The protocols Iran implemented regarding authorized passage through the Straight of Hormus were being violated. Iran took deterrant measures to respond to these violations. America used that as justification to restart the attacks on Iran.

Ansar Allah, the Yemeni resistance group also known as Houthis, entered the fray July 13 when they launched missiles into Saudi Arabia in response to the Saudi bombing of a Sanaa International airport runway, forcing a plane carrying Houthi and Iranian officials returning from the funeral of Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to divert to another airport.

Houthi forces called for an embargo on Saudi ships, effectively blocking them from using the Bab al- Mandeb Strait to put their oil on the high seas. The Saudis had diverted their ship traffic to the Bab al-Mandeb Strait from the Strait of Hormuz that had been closed by Iranian forces.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates between 12-15% of global maritime trade passes through the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, the India Times reported. Meanwhile, the Strait of Hormuz sees about 20% of global oil consumption pass through the strait.

Both waterways are vital to the global economy.

The Strait of Hormuz has been shuttered to most ship traffic by Iran as a result of the breakdown of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) agreed to by the U.S. and Iran to start a process for peace talks.

At Final Call press time, Saudi Arabia had launched more strikes on Hodeidah, a city held by Ansar Allah resistance fighters, according to media reports.

President Trump, in an ever-increasing effort to find a way out of the war, has warned Iran to return to the negotiating table or face a hail of missiles.

Activist Muhammad Sankari of the U.S. Palestinian Community Network sees the only peaceful way out of the war with Iran is America withdrawing forces from the Gulf. Mr. Trump has instead decided to escalate attacks because he can’t admit to defeat, he said. The Memorandum of Understanding was an admission of defeat, he said.

“The only options in front of him are escalation or capitulation. For Trump, I think capitulation is political suicide,” Mr. Sankara told The Final Call. “He can’t say this was a useless war of choice,” so escalation is his only option, and escalation brings an escalated response, he said.

The MoU, which President Trump violated several times prior to the latest escalation, was viewed positively by the American public. On July 20, the president posted a Big Data poll on his Truth Social site to demonstrate the popularity of his actions and to promote a “Trust In Trump” narrative.

The poll was published on June 29, prior to the latest unpopular escalation of hostilities. The American public has consistently opposed the U.S.-Israel unprovoked war on Iran and the president’s disapproval rating has consistently hovered around 60%.

Media reports increasingly reveal costly destruction to U.S. military bases in the Gulf region as a result of Iranian attacks. The war also cost 17 service members’ lives and hundreds of injuries.

The New York Times and the Intercept have reported that hundreds of casualties have not been reported by the administration has drawn outrage from Republicans and Democrats in Congress.

“American servicemen and women are dying, and gas and fertilizer prices are soaring. It’s time to end this war,” Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican opponent of the war, wrote on X on July 23, following the passing of a non-binding War Powers Resolution vote to end the war.

Ohio Republican Warren Davidson, a former U.S. Army Ranger, has posted that the Constitution “gives Congress the solemn responsibility to authorize military action.”

“When American service members are put in harm’s way, Congress should debate the mission, define the objective, and ensure our servicemembers know that their elected representatives have their back.” President Trump consistently has sidestepped Congress in pursuit of the war.

The damage to military bases has sparked conversations about moving U.S. facilities in the region to Israel. A broader and more controversial discussion has started about a joint U.S.-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation bill in Congress.

The relocation conversation started after extensive damage by Iran to at least 20 U.S. sites in the Middle East, the Jerusalem Post reported, with an estimated $400 million required to rebuild the Naval Support Activity (NSA) base in Bahrain.

The U.S. is also considering moving command centers underground, according to the Times of Israel.

Opposition to joint operations

The controversial U.S.-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative is more concerning on Capitol Hill. The proposal, Section 219 of the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), calls for expanding the two nations’ defense cooperation in research and development, weapons production, supply chain integration and long-term planning.

Some opponents of Section 219, initially introduced as Section 224, suggest that it was Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that persuaded Mr. Trump to launch the joint attack on Iran. They also argue it would damage U.S. sovereignty and make it harder to measure than direct military aid, arms sales or appropriations that Congress votes on separately.

“Codifying the integration of our military technology and supply chains with those of any other country is dangerous,” said Rep. Massie on theintercept.com. “Enshrining this broad agreement and the permanent position it creates in legislation removes the flexibility of future presidents to withdraw from such an arrangement.”

Morgan State political science professor Wilmer Leon questioned if “saner minds” in the administration would “want to be beholden to the wishes of Mossad,” the Israeli intelligence agency.

“If the United States were to tie itself to the Israeli military and Israeli intelligence to that degree, we move from being allies to being operatives, and I don’t think they’re willing to do that.”

In early June, military.com reported that the Pentagon had raised the “Israeli spy threat” to “critical,” its highest level.

The threat level was raised because “U.S. officials reportedly believe Israeli intelligence services have intensified efforts to collect information regarding internal American deliberations involving Iran and conflicts in the Middle East,” military.com reported.

The White House and Israel have denied the allegations described in those reports.

A letter from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Rep. Marlin Strutzman (R-IN) expressing appreciation for endorsing “my plan” to shift defense cooperation “from aid to partnership” suggests Israeli policy objectives, military.com reported.

Prof. Leon said many of President Trump’s foreign policy mistakes can also be attributed to his emasculation of the diplomatic corp.

“Donald Trump doesn’t have any diplomats. He’s decimated the State Department,” he said. “Steve Witkoff isn’t a diplomat. He’s a mediocre businessman. Jared Kushner isn’t a diplomat. He’s a mediocre businessman.

The Secretary of State (Marco Rubio) isn’t a diplomat. They are … ideologues that only know militarism,” he said, referring to Mr. Trump’s special envoy, son-in-law and secretary of state, respectively.

Mr. Sankari said the “fundamental strategic misunderstanding” by the Trump administration was that Iranians would “just roll over and accept subservience.”

“The Iranians view this as the survival of their revolution and sovereignty. No nation wants to be subservient to a colonizer. That was Trump’s fundamental misunderstanding of the Iranian people. So now, the United States and the West are stuck,” he said.

The post An American Quagmire? What will U.S.-Israel war on Iran cost in dollars and lives? appeared first on Final Call News.

The autopsy was commissioned by Atty. Crump and his team, who represent Nolan’s family. The independent autopsy was performed on July 10, and the report was completed on July 19. Atty. Crump announced the results at the close of the NAACP national convention in Chicago.

The inconclusive results have raised even more questions in a case that has gained national attention, particularly among Black people.

“Although they were unable to determine the cause of death and could not establish the date of death, that does not establish that a crime didn’t occur,” Houston-based defense attorney Sadiyah Karriem said to The Final Call.

“As an attorney, I view this case through the lens of evidence, not speculation. The autopsy is one piece of the puzzle. Investigators must now continue examining the medical findings together with witness statements, digital evidence, cellphone records, forensic testing and the complete timeline of Nolan’s final hours,” she said.

Dr. Roger A. Mitchell Jr., a board-certified forensic pathologist based in Washington, D.C., and president of the National Medical Association, the oldest and largest organization of Black physicians in the U.S., found red discoloration in the soft tissue at the back of Nolan’s head.

The cause of the discoloration is unknown at this time, and Dr. Mitchell noted that further investigation was needed. The examination reportedly found no fractures or severe deep-tissue injuries.

By the time Nolan’s body arrived for Dr. Mitchell’s examination, after an initial autopsy by the Mississippi State Medical Examiner’s Office, it had begun decomposing. Results from the first autopsy have not been released.

Dr. Mitchell reported that Nolan’s throat and internal neck structures had not been received with his body. He believed the original pathologist may have retained them for additional evaluation, which is a common forensic pathology practice.

“He said he would need to have the medical examiner in Mississippi allow him to review the throat. That’s why he said his autopsy is undetermined, pending investigation,” Atty. Crump said.

Nolan, 18, traveled from his hometown of Ocean Springs, Miss., to Horn Island with friends. He was pictured on a boat with three young White men, who returned to the mainland without him, as reported previously by The Final Call.

His phone and keys were returned to the mainland with the group. Details are still murky about what happened to the teen, and his family and friends have reported that Nolan knew how to swim.

In his preliminary opinion, Dr. Mitchell identified several limitations during the second autopsy that created barriers to establishing a definitive cause and manner of death: he did not see the body when it was first recovered; decomposition can obscure the presence or absence of bruises on the skin and he was unable to directly examine the airway and lungs for water and the stomach for gastric contents.

“We have heard from our call center people saying the body wasn’t waterlogged. Well, we need to know those things, but unfortunately, because the body was decomposed and the organs have already been dissected, those are things we can only get from the initial autopsy,” Atty. Crump said.

“We are hopeful that the Mississippi medical examiner would give Dr. Mitchell an opportunity to see their photographs and their observations to the condition of Nolan Wells’ body closer in time to July 4. That is very important, and we have to continue to demand transparency.”

Toxicology results from the initial autopsy are still pending. According to Atty. Crump, Dr. Mitchell could not rule out foul play.

Dr. Mitchell concluded his report with the following questions: What were the circumstances that led to Nolan entering the water? What was the body’s position when it was found? Was there water in the airway?

Is there any evidence of injuries to the internal neck structures? Is there evidence of intracranial hemorrhage (bleeding within the skull)? What was the composition of the stomach contents? What are the toxicology report findings?

“This is only another part of the puzzle, and even though it tells us significant information, we still have more questions than we have answers at this time,” Atty. Crump said.

He shared that there have been conflicting stories. Questions still surround videos documenting a dispute on the island, GPS tracking of the boat Nolan traveled on, and a recent statement from the United Cajun Navy that Nolan was found face down and fully clothed.

The deaths of Black youth under suspicious and questionable circumstances have become a familiar tale for Black people in America. During the July 22 press conference, Atty.

Crump invoked the names of young Black people whose deaths prompted calls for full investigations and greater transparency and accountability: Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Botham Jean, Stephon Clark, Sandra Bland, Atatiana Jefferson, Alton Sterling, Tamir Rice.

He shared that Nolan’s case has brought attention to the tragic deaths of two other young Black men. Daniel Erving, 18, was reported missing on April 13 after he was last seen with two friends near a lake in a Dallas, Texas, suburb. His body was recovered on April 17.

“It is alleged that he ended up accidentally drowning, but his two White friends got his cellphone and threw it away, got his clothes and threw it away, and then went and deleted all of their text messages with him and social media. Sounds familiar?”

Atty. Crump said, “They’ve only been charged with tampering with evidence, and his mother is crying out that they should be charged with murder because if they will lie about his cellphone and his clothes and deleted messages, then they will lie about what really happened to Daniel Erving.”

Tyler Smith, 18, attended a gathering in Lexington, Kentucky. He died from a gunshot wound in the early morning hours of July 4. “He was the only Black person at the house. He somehow ends up shot in the head, dead. Some of the friends got rid of the gun.

The police show up. They tell the police it was an accident; it was an accidental shooting, that they were playing Russian roulette. … The police just took their word for it,” Atty. Crump said.

“Can you imagine in any three of these scenarios had the survivors been young Black men and they were with a young White man and he ended up dead, what kind of investigation would there have been? What kind of interrogation would there have been? Would they have ever been able to see the light of day until those questions were answered?” the attorney questioned.

The Jackson County Sheriff’s Office is leading the investigation into Nolan’s death. The case will be presented to a grand jury after the investigation is complete. Atty. Crump said Dr. Mitchell should be included for the grand jury presentation. Atty. Crump and his team are also conducting an independent investigation.

Rev. Al Sharpton, actor and filmmaker Tyler Perry and former NFL player Terrell Owens are offering a combined $125,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction.

Nolan was laid to rest on July 20. He was remembered for his calm, gentle spirit.

“To lose that light at such a young age, under these circumstances, has been absolutely difficult,” Nolan’s mother, Christine Wonsley, said at the news conference. “The only question that we have is: What happened to our son?”

—Anisah Muhammad, Staff Writer

The post ‘Foul play’ not ruled out in Nolan Wells’ independent autopsy appeared first on Final Call News.

“Marriage is a key institution if we are going to build a strong family. If we are not concerned about family, then we are not concerned about our people and our Nation.  If we have a weak family, we have a weak Nation. If we have a strong family, we have the potential for a strong Nation.

Strong family is only built upon a strong relationship between the male and female, called husband and wife,” Minister Farrakhan explained in his message, “How To Give Birth To A God,” part 5, delivered August 9, 1987.

In the ongoing effort to develop and cultivate family and community, Muhammad Mosque No. 28 hosted its first Black Family Week in St. Louis, July 11-19. The week kicked off  July 11, with Student Minister Ishmael Muhammad.

National Assistant to the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, who delivered remarks at the HBCU campus of Harris-Stowe State University, and events concluded July 19, with Student Minister Nuri Muhammad of Mosque No. 74 in Indianapolis.  

According to Student Minister Donald Muhammad of  Mosque No. 28, Black Family Week served as a launching pad for future activities designed to help strengthen the Black community.

Participants and attendees listened intently to messages addressing the foundational crisis facing Black America.

Student Min. Ishmael laid the foundation for the week by delving deep into the importance of family and marriage. He connected the deterioration of Black family structures to a broader crisis of lack of knowledge of self. “What was originated and instituted by God must be respected accordingly.

If we don’t give due respect to that which is of God, we offend Him and from this offense a series of offenses take place,” he said, lifting words from the Honorable Minister Farrakhan. “Therefore, we must look again at what God intended when He instituted marriage among the original parents of the human family,” he continued.

Student Min. Ishmael presented some very sobering statistics and information. “With everything that we have suffered and what is going on now in the Black community, there is a plan of genocide.

Look at these statistics: 47% of Black mothers are raising children as single mothers, compared to 25%  of  Hispanics and 14% of White mothers. Approximately 63-64% of all Black children live in single-parent households,” he said.

These numbers reveal a crisis unique to Black America, rooted in a fundamental disconnection from knowledge of self and collective purpose.  Student Min. Ishmael emphasized that correcting family problems must begin with marriage and knowledge.

“We don’t know the nature of the female.  We  don’t see the woman from the perspective of (Allah) God. We have become our worst enemy toward our women and ourselves. 

The enemy has made us into himself because we kept feeding from his mind and refused to take the mind that God offered us.   If  we would have adopted that mind, we wouldn’t be in the condition we are in today,” he told the audience.

The 1965 Moynihan Report (officially titled, “The Negro Family: The Case For National Action”), written by Assistant Secretary of Labor Daniel Patrick Moynihan, examined the link between Black poverty and family structure. At that time, the out-of-wedlock birth rate among Black people was 25%. By 1981, that figure had risen to 68%.

Student Min. Ishmael traced this destruction directly to U.S. government interference. “You have to understand that we have been dealing with an enemy from the highest places of government,” he explained.

“When the government of the United States, through its COINTELPRO programs, infiltrated Black organizations during the 60s, they determined that Black folks should not unite.” he explained.

“By the time the 1980s came, crack cocaine flooded our neighborhoods. We didn’t invite these drugs in; we don’t own the weapons. Drugs came into the community, breaking up families. The incarceration rate quadrupled, and now we are fighting each other. But we are not beyond repair and the reach of God.”

More than an event

Student Minister Donald Muhammad shared the broader purpose of the week-long gathering. “Black Family Week is more than an event; it is a call to rebuild our homes, strengthen our communities, and reconnect our people to God, to one another, and to our divine purpose. When we strengthen the Black family, we strengthen the future of our nation.”

Brother Malik Ahmed is co-founder of Better Family Life. He shared with The Final Call the idea and origin of Black Family Week. “When I grew up in New York, the Muslim community kept their feet and ears to the ground. We must reproduce that energy.

I remembered in 1974 when the Honorable Minister Farrakhan organized a Black Family Day on Randall’s Island. There were over 72,000 people there, and the traffic was so bad that Brother Akbar Muhammad, may Allah be pleased with him, went and had them fly Minister Farrakhan in by helicopter,” he shared.

“A few weeks later it became Harlem Week, which brought out two million people over a three-week period. So, when I came to St. Louis in 1982, I said I’m going to do a Black Family Week. From 1984 to 2018, Better Family Life presented Black Family Week every year.

Today, Muhammad Mosque No. 28 and Better Family Life have merged this idea, which means we all possess Black Family Week as something we will do together.  So, we all can have a better family life.”

Brother Talibdin El-Amin, publisher of the St. Louis Argus newspaper, emphasized the importance and need for such a gathering. “The Black Family Week is essential in forming a foundation for success in the family and ultimately the community as a whole.

Much of the impact of social and economic dysfunction and disparities could be mitigated with a strong family foundation. Black Family Week is one key in helping to answer the call the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan put forth to make our communities a safe and decent place to live.”

Participants and attendees responded with deep appreciation. Zachary Harrell from Imperial, Missouri, said, “This was a powerful message and a great reflection of the Life-Giving Teachings. This message can wake us up to the world we are living in and to know how to follow God’s path.”

Nathaniel Jackson agreed. “The impact of this message on our community is about showing love to one another and working together.” Jeremiah McCall Jr., age 21, told The Final Call, “Student Minister Ishmael emphasized the importance of self-improvement, and if one of us works on ourselves, it will affect our community as a whole.”

The week of events concluded on July 19, at Harris-Stowe State University again with Student Minister Nuri Muhammad, who delivered a powerful message centered on unity, love for self, and collective responsibility to build safe and decent communities, as taught by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan.

“The power of our community is the Black family,” said Student Min. Nuri. “Words have power and will become flesh. They can create a reality, and Allah (God) used words to bring things into existence,” he said. “Like when we call each other brother and sister, those words make you feel like family.

You become the uncles and aunts to the children and when they are acting up or getting out of line, the uncle and aunt can correct them. When we speak the same language of accountability and love, we create the conditions for safe communities. It takes a village to raise a child, so find someone to speak positive words to our children.”

Like Student Min. Ishmael, he also emphasized to attendees that the condition of Black communities is directly tied to the unity of Black people. “If we don’t come together as a people, we cannot build the safe and decent communities our families deserve.”

Love, unity, community

For people who attended Black Family Week events, the messages resonated. Kevin Cahill-Bey was impacted by the message of unity. “This message of love and unity has the impact of being contagious for the good of our community. It’s something that we need … .”

Ryan Sutherland shared, “One specific thing that really stuck with me was learning how to love a woman and being able to keep the family together and how important it is. Also, the reciprocation of it, and the woman learning to respect a man. I took plenty of notes.”

Tera Roberts was moved to tears. “Brother Nuri always brings the information about how to look at self first and then be able to bring that out into the community, which is a very good need right now for our community,” she said. Ms. Roberts also said that the information shared should be shared with families, friends and especially young people.

James Trust said he initially came to hand out pamphlets but ended up staying to hear more. “Man, he put a lot on my heart. Just how to respect the woman and the family unit, the whole family dynamic in general, and how it affects our neighborhood and our community as a whole. So, it was very powerful. It really impacted me.”

Yaphett El-Amin agreed, stating that the message was powerfully moving, motivating and uplifting. “He motivated me to expand my thinking and activate my thinking, particularly from the standpoint of doing more to spend with our own selves. You always know it, but putting it into action (is important).”

Alex Watkins was also inspired. “People need to realize the family has been destroyed systematically. If we are going to be smart people, we have to systematically bring the family back. Two things happened after segregation. We lost church and we lost school. We’ve got to bring ourselves back to that.”

Latricia Davis, a first-time guest, said, “His message was very positive, uplifting, and reassured me that we do need this type of training and learning within our community, for sure.”

Rev. Duane D. Burch summed up the week and the needed presence of Black men working together with Black women to better and strengthen the bond between the two and the Black community.

“Too often the portrayal of the Black man and Black woman in the media, or the way we represent ourselves in public, or the depravity of our education, or the lyrics in our music, or the disproportionate incarceration (or killing) of our Black brothers and sisters create a stereotypical perception of our race,” he said.

“Black Family Week, however, reinforces the true fiber and fabric of what the family looks like. This week also encourages both men and women to wear their respective roles of responsibility and to take pride in who God has made them and the purpose for which we are all here.

We were reminded to love and respect one another. There are times when a refresher course or an encouraging word is needed to keep the fire lit. Just that nudge may be all you need to be the Black man that your family, our youth, and our community need you to be.”

Black Family Week in St. Louis stands as a testament to the commitment of the Nation of Islam and the broader Black community to strengthen the foundation of family, marriage and community unity.

As the community moves forward, the impact of this week will hopefully continue to resonate, inspiring families to rebuild, reconnect, and reclaim their rightful place as architects of thriving, safe and dignified communities.

The post Love of self, marriage, family and community Black Family Week convenes in St. Louis appeared first on Final Call News.

The report, “Regressive Policing Under President Trump,” released June 30, updates the ACLU’s Seven States Safety Campaign, tracking municipal police and county sheriff’s departments in Tennessee, Massachusetts, New York, Arizona, Mississippi, Minnesota and Kentucky—states where earlier civil rights investigations by the Department of Justice (DOJ) had already found patterns of police abuse.

Last May, the ACLU and local partners filed coordinated public records requests across the seven states for use-of-force reports and related documents. The ACLU received more than 600 records, though many agencies delayed or withheld documents required under state law.

In a statement, Dr. Jenn Rolnick Borchetta, deputy director of policing at the ACLU’s Criminal Law Reform Project, said their “preliminary review of these records suggests that many of the same problems identified by the DOJ persisted at the exact moment the federal government was using those claims to justify walking away.”

Since then, she added, the Trump administration “has been actively encouraging the same types of aggressive policing tactics that the DOJ has found to be dangerous and unconstitutional.

If the federal government refuses to protect people’s constitutional rights, we deserve transparency about whether the known police misconduct in our communities is being taken seriously.”

ACLU’s preliminary review found excessive force remains a problem—including improper escalation against people in mental health crises, misuse of Tasers, and internal reviews that may fail to catch improper force—and that racial discrimination identified in the DOJ investigations has persisted.

The report cites specific cases in each jurisdiction that it says mirror the misconduct the DOJ originally documented:

In Louisville, the ACLU says an officer punched a handcuffed man twice in the face after he spit at him—the kind of disproportionate retaliatory force DOJ had flagged earlier.

In Minneapolis, the report described an officer who pinned a woman’s neck with a knee for roughly five minutes during a low-level call instead of de-escalating, and another who used a Taser twice on a man holding grilling tongs, continuing after he’d already been stunned once and dropped the object.

In Rankin County, Mississippi, the report says deputies used a Taser on a restrained, unarmed man in the county jail after he refused to make his bed—and that a supervisory review found “no issue” with using a Taser on an unarmed detainee who didn’t exit a cell opening on command.

In Mount Vernon, New York, state arrest data and the ACLU’s review both show Black residents disproportionately affected, and that most people who had a weapon or Taser drawn on them weren’t armed.

The DOJ had found Mount Vernon, strip-searched nearly everyone arrested, including two women, ages 65 and 75, over a suspected drug transaction that turned up no contraband. The ACLU’s request for strip-search logs since 2023 came back nearly blank.

In Worcester, Massachusetts, the report says the department’s public policies still contain no guidance on preventing or disciplining officer sexual misconduct, despite a 2025 pledge to address the DOJ’s findings.

The city also withheld use-of-force records citing a Massachusetts domestic-violence privacy statute the ACLU says has been applied more broadly than similar laws elsewhere.

In Memphis, which declined to enter a consent decree, the city formed a voluntary reform task force that the report says has since gone quiet. The city denied the ACLU’s records request outright, on invalid legal grounds, and did not comply until the ACLU and Stand for Children Tennessee sued in February.

The report also cites that a federal task force deployed to Memphis after the DOJ withdrew its findings has engaged in racially biased, aggressive traffic stops in majority-Black neighborhoods (ProPublica, Nov. 3, 2025).

“In Memphis, we’ve seen firsthand what happens when there are questions about police conduct but not enough transparency and accountability to answer them,” said Cardell Orrin, executive director of Stand for Children Tennessee.

“At a time when increased state and federal law enforcement activity is raising new concerns about people’s rights and safety, public access to local police records is more important than ever,” Mr. Orrin said.

“People deserve to know whether the misconduct identified by the DOJ is continuing and whether law enforcement agencies are taking meaningful steps to change their practices and protect the rights of the communities they serve,” he added.

Reneé Hall, president of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE) and former chief of the Dallas Police Department, said the report highlights a regression from the racial reckoning the country underwent in 2020,

When departments nationwide embraced the idea that change was needed, building on 21st-century policing reforms under President Barack Obama. “And that was kind of the foundation that reform was based out of,” Ms. Hall said.

She said that after killing of George Floyd in 2020, police departments “all over the world, almost,” discussed the need for change and what it meant for officers and communities. “What we see today is actually the total opposite of that. Not by all police agencies,” she said.

“The report highlights the unchecked and unfettered ability for those individuals from the federal government to operate in a manner that is disruptive and antithetical to what we put in place for many years around police reform.

It’s actually being rolled back and we’re seeing that in their tactics and in the investigative process,” she said. She added that she hopes Homeland Security’s current leadership holds officers accountable and runs investigations more properly and with dignity.

Ms. Hall, who also served as deputy chief of the Detroit Police Department, traced the patterns in the report back further, to the beginning of policing, created out of slave patrols, then matriculating through the Jim Crow, the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s, permeating from its inception. 

“There are challenges each and every day.  There’s a culture of law enforcement that does not just go away because you say that you’re going to do something different,” she told The Final Call.

Asked how she weighed the DOJ’s claim that the problems were already fixed against her own decades in the field, Ms. Hall replied, “I would say that statement is disingenuous.”

She also argued that use-of-force numbers alone don’t tell the full story. “I respect that we have numbers on a page and a paper, but I think it has to go a tad bit further,” she said.

Departments should be asked what they did after an incident, she said, pointing to Memphis, where the police chief handled a fatal use-of-force incident “textbook” and “better than most people have ever handled any of these tragic incidents,” yet still gets backlash.

Hall argued that critics focus on the officers involved without examining what the chief did afterward—the training and accountability she required to prevent it happening again. “I think there has to be a little bit of follow up,” she said.

Ms. Hall said meaningful accountability requires layered systems—body cameras, early-warning systems tracking whether an officer is “a habitual offender of use of force,” and follow-up on what action results.

She said community oversight builds trust but stopped short of endorsing civilian boards with disciplinary power, saying agencies discipline more strictly than the oversight boards she’s observed.

Hamid Khan, an organizer with the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, placed the ACLU’s findings in a longer history of oversight failures in Los Angeles, citing the Los Angeles Police Commission and independent investigations launched after the Watts uprising and the Rodney King beating. “Every time it’s been such an expose of these oversights,and the failures,” he said.

In his illuminating book, “A Torchlight for America,” written in 1993, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, addressed the problems with policing in the U.S.

“Our 14-year-olds and 18-year-olds are killed in police stations and the police offer lies to explain their deaths, such as they hanged themselves with their own shoestrings and other such foolishness.

All too often, the Justice Department of the U.S. government is weak in pursuing the truth about what the Black community believes are wrongful deaths at the hands of law enforcement,” Minister Farrakhan wrote

“They fear our youth. They fear the gangs because prior to the gangs, the police were the only gang in town. Often, the police are running or compromising with the dope business, the prostitution business and the criminal element in the society.

Many officials do not desire to see young Blacks organized, fearing that they may join together and one day do unto law enforcement what the law enforcement officers have been doing unto us.

This is not to say that all police are corrupt. But when we see so many incidences of police corruption, such as the Rodney King case and others, then the entire law enforcement system loses our trust,” Minister Farrakhan continued.

Mr. Khan pointed to a federal consent decree imposed on the LAPD after the Rampart scandal (1998-2000), which he said required dash cameras in patrol cars as a reform measure. “We found out that out of the 300 patrol cars that they installed dash cams, the cops broke antennas on 95 of them, all in the South Bureau,” he said.

According to Britannica.com, in the scandal, “more than 70 officers were implicated in misconduct, including unprovoked beatings and shootings, planting and covering up evidence, stealing and dealing drugs, and perjury.”

Mr. Khan argued that reform proposals, while worth documenting, don’t reach the core issue. “It is the intent to cause harm. And that’s what the police have been doing, because that’s exactly what their function has been,” he said, also tracing modern policing back to slave patrols enforcing property law.

“So, policing in this country is more of a counterinsurgency operation than anything else. And it is by design—it is intentionally done,” Mr. Khan told The Final Call.

His organizing work, he said, aims at ending rather than reforming the current model of policing, since oversight bodies have repeatedly failed and new investigations tend to follow, not prevent, high-profile incidents.

Chief Hall also reflected on the Black community’s relationship with law enforcement, saying many people shy away because of its history.

She referenced a sentiment that surfaced in 2020, when Black officers faced suggestions, they were “not Black enough” for serving in law enforcement, and argued that change has to come from within the profession as much as from outside pressure.

“If we could change it from the outside, it would already be changed,” said Ms. Hall.

The essence of reports such as these demonstrate what the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad has taught.

In The Muslim Program, in “What The Muslims Want,” Point Number 6, it says in part: “We want an immediate end to the police brutality and mob attacks against the so-called Negro throughout the United States.”

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His family and their attorney, Ben Crump, met with Jackson County, Miss., District Attorney Angel Myers McIlrath and members of her staff on July 15. The DA shared that once the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office completes its investigation, she would present the case to a grand jury, Atty.

Crump said in a news conference following the meeting. “We also agreed that we will have a mutual inspection of the cellphone with our experts and their experts,” Atty. Crump said. Former law enforcement experts are aiding independent investigation, he added.

A complete picture of what happened that day has yet to emerge. Atty. Crump said the meeting focused largely on the legal process, and the DA did not provide the family with information about the investigation.

Nolan traveled from Ocean Springs, Miss., where he grew up, to Horn Island with friends. He was pictured on a boat with three young White men, who returned to the mainland without him.

Jackson County Sheriff John Ledbetter has said investigators believe Nolan may have chosen to remain on the island and planned to return with someone else. His family questions that account, as his phone remained on the boat after it left the island.

“Every morning they wake up and there‘s a hole in their heart, and they are trying to say what happened to my son. Obviously, they feel strongly that he would not have just stayed behind.

He wouldn‘t have left his cellphone, and so we‘re trying to get to those answers,” Atty. Crump said. He previously shared that messages appeared to have been deleted from the phone.

At the news conference, Atty. Crump said the legal team received dozens of calls a day from people who were on Horn Island that day or know people who were there.

“The hope is that when this is presented to the grand jury, all relevant witnesses and evidence will be presented to them, so that we can have a fair and impartial investigation into the death of Nolan Wells,” he said. “Our lived experiences tell us that we must question everything, everybody‘s role, law enforcement‘s role. That is the lived experience of us as Black people in America.”

The family and legal team were awaiting results from an independent autopsy performed by a forensic pathologist in Washington, D.C. The official cause and manner of death have not yet been released.

Nolan’s family, friends, coaches, teammates and community celebrated his life on July 20 at a homegoing service. Former NFL quarterback and activist Colin Kaepernick paid for the independent autopsy, while producer, actor and filmmaker Tyler Perry paid Nolan’s funeral expenses, according to Atty. Crump.

—Anisah Muhammad, Staff Writer

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“We are now entering the second stage of this movement, the stage of negotiation,” Professor Sir Hilary Beckles, chairman of the CARICOM Reparations Commission, declared during a media briefing at the University of London that was live streamed. There is a growing sentiment among Caribbean nations that “Europe owes us!”

The four-day mission to Britain from July 13-16, marked the commission’s second official visit as a collective body. It comes after a series of major international developments that supporters say have shifted reparations from a moral appeal to a growing legal and diplomatic movement.

In March, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a landmark Ghana-led resolution declaring the Trans-Atlantic trafficking of enslaved Africans and chattel slavery the “gravest crime against humanity.” The measure passed 123-0, though the United Kingdom was among 52 nations that abstained.

The vote represented another milestone in what Caribbean leaders describe as a growing international consensus that slavery and colonialism require legal remedies, not simply historical acknowledgment. Caribbean leaders say the resolution strengthens the commission’s position that reparations have moved beyond moral appeals into the realm of international law and diplomacy.

Sir Beckles, an internationally recognized historian, said the movement has moved decisively beyond symbolic gestures. “We have had an avalanche of apologies—governments, corporations, institutions, churches, and families that were directly enriched are offering apologies,” he stated. “Now those apologies must become programs of reparatory justice.”

The CRC delegation included Dorbrene O’Marde, chairman of the Antigua and Barbuda Reparations Support Commission; Eric Phillips, chairman of the Guyana Reparations Committee;

Professor Verene Shepherd, vice chair of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination; Ambassador David Comissiong, Barbados’ ambassador to CARICOM, and Dr. Ron Daniels, convenor of the U.S. National African Reparations Commission.

The London mission followed the June 2026 High-Level Consultative Conference on Reparations in Accra, Ghana, which brought together governments, legal scholars, international organizations, and civil society leaders to develop a unified strategy for advancing reparatory justice throughout Africa and the African diaspora.

Earlier in July, CARICOM Heads of Government approved the revised “CARICOM Ten-Point Plan for Reparatory Justice: A Manifesto for the Coming Enlightenment,” strengthening its legal arguments and emphasizing the disproportionate impact of slavery and colonialism on women and girls.

Armed with the revised reparations framework and strengthened by recent international developments, commission leaders arrived in London expecting former colonial powers to engage the issue directly. Instead, Britain’s decision to abstain from the United Nations vote underscored the political challenges that remain.

Members of the CARICOM Reparations Commission expressed disappointment that Britain abstained from the United Nations vote. “We are calling for a dialogue of decency,” Sir Beckles said. “For us, this is a moral and ethical matter.”

As the CARICOM Reparations Commission outlined its priorities, members emphasized that reparatory justice extends well beyond financial compensation. They argued that unfinished decolonization remains one of the Caribbean’s greatest reparatory issues. Nearly 20 British, French, Dutch and American territories throughout the region remain under colonial administration.

“Reparations is a legal remedy,” Sir Beckles argued. “The first component of repair has to be the recovery of nationhood, national sovereignty, and self-determination.”

Supporters and advocates of reparatory justice say the movement has reached a turning point. Following years of apologies from universities, churches, financial institutions and corporations that profited from slavery.

Caribbean leaders insist the next phase must involve direct negotiations with European governments over legal responsibility and concrete programs of repair. For the commission, acknowledgment without meaningful action leaves the legacy of slavery largely untouched.

Ambassador Comissiong said Caribbean leaders sought reparations as part of independence negotiations decades ago, but Britain rejected those appeals. “We are determined,” he said, “that the colonies that still exist today will pursue reparations and decolonization together, ensuring that compensation for centuries of colonial exploitation becomes part of their journey to full independence.”

The delegation also met with senior leaders of the Church of England, which has acknowledged that it profited from the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and has begun exploring reparatory measures. “The Church of England, in doing what it did, sent a very positive signal to the rest of British society and to the British government in particular,” Sir Beckles said.

Commission members reaffirmed that repatriation remains a longstanding demand, particularly among Rastafari communities. “We believe that the governments that participated in the kidnapping and theft of African people should come to the table to negotiate how those who wish to return home may do so and be resettled,” Eric Phillips said.

The divine perspective

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, National Representative of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, raised the question of what the UK and other European countries owe to Black people they held in bondage and continue to colonize.

In a message he delivered August 5, 2017, titled “Reparations: What Does The U.K. And Europe Owe Us?” Minister Farrakhan said, “The subject matter that you desired for me to address is, ‘Reparations: What Does the United Kingdom and Europe Owe to Us?’

And by ‘us,’ we mean the sons and daughters of Africa that are in the Caribbean, or from the Caribbean; the sons and daughters of Africa from the continent of Africa, and those from Africa—the sons and daughters of Africa—in European capitals.”

Minister Farrakhan also stated, “What does the United Kingdom and Europe owe to those whom they formerly enslaved and colonized?  Well, if the Biblical law of justice is applied, ‘a life for a life’: 

Tens of millions of us have been destroyed in the Middle Passage of the Transatlantic Slave Trade; tens of millions of us have been destroyed on the African continent. 

If Europe were to pay for the lives of Black and Brown and Red and Yellow people who have lost their lives under colonialism and slavery, I don’t think too many Europeans, White Europeans, would be left if that law were applied,” he said.

“And then when you think of what Europe gained from our enslavement: When I was last in London—they don’t allow me to come there now; but, when I was last there, what a beautiful capital city London was, London is, as the capital of the British Empire.  What a beautiful city Paris is, and Amsterdam and Berlin, and Rome and Palermo. 

But all those capitals, all the stones in the streets, all the beautiful buildings that your artists and craftsmen have built, were built on the backs of those whom your ancestors enslaved and colonized,” Minister Farrakhan continued.  

Student Minister David Muhammad is the Nation of Islam Student Minister for Trinidad and the Eastern Caribbean. He is also chairman of the Trinidad and Tobago Board of Directors of the National Library and Information Systems Authority. He told The Final Call that in his view, the CRC’s 10-point plan aligns with the Nation of Islam’s historic demands for freedom, justice and equality.

The CRC’s 10-point plan includes: a full and formal apology; an indigenous peoples development program; repatriation and resettlement; restitution of cultural heritage and cultural reconnection; remedying the public health crisis; capacity-building and development through education and training;

Compensation for gender-based violence and assault on family; psychological rehabilitation; the right to sovereignty and development: technology, innovation and entrepreneurship and debt cancellation, monetary compensation and decolonization.

The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad introduced The Muslim Program which includes, “What the Muslims Want,” and “What the Muslims Believe,” which is published on the inside back page of  The Final Call.

The Muslim Program calls for land sufficient to establish an independent territory where Black people can build their own economic base, educational institutions and businesses within a Nation of our own

In “What the Muslims Want,” in Point Number 4 it states: “We want our people in America whose parents or grandparents were descendants from slaves, to be allowed to establish a separate state or territory of their own—either on this continent or elsewhere.

We believe that our former slave masters are obligated to provide such land and that the area must be fertile and minerally rich. We believe that our former slave masters are obligated to maintain and supply our needs in this separate territory for the next 20 to 25 years—until we are able to produce and supply our own needs.

“Since we cannot get along with them in peace and equality, after giving them 400 years of our sweat and blood and receiving in return some of the worst treatment human beings have ever experienced, we believe our contributions to this land and the suffering forced upon us by white America, justifies our demand for complete separation in a state or territory of our own.”

Student Minister David Muhammad emphasized that the Nation of Islam teachings are rooted in self-determination, self-help, and the responsibility to “do for self.”

He referenced the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan’s 2004 Saviours’ Day address titled, “Reparations: What Does America and Europe Owe? What Does Allah (God) Promise?”

He said the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan made clear that while governments bear responsibility for repairing the damage caused by slavery and colonialism, Black people also have a responsibility to participate in their own restoration.

While insisting that governments and institutions enriched by slavery have a moral and legal obligation to repair the damage they caused, the Nation of Islam has consistently taught that Black people must simultaneously rebuild themselves through faith, education, economic development and self-determination.

“What do you owe?  You owe us everything,” Minister Farrakhan said in his 2017 message.  “But of course, you can’t pay with all your lives; you can’t pay with the ill-gotten wealth that you have, and what you have stored away for the ‘rainy day’—but you must pay. 

So reparatory justice is the cry of all of the Caribbean; it’s the cry of Africa, it’s the cry of Asia.  It’s the cry of those who are the sons and daughters of those who paid with their lives, and with their slave labor and their colonial labor,” he said.

Building a broader movement

While Caribbean leaders focused on negotiations with Europe, reparations advocates in the United States discussed expanding representation in the growing international movement.  The London mission also highlighted efforts to unite reparations movements across the African diaspora.

Dr. Ron Daniels, convenor of the National African Reparations Commission (NARC), addressed representation for the African diaspora in the United States, noting that the revised framework seeks to include stateless people within the Global African partnership on reparations.

“We are delighted that our relationship with the CARICOM Reparations Commission has resulted in an increased awareness of the need to provide a formula for stateless people like we in the United States to be represented,” Dr. Daniels stated.

The Commission also welcomed Martinique as the newest associate member of CARICOM and expressed its commitment to integrating all Caribbean territories, including French, Dutch, and British colonies, into the reparation’s framework.

Professor Verene Shepherd, who also serves as vice chair of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, emphasized the importance of Article 15 of the International Convention in monitoring territories that remain under colonial administration and ensuring that decolonization remains an international priority.

Looking ahead, Sir Beckles noted that King Charles III has previously acknowledged that reparations are “a conversation whose time has come.” Commission leaders said they expect reparatory justice, sovereignty and decolonization to figure prominently when Commonwealth leaders gather in Antigua and Barbuda later this year.

For Sir Hillary Beckles, reparatory justice is ultimately about completing a process that should have begun generations ago.

“Were I the king,” he said, “I would arrive in Antigua and Barbuda and say … ‘The time has come to let the people go … to usher in the decolonization process … to break the chains of imperial governance.”

Final Call staff contributed to this report.

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For most countries, the answer is still no.

Cuba requested the special debate held July 7, instead of waiting for the General Assembly’s annual vote later this year. Cuban officials argued that tighter U.S. sanctions have pushed the island deeper into economic crisis and created a humanitarian emergency.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla painted a grim picture before delegates. Fuel is scarce. Medicines are harder to obtain. Families endure long power outages, food shortages and rising prices. He said the embargo has become “a silent form of suffocation” for ordinary Cubans.

“In the last few months, the humanitarian damage to our population has intensified,” he said.  Families are suffering through blackouts, a lack of water, shortage of medication, food scarcity and the soaring price of essential goods. 

People with cancer lack access to life-saving medication.  And Cuba’s infant mortality rate of 4 per 1,000 live births in 2025 increased to 9.9, deaths that would not have occurred had there been equipment and therapies.”

The United States offered a different view and presented its unsubstantiated yet familiar talking points that Cuba’s economic troubles stem from decisions made by its own government. Critics argue nothing could be further from the truth. 

The unjust embargo began in the early years of the Cold War after the Cuban Revolution brought Fidel Castro to power in 1959. Cuba nationalized U.S.-owned property and aligned itself with the Soviet Union. The United States responded with economic restrictions in 1960.

Two years later, President John F. Kennedy expanded them into a near-total embargo. More than 60 years later, much of that policy remains in place because Congress reinforced it through the Helms-Burton Act, making it difficult for any president to dismantle the sanctions without congressional action.

Many countries see the issue differently than Washington.

Since 1992, the General Assembly has voted almost every year to call for an end to the embargo. Those resolutions are not binding, yet they reveal how isolated the United States has become on the issue.

Governments across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean argue that broad economic sanctions punish civilians far more than governments. Access to medicine, food, fuel and international banking is often the first casualty.

Ambassador Pierre Ericq Pierre of Haiti, speaking for the Caribbean community, known as CARICOM, urged both countries to normalize relations for the good of the region.

“CARICOM is a long-standing friend of Cuba and the United States and continues to call for the normalization of these two countries in the interest of the entire region,” he declared.

Ambassador Burhan Gafoor of Singapore, speaking for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, voiced concern about the “deep impact of the present situation on the Cuban people,” including on their access to food, medicine and other essential supplies. 

“It is fundamentally the well-being of ordinary Cubans that lies at the heart of our shared concern,” he affirmed.

Echoing that point, Mali’s representative, Issa Konfourou, speaking on behalf of the African Group, declared: “No difference between two States can justify the collective punishment of an entire people—still less any measure that places the lives and well-being of its population in jeopardy.”

Africa remembers

Cuba’s history with Africa helps explain why many African nations continue to stand with Cuba in UN debates. During the liberation struggles of the 1960s through the 1980s, Cuba sent soldiers, doctors, engineers and teachers to several African countries.

Its military role in Angola remains especially significant. Historians have long argued that the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale weakened apartheid South Africa’s military position, helped clear the way for Namibian independence and accelerated the collapse of apartheid itself.

When Nelson Mandela visited Havana after his release from prison, he publicly thanked Cuba for standing with African liberation movements when many Western governments would not. Cuba has continued that commitment through medical missions and educational exchanges across the continent.

The world stands with Cuba

Vladimir Kolokoltsev, Minister for Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, described the United States blockade of Cuba as “a striking example of illegitimate unilateral measures of intimidation and punishment against Governments deemed undesirable.”

international community had consistently answered that policy with a firm “no,” he said, recalling the Assembly resolutions adopted since 1992 and supported by overwhelming majorities of Member States.

He expressed regret that efforts to convene the meeting had faced strong opposition and alleged that pressure had been exerted on foreign partners to discourage support for Havana’s initiative.  The blockade was one of the methods used to establish control over the territory and revive the Monroe Doctrine.

China’s representative placed the issue in the context of sovereign equality and opposition to interference in internal affairs. “Any military adventurism will only push the region towards a precipice of uncertainty,” he warned.  “No single country can act as the international police, nor can any country make itself out to be the international judge,” he added.

The General Assembly cannot force the United States to lift the embargo. It can make its position known.

Year after year, an overwhelming majority of the world’s nations have done exactly that. The debate has grown beyond relations between Washington and Havana. It now raises larger questions about sovereignty, economic sanctions and whether ordinary people should bear the cost of political disputes between governments.

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In the past five years alone, the number of natural disasters has more than doubled, requiring individuals, families and local organizations to consider the importance of having disaster plans.

According to their June global release, the National Centers for Environmental Information, under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), said the U.S. had 403 confirmed weather-related disaster events exceeding $1 billion each between 1980-2024, averaging nine events per year.

The agency also reported that the average number of events from 2020-2024 increased to 23 events per year and that the number and frequency is expected to rise.

The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, Eternal Leader of the Nation of Islam, warned that Allah (God) would chastise America through His Forces of Nature for the country’s mistreatment of Black people.

His National Representative, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, has often cautioned people in the U.S. and abroad to ‘watch the weather’ and also the importance of disaster preparedness.

America’s unsteady economic outlook is further reason for preparedness. With soaring food and fuel prices resulting from the U.S. war on Iran, millions of Americans are struggling.

According to a July 7 article in The Guardian, based on a survey the outlet conducted, “Ninety-five percent of Americans believe the U.S. is suffering an affordability crisis, as many report trouble with the rising cost of groceries and gas.”

The outlet also noted, “The struggle crosses party lines: about half of all Democrats, Republicans and independents say they are having trouble affording everyday necessities like gas and groceries. Two-thirds of Americans—including 49% of Republicans—said they have little faith that the federal government will improve the cost-of-living crisis they face.”

Sister Alva Muhammad is a Chicago-based FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) certified volunteer disaster preparedness instructor and has been involved with training communities since 2003.

She told The Final Call that with the increase of both natural and man-made disasters, it is prudent for individuals, families and communities to be mindful of current events, the time according to scripture and to organize a survival kit based upon one’s location.

“The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad instructed us to store food and supplies in our homes and that instruction has not changed and that instruction is for a reason,” she said. Sister Alva explained that natural disasters related to weather are not the only issues of concern in cities like Chicago and other large municipalities.

“Couple that with the Minister’s (Farrakhan’s) recent instructions to help make our communities a decent and safe place to live, our current and immediate and future actions should be very clear,” she said.

Sister Alva encouraged people to read and study the book, “The Fall of America,” by the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, pubished in 1973.

He warned Black people, and others who will take heed, that Allah (God) is real and that there is a law of reciprocity that will affect all. On page 161 of “The Fall of America,” in the chapter, “America’s Land Being Divinely Curtailed,” He warned there are divine consequences to evil and injustice.

“Black Man in America, there is no one as blind as you are in seeing what is going on against America. I have warned you for nearly 40 years that Allah (God) in the Person of Master Fard Muhammad, to Whom praises are due forever, came to me and gave me the knowledge of the truth; and I have been preaching it to you continually.

“Now you see what is going on. As America has done, so now it is being done unto her. America has surrounded the countries of other peoples. She has blown their cities to pieces, and she has killed their inhabitants. Those who were left alive she put to flight, running for shelter from the destruction by America’s might.”

In 2006, Minister Farrakhan led a delegation to Cuba to learn how the island nation had successfully prepared for hurricanes. “Those who are scripturally prepared know that it is prophesied that we would be living at a time of wars and rumors of wars, pestilence, famine and earthquakes in diverse places.

We are witnessing terrifying disasters afflicting the people of the world and these disasters are now afflicting the United States of America,” Minister Farrakhan said in a press conference from Havana.

“Believing that these prophecies will be fulfilled, we felt that it is our duty to learn as much as we can, so that we can return to the United States and prepare documents on disaster preparedness, and in conjunction with local, state and federal government, do all we can to prepare the American people, and our people in particular, for coming disasters.”

Proper preparation and weathering the storm

Everything that an individual, a family or a group does today in preparation for what is likely to occur in the future will lessen the degree of its impact when it comes, explained Sis. Alva. This not only applies to weather disasters, but also to circumstances that are the result of the evil men’s hands have wrought.

“These are man-made, slow-moving disasters, so to speak,” Sis. Alva stated. “It’s not a hurricane or a tornado or an earthquake. It is economic changes, political changes, social changes that cause our dollars to not stretch as far.

That means whenever possible, we should be stocking up on the things we absolutely need,” she insisted. She noted that the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad told his followers to store navy beans as a nutritious, inexpensive, long-term staple food.

“If we have been dragging our feet on it, now is the time to go ahead and stock up while we still can,” Sis. Alva insisted. “We should be storing things that we eat and eating the things that we store so that we always have a ready supply of whatever it is and it doesn’t cost a ton of money to do that. Just start buying an extra item or two every time you go to the store until you build up your supply,” she explained.

Sister Landra Muhammad is a registered member of the Nation of Islam from Mosque No. 45 in Houston and the author of a book about disaster preparedness. “It’s one thing to tell somebody you need to have a ‘go bag,’ (or) that you need to do this or that and you don’t give them a guideline,” Sis. Landra said.

She explained the importance of learning from and accessing materials that offer step-by-step guidelines on what to do and how to do it, before disasters strike. “It’s not just a fad, and hopefully soon preparedness and emergency management will become a way of life. Minister Farrakhan said to ‘watch the weather,’” she said.

In addition to storing food, water, emergency supplies, medicines, and other items during emergencies or disasters, access to alternative communication is vital. 

Brother Paul C. Muhammad is a registered member of the Nation of Islam’s Mosque No. 15 in Atlanta and an amateur ham radio operator. He explained that learning this skill set could come in handy if cell towers go offline, prolonged power outages occur, or other crises undermine standard communication systems.

“Communication is vital in all areas of people’s activity, particularly in crisis or disasters,” he said. “When a disaster happens, you want to be able to do damage assessment, you want to check on your loved ones, you want to check on your children if they’re at school or your grandmother who may have ailments.

You want to check on your church or organization because the lack of the flow of information can be the difference between life or death in a disaster or in a crisis,” said Bro. Paul.

Ham radios rely on radio waves for non-commercial two-way communication. Operators communicate without relying on the internet or cell phones. Ham radio uses public airwaves and transmitting requires passing an exam to get a license from the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) and classes can be taken online.

In the U.S., there are three licensing tiers: Technician: Entry-level, great for local and regional VHF/UHF communication; General: Mid-level, opens up global high-frequency (HF) capabilities and Amateur Extra, which is the highest-level that provides all available amateur frequency privileges. Bro. Paul has obtained his technician and general licenses.

“Historically, ham radio … has been a go-to form of communication that has saved countless numbers of human lives,” Bro. Paul explained. “If you study all the different disasters from the wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes, and blackouts, it is amateur radio operators that have played a vital role.

Some may look at it as an antiquated tool, but this antiquated tool is easy to come by, and it plays a major role when it comes to disasters,” he said.

Nation of Islam Student Southwest Regional Minister Dr. Abdul Haleem Muhammad is based at Mosque No. 45 in Houston. He explained that the Nation of Islam’s focus on disaster preparedness comes from the Teachings of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad’s warnings and from the prophecies from both the Bible and the Holy Qur’an.

He advised and recommended that people review Part 36 of the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan’s 2013 lecture series, “The Time and What Must Be Done.” In that episode, Minister Farrakhan teaches on the plans of the U.S. government when it comes to its use of chemicals in food, water and other products.

“God visited America in the Person of Master Fard Muhammad, raised for us the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad and the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, both of which have consistently warned us of the schemes of our open enemy,” Student Minister Dr. Haleem Muhammad explained.

“So we are reminded of what the Honorable Elijah Muhammad taught us in ‘The Fall of America’ where he wrote on page 222: ‘America’s scientists of war conduct dreadful experiments on how to best kill human beings by the millions and wipe out whole continents.

These are the days of fulfillment of prophecy of not one, but of many calamities. But in all of these preparations of the destruction of human life by the devil … Allah (God) too has plans to save His people,’ he read from the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad’s book.

“We put on disaster preparedness workshops here in Houston and throughout the Southwest Region, we do the same,” Student Minister Dr. Haleem said. “Cuts to the staff and budget of FEMA will inhibit their ability to respond to natural and man-made disasters, so we must become more self-sufficient because no one is going to save us but Allah (God) and ourselves.”

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Thousands of people filled Mosque Maryam in Chicago on July 3, for her Janazah (funeral service) service and attended the interment and two repast gatherings. Tributes and sentiments, and reflections from around the world for our beloved Mother of the Faithful were received, with many also being shared via social media. —The Final Call

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Now in its fourth month, the fighting once again shut down ship traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, which had recently reopened due to an agreement that both parties hoped would lead to long-term peace.

NATO is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a collective security and defense agreement among North American and European countries. Unlike most U.S. presidents, Mr. Trump has more harshly criticized and sent mixed relationship signals to his European allies that continued at the summit, held July 7-8.

He declared “there was a lot of love in that room, a lot of unity” as he emerged from a closed-door meeting with NATO leaders. The day before that meeting, he publicly berated European leaders for not joining his attacks on Iran that shut down the vital global shipping waterway for months.

President Trump also singled out Spain, calling it a “terrible partner” and announcing a cessation of trade with the country for refusing to allow U.S. aircraft to use its military bases, even after other member states eventually conceded to his demand.

“I was very disappointed with NATO,” the president said upon his arrival to the summit.  “Frankly, if it (the summit) weren’t held in Türkiye where my friend happens to be a very strong leader, a very strong person, it’s possible that I wouldn’t have attended,” he said, referring to President Tayyip Erdogan of Türkiye.

President Trump continued his criticism of NATO members for not paying their fair share in defense spending and reiterated his desire to take control of Greenland.

Adding to the tension, Mr. Trump announced that the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) worked out with Iran as a process toward peace was “over.”   His remark came after Iranian drones struck several ships attempting to pass through the Strait. 

Iran has stated that a decision on how the Strait will be controlled will be determined by coastal states Iran and Oman as described in the 14-point MoU. According to reporting by Al Jazeera, Iranian officials have argued that the memo allows Tehran to assert influence over how ships transit the Strait of Hormuz, therefore justifying attacks on vessels that do not comply.

The U.S. responded to the attacks with missiles striking numerous sites in Iran. PressTV.ir reported on July 10 that, “Iran’s top security official says any attack on the country’s infrastructure will be met with reciprocal action.”

Iran’s retaliatory attacks targeted U.S. bases in several countries in the region.  Iran also warned that any attacks on its infrastructure would not be tolerated and that it does not view the U.S. as trustworthy negotiators.

“Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf says Tehran harbors no trust in the United States, emphasizing that only those who are prepared for war can engage in negotiation with Washington,” PressTV.ir reported. Mr. Qalibaf, is one of the top negotiator in talks with the U.S.

Addressing the tenuous Gulf situation prior to departing for Türkiye on July 6, Mr. Trump said, “We’re either going to make a deal or we’re ​going to finish the job. And it won’t  be tough to finish the job.  I’d rather make a deal, because I don’t want to affect 91 ​million people.”

In the opinion of analysts, to “finish the job” could mean U.S. boots on the ground, a situation political science professor Gerald Horne, Ph.D., says the only winner will be the military-industrial complex.

He pointed to President Trump’s leaning toward selling F-35 jets to Türkiye and his demand that NATO countries spend more on military equipment to defend themselves, as he signals a reduction in the U.S. troop presence in Europe.

“The U.S. military industrial complex is salivating at the idea of selling F-35 planes to Türkiye, just as the U.S. military industrial complex is the major beneficiary of Mr. Trump’s demand that member states spend more on their military,” Professor Horne of the University of Houston told The Final Call, adding that “most of the military material that they buy will be from the United States of America.”

He said Mr. Trump’s renewed interest in helping Ukraine defend itself against Russian attacks is “a profit-making venture once again” for the military industrial complex. The president signaled agreement to allow Ukraine to manufacture Patriot missiles to defend its airspace.

Dr. Horne described NATO as a weakened or a potentially dismantled entity, citing NATO’s “internal contradictions,” including America’s oversized financial contributions and contrary remarks about the Alliance. The U.S. has caused member states to move closer to each other against Mr. Trump’s remarks about taking Greenland and making Canada America’s 51st state.

“They don’t see [Trump] as being contradictory or inconsistent. They see him as representing something much deeper in the U.S. body politic and culture. Even if Mr. Trump decides to leave office, ‘Trumpism,’ as they see it, will be with us for some time to come. And I think that their perception is accurate.”

Asked to define “Trumpism,” Dr. Horne said, “neo-fascism, billionaires and trillionaires ruling with a substantial settler descendant working class and middle-class base, police terror, anti-Blackness.”

U.S. ally Israel has expressed alarm at President Trump’s suggestion to allow F-35 jets to be sold to Türkiye, arguing that it would “upset the power balance” in the region and that Mr. Erdogan has called for the “annihilation of Israel.”

President Trump banned Türkiye from the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program during his first term in 2019 because the country had acquired a Russian S-400 air defense system.

Israel has vehemently opposed any ceasefire agreements between the U.S. and Iran and continues to violate the MoU, which calls for withdrawal from Lebanon, where the settler colonial state has attacked Hezbollah resistance fighters.

Withdrawal from Lebanon has been a red line for Iran in the peace process. A separate ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas resistance fighters in Gaza also has continuously been violated by Israel.

Hamas has agreed to dismantle its government apparatus as called for in the U.S.-brokered ceasefire agreement, according to recent reports. Hamas has refused to disarm, however.

“Hamas has been a governing body that operated within the context of a military occupation,” said attorney Terek Khalil, a spokesperson for American Muslims for Palestine (AMP). “It’s not a governing body that is independent, that is sovereign, that is exercising the sovereign rights of a state or a people that is not being suffocated by another state. That has not been the case in Gaza.”

Hamas ceded power in line with the agreement because “the people have suffered enough. This is a measure to alleviate the suffering so that Israel does not create a pretext for mass onslaught in Gaza again.”

Hamas was founded in 1987 after many decades of occupation, displacement, land theft, denial of basic rights guaranteed under international law, and denial of self-determination. All of that together, he said, fomented and created the impetus for the creation of Hamas.

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, National Representative of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, has consistently warned Muslim leaders about America’s desire to cause division among Islamic nations as a divide-and-conquer strategy. 

“We are Muslims and as Muslims we are commanded by Allah that when Muslims quarrel, make peace between the brethren. We have to make peace in this region, otherwise great war will spread in this region,” he reiterated in a message from Iran on Feb. 10, 2016.

“The beautiful cities that I have been blessed to see in the Middle East due to oil revenue, the enemy is envious at what Allah has blessed the Muslims to do with their cities and their countries. The enemy would love nothing more than to bomb them.”

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