INTERNACIONAL
How CodePink co-founder Medea Benjamin’s family foundation became a major funder of left-wing activist groups
CodePink co-founder Medea Benjamin’s family foundation became a major financial backer of a network of left-wing activist organizations over more than two decades, providing nearly $3.2 million to CodePink while also bankrolling protest groups, legal advocacy organizations and progressive nonprofits, a Digital investigation found.
The foundation, Arc of Justice, is a $54.6 million private foundation formerly known as The Benjamin Fund. A review of its complete IRS filing history found it made nearly 1,500 grants totaling about $24.6 million to organizations involved in anti-war activism, progressive policy, legal advocacy and campaigns involving immigration enforcement, China, Cuba and the Israel-Hamas war.
Among its largest recipients were CodePink, Global Exchange, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Grassroots International and Social Good Fund, alongside grants to dozens of other organizations involved in anti-war activism, progressive policy, legal advocacy and progressive media.
Arc of Justice provided CodePink more than twice the approximately $1.33 million the group received from the funding network linked to Shanghai-based Marxist tech tycoon Neville Roy Singham. A previous five-part Digital investigation found Singham’s network directed at least $278 million into organizations that promoted pro-China messaging.
LAWMAKERS THROW OUT ‘TROJAN HORSE’ ACTIVISTS THEY SAY ARE ENGAGED IN AMERICAN SUBVERSION
Arc of Justice has come under scrutiny after California revoked its charitable registration following years of financial compliance failures, though the foundation has been working to regain its standing with California regulators.
Benjamin, who co-founded CodePink with Singham’s wife Jodie Evans, has remained one of the group’s most visible public faces, frequently leading protests and interrupting congressional hearings. On Tuesday, she was escorted from a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee hearing on alleged foreign malign influence after protesting during the proceedings.
The Digital investigation also found the foundation itself has undergone sweeping changes in recent months, with Benjamin stepping down from the board, new leadership taking over and the organization saying it intends to chart a different course for its charitable giving.
Arc of Justice began funding CodePink in 2009 and provided grants to the organization in 15 tax years through 2024, totaling $3,195,280.
According to the documents, CodePink was Arc of Justice’s largest activist beneficiary. Since 2009, the foundation and its predecessor, The Benjamin Fund, also directed about $2.05 million to Global Exchange, the anti-war and social justice advocacy group Benjamin co-founded with her former husband, Kevin Danaher, which has long campaigned against U.S. military intervention and economic sanctions.
Arc of Justice also provided about $2.24 million to Grassroots International, which funds grassroots social movements around the world; $1.61 million to Social Good Fund, which provides nonprofit infrastructure and fundraising support for charitable projects; about $1.29 million to the Center for Constitutional Rights, a legal advocacy organization; and about $114,000 to Alliance for Global Justice (AFGJ), an activist nonprofit.
AFGJ has drawn scrutiny over its past fiscal sponsorship of Samidoun, a pro-Palestinian activist group later sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury. Benjamin said Arc’s final grant to Alliance for Global Justice was $10,000 in 2022 and that the foundation «was not aware of any specific groups fiscally sponsored by AFGJ» when it made its grants.
Through attorney David Levitt, the foundation said both CodePink and Alliance for Global Justice were recognized by the IRS as tax-exempt public charities and that Arc was entitled to rely on that status when making its grants.
The grantmaking reached across a much broader activist network. Since 2009, IRS filings reviewed by Digital show Arc of Justice and its predecessor gave about $492,000 to World Beyond War, roughly $255,000 to the Institute for Policy Studies and about $124,000 to Jewish Voice for Peace. It also gave $110,000 to Grassroots Global Justice and about $90,000 to the Center for Popular Democracy.
IRS filings also show Arc of Justice and its predecessor provided about $65,500 to Democracy Now! since 2009, where Benjamin has frequently appeared as a guest over the years.
Founded in 2002 with the aim of preventing the Iraq War, CodePink has grown into one of the country’s most visible anti-war protest groups, repeatedly disrupting congressional hearings and protests involving senior U.S. officials, including then-Secretaries of State John Kerry and Mike Pompeo. The group has also participated in nationwide No Kings protests, opposed ICE enforcement actions, organized anti-Israel rallies and campaigned against U.S. policy toward China, Cuba and Iran. Earlier this year, CodePink led a delegation to Cuba that included Twitch political streamer Hasan Piker.
Asked about Arc’s long-term funding of CodePink and other activist organizations, Matthew Johnson, a senior fellow at the Jamestown Foundation, said sustained financial support can have an impact well beyond the dollar amounts involved.
«Small amounts of money can actually go a long way toward impacting the broader media ecosystem… from the perspective of political organization, they may be having an outsized impact on the kind of information that is available to Americans,» Johnson told Digital.
Johnson, who testified before Congress Tuesday about how foreign adversaries may use nonprofits and other organizations to shape U.S. public opinion and policy, told lawmakers that CodePink launched its «China Is Not Our Enemy» campaign in 2020 following meetings in Beijing and has since pursued China-focused advocacy and organized travel. The campaign argued the United States should pursue cooperation with Beijing rather than confrontation. CodePink and Benjamin have denied taking direction from the Chinese government.
WATCH: Heritage Foundation senior fellow confronts CodePink’s Medea Benjamin before House hearing
Benjamin told Digital the grants were intended to support CodePink’s anti-war work.
«The foundation’s donations to CodePink were made to support its anti-war work,» she said in an email response.
At the House hearing on Tuesday, Benjamin also rejected suggestions that she or CodePink took direction from foreign governments. «I’ve been an anti-war activist from the days of Vietnam,» Benjamin said. «I never had a foreign government tell me what to do.»
Singham and the organizations he has funded, identified in the Digital report, have denied taking direction from the Chinese government, and neither Singham, Benjamin nor the organizations have been charged with wrongdoing.
CHINA EXPERT WARNS BEIJING WANTS AMERICANS — NOT THE CCP — TO SPREAD ITS MESSAGE
Arc of Justice was formerly known as The Benjamin Fund, Inc., with California corporate records showing the foundation formally changed its name in November 2019.
Benjamin’s father, Alvin Benjamin, a prominent Long Island real estate developer who founded The Benjamin Companies in the early 1960s, provided some of the foundation’s earliest documented financial backing.
The Benjamin Fund’s initial 2003 IRS return shows he contributed a partnership interest valued at $683,715 to the foundation, with Medea Susan Benjamin serving as president.
Much larger contributions followed. In 2010, the estate of Benjamin’s mother, Rose Benjamin, contributed $10,863,060, according to the foundation’s IRS filing. Five years later, the Estate of Alvin Benjamin contributed another $15 million, followed by another $8,603,450 in 2019.
Medea Benjamin — identified as Susan Benjamin on the filing — personally contributed $1 million to Arc of Justice in 2022, listing a Miami address.
Arc of Justice’s wealth was largely tied to an investment portfolio that continued to grow while the foundation distributed millions of dollars in grants.
Federal tax returns reviewed by Digital show the foundation’s assets grew from $39.63 million at the end of 2020 to $54.64 million in 2024, as it distributed millions of dollars annually in grants.
Arc of Justice generated much of its annual income from its investment portfolio, collecting dividends from stocks and mutual funds, interest on cash holdings and profits from investments that had increased in value.
In 2023, the foundation reported nearly $2 million in revenue, including $1.11 million in dividends and interest from securities, $166,421 in interest on savings and temporary cash investments and $686,919 in net gains from asset sales.
Its investment holdings also produced substantial gains as the portfolio increased in value. In 2020, Arc of Justice reported $12,344,501 in unrealized gains on securities, helping push its year-end assets to nearly $40 million.
Over more than two decades, IRS filings reviewed by Digital repeatedly reported no compensation for the foundation’s officers and no highly paid employees, while the foundation directed millions of dollars to outside organizations.
After California revoked Arc of Justice’s charitable registration, Digital reported that a new Florida nonprofit using the Arc of Justice name was incorporated at the Miami home of Benjamin’s longtime partner, Tighe Barry, raising questions about the future of the foundation and whether its assets or operations were being moved out of California.
The address is a modest turquoise home largely obscured by trees — an unassuming setting for an organization tied to a private foundation with more than $50 million in assets. Benjamin and Barry have frequently appeared together at CodePink demonstrations over the years.
Levitt later told Digital the Florida corporation had been created as a «placeholder» while the foundation considered relocating its operations from California, but the move was never completed. He said the California corporation was never formally dissolved, no assets were transferred and the Florida entity «holds no assets and has conducted no business.»
The foundation has been attempting to get its registration reinstated after recently filing five years of overdue reports covering 2020 through 2024 and paying $1,800 in filing fees and penalties as part of a petition for reinstatement, documents submitted to California regulators show.
$54M CODEPINK-LINKED FOUNDATION SHUT DOWN IN CALIFORNIA POPS UP AT RAMSHACKLE MIAMI HOME
In the reinstatement petition, Levitt attributed the missed filings to what he described as an administrative misunderstanding over whether the foundation had successfully relocated from California to Florida.
He wrote that, during the tenure of the foundation’s «former president,» who served through the end of 2025, foundation leaders believed Arc was no longer subject to California’s charitable registration requirements because it had moved to Florida.
The petition says the foundation later appointed a «new president,» who discovered the compliance problems in 2026 and began the process of bringing the organization back into compliance. The petition also states that the foundation’s directors and officers personally paid the penalty portion of the overdue filing fees.
The filings identify Maya Danaher, Benjamin’s daughter, as president of the California foundation. Danaher previously served as the foundation’s treasurer before becoming president.
«As previously reported, I have resigned from the foundation’s board, and its new management will set its own funding priorities going forward,» Benjamin said.
LAWMAKERS SAY THEY ARE STANDING AT THE GATES AGAINST ‘TROJAN HORSES’ PROMOTING MALIGN FOREIGN INTERESTS
It is unclear why Benjamin resigned from the board, why the proposed move to Florida was ultimately abandoned or why the foundation’s new leadership decided to shift its grantmaking priorities away from the causes it had supported for more than two decades.
Benjamin was not listed as an officer or director of the Florida corporation, where Barry was listed as secretary and registered agent.
Its stated goal is blunt: «WE ARE HERE TO SUPPORT SOCIAL JUSTICE NON PROFITS,» according to the articles of incorporation.
Levitt said the foundation’s new leadership intends to shift its grantmaking away from the causes it historically supported.
«Going forward, the foundation’s new management intends to focus its grant-making on domestic childhood enrichment programs and organizations that support the well-being of children, families and individuals in need throughout the U.S.,» Levitt said.
WATCH: Cuba expert says CodePink acts like a ‘Trojan horse’ for communist interests inside the US
investigations, charity, politics, us protests, china, cuba, immigration
INTERNACIONAL
James Talarico, el rostro joven de la histórica victoria demócrata que se suma a la carrera presidencial del 2028 en EE.UU.
Es el rostro más visible de la victoria demócrata sobre Donald Trump. Tiene 37 años, rostro de niño y apellido italiano. James Talarico pateó el tablero político en Texas y fue electo senador por el Partido Demócrata en un tradicional bastión conservador.
Será el legislador más joven del nuevo Senado estadounidense, tras unas elecciones que delinearon un nuevo mapa político con un Congreso dominado por la oposición.
Su triunfo sobre su rival republicano Ken Paxton fue histórico y lo catapultó a la primera línea de la carrera presidencial demócrata para las elecciones de 2028, junto a la exvicepresidenta Kamala Harris.
Talarico, maestro y seminarista presbiteriano, ganó en forma holgada a pesar de los fondos millonarios de la campaña republicana, la más cara para una elección no presidencial en la historia del estado. Según los resultados oficiales, ganó con el 54% de los votos.
Se estima que más de U$S 500 millones fueron donados a las arcas republicanas para evitar una derrota que no se daba desde hace casi 40 años. Solo Elon Musk giró unos U$S 200 millones, de acuerdo a la prensa local.
“David no era tan grande ni tan fuerte como Goliat. No tenía tantas armas, pero tenía esperanza. Tenía fe y tenía una honda. Ustedes fueron mi honda. Gracias. El pueblo de Texas fue mi honda. Y esta noche, hemos derrotado a Goliat”, dijo Talarico en un acto en Austin, capital de Texas.
Quién es James Talarico
Talarico nació el 17 de mayo de 1989 en Round Rock, en la periferia de Austin.
Se dedicó a la docencia y trabajó en una escuela pública de San Antonio antes de lanzarse a la política.
Su abuelo fue un pastor bautista. El flamante senador es abiertamente religioso y suele citar a Jesús en sus discursos, lo que lo diferencia de otros dirigentes del partido más inclinados a la izquierda, como la diputada Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez o el también electo senador Abdul El-Sayed, que será el primer miembro musulmán de la cámara alta.
De hecho, Talarico estudia actualmente en el Seminario Teológico Presbiteriano después de obtener un máster en política educativa en Harvard.
“Su perfil lo hace candidateable (en las elecciones presidenciales de 2028), sobre todo porque es joven. Además, es moderado, dentro de todo lo que representa el ala más radical y extremista del Partido Demócrata”, dijo a TN el analista Mauro Enbe.
Unidos
INTERNACIONAL
Iran takes a victory lap over stunning US election results, claims ‘collapse has accelerated’
Democrats weren’t the only ones celebrating amid shattering defeats for Republicans in the midterm elections — Iranian leaders also took a victory lap Wednesday.
Iran cast the results — where Democrats made gains even in traditional Republican strongholds — as a rejection of President Donald Trump’s war and a decisive referendum on the economic toll it took on American voters in the months before the election.
«The process of the US’s collapse has accelerated,» Iran’s current Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, posted on an official English language account on X.
«Conscience or the cost of living, Americans said NO TO WAR, and we endorse this message,» Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who has also served as Tehran’s chief negotiator in talks with Washington, posted on X.
STATE OF PLAY: BLUE WAVE SWEEPS DEMOCRATS INTO POWER, WITH KEY RACES STILL HANGING IN BALANCE
«If the US govt betrays their public will to serve international paymasters and blackmailers, it will learn our NO comes with a Nightmare,» Ghalibaf added.
Khamenei, meanwhile, appeared to signal Iran would dig in its heels rather than negotiate with the U.S.
«The Great Satan [the US] wants the surrender of the Iranian nation. The slightest inclination toward submission would cause the immense capital acquired through the blessings brought by the blood of our martyrs and the sacrifices of the entire Iranian nation to be lost,» he wrote in another post on X.
«It would embolden the enemy to launch more wars, and carry out its next acts of aggression.»
The declarations came after Democrats seized control of Congress Tuesday night in a political bloodbath for Republicans, delivering a major rebuke to Trump after a campaign dominated by concerns over affordability and the months-long war with Iran that the president repeatedly promised was nearing its end.
When the attacks began earlier this year, Trump said it would last a weeks — maybe a bit over a month. It has now been raging for more than eight months.
TRUMP CALLS IRAN CONFLICT A ‘SOFT WAR,’ INSISTS US HOLDS THE CARDS AHEAD OF MIDTERM ELECTIONS
Iran was hardly the only issue driving voters to the polls — but the conflict became increasingly intertwined with Americans’ economic concerns as the war sent energy prices higher and impacted the costs of gas and most goods.
Polling ahead of Election Day showed deep public dissatisfaction with the Iran conflict.
Trump himself acknowledged after the results came in that Iran «partly» played a role in Republicans’ losses, even as he continued to defend his decision to go to war.
Vice President JD Vance was much more blunt, writing in a lengthy X post: «The reason we lost is the war.»
«If you’d like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so,» he continued. «Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree, that’s at least honest.»
Other voices in Tehran also claimed vindication in the wake of the results.
TRUMP ADMIN THREATENS IRAN WITH ‘CONSEQUENCES’ AS ALLIES CONVENE AMID THREATS OF POST-ELECTION ESCALATION
Iranian Deputy Parliament Speaker Ali Nikzad called the Republican losses the «aftershocks» of what he described as Trump’s defeat at the hands of Iran, while a senior official in Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian’s office claimed the war and U.S. support for Israel had brought Republicans an historic electoral defeat.
Trump entered the conflict predicting a short war.
In the opening days of Operation Epic Fury, the president repeatedly said the campaign would take roughly four to six weeks and soon declared U.S. forces were running «substantially ahead» of schedule. American and Israeli strikes quickly eliminated senior Iranian military leaders and battered Tehran’s military infrastructure.
But the war proved far easier to start than to end.
Iran retaliated by choking commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway that before the war carried roughly a fifth of the world’s oil supply, while launching attacks on energy infrastructure across the Persian Gulf. Shipping through the strait nearly ground to a halt in the early weeks of the conflict, removing millions of barrels of oil from global markets and sending energy prices sharply higher.
Iranian attacks damaged oil and energy facilities in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and elsewhere in the Gulf, further squeezing supplies. By the end of May, more than 1.1 billion barrels of crude that would ordinarily have reached global markets had been disrupted, according to the International Monetary Fund.
THE OVERLOOKED WAY THE IRAN WAR IS MAKING GROCERIES, AMAZON PACKAGES AND NEW HOMES MORE EXPENSIVE
What Trump initially described as a matter of weeks instead stretched across much of 2026, as the administration struggled to secure lasting freedom of navigation through Hormuz and Iran retained the ability to threaten commercial shipping and its Gulf neighbors.
The economic consequences followed Americans home.
Oil prices surged after the war began, feeding through to gasoline and other consumer costs just as Republicans headed into a midterm election already dominated by concerns over affordability.
Even after U.S.-led operations restored much of the traffic through Hormuz by the fall, oil flows remained below prewar levels and Iran continued attacking commercial vessels.
The prolonged conflict also complicated Trump’s effort to argue that the war had already accomplished its central objectives. By October, the president was disputing that he had ever promised the entire conflict would end within four to six weeks, saying that timeline referred only to eliminating Iran’s nuclear threat.
war with iran, donald trump, congress, midterm elections, national security, politics, geopolitics, foreign affairs
Un total de 4,633 viviendas presentan daños totales en Panamá como consecuencia del terremoto de magnitud 7.5 registrado el pasado 9 de octubre. El Sistema Nacional de Protección Civil (Sinaproc) informó que 19,865 residencias han sido evaluadas, mientras las inspecciones abarcan a 63,767 personas en diez provincias y la comarca Ngäbe-Buglé.
El balance del Centro de Operaciones de Emergencias (COE), actualizado al 2 de noviembre, revela que 11,107 viviendas registran afectaciones moderadas y parciales, mientras otras 4,125 presentan daños leves o menores.
Las cifras reflejan la magnitud de las pérdidas materiales ocasionadas por el movimiento telúrico, cuando han transcurrido 24 días desde la emergencia.
Las evaluaciones se desarrollan mediante el sistema de Evaluación de Daños y Análisis de Necesidades (EDAN), que permite identificar las condiciones de las estructuras y las necesidades de sus ocupantes. El informe también registra 198 mujeres embarazadas y 2,758 personas con discapacidad, grupos que requieren seguimiento prioritario durante la recuperación.
La emergencia mantiene 113 albergues activos en diferentes regiones del país, donde permanecen 3,356 personas pertenecientes a 886 familias. Veraguas concentra la mayor cantidad de damnificados, con 1,635, seguida de Los Santos, que contabiliza 1,153 personas bajo atención de los organismos de respuesta.
En Herrera permanecen 359 personas alojadas en instalaciones temporales, mientras la comarca Ngäbe-Buglé registra 129. Coclé mantiene 66 damnificados y Chiriquí otros 14.
Estas cifras muestran la persistencia de necesidades de alojamiento, especialmente entre las familias cuyas residencias sufrieron afectaciones estructurales importantes.
El Sinaproc mantiene desplegados equipos de evaluación y trabajadores sociales para identificar las necesidades de las comunidades afectadas, orientar a las familias y facilitar la atención institucional.
Las labores incluyen acompañamiento a personas vulnerables y distribución de asistencia humanitaria, mientras continúa la verificación de los daños reportados.
En materia alimentaria, el Instituto de Mercadeo Agropecuario (IMA) informó sobre la distribución de 81,229 bolsas de alimentos en 1,548 comunidades. Esta operación forma parte de las acciones de abastecimiento dirigidas a los hogares impactados, particularmente en sectores donde las afectaciones dificultan el acceso a productos básicos.
La respuesta logística también ha requerido movilizar más de 208,317 libras de carga por vía aérea, mediante 343 horas de vuelo y 39 evacuaciones. Paralelamente, las instituciones han transportado 385.50 toneladas de suministros por vía terrestre, utilizando diferentes mecanismos para llegar a las poblaciones necesitadas.
En infraestructura pública, las autoridades reportan más de 853 centros educativos inspeccionados y 120 instalaciones de salud evaluadas. Un balance anterior identificó afectaciones en 619 escuelas, mientras las revisiones estructurales buscan determinar las condiciones de seguridad y facilitar el restablecimiento de los servicios esenciales.
}El terremoto ocurrió el viernes 9 de octubre, a las 12:56 p. m., con epicentro localizado a 39 kilómetros al noroeste de Tonosí, provincia de Los Santos, y una profundidad de cuatro kilómetros. El movimiento provocó daños en viviendas, carreteras, puentes y edificios públicos, principalmente en las provincias centrales.
La evolución de la emergencia refleja un incremento considerable en las evaluaciones realizadas. El 26 de octubre se contabilizaban 13,681 viviendas inspeccionadas y 44,885 personas registradas, frente a las cifras actuales. Aquel balance también reportaba dos personas fallecidas y 27 lesionadas, como parte de las consecuencias del desastre.
El seguimiento internacional ha incluido la participación de organismos de Naciones Unidas, que colaboran en áreas de salud, alojamiento, agua, saneamiento y protección. La Organización Panamericana de la Salud también documentó más de 600 réplicas posteriores al terremoto, un factor que ha complicado la recuperación de algunas comunidades.
Durante las festividades patrias, los equipos de emergencia continúan trabajando en territorio, sin suspender las inspecciones ni la entrega de suministros. Las autoridades también mantienen vigilancia ante las lluvias propias de la temporada, que podrían agravar las condiciones de terrenos inestables y zonas afectadas por deslizamientos.
El Sinaproc reiteró la necesidad de evitar cruzar ríos y quebradas crecidos, atender los avisos meteorológicos y extremar las precauciones con niños y adultos mayores. Mientras avanzan las evaluaciones, la atención a las familias desplazadas y la recuperación de infraestructura siguen entre las principales prioridades de las instituciones.
corresponsal:Desde Panamá
Javier Milei faltó a la inauguración de la Cumbre Iberoamericana y no irá a la cena con los reyes, pero se reunirá con el líder de Vox
El Gobierno francés admite que varios bancos de sangre también han sido objetivo de ciberataques
La chicana de Martín Caparrós a Javier Milei por la derrota de Trump en las elecciones de EE.UU.
James Talarico, el rostro joven de la histórica victoria demócrata que se suma a la carrera presidencial del 2028 en EE.UU.
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