By CATHY BUSSEWITZ

NEW YORK (AP) — Beth Brown was assigned to a major project at work when hardship struck. First, her 6-month-old daughter fell ill with COVID-19. A few days later, her mother passed away.

Related Articles

Stranded by winter weather? Here’s what airlines owe you

Businesses face pressure to respond to immigration enforcement while also becoming a target of it

Trump administration invests in another US rare earth miner to loosen China’s grip on supply

US stocks rise as gold hits another record and the dollar’s value sinks again

European Union opens investigation into Musk’s AI chatbot Grok over sexual deepfakes

Brown, director of health and well-being at a company that provides employee mental health programs and absence management services, sent a note to the senior ComPsych director who was her partner on the project, explaining she would have to miss work to care for her daughter and to make funeral arrangements. “The guilt that I felt for knowing I was going to leave her dry on my end,” she recalled.

Instead of calling to go over remaining tasks, the director reached out to ask whether Brown was OK and to tell her not to worry about the project. “In the grand scheme of things, this is not important,” Brown recalled her colleague saying. “It’ll be here when you get back. I’ll be there when you’re back.” Hearing the kind words, Brown “felt like there was a brick taken off my chest.”

The importance of treating others with kindness is one of the first lessons most parents and guardians try to teach children. But the skill sometimes falls by the wayside in work settings that encourage competition and where adults face deadlines and pressure. Financial worries and fears of layoffs also can stifle generous impulses.

Perhaps that’s why acts of kindness on the job often are so memorable for those on the receiving end. Molly MacDermot, director of special initiatives at Girls Write Now, a nonprofit mentorship and writing program, feels lucky to have a boss who was kind to her when MacDermot’s father died eight years ago and her mother passed away six months ago.

As technology accelerates the pace of many types of work, “it’s really important to feel human, to be allowed to be human, which is getting the grace to just deal with the bumps in life,” MacDermot said.

Kindness can also mean sharing hard truths in a productive way, going out of the way to welcome a new coworker or bending the rules for the sake of love.

Here are some examples of kindness in action and ideas for spreading goodwill at work.

Create safe spaces

Treating others with warmth and consideration may be especially meaningful at a time of heightened political divisions that has many people feeling like they have to choose sides, said Anna Malaika Tubbs, a sociologist and author of “The Three Mothers” and “Erased.”

“Especially in a workplace, where you can level the playing field and really make sure people know, ‘Hey, you’re welcome here and you’re seen here,’ that can really make a difference at a time when on a national level people feel really divided from each other,” Tubbs added.

One way to encourage empathy at work is to create an environment where people get to know each other, Tubbs said. Organizing staff retreats where family members are welcome, bringing in guest speakers, starting book clubs and scheduling fun offsite activities like going to an escape room are ways to generate shared experiences and facilitate healthy dialogues, she said.

The goal isn’t “to erase political difference or erase being able to disagree with each other” but to promote a cultural shift by encouraging behavior and actions different from the ones that often get rewarded at work, Tubbs said.

“Let’s not show up to meetings thinking that we have to compete and show who’s going to be the loudest and who’s going to be the most dominant,” she said. “What would look differently if we were collaborating with each other? If we were more focused on community?”

Creating a supportive culture within an organization requires daily attention, said Maya Nussbaum, the founder of Girls Write Now and MacDermot’s boss. She starts meetings with “heart warmers,” a time for staff members to share their thoughts on topics as simple as a favorite candle. She also encourages actively listening to different perspectives.

“Productivity is better when people feel that they’re valued and they’re listened to and they matter,” Nussbaum said. “They’re going to work harder and they are going to care, and they’re going to channel their passion as opposed to feeling dismissed.”

Provide real feedback

Compassion can mean sharing hard truths in a tactful way. For example, it’s challenging to let people know they aren’t meeting performance expectations, but “sometimes kindness is getting out of your comfort zone and telling someone the truth so they can shine,” said Chantel Cohen, founder and CEO of Atlanta-based CWC Coaching and Therapy, a counseling and life coaching practice in Atlanta.

When providing feedback as a manager, give specific examples to illustrate the behaviors that need improvement, she said. “Kindness isn’t a conflict-free workplace. Kindness is a workplace where repair is possible or improvement is possible,” Cohen said.

However, remember to acknowledge successes. Karla Cen recalls a former boss who she says criticized her several times a day. She learned a lot, but felt unrelenting pressure.

A manager at the retirement community in Florida where Cen works now brought her a potted plant on her first day after driving four hours to meet her. Another manager provides encouraging feedback daily.

“Having her pass by and say, ‘You did that really well today,’ it just really uplifts the mood of the whole department and makes us ready to come in for the next challenges,” Cen said.

Give back time

Before scheduling a meeting, consider whether the goals can be accomplished another way. For example, a manager can tell a working group, here’s what’s on the agenda, take time to think about it and send your ideas in writing, Cohen suggested.

“Sometimes, the gift of time is such a kindness,” she said. “Maybe you can’t give your team time off right now, but what you could do a couple times a quarter is just say, ‘Hey we’re going to skip tomorrow’s meeting and here are the things I want you all to think about. Submit this in writing so that you can have the time for yourselves.’”

Keeping meetings structured and focused also frees up time, Nussbaum said.

Reconsider rules

Meher Murshed began dating a colleague, Anupa Kurian-Murshed, more than two decades ago when they both worked at Gulf News in Dubai. The couple wanted to marry, but the newspaper prohibited spouses from working in the same department. They feared one of them would have to quit if they wed.

So they appealed to their editor-in-chief, who raised the issue with the managing director. The top managers decided the couple could keep their jobs and get married as long as one of them didn’t report to the other.

“It changed our lives. Life could have been very different,” Meher Murshed said.

Share your stories and questions about workplace wellness at cbussewitz@ap.org. Follow AP’s Be Well coverage, focusing on wellness, fitness, diet and mental health at https://apnews.com/hub/be-well

Every day now, I sit at my computer and ask myself: What is there left to say about the two news stories I care about most? One is unfolding in my hometown, on the banks of the Mississippi River; the other is unfolding on the West Bank of the Jordan and on both banks of the Wadi Gaza.

Which video should I linger on longest? The footage of Renee Good, shot in the face by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis while she was clearly trying to evacuate the scene? Or the video from Saturday of federal agents shooting Alex Jeffrey Pretti, an intensive care nurse, after he tried to help a woman who was being pepper-sprayed? Or perhaps the video from Wednesday showing the aftermath of Israeli strikes that killed three Palestinian journalists, among others, in the Gaza Strip? The journalists had been working for a committee providing Egyptian aid and were documenting its distribution at a displacement camp. Or perhaps the videos of Hamas executing rivals and refusing to yield, despite that the war the group ignited Oct. 7, 2023, has resulted in nothing but catastrophe for Palestinians?

These stories have much more in common than you might think. All are driven, in my view, by terrible leaders who prefer easy, violent solutions to the hard work of negotiated problem-solving. These leaders see an ironfisted approach as the best way to win their next elections: President Donald Trump in the 2026 midterms; Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, who is expected to call elections around the same time; and Hamas, in its desperate effort to lead the Palestinian movement in the postwar era, despite having lost the war.

Hamas and ICE also share one very visible trait that I never thought I’d see in the United States: Almost all of their foot soldiers wear masks. My experience as a reporter in the Middle East taught me that people wear masks because they are up to something bad and don’t want their faces captured on camera. I saw it often in Beirut and in Gaza; I never expected to see it in Minneapolis. Since when have America’s domestic policing forces, charged with defending the Constitution and the rule of law, felt the need to hide their identities?

I understand why Hamas fighters wear masks — they have both Israeli and Palestinian blood on their hands and fear retribution. But if you placed a photo of an ICE officer next to a Hamas militiaman in a news quiz, I would defy you to tell them apart. Memo to the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem: That is not a good look. What are you hiding?

Good and Pretti were both clearly present as observers — and trying to defend others — yet both were drawn into the chaos and shot at close range by agents who should never have pulled a trigger. Yet the Trump team insists that ICE is blameless. That is not how you build legitimacy for a government effort to track down and deport immigrants lacking permanent legal status.

That same instinct for “fire, ready, aim” is one of the morally corrupting legacies of Israel’s war in Gaza. One of the Palestinian journalists killed by the Israeli airstrike Wednesday, Abdel Raouf Shaath, had worked for years as a cameraman for CBS News and other outlets; the others were local journalists Mohammad Salah Qishta and Anas Ghneim. They were reportedly on assignment to film aid distribution by the Egyptian Relief Committee when their vehicle was targeted.

Really? Was that the only way to handle the situation during a ceasefire? Immediately launch an airstrike and ask questions later? Israel can assassinate nuclear scientists in Iran in the dead of night from 1,200 miles away, yet it can’t distinguish a journalist from a combatant in broad daylight next door? It’s shameful. This comes only months after Israeli forces killed Reuters journalist Hussam al-Masri on the stairs of Gaza’s Nasser Hospital in August.

Netanyahu apologized for that earlier killing. But regarding the three journalists killed last week, the Israeli military released a boilerplate statement saying troops identified “several suspects who operated a drone affiliated with Hamas” and “struck the suspects who activated the drone.” The military added that details are being reviewed. That is what it always says. That is how a nation and an army loses its soul.

Here is what is really happening: Netanyahu is running for reelection. Israel currently occupies approximately 53% of the Gaza Strip, with Hamas holding the other 47%. Trump — with help from Egypt, Qatar and Turkey — is pushing for Hamas to disarm, for its military leaders to leave and for the organization to become a purely political entity. In return, Trump expects Israel to begin a withdrawal toward its own border.

Netanyahu knows that if he runs for election with Hamas still holding political influence in Gaza and the Israeli military pulling back, he will be savaged by the far-right extremists in his coalition. Those allies don’t just want to stay in Gaza; they want to annex the West Bank. So Netanyahu wants the war to continue; he wants to provoke Hamas into fighting so he never has to withdraw.

Meanwhile, Hamas is clinging to its weapons to maintain control on the ground. Even if forced to become a political entity, it will do everything in its power to hijack the technocratic Palestinian government the Trump administration is trying to install.

Back at home, Trump seems to believe the chaos in Minneapolis will work for him in November — even though polls show a majority of Americans disapprove of ICE’s tactics. He is betting he can run on a “law and order” platform fueled by anti-immigration sentiment.

There is, however, another view inside the White House. Vice President JD Vance visited Minneapolis last week to urge local officials to cooperate with federal agents to “lower the temperature and lower the chaos.” Suddenly, the cynical Vance — of all people — was the voice of calm and reason. I suspect he was channeling the fears of Republican lawmakers who worry that ICE’s activities could lead to an electoral disaster in the midterms.

To my friends and family in Minnesota: Stay proud of the way you are documenting abuses and standing up for your neighbors — those with legal papers and those without them — who abide by the law, work hard and enrich our city. But it is vital that this campaign be accompanied by a loud commitment to immigration reform that both controls the border and creates a legal pathway to citizenship.

The winning message remains: high wall, big gate. Control the border, but increase legal immigration. Democrats must never forget that one reason Trump returned to power was the previous administration’s failure to control illegal immigration. Independent voters still care deeply about that.

Trump, Netanyahu and Hamas each have their eyes on the prize: the 2026 elections. The people of Minnesota, Israel and Gaza must keep that in mind. Because if Trump maintains control of Congress, if Netanyahu wins reelection and if Hamas seizes control of the Palestinian movement, all three societies will head into a darkness from which recovery will be agonizingly difficult.

Thomas Friedman writes a column for the New York Times.

Related Articles

James Seifert: It’s time for the federal courts to do their duty

Editorial: After Venezuela, another Latin American dictatorship frets about its future

Julie Roland: We can’t let Pete Hegseth win his war on women in combat

Kenneth Seeskin: AI can’t do soul-searching. Here’s why we need philosophy

Aaron Coy Moulton: This time the US isn’t hiding why it’s toppling a Latin American nation

By MICHAEL R. SISAK and LARRY NEUMEISTER

NEW YORK (AP) — The brothers operated in the glitz and glamour of the Hamptons and South Beach. Two were high-end real estate brokers dubbed “The A Team.” The third went to law school and ran their family’s private security firm, which caters to heads of state and the rich and famous.

Related Articles

US aircraft carrier arrives in the Middle East as tensions with Iran remain high

Stranded by winter weather? Here’s what airlines owe you

Businesses face pressure to respond to immigration enforcement while also becoming a target of it

Federal Aviation Administration says 7 killed, 1 survived jet crash in snow in Bangor, Maine

US stocks rise as gold hits another record and the dollar’s value sinks again

They frequented nightclubs, cruised on yachts and flew on private jets. One lived alongside celebrities and corporate titans on Manhattan’s Billionaires’ Row. The others had multimillion-dollar waterfront mansions in Miami.

But behind their posh, peripatetic façade, prosecutors say, Tal, Oren and Alon Alexander — known collectively as the Alexander Brothers — were predators who sexually assaulted, trafficked and raped dozens of women from 2008 to 2021, often after incapacitating them with drugs and sometimes recording their crimes on video.

The brothers met victims at nightclubs, parties and on dating apps, and recruited others for trips to ritzy locales, paying for their flights and lodging at high-end hotels or luxe vacation rentals before drugging and raping them, prosecutors said. In all, dozens of women have accused them of wrongdoing.

Now, the brothers — Tal, 39, and twins Alon and Oren, 38 — face a reckoning that prosecutors say was more than a decade in the making: a sex-trafficking trial that could put them in prison for the rest of their lives.

Opening statements are slated for Tuesday in the brothers’ trial in federal court in Manhattan, after they were delayed a day because of heavy snowfall over the weekend in New York.

Oren and Tal Alexander, the real estate dealers who specialized in high-end properties in Miami, New York and Los Angeles, have pleaded not guilty, along with their brother Alon, who graduated from New York Law School before taking his position with the security firm.

All three have been held without bail since their December 2024 arrests. They were indicted months after several women filed lawsuits alleging sexual misconduct.

A spokesperson for the Alexander Brothers said they “categorically deny that anyone was drugged, assaulted, or coerced, and the government has presented no physical evidence, medical records, contemporaneous complaints, or objective proof to establish those claims.”

“This case highlights a broader concern about how the federal sex-trafficking statute is being applied,” said the spokesperson, Juda Engelmayer. “Congress enacted that law to address force, coercion, and exploitation; not to retroactively criminalize consensual adult relationships through inference or narrative.”

“As the defense has consistently said, allegations are not evidence,” Engelmayer added.

The brothers’ attorneys have promised to show the jury of six men and six women that prosecutors have taken innocent romantic and sexual encounters and converted them into criminal activity through clever lawyering.

Oren Alexander’s attorney, Marc Agnifilo, has said the defense plans to prove that witnesses have lied to the government and that their testimony can’t be trusted.

Judge Valerie E. Caproni, who will preside over the trial, has rejected defense requests to toss out the charges or send the case to state court. The Alexanders’ lawyers have said the allegations against them resemble “date rape” crimes more commonly prosecuted in state courts, but Caproni disagreed.

FILE – In this screenshot, Miami Dade Circuit Court Judge Mindy S. Glazer is seen via video presiding over the first court appearance of Alon Alexander, who is charged with sexual battery along with his twin brother, Oren Alexander, on Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024, in Miami. (Miami Dade Circuit Court via AP, Pool, File)

“That badly misrepresents the nature of the charges,” the judge wrote.

Agnifilo has said the jury will hear evidence of group sex, threesomes and promiscuity. During jury selection last week, prospective jurors were asked questions related to sexual activity and sex crimes.

“The case is about sex and sexuality,” said Agnifilo, who represented Sean “Diddy” Combs last year as the hip-hop mogul was acquitted of sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges but convicted on lesser prostitution-related counts.

In court papers, the Alexander Brothers’ lawyers wrote that among the accusers they expect to testify at trial, they had located evidence “that undermines nearly every aspect of the alleged victims’ narratives.”

Prosecutors have said their evidence will show that the brothers “have acted with apparent impunity — forcibly raping women whenever they wanted to do so.”

BRUSSELS (AP) — NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte insisted on Monday that Europe is incapable of defending itself without U.S. military support and would have to more than double current military spending targets to be able to do so.

“If anyone thinks here … that the European Union or Europe as a whole can defend itself without the U.S., keep on dreaming. You can’t,” Rutte told EU lawmakers in Brussels. Europe and the United States “need each other,” he said.

Tensions are festering within NATO over U.S. President Donald Trump’s renewed threats in recent weeks to annex Greenland, which is a semiautonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark.

Trump also said that he was slapping new tariffs on Greenland’s European backers, but later dropped his threats after a “framework” for a deal over the mineral-rich island was reached, with Rutte’s help. Few details of the agreement have emerged.

The 32-nation military organization is bound together by a mutual defense clause, Article 5 of NATO’s founding Washington treaty, which commits every country to come to the defense of an ally whose territory is under threat.

At NATO’s summit in The Hague in July, European allies — with the exception of Spain — plus Canada agreed to Trump’s demand that they invest the same percentage of their economic output on defense as the United States within a decade.

They pledged to spend 3.5% of gross domestic product on core defense, and a further 1.5% on security-related infrastructure – a total of 5% of GDP – by 2035.

Related Articles

US aircraft carrier arrives in the Middle East as tensions with Iran remain high

France honors fallen soldiers in Afghanistan after Trump’s false claim about NATO troops

A ferry carrying more than 350 people sinks off the Philippines, killing at least 18

Israel recovers remains of the last hostage in Gaza. Ceasefire moves into tricky new phase

Talks with US and Ukraine in Abu Dhabi were constructive but major challenges remain, Kremlin says

“If you really want to go it alone,” Rutte said, “forget that you can ever get there with 5%. It will be 10%. You have to build up your own nuclear capability. That costs billions and billions of euros.”

France has led calls for Europe to build its “strategic autonomy,” and support for its stance has grown since the Trump administration warned last year that its security priorities lie elsewhere and that the Europeans would have to fend for themselves.

Rutte told the lawmakers that without the United States, Europe “would lose the ultimate guarantor of our freedom, which is the U.S. nuclear umbrella. So, hey, good luck!”