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Mar 24, 2023
In Atlanta, a judge has denied bond for 8 of the people indiscriminately arrested at a music festival against the proposed "Cop City" police training facility in the Weelaunee Forest. Jailed since March 5, they are charged with domestic terrorism based on scant evidence like muddy clothes or simply being in the area at the time of the festival. We're joined by Micah Herskind, an Atlanta community organizer, who calls the charges "political prosecutions" and a blatant "attempt to repress this social movement that is trying to stop Cop City."
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Mar 24, 2023
In his new book, Spyfail: Foreign Spies, Moles, Saboteurs, and the Collapse of America's Counterintelligence, investigative journalist James Bamford reveals that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dispatched a secret Israeli agent to the United States in the spring of 2016 to help Donald Trump win the presidential election. The agent met with advisers to Trump and offered to share secret intelligence with the campaign against Hillary Clinton. Bamford's investigation finds that while American media fixated on Russia's role in swaying the 2016 election, Israeli interference was completely ignored. He joins us from Washington, D.C., for more on what's been uncovered during his investigation. "The Israelis got what they wanted, and Trump got what he wanted, and the American public was screwed in the meantime," Bamford says.
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Mar 24, 2023
We speak with Democratic Congressmember Ro Khanna about the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, regulating the banking sector, and how Federal Reserve interest rate hikes contributed to the banking crisis. Silicon Valley Bank was based in Khanna's district in California, and he has criticized fellow Democrats who supported a 2018 bill that weakened banking oversight for some banks. "We need to regulate large regional banks the same way that we regulate the Big Four banks," says Khanna. He also talks about growing concern from lawmakers about the social video app TikTok, the Biden administration's policy on Taiwan and Ukraine, and more.
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Mar 24, 2023
French unions say nearly 3.5 million people took to the streets Thursday in a nationwide general strike to protest President Emmanuel Macron's deeply unpopular move to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64. Macron forced the legislation through the French National Assembly last week, using a constitutional clause to bypass a parliamentary vote. Macron's government survived a vote of no confidence Monday by just nine votes, but public anger shows no signs of abating, with France's major trade unions planning another nationwide protest for Tuesday. "Not only is the government trying to do this pension reform that people see as fundamentally unfair, but they're ignoring historically large protests even by French standards," says journalist Cole Stranger from Marseille. His new guest essay in The New York Times is headlined "France Is Furious."
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Mar 24, 2023
Netanyahu Shielded from Charges as Protests Rage Against Far-Right Judicial Reforms, Millions Join General Strike in France After Macron Uses Executive Fiat to Slash Pensions, Biden and Trudeau to Announce Deal to Block Asylum Seekers at U.S. Northern Border, U.S. Warplanes Strike Syria After Drone Attack on U.S. Base Kills Contractor, Indian Opposition MP Rahul Gandhi Jailed for Criticizing Modi, House Panel Grills TikTok CEO as Progressives Warn Against Anti-Chinese Scapegoating, Utah Passes Law Requiring Parental Consent for Minors Using Social Media, GA and IA Ban Healthcare for Trans Youth; World Athletics Bans Trans Women from Competing, Parents of Michigan School Shooter to Be Tried for Manslaughter, Denver Schools Suspend Ban on Armed Officers After School Shootings, Los Angeles Education Workers End 3-Day Strike, Return to Classrooms Without a Deal
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Mar 23, 2023
As we continue to mark the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, we are joined by Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, an award-winning Baghdad-born Iraqi journalist and author. Abdul-Ahad has received the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism, the British Press Awards' Foreign Reporter of the Year and the Orwell Prize. His new book is A Stranger in Your Own City: Travels in the Middle East's Long War. "I want the history to be told properly," says Abdul-Ahad about his hopes for the future of Iraqi society after decades of dictatorship, sanctions, war, occupation and corruption.
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Mar 23, 2023
As new footage is released about the shocking killing of Irvo Otieno inside a hospital in Virginia, we speak with civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who represents Otieno's family. Surveillance video shows seven sheriff's deputies and three hospital workers violently pinned Otieno to the floor and piled on him for more than 11 minutes, suffocating him. New video released Wednesday reveals at least one officer had also repeatedly punched Otieno earlier that day. A grand jury has indicted the 10 men involved on second-degree murder charges. Otieno was having a mental health crisis, which Crump says is too often a death sentence for Black people in police encounters. "What happened to Irvo isn't an isolated incident in America," says Crump.
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Mar 23, 2023
On World Water Day, U.N. Warns 2 Billion Lack Safe Drinking Water, California Storms Kill Five, Swamp Thousands of Acres of Farmland and Spawn Rare Tornadoes, Kremlin Warns U.K. and Its Allies Against Supplying Ukraine with Depleted Uranium, CodePink Activists Disrupt Blinken's Senate Testimony, Call for Diplomacy Over Wars, Russia Raids Homes of Workers from Banned, Nobel Peace Prize-Winning Organization, Ex-Russian President Says Russia Could Bomb International Criminal Court, U.N. Calls for Intervention in Haiti After Gang Violence Claims Hundreds of Lives, Powerful Earthquake Kills at Least 19 People in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Wyoming Abortion Ban Halted; Idaho Maternity Ward Closes as Doctors Fear Criminal Penalties, Fed Raises Interest Rate by Another 0.25%, Dismissing Unemployment Concerns, IMF Approves $3 Billion Loan for Sri Lanka as Economic Crises in Lebanon and Argentina Worsen
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Mar 22, 2023
As we continue to look back on the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, we're joined by Sami Rasouli, an Iraqi native who immigrated to the United States over 35 years ago and became a successful restaurateur and beloved member of the community in Minneapolis. After the U.S. invasion of his home country in 2003, he moved back to Iraq, where he founded the Muslim Peacemakers, a group that works to promote and practice nonviolent conflict resolution and intervention. Rasouli also founded the American Institute for English in Najaf, which was destroyed by a 2020 bombing. He is working on starting a new organization called the American-Iraqi Peace Initiative and currently resides in the U.S. with his family. The war in Iraq has "left scars and a visible legacy" among Iraqis, says Rasouli, who calls for "a just compensation" in the aftermath of the U.S. occupation.
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Mar 22, 2023
Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin have declared a "new era" in Chinese-Russian relations after meeting in Moscow earlier this week. The two leaders reportedly discussed China's 12-point proposal to end the war in Ukraine, with Putin stating that China's plan could be the basis for a peace agreement. Though he has not yet met with Xi himself, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has recently also expressed a willingness to consider China's peace plan. For more, we speak to Andrew Bacevich, co-founder of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, about the rise of China, as well as the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Bacevich is professor emeritus of international relations and history at Boston University and the author of On Shedding an Obsolete Past: Bidding Farewell to the American Century.
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Mar 22, 2023
China and Russia Display Alliance; Zelensky Asks Beijing to Back Ukraine's Peace Plan, 10 People Indicted for Murdering Irvo Otieno in Hospital During Mental Health Crisis, Philadelphia Will Pay $9.25 Million to Racial Justice Protesters Brutalized by Police in 2020, Biden Designates New National Monuments in Nevada and Texas in Victory for Indigenous Groups, Indigenous Advocates Testify in Court in Bid to Halt Transfer of Oak Flat to Copper Mining Co., Brazilian Forces Evict Illegal Gold Miners from Yanomami Territory in Amazon, Journalists in Ecuador Targeted with Explosive Devices, Uganda Passes Bill Criminalizing Identifying as LGBTQ, Imposing Death Penalty in Some Cases, 72-Year-Old U.S.-Saudi Citizen Released from Saudi Prison, MN House Passes Bill to Protect Patients and Providers Who Travel from Out of State for Abortion, Manhattan Grand Jury Reconvenes, Could Issue Trump Indictment, Fox Producer Says She Was Coerced in Dominion Lawsuit Testimony, Cites Fox's Culture of Misogyny, Swedish Court Says Greta Thunberg and Other Activists Can Sue Their Gov't over Climate Inaction, Senior Climate Activists Protest Big Banks, Cut Up Credit Cards, for Financing Fossil Fuel Industry
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Mar 21, 2023
As we continue to mark the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, we look at how the corporate U.S. media helped pave the way for war by uncritically amplifying lies and misrepresentations from the Bush administration while silencing voices of dissent. Longtime media critic Norman Solomon says many of the same media personalities and news outlets that pushed aggressively for the invasion then are now helping to solidify an elite consensus around the Ukraine war. "In the mass media, being pro-war is portrayed as objective. Being antiwar is portrayed as being biased," he says. Solomon is author of War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death and the forthcoming War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine.
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Mar 21, 2023
We speak with Dipti Bhatnagar, climate justice activist based in Mozambique, about the recent death on March 9 of the popular rapper and cultural icon Azagaia. He was just 38 years old. He inspired many with his music and sang about injustice, including mistreatment of people by the authorities, as well as about poverty and social injustice. Azagaia's death has sparked protests in Mozambique which authorities have violently suppressed.
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Mar 21, 2023
In a major new report released Monday, the United Nations is calling for immediate and drastic cuts to greenhouse gas emissions in order to stop global warming. The "final warning" by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change comes as the death toll from Cyclone Freddy just swept through southeast Africa, killing hundreds of people and displacing hundreds of thousands more. Climate justice activist Dipti Bhatnagar with Friends of the Earth Mozambique describes it as "yet another reminder that climate impacts are not in the future but very much happening to our communities right now." We also continue our conversation with environmental activists Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org, and Ben Jealous, executive director of the Sierra Club.
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Mar 21, 2023
We speak with Third Act founder Bill McKibben and Sierra Club executive director Ben Jealous about protests they've organized today across the United States to demand the four biggest banks — Chase, Citi, Wells Fargo and Bank of America — stop financing the expansion of fossil fuel projects.
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Mar 21, 2023
U.N. Warns of Climate Catastrophe, Urges Immediate and Dramatic Action, Report Finds Drought Killed 43,000 People in Somalia in 2022, Russia Says Fighter Jet Intercepts U.S. B-52 Bombers Over Baltic Sea, U.S. Claims All Sides Committed War Crimes in Ethiopia's Tigray, Kenyan Opposition Politicians Tear-Gassed at Protests Against President William Ruto, South African Protesters March Against Mass Unemployment and Power Outages, French Government Narrowly Survives No Confidence Vote After Macron Slashes Pensions, Four More Oath Keepers Convicted over Jan. 6 Insurrection, Amazon Announces More Job Cuts, Bringing Recent Layoffs Total to 27,000, Los Angeles School Workers Launch Three-Day Strike, Demanding Living Wages, Protesters Decry Military Recruitment at Bronx Job Fair Co-Hosted by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
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Mar 20, 2023
At around 5:30 a.m. local time in Baghdad on March 20, 2003, air raid sirens were heard in Baghdad as the U.S. invasion began. Within the hour, President George W. Bush gave a nationally televised speech from the Oval Office announcing the war had begun. The attack came on the false pretext that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction, and despite worldwide protest and a lack of authorization from the United Nations Security Council. We spend today's show with two Iraqis looking back at how the unprovoked U.S. invasion devastated Iraq and helped destabilize much of the Middle East. Feurat Alani is a French Iraqi writer and documentarian who was based in Baghdad from 2003 to 2008. His recent piece for The Washington Post is headlined "The Iraq War helped destroy what it meant to be an Iraqi." Sinan Antoon was born and raised in Baghdad. He is also a writer, as well as a poet, translator and associate professor at New York University. His latest piece appears in The Guardian, headlined "A million lives later, I cannot forgive what American terrorism did to my country, Iraq."
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Mar 20, 2023
Xi Jinping Visits Moscow Following ICC Arrest Warrant Against Putin, Defiant Visit to Mariupol, Protesters Call for End to U.S. Wars on 20th Anniversary of Iraq Invasion, Protests in Gaza as Israeli, Palestinian Officials Pledge to Deescalate Ahead of Ramadan, Turkish and Egyptian Foreign Ministers Meet as Countries Relaunch Diplomatic Relations, UBS Buys Credit Suisse Amid Turmoil, Consumer Fears in Global Banking, Collapsed Signature Bank Acquired as Sen. Warren Calls for Bank Crisis Probe, Firing of Fed Chair, French Protests Continue, Hundreds Arrested, as Macron Faces No-Confidence Vote over Pension Law, Belarus Jails 2 Prominent Journalists as U.N. Warns Belarus May Be Guilty of Crimes Against Humanity, Pakistani Court Cancels Arrest Warrant for Imran Khan as Police Arrest His Supporters, 16 People Killed After 6.8-Magnitude Earthquake Hits Ecuador and Peru, Deadly Storms Cause More Misery in Earthquake-Stricken Turkey and Northwestern Syria, California Hit by 12th Atmospheric River as Residents, Farmers Reel from Unrelenting Storms, Wyoming Bans Abortion Pill as Wider Abortion Ban Goes into Effect, Maternal Mortality Rate Soared by 40% in 2021, Trump Says He Expects to Be Arrested Tuesday, Calls on Supporters to Protest, Veteran Sentenced to 2 Years for Rioting at the Capitol, Miami Beach Imposes Curfew After Deadly Shootings During Spring Break, Farmworkers Demand Publix, Kroger, Wendy's Stop Enabling Labor Abuses, Back the Fair Food Program
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Mar 17, 2023
With the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq on March 20, we speak with Oxford University international relations professor Neta Crawford, who says the region is still reeling from the impact of the war. "The story continues. It's not over," she says. Crawford is co-director of the Costs of War Project at Brown University, where her latest report pegs the cost of U.S. wars in Iraq and Syria since 2002 at nearly $2.9 trillion. Since the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003 under the false pretext of preventing Saddam Hussein from developing weapons of mass destruction, more than half a million people have been killed in Iraq and Syria. Millions more were displaced or died from indirect causes like disease. "It wasn't quick, it wasn't easy, and it certainly wasn't cost-free," says Crawford.
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Mar 17, 2023
We continue our coverage of the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq by looking at the imprisonment of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has been jailed for exposing U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. One video released by WikiLeaks showed a U.S. helicopter gunship in Baghdad slaughtering a dozen civilians, including a Reuters journalist. Assange has been held in London's Belmarsh prison since 2019 as he fights the U.S. campaign to extradite him to face espionage charges. If convicted, the publisher faces as much as 175 years behind bars. His legal fight is documented in the new film Ithaka that centers on Assange's father John Shipton, who has been crisscrossing the globe to raise awareness of the case and the danger it poses to press freedoms. We speak with Shipton, as well as filmmaker Gabriel Shipton, Julian Assange's brother and a producer of the documentary.
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Mar 17, 2023
This week nearly 400 human rights groups urged the Biden administration not to revive the controversial practice of migrant family detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Biden ended family detention when he took office two years ago but is now reportedly reconsidering it as part of a wider crackdown as his administration prepares to phase out the contested Trump-era Title 42 pandemic policy used to expel over 2 million migrants without due process at the southern border. We speak with Silky Shah, executive director of Detention Watch Network, who says "the Biden administration has faltered and is going against all the promises that they made on the campaign trail." We also speak with Mike Ishii, co-founder of Tsuru for Solidarity, which joined the call to stop family detention. He notes many Japanese Americans are still healing from the trauma of mass detention during World War II. "There's an intersectional history here of always targeting communities of color and immigrant communities with this kind of state violence," says Ishii.
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Mar 17, 2023
Yellen Declares, "Our Banking System Is Sound," as Wall Street Props Up First Republic Bank, Iran Agrees to Stop Arming Yemen's Houthis in Pact with Saudi Arabia, Poland and Slovakia Will Send Fighter Jets to Ukraine, U.N. Inquiry on Ukraine Finds Wide Evidence of Russian War Crimes, China Urges Diplomatic End to War in Ukraine as Xi Jinping Plans Trip to Kremlin, Biden Approves Sale of 220 Tomahawk Cruise Missiles to Australia , White House Threatens to Ban TikTok Unless Chinese Owners Sell Stakes, Israeli Forces Kill 4 More Palestinians in Jenin Ahead of Security Talks in Egypt, Macron Pushes Through Pension Reform Despite Overwhelming Public Opposition, Strikes and Protests Continue in U.K. as Workers Demand Living Wages, General Strike Brings Greece to Standstill Amid Anger over Fatal Train Crash, High Levels of Toxic Chemicals Detected in East Palestine Soil After Train Derailment, North Dakota Supreme Court Leaves Access to Abortion in Place as Ban Is Challenged, L.A. Times to Stop Using "Internment" to Describe Imprisonment of Japanese Americans in WWII
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Mar 16, 2023
As the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq approaches next week, Democracy Now! begins our look at the Iraq War's lasting after-effects on Iraqi society and the shape of global politics today. "The story of the past 20 years is a story of destruction, devastation, corruption, incompetence, but also a story of resilience," says Nadje Al-Ali, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at Brown University and author of several award-winning books on the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, including What Kind of Liberation? Women and the Occupation of Iraq.
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Mar 16, 2023
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Wednesday with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and other top officials, including leaders from the northern Tigray region. Blinken praised the four-month-old peace deal that ended two years of fighting between government troops and forces in Tigray, and called for accountability for war crimes committed during the conflict without casting blame on either side. Blinken also announced $331 million in new U.S. humanitarian assistance for Ethiopia. "It's an important trip by the secretary of state, because the U.S. is one of the major brokers of the peace deal that was signed in November between the Tigrayan officials and the federal government," says journalist Tsedale Lemma, founder of the Addis Standard, an English-language monthly news magazine based in Ethiopia. She says the U.S. must push for the "full implementation" of the peace deal, which is currently not happening.
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Mar 16, 2023
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is visiting Niger and Ethiopia as part of the Biden administration's growing competition with China and Russia for influence across Africa. Niger has become a critical U.S. ally in the Sahel region, and the U.S. opened a new drone base in the city of Agadez in 2019. The U.S. has about 800 military personnel in Niger, and Blinken's trip marks the first visit to the country by a U.S. secretary of state. "Niger is one of the last strongholds of U.S. security partnerships in the region," says Stephanie Savell, co-director of the Costs of War Project at Brown University, who has researched U.S. militarism in West Africa and beyond. We also speak with writer and activist Coumba Toure, chair of the board for TrustAfrica and an ambassador for Africans Rising for Unity, Justice, Peace and Dignity. "Africa needs to be looked at as a continent where there are human beings, not just for power games and for exploitation," says Toure.
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Mar 16, 2023
U.S. Tells Russia It Will Fly "Wherever International Law Allows" After Downing of Drone, Assad Welcomes New Russian Bases in Syria, Recognizes Russian Annexations in Ukraine, Swiss Central Bank Bails Out Credit Suisse Bank Amid Market Jitters, Democratic Senators Press for Criminal Probe of Silicon Valley Bank Executives, Federal Judge in Texas Hears Arguments in Case That Could Disrupt Abortion Access Nationwide, Massive Protests Continue in Israel as President Isaac Herzog Warns of "Civil War", Construction of New Indonesian Capital in Borneo Threatens Indigenous Lives, Rainforest and Wildlife, U.S. Regulators Approve Major Rail Merger Over Objections of Unions, Michigan Lawmakers Vote to Overturn Anti-Union "Right to Work" Law, Georgia Grand Jury Hears Another Tape of Trump Trying to Overturn 2020 Election, Senate Confirms Eric Garcetti's Ambassadorship to India Despite Sex Harassment Claims, Texas State Officials Take Over Houston's Majority Black and Latinx Public School District, San Francisco Hears Slavery Reparations Plan for Black Residents
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Mar 15, 2023
As news of missing Americans in Mexico dominates headlines, tens of thousands of Mexicans remain missing in cases that have gone unsolved — some of them for decades. This includes the 2014 case of 43 young men from the Ayotzinapa teachers' college who were attacked and forcibly disappeared. Senior analyst at the National Security Archive Kate Doyle joins us with new details about what happened in Ayotzinapa, drawn from the 4 million emails and records stolen from the Mexican Defense Ministry by an anonymous collective of hackers known as "Guacamaya." Doyle co-produced the After Ayotzinapa podcast with Reveal as part of the NSA's ongoing work on this case.
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Mar 15, 2023
We look at today's hearing by a federal judge in Texas who could restrict medication abortions throughout the United States and revoke the Food and Drug Administration's two-decade-old approval of mifepristone, the abortion medication used in a majority of pregnancy terminations across the country. The Trump-appointed judge has ruled against the Biden administration in numerous cases and is widely expected to favor the anti-abortion side in the case, though an appeal of any ruling is all but certain. Amy Littlefield, The Nation's abortion access correspondent, says that while medication abortions are still possible without mifepristone, it can be less effective and more painful. "We're talking about imposing suffering on medication abortion patients across the country," Littlefield says.
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Mar 15, 2023
Questions continue to swirl about who blew up the Nord Stream pipelines in September. Last month, the legendary investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reported the sabotage was carried out by the U.S. Navy with remotely triggered explosives during NATO exercises. The U.S. has denied the claim. We speak to The Intercept's Jeremy Scahill about his latest article, "Conflicting Reports Thicken Nord Stream Bombing Plot."
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Mar 15, 2023
A U.S. drone crashed in international waters Tuesday after being intercepted by Russian fighter jets over the Black Sea. According to U.S. officials, one of the Russian warplanes collided with the MQ-9 Reaper drone and damaged its propeller, but Russia denies the aircraft made contact. The incident occurred about 75 miles southwest of Crimea and marks another blow to relations between the two nuclear-armed powers. Jeremy Scahill, senior correspondent for The Intercept, describes the drone encounter as "an incendiary development" in the U.S. proxy war against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. "This is a vehicle of war, and it doesn't have to have missiles on it to be part of a system that makes the U.S. a combatant in this war," says Scahill.
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Mar 15, 2023
U.S. Accuses Russia of Striking Drone Over Black Sea, Dems Introduce Bill to Reinstate Dodd-Frank Regulations After Twin Bank Failures, EPA Proposes Rules to Reduce Toxic PFAS in Water, Biden Signs Executive Order on Gun Control as He Visits Monterey Park, Former Pakistani PM Imran Khan Evades Arrest for Second Time This Month, Sec. Blinken Meets with Ethiopian Leaders Before Heading to Niger, Death Toll from Historic Cyclone Freddy Reaches 220 in Malawi, Mozambique and Madagascar, Novo Nordisk Is Second Major Drug Co. to Cut Price of Insulin After Intense Public Pressure, Wellesley Students in Favor of Opening Up Admissions to All Nonbinary and Transgender Students, Ohio Sues Norfolk Southern over Toxic Train Derailment, Meta Lays Off 10,000 More Employees, Implements Hiring Freeze, California Court Upholds Prop 22, Allowing Companies Like Uber to Keep Denying Workers' Basic Rights, Illinois Signs Law Mandating Paid Time Off "For Any Reason", Pat Schroeder, Ex-Colorado Congressmember Who Pushed for Women's Rights and Against War, Dies at 82
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Mar 14, 2023
New details from an independent autopsy of the activist fatally shot by Atlanta police in January concludes their hands were raised up and in front of their body when they were killed. Georgia State Patrol shot Manuel "Tortuguita" Terán during a raid on an encampment of forest protectors who oppose the construction of Atlanta's $90 million police training center dubbed "Cop City." An independent autopsy released Monday also shows 26-year-old Tortuguita was likely seated cross-legged when they were shot 14 times. Tortuguita's family on Friday sued the city of Atlanta after the release of more video evidence of the shooting was blocked. "There's no reason to withhold this evidence. The public deserves to know. More importantly, the family deserves to know," says civil rights attorney Jeff Filipovits, who is representing the family. He adds that despite law enforcement claims that Tortuguita may have fired on officers, there is no evidence of that.
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Mar 14, 2023
The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank are the largest bank failures since the 2008 financial crisis, which prompted lawmakers to pass legislation to increase regulations on banks and other financial institutions. But during the Trump administration, a number of Democrats joined Republicans in Congress to weaken laws including Dodd-Frank, the landmark regulatory reform passed in the wake of the crisis. Executives from Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank were among those who successfully lobbied to weaken rules that may have prevented their collapse. The fallout from the bank failures now threatens to spread to other financial institutions, and the Biden administration has taken extraordinary steps to guarantee all deposits in the two failed banks and to shore up the rest of the sector in what many are criticizing as a bailout of rich bank customers. For more, we speak with The Lever's David Sirota and banking law professor Mehrsa Baradaran, whom progressive groups at one point backed as the Biden administration's pick for comptroller of the currency, an influential regulator of banks.
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Mar 14, 2023
Biden Breaks Climate Pledge, Approving Massive Oil & Gas Development in Alaska, Death Toll from Cyclone Freddy Tops 100 as U.N. Scientists Finalize Climate Action Plan, Deforestation in Brazil's Amazon Hit Record High for Month of February in 2023, Biden Insists U.S. Banking System Is Safe Following Collapse of SVB and Signature, North Korea Fires Missiles as U.S. Holds New Round of War Games with South Korea, Biden Formally Announces Deal to Sell Nuclear-Powered Subs to Australia, U.S. Once Again Tops List of World's Most Prolific Arms Traders , Biden Extends Relief to Ukrainian Refugees as Venezuelan Asylees Are Pushed Back from Border, Honduras's First Woman President Ends Ban on Emergency Contraception, South Carolina Republicans' Bill Would Punish Abortion with Death Penalty , Tens of Thousands of U.K. Doctors Strike to Recover Salaries Lost to Inflation, Michael Cohen Testifies to Grand Jury, Says Trump Needs to Be Held Accountable for "Dirty Deeds", Nobel Prize-Winning Japanese Novelist and Peace Activist Kenzaburo Oe Dies at 88
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Mar 13, 2023
Five weeks after the Norfolk Southern toxic train derailment and so-called controlled burn that blanketed the town with a toxic brew of at least six hazardous chemicals and gases, senators grilled the CEO of Norfolk Southern over the company's toxic train derailment. The company has evaded calls to cover healthcare costs as residents continue to report headaches, coughing, fatigue, irritation and burning of the skin. For more on the ongoing fallout from the toxic crash, and its roots in the plastics industry, we are joined by Monica Unseld, a biologist and environmental and social justice advocate who has studied the health impact of endocrine-disrupting chemicals used in plastics like those released in East Palestine. She is executive director of Until Justice Data Partners and co-lead for the Coming Clean science team. Also joining us is Judith Enck, a former EPA regional administrator and president of Beyond Plastics whose recent Boston Globe op-ed is headlined "The East Palestine disaster was a direct result of the country's reliance on fossil fuels and plastic."
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Mar 13, 2023
The Biden administration has approved a massive oil and gas development in Alaska known as the Willow project, despite widespread opposition from environmental and conservation groups that argue Willow will amount to a carbon bomb. The administration also announced Sunday it will ban future oil and gas leasing for 3 million acres of federal waters in the Arctic Ocean and will limit drilling in a further 13 million acres in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska's North Slope. For more, we speak with Siqiñiq Maupin, executive director of Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic, who says Willow would undermine Biden's larger climate goals. "This project would emit so much carbon, it would actually double the amount that Biden had promised he would reduce," they say.
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Mar 13, 2023
Iran and Saudi Arabia have agreed to reestablish diplomatic relations after seven years and reopen their respective embassies within months, in a deal brokered Friday by China and signed in Beijing. The rapprochement between the two rivals is the latest sign of China's growing presence in world affairs and waning U.S. influence in the Middle East amid a shift in focus to Ukraine and the Pacific region. "If we have a more stable Middle East, even if it's mediated by the Chinese, that ultimately is good for the United States, as well," says author and analyst Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. He adds that the U.S. focus in the Middle East is mainly on helping Israel normalize relations with Arab states while "all of the pressure is taken off of Israel to end its occupation" of Palestinian territory.
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Mar 13, 2023
8 Dead After 2 Migrant Boats Capsize Off San Diego Coast, 5 Migrants Drowned, 30 Missing and 1,300 Rescued Over Weekend in Multiple Maritime Tragedies, Iran and Saudi Arabia Sign China-Brokered Normalization Deal, Israeli Forces Kill 3 More Palestinians as 500,000 Israelis Join Protests Against Attack on Courts, Hundreds Protest U.S. Visit of Israeli Minister Who Called for "Erasing" Palestinian Town
, DRC Attack Claims 19 Lives as U.N. Warns of Mounting Humanitarian Disaster, Biden Approves Massive ConocoPhillips Oil & Gas Project in Alaska, Saudi Oil Giant Reports Largest-Ever $161 Billion Profit in 2022, Winter Storms Put 15 Million Under Flood Watch in California and Nevada, Cyclone Yaku Kills 6 People in Peru; Cyclone Freddy Makes Landfall for 2nd Time in Mozambique
, FDIC to Fully Reimburse Depositors After Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank Collapse, Autopsy Concludes "Cop City" Activist Was Seated with Arms Raised When Shot Dead, Mike Pence Criticizes Trump Even as He Resists Subpoena to Testify About Jan. 6, Michelle Yeoh Makes History as "Everything Everywhere All at Once" Sweeps Oscars
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Mar 10, 2023
Five women in Texas who were denied abortions are suing the state for denying them necessary medical care even though their pregnancies were nonviable and posed serious risks to their health. "I cannot adequately put into words the trauma and despair that comes with waiting to either lose your own life, your child's life, or both. For days, I was locked in this bizarre and avoidable hell," said Amanda Zurawski, the lead plaintiff, during a press conference Tuesday in Austin to announce the case, which also includes two doctors. While the Texas abortion ban is meant to have exceptions, many doctors are reluctant to perform the procedure because of the high legal risk, including the loss of medical licenses, hefty fines and decades in prison. "Right now abortion bans are exposing pregnant people to risks of death, illness and injury, including the loss of fertility," said Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is bringing the lawsuit, at a press conference Tuesday in Austin. "Contrary to the stated purpose of furthering life, abortion bans are making it less likely that every family who wants to bring a child into the world will be able to do so and survive the experience."
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Mar 10, 2023
As President Biden proposes his new budget, which expands military spending, as well as social services, we speak with Democratic Congressmember Barbara Lee, co-chair of the Defense Spending Reduction Caucus. She recently reintroduced the People Over Pentagon Act to cut $100 billion from the Pentagon budget and reallocate funds to overlooked priorities like healthcare and education. Lee is one of three House Democrats who have announced their candidacy for outgoing California Senator Dianne Feinstein's seat. Lee is the highest-ranking Black woman appointed to House leadership and would be just the third Black woman to serve in the Senate's 233-year history. She shares her platform on foreign policy, reproductive rights and racial justice on Democracy Now! "We're going to fight to make sure that the resources of our country go directly to the American people, because it's a budget for the American people," says Lee.
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Mar 10, 2023
U.S. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines is calling China the "most consequential threat" to U.S. national security. Meanwhile, the Chinese parliament has unanimously voted to give Xi Jinping a third five-year term as president. On Monday, Xi directly accused the United States of suppressing China's development, stating, "Western countries — led by the U.S. — have implemented all-round containment, encirclement and suppression against us." Both countries are beefing up their military presence along China's naval borders, and President Biden has made repeated remarks that the U.S. would defend Taiwan militarily if it was attacked by China — statements backed by $619 million in high-tech arms sales to Taiwan. To make sense of fraying U.S.-China relations and rising tensions over Taiwan, we are joined by Alfred McCoy, history professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who examines the developments in his latest piece, headlined "At the Brink of War in the Pacific?"
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Mar 10, 2023
Biden's FY2024 Budget Proposes Tax Hikes to Fund Social Programs and Record Military Spending, Pentagon Chief Lloyd Austin Meets Israeli PM Amid Escalating West Bank Violence, U.N. Condemns Israeli Strike on Aleppo Airport; U.S. Votes Against Ending Involvement in Syrian War, Xi Embarks on Unprecedented Third Term as Chinese President, At Least 36 Killed in DRC Near Border with Uganda, Gunman Kills 8 People, Including Self, in Mass Shooting at Jehovah's Witnesses Center in Germany, Another Norfolk Southern Train Derails as CEO Alan Shaw Appears Before Senate, New York Could Soon Charge Trump with Financial Crimes, Mitch McConnell Remains Hospitalized for Fall and Concussion, Arkansas Loosens Child Labor Protections, Uber and Lyft Drivers Receive Owed Pay Raises in NY After Strike Campaign, 35-Year-Old Exonerated After Spending Over Half His Life Behind Bars Due to Police Deception, Newark Unveils Harriet Tubman Statue, Replacing Statue of Columbus
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Mar 09, 2023
Prosecutors in Atlanta have charged 23 forest defenders with "domestic terrorism" after their arrests late Sunday at a festival near the site of Cop City, a massive police training facility being built in the Weelaunee Forest. The arrests followed clashes between police and protesters on Sunday afternoon and came less than two months after Atlanta police shot and killed Manuel "Tortuguita" Terán, a 26-year-old environmental defender. For an update on the growing movement to fight Cop City in Atlanta, we're joined by Micah Herskind, a local community organizer, and Kamau Franklin, founder of Community Movement Builders.
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Mar 09, 2023
Mississippi's Republican majority in the state Legislature has put forth a slew of bills in recent months to put the majority-Black capital of Jackson under a white-led superstructure. Under the proposed bills, the Capitol Police would be expanded and given greater authority over much of Jackson without being accountable to local leaders or residents, and a separate court system would be set up in the city, composed of judges appointed directly by white state officials. This comes after Jackson suffered a number of water crises in recent years stemming from systematic disinvestment by the state, and after the federal government approved $600 million late last year to address the city's infrastructure problems. "These bills are an attack on Black leadership, a way to seize power of a majority-Black city which cannot be seized democratically through an election," says Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba. We also speak with community activist Makani Themba, who described the state's plans in a recent piece for The Nation as "Apartheid American-Style."
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Mar 09, 2023
The Department of Justice has released a scathing report accusing the Louisville, Kentucky, police department of unlawfully discriminating against the city's Black population, as well as against people with behavioral health disabilities. The report concludes an investigation that began after the police killing of Breonna Taylor, who was shot dead in her own home during a no-knock police raid on March 13, 2020. The DOJ also announced the establishment of a consent decree with Louisville police and an independent monitor who will oversee police reforms. "What we have are systems that absolutely need to be disrupted," says Sadiqa Reynolds, longtime attorney and community activist in Louisville.
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Mar 09, 2023
DOJ Reveals "Pattern or Practice" of Abuse of Power, Racism in Louisville, KY, Police, DOJ Launches Review of Memphis Police; Judge Blocks Release of Video of Tyre Nichols Killing, D.C. Leaders Rally for Statehood as U.S. Senate Blocks D.C. Crime Bill, Mississippi NAACP Challenges GOP Effort to Take Control Over Black-Majority Capital Jackson, Zaporizhzhia Suffers Another Blackout as Missiles Rain Down on Ukraine, Killing at Least 9, NYT: Pentagon Blocking Biden Admin from Sharing Likely Russian War Crimes Evidence with ICC, Saudi Engineer Released from Guantánamo After More Than 2 Decades Without Charge, Israeli Forces Kill 3 Palestinians in New Jenin Raid as U.S. Defense Secretary Lands in Tel Aviv, Georgia Withdraws "Foreign Agent" Bill After Mass Protests, Sen. Warren Blasts Fed Chair over Plan to Hike Interest Rates, White House Condemns Tucker Carlson Coverage of Jan. 6 as Texts Reveal Carlson Said He Hated Trump, Kevin Alexander Gray, Civil Rights Activist and Jesse Jackson SC Campaign Mgr., Dies at 65
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Mar 08, 2023
As we mark International Women's Day on March 8, we look at the criminalization of abortion with filmmaker Celina Escher, who directed the award-winning documentary Fly So Far about abortion in El Salvador, which has enforced an abortion ban since 1998, and dozens of people have been convicted and imprisoned after having miscarriages, stillbirths and other obstetric emergencies. On Monday, women's rights activists called for the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to condemn El Salvador in a case brought a decade ago by a woman, Beatriz, who died after being forced to carry a pregnancy although the fetus could not survive. Escher says El Salvador's current policies amount to "torture for the women and girls" forced to bring nonviable and dangerous pregnancies to term against their will.
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Mar 08, 2023
Iranian parents and teachers have been holding protests in Tehran and other cities following a spate of apparent poisonings at girls' schools since November. According to the group Human Rights Activists in Iran, there have been at least 290 suspected school poisonings in recent months, sickening at least 7,000 students with symptoms including headaches, fatigue and more. Meanwhile, the head of the country's judiciary said earlier this week that Iranian women could be punished for violating the Islamic dress code. His remarks came just months after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody sparked nationwide protests. For more on women's rights in Iran, we speak with Manijeh Moradian, assistant professor of women's, gender and sexuality studies at Barnard College, author of This Flame Within: Iranian Revolutionaries in the United States and part of the Feminists for Jina network.
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Mar 08, 2023
A top United Nations official said Wednesday that "Afghanistan under the Taliban remains the most repressive country in the world regarding women's rights." Since taking power nearly 19 months ago, the Taliban has moved systematically to erase women from public life by banning women and girls from schools, from working with nongovernmental organizations and from traveling without a male relative. "Afghanistan is now effectively one of the biggest prisons in the world for women," says Zahra Nader, a freelance Afghan journalist who was formerly a reporter for The New York Times in Kabul and is now based in Canada. She is the editor-in-chief of Zan Times, a new Afghan women-led outlet documenting human rights issues in Afghanistan.
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Mar 08, 2023
March 8 marks International Women's Day around the world, seeking to end gender discrimination, violence and abuse. We start the show by looking at the day's roots in socialism, and what it means for the movement for reproductive justice in the United States. Our guest is Nancy Krieger, renowned professor of social epidemiology at Harvard University's School of Public Health and director of the Interdisciplinary Concentration on Women, Gender, and Health. She's also co-founder and chair of the Spirit of 1848 Caucus in the American Public Health Association, which links social justice and public health. International Women's Day has always been a struggle for "the conditions in which people can thrive," says Krieger.
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Mar 08, 2023
Israeli Forces Kill 6 Palestinians in Jenin Raid, as Settlers Attack Palestinian Family in Huwara, Wagner Group Says It Seized Eastern Bakhmut; NYT Reports Pro-Ukrainian Group Sabotaged Pipelines, Russia Jails Blogger Dmitry Ivanov over Criticism of War on Ukraine, Georgians Take to the Streets over Proposed "Foreign Agents" Law, 3 Mada Masr Journalists on Trial Amid Ongoing Egyptian Crackdown on Press, Spain Advances Gender Parity Bill, Malnutrition in Pregnant and Breastfeeding Women and Girls on the Rise, 5 Women Sue Texas for Denying Them Abortions, Gigi Sohn Withdraws FCC Nomination After Vicious Industry and Right-Wing Smear Campaign, DOJ Sues to Block JetBlue's Merger with Spirit Airlines, France Sees Largest Protest Yet Against Pension Reform
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Mar 07, 2023
We examine the state of U.S. politics, Trumpism, journalism and more with Mehdi Hasan, host of The Mehdi Hasan Show on MSNBC and Peacock. His new book is titled Win Every Argument: The Art of Debating, Persuading, and Public Speaking.
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Mar 07, 2023
As the U.N. secretary-general blasts wealthy nations for rigging the global economy for their benefit, we speak with economist Joseph Stiglitz about how war, the pandemic and the climate emergency are causing economic crises across the globe. He also says interest rate hikes by the U.S. Federal Reserve are making things worse for the Global South, as the cost of borrowing rises for many countries already struggling with debt. Stiglitz is a Nobel Prize-winning economist, Columbia University professor and former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers. He is also currently the chief economist of the Roosevelt Institute. His latest book is titled People, Power, and Profits: Progressive Capitalism for an Age of Discontent. Professor Stiglitz joins us on Democracy Now! to discuss the current global economy.
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Mar 07, 2023
Biden Administration Mulls Return to Detention of Asylum-Seeking Families, Migrants in Tunisia Flee Hate Crimes and Violence Following President's Racist Remarks, Survivors of Forced Labor Under Japanese Occupation Condemn South Korean Compensation Plan, North Korea Warns U.S. Shootdown of Test-Fired Missiles Would Be "Declaration of War", Chinese Leaders Condemn U.S. Policy of "Containment, Encirclement and Suppression", Ukraine Holds Out in Defense of Bakhmut as Both Sides Inflict Heavy Losses, Belarus Sentences Opposition Leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya to 15 Years for Treason, Doctors Without Borders Considers Suspending Haiti Operations Amid Gang Violence, U.S. May Vaccinate Millions of Chickens as Avian Influenza Spreads, Atlanta-Area Prosecutors Charge 23 with Domestic Terrorism over Cop City Protests, Norfolk Southern Agrees to Limited Plan to Relocate East Palestine Residents During Cleanup, Minneapolis Residents Resist Plans to Demolish Warehouse on Toxic Site
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Mar 06, 2023
A number of bombshell revelations about the inner workings of Fox News have come to light as part of a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems against the network. Rupert Murdoch, the owner of Fox News, has admitted under oath that many hosts on his network "endorsed" Donald Trump's false claims about the 2020 election for financial, not political, reasons, stating, "It is not red or blue, it is green." In court filings, Dominion also revealed that Murdoch had given Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner confidential information about Biden's campaign ads and debate strategy in possible violation of election laws. Our guest, Angelo Carusone, is president of the watchdog group Media Matters for America, which recently sent a Federal Elections Commission complaint against Fox News based on evidence from the Dominion lawsuit. "All the way from Rupert Murdoch on down to the show producers, they knew what they were saying was not true, that it was actually a lie, and they did it anyway," says Carusone.
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Mar 06, 2023
At least 150 bills have been filed by Republican lawmakers across the United States that target transgender people, with at least seven states enacting bans on gender-affirming healthcare for transgender youth. Other bills have targeted drag performers, doctors and trans adults seeking transition-related care. For more on growing conservative attacks on transgender people and the LGBTQ community, we speak to Chase Strangio, deputy director for trans justice with the ACLU LGBTQ & HIV Project, who says the backlash "at its core has always been about pushing trans people out of public life and eradicating transness."
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Mar 06, 2023
The first-ever international treaty to protect the oceans was agreed to by negotiators from more than 190 countries at a United Nations conference this weekend, capping nearly two decades of efforts by conservation groups. The legally binding pact could help reverse marine biodiversity loss by establishing marine protected areas covering nearly a third of the world's seas by 2030. We hear more from one of the treaty's scientist-negotiators, Minna Epps, a marine biologist and director of the Ocean Team at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.
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Mar 06, 2023
Nations Reach Historic Agreement to Protect High Seas, Iran and IAEA Agree to Strengthen Cooperation in Hopeful Sign for Nuclear Talks, Outrage Mounts over Mysterious Poisoning of Iranian Schoolgirls, U.N. Expert Says Taliban Attacks on Women and Girls Could Be Crime Against Humanity, Ex-Pakistan PM Imran Khan Evades Arrest, Huge Blaze in Cox's Bazar Rohingya Refugee Camp Destroys Thousands of Homes, Shell Pipeline Kills 12 in Nigeria; Massive Lawsuit Targets Shell's Operation in Niger Delta, U.K. Cracks Down on Refugee Rights in Right-Wing Effort to "Stop the Boats", Shahida Raza, Pakistani Pro Athlete, Named as Victim of Shipwreck Off Calabrian Coast That Killed 57, Protests Rock Athens Amid Mounting Anger over Greek Train Tragedy, Another Norfolk Southern Train Derails in Ohio Ahead of Senate Testimony by CEO Alan Shaw, Biden Commemorates 58th Anniversary of Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama, Donald Trump Repeats Lies About 2020 Election in CPAC Keynote Speech, Marianne Williamson Launches 2024 Presidential Campaign, 35 Arrested Near Site of Proposed "Cop City" Police Training Center in Atlanta, Deadly Storms Claim 13 Lives Across U.S., 22 Lawmakers Call on Biden to Block Willow Project Oil and Gas Development in Alaska, Judy Heumann, "Mother of the Disability Rights Movement," Dies at 75
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Mar 03, 2023
Guatemala's presidential election this year is taking place against a backdrop of worsening repression against journalists, human rights activists and Indigenous environmental defenders. The Guatemalan Constitutional Court on Thursday upheld a decision by the country's electoral tribunal to bar Indigenous human rights defender Thelma Cabrera from running. Cabrera and her running mate, former human rights ombudsman Jordán Rodas, are members of the leftist political party the Movement for the Liberation of the Peoples. They visited the United States in February to meet with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights following their ban and spoke with Democracy Now! about the election, their platform and how political elites in the country have consolidated power. "Guatemala is a corrupt state that's been coopted by criminals. This is now reflected in violating our right to participate in this presidential election," said Cabrera.
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Mar 03, 2023
Opposition parties are disputing the results of Saturday's presidential election in Nigeria, where the country's Independent National Electoral Commission has declared the winner to be Bola Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress party. The former governor of Lagos played a key role in helping outgoing Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari win two terms in office and campaigned using the slogan "It's my turn." Tinubu received about 36% of the vote, and turnout was under 30%. Several of Tinubu's challengers have disputed the results, alleging fraud, while election observers and voters have cited delays, closures and violence at voting sites. For more on how the election could play out in Africa's most populous nation, we speak with Aderonke Ige in Lagos. She is a human rights activist and lawyer who works with Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa, or CAPPA.
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Mar 03, 2023
New York City has reached a multimillion-dollar settlement with peaceful protesters who were violently "boxed in" or "kettled" by NYPD officers during a Black Lives Matter demonstration in response to the police murder of George Floyd in 2020. As part of the settlement, over 300 people who were trapped by police and assaulted with batons and pepper spray, then detained or arrested at a June 4, 2020, protest in the neighborhood of Mott Haven, will each receive $21,500 — believed to be the largest class-action settlement in a case of mass arrest. We are joined by three people who were at the Mott Haven protest: Samira and Amali Sierra, sisters who are two of the five listed plaintiffs, and Democracy Now! video news fellow Sonyi Lopez, whose footage of the protest was used in a Human Rights Watch report that condemned the NYPD's actions as "serious violations of international human rights law." In addition, we speak to Joshua Moskovitz, one of the lawyers representing the plaintiffs.
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Mar 03, 2023
German Chancellor to Hold Confidential Talks with Biden Amid Tensions over Arming Ukraine, Blinken Presses Russia's Lavrov to Return to New START Nuclear Treaty, Belarus Jails Dissidents Including Nobel Laureate Ales Bialiatski, Cambodian Opposition Leader Kem Sokha Found Guilty of Treason, Sentenced to 27 Years, Israeli Troops Fatally Shoot 15-Year-Old Palestinian, Emmanuel Macron Embarks on African Tour Amid Tensions over French Presence in Ex-Colonies, Walgreens Won't Dispense Abortion Pills in States Where Abortion Is Still Legal After GOP Threats, Eli Lilly Lowers Price of Insulin After Intense Public Pressure, East Palestine Residents Confront Norfolk Southern as EPA Orders Rail Co. to Test for Dioxins, House Ethics Committee Launches Probe into Rep. George Santos's Litany of Lies, DOJ Says Trump Is Not Immune from Jan. 6 Lawsuits
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Mar 02, 2023
On Sunday, Israeli settlers ransacked and torched Palestinian homes in Huwara, near the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, killing at least one Palestinian resident and injuring dozens of others. The Israeli human rights group B'Tselem has accused Benjamin Netanyahu's government of backing a pogrom in Huwara. Israeli Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich said Wednesday that Huwara needs to be "wiped out" and that the state of Israel should do it. In response, 22 Israeli international law experts sent a letter to Israel's attorney general demanding an immediate investigation against Smotrich for potential war crimes. U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price also condemned Smotrich's comments, though he framed the conflict as bilateral by referencing the need to condemn Palestinian "incitement to violence." Meanwhile, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesperson for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, called on the U.S., as the Israeli government's most powerful international ally, to take action to stop its violence. For more on this latest escalation of the Israeli occupation, we're joined by Saddam Omar, a Huwara resident who witnessed the settler attacks, and Gideon Levy, an award-winning Israeli journalist and columnist for Haaretz.
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Mar 02, 2023
Russia's invasion of Ukraine was at the top of the agenda of a critical meeting of G20 foreign ministers this week in New Delhi. The issue has caused deep divisions within the G20, which includes 19 major economies and the European Union. U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken and his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, spoke briefly on the sidelines of the summit on Thursday, though there was no diplomatic breakthrough between the two countries. The G20 meeting comes a week after China released a 12-point peace plan and as calls grow for a negotiated end to the fighting. To talk more about possible peace talks, we are joined by two guests: Vladislav Zubok, a Russian professor of international history at the London School of Economics, and Wolfgang Sporrer, a conflict manager and adjunct professor at the Hertie School in Berlin, who was head of human rights for the OSCE's Special Monitoring Mission in Kyiv from 2014 to 2020.
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Mar 02, 2023
Top U.S. and Russian Diplomats Meet Briefly at G20 Talks as Ukraine War Rages On, Finland Advances Bid to Join NATO as Turkey Holds Up Sweden's Bid, U.S. Approves $619 Million Sale of High-Tech Weapons to Taiwan, U.S. Air Force Relieves Six Officers over Safety Lapses at North Dakota Nuclear Base, Israeli Protesters Opposed to Judicial Overhaul Met with Police Violence, "Repugnant": U.S. Condemns Israeli Minister's Call to "Erase" Palestinian Town of Huwara, U.S. Spy Agencies Reject Claims That "Havana Syndrome" Was Caused by Foreign Power, Protests Erupt in Greece After Train Crash That Killed at Least 46 People , NYC to Pay Millions to Victims of Police Abuse During 2020 "Kettling" of BLM Protesters, Hunger-Striking Immigrant Detainees in CA Vow to Continue Protest Demanding Humane Conditions, Nationwide Actions Call for an End to ICE, DHS and CBP After 2 Decades of Terrorizing Communities, NLRB Judge Orders Starbucks to Rehire Workers, Reopen Stores Closed in Retaliation for Unionization, Chicago Activists Boosted by Overwhelming Electoral Support for Affordable Housing Plans, Dan Ellsberg, Pentagon Papers Whistleblower & Longtime Activist, Announces Terminal Cancer Diagnosis
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Mar 01, 2023
In Alabama, hundreds of striking miners are set to return to work Thursday after nearly two years spent on picket lines in the so-called right-to-work state. This was the longest strike in Alabama history. Its end comes after the Warrior Met Coal company successfully used replacement workers to keep its mines running, reporting large profits to shareholders due to the skyrocketing price of coal. At the same time, the company told miners they would only retain their jobs if they agreed to a 20% pay cut and to relinquish various benefits relating to weekend pay and healthcare. We go to Birmingham, Alabama, for an update from independent labor journalist Kim Kelly, who has covered the Warrior Met strike since it began and says many of the workers felt abandoned.
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Mar 01, 2023
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday in two challenges to the Biden administration's student debt relief plan, which could give tens of millions of federal borrowers up to $20,000 of relief. During arguments, several conservative justices expressed skepticism over the Biden administration's student debt relief plan, while liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor blasted the Republican states who brought one of the lawsuits. We're joined by Eleni Schirmer, who organizes with the Debt Collective and is a writer and postdoctoral fellow at Concordia University's Social Justice Centre in Montreal. Her new piece in The New Yorker is headlined "How the Government Cancelled Betty Ann's Debts."
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Mar 01, 2023
At least 67 people, including children, died in a shipwreck Sunday off the coast of southern Italy, and rescue workers fear the death toll could climb above 100 as they recover more bodies from the sea. It is believed to be the deadliest migrant shipwreck of its kind in almost a decade. Almost 26,000 people have died or gone missing in the Mediterranean since 2014, but many governments have responded by criminalizing rescue efforts by humanitarian groups. Just days before this latest shipwreck off the coast of Italy, the Italian government of far-right leader Giorgia Meloni approved a new law making it harder for humanitarian aid rescue vessels to carry out their missions. For more, we speak with Caroline Willemen, a search and rescue leader with Médecins Sans Frontières, which has had one of its ships detained by Italian authorities as part of the new measures, blocking it from going to sea to save lives for at least 20 days.
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Mar 01, 2023
Chicago-based Democracy Now! co-host Juan González gives an update on the Chicago mayoral race after incumbent Mayor Lori Lightfoot failed to advance to a runoff election. The two top candidates are now Paul Vallas, the former head of Chicago Public Schools, who has been endorsed by the local police union, and Brandon Johnson, an organizer with the Chicago Teachers Union. González says the race pits progressives in the city against centrist and conservative forces and could be a bellwether of where the Democratic Party goes.
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Mar 01, 2023
SCOTUS Hears Challenges to Government Student Relief Plan as Activists Rally, Senate Holds Equal Rights Amendment Hearing as U.S. Court Denies Attempt to Include in Constitution, Bola Tinubu of Ruling Party Wins Nigeria Election Amid Low Turnout, Rigging Charges, Hundreds of Iranian Schoolgirls Suffered Toxic Poisonings in Last Four Months, Biden Names Labor Advocate Julie Su to Lead Labor Dept.; Democrats Reintroduce PRO Act, Mississippi Enacts Transgender Healthcare Ban for Youth Amid Spate of Anti-Trans Laws in Red States, Tennessee Gov. Says He Will Sign Bill Criminalizing Drag as Old Photo of Him in Drag Circulates, 30 Million SNAP Recipients Get Their Food Benefits Slashed, Lori Lightfoot Loses Reelection for Chicago Mayor; Paul Vallas & Brandon Johnson Advance to Runoff
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Feb 28, 2023
We speak with Celso Amorim, the foreign adviser to Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, about how Brazil could play a key role in peace talks to end the war in Ukraine. Lula recently met with President Biden, who has unsuccessfully pushed Brazil to send weapons to Ukraine. Lula says he told Biden, "I don't want to join the war, I want to end the war." "If you only talk how to defeat Russia, how to enfeeble or weaken Russia, that will not come to a positive conclusion," says Amorim, who also previously served as Brazil's foreign minister, as well as its defense minister. "You have to talk to everyone, including your adversaries."
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Feb 28, 2023
We speak with the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Hannah Dreier, who revealed in a major New York Times investigation the widespread exploitation of migrant children in some of the most dangerous jobs in the country. In response, the Biden administration on Monday announced it would carry out a broad crackdown on the use of migrant child labor in the United States, vowing stricter enforcement of labor standards and better support for migrant children. "These kids are just on their own in these situations, with very little resources and very few ways out," says Dreier. We are also joined by Gregory Chen, senior director of government relations for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, who says migrant children need better protection from unscrupulous employers and others who would seek to exploit them. "Children don't have any knowledge or understanding of what their legal rights are," says Chen.
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Feb 28, 2023
China Blasts U.S. for Pushing "Endless" War in Ukraine as Janet Yellen Visits Kyiv, Turkey: 29 Buildings Collapse in New Earthquake as Overall Death Toll Tops 50,000, B'Tselem Accuses Israel Government of Backing Pogrom in West Bank Town of Huwara, Biden Vows to Crack Down on Migrant Child Workers in U.S. After NYT Exposé, Biden Admin to Require Recipients of CHIPS Subsidies to Offer Affordable Child Care, Supreme Court Hears Student Debt Relief Case, Rupert Murdoch Admits Fox Hosts Endorsed Election Lies to Boost Network Profits, "I Am Going to Die": Tenn. Woman Dies of Stroke in Police Cruiser After She Was Denied Medical Care, Mexican Soldiers Shoot Dead FIve Unarmed Men in Nuevo Laredo Near Border, Ecuadorian Indigenous Leader Eduardo Mendúa Assassinated at His Home, Climate Activists in France & Norway Engage in Direct Action Protests Outside Gov't Ministries, Northern Ireland: U.K. Reaches Deal with European Union on Post-Brexit Trade Rules, U.S. Marshals to Work with Yurok Tribe to Probe Missing & Murdered Indigenous Persons, American Indian Movement's Occupation of Wounded Knee Began 50 Years Ago
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Feb 27, 2023
The Equal Rights Amendment, which would codify gender equality in the U.S. Constitution, has been introduced in every session of Congress since 1923. It was finally passed in 1972, and yet never ratified. This week, the ERA will get its first hearing in 40 years when, on Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee meets to discuss a joint resolution to finally affirm the ERA. We speak to Zakiya Thomas and Linda Coberly of the ERA Coalition for more on the historic significance of this hearing and the century-long fight for constitutional protections against sex discrimination.
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Feb 27, 2023
We speak with author Malcolm Harris about his new book, Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World, in which he writes how his hometown in the heart of Silicon Valley and home to many tech billionaires has helped to reshape the economy by exporting its brand of capitalism to the rest of the United States and around the world. "It's important to see the internet and its history as this relation between capital and the government," says Harris in a wide-ranging interview.
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Feb 27, 2023
We look at two cases before the Supreme Court that could reshape the future of the internet. Both cases focus on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which backers say has helped foster free speech online by allowing companies to host content without direct legal liability for what users post. Critics say it has allowed tech platforms to avoid accountability for spreading harmful material. On Tuesday, the justices heard arguments in Gonzalez v. Google, brought by the family of Nohemi Gonzalez, who was killed in the 2015 Paris terror attack. Her family sued Google claiming the company had illegally promoted videos by the Islamic State, which carried out the Paris attack. On Wednesday, justices heard arguments in the case of Twitter v. Taamneh, brought by the family of Nawras Alassaf, who was killed along with 38 others in a 2017 terrorist attack on a nightclub in Turkey. We speak with Aaron Mackey, senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who says Section 230 "powers the underlying architecture" of the internet.
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Feb 27, 2023
Shipwreck Off Italian Coast Kills at Least 62 Refugees as Italy Cracks Down on Rescue Missions, Israeli Settlers Go on Anti-Palestinian Rampage in Huwara as Officials Agree to Deescalate Tensions, "We Have Survived": Zelensky Marks 1 Year of Russian Invasion Amid Global Protests, New Sanctions, Protesters in Tunisia Condemn President Saied's Racism Amid Ongoing Political Turmoil, El Salvador's Pres. Nayib Bukele Touts "Megaprison" with Shocking Images of Shackled Detainees, Erin Brockovich Tells East Palestine Residents to Remain "Vigilant" Following Toxic Train Crash, Energy Dept. Believes with "Low Confidence" COVID-19 Started with Lab Leak, FDA Approves At-Home Combined COVID and Flu Test, NYT Exposes Labor Exploitation of Unaccompanied Migrant Children in U.S., Newspapers Drop Dilbert Comic After Creator's Racist Comments, Uber and Lyft Drivers Strike in Ongoing Battle Against Wage Theft
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Feb 24, 2023
Palestinians held a general strike in the West Bank Thursday after Israeli forces killed 11 Palestinians and injured nearly 500 in a military raid in the city of Nablus. So far this year, Israel has killed at least 65 Palestinians, including 13 children, drawing concern and criticism from supranational actors including the U.N. and Amnesty International. We speak to Amira Hass, a correspondent for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and Issa Amro, a prominent Palestinian human rights defender from Hebron in the West Bank. Amro was recently beaten by an Israeli soldier while being interviewed by the American author Lawrence Wright. "There is a huge anger among the Palestinians from what is happening these days from the Israeli racist and fascist government, who are inciting to kill more and more Palestinians," says Amro of the protests.
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Feb 24, 2023
Residents of East Palestine, Ohio, continue to demand answers about how a Norfolk Southern train carrying toxic chemicals derailed February 3, releasing hazardous materials into the air, water and soil. The National Transportation Safety Board has released a preliminary report on the accident, blaming a wheel bearing failure for the crash and saying the derailment was "100% preventable." Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who has faced widespread criticism over his response to the disaster, visited the village on Thursday for the first time since the derailment, a day after former President Trump also visited East Palestine. For more, we speak with Emily Wright, development director of River Valley Organizing, who lives a few miles from the derailment site; Gregory Hynes, the national legislative director at SMART, the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers; and reporter Topher Sanders, whose latest ProPublica story details how Norfolk Southern officials are allowed to order train crews to ignore safety alerts.
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Feb 24, 2023
U.N. Votes Overwhelmingly to Condemn Russia's Invasion of Ukraine Ahead of Anniversary, Putin Vows to Strengthen Russia's Nuclear Arsenal, U.S., South Korea and Japan Hold Nuclear War Drill as North Korea Test-Fires Missiles, U.S. to Quadruple Troop Presence in Taiwan, Iran Acknowledges Enriching Uranium to Near Weapons-Grade Purity, Iranian Court Sentences German-Iranian Journalist to Death, U.S. Frees Two Guantánamo Prisoners Who Faced Torture and 20 Years of Arbitrary Detention, U.N. Resumes Talks on Treaty to Protect Ocean Biodiversity, Winter Storms Blanket Midwest and SoCal with Snow as Southern U.S. Sees Record Temperatures, Biden Taps Former Mastercard CEO and Wall Street Insider Ajay Banga to Lead World Bank, Texas Judge Could Block Access to Abortion Pill for Patients Nationwide, Pregnant Woman Argues Her Fetus Is Being Unlawfully Detained in Florida Jail, One Person Dies Every Two Minutes from Pregnancy or Childbirth Complications, Pandemic-Era Federal Food Assistance Benefits to End in March, Harvey Weinstein Sentenced to Another 16 Years for Rape in Los Angeles, Court Sentences R. Kelly to 20 Years for Child Sex Crimes, Warrior Met Coal Miners Offer to End Nearly 2-Year Strike
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Feb 23, 2023
One year after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, many African countries have tried to avoid strong denunciations or shows of support for either side in the conflict, walking a diplomatic tightrope even as the war has had a major impact on food and fuel prices across the continent. Kenyan writer and political analyst Nanjala Nyabola says that neutrality is influenced by memories of Africa as a conflict zone during the Cold War, as well as a desire to chart foreign policies independent of former colonial European powers.
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Feb 23, 2023
China's top diplomat Wang Yi met with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow this week, where they reaffirmed the close relationship between the two countries. The high-profile visit comes just days before the anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. For more on China's relationship with Russia and its role in the Ukraine war, we speak with Ho-fung Hung, professor of political economy and sociology at Johns Hopkins University.
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Feb 23, 2023
Friday marks one year since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Over the past year, at least 8,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed, according to the United Nations, but the true death toll is believed to be higher. The U.N. refugee agency said this week that more than 8 million refugees have fled the fighting in Ukraine. This week, U.S. President Joe Biden met with NATO leaders in Warsaw, while Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that Western countries sending military aid to Ukraine bear responsibility for prolonging the death and destruction of the war. We begin today's show looking at the war's impact and future with Nina Krushcheva, a professor of international affairs at The New School and the great-granddaughter of former Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, and Hanna Perekhoda, a Ph.D. student in history at the University of Lausanne and member of the democratic socialist organization Sotsialnyi Rukh. Perekhoda is from Donetsk in eastern Ukraine.
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Feb 23, 2023
Israel Bombs Gaza Strip Amid Palestinian Rocket Fire, Following Deadly Raid in Nablus, Vladimir Putin Leads Pro-War Rally Ahead of First Anniversary of Ukraine Invasion, Biden Pledges to Defend "Every Inch of NATO" in Meeting with Bucharest Nine , Federal Judge Bars 9/11 Families from Seizing Frozen Afghan Central Bank Funds, Turkey Fines Broadcasters Critical of Government Response to Deadly Earthquakes, Nigerians Prepare to Vote in High-Stakes Presidential Election Amid Ongoing Violence, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner Subpoenaed in Jan. 6 Criminal Probe, Minnesota Lawmakers Approve Driver's Licenses for Undocumented Residents, Voter Reenfranchisement, Florida Shooting Leaves 3 Dead, Including 9-Year-Old and a Journalist , Pete Buttigieg in East Palestine as Pennsylvania Weighs Criminal Charges over Norfolk Southern Crash, Indian Point Nuclear Plant Owner Plans to Dump Radioactive Waste Water into Hudson River
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Feb 22, 2023
A New York court on Tuesday convicted Genaro García Luna, Mexico's former secretary of public security and a close ally of U.S. law enforcement for decades, of drug trafficking and money laundering, among other charges. Prosecutors said García Luna accepted millions in bribes from the very criminal groups he was meant to be fighting, including the infamous Sinaloa Cartel formerly led by Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán. García Luna faces up to life in prison and is the most high-ranking Mexican official ever tried in the U.S. For more, we speak with award-winning journalists Peniley Ramírez and Maria Hinojosa, co-hosts of Futuro Media's podcast USA v. García Luna. They say the case exposes how corrupt the so-called war on drugs has been on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. "The U.S. government, the DEA, the entire security apparatus failed here," says Hinojosa.
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Feb 22, 2023
On the 58th anniversary of Malcolm X's assassination, civil rights lawyer Benjamin Crump announced a new lawsuit from Malcolm X's surviving family seeking compensation from the NYPD, CIA and FBI for its role in concealing evidence in his murder case. This lawsuit comes more than a year after it was confirmed that federal and local agencies had a role in the wrongful conviction of Muhammad Abdul Aziz and Khalil Islam for the murder. Aziz and Islam's convictions were overturned in 2021, and they were awarded a $36 million settlement for wrongful imprisonment by the state and city of New York. We air excerpts of Tuesday's public comments from Crump and one of Malcolm X's daughters, Ilyasah Shabazz, of their intent to file a wrongful death lawsuit over evidence concealed in the murder investigation, in part to seek answers on the extent of the government's involvement in the civil rights leader's death.
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Feb 22, 2023
As Donald Trump and his inner circle potentially face indictments over their efforts to overturn the 2020 election, Fox News is also in legal hot water for amplifying the same unfounded claims about election fraud. Dominion Voting Systems, which makes voting machines, has sued the conservative cable news outlet for $1.6 billion in a defamation suit that has exposed how top hosts and executives knew they were spreading misinformation but continued to push the conspiracy theories on air. "Fox News, despite its corporate name, is not in fact a news organization," says Chris Lehmann, D.C. bureau chief for The Nation. "What they are doing is promulgating lies for the sake of maintaining audience share and high profitability."
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Feb 22, 2023
The special grand jury in Georgia that is investigating attempts by former President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election has recommended more than a dozen indictments, and the list could include Trump. Emily Kohrs, the foreperson of the grand jury, confirmed the indictments on Tuesday, though it's still unclear if they will include crimes other than perjury. Prosecutors will ultimately decide what charges to bring in the coming days. For more, we speak with The Nation's D.C. bureau chief, Chris Lehmann, who says convictions are still unlikely, given that "the legal system favors heavily entrenched power."
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Feb 22, 2023
Russian President Vladmir Putin's announcement that Moscow would suspend its participation in the New START treaty threatens to end the last remaining nuclear arms control agreement between the United States and Russia. Putin made the pledge during his annual State of the Nation address on Tuesday, when he accused Western nations of provoking the conflict in Ukraine. The treaty limits the U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear weapon stockpiles and gives each country opportunities to inspect the other's nuclear sites. Russia says it will continue to respect the caps established by the treaty, but that it will no longer allow inspections. For more on the treaty and the wider challenge of nuclear proliferation, we speak with Dr. Ira Helfand, a longtime advocate for nuclear disarmament, who says the need to end nuclear weapons "transcends" all other issues between the U.S. and Russia. "If we don't get rid of nuclear weapons, they're going to be used. And if they're used, nothing else that we're doing is going to make any difference," says Helfand. He is the former president of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, which received the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize, a member of the steering group of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, as well as the co-founder and past president of Physicians for Social Responsibility.
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Feb 22, 2023
Israeli Forces Kill 10 Palestinians in Nablus Raid, U.N. Warns Israel Not to Attack Courts Amid Weeks of Mass Protests, Beijing and Moscow Pursue Talks as Biden Declares "Ukraine Will Never Be a Victory for Russia", EPA Orders Norfolk Southern to Clean Up Contaminated Water and Soil from Ohio Derailment, Barbara Lee Announces U.S. Senate Bid as Race for Dianne Feinstein's Seat Heats Up, Democrat Jennifer McClellan Wins VA Special Election; RI Rep. David Cicilline Resigns from House, SCOTUS Leaves in Place Ban on Israel Boycott, Hears Case Involving Liability for YouTube Algorithms, Pivotal Wisconsin Supreme Court Election Could Reinstate Abortion Access, Protect Voting Rights, Mexico's Former Top Security Official and U.S. Ally Convicted of Bribery, Drug Trafficking, Biden Admin's New Immigration Plan Seeks to Keep Blocking Thousands from Seeking Asylum in U.S., Texas AAPI Community Fights New GOP Bill That Would Ban Some Nationalities from Buying Property, Seattle Bans Discrimination Based on Caste in Groundbreaking Vote, Malcolm X's Family Files Wrongful Death Lawsuit Against NY and Federal Authorities
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Feb 21, 2023
We speak with renowned scholar and activist Angela Davis on the 58th anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X. Davis is delivering a keynote address Tuesday at the Shabazz Center in New York, formerly the Audubon Ballroom, where the iconic Black leader was killed on February 21, 1965. Davis says Malcolm is still vital to understanding racism, power and justice in the United States and beyond. "Malcolm always placed these issues in a larger context, and I think that we can learn a great deal from that legacy today," says Davis. She also responds to recent moves by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and others to restrict the teaching of African American history, calling it an effort to "turn the clock back" on racial progress.
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Feb 21, 2023
The police murder of Fred Hampton in Chicago in 1969 helped launch a movement more than 50 years ago for community-led police accountability. In a culmination of this campaign, Chicago voters next Tuesday will elect 22 local police councils tasked with community control of the police. Seven members of the councils will be part of a Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability, a new model of police oversight. We speak with Frank Chapman, longtime activist and field organizer with the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, about the initiative and how it aims to empower Black and Brown working-class civilians.
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Feb 21, 2023
A pivotal Chicago mayoral race, just a week away, on February 28, is an off-cycle election, and voter turnout could be low, as nine Democratic candidates court their vote and face pressure to address public safety and crime. Candidates include incumbent Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Congressmember Chuy García, Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson and former Superintendent of Chicago Public Schools Paul Vallas, who is endorsed by the Fraternal Order of Police. This comes as Republican Governor Ron DeSantis spoke Monday in Chicago in support of police. We discuss the race with Democracy Now! co-host Juan González in Chicago, along with Chuy García supporter Luis Gutiérrez, a former Democratic congressmember for Illinois and former member of the Chicago City Council, and Brandon Johnson supporter Barbara Ransby, a professor of Black studies, gender and women's studies and history at the University of Illinois Chicago.
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Feb 21, 2023
New Tremors Add to Misery of Earthquake Survivors in Turkey and Syria, Vladimir Putin to Suspend New START Nuclear Arms Treaty, Biden Travels to Warsaw for Major Speech on Ukraine and Talks with NATO Leaders, France Officially Withdraws Army from Burkina Faso, 17 Asylum Seekers Killed as Bus Crashes in Southern Mexico , Cambodia Shutters "Voice of Democracy" Broadcaster in Latest Crackdown on Dissent, Iraqi Environmentalist Jassim Al-Asadi Freed from Kidnappers, One Person Killed, 12 Others Injured in Ohio Metal Factory Explosion , Ohio Opens Health Clinic for Residents Near Site of Toxic Train Crash, Michigan State University Classes Resume as Students Demand Gun Reforms After Mass Shooting , Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Colleagues Win George Polk Award for "The Killing of Shireen Abu Akleh"
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Feb 20, 2023
As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns teen girls face record levels of depression and hopelessness, we host a roundtable on the role of social media and a bipartisan push against Big Tech in Congress. Several child safety-focused bills to curtail children's exposure to harmful online interactions are being proposed this session. Critics say the measures may not actually help children while limiting speech and privacy rights. We are joined by three people who testified last week before the Senate Judiciary Committee: Emma Lembke, a college student and founder of the LOG OFF movement, which promotes healthy social media use among teens; Mitch Prinstein, professor of psychology and neuroscience and chief science officer at the American Psychological Association; and Josh Golin, executive director of Fairplay, a consumer advocacy group dedicated to ending marketing targeted at children.
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Feb 20, 2023
At the Munich Security Conference, Vice President Kamala Harris announced the United States has formally determined Russia committed crimes against humanity in Ukraine. Her remarks come amid a "massive justice mobilization" in Ukraine, where investigators are documenting abuses and seeking to prosecute Russian soldiers and leaders, says Reed Brody, a veteran war crimes prosecutor and former counsel for Human Rights Watch. Brody notes that for international law to have force, it must apply to powerful countries including the United States. "You can't have it both ways. The tools of international justice should not only be aimed at enemies and outcasts," says Brody.
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Feb 20, 2023
President Biden made a surprise visit to Ukraine ahead of this week's first anniversary of Russia's invasion and announced another $500 million in military aid to Ukraine and more sanctions on Russia. The visit underlines what Biden called his "unwavering support" for Ukrainian independence at a time when growing numbers of people in the United States and other countries are pushing for a negotiated end to the fighting. "For an American president to make a trip like this is enormously symbolic," says Matt Duss, visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and former Bernie Sanders adviser. "I feel this is a propaganda move to shore up support for a senseless war that the American public are starting to realize has no end in sight except for more senseless waste of lives," says CodePink co-founder Medea Benjamin.
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Feb 20, 2023
Biden Visits Ukraine, Pledges More Weapons Ahead of First Anniversary of Russian Invasion, Europe to Increase Flow of Weapons to Ukraine as Peace Protesters Call for Diplomacy Over War, Kamala Harris Accuses Russia of Crimes Against Humanity, Warns Beijing Against Supporting Russia, Japan, U.S., South Korea Threaten More Sanctions After N. Korea Ballistic Missile Drills, Turkey Winding Down Earthquake Rescue Operations as Anger Grows over Scale of Deaths & Destruction, Thousands Protest as Extreme-Right Israeli Gov't Presses Ahead with Attack on Judiciary, Israeli Airstrikes Kill 15 in Damascus; U.S. Says It Killed ISIS Leader in Syria Raid, 18 Afghan Refugees Found Dead Inside Abandoned Truck in Bulgaria, Tunisia Expels European Trade Union Official Amid Crackdown by President Kais Saied, Extreme Weather Kills 36 in Brazil; Death Toll from New Zealand Cyclone Rises to 11, Asylum Seekers at Two California ICE Detention Centers Hold Hunger Strike, For-Profit Prison Corporation CoreCivic Sued for Death of Bahamian Immigrant, Five Memphis Ex-Cops Plead Not Guilty to Murdering Tyre Nichols, U.S. Logs 80th Mass Shooting of 2023 After Another Bloody Weekend of Gun Violence, Fox News Officials Pushed Conspiracy Theories About 2020 Election They Didn't Believe, Former President Jimmy Carter, 98, Enters Hospice Care
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Feb 17, 2023
The new Brazilian government recently conducted operations to expel thousands of illegal gold miners from Indigenous Yanomami land in the Amazon rainforest. The miners have caused a humanitarian crisis among the Yanomami who have suffered from severe malnutrition and illness from illegal mining operations that have polluted rivers and destroyed forests. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva recently accused Jair Bolsonaro's far-right government of committing genocide against the Yanomami people. Bolsonaro, who is expected to return to Brazil from Florida next month, could face genocide charges for his actions. Democracy Now! spoke to Davi Kopenawa Yanomami, a leader and shaman for the Yanomami people, while he was in Washington, D.C., last week. Yanomami says he supports the prosecution of Bolsonaro.
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Feb 17, 2023
Last Friday, the State Department announced the nomination of James Cavallaro, a widely respected human rights attorney, to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. But earlier this week, the State Department withdrew Cavallaro's nomination after reports emerged that he had described Israel as an apartheid state and had criticized House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries's close ties to AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Defending the withdrawal of Cavallaro's nomination, State Department spokesperson Ned Price said, "His statements clearly do not reflect U.S. policy. They are not a reflection of what we believe, and they are inappropriate to say the least." The decision has sparked outrage within the human rights community. Cavallaro joins us to explain that this move by the Biden administration is particularly troubling because the role he was nominated for does not have any authority over U.S.-Israel relations and is an independent position.
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