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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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Nov 20, 2025
As we broadcast from the COP30 climate summit in Belém, Brazil, calls are growing for stronger protections for refugees and migrants forcibly displaced by climate disasters. The United Nations estimates about 250 million people have been forced from their homes in the last decade due to deadly drought, storms, floods and extreme heat — mainly in the Global South, where many populations have also faced repeated displacement due to war and extreme poverty. Meanwhile, wealthier Global North nations disproportionately responsible for greenhouse emissions that fuel global warming are intensifying their crackdowns on migrants and climate refugees fleeing compounding humanitarian crises.
"The main issue is always poverty, lack of opportunity, and climate change is basically exacerbating this problem," Guatemala's vice minister of natural resources and climate change, Edwin Josué Castellanos López, told Democracy Now!
"This is not abstract," Nikki Reisch, director of climate and energy at the Center for International Environmental Law, says of climate-induced migration. "This is about real lives. It's about survival. It's about human rights and dignity, and, ultimately, about justice."
Reisch also gives an update on the state of the COP30 negotiations, noting the "big-ticket items" on the agenda are providing financing for transition and adaptation, phasing out fossil fuels and preserving forests. "The big polluters need to phase out and pay up," says Reisch.
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Nov 20, 2025
Israel Again Breaks Gaza Ceasefire, Killing 32 Palestinians in Wave of Attacks, Amid Gaza Assault, Explosive Weapons Caused Record Number of Child Deaths and Injuries Last Year, Syria Condemns Netanyahu Visit to Israeli-Occupied Southern Region, Photos Reveal Israel Used Widely Banned Cluster Munitions in Attacks on Lebanon, Russian Drone and Missile Attacks Kill 26 in Ukraine, As Trump Signs Bill to Release Epstein Files, Bondi Suggests DOJ May Withhold Some Documents, Larry Summers Quits OpenAI Board and Harvard Teaching Role Amid Epstein Revelations , "We Need to Support Our Immigrants": Protesters in Charlotte Demand End to Border Patrol Raids, U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan Admits Grand Jury Never Saw Final Indictment of Comey, Trump-Pardoned Jan. 6 Rioter Arrested for Child Sexual Abuse, House Votes to Claw Back Provision Allowing Senators to Sue over Jan. 6 Investigations, Trump to Meet with NYC Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani at the White House on Friday, More Than 80 Countries Agree on Roadmap to Phase Out Fossil Fuels at COP30, Trump Administration Proposes New Rules to Significantly Weaken Endangered Species Act
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Nov 19, 2025
A new report titled "Data Crunch: How the AI Boom Threatens to Entrench Fossil Fuels and Compromise Climate Goals" from the Center for Biological Diversity warns the booming artificial intelligence industry's high resource consumption threatens the world's climate goals, despite rosy prognoses of AI's projected benefits. Co-author Jean Su says that the increasing use of AI for military applications offsets any positives it offers for climate change mitigation. "What we need to do is empower communities and countries, especially in the Global South, to ask what is the public benefit that they are supposed to get from AI, and weigh it very carefully against the severe cost to their climate, to their electricity prices and to their water."
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Nov 19, 2025
Sudanese climate diplomacy researcher Lina Yassin is supporting the Least Developed Countries Group at the U.N. climate summit in Belém, Brazil. The group is composed of 44 countries, including Sudan, whose cumulative emissions amount to less than 1% of total global emissions. "They are the countries that have the least amount of resources to respond to the climate crisis," explains Yassin.
Yassin also discusses the humanitarian crisis in Sudan, where the estimated death toll is now at 150,000. "This is a proxy war funded by foreign nationals who have vested interests in Sudan's resources. … The UAE has been using the RSF militia to illegally smuggle gold out to finance the war and finance their own gold reserves. The UAE is also really interested in Sudan's agricultural lands."
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Nov 19, 2025
At the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Belém, Brazil, we sit down with Colombian environmentalist Susana Muhamad, who served as Colombia's minister of environment and sustainable development from 2022 to 2025. Muhamad discusses the U.N.'s mandate to mitigate the acceleration of human-caused climate change and condemns the powerful, diverting influence of the fossil fuel lobby. Muhamad, who is of Palestinian descent, also responds to the United States' attacks on boats in the Caribbean and to the ongoing Israeli genocide of Gaza. "These are not issues that are not correlated," she says. "Humanity can do better. [We] can be very proactive and productive in shifting this situation of climate crisis, rather than continue investing in arms, in armies and in defense."
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Nov 19, 2025
Congress has finally voted to compel the Justice Department to release the files on Jeffrey Epstein, the deceased convicted sex offender and power broker. After a near-unanimous vote in both legislative chambers, President Trump now says he will sign the bill into law. We play statements from a press conference held by survivors of Jeffrey Epstein's abuse, who are celebrating the long-awaited win for transparency and accountability.
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Nov 19, 2025
Congress Overwhelmingly Passes Legislation Compelling DOJ to Release Epstein Files, Trump Calls for ABC's Broadcast License to Be Revoked, Trump Defends MBS over 2018 Murder of Jamal Khashoggi, Hamas Rejects U.S.-Backed U.N. Plan to Place Gaza Under International Stabilization Force, Israel Launches Airstrike on Palestinian Refugee Camp in Lebanon, Killing 13 People, Local Somali Media Report U.S. Airstrike Killed 12 Civilians, Including 8 Children, Trump Threatens Strikes on Drug Cartels Inside Mexico and Colombia, Federal Agents Arrest More Than 200 Immigrants in Charlotte, North Carolina, Federal Court Rules Texas Cannot Use New Congressional Map for the 2026 Midterm Elections, Texas GOP Governor Abbott Declares Council on American-Islamic Relations a Foreign Terrorist Organization, Trump Administration Takes Steps to Dismantle the Department of Education, Federal Judge Rules in Favor of Meta in Antitrust Case, Brazil's Supreme Court Sentences Military Officers Over Plot to Kill Lula
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Nov 18, 2025
As Democracy Now! broadcasts from the COP30 U.N. climate summit, we speak with Kumi Naidoo, the longtime South African human rights and environmental justice activist who is president of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative. He discusses U.S. absence from climate talks, Gaza, and wealthy countries refusing to take accountability for the climate crisis. "We're not asking the rich nations for a charity here. We are asking them to pay their climate debt."
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Nov 18, 2025
We speak with one of the Indigenous leaders at the U.N. climate summit in Belém for the climate negotiations, in greater numbers than ever before, taking center stage at COP30. They are calling "to end the persecution of our land defenders," says Diana Chávez, member of the Pastaza Kichwa Nation, with Pakkiru, an Indigenous organization based in Ecuador's Amazon. "We're fighting to keep our territories."
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Nov 18, 2025
As we broadcast from the United Nations climate summit in Belém, we look at Brazil's contradictory climate policies. The Lula government has reduced deforestation in the Amazon while also approving oil drilling near the Amazon. "Many parts of the Amazon are now reaching a tipping point, so a point of no return," says Ilan Zugman, Brazilian climate activist and 350.org's regional head for Latin America and the Caribbean. "Lula is still pushing for new oil and gas areas in the country, including in the Amazon."
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Nov 18, 2025
U.N. Security Council Approves U.S.-Backed "International Stabilization Force" in Gaza, Masked Israeli Settlers Attack Palestinian Communities in Occupied West Bank, Tens of Thousands Go Missing from Sudan's El Fasher as U.N. Warns of Mass Atrocities, Ecuador Voters Reject Constitutional Rewrite and Return of Foreign Bases, Jamaica Leads Call of Island Nations for Urgent Action at COP30 Climate Summit, Ahead of Meeting with Crown Prince, Trump Says U.S. Will Sell F-35 Jets to Saudi Arabia, FEMA's Acting Director Steps Down Amid Furor over Texas Flood Deaths, "Profound Investigative Missteps": Judge Blasts Trump's Hand-Picked Prosecutor in Comey Case, Trump Claims He'd Sign Bill to Release Epstein Files, But "Don't Talk About It Too Much", Larry Summers Says He's "Deeply Ashamed" as Emails Reveal Ties to Jeffry Epstein, "This Is Me When I Met Jeffrey Epstein": Survivors' Ad Calls on Congress to Release Files
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Nov 17, 2025
With negotiations in their second week here at the COP30 climate conference in Belém, Brazil, we get an update on the United Nations talks from Asad Rehman, chief executive of Friends of the Earth. He says COP30 is taking place against a backdrop of rising far-right authoritarianism, climate denial, and genocide in Gaza, which are all testing the "rules-based system" underpinning the U.N. climate framework. "How do you celebrate 10 years of Paris, 30 years of COP, to show that, actually, multilateralism matters and implementation matters?" says Rehman of the central challenge of the talks.
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Nov 17, 2025
Democracy Now! is broadcasting from the U.N. climate summit in the Brazilian rainforest city of Belém, near the mouth of the Amazon River, where the COP30 summit has entered its second week of negotiations. The gathering comes 33 years after the Rio Earth Summit, which created the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. Countries are trying to find a way forward on addressing the climate crisis, even as global temperatures continue to rise and as the Trump administration boycotts the conference. COP30 is also the first since 2021 with a significant civil society presence, after three successive U.N. summits held in repressive countries that outlawed public protest.
"The beauty of the forest COP, the beauty of the people's COP in Brazil, is that civil society is very active, both inside and outside," says Leila Salazar-López, executive director of Amazon Watch.
We also speak with Viviana Santiago, executive director of Oxfam Brazil, who advises the Brazilian government on sustainable development. She stresses the importance of centering Indigenous peoples and the health of the Amazon in these talks. "People that are most affected for the climate crisis are the people that did nothing to [cause] this crisis," says Santiago.
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Nov 17, 2025
Democracy Now! is broadcasting from the U.N. climate summit in the Brazilian rainforest city of Belém, near the mouth of the Amazon River, where the COP30 summit has entered its second week of negotiations. The gathering comes 33 years after the Rio Earth Summit, which created the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. Countries are trying to find a way forward on addressing the climate crisis, even as global temperatures continue to rise and as the Trump administration boycotts the conference. COP30 is also the first since 2021 with a significant civil society presence, after three successive U.N. summits held in repressive countries that outlawed public protest.
"The beauty of the forest COP, the beauty of the people's COP in Brazil, is that civil society is very active, both inside and outside," says Leila Salazar-López, executive director of Amazon Watch.
We also speak with Viviana Santiago, executive director of Oxfam Brazil, who advises the Brazilian government on sustainable development. She stresses the importance of centering Indigenous peoples and the health of the Amazon in these talks. "People that are most affected for the climate crisis are the people that did nothing to [cause] this crisis," says Santiago.
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Nov 17, 2025
To kick off our week of coverage from the COP30 climate summit in Brazil, we play video of a major protest that took place Saturday, when tens of thousands of people took to the streets of the host city Belém to demand urgent climate action. The Indigenous-led action was the first major climate protest at a United Nations climate conference since 2021; protests were banned by Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Azerbaijan, the three previous host countries. Demonstrators denounced corporate greed, war and imperialism, while demanding urgent action to reduce use of fossil fuels and to respect Indigenous sovereignty. "The answer is us," said Lucía Ixchíu, a Maya K'iche' environmental defender. "We know that we have the solutions."
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Nov 17, 2025
Bangladesh Former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Sentenced to Death, Israeli Forces Kill at Least 3 Palestinians Despite U.S.-Brokered Ceasefire, U.N. Security Council to Vote Today on U.S. Proposal to Establish International Stabilization Force in Gaza, Trump Open to Talks with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Tens of Thousands March Outside COP30 Demanding Climate Action, Protests Erupt After Trump Admin Targets Charlotte, North Carolina, for Mass Deportation Campaign, Trump Calls on House GOP to Approve Discharge Petition Compelling DOJ to Release Epstein Files, New Prosecutor Takes Over Georgia Election Interference Case Against Trump and His Allies, Hundreds of Thousands of Demonstrators in the Philippines Call for Accountability in Flood Corruption Scandal, 32 People Killed After Bridge Collapses at a Copper and Cobalt Mine in DRC, BBC: Investigation Implicates 2 U.S. Marines in the Killing of Iraqi Civilians in Haditha, Disability Rights Activist and Author Alice Wong Dies at 51
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Nov 14, 2025
Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani is less than two months away from taking office in New York City. Mamdani's history-making campaign, grounded in community organizing, propelled the little-known Assembly-member to victory. Candidate Mamdani famously began the campaign polling at just 1% and overcame the intense scrutiny, Islamaphobic attacks, criticism for his support for Palestinian rights, and more. By election day, more than 2 million New Yorkers had cast their votes, a turnout record that hasn't been matched going back more than half a century.
His success is in part due to massive on-the-ground organizing and an operation of more than 104,000 volunteers. "We knew that we wanted it to be very big," says Tascha Van Auken, field director for Zohran Mamdani's mayoral campaign. "We prioritized developing leadership and bringing in as many volunteers as possible."
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Nov 14, 2025
Democracy Now! speaks to William Hartung about his new book "The Trillion Dollar War Machine" and who profits from the United States' runaway military spending that fuels foreign wars. Hartung says that U.S. policy is "based on profit" and calls for a rethinking of our foreign entanglements. "We haven't won a war in this century. We've caused immense harm. We've spent $8 trillion," he says.
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Nov 14, 2025
252 Venezuelan immigrants in the United States were flown to El Salvador in the dead of night and indefinitely imprisoned at the Salvadoran mega-prison CECOT, the Terrorism Confinement Center. The detainees had no ability to communicate to the outside world before they were finally released to Venezuela in a prisoner exchange. The men were "subjected to beatings almost daily upon arrival," says Noah Bullock, executive director of Cristosal who co-authroed a report with Human Rights Watch documenting human rights abuses and torture in the prison.
The report also found that the prison guards were "clearly trying to hide their identities while they were torturing these Venezuelan migrants," says Juan Pappier, Americas deputy director at Human Rights Watch.
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Nov 14, 2025
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has announced the launch of Operation Southern Spear to target suspected drug traffickers in South America, Central America and the Caribbean. The U.S. now has 15,000 military personnel in the region. Over the past two months the U.S. has blown up at least 20 boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. "80 people have been killed in what are extrajudicial executions under international law," says Juan Pappier, Americas deputy director at Human Rights Watch. The Pentagon claims the boats were carrying drugs but officials have acknowledged they don't know who has been killed.
"Progressives and people of goodwill — of the U.S. and Puerto Rico — it's time for those of us here to stand up and say that where we will not support any attempt to bring back the old gunboat diplomacy and to invade another Latin American country, and we need to do it soon, because this stuff is moving very quickly," says Democracy Now!'s Juan González.
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Nov 14, 2025
Hegseth Announces "Operation Southern Spear" to Target "Narco-Terrorists" Across Hemisphere, 900,000 Palestinians Face Flood Risk as Heavy Rains Compound Gaza's Misery, Israeli Forces Kill Two Palestinian Children in Raid Near Hebron as Settlers Set Fire to Mosque, Russian Attacks on Ukraine Kill at Least 6 in Kyiv, 2 in Odesa Region, Trump Administration Says It May Never Report October's Inflation and Job Loss Data, Federal Agents Release Chicago Teacher Arrested by ICE at Child Care Center, Trump Administration to Deploy Border Patrol to Charlotte and New Orleans, US Bishops Condemn "Dehumanizing Rhetoric and VIolence" of Trump's Mass Deportation Campaign, US Issues New Visa Restrictions Discriminating Against People With Medical Conditions, Spaceflight Firm Founded by Jeff Bezos Lands First Stage of Giant Rocket, Challenging Musk's SpaceX, Katie Wilson WIns Seattle Mayor's Race After Insurgent Campaign Demanding Affordability, Workers Strike at Dozens of Starbucks Stores Across U.S. to Demand Union Contracts
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Nov 13, 2025
"We had the cure for death from malnutrition, and we took it away." We speak to surgeon and health policy expert Atul Gawande about the Trump administration's near-total dismantling of USAID. Gawande, the head of global health at USAID during the Biden administration, is featured in the short film Rovina's Choice, filmed at a refugee camp at the border between Kenya and South Sudan earlier this year. We play an excerpt from the film and discuss the impact of USAID cuts on humanitarian crises around the world. Gawande says hundreds of thousands of deaths have already occurred as a result of the loss of aid. "We're seeing early deaths, like the malnutrition cases, and then we'll see the wave that's more to come."
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Nov 13, 2025
Arizona Democrat Adelita Grijalva was finally sworn into office by House Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday, fifty days after winning her seat in Congress. Grijalva won a special election to fill the seat left vacant when her father, longtime Congressmember Raúl Grijalva, died in March. Up until yesterday, Johnson had refused to swear in Grijalva in an effort to block her from submitting the final signature on a discharge petition to force a vote on the Justice Department's full release of the Jeffrey Epstein files. We air Grijalva's first House speech and speak to her from Capitol Hill on her first full day in office.
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Nov 13, 2025
After months of delays, House Republicans have released tens of thousands of pages of documents from Jeffrey Epstein's estate, after Democrats earlier publicized emails suggesting that President Trump was aware that Epstein was abusing and trafficking young girls and women. In one of those emails, Epstein wrote that Trump "knew about the girls." Trump's allies say the larger set of documents released Wednesday afternoon provide evidence of Epstein's later animosity towards Trump and support Trump's claims that he was not previously aware of Epstein's crimes. Still more evidence — namely, photographs and videos — may soon be publicized, as a petition for the House to vote on the full release of the "Epstein files" received its final signature from newly-sworn in Congressmember Adelita Grijalva. "There is a lot more to come," says Spencer Kuvin, a lawyer who represents several survivors of Jeffrey Epstein's abuse and who has reviewed much of the still-unreleased evidence, which is currently under a court protection order. "The FBI does have more information that needs to be released."
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Nov 13, 2025
Trump Signs Stopgap Spending Bill, Ending Longest-Ever U.S. Government Shutdown, "Blatantly Corrupt Self-Dealing": Spending Bill Rider Allows GOP Senators to Sue DOJ for Up to $1M, Speaker Johnson Swears In Arizona Congressmember Adelita Grijalva After 50 Day Delay, Trump "Knew About the Girls": House Democrats Release New Jeffrey Epstein Emails, Israeli Warplanes Continue to Bomb Gaza Cities Despite Ceasefire Deal, Israel's Knesset Advances Death Penalty Bill for Individuals Charged With Terrorism, United Nations Calls for Ceasefire and Humanitarian Aid Corridor in Sudan, Climate Action Tracker: World on Pace to See Global Temperature Rise of 2.6 Degrees Celsius, Climate Activists Launch People's Summit Flotilla at COP30 U.N. Climate Talks in Brazil, Detainees at For-Profit ICE Jail Accuse Prison Guard of Sexual Assault and Harassment, Brother of Detainee Who Died in ICE Custody Sues Government
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Nov 12, 2025
Democracy Now! speaks with the renowned Iranian filmmaker Sepideh Farsi, the director of the new documentary "Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk." The film is based on regular video calls Farsi made with the Palestinian photojournalist Fatma Hassona in Gaza over the course of a year from April 2024 to April 2025.
Hassona was killed with her family by an Israeli missile that targeted her apartment building in northern Gaza. The strike occurred just one day after she learned that the film centered around her life and work had been selected to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. "It's something that I will never get over," says Farsi.
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Nov 12, 2025
A new series by Drop Site News looks at Jeffrey Epstein's ties to Israeli intelligence and how he secretly brokered numerous deals for Israeli intelligence. Drop Site revealed that Epstein had played a role in brokering a security agreement between Israel and Mongolia and setting up a backchannel between Israel and Russia during the Syrian civil war.
Epstein had an "extensive relationship with Israeli intelligence, U.S. intelligence and the intelligence agencies of other countries as well," says Murtaza Hussain, reporter for Drop Site News. "He was a dealmaker and a fixer at a very, very elite level."
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Nov 12, 2025
The government shutdown has brought attention to food insecurity in the United States, as it disrupted the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, or SNAP, which helps about 42 million people across the country. Delayed and partial payments have occurred despite the availability of contingency funds to keep the program going during the shutdown, because the Trump administration initially chose not to use those funds. "42 million Americans, 16 million of them children, are really struggling to be able to afford nutritious food for their health," says Mariana Chilton, child hunger expert. "It's deeply concerning."
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Nov 12, 2025
The longest U.S. federal government shutdown in history has entered its 43rd day. The House of Representatives is returning to session today to vote on a short-term funding bill to end the shutdown. The Senate approved the measure on Monday after seven Democrats and one independent backed the Republican bill even though the bill did not include an extension of the Affordable Care Act subsidies, which was a key demand for Democratic lawmakers. Some Democrats in the House are now calling for Senator Chuck Schumer to resign his position as minority leader — including Democratic congressmember from California, Ro Khanna. "The President was panicking," says Khanna. "He realized that he had lost the election over this. We caved too soon." Khanna also discusses his bill to force the public release of the Epstein files, surrounding the federal investigation into the serial sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein.
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Nov 12, 2025
Israeli Forces Killed 3 Palestinians in Gaza Despite the U.S.-Brokered Ceasefire, 13-Year-Old Palestinian Boy Dies a Month After Israeli Forces Attacked Him in the Occupied West Bank, France Commits to Help the Palestinian Authority to Draft a Constitution for a Future Palestinian State, UK Suspends Sharing Intelligence With the U.S. Over Pentagon Strikes on Alleged Drug Boats, Protests Continue in Puerto Rico Against Trump Admin's Military Trainings in Arroyo, Speaker Johnson to Swear In Representative-Elect Grijalva as Gov't Shutdown Enters 43rd Day, Jack Schlossberg, Grandson of JFK, Announces Run for Rep. Nadler's Seat, Progressive Jewish Organizations Condemn Anti-Defamation League's "Mamdani Monitor", Marion County in Kansas Agrees to Pay $3 Million After Police Raided Local Paper in 2023, WaPo: Trump Admin Plans to Allow Oil and Gas Drilling Off the California Coast, "Our Land is Not for Sale": Dozens of Indigenous Leaders Protest at COP30 in Brazil
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Nov 11, 2025
The new documentary Free Joan Little chronicles the landmark case of the first woman in U.S. history to be acquitted on the grounds of self-defense against sexual violence. Joan Little's 1975 murder trial inspired a national campaign for racial justice, prisoner's rights, and survivors' rights to self-defense. Director Yoruba Richen calls the movement to free Little a "cry for justice" and Little's trial testimony about her assault by a prison guard "a radical act" that helped expose "the scourge of violence and abuse in jails and in prisons." Free Joan Little premieres this week at the DOC NYC Film Festival.
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Nov 11, 2025
Last week, at the Spanish-immersion daycare center Rayito del Sol in Chicago, employee Diana Santillana was violently abducted and detained by immigration agents in front of parents and young children. "My son was completely shut down emotionally after this happened," says Tara Goodarzi, the parent of a three-year-old who attends Rayito del Sol and witnessed the aftermath of the arrest. "He was just so shocked by the state that his school and his safe place had transformed into." Goodarzi also shares how community members are resisting the Trump administration's anti-immigrant crackdown in Chicago, organizing protests, patrols, meal trains and rideshares to support immigrant neighbors.
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Nov 11, 2025
We speak to The American Prospect's David Dayen about what could be the end to the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, after seven Democratic Senators and one independent struck a deal with Republicans to pass a short-term government funding bill. "Why would you end this?" asks Dayen, echoing many in the Democratic coalition who believe the deal was a poor strategic move for the anti-Trump opposition. Calls are now growing for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to step down. "Donald Trump and the Republicans were being blamed for all of this chaos…and yet, days later this this group of Democrats with the tacit support of Chuck Schumer decide that they're going to end this and cave."
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Nov 11, 2025
U.S. Senate Passes Bill to End Historic Government Shutdown, Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa Meets With President Trump at the White House, Reuters: European Officials Express Concern Over Next Phase of Gaza Ceasefire Deal, Pentagon Announces Strikes on Alleged Drug Boats in the Eastern Pacific, Killing 6 People, Supreme Court Declined to Hear an Appeal to Overturn its Decision on Same-Sex Marriage, Supreme Court Considers Challenge to Mississippi's Mail-In Ballot Laws, Private Prison Company Geo Group Seeking Immunity From Lawsuit in Case Before Supreme Court, Border Patrol Chief Gregory Bovino Reportedly Leaving Chicago, Trump Admin Attempting to Deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Liberia, British Journalist Sami Hamdi to be Released From ICE Custody, Trump Threatens to Sue BBC for $1 Billion Over Broadcaster's Edit of Jan. 6 Speech, Whistleblower Claims Ghislaine Maxwell Plans to Seek Commutation From President Trump, Car Explosion in New Delhi Kills At Least 13 People, Car Explosion in Islamabad Kills At Least 12 People, Dozens of Prisoners Found Hanged in Ecuadorean Prison, Leaders and Delegates From More Than 190 Countries Gather in Brazil for the Opening of COP30 Climate Summit
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Nov 10, 2025
Jelani Cobb, the acclaimed journalist and dean of the Columbia Journalism School, has just published a new collection of essays, "Three or More Is a Riot: Notes on How We Got Here." The book collects essays beginning in 2012 with the killing of Travyon Martin in Florida. It traces the rise of Donald Trump and the right's growing embrace of white nationalism as well as the historic racial justice protests after the police killing of George Floyd in 2020. "What we're seeing is a kind reactionary push to try to return the nation to the status quo ante, to undo the kind of demographic change, literally at gunpoint, as we are pushing people of color out of the country by force," says Cobb.
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Nov 10, 2025
Over 5000 fossil fuel lobbyists were given access to U.N. climate summits over the past four years, a period marked by a rise in catastrophic extreme weather, adequate climate action and record oil and gas expansion. "This is climate obstruction at work," says Nina Lakhani, senior climate justice reporter for The Guardian US. She notes that lobbyists attend climate conferences to "promote false solutions like carbon based carbon markets, carbon capture and storage — these market based solutions which are not going to save the planet."
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Nov 10, 2025
The 30th U.N. climate change conference begins today in the Brazilian rainforest city of Belém, located at the mouth of the Amazon River. The summit opens as a major typhoon hit the Philippines, killing at least eight people and displacing more than 1.4 million others. Typhoon Fung-wong hit as the Philippines is still recovering from Typhoon Kalmaegi, which killed at least 224 people last week. Democracy Now! speaks with former Philippine climate negotiator Yeb Saño, chair of the Laudato Si' Movement, who warns that global steps to stop the climate crisis are "too little and probably too late."
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Nov 10, 2025
The 30th U.N. climate change conference begins today in the Brazilian rainforest city of Belem, located at the mouth of the Amazon River. The summit opens as a major typhoon hit the Philippines killing at least eight people and displacing more than 1.4 million others. Typhoon Fung-wong hit as the Philippines is still recovering from Typhoon Kalmaegi which killed at least 224 people last week. Democracy Now! speaks with former Philippine climate negotiator Yeb Saño, chair of the Laudato Si' Movement, who warns that global steps to stop the climate crisis are "too little and probably too late."
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Nov 10, 2025
Trump Pardons Top Allies Involved in Efforts to Overturn Results of 2020 Election, 7 Democratic Senators Join Republicans to Pass Key Bill to End Government Shutdown, Trump Admin. Orders States to Stop Providing Full Benefits to SNAP Recipients, Tens of Thousands of Travelers Nationwide Impacted by Flight Cancellations, Israel Continues Striking Gaza Despite U.S.-Brokered Ceasefire, Killing 2 People, Israeli Settlers Attack Palestinian Villagers, Activists and Journalists in Occupied West Bank, Federal Judge Permanently Blocks Trump Admin From Deploying Troops to Portland, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson Calls on UN to Probe U.S. Gov't Over Immigration Crackdown, Video Shows Man Having a Seizure During ICE Arrest, Top BBC Executives Resign Following Backlash Over Edit of Trump Speech, Trump: U.S. to Boycott G20 Summit Hosted by South Africa, UN COP30 Climate Summit Opens Today in Belém, Brazil
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Nov 07, 2025
The trailblazing human rights attorney Peter Weiss died November 3 at the age of 99. Weiss served on the board of the Center for Constitutional Rights for nearly five decades, where he worked to end South African apartheid and the Vietnam War, fought for nuclear disarmament and sought justice for victims of the U.S.-backed Contras in 1980s Nicaragua. He pioneered using the 1789 Alien Tort Statute in human rights cases. He also represented the family of U.S. journalist and human rights activist Charles Horman in a case against Henry Kissinger and others, after Horman was disappeared and killed in Chile soon after the U.S.-backed 1973 coup.
"He never ceased to push for a more just system, a more equitable system, along with his extraordinary wife Cora Weiss," says Peter Kornbluh, senior analyst at the National Security Archive. "There's not enough words to describe how important Peter was to the progressive movement, to human rights, over these last decades."
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Nov 07, 2025
The U.S. is continuing to blow up boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific despite growing international condemnation, while the Trump administration reportedly considers launching airstrikes on Venezuela or even assassinating President Nicolás Maduro.
"We are committing wanton criminal acts of assassination in the Caribbean [against] innocent people who haven't been found guilty of anything, and kind of setting the stage for an attack on Caracas itself in an attempt to take out its leader," says Peter Kornbluh, a senior analyst at the National Security Archive.
Kornbluh also discusses the legacy of the Church Committee 50 years ago, which investigated abuses by U.S. intelligence agencies, including coups and assassinations abroad.
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Nov 07, 2025
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments this week in a case challenging President Donald Trump's tariffs, with plaintiffs arguing that his unilateral levies on imported goods violate the Constitution, which grants Congress the power to impose taxes and regulate foreign commerce. The Trump administration has justified his unprecedented use of tariffs under a 1977 law known as the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, but several justices seemed highly skeptical of that argument, potentially putting President Trump's signature economic policy at risk.
"There is no genuine emergency. There is no war that is the precipitating basis for invoking IEEPA. And even if it were, it would not allow the imposition of tariffs," says legal expert Lisa Graves, founder of True North Research and co-host of the podcast Legal AF.
Graves also discusses her new book, Without Precedent: How Chief Justice Roberts and His Accomplices Rewrote the Constitution and Dismantled Our Rights.
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Nov 07, 2025
In an unsigned order on Thursday, the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to require U.S. passports to list travelers' sex assigned at birth, another blow to the rights of transgender, nonbinary and intersex people, who had been able to select sex markers aligning with their gender identity or to use a gender-neutral X. Thursday's order is an interim ruling while the passport case makes its way through lower courts.
"The harm and the targeting of this policy towards intersex, nonbinary and trans people is terrifying. It makes it very scary to travel, to trust that you'll be able to get through security, that you'll be able to get on your flight," says Arli Christian, senior policy counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union.
We also get reaction to the order from actress and activist Laverne Cox, who says trans people will persevere despite the discriminatory policy. "No matter what they say about our ID documents, we are still who we are, and we will find a way to be ourselves no matter what," she says.
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Nov 07, 2025
Sudan's Rapid Support Forces Agree to Humanitarian Ceasefire, "The World's Largest Mass Grave": Palestinians Say 10,000 Bodies Are Buried Under Gaza's Rubble, Israel Launches Wave of Airstrikes on Southern Lebanon, GOP Senators Block Resolution to Rein In Trump's Military Actions Against Venezuela, Senate GOP Continues Push to End Health Insurance Subsidies as Government Shutdown Enters 38th Day, Federal Judge Orders Trump Administration to Fully Fund November SNAP Payments, U.S. Airlines Cancel Thousands of Flights as Shutdown Takes Toll on Air Traffic Controllers, Death Toll in Crash of UPS Cargo Plane Rises to 13, Tesla Shareholders Approve Pay Package That Could Make Elon Musk a Trillionaire, Federal Judge Blasts Border Patrol Chief for Lying About Violence at Chicago-Area Protests, Jury Acquits Man Who Threw Sandwich to Protest Trump's Militarized Takeover of D.C., SCOTUS Allows Trump Administration to Restrict Gender Identity Markers on Passports, Typhoon Batters Vietnam After Carving Path of Destruction Through Philippines, Documents Reveal Exxon Funded Climate Denial Campaign Across Latin America, As COP30 Opens, Brazil's Lula Warns Window of Opportunity to Act on Climate Is Rapidly Closing, Nancy Pelosi, Who Served as First-Ever Female House Speaker, to Retire from Congress in 2027, NYC Mayor-Elect Mamdani Outlines Plan to Tax the Rich and Corporations to Fund Affordability, Pioneering Human Rights Attorney Peter Weiss Dies at 99
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Nov 06, 2025
Palestinian writer Tareq Baconi joins us to discuss his new memoir, Fire in Every Direction, a chronicle of his political and queer coming of age growing up between Amman and Beirut as the grandson of refugees from Jerusalem and Haifa. While "LGBTQ labels have also been used by the West as part of empire," with colonial projects seeking to portray Native populations as backward and in need of saving, "there's a beautiful effort and movement among queer communities in the region to reclaim that language," says Baconi. "I identify as a queer man today as part of a political project. It's not just a sexual identity. It expands beyond that and rejects Zionism and rejects authoritarianism, and that's part of my queerness."
Baconi also comments on the so-called ceasefire agreement in Gaza and the election of Zohran Mamdani in New York City. "Palestinians are the ones that have to govern Palestinian territory, not this international force that comes in that takes any kind of sovereignty or agency away from the Palestinians," he says.
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Nov 06, 2025
A new special report from Futuro Media follows the Trump administration's federal immigration raids and the growing community resistance against them. "Taken: The Agents Raiding Communities and the People Trying to Stop Them" documents how Latinos in the U.S. are being racially profiled, "kidnapped," denied due process and forced to sign their own removal orders. "This is psychological terror," says investigative journalist Maria Hinojosa. "Trump is saying we should have ethnic cleansing against Latinos and Latinas, if it hasn't gone far enough."
Hinojosa also comments on the recent public sexual harassment of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and the growing public profile of Border Patrol chief Gregory Bovino.
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Nov 06, 2025
Amid federal immigration raids in the Chicagoland area, the mayor of one Chicago suburb is on the frontlines of the anti-ICE protest movement. Mayor Daniel Biss says what he has seen of federal immigration raids in Evanston, Illinois, amounts to an "invasion from our own federal government." His office is now launching investigations into reports of federal agents brutalizing and threatening community members. "They appear to have just started beating people up for no reason," Biss says. "If that was anybody except for a federal agent, they would be under arrest."
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Nov 06, 2025
Israel Kills at Least Two Palestinians in Gaza Despite U.S.-Brokered Ceasefire, Israeli Forces Carry Out Raids in the Occupied West Bank, Killing a 15-Year-Old Boy, FAA Announces It Will Cut Traffic by 10% at 40 U.S. Airports Due to Government Shutdown, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities Analysis: 5 Million People Will Receive No SNAP Benefits Despite Court Orders, Drone Strike Kills at Least 40 People at a Funeral in Sudan, DHS to End Deportation Protections for South Sudanese Immigrants, Federal Judge in Chicago Orders Authorities to Improve Conditions at Broadview ICE Jail, Federal Agents in Chicago Arrest Teacher at a Day Care in Front of Parents and Students, Federal Immigration Agents Arrest U.S. Citizen and Drive Off with His Daughter in Los Angeles, Mexican President Sheinbaum Presses Charges After Being Groped by a Man, California Republicans Sue to Block New Congressional Map Benefiting Democrats, Supreme Court Justices Appear Skeptical of Claims Trump Has Power to Impose Sweeping Tariffs, U.S. Asks U.N. Security Council to Lift Sanctions on Syria's President Ahmad al-Sharaa, NYC Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani Pledges to Hold ICE Agents Accountable
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Nov 05, 2025
We get an overview of how Democrats won big across the United States in Tuesday's elections, with Daniel Nichanian, editor-in-chief of Bolts. Democratic Congressmember Mikie Sherrill won New Jersey's governor's race, and Abigail Spanberger flipped Virginia's governorship. In California, voters approved a new congressional map that could help Democrats pick up five additional congressional seats in a move to counter Texas's redistricting plan. Local races across the countries also saw widespread Democratic wins. Nichanian says he has "never really quite seen this level of systematic win for pretty much anything that there was [for Democrats] to win."
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Nov 05, 2025
At Zohran Mamdani's victory party at the Brooklyn Paramount on Tuesday night, Democracy Now! spoke with Congressmember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. "We're not going to be intimidated," Ocasio-Cortez said. "We're going to fight for working families. We're going to stand with immigrants. We're going to stand with the diversity of this city."
Brad Lander, former mayoral candidate who cross-endorsed with Mandani in the Democratic primary, commented on the power of having a "Muslim New Yorker and a Jewish New Yorker say we are not going to allow Andrew Cuomo or Eric Adams or Donald Trump or Elon Musk or Stephen Miller to weaponize fear and pit us against each other."
"This is such an incredible proof of concept of how to fight fascism," added the Canadian journalist, author and activist Naomi Klein.
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Nov 05, 2025
Democracy Now! spoke with supporters celebrating Zohran Mamdani's win in the New York City mayoral race Tuesday night. Volunteers with the Democratic Socialists and other campaign organizers at the Brooklyn Paramount victory party described the night as "surreal" and vowed to fight back against President Trump's agenda. Sumaya Awad, a NYC-DSA member, describes Zohran as a politician "that doesn't put the platform and the mission at the expense of anyone."
"When people's needs aren't being met, they need an alternative, and so far, only the far right was providing an alternative in the form of authoritarianism, in the form of fascism, in the form of hate, turning against immigrants, against queer people, against Muslims," says Fahd Ahmed, director of DRUM Beats. "What this campaign and our movement was able to do was offer a left alternative."
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Nov 05, 2025
Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani won the New York mayoral race, defeating former Governor Andrew Cuomo. A year ago, Mamdani was polling at just 1%, but on Tuesday he became the first New York mayoral candidate to win over a million votes since the 1960s. Mamdani won despite being vastly outspent by Cuomo, who was backed by a group of billionaires. We play part of Mamdani's victory speech to supporters at the Brooklyn Paramount, in which he vows to stand up to President Trump and acknowledges his unlikely path to Gracie Mansion: "I am young, despite my best efforts to grow older. I am Muslim. I am a democratic socialist. And most damning of all, I refuse to apologize for any of this."
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Nov 05, 2025
Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani Wins New York City Mayoral Race, Democrats Dominate First Major Elections of Trump's Second Term, Federal Shutdown Becomes Longest in U.S. History, Israel Continues Striking Gaza Despite U.S.-Brokered Ceasefire, U.N. Secretary-General Warns Sudan's Civil War Is "Spiraling Out of Control", Pentagon Announces Another Deadly Strike on Alleged Drug Boat, NBC News: Trump Admin Looking into Possible U.S. Military Mission Inside Mexico, U.N.: World Likely to Surpass 1.5 Degrees Celsius Climate Goal
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Nov 04, 2025
We speak with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists Carol Leonnig and Aaron Davis on the day they publish their new book, Injustice: How Politics and Fear Vanquished America's Justice Department, which looks at how the DOJ during the Biden administration was overly cautious in pursuing cases against Trump and his allies over 2020 election interference, the January 6 riot and more. Attorney General Merrick Garland felt it was important to "turn the page from Donald Trump" and not look too closely at abuses of power, says Leonnig, who also stresses many "stubbornly brave people … tried to do the right thing and could not succeed in this institution."
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Nov 04, 2025
Dick Cheney, the former vice president and one of the key architects of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, died Monday at age 84. Cheney served six terms in Congress as Wyoming's lone representative before serving as defense secretary under President George H.W. Bush, when he oversaw the first Gulf War and the bloody U.S. invasion of Panama that deposed former U.S. ally Manuel Noriega. From 1995 to 2000, Cheney served as chair and CEO of the oil services company Halliburton, before George W. Bush tapped him as his running mate. As vice president, Cheney was a leading proponent of invading and occupying Iraq, which killed hundreds of thousands of people and destabilized the entire region. Dick Cheney also steadfastly defended warantless mass surveillance programs and the use of torture against detainees of the so-called war on terror. We speak with The Nation's John Nichols, author of multiple books about Cheney, who says the neoconservative leader had a "very destructive" impact on the world.
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Nov 04, 2025
Voters in the United States are casting ballots in several closely watched elections on Tuesday, including mayoral races in New York, Seattle and Minneapolis, and gubernatorial contests in New Jersey and Virginia. The Nation's executive editor John Nichols says Zohran Mamdani's campaign in New York, in particular, has "captured the imagination of the country." He notes many of Tuesday's races could help shape the agenda of the Democratic Party and move it toward being "an activist party that uses government to really tip the balance in favor of the working class."
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Nov 04, 2025
Trump Endorses Cuomo, Threatens to Cancel Funding to NYC If Mamdani Is Elected Mayor, Trump Administration Will Only Partially Fund Expiring SNAP Benefits as Shutdown Drags On, Fed Warns of Weakening Labor Market as U.S. Companies Announce AI-Driven Layoffs, 10 Richest U.S. Billionaires Have Expanded Wealth by $700 Billion Since Trump's Return, Dick Cheney, Architect of Iraq Occupation and U.S. Torture Program, Dies at 84, U.N. Says 36,000 Have Fled North Darfur's Capital Since Paramilitaries Seized Control, Israel Continues to Attack Gaza Despite U.S.-Brokered Ceasefire, Israel and Hamas Exchange Bodies of Captives, with More Signs of Torture Against Palestinians, ICE Agents Shoot U.S. Citizen in Los Angeles Area, U.S. Courts Halt Deportation of Man Wrongfully Jailed Under Murder Charges for 43 Years, At Least 26 People Killed as Typhoon Kalmaegi Strikes Philippines, Trump Admin Says It Will Not Send Any High-Level Officials to COP30 Climate Talks
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