germany worked through its past, and now Germany can go back to business as usual,” said Hefets. “‘We were punished by the Allies, but now it’s over, we are good again, because the Jews forgave us.’ And the Jews, for them, that’s Israel.”

For more info, go to JTA.org. 

On March 1, the Anti-Defamation League warned on X that “antisemitic and anti-Zionist groups are framing the U.S.-Israel operation against the Iranian regime as the latest evidence of the so-called ‘Zionist war-machine’s’ efforts to co-opt American foreign policy to advance Israeli and/or Jewish interests.”

The ADL added that “Influencers who regularly traffic in antisemitic or anti-Zionist rhetoric are leveraging the U.S.-Israel operation… to promote longstanding conspiracy theories about Israel, such as blaming Israel for 9/11.”

These accusations are coming from far-right and far-left accounts as well as anti-Israel groups, such as Students for Justice in Palestine, that are inclined to discredit Israel. An SJP Instagram post read: “Imperialism and Zionism are one enemy — the common enemy of the entire region, and indeed, the people of the world.”

Such accusations are building on statements by both Democrats and Republicans that the war serves Israel’s interest more than America’s.

“A war between Israel and Iran may be good for Netanyahu’s domestic politics, but it will likely be disastrous for both the security of Israel, the United States, and the rest of the region,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, in a statement. “We have no obligation to follow Israel into a war we did not ask for and will make us less safe.”

Republican influencer Tucker Carlson, who reportedly met with President Donald Trump three times in the weeks preceding the war, implied in a recent interview with US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee that Trump was threatening to strike Iran at the behest of Israel — a sentiment Huckabee slammed as “offensive.”

The New York Times later reported that in one of his meetings with Trump, Carlson urged Trump to “restrain” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and that Israel’s desire to attack Iran “was the only reason the United States was even considering a strike.”

Pop culture is also picking up on the theme. On the “Weekend Update” segment of “Saturday Night Live,” comedian Michael Che joked that while critics argued Trump lacked authorization for the war on Iran, “he actually did: Netanyahu said it was OK.”

Those accusations have gotten under Israel’s skin. On Feb. 27, Michael Leiter, Israeli Ambassador to the U.S, slammed Carlson as “disgusting” and “antisemitic” for, among other things, suggesting that Israel had maneuvered Trump into the war. “It’s just such nonsense to say that Netanyahu is dragging President Trump. And it’s just bordering on pornography. It’s so disgusting,” Leiter told the New York Post.

“It’s an old antisemitic trope: the Jews are in control,” he continued. “America acts in its own best interest … It’s so insulting. He’s insulting to the president and downright antisemitic to the Jews and Jewish state.”

The echoes of history are striking. In the mid-2000s, controversy erupted around the claim that the “Israel lobby” and neoconservatives — a hawkish wing of the Republican Party seen as pro-Israel and dedicated to using American military might to aggressively spread democratic values —  played a pivotal role in pushing the U.S. into the Iraq war. The charge gained credibility — or at least plausibility — because some of the highest profile neocons were Jewish. They included government officials Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and Elliott Abrams and pundits like William Kristol, Charles Krauthammer and Norman Podhoretz.

The debate reached academic heights in 2007 when political scientists Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer published a paper, which became a book, arguing that pro-Israel voices were “a critical element” in leading the U.S. to war in Iraq. Around the same time, Rep. Jim Moran of Virginia accused the American Israel Public Affairs Committee of having “pushed” the war.

Jewish groups quickly denounced these claims, warning that they risked feeding dangerous stereotypes about Jewish power.

Yet there were key differences between Iraq then and Iran now. Israel did not directly fight as a combatant in the 2003 Iraq War. While the government officially offered its support, especially for the removal of Saddam Hussein, its leadership was wary of the war, fearing it would destabilize the region and put Israel at risk of retaliatory attacks.

Moreover, during the Iraq war, the Jewish community could effectively argue that framing the conflict as a Jewish neocon conspiracy was baseless, even as some neoconservatives influenced policy. Other influential figures in the Bush administration were not Jewish, including Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

And President Bush and his circle articulated a number of reasons why war was in America’s interests – most famously, in order to neutralize Saddam Hussein’s alleged intent to manufacture “weapons of mass destruction.”

America, still reeling from the 9/11 attacks, was also understandably concerned about a repeat. As Bush said in a 2002 speech in Cincinnati, “The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax and nerve gas and nuclear weapons for over a decade. … This is a regime that has already used poison gas to murder thousands of its citizens.” The administration made a compelling case that such concerns, if true, were directly in America’s interest, and Congress voted overwhelmingly in Oct. 2022 to authorize Bush to use military force against Saddam’s regime.

By contrast, Israel and the United States are partners in combat in the current fighting, while reports suggest Israel played a direct advocacy and operational role in the lead-up to the Iran strikes. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu openly indicated that he had urged Trump — who tends not to put decision-making through a team of advisers and policy experts — to act.

“Alone among U.S. presidents that I’ve worked with,” Netanyahu said of Trump, he “took action” against the Iranian regime.

At the same Trump has offered a patchwork of justifications for the war — ranging from preventing an unnamed imminent threat to countering nuclear weapons to supporting Iranian freedom — without presenting a single, compelling case framed entirely around U.S. interests.

Moreover, Secretary of State Marco Rubio inflamed the isolationist wing of the MAGA movement when he suggested that the United States joined the fight because Israel was about to attack Iran (remarks he later walked back).

The close U.S.-Israel coordination has fueled concern among analysts that conspiracy narratives, indistinguishable from traditional antisemitic tropes, could gain traction without a clearly articulated U.S. mission.

New York Times columnist Ezra Klein spoke recently with Ben Rhodes, a former deputy national security advisor in the Obama administration, about the risks. “The centrality of Israel in the operation has raised some concerns for me about what this is going to mean for antisemitism,” Klein, who is Jewish, said on his podcast. “You see the amount of talk… about Israel’s leverage over Donald Trump or that this is all just some kind of Israeli plot.”

Rhodes, whose mother is Jewish, echoed the concern, noting that even absent allegations of manipulation, the perception that the war serves Israeli interests could stoke resentment. “A lot of what we’re doing is removing threats to Israel. If it goes poorly, who is going to get blamed?” he asked.

Israel, for its part, has been vocal in rejecting such narratives. Netanyahu dismissed the claims that he pushed Trump into the war in a Fox News interview, stating: “Donald Trump is the strongest leader in the world. He does what he thinks is right for America.”

Trump has taken a similar approach. Asked on March 3 in the Oval Office if Israel had pushed the U.S. into the strikes, he said, “No, I might have forced their hands,” referring to Israel. The Iranians, he asserted, “were going to attack. If we didn’t do it, they were going to attack first. I felt strongly about that.”

Despite such denials, the narrative is gaining traction in digital media, at a time when Jewish groups are deeply concerned about Carlson’s growing influence on the right, particularly among young voters and several outsider GOP candidates and popular right-wing influencers who have pushed the “Israel First” trope.

Like the anti-Israel left, such groups seemed primed to pin the war on Israel, especially if it goes badly. Between late December 2025 and mid‑January 2026, according to an analysis by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, Iranian state media and allied Western far‑right and conspiracy accounts aggressively amplified claims that Israel was manipulating the United States into striking Iran. ”The accounts circulated antisemitic tropes asserting covert Israeli influence over American military action,” the ISD found.

The debate over the Iran operation illustrates a recurring challenge: distinguishing legitimate criticism of Israeli policy or U.S. foreign policy from conspiracy theories that echo age-old antisemitic stereotypes. It also comes with a twist unseen during the Iraq war: Global bad actors who exploit social media platforms as tools of digital warfare, using a combination of bots, spoof accounts and coordinated networks to amplify divisive narratives, spread misinformation and stoke political or social discord.

In both the Iraq war and the current Iran conflict, mainstream Jewish groups tended to support the war. In the case of Iraq, polling among Jews suggested that a majority came to oppose the war even as Jewish leaders continued to voice support. It’s too early to know where the Jewish public is on this current war.

For some Jews, no matter what they feel about the war, the unease is palpable: The historic pattern of blaming Jews or Israel for American military action is resurfacing, this time against the backdrop of a real war involving Israel at its very center, and a social media landscape where hate spreads faster than facts.

For more info, go to JTA.org. 

NEW YORK (AP) — Uber launched a feature Monday to allow both women riders and drivers across the U.S. to be matched with other women for trips, expanding a pilot program aimed at addressing concerns about the safety of its riding-hailing platform.

The new feature is being rolled out nationwide despite an ongoing class action lawsuit against the policy in California, filed by Uber drivers who argue that it is discriminatory against men. Rival ride-hailing company Lyft is also facing a discrimination lawsuit over a similar offering that it introduced nationwide in 2024.

The feature, announced in a blog post, allows women to request a female driver through an option on the app called “Women Drivers.” Passengers can opt for another ride if the wait for a woman is too long, and they can also reserve a trip with a woman driver in advance. A third option allows female users to set a preference for a woman driver in their app settings, which would increase the chances of being matched with a female driver, though it would not guarantee it. Uber is also allowing its teen account users to request women drivers.

Uber’s women drivers can set the app’s preferences to request trips with female riders, and they can turn off that preference at anytime.

Uber, based in San Francisco, says about one-fifth of its drivers in the U.S. are women, thought the ratio varies by city.

Two California Uber drivers filed a class-action lawsuit against Uber in November, arguing that its Women Preferences feature violates California’s Unruh Act, which prohibits sex discrimination by business enterprises. The lawsuit charges that the feature gives its minority female drivers access to the entire pool of passengers, while leaving its majority male drivers to compete for a smaller pool of passengers. The lawsuit also argues that Uber’s policy “reinforces the gender stereotype that men are more dangerous than women.”

Uber filed a motion to compel arbitration in the case, citing an agreement the plaintiffs signed when joining the app as drivers. In the motion, Uber disputed that its new feature violates the Unruh Act, saying it “serves a strong and recognized public policy interest in enhancing safety.”

“This feature is a common sense solution to a long-standing request from both women Drivers and Riders who told Uber they would feel more comfortable and safer if they could choose to ride with another woman,” the company said in the court filing.

Two Lyft drivers have filed a similar lawsuit against that company against its “Women+Connect” feature, which allows women and nonbinary riders to match with drivers of the same identification.

Uber piloted the “Women Preferences” feature in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Detroit last summer and expanded it to 26 U.S. cities in November. The company first launched a version of the feature in Saudi Arabia in 2019 following the country’s landmark law granting women the right to drive. It now offers similar options in 40 other countries, including Canada and Mexico.

Both Uber and Lyft have for years faced criticism over their safety records, including thousands of reports of sexual assaults from both passengers and drivers. In February, federal jury found Uber to be legally responsible in a 2023 case of sexual assault and the company was ordered to pay $8.5 million to an Arizona woman who said she was raped by one of its drivers.

Uber maintains that because its drivers are contractors and not employees, it’s not liable for their misconduct. But Uber says has taken multiple steps in efforts to improve safety, including teaming up with Lyft in 2021 to create a database of drivers ousted from their ride-hailing services for complaints over sexual assault and other crimes.

Uber says sexual assault reports have decreased over the years. According to reports from Uber, 5,981 incidents of sexual assault were reported in U.S. rides between 2017 and 2018 — compared to 2,717 between 2021 and 2022 (the latest years with data available), which the platform says represented 0.0001% of total trips nationwide.

The Associated Press’ women in the workforce and state government coverage receives financial support from Pivotal Ventures. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

Anthropic is suing the Trump administration, asking federal courts to reverse the Pentagon’s decision designating the artificial intelligence company a “ supply chain risk ” over its refusal to allow unrestricted military use of its technology.

Anthropic filed two separate lawsuits Monday, one in California federal court and another in the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., each challenging different aspects of the Pentagon’s actions against the company.

The Pentagon last week formally designated the San Francisco tech company a supply chain risk after an unusually public dispute over how its AI chatbot Claude could be used in warfare.

“These actions are unprecedented and unlawful,” Anthropic’s lawsuit says. “The Constitution does not allow the government to wield its enormous power to punish a company for its protected speech. No federal statute authorizes the actions taken here. Anthropic turns to the judiciary as a last resort to vindicate its rights and halt the Executive’s unlawful campaign of retaliation.”

The Defense Department declined to comment Monday, citing a policy of not commenting on matters in litigation.

Anthropic said it sought to restrict its technology from being used for two high-level usages: mass surveillance of Americans and fully autonomous weapons. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other officials publicly insisted the company must accept “all lawful uses” of Claude and threatened punishment if Anthropic did not comply.

Designating the company a supply chain risk cuts off Anthropic’s defense work using an authority that was designed to prevent foreign adversaries from harming national security systems. It was the first time the federal government is known to have used the designation against a U.S. company.

President Donald Trump also said he would order federal agencies to stop using Claude, though he gave the Pentagon six months to phase out a product that’s deeply embedded in classified military systems, including those used in the Iran war.

Anthropic’s lawsuit also names other federal agencies, including the departments of Treasury and State, after officials ordered employees to stop using Anthropic’s services.

Even as it fights the Pentagon’s actions, Anthropic has sought to convince businesses and other government agencies that the Trump administration’s penalty is a narrow one that only affects military contractors when they are using Claude in work for the Department of Defense.

Making that distinction clear is crucial for the privately held Anthropic because most of its projected $14 billion in revenue this year comes from businesses and government agencies that are using Claude for computer coding and other tasks. More than 500 customers are paying Anthropic at least $1 million annually for Claude, according to a recent investment announcement valued the company at $380 billion.

Anthropic said in a statement Monday that “seeking judicial review does not change our longstanding commitment to harnessing AI to protect our national security, but this is a necessary step to protect our business, our customers, and our partners.”