Acclaimed architect Robert A.M. Stern, a prominent figure in American architecture who designed notable museums, libraries and residences, died Thursday, according to a statement from the firm he founded. He was 86.
The statement did not specify a cause of death, but said Stern “died comfortably at his home.”
“At RAMSA, we grieve the loss of our founder, mentor, and friend, and remain committed to carrying forth his ideals,” the statement from the firm’s partners said.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., in 1939, Stern founded the Robert A. M. Stern Architects firm, now known as RAMSA, in 1969. He gained acclaim for his decades of work and style, which blended postmodernism with contextual design, drawing inspiration from historic and traditional styles.
He was widely known for 15 Central Park West, a luxury condominium featuring a recognizable limestone exterior in Manhattan bordering Central Park. The building opened in 2008 and has attracted prominent, wealthy and famous tenants.
Stern’s works also include the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas, the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia, the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan and Disney’s Yacht and Beach Club Resorts in Florida. Stern also designed Cal State Northridge’s Manzanita Hall in 2003.
He served as dean of the Yale School of Architecture from 1998 to 2016. He was previously the director of Columbia University’s Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture.
150 students from Gaza’s al-Aqsa University have been celebrating after becoming the first class to graduate there since the start of Israel’s genocide, during which the territory’s entire education system has come under assault.
CHICAGO — When I turned on my phone after landing at O’Hare Airport on Wednesday, texts poured in from friends and colleagues warning that I was about to enter a region under siege.
Many sent a video from that morning of immigration agents running into a day care facility in Chicago’s Roscoe Village neighborhood to pull out a teacher. It was the latest attack against the metropolis by President Trump’s deportation Leviathan, whose so-called Operation Midway Blitz this fall has made its earlier occupation of Los Angeles look like a play date.
Armed agents have sauntered through downtown and manned a flotilla of boats on the Chicago River. They shot and killed a fleeing immigrant and raided an apartment building with the help of a Black Hawk helicopter. In nearby Broadview, home to the region’s main ICE detention facility, rooftop migra shot pepper balls at protesters below, including a pastor. They even tear-gassed a neighborhood that was about to host a Halloween children’s parade, for chrissakes.
From Back of the Yards to Cicero, Brighton Park to Evanston, immigration agents have sown terror throughout Chicagoland with such glee that a federal judge declared that it “shocks the conscience” and issued an injunction limiting their use of force — which they no doubt will ignore.
I was in town to speak to students at the University of Chicago about the importance of reporting on things one may not like. Heaven knows that’s been my 2025. But as I waited to deplane, I checked my email and found something I’ve sorely needed this year:
Hope.
On Tuesday, Democrats won governor’s races in New Jersey and Virginia by wide margins. Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor of New York, telling Trump to “Turn. The. Volume. Up” during a soaring victory speech.
Back home in California, 64% of voters favored Proposition 50, the ballot initiative crafted by Gov. Gavin Newsom to create up to five Democratic-leaning congressional districts in response to Trump’s gerrymandering in Texas.
It was a humiliating rebuke of Trumpism. And the tip of the Democratic spear? Latinos.
Rep. Mikie Sherrill, the Democratic governor-elect in New Jersey, takes a photo during an election-night party. Democrats reclaimed political momentum Tuesday with gubernatorial victories in New Jersey and Virginia, early signs that voter unease with the economy in President Trump’s second term could give them a path to winning control of Congress next year.
(Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
In New Jersey, where Trump received 46% of the Latino vote in 2024, a CNN exit poll showed just 31% of Latinos siding with the losing GOP candidate for governor. Nearly two-thirds of Latinos in Virginia went against Cuban American Atty. General Jason Miyares, a Republican who also lost. The CNN poll also found that more than 70% of California Latinos voted for Proposition 50, a year after GOP Latino legislators made historic gains in Sacramento.
At the same time, support for Trump has dropped among Latinos. Only 25% of Latinos surveyed in October by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research viewed Trump favorably — a cratering from the 45% who liked him in April. Even more telling, two-thirds of Latino men thought negatively of Trump — despite 51% of that demographic choosing him in 2024.
Latinos’ leftward shift on election night already set off as many thought pieces as Trump did when he captured 48% of the Latino vote — the most a Republican presidential candidate has earned, despite his long history of slurring, maligning and insulting America’s largest minority. Democrats, who have long depended on Latino voters, were shocked, and GOP leaders were delighted, feeling that a demographic that had long eluded them was finally, truly within reach.
This week Latinos sent a loud message: You had your chance, y nada.
House Speaker Mike Johnson tried to play off his party’s collapse among Latinos to NBC News, sniffling, “I do believe that the demographic shift that we were able to see and experience in the 2024 election will hold.”
Mike: time to bring the Republican Party out of its Stockholm syndrome. Your guy has blown it with Latinos. Let him keep doubling down on his madness, and Latinos will continue to flip on ustedes like a tortilla.
Trump’s 2024 victory was the culmination of an extraordinary shift in the Latino electorate that few saw coming — but I did. As I’ve written ad nauseam since 2016, Latinos were beginning to favor the GOP on issues like limited government, immigration restrictions and transgender athletes in high school sports because Democrats were taking them for granted, obsessing over woke shibboleths while neglecting blue-collar issues like gas prices and high taxes.
A voter holds a sign in Spanish while riding with other voters to the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center as part of a 2024 event organized by LUCHA (Living United For Change In Arizona) for Latinx voters and volunteers in Arizona.
(Anna Watts/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
All this was was happening as the Biden administration made it easier for newly arrived undocumented immigrants to remain, angering those who have been here for decades without similar help. The long-standing tendency for Latinos to sympathize with the latest Latin Americans to cross over eroded, and some became more receptive to Trump’s apocalyptic words against open borders.
Last year 63% of Latinos in California considered undocumented immigrants to be a “burden,” according to a poll by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies and co-sponsored by The Times.
That happened to be the same percentage of California voters who favored Prop. 187, the infamous 1994 initiative that sought to make life miserable for undocumented immigrants and showed the GOP that xenophobic politics can work.
After the 2024 election, Latinos seemed to be joining earlier Catholic immigrants who were once cast as invaders — Irish, Italians, Poles, Germans — on the road to assimilation and the waiting arms of the Republican party. All Trump had to do was improve the economy and clamp down on the border. If he did the former, Latinos would have been largely supportive of the latter, as long as deportations focused on newcomers.
Instead, Trump wasted his opportunity.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents knock on the door of a residence during a targeted enforcement operation in Chicago.
Trump officials keep issuing punitive policies that crush the dreams of Latinos, like a crackdown on English fluency in the trucking industry and ending federal grants that helped colleges and universities recruit and retain Latino students.
Federal agents leave the area of North A Street as residents and community members protest an early morning federal enforcement action in Oxnard.
(Julie Leopo/For The Times)
But Trump’s biggest mistake has been his indiscriminate deportation raids. His toxic alphabet soup of immigration enforcement agencies — HSI, ERO, CPB, ICE — largely has ignored the so-called “worst of the worst” in favor of tamale ladies, fruteros and longtime residents. Nearly three-quarters of immigrants in ICE detention as of September have no criminal convictions, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.
Trump’s deportation deluge has rained down across the country as his administration repeatedly has exhibited white supremacist tendencies, from effectively blocking all new refugees except South African Boers to pumping out social media garbage extolling a mythical America where white makes right and Latinos exist only as blurry mug shots of alleged illegal immigrants.
A federal agent holds his weapon as law enforcement officers conduct a raid on street vendors. New Yorkers witnessing the attempted detainments began protesting and attempted to block agents.
(Michael Nigro/LightRocket via Getty Images)
No wonder 65% of Latinos feel it’s a “bad time” to be Latino in the U.S. — a 25-percentage-point drop in optimism from March of last year, according to an Axios-Ipsos poll done with Telemundo and released this week.
Trump even is losing credibility among Latino Republicans, with a September 2024 AP-NORC poll finding that 83% of them had a “very” or “somewhat” positive view of the president last year.
Trump very well can win back some of those Latinos in 2026 if the economy improves. But every time his migra goons tackle innocents, another Latino will turn on him and get ready to fight back.
At the University of Chicago, orange whistles hung around a bronze bust just outside the room where I spoke. They’ve become a symbol of resistance to Trump’s invasion of the City of Strong Shoulders, blown by activists to alert everyone that la migra is on the prowl.
A bronze bust with whistles around it inside Swift Hall at the University of Chicago. They’ve become a symbol of resistance, blown by activists to alert everyone that la migra is on the prowl.
(Gustavo Arellano/Los Angeles Times)
I grabbed one as a memento of my time here and also as a reminder of what’s happening with Latinos right now. Nationwide, we’re warning everyone from the front lines — the streets, the ballot box, the courtroom, everywhere — about the excesses of Trump and warning him what happens if he doesn’t listen.
WASHINGTON — Cornell University has agreed to pay $60 million and accept the Trump administration’s interpretation of civil rights laws in order to restore federal funding and end investigations into the Ivy League school.
Cornell President Michael Kotlikoff announced the agreement on Friday, saying it upholds the university’s academic freedom while restoring more than $250 million in research funding that the government withheld amid investigations into alleged civil rights violations.
The university agreed to pay $30 million directly to the U.S. government along with another $30 million toward research that will support U.S. farmers.
Kotlikoff said the agreement revives the campus’ partnership with the federal government “while affirming the university’s commitment to the principles of academic freedom, independence, and institutional autonomy that, from our founding, have been integral to our excellence.”
The six-page agreement is similar to one signed by the University of Virginia last month. It’s shorter and less prescriptive than others signed by Columbia University and Brown University.
It requires Cornell to comply with the government’s interpretation of civil rights laws on issues involving antisemitism, racial discrimination and transgender issues. A Justice Department memo that orders colleges to abandon diversity, equity and inclusion programs and transgender-friendly policies will be used as a training resource for faculty and staff at Cornell.
The campus must also provide a wealth of admissions data that the government has separately sought from campuses to ensure race is no longer being considered as a factor in admissions decisions. President Trump has suggested some campuses are ignoring a 2023 Supreme Court decision ending affirmative action in admissions.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon called it a “transformative commitment” that puts a focus on “merit, rigor, and truth-seeking.”
“These reforms are a huge win in the fight to restore excellence to American higher education and make our schools the greatest in the world,” McMahon said on X.
Cornell’s president must personally certify compliance with the agreement each quarter. The deal is effective through the end of 2028.
It appears to split the difference on a contentious issue colleges have grappled with as they negotiate an exit from federal scrutiny: payments made directly to the government. Columbia agreed to pay $200 million directly to the government, while Brown University reached an agreement to pay $50 million to state workforce organizations. Virginia’s deal included no payment at all.
SOAS University, of which Hamdi is an alumnus, urge ‘US authorities to ensure full transparency and due process’ in his case.
Published On 6 Nov 20256 Nov 2025
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The London university where British political commentator and journalist Sami Hamdi completed his studies has called for “full transparency and due process” regarding his detention in the United States.
In a statement published on Wednesday, SOAS University of London said it was “deeply concerned” by reports of Hamdi’s detention, adding that “there is no indication that Mr Hamdi has violated any laws”.
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“We urge the US authorities to ensure full transparency and due process in Mr Hamdi’s case, and to uphold his fundamental right to freedom of expression and movement.”
Hamdi, 35, was stopped at San Francisco international airport in California on October 26 and detained by agents from the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) condemned Hamdi’s detention as “a blatant affront to free speech”, attributing his arrest to his criticism of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, which has killed at least 68,875 Palestinians and wounded 170,679 since October 2023.
Sami Hamdi’s wife Soumaya told Al Jazeera that the US government has still not provided any evidence ‘as to why they feel the need to revoke his visa’ [Screen grab/ Al Jazeera]
Hamdi, who was completing a speaking tour in the US discussing Israel’s war on Gaza, had addressed a CAIR gala in Sacramento, California, the previous evening and was due to speak at another CAIR event in Florida.
He was unaware at the time that his visa had been revoked by US authorities two days before his detention.
Hamdi’s detention has led to a legal battle, with his lawyers filing emergency petitions against his detention, and his wife Soumaya and civil society groups demanding that the United Kingdom government take action.
Soumaya told Al Jazeera that the US government has still not provided any evidence “as to why they feel the need to revoke his visa. And therefore they are treating him as an overstayer”.
She said the incident raises an important question: “Has the United States become a country now where a British citizen travelling on a valid visa can be detained at will? Because that is really scary.”
Soumaya said she believed her husband had been targeted by the US authorities because “he’s become extremely effective at galvanising support for Palestinian rights. Sami has been able to bring people together across the political spectrum, not just within Muslim communities.”
She also said her husband’s arrest should be of concern to “everybody who values the right to freedom of speech, everybody who values the right to receive facts from journalists and for journalists to be able to report on news without being persecuted”.
“If they [US authorities] are able then to treat Sami in this way, it’s only a matter of time before they start to treat US citizens like that too.”
“The US government must release Sami immediately. They’ve made a big mistake, and they need to release him immediately. And Congress must investigate these ICE detentions because they are setting a dangerous precedent for the future ability of US citizens being able to exercise their right to the First Amendment properly. And that’s bad news for everybody,” she said.
CHEYENNE, Wyo. — Political stars often rise and fall but few have had a more dramatic trajectory than Dick Cheney in his home state of Wyoming.
Hours after Cheney died Tuesday at 84, the state lowered flags at the Republican governor’s order. Some politicians in the state offered at times measured praise of the former vice president.
But among a large majority of voters in Wyoming, Cheney has been persona non grata for more than five years now, his reputation brought down amid President Trump’s withering politics.
Trump has criticized Cheney for the drawn-out and costly Iraq war, and his daughter, former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, for saying Trump should never be allowed back in the White House after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
This resonated with many residents, including Jeanine Stebbing, of Cheyenne, whose last straw was the idea that Trump shouldn’t be reelected.
“There was no open-mindedness. Nothing about how, ‘We understand that our neighbors here are supportive of Trump.’ Just the idea that we were all stupid, is what it felt like,” Stebbing said Tuesday.
The final blow for the Cheney family in Wyoming came in 2022, when Trump supported ranching attorney Harriet Hageman to oppose Liz Cheney for a fourth term as the state’s U.S. representative.
Hageman got two-thirds of the vote in the Republican primary, a decisive win in a state with so few Democrats that the general election is considered inconsequential for major races.
Trump’s biggest gripe, ultimately, was that Liz Cheney voted to impeach him, then co-led the congressional investigation into his role in the attack. In Wyoming, a prevailing belief was Liz Cheney seemed more focused on taking down Trump than on representing the state.
“I was very disappointed that, you know, somebody who came from this state would be so adamantly blind to anything other than what she wanted to do. And he joined in as well,” Stebbing said.
Not even Dick Cheney’s endorsement of his daughter over Hageman — and of Kamala Harris over Trump last year — made a difference, as Trump’s appeal in Wyoming only grew. Trump won Wyoming by more than any other state in 2016, 2020 and 2024, the year of his biggest margin in the state.
Some expressed sadness that George W. Bush’s vice president would not be remembered well by so many in the state.
“On the 16th anniversary of my own father’s death today, I can appreciate a father who stood by his daughter, which he did loyally and truthfully,” said Republican state Sen. Tara Nethercott, who is Senate majority floor leader. “He stood by his daughter during those difficult times.”
Nethercott wouldn’t speculate if Liz Cheney might yet have a political future. Wyoming’s support of Trump “speaks volumes,” she said.
Liz Cheney has continued to live in Jackson Hole, near her parents, while traveling back and forth to Charlottesville to teach at the University of Virginia Center for Politics.
For Brian Farmer — who, like Dick Cheney, grew up in Casper and went to the University of Wyoming — Cheney’s legacy will be his service to the state, no matter where people stand on issues.
“He was always somebody whose path I looked at, sought to follow. Very quiet, soft-spoken at times, Very bombastic and loud at others,” said Farmer, executive director of the Wyoming School Boards Association.
Cheney had a 30-year career in politics, from serving as President Gerald Ford’s young chief of staff to representing Wyoming in Congress in the 1980s. He rose to a top GOP leadership role in Congress — one his daughter, too, would later fill — before being named President George H.W. Bush’s defense secretary.
After his time in office, the CEO of oilfield services company Halliburton kept active in state politics, voicing support and even stumping for Republican candidates.
And yet Cheney was so low-key and unassuming, his mere presence was the whole point — not the nice things he had to say, for example, about former Gov. Jim Geringer, who handily won reelection in 1998.
“You talk about people walking into a room and commanding it. That man did it without even speaking a word,” said state Rep. Landon Brown, a Cheyenne Republican who met him several times including at University of Wyoming football games.
“He’s going to be sincerely missed in this state,” he said. “Maybe not by everybody.”
