• Facebook feud: Upper East Side moms in MUES and UES Mommas groups clash over Zohran Mamdani's mayoral win.
• Neighborhood vote: Area supported Andrew Cuomo by 24-point margin, prompting panic posts about fleeing NYC.
• Departure talks: Over 300 members discuss moving to New Jersey or Florida due to fears of radical policies.
• Safety concerns: Posts highlight worries over free buses leading to crime and Mamdani's stances on Hamas and Intifada.
• Counterarguments: Defenders label critics racist or Islamophobic, urge relaxation and dismiss actual moves.
• Media portrayal: New York magazine depicts groups as hysterical; residents like Robyn Reiter call it reductive and stereotypical.
• Group response: Moderator Valerie Iovino defends MUES diversity across politics, religion, and socioeconomic lines.
• Broader sentiment: Jewish activists like Samantha Ettus voice pre-WWII parallels; similar reactions on Upper West Side.

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Moms on Manhattan’s Upper East Side are embroiled in a Facebook feud over the mayoral election of Zohran Mamdani.

The private cyber scuffle spilled out into the pages of left-leaning New York magazine, which published a gossipy hit piece detailing how warring factions were battling it out on two private chat groups: Moms of the Upper East Side (MUES) and UES Mommas.

Barely were the ballots finally counted before hundreds of residents in the ritzy neighborhood — who voted for Andrew Cuomo by a 24-point margin — posted panicked messages saying they were frightened and fleeing, fearing the Democratic socialist’s radical policies would turn the Big Apple into 1930s Germany.

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The election of Zohran Mamdani sparked feuding among members of two popular, private Facebook groups for Upper East Side locals. REUTERS

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The ritzy neighborhood overwhelmingly voted for Andrew Cuomo, but members of the Facebook groups are divided over support for Mamdani. Posh Park Avenue is pictured. Olga Ginzburg for N.Y. Post

“With all my love for NYC I can’t believe 50% +- of the city voted for this joker,” one mortified momma moaned on the MUES page, which has more than 35,000 members and is usually reserved for advice about nannies, strollers and schools.

“Wondering who’s actually leaving? To where, Florida?” they then asked.

More than 300 locals responded, per the report, claiming they were considering moving to New Jersey or Florida following Mamdani’s win.

Meanwhile, others on the pages proclaimed that the incoming mayor’s proposal for free buses would result in riders being raped and murdered.

However, users on both Facebook pages fought back, accusing their neighbors of being overwrought and Islamophobic.

“It IS racist to just be mad that your new mayor is a Muslim,” one member maintained.

Meanwhile, one mom named April, who is a member of MUES, told New York magazine that the complainers were all talk and actually had no plans to leave Manhattan.

“No, you’re not (moving),” she stated. “Just relax.”

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Samantha Ettus, a Jewish activist, is not a member of the Upper East Side Facebook groups, but believes Mamdani will not be good for New York City. While the outspoken mom-of-three is willing to share her opinion on the record, many other moms are more reluctant to do so in the wake of the New York magazine piece.

The feuding between the two factions recently reached fever pitch, with the MUES group admins recently forced to instill a new rule for users.

“You may not attack or threaten other members while anonymous (or ever),” they implored.

Other more apolitical users urged calm, with one calling for all members to “get a collective grip.” 

The article featured posts by Upper East Side resident Robyn Reiter, a doctor of physical therapy and a single mother of a 13-year-old son.

 “We are literally terrified that a mayor who won’t condemn Hamas and won’t condemn the phrase ‘Globalize the Intifada’ is now running the city with the second largest Jewish population in the world,” Reiter wrote on the MUES page.

“It feels very immoral to me at this moment to pay tax dollars to a city that just elected someone who would love to see my people murdered,” she told New York magazine directly in a follow-up interview. “We’re all looking for an out, because I can’t jeopardize the safety of my son.”

She told the publication that she was considering leaving the Upper East Side and moving to Hoboken, New Jersey.

However, Reiter says she is disappointed with how she was portrayed in the article, telling The Post she found it inaccurate and reductive.

Reiter says she was forced to make her social media profiles private after the story came out “because of all the hatred I was getting.”

“I think I’m maxed out on this topic already, unfortunately,” she told The Post. “Instead of being portrayed as a smart and hardworking Jewish woman who has every reason to worry about the safety of my Jewish son in today’s New York, the article portrayed me (and others) as hysterical rich women having meltdowns.”

“I’m a single mother who works 10-hour days to support my son on my own,” she continued. “He attends public school because I can’t afford private [school] without significant financial aid. I am neither a ‘rich mom’ nor ‘going to war.'”

MUES moderator Valerie Iovino echoed Reiter’s disappointment in how the group was portrayed, telling The Post that the piece “reduced a group of 35,000+ diverse women — a small fraction of which engaged in an important debate and conversation — into caricatures based on their own stereotypes of Upper East Side women.”

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Members of MUES were upset by their depiction in the New York magazine article, saying they were stereotyped as privileged and out of touch.

“MUES includes members with a wide range of political views, and a full spectrum of religious, socioeconomic, and racial backgrounds,” Iovino further stated. “Yet they flattened the entire community into a two-dimensional image of Marie Antoinette clutching her pearls.”

In the wake of digital drama, many moms on the Upper East Side are reluctant to reveal their political persuasions publicly.

When The Post attempted to speak with one mom in the neighborhood, clad in a chic activewear outfit paired with a pair of large Gucci sunglasses and pushing a blanket-covered baby stroller, she quickly dismissed a request for comment.

Although she was cautious not to go on the record sharing her views, she did mutter under her breath, “I f—ing hate that man” in reference to Mamdani as she scurried away.

She briefly told the reporter that she does not use Facebook and is not a member of either of the aforementioned online groups — but clearly feels just as strongly as those online.

However, there are still some moms willing to go on record.

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Amid a rise in anti-Semitism, Ettus believes the current climate resembles pre-World War II for Jews.

Samantha Ettus, a Jewish activist and mom of three, is not a member of either of the Facebook groups covered by New York magazine, but the native Upper East Sider aligns herself with those who believe Mamdani is not a good fit for the Big Apple.

“For many Jews that are paying attention, we see what’s going on and we see the patterns,” Ettus told The Post. “We see how closely the environment for Jews across the world right now resembles the pre-World War II environment, and it’s a time where we can’t afford to make great mistakes.”

Meanwhile, Upper East Side moms aren’t the only ones finding themselves wrapped up in online exchanges regarding the new mayor.

On the adjacent Upper West Side — long thought to be a liberal bastion — one member of the UWS Mommas Facebook group was also advertising to locals looking to move out of New York.

Member Gitty Leiner said she knew of an excellent real estate agent for those considering moving to Florida. Others wanted to know more.

• Medical Definition: Non-celiac gluten sensitivity (NCGS) describes individuals who experience symptoms after consuming gluten despite testing negative for celiac disease or wheat allergies, lacking both a diagnostic test and a clear biological mechanism.
• Wheat Composition: Gluten serves as the primary storage protein in wheat, yet the grain also contains essential nutrients and fructans, a type of fermentable carbohydrate distinct from the protein structure.
• Primary Triggers: Evidence indicates that symptoms attributed to gluten are frequently caused by fermentable carbohydrates known as FODMAPs or result from the expectation of discomfort rather than the gluten protein itself.
• Statistical Discrepancy: While approximately 4–15% of the global population reports sensitivity to wheat or gluten, objective testing confirms reactivity in fewer than 3% of cases.
• Psychological Factors: The nocebo effect and gut-brain interactions play significant roles in symptom generation, where negative expectations regarding gluten consumption lead to physical reactions even in the absence of the protein.
• Demographic Profile: The condition is most commonly self-reported by women around 38 years of age who often identify perceived sensitivities through personal dietary experimentation prior to seeking medical advice.
• Market Forces: The rapid cultural expansion of gluten-free diets correlates with media narratives and the growth of a multi-billion dollar industry rather than advancements in medical understanding of the condition.
• Dietary Misattribution: Health improvements observed on gluten-free diets often stem from the inadvertent reduction of ultra-processed foods and FODMAP intake, reinforcing the incorrect assumption that gluten was the cause of distress.

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The Rise of a Modern Food Fear 

“Our findings show that symptoms are more often triggered by fermentable carbohydrates, commonly known as FODMAPs, by other wheat components or by people’s expectations and prior experiences with food.” 

-Jessica Biesiekierski, Head of the Human Nutrition Group at The University of Melbourne

At this point, most of us know someone who identifies as “gluten sensitive.” Culturally, this idea has grown alongside rising interest in gluten-free eating, wellness trends, and a widespread belief that gluten causes fatigue, bloating, brain fog, or other vague symptoms. However, our medical understanding of these experiences is far narrower than the cultural phenomenon surrounding them.

Non-celiac gluten sensitivity (NCGS) is the medical term for this condition, referring to individuals who experience intestinal or extra-intestinal symptoms after eating gluten-containing foods but do not have celiac disease or a wheat allergy. NCGS lacks a diagnostic test, a known biological mechanism, or clear symptom patterns. NCGS is a narrower, more cautious medical label applied only after other conditions are excluded—and even then, its underlying cause remains uncertain. Yet the lack of clarity does not diminish the real discomfort many patients report.

To understand why these symptoms are so difficult to categorize, it helps to look more closely at what gluten—and wheat more broadly—actually contain.

What Gluten Actually Is and Is Not

Gluten is the main storage protein in wheat and gives dough its stretchy, elastic qualities. It provides most of the grain’s protein content. It is unusually rich in the amino acids proline and glutamine, making them difficult for the digestive system to fully break down; as a result, various gluten fragments can linger in the gut and may have biological activity. Beyond proteins, wheat provides essential nutrients such as fiber, vitamins, minerals, and, especially, fructans, a fermentable carbohydrate (FODMAP) recognized as a frequent trigger of digestive symptoms. While wheat varieties differ genetically and in their gluten content, there is no evidence that breeding over the last century has made wheat inherently more immunogenic. [1]

The Numbers Behind Gluten Sensitivity

Studies from around the world show that about 10% of people report being sensitive to gluten or wheat, though estimates range from 4–15%. But this number is significantly inflated. Yet controlled studies consistently show that only a small fraction of those tested react specifically to gluten, highlighting a gap between perception and physiological response.

There are several reasons for this gap between self-reports and verified cases:

• Self-diagnosis is common - Across high-income countries, one-third of people say they have some kind of food sensitivity. But when objectively tested, fewer than 3% do
• Verified Gluten Reactivity Is Rare - The majority of people who believe they are gluten-sensitive do not react to gluten and often are reacting to other components in wheat, especially FODMAPs—a group of short-chain carbohydrates known to trigger gas, bloating, and other digestive symptoms in many people. Additionally, there is a substantial overlap in the symptoms of irritable bowel with a “gluten allergy.”

These diagnostic ambiguities feed into broader challenges in defining what gluten sensitivity actually is.

A Diagnosis of Exclusion

As with many syndromes, there are difficulties in identifying specific diagnostic alterations, e.g., in long COVID. It is equally true for some forms of gluten sensitivity, which are categorized, with our best available evidence, as disorders of gut-brain interaction (DGBI), where they are symptoms of pain and altered GI function, yet no clear structural manifestations, e.g., irritable bowel syndrome. Methodological differences across studies make consensus difficult, but a growing number of studies suggest that FODMAPS, rather than gluten, may be the real culprit. 

![A person with a sandwich on her stomach

AI-generated content may be incorrect.](/sites/default/files/inline-images/image_80.png)Most people who report non-coeliac gluten sensitivity (NCGS) share a similar demographic profile: they are typically 38-year-old women. Many individuals first identify the problem on their own, after experimenting with diet changes, and before seeking medical attention. Symptoms often begin within a few hours of eating gluten but can appear later, and they vary widely between people.

This demographic pattern likely reflects reporting behavior as much as any underlying biology.

The symptom picture is broad. Digestive problems such as bloating, abdominal pain, diarrhea or constipation, reflux, nausea, gas, or mouth ulcers are common and can significantly impair day-to-day well-being. Many people also experience extra-intestinal symptoms, including fatigue, headaches, “brain fog,” skin rashes, joint or muscle pain, and changes in mood such as anxiety or depression. This wide range of nonspecific symptoms makes self-diagnosis both tempting and unreliable.

A Syndrome Without a Center

As with many syndromes, research has not yet revealed a single, consistent biological pathway. Instead, there are complex, mixed interacting influences. The lack of clear biomarkers, unreliable immune “signatures, and inconsistent intestinal changes suggest that symptoms may arise through several overlapping processes rather than one distinct cause. Studies of gluten triggering systemic immune responses, alterations of gut permeability, and microbiome characterization are at best “uncertain.” And then there is nocebo, placebo’s evil twin, where expectations play a significant role in experiencing a detrimental outcome. People often experience symptoms when they believe they consumed gluten, even when they didn’t, highlighting gut–brain interactions as a key driver.

The most fundamental challenge in NCGS research is uncertainty over whether it represents a distinct clinical entity at all—a striking contrast to the confidence with which the idea has taken hold in public culture. That cultural rise has unfolded far faster than scientific evidence could match.

From Science to Society: The Gluten-Free Boom

Over the past two decades, gluten sensitivity has evolved from a relatively obscure idea into a widely recognized cultural phenomenon. This surge of interest didn’t arise from medical breakthroughs; our understanding of “gluten sensitivity” is, at best, incomplete. Rather, it emerged from a convergence of public health narratives, wellness trends, media amplification, and commercial opportunity. As more people began attributing everyday symptoms like bloating, fatigue, or “foggy mind” to gluten, the idea of “gluten sensitivity” gained traction in popular culture far faster than the scientific evidence could keep up. 

“We would like to see public health messaging shift away from the narrative that gluten is inherently harmful, as this research shows that this often isn’t the case.”

-Jessica Biesiekierski, Head of the Human Nutrition Group at The University of Melbourne

This cultural shift has been closely tied to the explosive growth of the gluten-free marketplace. What began as a niche category for people with celiac disease is now a multibillion-dollar global industry. As public concern about gluten rose, manufacturers introduced an ever-expanding range of gluten-free breads, snacks, cereals, and convenience foods. The cycle became self-reinforcing: growing consumer interest encouraged companies to market these products as healthier or more “natural,” and the increased visibility of gluten-free options further normalized the idea that gluten is something many people should avoid—even though these substitutes vary widely in nutritional value.

The Self-Sustaining Gluten Cycle

The result is a self-sustaining cultural loop. More people try gluten-free diets out of curiosity or wellness motivations; many feel better, often because they have inadvertently reduced their intake of FODMAP-rich foods or ultra-processed products; and this perceived improvement strengthens the belief that gluten itself was the culprit. Commercial and media messaging magnify these impressions, making gluten sensitivity seem far more common—and biologically clearer—than scientific evidence currently supports. The science, meanwhile, continues to raise more questions than answers.

[1] Thereby dashing claims that more ancient wheat cultivars are “healthier.”

Source: Non-coeliac gluten sensitivity The Lancet DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(25)01533-8

Sergio Hyland seemed like the perfect advocate. Calling himself a “fierce, relentless, implacable abolitionist,” determined to end incarceration in the United States, Hyland had spent more than two decades behind bars before joining Pennsylvania’s Working Families Party as an anti-prison organizer. His criminal record only burnished his credentials: he had pled guilty to the 2001 killing of a 15-year-old and was later charged in connection with another homicide in 2002. Once he got out of prison in 2022, Hyland launched a website offering “speaking engagements” and “harm/de-escalation tactics” training, and he frequently appeared alongside Philadelphia’s progressive prosecutor, Larry Krasner. The two even shared a news release in April 2025 announcing the Working Families Party’s endorsement of Krasner, which the prosecutor was “honored to accept.” A week later, Hyland was arrested for murdering a 30-year-old mother of two. Police discovered a stockpile of illegal guns in his home. Now Krasner’s office will have to prosecute him.

Not every violent offender commits murder after his supposed rehabilitation, of course. And Hyland has not yet been convicted of this latest charge. But his arrest for a new heinous crime suggests a broader insight that political scientist James Q. Wilson long emphasized: incarceration is often valuable simply because it takes dangerous people out of circulation, removing them from society.

It’s fashionable to blame America’s high incarceration rates on social injustice—and law enforcement—rather than lawbreaking. If policymakers would just provide disadvantaged people with sufficient resources and economic opportunity, on this view, the crime problem could be solved. That utopian vision gained traction during the mad summer of 2020, when activists, rioters, and the mainstream press, reacting to the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, sought to replace law enforcement with programs that target the root causes of antisocial behavior. “As a society,” wrote activist Mariame Kaba in the New York Times, “we have been so indoctrinated with the idea that we solve problems by policing and caging people that many cannot imagine anything other than prisons and the police as solutions to violence and harm.”

The truth is otherwise. As Hyland’s case exemplified, violent crime is overwhelmingly the work of a small group of repeat offenders—that is, it is highly concentrated. The remedy, as Wilson argued half a century ago in his classic book Thinking About Crime, is not social engineering but incapacitation: keeping the violent few from striking again.

Most people are not teetering on the edge of felony, waiting to become, in the Left’s favored euphemism, a “justice-impacted individual.” The overwhelming majority of Americans never engage in serious criminal behavior, let alone commit violent felonies like murder or armed robbery. But those who do are likely to do so again, the evidence shows. Indeed, crime’s concentration is one of the most well-established findings in social science. In 1972, University of Pennsylvania criminologist Marvin Wolfgang reported that just 6 percent of males in a birth cohort accounted for 52 percent of all police contacts. (Violent crime, in particular, is overwhelmingly committed by young males.) Thirty years later, a similar study in Boston found that 3 percent of males were responsible for more than half of their cohort’s arrests after age 31.

The pattern holds across time and place. In 2014, data showed that three-quarters of state prisoners—the core of America’s incarcerated population—had at least five prior arrests. Nearly 5 percent had 31 or more, a larger share than those imprisoned after just a single arrest. In 2022, the New York Times reported that “nearly a third of all shoplifting arrests in New York City . . . involved just 327 people,” or 0.004 percent of the population, who had been “arrested and rearrested more than 6,000 times.” And in Oakland, a gun-violence-prevention group found that about 400 individuals—0.1 percent of the city—were responsible for most of the city’s homicides. Violence is concentrated geographically as well. It occurs primarily in poor minority neighborhoods, whose members make up most of its victims.

These figures may even understate how concentrated antisocial behavior is. Wolfgang found that the offending minority committed dozens of crimes for every one that led to arrest. Fifty years later, a similar study reported that delinquent youth “self-reported over 25 delinquent offenses for every one police contact . . . with some youth reporting upwards of 290 delinquent offenses per police contact or arrest.” Combined with the fact that more than 60 percent of violent crimes reported each year go unsolved, the implication is clear: by the time a violent offender ends up in prison, he has likely committed multiple violent acts and many lesser offenses. Again, these patterns are most common among young men “who exhibited more psychopathic features,” the 2022 study’s authors noted, and “who displayed temperamental profiles characterized by low effortful control and high negative emotionality.” As a massive study from Sweden concludes: “The majority of violent crimes are perpetrated by a small number of persistent violent offenders, typically males, characterized by early onset of violent criminality, substance abuse, personality disorders, and nonviolent criminality.”

The case for an incapacitation-first approach to crime control follows directly from these indisputable facts. An analysis of the Swedish paper reveals that violent crime would fall nearly 80 percent if perpetrators could be prevented from re-offending after their first conviction and would fall by half if they were fully incapacitated after their third. So concentrated is violent crime among a profoundly antisocial few that making even a tenth violent conviction punishable by life without parole would cut overall violent crime by 20 percent.

Convicted Philadelphia murderer Sergio Hyland became a prison abolitionist—only to be charged with committing a new killing not long after he was released. (Sabina Pierce)

It is intellectually interesting to try to discover why the five steal and the ninety-five do not,” Wilson wrote in Thinking About Crime. Yet from the point of view of public policy, he maintained, “such explanations are of little value, because government has no way of changing in any systematic fashion family backgrounds, deep-seated attitudes, friendship patterns, or media images.” Even if government were able to do these things, he continued, “the cost would be frightful—not only in money terms . . . but also in terms of those fundamental human values that would be jeopardized if government possessed the capacity to direct the inner life of the family or to mold the mental state of its citizens.”

Thinking About Crime remains the clearest articulation of a public-policy approach to criminal justice. Wilson began from the premise that a community cannot flourish under conditions of pervasive disorder. Public policy, he argued, must therefore manage crime effectively enough to secure a basic level of order—without utopian illusions but with attention to cost and “fundamental human values.”

Given crime’s extreme concentration, this chiefly means separating the antisocial few from the pro-social many. “What the government can do is to change the risks of robbery,” Wilson wrote, “and to incapacitate . . . those who rob despite the threats and alternatives society provides.” Of the punishments not deemed legally cruel and unusual, only incarceration and capital punishment guarantee incapacitation. Wilson became the leading voice in the latter half of the twentieth century pressing for more prosecutions of the antisocial few and longer sentences to keep them off the streets.

For decades, Americans intuitively accepted incarceration as justified by incapacitation. It fell out of favor, thanks to a long period of success and low crime rates, which provided an opening for activists and critics to make arguments about “mass incarceration.” Now, after years of criminal-justice reforms and anti-policing measures, crime has returned as a kitchen-table concern, but Wilson’s insights have faded from memory. We are not only far from reaffirming his conclusions; we have lost the habit of asking his questions.

Yet today’s debate over crime and punishment typically still begins with the premise that America suffers from “overincarceration.” Nearly 2 million people are held in prisons, jails, juvenile facilities, and other detention centers. As abolitionists and police-defunding advocates repeat, the U.S. rate of roughly 580 incarcerated individuals per 100,000 people remains the highest in the Western world. Starting from this premise, so different from Wilson’s public-policy approach, activists naturally ask whether the nation is locking up too many people.

As Thomas Sowell has observed, criminal justice is the only field where the first question often asked is what benefits the criminal rather than what protects the law-abiding public. Why? Wilson blamed “the causal fallacy”—the belief that “no problem is adequately addressed unless its causes are eliminated.” Embracing this fallacy turns policy on its head: a discussion that should focus on what best serves the community instead becomes a philosophical and anthropological search for the prime mover of antisocial behavior. “Wicked people exist” was Wilson’s conservative answer. That axiom is unacceptable to those unwilling to accept a moral view of human nature. And our discomfort with incapacitating the wicked has grown as the causal fallacy has taken deeper hold.

A half century after Thinking About Crime, the U.S. criminal-justice system has lost sight of its fundamental purpose, while the American public is less willing to accept the need for an incapacitation-first approach.

The modern view wrongly treats crime as a dispute between perpetrator and victim. Television dramas that let victims decide whether to “press charges” reflect this confusion. In reality, prosecutors represent “the People,” the political community harmed whenever one of its members is attacked or the law is broken within its borders. Antisocial behavior is an assault on the social order itself. Each crime signals that law-abiding citizens cannot rely on shared norms, forcing them to approach daily life with suspicion rather than goodwill. Lawlessness drives the law-abiding away; yet their interests must come first.

When they don’t, the results are predictable. Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg’s notorious Day One memo, for instance, laid out an anti-prosecution manual that divided offenses into two categories: a narrow set of “public safety” crimes warranting punishment; and others—such as theft, trespassing, or driving with a suspended license—that did not. Embracing the causal fallacy, Bragg promised to treat “nonviolent and minor offenses” with “root cause” strategies instead. New York went further, barring judges from considering whether defendants pose a risk of re-offending when setting bail. The effect is obvious: dangerous individuals who should be incapacitated remain free.

This mind-set is not confined to New York prosecutors; it reflects a broader cultural shift. Recurring “national reckonings” over race and identity have trained many Americans to see disparities as products of nebulous systemic oppression. Critical theory represents the ultimate root-cause hunt, insisting that hidden forces, not individual agency, explain failure or success. Diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts are justified as attempts to counteract these supposed causes. Today’s social-justice politics begins from the premise that finding root causes defines good policy. No wonder victimhood is coveted: it declares that one has been wronged through no fault of his own, obligating society to make amends. From here, it is only a short step to the ultimate causal fallacy: nobody deserves prison because individuals cannot fail society—only society can fail individuals.

The American Left cannot resist this reasoning. Its progressive wing, ascendant in the Democratic Party today, has embraced an ethic of moral luck, treating individual choices as mere reflections of unchosen circumstances. The Right, by contrast, retains the intellectual resources to return to first principles: so long as a lawbreaker threatens the good order of society, he must be restrained. The Right will need to bring this message forcefully to the places where it is most intuitive yet least familiar.

Wilson’s challenge to America was simple: acknowledge that some people must be prevented from preying upon others, whatever the origins of their behavior. Half a century later, his insights remain unrefuted. The best tribute to his legacy is to restore the habit of thinking about crime as a policy problem—and to reaffirm that incarceration is justified by incapacitation alone. We can keep chasing root causes while communities suffer. Or we can return to the essential work of protecting civilization from acts that Wilson rightly called “destructive to the very possibility of society.”  

Top Photo: In 2014, data showed that three-quarters of state prisoners had at least five prior arrests. (txking/iStock/Getty Images Plus)

• Discovery: Carved human face on wooden structural beam found by NCU archaeologists in Lake Lednica.
• Dimensions: 12 cm high and 9 cm wide, full-sized architectural element beyond structural use.
• Features: Realistic depiction with eyes, nose, mouth, chin, and oval head shape.
• Dating: Tree felled in 967, part of settlement's defensive rampart at branch fork.
• Interpretation: Possible symbolic role as deity, protective spirit, or apotropaic guard.
• Preservation: Survived due to underwater conditions, rare for wood in Slavic material culture.
• Comparisons: Similar to faces from Wolin, Novgorod, Staraya Ladoga, indicating local Slavic tradition.
• Context: Fits protective practices; ongoing NCU research yields bridges, boats, weaponry.

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Humanities and arts [2025-07-15]

Face from the lake

— Editors

The face is approximately 12 cm high and 9 cm wide. It is not a miniature figurine but a full-sized architectural element whose function went beyond purely structural purposes.

Mateusz Popek

A carefully crafted structural beam, known as a “hook," on which a human face was carved, was discovered by archaeologists from Nicolaus Copernicus University during underwater research in Lake Lednica. The face has very realistic features: visible are the eyes, nose, mouth, a characteristic chin, and the oval shape of the head.

The face is approximately 12 cm high and 9 cm wide. It is not a miniature figurine but a full-sized architectural element whose function went beyond purely structural purposes. The way the wood was worked and the expression of the face indicate that it was not a simple decorative motif. It is possible that the depiction had symbolic meaning – as an image of a deity, a protective spirit, or a hero guarding the settlement's inhabitants.

“This discovery not only evokes admiration for the craftsmanship from over a thousand years ago but also opens a fascinating discussion about the spiritual life of early medieval Slavs," says Dr. Andrzej Pydyn, NCU professor, director of the Centre for Underwater Archaeology at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń.

Dr. Andrzej Pydyn, NCU professor, director of the Centre for Underwater Archaeology at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń
Andrzej Romański

The wooden beam, marked with the number 353, originally formed part of the settlement's defensive rampart. The dendrochronology laboratory of Professor Marek Krąpiec estimated the year in which the tree used for this element was felled as 967. The face appears on one of the surfaces of the beam, at the point where a branch forks off.

In the material culture of the Slavs, figural anthropomorphic representations may have been much more common than the number of preserved artefacts suggests," explains Konrad Lewek, MA, from the Centre for Underwater Archaeology at Nicolaus Copernicus University. “Wood decomposes quickly, which is why such objects have survived only in exceptional conditions, such as wetlands or underwater environments. The beam from Lake Lednica, perfectly preserved in the rampart landslide, is therefore a unique object of exceptional scientific and cultural value."

Similar depictions of faces have previously been discovered in places such as Wolin, Novgorod the Great, and Staraya Ladoga. The artefact most stylistically similar is the four-faced figurine from Wolin, dated to the 9th century, made with similar simplified features – a triangular chin, straight nose, and schematic depiction of eyes and eyebrows. This consistency in detail strengthens the supposition that the Lednica beam represents a local artistic and spiritual tradition rather than the influence of Scandinavian or Rus culture, as previously suggested.

The discovered face on the hook may have had an apotropaic function – warding off evil forces and protecting the settlement's inhabitants. Such representations are known from other Slavic strongholds and settlements, where figurines, statues, and boards with human and animal faces have been found embedded in walls, fences, and even temple walls. Examples include the zoomorphic figurine from Gniezno or carved boards from Żółte, Kołobrzeg, Ralswiek, and Wrocław.

The face has very realistic features: the eyes, nose, mouth, distinctive chin and oval form of the head are visible
Mateusz Popek

“The find from Lednica fits into the broader context of protective magical practices known from Slavic territories," says Dr. Mateusz Popek from the Centre for Underwater Archaeology at Nicolaus Copernicus University. “Sometimes in defensive ramparts we also find animal bones, particularly horse jaws and skulls, which may indicate the ritual offering of protective sacrifices. In Ostrów Lednicki, remains of a horse were even discovered placed under one of the houses, as well as a fragment of a golden amulet case with a depiction of a horse at the base of the rampart, which may also point to the ritual character of these practices."

Professor Pydyn adds that if we assume that the face from Ostrów Lednicki had a protective or sacral function, we must revise the current approach to assessing the material traces of Slavic spirituality. These were not only monumental statues of deities but also everyday objects with a spiritual dimension – parts of buildings, palisades, gates.

Another season of research is underway in the area of Lake Lednica, conducted by scientists from the Centre for Underwater Archaeology at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń under the direction of Dr. Andrzej Pydyn, Professor at NCU, and Dr. Mateusz Popek, in close cooperation with the Museum of the First Piasts at Lednica. The first underwater discoveries in Lake Lednica took place in the 1950s, but systematic underwater archaeological research began in the early 1980s and continues to this day. Nearly 40 years of cooperation between Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń and the Museum of the First Piasts at Lednica has resulted in spectacular finds. Fragments of bridges leading to Ostrów Lednicki, dated to the times of Mieszko I and Bolesław I the Brave, have been investigated, several dugout boats have been discovered, and the largest collection of early medieval weaponry in Central Europe has been assembled.

• Chinese Threat Group: GTG-1002, likely backed by Beijing, manipulated Anthropic's Claude AI for espionage.
• AI Autonomy: AI conducted 80-90% of tactical operations independently, from reconnaissance to data extraction.
• Targets Hit: Campaign targeted about 30 entities in U.S. and allied nations, with successful intrusions into tech firms and government agencies.
• Bypass Method: Attackers used social engineering, posing as cybersecurity professionals to trick AI into executing tasks.
• AI Limitations: Claude overstated findings and hallucinated results, fabricating credentials and discoveries.
• Tools Employed: Relied on open-source penetration-testing frameworks via Model Context Protocol servers, no advanced malware needed.
• Strategic Insight: China spies with and on U.S. AI models, turning queries into training data for its systems.
• U.S. Responses Needed: AI defenses, mandatory disclosures, secure-by-design, international norms, real-time intelligence sharing.

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By

Nury Turkel

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Getty Images

A state-backed threat group, likely Chinese, crossed a threshold in September that cybersecurity experts have warned about for years. According to a report by Anthropic, attackers manipulated its AI system, Claude Code, to conduct what appears to be the first large-scale espionage operation executed primarily by artificial intelligence. The report states “with high confidence” that China was behind the attack.

AI carried out 80% to 90% of the tactical operations independently, from reconnaissance to data extraction. This espionage campaign targeted roughly 30 entities across the U.S. and allied nations, with Anthropic validating “a handful of successful intrusions” into “major technology corporations and government agencies.”

GTG-1002—Anthropic’s designation for this threat group—indicates that Beijing is unleashing AI for intelligence collection. Unless the U.S. responds quickly, this will be the first in a long series of increasingly automated intrusions. For the first time at this scale, AI didn’t merely assist in a cyberattack but conducted it.

Traditional cyber-espionage requires large teams working through reconnaissance, system mapping, vulnerability identification and lateral movement. A sophisticated intrusion can take days or weeks. China compressed that timeline dramatically through AI automation. The attackers manipulated Claude into functioning as an autonomous cyber agent, with the AI mapping internal systems, identifying high-value assets, pulling data and summarizing intelligence before human operators made decisions.

The attackers bypassed Claude’s safety systems through social engineering, convincing the AI they were legitimate cybersecurity professionals conducting authorized testing. By presenting malicious tasks as routine security work, they manipulated Claude into executing attack components without recognizing the broader hostile context.

An important limitation emerged: Claude frequently overstated findings and fabricated results, claiming credentials that didn’t validate or presenting publicly available information as critical discoveries. This AI hallucination problem remains a significant obstacle to fully autonomous cyberattacks—at least for now.

Most striking is what China didn’t need. GTG-1002 didn’t rely on cutting-edge malware or expensive proprietary tools. It used common open-source penetration-testing frameworks orchestrated through Model Context Protocol servers. Beijing hasn’t only upgraded its toolkit; it has replaced the craftsman with the assembly line. Capabilities once reserved for well-resourced intelligence agencies can now be replicated by smaller actors using widely available technology.

It also reveals a deeper strategic dynamic. China is spying with AI and spying on American AI. Beijing is studying how U.S. models behave, where they fail, and how they can be manipulated. Every malicious query becomes training data for China’s systems.

Anthropic deserves credit for disclosing the incident publicly and working with U.S. authorities. That transparency should set an industry standard. But the disclosure underscores a larger problem: Current safeguards aren’t designed for adversarial actors that move at machine speed.

The response must be urgent and clear. AI misuse can’t be treated as a narrow cyber issue; it is now central to the broader technology competition with China. Five responses are necessary:

First, AI-assisted defense must become standard across federal agencies, critical infrastructure and major corporations. AI can detect anomalies in real time and accelerate incident response from hours to minutes. China is using AI to accelerate attacks. The U.S. must use AI to accelerate defense.

Second, companies must disclose incidents of AI misuse within 72 hours. When AI systems are manipulated into performing malicious actions, critical details must be shared: attack vectors, guardrail failures, and forensic signatures that might help others detect similar intrusions. Without mandatory disclosure backed by safe-harbor provisions, businesses will keep quiet to avoid reputational damage. Policymakers can’t craft effective rules if the private sector conceals the incidents that illuminate emerging risk.

Third, AI companies must embrace secure-by-design principles. As Anthropic’s report warns, the techniques used by GTG-1002 will proliferate. The next generation of AI models must incorporate robust identity verification, real-time monitoring for malicious behavior, and guardrails resilient to social-engineering prompts.

Fourth, the U.S. and its allies need international norms governing AI-enabled cyber operations. Existing frameworks were created before autonomous systems existed. If Washington doesn’t shape these norms and lead, Beijing will.

Fifth, the U.S. must modernize how it shares threat intelligence. AI-accelerated attacks unfold too quickly for traditional bureaucratic information-sharing mechanisms. We need automated real-time systems capable of disseminating alerts across sectors in hours, not weeks.

The first AI-driven cyberattack is the opening act of a new era. GTG-1002 should be remembered the way we recall the first internet worm or the first ransomware wave: as an inflection point.

The cyber cold war just went kinetic. The weapons fire themselves now.

The question isn’t whether adversaries will continue exploiting AI for offensive operations. They will. The question is whether the U.S. will act quickly enough to defend itself.

China has signaled its ambitions. GTG-1002 shows it is already acting on them. The U.S. must stop debating the future of AI-enabled aggression and begin preparing for the conflict that has already arrived.

Mr. Turkel is a lawyer specializing in global trade compliance, export controls, sanctions and anticorruption compliance. He is author of “No Escape: The True Story of China’s Genocide of the Uyghurs.”

Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

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