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Dec 24, 2025
Calls are growing to release Palestinian protester Leqaa Kordia, who was arrested at a 2024 Columbia University Gaza solidarity protest. The charges were dismissed, but when she went to her ICE check-in this past March, she was arrested and immediately sent to the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, where she has been held ever since. Although Columbia University student protesters like Mohsen Mahdawi and Mahmoud Khalil have been freed from ICE detention, "her case sort of fell between the cracks," says Laila El-Haddad, Palestinian writer and journalist from Gaza, who just visited Kordia. El-Haddad also criticizes the Trump administration's effort to "crack down on any dissent and use immigration law, to weaponize immigration law to silence dissent and to criminalize free speech, especially when that speech relates to Palestine."
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Dec 24, 2025
Democracy Now! speaks with longtime immigrant rights activist Jeanette Vizguerra, who was just released Monday from ICE jail after nearly 10 months in a Colorado detention center. Vizguerra was ambushed by ICE agents during her work break in March. A judge ordered her detention was unconstitutional, and she was released on bond Monday. Vizguerra describes her time in detention and says she is "very emotional" and glad to be reunited with her children, and plans to keep fighting for her rights and for others. "Her detention was intentional to try and silence people across the country, not only immigrant leaders, but also citizens," says Jennifer Piper, a supporter and program director for American Friends Service Committee Colorado.
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Dec 24, 2025
As the DOJ releases the largest batch of files yet on the federal investigation into Epstein, we look at some of the most significant revelations with investigative journalist Vicky Ward, who has spent decades reporting on the deceased sexual predator, his powerful associates and the impact of his crimes. Survivors have condemned the Department of Justice for not complying with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which required all files to be released last Friday. "I mean, that was the first indication of the contemptuous, cavalier attitude that has gone on inside this Justice Department," says Ward. "It's heartbreaking, frankly, to see these files being dribbled out."
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Dec 24, 2025
Russia and China Strongly Condemn U.S. Pressure Against Venezuela at the U.N. Security Council, Israeli Defense Minister Vows Israel Will Build Settlements in Gaza, Greta Thunberg Arrested in London for Protesting in Solidarity with Palestine Action, Epstein Files Mention 10 Possible "Co-Conspirators", SCOTUS Blocks Trump's Deployment of National Guard Troops to Chicago, DOJ Sues Illinois Governor Pritzker over State Law Restricting Immigration Arrests, Federal Judge Rules Trump Admin Must Restore Disaster Aid to Democratic States, Trump Admin Bans Abortion Care for Veterans, Trump Admin to Start Garnishing Wages of Defaulted Student Loan Borrowers, Sudan's Prime Minister Presents Peace Plan to the United Nations Security Council, Longtime Immigrant Rights Activist Jeanette Vizguerra Released from ICE Custody, Betty Reid Soskin, the Oldest U.S. Park Ranger, Dies at 104
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Dec 23, 2025
We speak to independent journalist Jasper Nathaniel, who has recently returned from documenting Israeli settler and state violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. Nathaniel describes being ambushed by settlers in October, on the first day of the olive harvest, in an attack that left one middle-aged Palestinian woman with a brain hemorrhage. "It was clear that this was a planned ambush," says Nathaniel. "They were out for blood." Earlier this week, the Israeli Cabinet approved 19 more settlements in the occupied West Bank. "What's happening right now is these really violent settlers are going out into the fields. They're stealing land from Palestinians," explains Nathaniel. "[Then the government will] retroactively legalize the land that was stolen, and basically reward the violent settlers by giving them the stamp of state legitimacy."
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Dec 23, 2025
The new head of CBS News, Bari Weiss, is facing accusations of censorship after she abruptly canceled a segment from Sunday's episode of 60 Minutes just three hours before broadcast. The segment centered on the stories of Venezuelan immigrants sent to El Salvador's brutal CECOT prison by the Trump administration. "When so much of our ability to communicate out facts to the world is concentrated in a small number of people, and there's a squeezing of independent media and the ability to get independent perspectives and voices out more broadly, I think we're working with an information ecosystem that is highly dangerous," says Alexa Koenig of the Human Rights Center at University of California, Berkeley. The center's research on torture and other human rights violations at CECOT was to be featured in the segment.
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Dec 23, 2025
House Democrats Demand DOJ Investigate "Double Tap" Boat Strike as War Crime or Murder, Trump Says U.S. Navy WIll Begin Building "Trump-Class Battleships" for "Golden Fleet", Israel Kills Palestinians in Gaza City in Latest Violations of October 10 Ceasefire, Israeli Defense Minister Vows to Build Settlements in Northern Gaza, U.S. Lawmakers Call for "Maximum Diplomatic Pressure" on Israel over Gaza Ceasefire Violations, Israeli Strike on Lebanon Kills 3 in Latest Violation of Ceasefire Deal with Hezbollah, Denmark to Summon U.S. Ambassador After Trump Appoints Special Envoy to Greenland, Trump Admin Recalls Nearly 30 U.S. Ambassadors and Other Senior Diplomats, Trump Admin Announces Pause of Leases for All Large Offshore Wind Farms, Federal Judge Says ICE Agents Violated Constitutional Rights in Raid of a Nutritional Bar Plant, Federal Judge Says U.S. Must Give Due Process to Venezuelans Deported to CECOT, DOJ Posts Thousands of Additional Documents from the Epstein Files on Website, Then Removes Them, Larry Ellison Offers $40 Billion Guarantee in Paramount's Hostile Bid for Warner Bros.
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Dec 22, 2025
Climate scientists and meteorologists are sounding the alarm after White House budget director Russell Vought announced the Trump administration will break up the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, known as NCAR. "He is executing the playbook of Project 2025," says Michael Mann, scientist and co-author of Science Under Siege. Without NCAR, "we will not have the sorts of observational data and climate models that we need to inform climate policy."
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Dec 22, 2025
There's been a sharp rise of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank under Israel's current far-right government. Israel's Cabinet approved a proposal for the construction of 19 new Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank on Sunday. Amnesty International researcher Budour Hassan says the move "entrenches the apartheid system we're seeing in the West Bank." Experts warn that the settlements further threaten the possibility of creating a Palestinian state.
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Dec 22, 2025
Democracy Now! speaks with Democratic Congressmember Ro Khanna on the latest developments in Congress and about escalating U.S. attacks on alleged drug boats off the coast of Venezuela. "Why are we going into a regime change war when the president promised no endless wars?" he asks.
Khanna also defends New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani after Congress passed a resolution condemning the "horrors of socialism." "I call myself a progressive capitalist, but democratic socialism does not mean that you're going to seize the means of production," Khanna says. "What they're talking about is taxing billionaires more, which I agree with."
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Dec 22, 2025
The Justice Department failed to publish thousands of documents by last Friday's congressionally imposed deadline to release all of its files related to the serial sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The delay drew criticism from Epstein's survivors and members of Congress. Democracy Now! speaks with Democratic Congressmember Ro Khanna, who is leading an effort to hold Attorney General Pam Bondi in contempt for failing to release the files. "What are they hiding, and who are they protecting?" asks Khanna.
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Dec 22, 2025
U.S. Pursues Two Oil Tankers Near Venezuela, Ramping Up Pressure on Maduro, Trump Appoints Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry as U.S. Special Envoy to Greenland, WHO Declares Gaza No Longer Faces Famine, But Progress Remains Extremely Fragile, Israel's Security Cabinet Approves 19 New Jewish Settlements in the Occupied West Bank, U.S. Military Launches Airstrikes Against ISIS in Syria, Russian Missile Strike on Odesa Kills 8 People as a Russian General Dies in Car Bomb Explosion, Justice Department Under Fire over Incomplete and Heavily Redacted Release of Epstein Files, GOP Congressmember Stefanik Drops Out of New York Governor's Race, CBS News Cancels Segment from "60 Minutes" on Deportations to El Salvador's CECOT Prison, ACLU Sounds Alarm over Surge of Deaths of Immigrants Jailed by ICE, Pakistani Court Sentences Ex-Prime Minister Imran Khan and Wife to 17 Years in Corruption Case, Tens of Thousands Join State Funeral of Assassinated Bangladeshi Student Leader, Australian Prime Minister Booed at Memorial Service for Victims of Bondi Beach Massacre
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Dec 19, 2025
The Trump administration is ramping up efforts to strip more naturalized immigrants of their U.S. citizenship, with The New York Times reporting that officials are seeking 100 to 200 cases per month. The news comes less than two weeks after the Supreme Court agreed to hear a case to decide the constitutionality of President Trump's executive order aiming to end birthright citizenship.
"During the first Trump administration, they had 25 [denaturalization] cases per year, and … for the 15 years before the first Trump administration, they had fewer than 15 cases per year," says Mae Ngai, professor of Asian American studies and history at Columbia University. "So this is an incredible escalation."
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Dec 19, 2025
We get an update on the extraordinary case of Kilmar Ábrego García, the Maryland father who first made headlines in March when he was wrongfully deported to El Salvador and held in the notorious CECOT mega-prison. Ábrego García was returned to the United States after months of public outrage, but his ordeal continued as the Trump administration has threatened to deport him to Uganda, Eswatini and Liberia, despite having no ties to those African countries. Last week, a federal judge ordered him released from an ICE jail in Pennsylvania and blocked further arrests as a denial of due process.
Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, one of Ábrego García's attorneys, says the administration's actions are primarily meant "to punish him" for standing up for his rights. "It's also about the government using him, more or less at random, to stand for the principle that they get to do whatever they want, whenever they want, to whomever they want — and, specifically, courts can't stop them."
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Dec 19, 2025
The Trump administration on Thursday announced new measures to target hospitals and doctors providing care to trans youth. Under the new rules unveiled by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Dr. Mehmet Oz, who leads Medicaid and Medicare, the government would strip federal funding for any hospitals that provide pediatric gender-affirming care. The new rules were announced a day after the House of Representatives narrowly approved a bill that aims to criminalize providing gender-affirming medical care for any transgender person under 18 and subject providers to hefty fines and prison time.
"This is a drastic departure from any concern about science, concern about parents and their rights," says Chase Strangio, co-director of the American Civil Liberties Union's LGBTQ & HIV Project. "It is putting hospitals in an impossible situation, and just another example of this administration undermining and threatening all of our health and welfare."
We also speak with Dr. Jeffrey Birnbaum, a pediatrician and adolescent medicine specialist who works with transgender youth in New York City. He says the families he works with are "terrified right now," but vows to continue his work. "I refuse to stop providing this care, knowing that I could potentially face 10 years in prison and a felony charge. I'm willing to go down that route, if necessary."
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Dec 19, 2025
Mexico's President Calls for Dialogue and Peace as Pentagon Strikes More Alleged Drug Boats, Suspect in Brown University Shooting Found Dead as Investigators Link Him to MIT Murder, Another Infant Freezes to Death in Gaza as Israel Continues to Violate Oct. 10 Ceasefire, Steve Witkoff Hosts Gaza Talks in Miami as U.S. Further Sanctions ICC over Israel War Crimes Probe, Palestine Action Members Hospitalized While on Hunger Strike to Protest Indefinite Detention in U.K., DOJ Races to Redact Documents Ahead of Deadline to Release Epstein Files, ICE Entered NYC Shelters Without Judicial Warrants and Despite Sanctuary City Laws, Milwaukee Judge Found Guilty of Felony Obstruction for Helping Immigrant Evade ICE, HHS Moves to Slash Federal Funds to Hospitals That Provide Gender-Affirming Care to Minors, Trump Signs Executive Order Speeding Reclassification of Cannabis, Trump Appears to Fall Asleep Again in Public, Further Fueling Speculation About His Health, Trump's "Presidential Walk of Fame" Now Features Bronze Plaques with Hyperpartisan Captions, Trump's Hand-Picked Board Adds Trump's Name to John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Trump Media Company Announces Merger with Nuclear Fusion Firm Amid AI Data Center Boom, Protests Erupt in Bangladesh After Student Leader Is Murdered by Masked Assailants
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Dec 18, 2025
The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in Sudan, backed by the United Arab Emirates, is accused of attempting to cover up its mass killings of civilians by burning and burying bodies, according to a new report by Yale's Humanitarian Research Lab. This comes as drone strikes have plunged several cities into darkness, including Khartoum and the coastal city of Port Sudan. "We have the expansion of the war through Darfur, El Fasher, now Western Kordofan, which is an extremely important region economically. … And now we have this potential of the expansion of this war to South Sudan," says Sudanese scholar Khalid Mustafa Medani. "We have a humanitarian crisis that has expanded, but we also have a military stalemate."
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Dec 18, 2025
Former immigration judge Tania Nemer, who was fired in February, is now suing the Trump administration, alleging that she was discriminated against despite strong performance reviews. Nemer is one of about 100 immigration judges who have been fired or reassigned since Trump took office. The system is notoriously backlogged, with more than 3 million cases pending. "I was pulled away in the middle of the hearing," she says.
Nemer filed a discrimination complaint with the Department of Justice, which officials dismissed, citing Article II of the Constitution on presidential powers. "I've been practicing employment law and representing federal employees for almost 30 years, and I have never seen a federal agency dismiss a complaint for this reason," says Nemer's attorney, James Eisenmann.
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Dec 18, 2025
President Trump praised the state of the U.S. economy in a primetime address Wednesday evening, even though new government statistics show the nation's unemployment rate is at a new four-year high of 4.6%. Dean Baker, senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, says Trump's aides should be "wondering about the man's sanity" after Wednesday's speech. "This is utterly divorced from reality." Though Trump blames former President Biden for the poor economy, Baker notes that Trump had inherited an "incredibly strong economy by almost every measure imaginable."
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Dec 18, 2025
House Rejects Resolutions Seeking Congressional Approval for Boat Strikes or Attack on Venezuela, Senate Overwhelmingly Approves Record $901 Billion Military Spending Bill, Israeli Army Shells Gaza Residential Area in Latest Violation of U.S.-Brokered Ceasefire, House Passes Healthcare Bill That Does Not Address Skyrocketing Insurance Premiums, House Advances Bill That Would Criminalize Gender-Affirming Care for Minors, Trump Touts Economic Record in Primetime Address as U.S. Unemployment Ticks Higher, Dan Bongino Announces Resignation as FBI's Second-in-Command, Pentagon Opens Formal Inquiry into Sen. Mark Kelly, Who Told Service Members to Defy Illegal Orders, Jack Smith Had "Proof Beyond a Reasonable Doubt" Trump Conspired to Overturn 2020 Election, Trump Attempts to Pardon Colorado Clerk Who Tampered with Voting Machines After 2020 Election, White House Says It's Breaking Up National Center for Atmospheric Research, Senate Confirms Billionaire Private Astronaut Jared Isaacman as NASA Chief, NYT: Trump Admin Ramping Up Efforts to Denaturalize Immigrants, Minneapolis Police Chief Criticizes Federal Immigration Agents for Dragging Woman Down Street, Federal Judge Rules Trump Admin Broke Law by Limiting Congressmembers from Visiting ICE Jails, Federal Judge Rules in Favor of Human Rights Activist Jeanette Vizguerra, FCC Chair Brendan Carr Says Agency Is Not Independent
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Dec 17, 2025
As the Trump administration is expected to release investigative files related to Jeffrey Epstein later this week, a recent New York Times investigation delves into one of the biggest mysteries about the deceased sexual predator: how the college dropout with no financial training rose through the world of finance and amassed his wealth, which enabled his abuse and insulated him from scrutiny for decades.
David Enrich, deputy investigations editor at The New York Times and lead author of the report, headlined "Scams, Schemes, Ruthless Cons: The Untold Story of How Jeffrey Epstein Got Rich," says Epstein's early success in business was due to a series of lucky breaks, lies and scams that nevertheless convinced sophisticated investors and business titans to give him their money.
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Dec 17, 2025
José Antonio Kast has won Chile's presidential election, with the far-right leader getting about 58% of the vote in Sunday's runoff against Jeannette Jara, a member of the Communist Party who served as labor minister under outgoing President Gabriel Boric. Kast has openly praised former U.S.-backed dictator Augusto Pinochet and is the son of a Nazi who fled Germany after World War II. Kast campaigned on fighting crime and carrying out mass deportations of immigrants.
"It is a political and ethical earthquake," says acclaimed Chilean American writer Ariel Dorfman, who served as a cultural adviser to socialist President Salvador Allende from 1970 to 1973. He pins much of the blame for Kast's rise on an "uninspired left" that has lost its way since the end of dictatorship and "turned its back on the troubles of the people."
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Dec 17, 2025
President Trump has ordered what he called a "total and complete blockade" of sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela, as the United States escalates pressure on the government of President Nicolás Maduro. The move comes amid a major U.S. military buildup in the region and days after U.S. forces seized an oil tanker carrying Venezuelan oil. Since September, the U.S. military has carried out at least 25 airstrikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific near Venezuela, killing at least 95 people.
The administration's actions against Venezuela signal "the total renunciation of liberal internationalism" and further abandonment of "a world governed by common laws," says Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and Yale University professor Greg Grandin. This comes as Latin America is on a "knife's edge between the left and the right," with the Trump administration eager to boost its authoritarian allies across the region, says Grandin.
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Dec 17, 2025
Trump Orders Blockade on Sanctioned Oil Tankers Entering and Leaving Venezuela, ICC Rejects Israel's Bid to Block War Crimes Probe in Gaza, First Funerals Held Today for Victims of Bondi Beach Massacre, Manhunt Still Underway for Brown University Shooting Suspect, MIT Professor Fatally Shot in His Home, Trump's Chief of Staff Wiles Says He Has an "Alcoholic's Personality" in Explosive Vanity Fair Interview, Speaker Johnson Says He Will Not Call for a Vote to Extend Healthcare Subsidies, Trump Expands Travel Ban to 20 More Countries, NYT: Trump Admin Transfers 22 Cuban Immigrants to Guantánamo, Drone Attacks Killed Over 100 Civilians in Sudan This Month, M23 Rebel Group Announces Exit from Key Town in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Toxic Air Pollution Forces Schools in India to Cancel In-Person Classes and Employees to Work from Home, Greeks Protest Against Low Wages as Parliament Approves New Budget, Warner Bros Rejects Paramount's $108 Billion Hostile Takeover Bid
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Dec 16, 2025
At least a dozen people have died in Gaza as winter storms batter displaced Palestinians forced to shelter in makeshift tents among the rubble of collapsing buildings severely damaged by Israeli bombing. That rubble is being eyed by U.S.-based contractors, who are already vying for lucrative contracts to rebuild Gaza under the Trump-backed ceasefire deal. "People are lining up and treating this the way they they treated reconstruction in Iraq," says Aram Roston, whose latest investigation for The Guardian US looks at how the company behind the notorious Florida immigration detention jail nicknamed "Alligator Alcatraz" has been involved in rebuilding plans spearheaded by Trump's so-called Board of Peace.
Roston also discusses his reporting on the CIA's involvement in U.S. military strikes on boats in the Caribbean. "It plays this key role in picking the targets that are chosen by the military for destruction."
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Dec 16, 2025
New York City housing advocate Patrick Markee's new book, Placeless: Homelessness in the New Gilded Age, looks at homelessness through the lens of housing affordability. Homelessness, which affects millions across the United States, "has roots in structural economic changes, right-wing economic policies and systemic racism," explains Markee. "There's a reason that other advanced capitalist countries in this world … don't have the levels of homelessness that we have, and that's because, there, government plays a much larger role in creating and even owning affordable housing."
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Dec 16, 2025
The two victims in Saturday's mass shooting at Brown University have been identified: freshman Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov and sophomore Ella Cook. We speak to another sophomore, Zoe Weissman, who came to Brown from Parkland, Florida, where she was a student at the middle school adjacent to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School during the mass shooting that occurred there in 2018. "Because I've already processed all the grief and the sadness before," says Weissman about surviving a second school shooting in her young life, "my most predominant emotion right now is, honestly, anger … because we are the only country where this happens, and … the only country that has more guns than people."
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Dec 16, 2025
Pentagon Says It Blew Up Three More Alleged Drug Boats as Trump Declares Fentanyl a WMD, Palestinians in Gaza Face Flooded Tents and Collapsed Buildings from Winter Storm, Australia's Prime Minister Says Bondi Beach Gunmen Were Inspired by ISIS, Social Media Sites Amplify False Accusations Against Man Who Shares Bondi Beach Attacker's Name, Manhunt for Brown University Gunman Enters Fourth Day, Trump Loyalist Announces First Indictment of Left-Wing Activists After Trump's Antifa Order, Veterans Administration to Cut Another 35,000 Healthcare Jobs, Former CDC Leaders Who Criticized RFK Jr. Will Lead New California Public Health Agency, Trump Sues BBC for $10 Billion over Edits to Jan. 6 Speech, Trump Blames "Trump Derangement Syndrome" for Killing of Rob and Michele Reiner
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Dec 15, 2025
A deadly mass shooting at Brown University left two students dead and nine others injured on Saturday. One student, Mia Tretta, had survived a shooting in 2019 when she was shot in the stomach as a high school student. Her best friend was killed in the shooting, and she had selected Brown University for Rhode Island's strong gun control laws. Now she has survived yet another school shooting. "Physically and emotionally, a school shooting takes your whole life and flips it upside down," says Tretta, who criticizes politicians who refuse to enact meaningful gun reform. "We know that every single act of gun violence is 100% preventable."
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Dec 15, 2025
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi, one of Iran's most prominent human rights activists, was rearrested Friday when Iranian authorities violently raided a memorial ceremony she attended at a mosque in Iran's northeastern city of Mashhad. "She's been seen as a huge threat to the Islamic Republic's regime," says Porochista Khakpour, Iranian American author and essayist. "They find her moral authority extremely intimidating."
Mohammadi has spent more than 10 years of her life in and out of prison, most recently when she was arrested in November 2021 and accused — among other charges — of threatening Iran's national security and spreading "propaganda" against the state for her decadeslong work fighting for human rights, women's rights and democracy in Iran.
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Dec 15, 2025
At least 15 people were fatally shot during a Hanukkah celebration at Sydney's famed Bondi Beach this Saturday, and at least another 42 people were injured, marking Australia's worst mass shooting in nearly three decades. Victims included a 10-year-old girl, two rabbis and a Holocaust survivor who died while shielding his wife from bullets.
After Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu blamed Australia's recognition of a Palestinian state for the shooting, Antony Loewenstein, member of the Jewish Council of Australia, says the shooting is "being weaponized by the worst people imaginable to support incredibly draconian policies."
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Dec 15, 2025
At Least 15 People Killed in Mass Shooting at Hanukkah Event in Australia, Gunman Still at Large After Deadly Shooting at Brown University, Filmmaker Rob Reiner and His Wife Found Dead in Los Angeles Home, Trump Vows to Retaliate After 3 Americans Were Killed in ISIS Attack in Syria, Hamas Confirms Death of Senior Commander, Israel's Security Cabinet Approves Plans to Formally Recognize 19 Settlement Outposts in West Bank, At Least 37 People Killed in Flash Floods in Morocco, U.S. Seized Oil Tanker Near Venezuela as Warrant Was Set to Expire, Chile Elects Far-Right Candidate José Antonio Kast as President, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Narges Mohammadi Arrested in Iran, Hong Kong Pro-Democracy Campaigner Jimmy Lai Found Guilty in National Security Trial, Belarus Releases 123 Political Prisoners as U.S. Lifts Sanctions, Rep. Omar Says Federal Agents Pulled Over Her Son, Asking Him to Provide Proof of Citizenship, House Democrats Release Photos Showing Epstein's Ties to Clinton, Trump and Other Powerful Men, National Trust for Historic Preservation Sues to Stop Construction of White House Ballroom, JetBlue Plane Narrowly Avoids "Midair Collision" with U.S. Military Aircraft Near Venezuela
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Dec 12, 2025
Democratic lawmakers repeatedly called on Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to resign as they confronted her on Trump's immigration crackdown during a heated House Homeland Security Committee hearing Thursday. We speak with Congressmember Delia Ramirez, who reiterated her call during the hearing for Noem to resign and announced that she would begin taking steps for her impeachment.
The Department of Homeland Security is "operating as a criminal organization" under Noem's leadership, Ramirez tells Democracy Now! "She thinks that she is above the law as long as Republicans are in leadership. … We can't allow her to think this is a laughable matter as people are dying under her watch."
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Dec 12, 2025
As the Trump administration expands its immigration crackdown nationwide, President Trump is simultaneously creating new pathways for wealthy noncitizens to obtain U.S. visas. Earlier this week, Trump officially launched a program allowing affluent visitors to fast-track permission to live and work in the United States. For a $1 million payment, applicants can receive a so-called Trump Gold Card, which promises to speed up U.S. residency applications "in record time." The administration says it will also soon offer a $5 million "Trump Platinum Card" that would allow participants to avoid paying some U.S. taxes. The announcement comes as new rules published this week would require visitors from 42 countries in the visa waiver program to submit up to five years of social media history, along with phone numbers, email addresses and biometric data.
Shev Dalal-Dheini, director of government relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Association, says the changes show that "if you're wealthy, if you can pay to play, then you're welcome to come to the United States. But if you're not — if you're coming as a tourist, or you're coming to seek humanitarian protection — then we're going to make it much tougher for you to come here and really put a lot of hurdles along the way in the guise of security and vetting."
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Dec 12, 2025
Award-winning Palestinian reporter Mohammed Mhawish, who left Gaza last year, joins us to discuss his new piece for New York magazine about Israel's surveillance practices. It describes how Palestinians throughout the genocide in Gaza have been watched, tracked and often killed by Israeli forces who have access to their most intimate details, including phone and text records, social relations, drone footage, biometric data and artificial intelligence tools.
This all-encompassing surveillance system is "reshaping how people speak, how they're moving, how they're even thinking," says Mhawish. "It manufactured behavior for people, so they shrink their lives to reduce risk, they rehearse what version of themselves feels safest to present, and that creates an enormous psychological burden."
Mhawish also describes the terror of when his family's house was bombed, killing two of his cousins and two neighbors in an attack he says was linked to Israeli surveillance of his reporting activities. "I was being watched and tracked," he says.
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Dec 12, 2025
As Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dramatically reshapes U.S. immunization policy, we speak with Dr. Fiona Havers, a former top vaccine expert at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who resigned in June.
Last week, Kennedy's handpicked advisers on a federal vaccine panel voted against universal hepatitis B shots for newborns, reversing 35 years of CDC guidance that all newborns receive the vaccine within 24 hours of birth. The Trump administration also recently altered the CDC's website to include false claims linking autism and vaccines, in keeping with Kennedy's spreading of vaccine misinformation going back decades. CNN is reporting the FDA is also considering putting a "black box" warning on COVID-19 vaccines.
"This administration is causing a lot of confusion and is using, basically, the CDC to spread misinformation now about vaccines," says Dr. Havers. She also discusses her decision to resign from the CDC and the chaos the Trump administration has caused at the agency, calling RFK Jr.'s changes a "hostile takeover" to advance "anti-science views."
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Dec 12, 2025
U.S. Tightens Sanctions on Venezuela and Plans to Seize More Oil Tankers as Trump Threatens War, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer Won't Rule Out Regime Change in Venezuela, 12 Die in Gaza Strip Amid Winter Storm and Israeli Ceasefire Violations, Health Insurance Costs Are Set to Explode After Republicans Reject Extended Tax Credits, Hundreds Quarantined in South Carolina as Measles Spreads Rapidly in Unvaccinated Communities, Rep. Haley Stevens Seeks Impeachment of Health Secretary: "RFK Jr. Has Turned His Back on Science", Indiana Republicans Revolt Against Trump's Demand to Gerrymander Congressional Map, Kilmar Ábrego García Reunites with Family After Judge Orders His Release from ICE Jail, ICE Agents in Minneapolis Racially Profile and Violently Arrest Somali American U.S. Citizen, "You Lied on the Record": House Democrats Grill Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Justice Department Fails for Second Time to Win Grand Jury Indictment of New York AG Letitia James, House Republicans Cross Aisle to Advance Bill Restoring Federal Workers' Union Rights, Disney Agrees to Allow OpenAI's Sora App to Make Videos Using Copyrighted Characters, Trump Signs Executive Order Blocking States from Regulating AI
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Dec 11, 2025
Palestinians were battered with rain and freezing temperatures overnight as winter storm Byron hit the Gaza Strip. Soaked tents and makeshift shelters flooded, causing some mattresses to float and improvised roofs to blow away. An 8-month-old baby girl, Rahaf Abu Jazar, died from hypothermia. Moureen Kaki, an aid worker living in Gaza, says conditions at hospitals have not improved since the announcement of the so-called ceasefire. "It is not really a ceasefire," she says. "It's just a slower form of death."
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Dec 11, 2025
The acclaimed academic and writer Mahmood Mamdani speaks with Democracy Now! about the rise of his son, New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani. The professor cites Zohran's "refusal to budge, to soften his critique of the state of Israel" as a critical aspect of his rise to power. "His refusal to change his stance told the electorate that this was a man of principle, that affordability was not just merely rhetoric, that he could be taken seriously at his word," Mahmood says.
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Dec 11, 2025
We speak with the acclaimed academic and writer Mahmood Mamdani, who has just released a new book, Slow Poison: Idi Amin, Yoweri Museveni, and the Making of the Ugandan State. Mamdani, who has taught at Columbia for decades, was raised in Uganda and first came to the United States in the 1960s to study. He and his family were later expelled from Uganda during Idi Amin's dictatorship. The book "is about the reversal of the anti-colonial movement" in Uganda, says Mamdani. "The anti-colonial movement fought to create a nation out of a fragmented country … and I speak of slow poison as a gradual, piecemeal, step-by-step cutting up of the country so that you no longer have a single citizenship."
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Dec 11, 2025
U.S. troops seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela on Wednesday, a major escalation that the Venezuelan government called "international piracy." We speak with New York University professor Alejandro Velasco about the Trump administration's intentions in the country, which has the world's largest known oil reserves. Though the Pentagon has claimed the conflict is aimed at combating narcoterrorism, Velasco says the violence is actually an effort "to get rid of leftist governments in the region."
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Dec 11, 2025
Caracas Condemns U.S. Seizure of Oil Tanker Off Venezuela's Coast as "International Piracy", "He'd Better Wise Up, or He'll Be Next": Trump Threatens Colombian President Gustavo Petro, Child Freezes to Death as Torrential Rains Flood Tents of Gaza's Displaced Palestinians, Five Palestine Action Supporters Hospitalized While on Hunger Strike to Protest Imprisonment, House of Representatives Passes $901 Billion National Defense Authorization Act, NTSB Chair Says New Military Bill Would Make Washington, D.C., Airspace Less Safe , Federal Reserve Votes to Cut Interest Rates by Quarter Point, 200 Environmental Groups Demand Halt to Construction of New U.S. Data Centers, Report: Wealthiest 0.001% Hold Three Times More Wealth Than the Poorest Half of Humanity, Federal Judge Orders Trump Administration to End Deployment of Troops to Los Angeles, Trump Launches "Trump Gold Card" Visa Program for Wealthy Noncitizens, Trump Administration Abruptly Cancels Naturalization Ceremonies for Immigrants from 19 Nations, At Least 33 People Killed After Myanmar Military Bombs Hospital, Bolivia's Former President Luis Arce Arrested over Alleged Graft
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Dec 10, 2025
What are the lessons from the Montgomery bus boycott launched 70 years ago this month? The boycott, which sparked the civil rights movement, began after the arrest of Rosa Parks for refusing to give up her seat on a segregated city bus to a white man. Historian and biographer Jeanne Theoharis, author of The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks, argues, "Part of what her courage is, is the ability to step forward again and again, without any sense that this is going to change anything, and say, 'This is the line. And I refuse.'" Theoharis's new piece for The Guardian is "What we get wrong about the Montgomery bus boycott — and what we can learn from it."
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Dec 10, 2025
Nineteen-year-old Any Lucía López Belloza was detained and deported, despite a lack of removal order, when attempting to head home from Babson College in Boston to surprise her family in Texas for Thanksgiving. "This is the first arrest of its kind I've seen," says her attorney, Todd C. Pomerleau, who says the student has been the victim of "character assassination." After López Belloza "was taken down near the border on a bus, had shackles around her ankles, chain around her waist, shackles around her wrist," her family attempted to speak out to the press about the rights violations she suffered. They are now being harassed by law enforcement, as well.
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Dec 10, 2025
Bruna Ferreira, a DACA recipient and mother of White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt's nephew, has lived in the United States since she was 6 years old, but was recently arrested by ICE in her own driveway in what her attorney, Todd Pomerleau, calls a "brazen, unconstitutional arrest, a clear violation of her rights." Ferreira was transported to a remote detention center in Louisiana following her arrest in Massachusetts, and just released Tuesday. "All of a sudden, now the Leavitts have a problem with 'criminal illegal aliens.' Yet one of them was about to marry one of their loved ones, and there was no problem," says Pomerleau.
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Dec 10, 2025
Lights on 24/7. Overflowing toilets and lack of access to showers. Solitary confinement in a 2×2-foot box. These are some of the torturous conditions documented in a new report from Amnesty International investigating human rights violations at two ICE detention centers in Florida: the Krome North Service Processing Center and the Everglades Detention Facility, dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz" by Trump and his supporters. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is denying the report's findings, calling them fabricated and politically motivated. We speak to the report's lead researcher, Amy Fischer, about the "intentional development within immigration detention that is aiming to make it increasingly cruel, increasingly abusive, so that people are forced to give up their immigration claims [because] the conditions are so cruel that they can't handle it anymore."
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Dec 10, 2025
The world's largest conflict by scale is in Sudan, where tens of thousands have been killed and millions displaced since fighting broke out between the UAE-backed paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese military (SAF) in April 2023. Last week, the RSF attacked a kindergarten, killing over 40 children. "Almost every part of Sudan is somehow impacted by this war," which has been rife with reports of child killings and widespread sexual violence, says Sudanese political analyst Kholood Khair. Satellite imagery reviewed by researcher Nathaniel Raymond of the Yale School of Public Health depicts the RSF-captured city of El Fasher as a "ghost town," indicating a major civilian massacre carried out by the UAE-supported paramilitary group. Khair draws attention to the shortfall in humanitarian funding being directed to Sudan, and urges international actors to financially support civil society groups and the U.N. crisis response fund. "Nobody is helping them. No one is putting money and resources to them to enable them to save lives."
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Dec 10, 2025
Hamas Calls for Greater International Pressure on Israel Before Agreeing to Next Phase of Ceasefire Deal, UAE-Backed Forces Claim Control of Oil-Rich Southern Half of Yemen, Trump Presses Zelensky to Accept a Peace Deal with Russia, Nobel Peace Prize Winner Machado Travels to Oslo But Unable to Attend Award Ceremony, Two U.S. F-18 Fighter Jets Enter Venezuelan Airspace for 40 Minutes, Honduran President Castro Accuses Trump of Interfering in Presidential Election, Trump Attacks Rep. Omar in Racist, Expletive-Filled Rant While Calling for More Immigration from Northern Europe, Florida Governor DeSantis Designates CAIR a Foreign Terrorist Organization, Texas Governor Abbott Pushes Turning Point USA in Public High Schools Across the State, Australia Officially Bans Children Under the Age of 16 from Using Social Media Apps, One Student Dead and Another in Critical Condition After Shooting at Kentucky State University, Education Department Moves to End Biden's Student Loan Repayment Program, Judge Rules Tufts Student Rümeysa Öztürk Can Resume Teaching and Conducting Research, Illinois Governor Pritzker Signs Bills to Protect Immigrants from ICE Agents, Alina Habba Resigns as U.S. Attorney in New Jersey, Miami Elects First Democratic Mayor in Nearly 30 Years, NYC Comptroller Brad Lander Launches Primary Challenge Against Rep. Dan Goldman
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Dec 09, 2025
Supporters of Mumia Abu-Jamal are on a 103-mile, 12-day march ending Tuesday in Frackville, Pennsylvania, where he is imprisoned at the Mahanoy state prison. The march ends on the same day Abu-Jamal was arrested in 1981 for the murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner, for which he has always maintained his innocence. One of the best-known political prisoners in the world, Abu-Jamal was an award-winning journalist and co-founder of the Philadelphia chapter of the Black Panther Party before his incarceration, and has continued to write and speak from prison. Human rights groups say he was denied a fair trial, with evidence unearthed in 2019 showing judicial bias and police and prosecutorial misconduct. Abu-Jamal is now 71 years old, and advocates say he is being denied proper medical care in prison, permanently risking his eyesight.
"We're marching today to demand freedom for Mumia and all political prisoners," says activist Larry Hamm.
"We ration healthcare in this country, and in particular for prisoners," says Noelle Hanrahan, part of Abu-Jamal's legal team, who is demanding "that Mumia get specialist care … and that he is given the treatment that he deserves."
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Dec 09, 2025
The Trump administration is facing backlash after ending free admission at national parks on the only two federal holidays honoring Black history — Juneteenth and Martin Luther King Jr. Day — while adding free entry on President Trump's birthday, June 14. The Interior Department also announced higher entry fees for non-U.S. residents under what it calls "America-first entry fee policies."
Denigrating Black history "can't erase the truth," says Carolyn Finney, who served on the National Parks Advisory Board during the Obama administration. "It's not going to change how we feel, not just as Black Americans, but Americans in general, about honoring our history."
We also speak with Audrey Peterman, author of Our True Nature: Finding a Zest for Life in the National Park System, who says "the entire history of America, the entire history of every racial and ethnic group in America, is in the national park system."
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Dec 09, 2025
President Donald Trump says he will be personally involved in the potential sale of Warner Bros. Discovery, with two enormous buyout offers on the table that risk further exacerbating U.S. media concentration. Netflix announced an $83 billion deal last week to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, which would give the tech giant control of the Warner Bros. movie studio and rival streaming service HBO Max. Paramount Skydance then launched a hostile takeover bid worth $108 billion that would create a Hollywood behemoth and bring CBS News and CNN under the same roof, in addition to a host of other media properties. Paramount Skydance is controlled by the pro-Trump billionaires Larry Ellison and his son David; the takeover offer is also backed financially by Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, as well as the sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi and Qatar. Media critics and anti-monopoly advocates have warned that both offers for Warner Bros. should be rejected by federal regulators, though the Trump administration has largely ended aggressive antitrust enforcement.
"We have these giant companies trying to take control of even more of what we watch, see, hear and read every day," says Craig Aaron, the co-CEO of Free Press and Free Press Action, two media reform organizations. He calls the media giants' efforts to woo Trump "a Mafia-type situation" and warns that previous media mega-mergers have been "disastrous" for workers, consumers and the businesses themselves.
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Dec 09, 2025
Israeli Military Chief Says Gaza's "Yellow Line" WIll Become "New Border" for Israel, U.N. Condemns Israeli Raid on UNRWA Headquarters in Occupied East Jerusalem, Supreme Court Signals It Will Grant Trump Power to Fire Independent Agency Heads, Trump Insults Another Female Reporter as He Walks Back Support for Releasing Boat Strike Video, Honduras Seeks to Arrest Ex-President and Narcotrafficker Juan Orlando Hernández After Trump Pardon, Republicans Unveil Record $901 Billion Military Spending Bill, Trump Announces $12 Billion Aid Package to Farmers Hit Hard by Trade War, ICE Points Guns at Crowd Protesting Arrest of Student at Augsburg University in Minneapolis, Democratic Senator Murray Condemns ICE After Agents Release Attack Dog on Constituent, California's DOJ Announces New Online Portal for Public to Document Unlawful ICE Activity, Dozen Former FBI Agents File Lawsuit Accusing Kash Patel of Unlawfully Firing Them, Paramount Skydance Launches Hostile Takeover Bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, ProPublica: Trump's Mortgages Match His Description of Mortgage Fraud, Clashes Between Thailand and Cambodia Erupt Again After Trump-Brokered Ceasefire, Longtime Peace Activist Cora Weiss Dies at Age 91
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Dec 08, 2025
We speak with former EPA regional administrator Judith Enck about her new book, The Problem with Plastic: How We Can Save Ourselves and Our Planet Before It's Too Late.
"Scientists have found microplastics in our blood, our kidneys, our lungs," says Enck. "They've been found in heart arteries, and if it's attached to plaque, you have an increased risk of heart attack, stroke, premature death." Enck says plastic is a "political" issue shaped by the powerful "chemical, fossil fuel, plastics industry — and consumer brands."
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Dec 08, 2025
A leaked memo by U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi directs the Justice Department and FBI to compile a list of groups that may be labeled "domestic terrorism" organizations based on political views related to immigration, gender and U.S. policy. The memo was obtained by independent investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein, who joins us to discuss how it expands on President Donald Trump's NSPM-7 directive following the assassination of Charlie Kirk, which ordered a national strategy to investigate and disrupt groups the administration claims could incite political violence. Bondi's effort targets "not just the left," but "anyone who isn't a Trump supporter," says Klippenstein of the sweeping order, which identifies targets as entities expressing "opposition to law and immigration enforcement," support for "mass migration and open borders," "radical gender ideology," or views described as anti-American, anti-capitalist or anti-Christian, as well as "hostility towards traditional views on family, religion, and morality." People who report extremists may be financially rewarded, and the FBI is reviewing records from the past five years, as well as the present.
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Dec 08, 2025
Democracy Now! speaks with Democratic Congressmember Adelita Grijalva of Arizona, who says she was attacked by masked ICE agents Friday as she tried to find out more information about a raid taking place at a restaurant in her district in Tucson. Grijalva says she was pepper-sprayed and tear-gassed as she was attempting to "deescalate the situation" and conduct oversight. Grijalva also responds to divisions in the Republican Party, including over the Epstein files, calls to replace House Speaker Mike Johnson, and how massive premium increases could soon kick in for millions of Americans as Johnson races to finalize a Republican healthcare plan.
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Dec 08, 2025
Pressure is growing on the Trump administration to release video of a U.S. airstrike on September 2 that killed two men who were left shipwrecked in the Caribbean after an initial U.S. strike on their vessel killed nine people. The Trump administration claims all of the passengers on the boat were involved in drug trafficking but has offered no proof. "This is no more a war on drugs than sending National Guard to Democratic cities is about fighting crime or attacking free speech on campuses is about protecting from antisemitism," says war crimes prosecutor Reed Brody, who calls the strikes "murder on the high seas." He argues, "They're just making this stuff up, and basically they're forcing the debate into their own terms."
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Dec 08, 2025
Hegseth Defends Sept. 2 Double Attack That Killed 11 People Aboard an Alleged Drug Boat, Hamas Ready to Discuss "Freezing or Storing" Its Weapons, Israeli Forces Continue Violent Raids in Occupied West Bank, RSF Drone Strikes Kill 116 People, Including 46 Children, in Sudan, Hundreds Flee Fighting in Congo Within Hours of Trump's Peace Deal Ceremony, Russia Launches Massive Wave of Drone Strikes on Ukraine Over the Weekend, SCOTUS to Hear Arguments on Trump's Executive Order Ending Birthright Citizenship, CDC Advisers Vote to Stop Recommending Hepatitis B Shots at Birth for Most Newborns, Leaked Memo Shows Attorney General Bondi Ordered FBI to Compile List of "Domestic Terrorism" Groups, Rep. Grijalva Says She Was "Sprayed in the Face" by ICE Agents, Trump Admin Changes Name of Transgender Leader on Her Official Portrait, Pentagon Awards $620M Contract to Startup Backed by Donald Trump Jr.'s Venture Capital Fund, Judge Orders Release of Grand Jury Documents in First Federal Investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, President Trump Gets Gold Trophy as FIFA Awards Him Inaugural "Peace Prize", Trump Hosts Kennedy Center Honors After Completing Takeover of Venue
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Dec 05, 2025
The U.S. military said Thursday that it blew up another boat of suspected drug smugglers, this time killing four people in the eastern Pacific. The U.S. has now killed at least 87 people in 22 strikes since September. The U.S. has not provided proof as to the vessels' activities or the identities of those on board who were targeted, but now the family of a fisherman from Colombia has filed the first legal challenge to the military strikes. In a petition filed with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the family says a strike on September 15 killed 42-year-old Alejandro Andres Carranza Medina, a fisherman from Santa Marta and father of four. His family says he was fishing for tuna and marlin off Colombia's Caribbean coast when his boat was bombed, and was not smuggling drugs.
"Alejandro was murdered," says international human rights attorney Dan Kovalik, who filed the legal petition on behalf of the family. "This is not how a civilized nation should act, just murdering people on the high seas without proof, without trial."
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Dec 05, 2025
Federal authorities are carrying out intensified operations this week in Minnesota as President Donald Trump escalates his attacks on the Somali community in the state. The administration halted green card and citizenship applications from Somalis and people from 18 other countries after last week's fatal shooting near the White House. During a recent Cabinet meeting, Trump went on a racist tirade against the Somali community, saying, "We don't want them in our country," and referring to Somali immigrants as "garbage." Minnesota has the largest Somali community in the United States, and the vast majority of the estimated 80,000 residents in the state are American citizens or legal permanent residents.
"We have seen vile things that the president has said, but in these moments, we need to come together and respond," says Jaylani Hussein, the executive director of CAIR-Minnesota. He also highlights the connections between Trump's targeting of the community and foreign policy. "If you demonize Muslims, then you can get away with killing Muslims abroad. This has always been the case, from the Afghanistan War to the Iraq War."
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Dec 05, 2025
A major immigration crackdown is underway in New Orleans and the surrounding areas of Louisiana, dubbed "Operation Catahoula Crunch" by the Trump administration. According to planning documents, 250 federal agents will aim to make 5,000 arrests over two months. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem says the operation will target "the worst of the worst," though the number of arrests being planned suggests that authorities will conduct broad sweeps including those who have no criminal records, as has happened in other immigration crackdowns.
"They're going to target whoever they can, and as the Supreme Court has unfortunately authorized them, they're using racial profiling as part of that approach," says Homero López, legal director for the New Orleans-based organization Immigration Services and Legal Advocacy, or ISLA. "What they're doing is they're taking folks out of our community: our neighbors, our friends, our family members."
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Dec 05, 2025
The conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court has cleared the way for Texas to use a gerrymandered congressional map in next year's midterm elections that a lower court found racially discriminatory. The 6-3 ruling is another political win for President Donald Trump and his allies, who have gotten a number of favorable rulings from the justices after being stymied by lower courts. Trump has asked Republican-led states to redraw their maps in order to preserve the narrow GOP majority in Congress when voters head to the polls in November 2026. The Texas effort could flip as many as five seats for the party.
Ari Berman, voting rights correspondent for Mother Jones magazine, calls it a "catastrophic ruling" that further normalizes extreme partisan gerrymandering. "This whole exercise made a complete mockery of democracy."
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Dec 05, 2025
"One of the Most Troubling Things I've Seen": Lawmakers React to U.S. "Double-Tap" Boat Strike, Pentagon Watchdog Finds Hegseth's Use of Signal App "Created a Risk to Operational Security", CNN Finds Israel Killed Palestinian Aid Seekers and Bulldozed Bodies into Shallow, Unmarked Graves, Ireland, Slovenia, Spain and the Netherlands to Boycott Eurovision over Israel's Participation, Protesters Picket New Jersey Warehouse, Seeking to Block Arms Shipments to Israel, Supreme Court Allows Texas to Use Racially Gerrymandered Congressional Map Favoring Republicans, FBI Arrests Suspect for Allegedly Planting Pipe Bombs on Capitol Hill Ahead of Jan. 6 Insurrection, DOJ Asks Judge to Rejail Jan. 6 Rioter Pardoned by Trump, After Threats to Rep. Jamie Raskin, Grand Jury Refuses to Reindict Letitia James After Judge Throws Out First Indictment, Protesters Ejected from New Orleans City Council Meeting After Demanding "ICE-Free Zones", Honduran Presidential Candidate Nasralla Blames Trump's Interference as Opponent Takes Lead, Trump Hosts Leaders of DRC and Rwanda in D.C. as U.S. Signs Bilateral Deals on Minerals, Trump Struggles to Stay Awake in Another Public Event, Adding to Speculation over His Health, Netflix Announces $72 Billion Deal to Buy Warner Bros. Discovery, 12 Arrested as Striking Starbucks Workers Hold Sit-In Protest at Empire State Building, Democratic Socialists Win Two Jersey City Council Seats in Groundbreaking Victories, Judge Sentences California Animal Rights Activist to 90 Days in Jail for Freeing Abused Chickens, National Parks Service Prioritizes Free Entry on Trump's Birthday Over Juneteenth and MLK Holidays
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Dec 04, 2025
Amid escalating ICE raids in New York City, Democracy Now's Messiah Rhodes spoke to immigrants and advocates supporting newly arrived migrants and asylum seekers from West Africa with hot meals, legal advice and job training. "When I help the people here, the people will help me one day," Guinean immigrant Abdul Karim, a cook at Cafewal weekday kitchen, told Rhodes.
Murad Awawdeh, of the New York Immigration Coalition and a member of New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani's transition team, also comments. He shares how the incoming mayoral administration can work to protect immigrants from Trump's anti-immigrant agenda.
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Dec 04, 2025
Immigrant rights advocate Murad Awawdeh joins us to discuss Donald Trump's nationwide anti-immigrant crackdown and how it's manifested in Trump's hometown of New York City, where hundreds of New Yorkers recently blocked a federal immigration raid targeting street vendors from West Africa before it even started. "This has never been about vetting. This has never been about security and safety. It's about cruelty," says Awawdeh about the Trump administration's persecution of immigrants. "His war on immigrants and his mass deportation agenda is all to lead to making America white again."
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Dec 04, 2025
Foreign policy analyst Matt Duss discusses the status of Russia-Ukraine ceasefire talks and new data on the extent of casualties from the now nearly four-year Russian invasion of Ukraine. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed. "For what did these people die? For what reason were they sent into this horrible meat grinder?" asks Duss.
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Dec 04, 2025
"Pete Hegseth, much like the president he serves, sees himself as, essentially, above the law, as unconstrained by legal procedure." Foreign policy analyst Matt Duss discusses the brewing conflict within the Trump administration over the leadership of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, including his involvement in a leaked announcement of U.S. strikes on Yemen in March and the chain of command behind U.S. strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean. Legal experts say the boat strikes, which have already killed at least 80 people, are likely illegal.
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Dec 04, 2025
Senate War Powers Resolution Seeks to Block Trump from Unilaterally Attacking Venezuela, Admiral to Brief Lawmakers About U.S. Boat Strikes Condemned by Human Rights Groups as "Murder", New York Times Sues Pentagon over Press Policy That "Violates the First Amendment", Israeli Forces in Gaza Kill Seven Palestinians in Latest Violation of October Ceasefire, "An Academic Veneer for Genocide": Protesters Heckle Former Israeli Politicians at Toronto Debate, Immigration Agents Deploy to New Orleans and Twin Cities, Seeking to Arrest Thousands, ACLU Says ICE Violates Policy Against Jailing Pregnant People and Nursing Moms, Prisoners Face "Harrowing Human Right Violations" at Infamous ICE Jail in Florida Everglades, Democrats Release Images of Epstein's Caribbean Island as Ghislaine Maxwell Petitions for Release, ADP Reports U.S. Economy Lost 32,000 Jobs Last Month, Trump Admin to Slash Fuel Efficiency Standards Enacted Under the Biden Admin, Trump to Issue Pardons for Democratic Congressmember Cuellar and His Wife, Paramount Skydance Corporation Doubles Proposed Breakup Fee to Acquire Warner Bros.
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Dec 03, 2025
WTO/99 is a new "immersive archival documentary" about the 1999 protests in Seattle against the World Trade Organization that uses 1,000 hours of footage from the Independent Media Center and other archives. The historic WTO protests against corporate power and economic globalization were met with a militarized police crackdown and National Guard troops. We feature clips from the film and discuss takeaways that have relevance today. "These issues haven't gone away," says Ian Bell, director of WTO/99. We also speak with Ralph Nader, who is featured in the movie.
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Dec 03, 2025
As a "Fight Club" of eight senators led by Bernie Sanders challenges Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer's handling of President Trump, we speak with Ralph Nader, who has been taking on the Democratic Party for decades. Sixty years ago this week, he published his landmark book, Unsafe at Any Speed, exposing the safety flaws of GM's Chevrolet Corvair and leading to major reforms in auto safety laws. Nader discusses the legacy of his book, the current state of government regulation and why Congress must reclaim its authority from an out-of-control Trump administration. "Clearly, we're seeing a rapidly entrenching dictatorship," Nader tells Democracy Now! "The focus has to be on impeachment, and there will be a large majority of people in favor of it."
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Dec 03, 2025
Israel has announced it will reopen the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt in the next few days as part of the U.S.-brokered ceasefire. However, the border will only open in one direction: for Palestinians to exit. Israeli American human rights lawyer Sari Bashi says the move validates fears that Israel's goal is to "continue the ethnic cleansing of Gaza."
This comes as a coalition of 12 Israeli human rights groups concluded in a new report that 2025 is the deadliest and most destructive year for Palestinians since 1967. Last week, the United Nations reported more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli settlers and soldiers in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem since October 7, 2023. Violence in the West Bank and Gaza is "directed toward getting Palestinians to leave," says Bashi.
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Dec 03, 2025
Hegseth Says He Did Not See Survivors of First U.S. Boat Strike, Citing "Fog of War", Israel Announces Plans to Reopen Rafah Border Crossing But Only for Palestinians to Leave Gaza, Russia and U.S. Fail to Reach Compromise to End the War in Ukraine, Republican Lawmakers Criticize Trump Decision to Pardon Former Honduran President Hernández, Pentagon Inspector General to Release Report on "Signalgate" Thursday, Trump Says He Doesn't Want Somalis in the U.S. as ICE Plans Operation Targeting Them, Trump Administration to Pause Immigration Applications from Countries on Travel Ban List, Trump Administration Fires Eight Immigration Judges in New York City, Trump Administration Threatens to Withhold Money for SNAP Benefits, Federal Vaccine Panel Prepares to Vote on Possibly Ending Infant Hepatitis B Vaccines, Federal Judge Blocks Trump Admin from Cutting Medicaid Funding to Planned Parenthood, Trump Admin Puts FEMA Workers Back on Administrative Leave, Larry Summers Banned from American Economic Association Over Close Ties to Epstein, Republican Matt Van Epps Wins House Special Election by Closer-Than-Expected Margin, More Than 1,350 People Have Now Died in Devastating Floods and Landslides in Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Thailand
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Dec 02, 2025
President Trump has gutted the U.S. government's support for AIDS healthcare around the world while ordering an end to commemorations of World AIDS Day, observed annually on December 1. Cuts to U.S. foreign aid are having a disproportionate impact on LGBTQ communities in many countries, says journalist and scholar Steven Thrasher, speaking from Uganda. "There are people who've been harmed very immediately," he says. Thrasher, who teaches at Northwestern University, also comments on the school's $75 million payout to the Trump administration to settle a discrimination probe and restore frozen federal funding, calling it a "travesty."
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Dec 02, 2025
New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and Vermont independent Senator Bernie Sanders joined striking Starbucks workers on the picket line Monday to demand the coffee giant reach a fair contract with its unionized workforce after years of delay tactics.
Speaking outside a store in Brooklyn, Mamdani said New York is a "union town," and vowed to continue joining pickets even after he is sworn in as mayor on January 1. Responding to a question from Democracy Now!, Sanders said Mamdani's successful campaign for mayor was a blueprint for the Democratic Party, with affordability and workers' rights at the center of the agenda. "We have the grassroots of America behind us," Sanders said.
Starbucks workers at unionized stores across the United States launched an open-ended strike November 13 accusing the company of unfair labor practices. Starbucks Workers United has been bargaining for a contract with the company since early last year. Monday's picket came just hours after Starbucks reached a $38 million settlement with New York City for labor violations including denying workers stable and predictable schedules.
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Dec 02, 2025
As bipartisan criticism intensifies over U.S. attacks on alleged "drug boats" in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, the White House is defending a September 2 operation that killed 11 people. The Washington Post reports Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered a second attack to kill two survivors of an initial strike, an order that legal experts say would constitute a war crime. The White House on Monday confirmed the second strike but said the authorization came not from Hegseth, but from Admiral Frank "Mitch" Bradley, then head of Joint Special Operations Command.
This comes as Hegseth threatens to court-martial Democratic Senator Mark Kelly, a former naval officer, after Kelly and five other Democratic veterans urged service members to refuse unlawful commands.
"Killing civilians who are not engaged in armed conflict against us is a war crime," says law professor David Cole of Georgetown University.
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Dec 02, 2025
White House Defends "Double Tap" Strike on Alleged Drug Boat, Says Admiral Gave Order to Kill, Israeli Forces Kill 2 Palestinian Teens During Raids Across Occupied West Bank, Israeli Forces Kill Palestinian in Gaza Refugee Camp in Latest Ceasefire Violation, Pope Leo Visits Lebanon, Urging Peaceful Coexistence Across Middle East, Netanyahu Asks Israeli President to Pardon Him over Corruption Charges, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner Meet Vladimir Putin as U.S. Pushes for Ukraine Peace Deal, Trump Threatens "Hell to Pay" in Honduras If Presidential Election Results Change, Heavily Armed Gangs Kill Nearly a Dozen People in Haiti as Trump Admin Cancels TPS for Haitians, Indiana Lawmakers Unveil New Voting Map to Allow GOP to Win All Nine House Seats, Speaker Johnson and Trump Try to Prevent Upset House Loss in Tennessee Special Election, Appeals Court Rules Trump's Personal Attorney Alina Habba Is an Unlawful U.S. Attorney, Senate Minority Leader Schumer Says His Offices Received Emailed Bomb Threats, Trump Commutes Seven-Year Prison Sentence of Private Equity CEO Convicted of Fraud
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Dec 01, 2025
Rahmanullah Lakanwal, the man who authorities say shot two National Guardsmen outside the White House, had previously worked in a CIA-backed "Zero Unit" in Afghanistan, often called "death squads" by human rights groups. "The United States made this person into a child soldier, and now is experiencing what I think is one of the most horrifically bright-line cases of imperial blowback that we've seen throughout the 'war on terror,'" says Spencer Ackerman, journalist and author focused on U.S. military and foreign policy.
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Dec 01, 2025
We look at President Trump's call to pause all asylum decisions after an Afghan man who once worked for the CIA opened fire near the White House last Wednesday, shooting two National Guard members, killing one. Rahmanullah Lakanwal entered the United States in 2021 through Operation Allies Welcome, a program that saw the U.S. evacuate thousands of Afghans who faced reprisals from the Taliban over their work with the U.S. and the former U.S.-backed government.
Trump has since said that he will "permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries." Afghan refugees have "been stuck in limbo in the United States, and now they're being targeted by President Trump's political stunts," says Shawn VanDiver, founder and president of #AfghanEvac. Laila Ayub, executive director of Project ANAR, says the Trump administration is using the tragedy to "scapegoat and collectively punish an entire community."
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Dec 01, 2025
Democracy Now! speaks with journalist Spencer Ackerman about the Trump administration's deadly, ongoing attacks on alleged "drug boats" amid reports President Trump is preparing to attack Venezuela, with all airspace surrounding Venezuela now closed. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and others are "turning the military into a criminal operation," says Ackerman. "This shows the moral degeneracy that the 'war on terror' has left as a legacy in the U.S. military."
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Dec 01, 2025
President Trump has announced plans to pardon former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who is serving a 45-year sentence for trafficking hundreds of tons of cocaine into the United States. In 2024, Hernández was convicted in New York of drug trafficking and weapons charges. "The evidence from the Southern District of New York was overwhelming," says Dana Frank, professor of history emerita at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a longtime observer of Honduran politics.
Trump's announcement came on Friday, and he also threatened to cut off funding if Hondurans did not elect his chosen conservative candidate as they went to the polls Sunday to pick a new president. "He's almost threatening Honduras that if we don't do what he is demanding … he will wreak vengeance against Honduras," says Rodolfo Pastor, former secretary of the presidency under Xiomara Castro in Honduras.
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Dec 01, 2025
Venezuela Condemns Trump's Declaration That All Airspace Surrounding Venezuela Is Closed, Trump Says He Will Pardon Honduras's Former President Convicted of Drug Trafficking, Death Toll from Israel's War in Gaza Surpasses 70,000 Palestinians, Israeli Forces Fatally Shoot Two Palestinian Men in Occupied West Bank, Israeli Authorities Free Palestinian American Teen Mohammed Ibrahim After Holding Him Without Trial, Israeli Forces Conduct Raid in Syria, Killing 13 People, Trump Admin Halts Decisions on All Asylum Applications After Shooting of National Guard Members, Trump Announces He's Canceling All Executive Orders Signed by Biden Using an Autopen, Trump Calls New York Times Reporter "Ugly" over Her Story Raising Questions About His Health, Hong Kong Officials: At Least 151 People Died in Blaze That Engulfed a High-Rise Apartment Complex, Babson College Student Deported to Honduras During Trip Home for Thanksgiving, Judge Dismisses Georgia Election Interference Case Against President Trump, Floods and Landslides Kill Over 1,000 Across Southeast Asia, Protests in Manila Demand President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Resign over Corruption, 4 Killed, 11 Wounded in Mass Shooting at Children's Birthday Celebration in Stockton, CA, Trump Administration Ends U.S. Commemorations of World AIDS Day
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Nov 28, 2025
As Zohran Mamdani prepares to become New York's first Muslim and first South Asian mayor on January 1, we look at the historic rise of the democratic socialist who shocked the political establishment. We spend the hour hearing Mamdani in his own words and look at the grassroots coalition that helped him pull off what's been described as "one of the great political upsets in modern American history."
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Nov 27, 2025
Marquetta Shields-Peltier was just a toddler when her father, Leonard Peltier, was jailed in 1976. During our recent trip to Turtle Mountain Reservation in North Dakota, we spoke to Marquetta about the campaign to free her father and what it meant to see him released in February.
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Nov 27, 2025
In September, Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman sat down with longtime political prisoner and Indigenous activist Leonard Peltier for his first extended television and radio broadcast interview since his release to home confinement in February. Before his commutation by former President Joe Biden, the 81-year-old Peltier spent nearly 50 years behind bars. Peltier has always maintained his innocence for the 1975 killing of two FBI officers. He is expected to serve the remainder of his life sentences under house arrest at the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Nation in Belcourt, North Dakota. In a wide-ranging conversation, we spoke to Peltier about his case, his time in prison, his childhood spent at an American Indian boarding school and his later involvement in the American Indian Movement (AIM) and more.
"We still have to live under that, that fear of losing our identity, losing our culture, our religion," Peltier says about his continued commitment to Indigenous rights. "The struggle still goes on for me. I'm not going to give up."
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Nov 26, 2025
Protests have erupted in North Carolina after federal agents arrested 370 people in immigration raids. On Monday, Bishop William Barber and other religious leaders gathered in Charlotte to demand an end to ICE raids. "??What you have is a conglomerate of policy violence, and it's deadly," says Barber, who is organizing protests against ICE and Medicaid cuts across the country. Barber notes that 51,000 people may die from preventable deaths because of the so-called Big Beautiful Bill, according to research from the University of Pennsylvania and Yale. "This is not just about Democrat and Republican and left versus right. This is literally about life versus death."
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Nov 26, 2025
Zohran Mamdani will be taking office as mayor of New York in just five weeks. His transition team continues to make announcements about the new administration, recently unveiling a 400-person advisory group, broken up into 17 committees. Democracy Now! speaks with the incoming first deputy mayor, Dean Fuleihan, on how Mamdani plans to implement his progressive vision. "Government, working together across agencies with clear direction, can accomplish the needs of New Yorkers, and that's what the mayor-elect has put forward," says Fuleihan.
Fuleihan also comments on Mamdani's meeting with President Trump, which was surprisingly warm. "We look for help wherever we can get it, while also maintaining our principles and defending New Yorkers," he said.
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Nov 26, 2025
During a controversial Oval Office meeting last week, President Trump defended Mohammed bin Salman when a reporter asked about the Saudi crown prince's involvement in the 2018 murder of Washington Post opinion columnist Jamal Khashoggi. "The man sitting in the White House next to President Trump is a murderer," says Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of DAWN, an organization founded by Khashoggi in 2018. To Whitson, Trump's main motivation for cozying up to Saudi Arabia is financial. "The U.S. government [is] promising to deploy American men and women soldiers to defend the Saudi crown prince … in exchange for profits for U.S. companies, U.S. businesses and U.S. officials."
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Nov 26, 2025
U.N.: Israel's War on Gaza Will Cost More Than $70 Billion in Reconstruction Over Several Decades, Human Rights Groups Call on Israel to Release Palestinian Journalist and Activist Ayman Ghrayeb, Brazil's Former President Jair Bolsonaro Starts Serving 27-Year Prison Sentence, Trump to Send Witkoff to Moscow Next Week to Meet with Putin, Dr. Abraham, a Skeptic of COVID-19 Vaccines, Tapped to Serve as Second in Command at the CDC, FBI Probes 6 Congressional Democrats Who Filmed Video Warning Military of Illegal Orders, ICE Detains University of Oklahoma Professor with Valid H-1B Visa, Judge Orders Trump Admin to Provide Bond Hearings for Detained Immigrants, DOJ Admits Noem Decided to Deport Venezuelan Men to CECOT Prison in El Salvador, Labor Leader David Huerta Pleads Not Guilty to Obstructing ICE Raid in Los Angeles, Flooding in Thailand Kills 33 People and Displaces More Than 2 Million People, All 24 Schoolgirls Kidnapped in Northwest Nigeria Have Been Rescued, Trump Fat-Shames Illinois Governor JB Pritzker at Annual Turkey Pardon, Trump Reportedly Considering a Proposal to Extend Health Insurance Subsidies Under the ACA
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Nov 25, 2025
We recently spoke to Brazilian environmental activist Angela Mendes, the daughter of Amazonian forest defender and labor leader Chico Mendes, who was assassinated by ranchers in December 1988. She discussed her father's legacy and her ongoing work to protect the Amazon rainforest from encroachment by ranching and mining industries. "They come here, build their companies, bringing death to the territories, bringing death for the forests and threatening the peoples of the forest," Mendes said, speaking to Democracy Now! at the COP30 U.N. climate summit in Belém.
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Nov 25, 2025
As the Trump administration escalates pressure on Venezuela, U.S. military activity across the Caribbean continues to grow. The U.S. has deployed more than 15,000 troops to the region and carried out airstrikes on over 20 boats, killing at least 83 people in operations the White House has justified, without providing evidence, as targeting drug traffickers. On Monday, the administration also designated the so-called Cártel de los Soles as a foreign terrorist organization, alleging President Nicolás Maduro leads the group.
"It's certainly not a cartel," says Phil Gunson, senior analyst for the Andes region with the International Crisis Group. He explains that while some parts of the Venezuelan military are involved in the drug trade, "these people are in it for the money," and declaring them terrorists is "ridiculous."
We also speak with Alexander Aviña, associate professor of Latin American history at Arizona State University, who says the anti-Maduro campaign is part of a "broader plan" to remake the entire region. "It's not just about Venezuela."
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Nov 25, 2025
While much of the recent interest in Jeffrey Epstein has focused on the late sexual predator's relationship with President Donald Trump, his emails also reveal his close relationships with other powerful figures from the worlds of politics, finance, academia and beyond. The thousands of files released by the House Oversight Committee earlier this month include his correspondence from April 2011 through January 2019, after he was already a registered sex offender for abusing underage girls in Florida. The fact that so many prominent and influential people could ignore those crimes is indicative of their membership in a "borderless network of people who are more loyal to each other" than anything else, says journalist Anand Giridharadas. "He had chosen this particular kind of social network, this American power elite, because he could be sure that it would be able to look away."
Giridharadas is author of Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World and recently wrote about the Epstein emails for The New York Times opinion section.
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Nov 25, 2025
GOP Lawmaker Presses U.S. to Invade Venezuela, Promising "Field Day" for U.S. Oil Companies, Sudan's RSF Announces Unilateral Ceasefire as Military Rulers Reject U.S.-Backed Ceasefire Plan, Israel Continues to Violate Gaza Ceasefire as GHF Closes Aid Sites Condemned as "Death Traps", Sen. Van Hollen Calls for Release of Mohammed Ibrahim, a Florida Teen Jailed for Months by Israel, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee Met Secretly in July with Convicted Spy Jonathan Pollard, Russia Launches Deadly Attacks on Ukraine Even as Peace Talks Continue, Trump Administration to Review Status of Refugees Admitted to U.S. Under Biden, Federal Appeals Court Ruling Limits Trump's Plans to Fast-Track Deportations, Costa Rica Rebuts Trump Administration's Claims It Would Not Accept Kilmar Abrego Garcia, 31 Arrested While Protesting Inhumane Conditions at Miami-Dade ICE Jail, Marjorie Taylor Greene to Quit Congress After Break with Trump over Gaza, Healthcare and Epstein, Pentagon Threatens Court-Martial of Sen. Mark Kelly, Who Told Service Members to Disobey Illegal Orders, Judge Tosses Indictments Against James Comey and Letitia James over Unlawfully Appointed Prosecutor, EPA Approves Pesticides Containing "Forever Chemicals" and Rolls Back Drinking Water Standards, Viola Ford Fletcher, Oldest Survivor of Tulsa Race Massacre, Dies at 111
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Nov 24, 2025
Global negotiations at the annual U.N. climate summit ended Saturday in Belém, Brazil, with a watered-down agreement that does not even mention fossil fuels, let alone offer a roadmap to phase out what are the primary contributors to the climate crisis. The COP30 agreement also makes no new commitments to halt deforestation and does not address global meat consumption, another major driver of global warming.
"I'm angry at a really weak outcome. I'm angry at the fossil fuel lobbyists roaming the venue freely, while the Indigenous activists [were] met with militarized repression," says Brandon Wu, director of policy and campaigns at ActionAid USA. "I have a special level of incandescent outrage at … the rich, developed countries of the Global North who come in to these conferences, and they act like they're the heroes, when, in fact, what they're doing is shifting the burden of a crisis that they caused onto the backs of the poor."
"The absence of the United States is critical," adds Jonathan Watts, global environment writer at The Guardian. "The United States under Donald Trump is trying to go backwards to the 20th century in a fossil fuel era, whereas a huge part of the rest of the world wants to move forward into something else."
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Nov 24, 2025
After months of mutual animosity, President Donald Trump and New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani met for the first time in a widely anticipated meeting late last week. But after the two discussed Mamdani's plans to lower the cost of living in New York City, where both men grew up, Trump said that he and Mamdani "agree on a lot more than I would have thought" and promised to work together once Mamdani takes office in January. The newly friendly relationship is likely temporary, but still "remarkable," says Ross Barkan, who is writing a book about Mamdani's rapid political rise. "If Trump is less antagonistic towards Mamdani, the idea is to have Trump do as little damage as possible to New York City," Barkan says of Mamdani's conciliatory approach to the meeting. "He's not going to attack. He's going to try to build coalitions."
Barkan also comments on the brewing intra-party conflict between the Democratic establishment and the more left-wing Democratic Socialists of America — whose members, including Mamdani, typically run for elected office as Democrats — as well as what Trump's lack of challenge to Mamdani's assertion that Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza says about the shifting discourse on Israel-Palestine in the United States.
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Nov 24, 2025
Israeli Airstrikes Kill at Least 24 Palestinians Despite U.S.-Brokered Ceasefire, Israeli Airstrike on a Beirut Suburb Kills 5 People, Including Hezbollah's Acting Chief of Staff, Trump Admin Set to Designate Maduro and His Gov't Allies as Members of a Foreign Terrorist Organization, U.S., Ukrainian and European Officials in Geneva to Discuss U.S. Proposal to End Russia's War on Ukraine, Trump Repeatedly Praises Mamdani During Oval Office Meeting, Democratic Lawmakers File Police Complaints After Trump's Posts Accuse Them of "Seditious Behavior", Trump Denied Federal Disaster Aid to Chicago Residents After Two Major Storms, ICE Agents in Oregon Violently Abduct 17-Year-Old High School Student on Lunch Break, SCOTUS Temporarily Restores Texas Congressional Map Declared an Illegal Gerrymander by Lower Court, 50 Students Escape After Gunmen Abduct Hundreds from Catholic School in Nigeria, G20 Concludes Summit in South Africa Boycotted by U.S., COP30 Climate Summit Concludes Without Agreement to Phase Out Fossil Fuels, Brazil's Former President Jair Bolsonaro Arrested After Tampering with Ankle Monitor
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Nov 21, 2025
Nations are struggling to reach a final text agreement at the COP30 U.N. climate summit in Belém, Brazil. Decisions are made by consensus at COPs, requiring consent among 192 countries, and the biggest fight over the draft text is the exclusion of a roadmap to phase out fossil fuels. Reportedly Saudi Arabia, China, Russia and India are among those that rejected the roadmap. But more than 30 countries are saying they will not accept a final deal without one. "We came to this COP to get a very concrete decision on just transitioning away from fossil fuels, to get a mechanism so that we can do it in a much more cooperative manner," says Harjeet Singh, strategic adviser to the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty.
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Nov 21, 2025
Thousands of Amazonian land defenders, both Indigenous peoples and their allies, have traveled to the COP30 U.N. climate conference in Belém, Brazil. On Friday night, an Indigenous-led march arrived at the perimeter of the COP's "Blue Zone," a secure area accessible only to those bearing official summit credentials. The group stormed security, kicking down a door before the United Nations police contained the protest. "We decided we needed to stop this COP," says Alessandra Korap Munduruku, a leader of the protest, who joined us for an extended interview. "We are the ones that are saying what the forest is demanding. We are the ones that are saying what the river is asking for. We are going through a lot of violence in our territories."
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Nov 21, 2025
As negotiations draw close to a conclusion at the COP30 U.N. climate summit, nations are still sharply divided over the future of fossil fuels. Delegates representing dozens of countries have rejected a draft agreement that does not include a roadmap to transition away from oil, coal and gas. Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu's minister for climate change, says a number of nations refused to "entertain any mention of fossil fuels" in the outcome statement from COP30. "The fact that they are refusing to accept the best scientific evidence and legal obligations … is quite astounding to countries that want to see real action."
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Nov 21, 2025
Trump Accuses Democratic Lawmakers of "SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!", Federal Judge Rules Trump's Military Deployment to D.C. Unlawful , Federal Prosecutors Drop Charges Against Chicago Woman Shot by Border Patrol Agent, DHS to Shift Focus of Immigration Raids from Charlotte to New Orleans, Border Czar Plans to Expand Immigration Raids in NYC; The Guardian Reveals FBI Spied on Activists, Zohran Mamdani Travels to White House as Trump Threatens to Cut Federal Aid to New York City, Israeli Forces Move Beyond Gaza's "Yellow Line" and Continue Attacks in Fresh Ceasefire Violations, Israeli Troops Kill 2 Palestinian Teens in West Bank Amid Wave of Settler Attacks , London Police Arrest Peaceful Protesters for Carrying Signs Supporting Palestine Action, Zelensky Agrees to Negotiate with Trump on 28-Point "Peace Plan" Negotiated by U.S. and Russia, Interior Department to Open 1.3 Billion Acres of U.S. Waters to Oil and Gas Drilling, 30 Countries Oppose Draft U.N. Text That Excludes Roadmap to Phase Out Fossil Fuels, CDC Website Altered to Promote False Claim That Vaccines Cause Autism, Larry Ellison Discussed Firing CNN Anchors with White House Amid Warner Bros. Takeover Bid, Trump and JD Vance Notably Absent from D.C. Funeral for Dick Cheney, Architect of Iraq Invasion
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Nov 20, 2025
As we broadcast from the COP30 climate summit in Belém, Brazil, we are joined by one of Brazil's most prominent scientists, Carlos Nobre, who says the Amazon now produces more carbon emissions than it removes from the atmosphere, moving closer to a "tipping point" after which it will be impossible to save the world's largest rainforest. "We need urgently to get to zero deforestation in all Brazilian biomes, especially the Amazon," he argues.
Nobre is a senior researcher at the Institute of Advanced Studies at the University of São Paulo and co-chair of the Scientific Panel for the Amazon. He's lead author of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for its reports on global warming.
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Nov 20, 2025
In a wide-ranging conversation, Brazil's first minister of Indigenous peoples, Sônia Guajajara, spoke with Democracy Now! at the COP30 climate summit in Belém. She addressed criticisms of the Lula government in Brazil, which has championed climate action even while boosting some oil and gas exploration in the country; celebrated the strong presence of Indigenous representatives at this year's climate talks; and stressed the need to phase out fossil fuels. Guajajara also criticized the Trump administration for pressuring Brazil to release former President Jair Bolsonaro after he was convicted of involvement in a coup attempt. Bolsonaro was an opponent of Indigenous rights, and if he is sent to prison, "we expect he will be paying for all his crimes," including "everything he has done against us," says Guajajara.
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