{"id":240404,"date":"2026-05-22T10:55:45","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T10:55:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/240404\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T10:55:45","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T10:55:45","slug":"dangerous-groups-hide-behind-nonprofits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/240404\/","title":{"rendered":"Dangerous Groups Hide Behind Nonprofits"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nForwarded this email? Sign up<\/a> for free to have it sent directly to your inbox.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"City<\/p>\n

Good morning,<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nToday, we\u2019re looking at\u00a0extremist networks in Florida, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s budget, and a search engine that is misinforming kids.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nWrite to us at editors@city-journal.org<\/a> with questions or comments.<\/p>\n

\"Pro-Palestine<\/a><\/p>\n

Photo credit:\u00a0NurPhoto \/ Contributor \/ NurPhoto via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\nFor years, extremists have been exploiting the U.S. nonprofit system. Florida illustrates how deep the problem runs.<\/p>\n

In 1992, the Al-Qassam Mosque was incorporated under Florida law as the Islamic Community of Tampa, Inc. It listed Sami Al-Arian as its Registered Agent in 1995. Al-Arian was later convicted, in 2006, for conspiring to support Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).<\/p>\n

\nThe Islamic Community of Tampa\u2019s 501(c)(3) board of trustees\u202fincluded Ramadan Abdullah Shallah, who was, at the same time, serving as secretary-general of PIJ. He appeared on the FBI\u2019s Most Wanted list, and the U.S. Treasury classified him as a Specially Designated Terrorist.<\/p>\n

Hatem Fariz became the new director of the Al-Qassam Mosque after he was released from prison in 2010 for pleading guilty to conspiracy to provide material support to PIJ.<\/p>\n

\nAll of these details appear in court records. And yet, the network is still active. \u201cEnforcement is slow for good reason,\u201d Lt. Gov. Jay Collins, Joel Finkelstein, and Colin Wright explain. \u201cFederal designations require due process. States face real constitutional limits, especially when religion and free speech are involved. The result is a gray zone that well-organized networks can and do exploit, sometimes for decades.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nRead more<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Last week, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani released the latest draft of his\u202f$125.8 billion\u202fbudget. By late June, he will negotiate with the city council to finalize it.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a business-as-usual budget, Nicole Gelinas argues. Mamdani wants to show that democratic socialism can work, but, like every mayor before him, she writes, \u201che can\u2019t figure a way out of the constraints imposed on him by public-sector unions and existing welfare programs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nIndeed, the cost of the city\u2019s workforce is growing. Rather than get a handle on it, Mamdani has supported union efforts to undo pension savings achieved earlier with steps such as raising the retirement age.\u00a0Social-services spending keeps rising, too. This year alone, the city will spend\u202f$1.5 billion\u202fof its own tax funds on welfare.<\/p>\n

\nRead more<\/a> about the budget and the challenges the new mayor will face.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\nLaunched in 2014, the children\u2019s search engine Kiddle holds outsize influence in the information space, with schools and libraries linking to it and the International Society for Technology in Education recommending it. The site appears prominently in Google searches, and its top traffic referrer is an online homeschool curriculum. Indeed, Kiddle bills itself as a trusted resource for kids.<\/p>\n

\nThere\u2019s just one problem: it disseminates biased and ideologically framed information.<\/p>\n

\u201cForeign terrorist organizations, like Hamas and Hezbollah, are whitewashed,\u201d Ashley Rindsberg explains. \u201cRussia\u2019s war on Ukraine is downgraded to a \u2018military operation,\u2019 mirroring Kremlin language, while Joseph Stalin\u2019s role in Russian history is reduced to his success in building a \u2018strong, modern nation.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\nRead more<\/a> about how the site softens extremist movements and authoritarian regimes.<\/p>\n


\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\nWhat does it take to write books that make the establishment uncomfortable\u2014and keep writing them anyway? Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow Abigail Shrier joins Rafael Mangual for an engrossing conversation. The author of two national bestsellers, Irreversible Damage and Bad Therapy, Shrier has spent years investigating what\u2019s gone wrong in the institutions educating and treating America’s children\u2014and speaking honestly about the consequences.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWhat do they call the top-scoring person at a medical school? Valedictorian. What do they call the lowest passing score in a medical school? DOCTOR!\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A quarterly magazine of urban affairs, published by the Manhattan Institute, edited by Brian C. Anderson.<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 Manhattan Institute, All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Forwarded this email? Sign up for free to have it sent directly to your inbox.\u00a0\u00a0 Good morning, \u00a0…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37105,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-240404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}