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Nov 23, 2020
With the world pinning its hopes on a successful coronavirus vaccine to curb the pandemic, corporate watchdogs say much of the research and development of the medicines rely on publicly funded research. "The investment in these vaccines, as for most drugs, has really been underwritten by the taxpayer, by the government," says Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen.
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Nov 23, 2020
With the world pinning its hopes on a successful coronavirus vaccine to curb the pandemic, corporate watchdogs say much of the research and development of the medicines rely on publicly funded research. "The investment in these vaccines, as for most drugs, has really been underwritten by the taxpayer, by the government," says Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen.
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Nov 23, 2020
As part of the unprecedented attempt to keep President Trump in office despite his election loss, Republicans have focused on Michigan, where the party is seeking a delay in the certification of the vote results and to throw out votes from Detroit, which is overwhelmingly Black. A group of Michigan Republicans met with President Trump at the White House last week in what was widely viewed as an attempt by Trump to personally pressure the lawmakers to block Biden from being awarded the state's 16 electoral votes. "This is an attempt to disenfranchise the African American vote and to give the election to Trump," says Rev. Wendell Anthony, president of the Detroit branch of the NAACP. "If we were in a different country, this would be called a political coup."
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Nov 23, 2020
As President Trump's unprecedented campaign to overturn the results of the presidential election drags on, over two dozen lawsuits filed by his legal team have been dismissed or withdrawn. The Trump team is now focusing on delaying or blocking the certification of the election in several states while trying to toss out votes in cities with large Black populations, including Detroit, Philadelphia and Atlanta. New York Times Magazine staff writer Emily Bazelon says the Trump legal team's efforts have so far lacked real substance, with the president's lawyer Rudy Giuliani "treating court as if it's cable news." She also says more Republican lawmakers need to stand up against Trump's attempt to subvert democracy.
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Nov 23, 2020
U.S. Holiday Travel Surges as U.S. COVID-19 Cases Soar Past 12 Million, Housing Activists in Tacoma Take Over Empty School Building for Emergency Pandemic Housing, G20 Pledges Fair Distribution of Vaccine as U.N. Warns Some Countries Face Financial Ruin, Hunger, India and Brazil Pass Grim Coronavirus Milestones; Gaza Warns Health System Will Soon Be Overwhelmed, Biden to Name Adviser Tony Blinken as Sec. of State, Linda Thomas-Greenfield as U.N. Ambassador, 50 House Dems Back Deb Haaland for Interior Sec.; Progressive Orgs Endorse Joaquin as HFAC Chair, Michigan GOP Threatens to Delay Election Certification as Trump Continues to Challenge Results, Ethiopian PM Warns Tigray Residents of "No Mercy" Attack, Benjamin Netanyahu and Prince Mohammed bin Salman Held Secret Meeting During Pompeo's Saudi Trip, Fatal Beating of Black Man by Brazilian Police Spurs Nationwide Protests, Guatemalans Demand President Resign Amid Budget Cuts and Devastating Aftermath of 2 Hurricanes, New Report Shows Devastating Toll of Afghan War on Children as Deadly Attacks Continue, U.S. Withdraws from Open Skies Treaty, Protests Mount over Controversial French Law That Would Ban Publication of Images of Police, Kyle Rittenhouse, Who Killed Two Protesters, Released on $2 Million Bail, ICE Arrested 150 Immigrants Who Were Granted Voluntary Removal in Latest Crackdown, Tennessee Can Enforce Ban on Down Syndrome Abortions
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Nov 20, 2020
In Egypt, the executive director of the country's leading human rights group has been arrested as part of an unprecedented crackdown on activists and journalists. Gasser Abdel-Razek was arrested at his home just days after two other staffers for the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights were also arrested. The move signals a major escalation of repression from the government of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who has imprisoned thousands of people since he came to power after the 2013 overthrow of former President Mohamed Morsi. "These arrests are a huge blow to civil society in Egypt," says Sharif Abdel Kouddous, Democracy Now! correspondent and reporter for Mada Masr, the country's last independent media outlet. "It has really sent shockwaves throughout the community here."
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Nov 20, 2020
President Trump has called Republican leaders of Michigan's state legislature to the White House today in his latest attempt to overturn the election. The Trump campaign is pushing Republican state lawmakers to ignore the will of the voters and appoint pro-Trump electors to the Electoral College. We speak to Astra Taylor, who has looked closely at the state of our democracy in the film "What is Democracy?" and her book, "Democracy May Not Exist, but We'll Miss It When It's Gone."
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Nov 20, 2020
The incoming Biden administration is facing increasing pressure to cancel federal student loan debt, something Joe Biden is reportedly considering through executive action, which would not require Congress to pass legislation. Astra Taylor, a member of the Debt Collective, says canceling student debt would be a boon to debtors and the wider economy, and could be part of a larger wave of progressive action from the Biden administration. "There was a sense right after the election … that because Democrats didn't take the Senate that it would be impossible for a Biden administration to govern," says Taylor. "There are things that Biden can do if he's willing to play hardball, if he's willing to actually understand that's what Republicans do, and the Democrats can do the same."
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Nov 20, 2020
Indigenous, racial justice and climate activists staged an occupation outside the Democratic National Convention in Washington Thursday, calling on President-elect Joe Biden to take immediate climate action and to approve the Green New Deal. Advocates are also calling for a Cabinet free of lobbyists and others with close industry ties. A number of lawmakers spoke at the protest, including Congresswoman-elect Cori Bush from Missouri and Congressmember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. We air excerpts of their remarks.
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Nov 20, 2020
CDC Warns Against Thanksgiving Travel as U.S. Coronavirus Cases Hit Another Record High, Trump Absent as Coronavirus Task Force Holds First News Briefing Since August, Mexico Becomes Fourth Nation to Record 100,000 Coronavirus Deaths, Georgia Secretary of State to Certify Biden's Win Despite Trump Allies' Pressure, Trump Summons Michigan GOP Leaders to White House, Plotting to Overturn Election , Trump Campaign Lawyers Allege Massive Plot to Subvert Election, Offering No Proof, Food Pantries Report Long Lines as Unemployment Claims Rise to 743,000 in One Week, Protesters at Democratic Party Headquarters Demand Biden Support Green New Deal, Rights Groups Demand Temporary Protective Status for Refugees from Hurricane-Ravaged Countries, Federal Court Halts Trump Administration's Rapid Deportation of Refugee Children, Orlando Hall, Sentenced by All-White Jury, Gets Lethal Injection in 8th Federal Execution of 2020 , 37 Dead After Ugandan Police Arrest Opposition Candidate Then Crack Down on Protests , Argentine President Sends Lawmakers a Bill to Overturn Strict Anti-Abortion Laws
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Nov 19, 2020
Climate and racial justice activists are mobilizing with union members and newly elected members of Congress at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee to call on President-elect Joe Biden to address the intersecting crises of the pandemic, economy and climate change. They're also calling for Biden to create a "corporate-free Cabinet," following his recent announcement of aides that included people with close ties to the pharmaceutical and fossil fuel industries. Waleed Shahid, spokesperson for the progressive group Justice Democrats, says it will be important to maintain pressure on the incoming administration in order to fulfill grassroots demands. "Unlike President Obama in 2008, there is not much of a honeymoon period," Shahid says.
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Nov 19, 2020
President-elect Joe Biden has said he will rejoin the Iran nuclear deal once in office, but his attempts at reviving diplomatic relations between the United States and Iran could be complicated by President Donald Trump, who is reportedly considering bombing Iran's main nuclear site in the final weeks of his presidency. The New York Times reports Trump's advisers have attempted to dissuade the president, warning that a strike could escalate into a broader conflict, but officials tell the newspaper that Trump may still be looking for ways to attack Iran or Iranian assets. We speak with Narges Bajoghli, professor of Middle East studies at Johns Hopkins University.
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Nov 19, 2020
As the official U.S. COVID-19 death toll breaks worldwide records and passes 250,000, hospitals are at capacity, and overwhelmed healthcare workers still lack personal protective equipment. Health officials say conditions will worsen further with holiday travel and family gatherings for Thanksgiving. "I can't really overemphasize how important the next few days are," says Ed Yong, science writer at The Atlantic. "The people who get infected at Thanksgiving, they are going to slam into those hospitals in the two weeks after that, and some of those people are going to be dead before Christmas."
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Nov 19, 2020
U.S. COVID-19 Death Toll Passes 250,000; Nearly 1% of U.S. Population Currently Infectious, Pfizer to Seek Emergency Authorization of COVID-19 Vaccine, Touting 95% Efficacy, Lawsuit Alleges Pork Tyson Foods Managers Wagered on Meatpackers' Coronavirus Infection Rate, COVID-19 Surge Overwhelms Hospitals as Healthcare Workers Fall Ill, Biden Says Trump's Refusal to Concede Could Set Back Vaccine Rollout by Months, Arizona Secretary of State Faces Death Threats as Trump Promotes Election Conspiracy Theories, Democratic Congressmembers Reelect Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House, Australian Military Apologizes to Afghan People over Troops' War Crimes, U.S. Secretary of State Tours Illegal Israeli Settlements, Declares BDS Movement "Anti-Semitic", Hurricane Iota Death Toll Climbs to 30, with Isla de Providencia 98% Destroyed, Haitians March on U.S. Embassy Demanding Biden End U.S. Support for Haiti's Authoritarian President, U.S. Dropped Charges Against Ex-General After Mexico Threatened to Expel DEA Agents, Court Clears Path for More Federal Executions, Families of Passengers on Doomed Flights Protest as FAA Clears Boeing 737 MAX Planes, Philadelphia City Council Formally Apologizes for 1985 Police Bombing That Killed 11, Colin Kaepernick Demands Freedom for Renowned Prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal, National Book Award for Nonfiction Goes to "The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X"
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Nov 18, 2020
Native American voters saw a massive increase in turnout this year and helped deliver key swing states for Joe Biden, but Indigenous peoples and the role they played in defeating Donald Trump have been largely ignored in mainstream media analyses. We speak with Allie Young, a citizen of the Navajo Nation and founder of Protect the Sacred, who organized a horseback trail ride to the polls. She says it was important to her to motivate Indigenous youth to turn out. "I was hearing on the ground that they weren't feeling very motivated to participate in this election," she says. "I wanted to communicate to them that this is an election that we just cannot sit out."
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Nov 18, 2020
As COVID-19 rampages through the U.S., we look at how the rapid spread of the disease is affecting Native American communities, which have already faced disproportionate infection and death rates throughout the pandemic. "We're having a lot of people perish. We're having a lot of death, a lot of hospitalizations," says Jodi Archambault, a citizen of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and former special assistant to President Obama for Native American affairs. We also speak with Allie Young, founder of Protect the Sacred, who says the Navajo Nation has "worked hard to flatten the curve" of COVID-19 infections but is still vulnerable due to lax public health measures in nearby areas. "We have to travel to these territories where they're not wearing masks, they're not thinking about their neighbors who've been impacted," says Young.
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Nov 18, 2020
Some Republican governors are dropping their resistance to mask mandates, as public health officials in the United States brace for a COVID-19 surge from the Thanksgiving holiday amid already record-high infection rates. However, Republican resistance to other public health safety measures continues as coronavirus cases in Texas reach record highs for a second time during the pandemic. El Paso County, an area along the U.S.-Mexico border where 80% of residents are Latinx, is also facing one of the worst COVID-19 outbreaks in the U.S. and now has 10 mobile morgues to hold bodies. Some prisoners are being paid just $2 an hour to move the bodies as the number of cases and deaths has completely overwhelmed local hospitals. "We're at capacity," says Dr. Emilio Gonzalez-Ayala, a leading pulmonary disease and critical care specialist in El Paso. "We're beyond the limit where we can continue to admit to the hospital patients that come in critically ill."
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Nov 18, 2020
Sen. Chuck Grassley Contracts COVID-19 on One of Deadliest Days of Pandemic, Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown Blasts GOP for Failure to Wear Masks, Take Basic COVID-19 Measures, Trump Fires Cybersecurity Official Who Called Election "Most Secure in American History", Wayne County, MI, Officials Reverse Decision to Block Certification of Biden's Win After Massive Outcry, Climate Activists Condemn Biden's Appointment of Rep. Cedric Richmond, a Major Fossil Fuel Ally, Senate Blocks Confirmation of Trump Nominee Judy Shelton to Federal Reserve Board, Dozens of House Dems Call on Mike Pompeo to Condemn Israeli Razing of Bedouin Community, Iran Warns of "Crushing Response" If Trump Attacks in Waning Days of Presidency, Ethiopian PM Says Military Entering "Final Phase" as Conflict's Humanitarian Toll Mounts, 120 Indigenous Otomí Families Occupy Government Offices Demanding End to Violence and Neglect, U.S. Drops Charges Against Mexican Ex-Defense Sec. Accused of Drug Trafficking, Rights Abuses, Trump Admin Pushing Through New Rules to Take Benefits Away from Those in Need, Religious Leaders, Nobel Laureates Call on Gov. Cuomo to Grant Clemency to Activist David Gilbert, Frontline Airport Workers Call for Healthcare Protections Ahead of Thanksgiving Travel Boom
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Nov 17, 2020
Hurricane Iota made landfall in Nicaragua Monday as a Category 4 storm, just two weeks after Hurricane Eta devastated communities across Central America and caused widespread destruction. Iota is the strongest November hurricane to ever hit Nicaragua. "It's caused a lot of damages to the most vulnerable peoples, which tends to be Indigenous peoples, Afro-descendants and Black communities all across Central America," says Giovanni Batz, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Native American Studies at the University of California, Davis, who has been in touch with people reeling from Hurricane Eta.
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Nov 17, 2020
As the COVID-19 pandemic enters its ninth month, a new report by National Nurses United, the largest nurses' union in the United States, finds hospitals are still failing to provide adequate PPE and are unprepared as the surge is expected to get worse during the flu season. Nurses also report mental health struggles related to the pandemic. The union estimates at least 2,000 frontline healthcare workers have died due to COVID-19, with nurses of color accounting for half of those deaths, even though they're less than a quarter of the workforce. Jean Ross, president of National Nurses United, says the lack of preparedness is having a devastating toll on healthcare workers. "Hospitals still don't have a plan in place for a surge — and we're currently in a surge," Ross says. "It's the lack of response, the improper response, that has nurses and other healthcare workers really down."
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Nov 17, 2020
As the U.S. COVID-19 death toll nears 250,000, drugmakers Pfizer and Moderna have both announced promising vaccine trial results showing over 90% effectiveness in preventing illness. But officials and health experts warn widespread distribution of a vaccine for the coronavirus — which has killed 1.2 million people across the globe — will be tremendously difficult to store and distribute. Vaccine researcher Dr. Saad Omer calls the recent news "reassuring" but says drugmakers need to be much more transparent about their data and issue more than just press releases. "There should be a little bit more detail, and it should be in the form of some scientific report," says Dr. Omer, director of the Yale Institute for Global Health and professor of infectious diseases at Yale School of Medicine.
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Nov 17, 2020
California Tightens Coronavirus Restrictions as U.S. Approaches a Quarter-Million Deaths, South Dakota ER Nurse Says Dying Patients Continue to Deny COVID-19, Joe Biden Says "More People May Die" Unless Trump Coordinates with Transition Team, Michigan Governor Blasts WH Coronavirus Adviser's Call to "Rise Up" Against Public Health Measures, Mexico Coronavirus Cases Top 1 Million as Official Death Toll Nears 100,000, Hurricane Iota Strikes Nicaragua as "Extremely Dangerous" Category 4 Storm, Trump Campaign Drops Election Lawsuits as Trump Continues to Deny Loss, Georgia Secretary of State Says Fellow Republicans Pressuring Him to Overturn Election Results, Trump Reportedly Proposed Bombing Iranian Nuclear Sites, White House Preparing to Order Troop Withdrawals from Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia, Ethiopia Bombs Capital of Tigray as PM Abiy Ahmed Rejects Calls for Mediation, Peru Swears In Third President in a Week After "Legislative Coup" That Ousted Martín Vizcarra, Brazilian Candidates Backed by Jair Bolsonaro Lose in Local Elections, Boy Scouts Sexual Abuse Claims Top 92,000 , Thousands of New York City Police Abuse Allegations Ignored or Downplayed by NYPD
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Nov 16, 2020
"It's a blessing within itself for me to even be sitting here right now," says Ronnie Long, free after 44 years behind bars for a crime he did not commit. Long, who is African American, was convicted in 1976 of raping a white woman by an all-white jury and sentenced to 80 years in prison. In 2015, his lawyers learned that investigators had withheld exculpatory evidence proving his innocence — including semen samples and fingerprints taken from the crime scene that did not match his own — and witnesses for the state committed perjury at his trial. It would take several more years and a ruling by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for Long to win his freedom. Long walked out of the Albemarle Correctional Institute in North Carolina a free man on August 27. He is asking North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper for a pardon, which would fully clear his name and make him eligible for financial compensation. "You've got people that have been victimized by the system, like myself, and then you turn around and you put me back into a society and expect for me to live a productive life," he says. "I need that pardon in order to try to get on with my life."
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Nov 16, 2020
A nearly three-decade-old ceasefire has ended in occupied Western Sahara — what many consider to be Africa's last colony. Fighting has broken out in several areas between the Moroccan military and the Polisario Front, the Sahrawi liberation movement seeking independence, after the Moroccan military broke into a no-go buffer zone in southern Western Sahara. For the past three weeks, Sahrawi civilian protesters had blocked a Morocco-built road in the area that Sahrawis consider to be illegal. The peaceful blockade backed up traffic for miles and cut off trade between Morocco and Mauritania to the south. The Polisario Front says it is now mobilizing thousands of volunteers to join for the fight for independence. "We have not seen fighting like this in Western Sahara since 1991," says Jacob Mundy, associate professor of peace and conflict studies and Middle Eastern and Islamic studies at Colgate University. "We've seen tensions on the rise, but to have open warfare like this is very significant."
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Nov 16, 2020
U.S. COVID-19 Cases Top 11 Million as States Enact New Restrictions to Combat Surge, Nurses Report Dangerous Working Conditions Persist as U.S. Heads into Flu Season, Prisoners Have Led 100 Strikes over Dangerous Conditions During Pandemic, El Paso Prisoners Paid $2/Hour to Help Move Bodies of COVID-19 Victims, Moderna Vaccine Is 95% Effective at Preventing COVID-19 During Trial, 130 Secret Service Ordered to Isolate or Quarantine, Some After Working Trump Rallies, Boris Johnson in Self-Isolation After Possible COVID-19 Exposure, Biden Transition Team Shut Out of Key Funding and Access as Trump Refuses to Concede, MAGA Rally Ends in Two Stabbings, 20 Arrests, DACA Nearly Fully Restored After Judge Rules Chad Wolf Not Lawfully Serving as Head of DHS, Unrest Mounts in Peru After at Least 2 Killed in Protests, Interim President Resigns, Conflict Escalates in Ethiopia After Tigray Forces Fire Missiles in Eritrea & 10,000s Flee to Sudan, Armenian Villages Burn Their Homes as They Withdraw from Nagorno-Karabakh, 15 Asia Pacific Countries Sign Trade Deal Representing One-Third of World Economy, Trump Pushes Ahead with Drilling Auction in Arctic Wildlife Refuge Before Biden Becomes President, Michigan Moves to Shut Down Enbridge Line 5 Pipelines, Hurricane Iota Threatens More Destruction in Central America; Storm Vamco Pummels Southeast Asia, Sixth Kings Bay Plowshares Anti-Nuclear Activist Sentenced to Prison
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Nov 13, 2020
In Florida, tens of thousands of newly eligible voters who were previously disenfranchised due to their criminal records turned out to the polls for the 2020 election. Amendment 4, a measure that in 2018 overturned a Jim Crow-era law aimed at keeping African Americans from voting, restored voting rights to people with nonviolent felonies who have completed their sentences and was hailed as the biggest win for voting rights in decades. However, hundreds of thousands of people in Florida remain disenfranchised due to a modern-day poll tax that requires formerly incarcerated voters to pay all fees and fines to courts before they can cast a ballot. We speak with Desmond Meade, president of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition and chair of Floridians for a Fair Democracy, about the ongoing fight to re-enfranchise people. He voted for the first time ever this year. "That act of voting gave me a deeper appreciation for what I was engaged in," Meade says. "The right to vote is sacred."
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Nov 13, 2020
President Trump has only made one brief public appearance since the election was called for Joe Biden, and his Twitter feed is filled with conspiracy theories about widespread voter fraud, which state elections officials have repeatedly rejected. His refusal to concede has complicated President-elect Biden's transition, and senior Republicans have mostly aligned behind Trump or stayed silent as he continues his desperate legal campaign to overturn the election results in several key states that won Biden the presidency. New Yorker staff writer Jane Mayer says Trump has a lot at stake due to the litany of lawsuits and criminal investigations he faces. "He has many reasons to be concerned," she says. "If he leaves the White House, he's going to lose the immunity that goes along with being president."
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Nov 13, 2020
U.S. Shatters World Record, Again, Reporting Over 163,000 Daily Coronavirus Infections, Biden Coronavirus Adviser Says 4-to-6-Week Lockdown Could Bring Pandemic Under Control, Trump Campaign Adviser Corey Lewandowski Gets COVID-19 After White House Superspreader Event, Election Officials Across U.S. Refute Trump's Claims of Conspiracy to Steal Millions of Votes, Georgia Secretary of State Orders Hand Recount of 5 Million Ballots, Trump Blasts Fox News over Election Coverage & Plans Launch of Far-Right News Company, National Security Officials Push for Biden to Receive Presidential Intelligence Briefings, Three MSNBC Contributors Join Biden Transition Team, Cecilia Muñoz, Who Defended Family Separations Under Obama, Joins Biden Transition Team, 74 Refugees Attempting Passage to Europe Drown Off Libyan Coast, Amnesty International: Hundreds of Civilians Slaughtered in Ethiopia's Tigray Region, Moroccan Forces Trade Fire with Western Sahara's Polisario, Ending Ceasefire in Place Since 1991, Armenians Protest as Prime Minister Signs Peace Deal to End Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict, Peruvians Protest "Legislative Coup" That Removed President Martín Vizcarra, Iranian Human Rights Lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, Ill with COVID-19, Wins Temporary Prison Release, Activists Who Held Peaceful Anti-Nuclear Protest in Georgia Sentenced to Over One Year in Prison, Lucille Bridges, Whose Daughter Was First to Integrate New Orleans Schools, Dies at 86
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Nov 12, 2020
U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been one of President Trump's closest international allies. How will he adapt to working with a Biden administration? Cambridge professor Priya Gopal says Johnson was clearly betting on a Trump reelection, especially amid Britain's exit from the European Union. "I think they were certainly hoping that there would be a Trump victory," says Gopal. "Brexit and Trump, as Trump quite correctly recognized, are very deeply in sync."
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Nov 12, 2020
We look at how Joe Biden's presidency will affect the U.S. footprint in the Middle East with Guardian correspondent Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, who says Biden's win is being viewed with "anxiety" by many Iraqis who are eager to avoid war between the U.S. and Iran. "Any conflict will take place on Iraqi soil," says Abdul-Ahad. "There is not much optimism. There is anxiety towards Biden and his team in the way they deal with Iraq."
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Nov 12, 2020
We continue to look at the world's response to the U.S. election with South African activist Kumi Naidoo, a global ambassador for Africans Rising for Justice, Peace and Dignity, former secretary general of Amnesty International and former head of Greenpeace. Naidoo says President Donald Trump's loss to Joe Biden is good news, but notes that the world lost four crucial years to tackle the climate crisis and other issues because of the Trump administration. "This is a relief, but it is not something for us to — at this stage, anyway — celebrate with any great enthusiasm," he says.
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Nov 12, 2020
The White House has ordered agencies not to cooperate with Biden's presidential transition team, and President Donald Trump continues to refuse to accept defeat in the 2020 election, which means Biden cannot receive security briefings or access government funds for the transition. But while the standoff continues in the U.S., other countries are already preparing for a new administration. For more on how the historic U.S. election is playing out internationally, we speak with analysts from around the world, including Maria Luísa Mendonça, director of the Network for Social Justice and Human Rights in Brazil, where far-right President Jair Bolsonaro has not acknowledged Biden's victory. "The progressive movements in Brazil can also be inspired by that election here," says Mendonça. "I think that the U.S. can play a much more positive role in Latin America."
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Nov 12, 2020
U.S. Records Over 140,000 Coronavirus Cases on Wednesday, Another World Record, White House Political Director Is Latest with COVID-19 After Election Night Superspreader Event, Ukrainian President Hospitalized with COVID-19 as Global Cases Top 52 Million, President-elect Biden Names Ron Klain as White House Chief of Staff, Trump Continues Campaign to Overturn Election Results, Pentagon Leadership Reshuffle Prompts Fears of "Slow Moving Trump Coup", Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan Reelected; Georgia Runoffs to Determine Senate Balance of Power, Hong Kong Lawmakers Quit as China Tightens Grip on Semi-Autonomous Territory, ICE Plans to Deport Another Woman Alleging Nonconsensual Gynecological Procedure, Louisville Police Concealed 738,000 Records of Sexual Abuse by Officers, L.A. County Coroner Opens Inquest into Police Killing of Andrés Guardado, Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI Ignored Sex Abuse Allegations Against Theodore McCarrick, L.A. Times and Tribune to Pay $3 Million to Black and Latinx Journalists Denied Equal Pay, Typhoon Vamco Becomes Fifth Tropical Cyclone to Strike Philippines in Just Three Weeks , Lakota Activist Debra White Plume, Who Fought Keystone XL and Dakota Access Pipelines, Dies
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Nov 11, 2020
As President Trump continues to launch baseless accusations of widespread voter fraud in the presidential election, Democratic and Republican election officials across the United States have told The New York Times they uncovered no evidence to support Trump's claims. Despite his electoral defeat, Trump has not conceded, and his administration is proceeding as though it will continue into a second term, blocking President-elect Joe Biden from accessing government funding and other resources for a smooth transition. "The entire country is trying to figure out: Is this just going to go away?" says Dahlia Lithwick, senior editor at Slate magazine. "Or are we really in this slow-rolling denialist attempt to give this man a second term?"
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Nov 11, 2020
In oral arguments Tuesday, the Supreme Court appeared to reject arguments to strike down the Affordable Care Act in the middle of the pandemic. The case was filed by a group of 18 Republican-led states, backed by the Trump administration, who argue the ACA's individual mandate is unconstitutional, and the rest of law should fall with it. "This was a terrible third attempt to have the Supreme Court strike down Obamacare. The first two had failed. This was even more ludicrous than the earlier cases," says Slate legal correspondent Dahlia Lithwick. We also speak with Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program, who says Medicare for All remains the best way to expand healthcare in the United States. "We don't need to raise the total cost of healthcare. We just need to go to an efficient system that excludes private health insurance," Dr. Woolhandler says.
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Nov 11, 2020
We look at election results in Puerto Rico, where progressives have made historic inroads against the two traditional parties, the Popular Democratic Party and the New Progressive Party. "There is no question that the old monopoly of the two political parties that have dominated Puerto Rican politics for decades is coming to an end, and that's a very good thing," says historian Rafael Bernabe, who was just elected to the Puerto Rico Senate as part of the Citizens' Victory Movement.
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Nov 11, 2020
About 160 million voters cast ballots in this election, setting a new record, and President-elect Joe Biden's lead in the popular vote has jumped to over 5 million. Much of the increased turnout was powered by people of color, while the total number of votes cast by white Americans barely increased from the last presidential election. "The main story is that in an election which saw historic turnout, people of color — and especially Latinos — had an unprecedented increase in voting," says Democracy Now! co-host Juan González. "After decades of political experts talking about the growing Latino vote, this year it actually happened."
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Nov 11, 2020
Secretary of State Pompeo Promises "Smooth Transition to a Second Trump Administration", Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell Backs Trump's Refusal to Concede, Joe Biden Calls Trump's Refusal to Concede Presidential Election an "Embarrassment", USPS Worker Recants Claim of Mail-in Ballot Tampering Cited by Top Republicans, Trump's Conspiracy Theories About Massive Election Fraud Could Spark Violence, U.S. Sets New Records for Coronavirus Cases and Hospitalizations, Conservative Supreme Court Justices Skeptical of Arguments Against Affordable Care Act, Republican Thom Tillis to Keep North Carolina Senate Seat as Cal Cunningham Concedes, Trump Administration Removes Scientist Overseeing National Climate Assessment, Guatemala Ends Rescue Efforts for Village Devastated by Hurricane Eta, Congressional Black Caucus Demands Halt to Deportation of Cameroonian Refugees, Reporter Israel Vázquez Assassinated, Becoming Third Mexican Journalist Killed in 2 Weeks
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Nov 10, 2020
Republicans have aligned behind President Trump as he continues to make baseless accusations of widespread voter fraud and refuses to concede that he lost the presidential election to Joe Biden. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell defended President Trump's decision not to concede, and Attorney General William Barr upended long-standing Justice Department policy by announcing federal prosecutors could investigate "specific allegations" of voter fraud, a move that led to the resignation of Richard Pilger, the director of the Justice Department's Election Crimes Branch. The Trump campaign has launched a barrage of lawsuits seeking to invalidate last week's election results, including one in Pennsylvania attempting to block state officials from certifying Joe Biden's election victory. So far no evidence has emerged of voter fraud as alleged by the Trump campaign. "This is an unprecedented attack on democracy," says Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. "The voters have spoken, and what we're seeing is a president who refuses to recognize and embrace the will of the people."
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Nov 10, 2020
Saeb Erekat, the secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organization, has died at 65 after he became infected with COVID-19. Erekat was a key Palestinian negotiator involved in peace talks for over three decades and stood in staunch opposition to the Trump administration's Middle East plan, which he called the "fraud of the century," and condemned recent agreements normalizing relations between Israel and Gulf nations. "One must really reflect and admire the tireless commitment he had to communicating the Palestinian cause as best he saw fit … and the important voice that he brought to the conversation at a time when many people around the world had not really heard from Palestinians, particularly Palestinians living in Palestine, on the ground," says Palestinian American analyst Yousef Munayyer.
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Nov 10, 2020
Today, the Supreme Court is hearing arguments in a case seeking to overturn the Affordable Care Act, and millions of Americans could lose their healthcare in the middle of a pandemic. "In a way, we're committing mass suicide," says science journalist Laurie Garrett, who says scrapping the landmark Obama-era healthcare law would leave people "to potentially carry disease forward into the community, into their workplaces, and so on, without any treatment, any help, any assistance. That's just insane."
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Nov 10, 2020
Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has announced that a Phase 3, late-stage study found their potential COVID-19 vaccine showed more than 90% effectiveness. The two-dose vaccine still faces several challenges, including how to store and transport it, since it must be refrigerated at subzero temperatures. Pulitzer Prize-winning science journalist Laurie Garrett says the news is hopeful, but urges caution. "There's been no scientific release. There's no published data," she says. "We don't have anything to go with except what the lawyers at Pfizer massaged carefully into a single-page press release. So, we have to take that with a big caveat."
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Nov 10, 2020
William Barr Says Prosecutors Can Probe Voter Fraud Claims, as GOP Backs Trump Refusal to Concede, GA Republican Senators Call for Sec. of State to Step Down After They Fail to Win Their Races, Joe Biden Pleads for Use of Face Masks as U.S. Cases Top 10 Million, Saeb Erekat, Chief Palestinian Negotiator, Dies After Contracting COVID-19, Trump Fires Defense Secretary Mark Esper, SCOTUS Hearing Arguments in GOP Attack on Obamacare, Which Could Strip Healthcare for Millions, Evo Morales Returns to Bolivia, One Year After Coup That Ousted Him, Peru Removes President Vizcarra in Impeachment Trial, Protests Erupt in Armenia After Signing of Deal to End Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict, Protests Rock Belarus and Georgia Following Contested Elections, Iran Calls for Regional Cooperation After Reports of New Trump Sanctions, Police Fire Guns at Cancún Protests After String of Femicides, 50 Cameroonian Asylum Seekers Set to Be Deported Despite Threat of Persecution and Death, Lawyers Cannot Find the Parents of 666 Children Separated from Their Families at the U.S. Border, Court Blocks Construction of Mountain Valley Pipeline in Victory for Environmental Activists
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Nov 09, 2020
As President-elect Joe Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris prepare to take power, we continue to look at the growing debate over the direction of the Democratic Party. House Majority Whip James Clyburn went on several Sunday talk shows to criticize calls to "defund the police" and argued the phrase hurt Democratic congressional candidates. "It is actually insane that we would think the way to respond to the scale of problems that we confront as a nation is to harken back to an older form of politics that … seems to try to triangulate and appeal to this Reagan Democrat that they are so obsessed with," responds Eddie Glaude, author and chair of Princeton University's Department of African American Studies. "It makes no sense that we would go back to the politics that produced Trump in the first place." We also speak to artist and antiracist activist Bree Newsome Bass, who argues Black voters "are scapegoated when it's convenient, and then we are thrown under the bus when it's convenient … That's a dynamic that has to end."
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Nov 09, 2020
Former Vice President Joe Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris are set to take power, after a projected more than 150 million ballots were cast in the 2020 election. A debate is growing over the future of the Democratic Party as progressive lawmakers push back on Biden's centrist policy proposals and consideration of Republicans for Cabinet positions. Congressmember Ro Khanna, Democratic of California, says progressive policies, such as Medicare for All and the Green New Deal, have popular support. "The policies that we are advocating are not just for deeply blue districts," Khanna says. "They are policies that will help people in the Midwest, in the South, across this country."
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Nov 09, 2020
The Trump presidency is coming to an end. Former Vice President Joe Biden is projected to have won the election after pulling ahead in Pennsylvania, giving him more than the 270 electoral votes needed to become president. Biden's running mate Kamala Harris will make history as the first female vice president, as well as the first African American, Indian American and Asian American elected to the office. Although President Trump has so far refused to concede as his campaign files a slew of lawsuits challenging the results in several states, plans are already underway to shape the next administration and prepare for the next four years. We speak with Bree Newsome Bass, an artist, antiracist activist and housing rights advocate in North Carolina, and professor Eddie Glaude, chair of Princeton University's Department of African American Studies, and get reaction from Indian American Congressmember Ro Khanna of California.
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Nov 09, 2020
Joe Biden Elected 46th U.S. President as Pennsylvania Count Seals Victory, Kamala Harris Becomes First Woman, African American, Asian American Vice President, Trump Pursues Baseless Lawsuits as GOP Splits on Their Response to Election, Senate Control Hangs on Georgia Runoffs, Most World Leaders Congratulate Biden and Harris; Brazil, Russia, Mexico and China Hold Off, Biden Unveils Coronavirus Task Force as U.S. Cases Hit 10 Million, with Over 237,000 Recorded Deaths, WH Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and at Least 5 Others Test Positive for COVID-19, ACLU Files Suit over Gov't Handling of Pandemic in Immigrant Jails; COVID-19 Surging in Nursing Homes, Pfizer Early Trial Data Suggests Coronavirus Vaccine Is 90% Effective, U.N. Warns Yemen, Burkina Faso, Nigeria and South Sudan Facing Possible Famine Amid Pandemic, Aung San Suu Kyi's Party Set to Remain in Power in Burma, Luis Arce Sworn In as New Bolivian President, as Supporters Await Return of Evo Morales, Gunmen Raid Military Post in Baghdad, Killing 11; Soldiers Kill Protester in Basra, Former Broadcaster Killed in Afghanistan as Violent Attacks Continue, Ethiopia Replaces Tigray Regional Gov't, Launches Airstrikes, as Fears Mount of Outright War, Eta Makes Landfall in Florida Keys After Devastating Central America, Killing at Least 150
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Nov 06, 2020
As most eyes were focused on the race for the White House, Puerto Rican voters on Tuesday narrowly approved a nonbinding statehood referendum. We get analysis from Democracy Now! co-host Juan González and speak with Afro-Puerto Rican human rights, feminist and LGBTQI activist Ana Irma Rivera Lassén, who was elected to the Puerto Rican Senate.
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Nov 06, 2020
As most eyes were focused on the race for the White House, Puerto Rican voters on Tuesday narrowly approved a nonbinding statehood referendum. We get analysis from Democracy Now! co-host Juan González and speak with Afro-Puerto Rican human rights, feminist and LGBTQI activist Ana Irma Rivera Lassén, who was elected to the Puerto Rican Senate.
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Nov 06, 2020
We go to Atlanta for an update, after Joe Biden pulled ahead of Donald Trump for the first time in Georgia. The 2020 presidential election could hinge on this extraordinarily tight race. Many credit the state's blue shift to community organizers on the ground, including Stacey Abrams, who lost a hotly contested race for governor of Georgia in 2018 amid claims of widespread voter suppression and has since led a massive effort to get out the vote through her organizations Fair Fight and Fair Count. Both Senate races in Georgia also appear to be headed to runoff elections, and the state could determine if the GOP holds onto its Senate majority. "There has been a wide investment that has been deeply driven by community to expand the electorate," says Anoa Changa, a freelance journalist based in Atlanta who focuses on electoral justice and voting rights.
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Nov 06, 2020
We look at Donald Trump's attempts to undermine the U.S. presidential election with Jane McAlevey, a union organizer, negotiator and senior policy fellow at UC Berkeley's Labor Center who was an eyewitness to the 2000 Florida recount. She says the 2000 election holds lessons for today, when Democrats allowed Republicans to claim a controversial victory. "We have to have a counternarrative. We have to have very large numbers of people in the streets," she says.
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Nov 06, 2020
As President Trump is doubling down on unsubstantiated claims of election rigging as election workers continue counting ballots in several states, concern is growing that some Trump supporters may use violence to disrupt the process. Trump's supporters have protested at ballot-counting locations in Phoenix, Las Vegas, Atlanta, Detroit and Philadelphia, where police arrested two men after receiving a tip that men armed with AR-15s were driving from Virginia to attack the Pennsylvania Convention Center, where votes are still being counted. Meanwhile, Trump's former campaign manager Steve Bannon called for the beheading of Dr. Anthony Fauci and FBI Director Christopher Wray. "Trump and the extremist Republicans, who constitute a minority of the population and have a minority of the votes, are trying to consolidate their minority rule," says investigative journalist Allan Nairn. "Things wouldn't even be close now if you just based the presidency, like most countries do, on who gets the most votes."
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Nov 06, 2020
As President Trump is doubling down on unsubstantiated claims of election rigging as election workers continue counting ballots in several states, concern is growing that some Trump supporters may use violence to disrupt the process. Trump's supporters have protested at ballot-counting locations in Phoenix, Las Vegas, Atlanta, Detroit and Philadelphia, where police arrested two men after receiving a tip that men armed with AR-15s were driving from Virginia to attack the Pennsylvania Convention Center, where votes are still being counted. Meanwhile, Trump's former campaign manager Steve Bannon called for the beheading of Dr. Anthony Fauci and FBI Director Christopher Wray. "Trump and the extremist Republicans, who constitute a minority of the population and have a minority of the votes, are trying to consolidate their minority rule," says investigative journalist Allan Nairn. "Things wouldn't even be close now if you just based the presidency, like most countries do, on who gets the most votes."
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Nov 06, 2020
Biden Takes Lead in Georgia & Pennsylvania, Moving Him Closer to Presidency, Biden Calls for Counting Every Ballot; Trump Claims Dems Are Stealing Election, Trump Campaign Faces Legal Setbacks in Election-Related Lawsuits, Trump Campaign Adviser: "Hopefully Amy Coney Barrett Will Come Through" to Help Trump Win Election, Sen. Graham: State GOP Lawmakers Should Consider Invalidating Election Results, Philly Police Foil QAnon-Linked Plot to Attack Ballot-Counting Site, Bannon Calls for Beheading of Dr. Fauci & FBI Director Wray, 18 Protesters Arrested in NYC in Demo Against Trump Stealing Election, Georgia May Have Two Senate Runoff Elections as Perdue's Vote Count Falls, Int'l Election Observers: We Saw No Evidence to Back Up Trump's Claim of Voter Fraud, U.S. Records 120,000 COVID Cases in a Day, 750,000 File for Unemployment as 50 Million Face Food Insecurity in U.S., Kushner-Linked Firm Moves to Evict Hundreds of Tenants, Report: ICE Moves to Deport More Victims of Nonconsensual Invasive Gynecological Procedures, Freedom Friday: Campaign Grows to Release Hundreds of Cameroonian Asylum Seekers, Hurricane Eta Kills at Least 57 in Central America, Israel Demolishes Palestinian Village, Leaving 73 Homeless, Including 41 Minors, Jair Bolsonaro's Son Charged with Corruption, Imprisoned Saudi Activist Loujain al-Hathloul on 12th Day of Hunger Strike, U.S. to Sell 18 Armed Drones to UAE as U.N. Warns of Deadly "Second Drone Age", Court Rules Dairy Workers in Washington State Should Be Paid Overtime
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Nov 05, 2020
In New York, Democrats Mondaire Jones and Ritchie Torres are set to become the first two openly gay Black men elected to Congress, replacing lawmakers who are retiring after decades in Washington. Jones will represent New York's 17th Congressional District, joining the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. He supports the Green New Deal, Medicare for All and a $15 minimum wage. "The era of small ideas is over," Jones says. "I ran proudly on a progressive platform from the very beginning of my campaign."
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Nov 05, 2020
One of the crucial states that could decide the presidential election is Arizona, where Joe Biden is leading Donald Trump with thousands of ballots left to count. Trump won Arizona in 2016, and if Biden's lead holds, he will be just the second Democratic presidential candidate to win the state since 1948. "The lion's share of the credit belongs to sustained community organizing in the state," says Marisa Franco, director and co-founder of Mijente, a national digital organizing hub for Latinx and Chicanx communities. She says the Trump administration has been disastrous for immigrants and immigrant rights groups, and a second term would be even worse. "A shift in administration would give us a fighting chance," she says.
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Nov 05, 2020
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden appears to be inching toward victory as counting continues in several key states that could put him over 270 electoral votes, the threshold needed to win the Electoral College and take the White House. President Trump and his supporters, meanwhile, have attacked the process and falsely claimed Democrats are stealing the election, and the Trump campaign has launched a barrage of legal challenges in swing states related to ballot counting. With the results closer than many pollsters had predicted, Democracy Now! co-host Juan González says "a false narrative" is taking root that Latinx voters were primarily to blame for the weak Democratic result. "The main story is that people of color, especially Latinos, flocked to the polls in numbers that far exceeded what the experts had expected, while the total number of votes cast by white Americans barely increased from the last presidential election," says González. "How come none of the experts are asking why white voters underperformed the Democratic Party?"
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Nov 05, 2020
Trump's Path to Victory Narrows as Biden Nears 270 Electoral College Votes, Trump "Claims" Battleground States as Campaign Sues to Stop Vote Counting, Trump Supporters in Arizona: "Count the Vote!" In Michigan: "Stop the Count!", Hundreds Arrested at Protests Against Trump's Bid to Steal Election, Balance of Power in U.S. Senate Hangs on Two Georgia Races, Democrats Mull Replacing Nancy Pelosi with Hakeem Jeffries as House Speaker, New Mexico House Delegation Will Be All Women of Color in Historic First, United States Daily Coronavirus Infections Top 100,000, Worst Toll of Pandemic, Italy and Kenya Become Latest Nations to Order New Coronavirus Lockdowns, Hospitals on Both Sides of U.S.-Mexico Border Reach Capacity Amid COVID-19 Surge, Denmark to Kill Millions of Mink Infected with Mutant Coronavirus, Philadelphia Police Bodycam Footage Shows Officers Fatally Shooting Walter Wallace Jr., Texas Sheriff, Indicted for Evidence Tampering in Javier Ambler's Killing, Loses Reelection, Mississippi Voters Overturn Reconstruction-Era Law Limiting Democracy, Missouri Voters Overturn Redistricting Measure, Cementing Republican Supermajorities, Delaware's Sarah McBride Wins Election as 1st Openly Trans State Lawmaker in U.S., Trump Administration Officially Withdraws U.S. from Paris Climate Accord, Extinction Rebellion Protesters in Spain Demand Action to Protect Biodiversity
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Nov 04, 2020
President Trump has prematurely declared victory and falsely accused Democrats of "major fraud," even as millions of ballots continue to be counted across the United States amid an unprecedented wave of mail-in ballots widely believed to favor Democratic challenger Joe Biden. The two campaigns appear neck and neck in several battleground states key to winning the White House, but early results suggest Democrats performed worse than they had hoped, setting up a potential legal fight over uncounted ballots reminiscent of the 2000 election. We spend the hour discussing the results and what comes next, with Ben Jealous, president of People for the American Way and former head of the NAACP; Briahna Joy Gray, formerly the national press secretary for the 2020 Bernie Sanders campaign, and co-host of the "Bad Faith" podcast; and The Nation's John Nichols in the battleground state of Wisconsin. "The tragedy of this election, regardless of what the outcome ends up being, is that it was ever this close at all," says Gray. "The crime here is that the vote is this close."
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Nov 04, 2020
Joe Biden Urges Patience as Vote-Tallying Continues in Too-Close-to-Call Race, Trump Falsely Claims Reelection Victory as Battleground States Continue Count, Republicans Poised to Hold Senate as Democrats Come Up Short in Several Close Races, Democrats Poised to Retain House Majority, But Republicans Flip Several Seats, All Four Members of "The Squad" Reelected to House of Representatives, Jamaal Bowman Wins New York House Seat on Medicare for All, Green New Deal Platform, Mondaire Jones, Ritchie Torres Elected First Openly Gay Black Congressmen, Cori Bush, Who Led Ferguson Black Lives Matter Protests, Wins Missouri House Seat, QAnon Conspiracy Supporter Marjorie Taylor Greene Wins Georgia House Seat, Puerto Rican Pro-Statehood Candidate Pedro Pierluisi Leads Governor's Race, USPS Ignores Court Order to Sweep Mail Processing Centers for Mail-in Ballots, U.S. Coronavirus Infections Top 92,000 on Election Day as Death Toll Rises, Category 4 Hurricane Eta Slams Honduras and Nicaragua, Californians Approve Measure Stripping Labor Rights from Gig Economy Workers, Florida Voters Approve $15/Hour Minimum Wage; Nebraskans Cap Payday Loan Fees, Arizona and New Jersey Voters Legalize Marijuana as Oregon Decriminalizes Hard Drugs
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Nov 03, 2020
Acclaimed poet and activist Nikki Giovanni has a new collection of poems called "Make Me Rain," a celebration of her Black heritage, as well as an exploration of racism and white nationalism. In the poem "Vote," Giovanni offers her thoughts on the importance of voting. It was filmed by The Meteor, a feminist collective of activists, journalists and creators, part of a daily Instagram series focusing on voting rights.
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Nov 03, 2020
While most eyes are trained on the contest between President Trump and Joe Biden, down-ballot races and state ballot measures will also have major consequences for racial justice, immigration, reproductive rights and more. "The issues and policies that affect people day in and day out are often determined on the bottom of the ballot," says Ronald Newman, the national political director for the American Civil Liberties Union.
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Nov 03, 2020
Award-winning journalist Maria Hinojosa joins us to discuss her new book, "Once I Was You: A Memoir of Love and Hate in a Torn America," which tells the story of U.S. immigration through her own journey to the United States from Mexico as a small child to her groundbreaking work as a reporter. She says it wasn't until the height of the family separation crisis under the Trump administration that she learned about her own family's near-separation by U.S. immigration agents. "That was almost you," Hinojosa says her mother told her through tears. "The babies that have been taken, they almost did that to you."
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Nov 03, 2020
The 2020 general election is on pace to have the highest turnout rate in over a century, with nearly 100 million ballots cast early — nearly three-quarters of the 2016 vote total. We look at how Latinx voters could play a key role in deciding the presidency and who controls the Senate. Many key battleground states, including Florida, Texas, Arizona and Pennsylvania, have large Latinx communities. Many polls show Biden is not doing as well among Latinx voters as Hillary Clinton did in 2016, and one recent poll in Florida showed a majority of Latinx voters supported Trump over Biden. "The Latino vote will be the single most important factor in this election," says Chuck Rocha, a former campaign adviser to Bernie Sanders. "More Latinos will vote in this election than anytime in the history of America." We also speak with Maria Hinojosa, award-winning journalist and founder of Futuro Media, who says young Latinx voters like her daughter are extremely motivated. "They are the ones who are saying, 'I'm absolutely voting. … I'm voting as if my life depended on it.'"
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Nov 03, 2020
Trump and Biden Make Final Election Push as Trump Preemptively Sows Doubt over Results, U.S. Judge Thwarts GOP Effort to Toss 127,000 Early Votes in Texas, Judge Blocks Lawsuit by Nevada GOP over Ballot Counting in State's Largest County, Dr. Deborah Birx Contradicts Trump Claims and Actions in New Internal Coronavirus Report, U.K. Readies for Second Lockdown Amid Surge in Cases, Gunmen Kill at Least 22 People in Kabul University Raid, At Least Four Killed in Coordinated Attacks in Vienna, U.N. Calls for End to Attacks on Civilian Targets in Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict, Protests in Washington State Call for Justice for Kevin Peterson, a Black Man Killed by Police, Police Union Posts Propaganda Photo with Black Child After Attacking His Family in Philadelphia, SCOTUS Sides with DeRay Mckesson in Lawsuit over Police Officer Injured at Protest, Kentucky Police Quoted Hitler, Instructed Officers to Be "Ruthless Killers" During Training, Central America Braces for Catastrophic Damage from Hurricane Eta
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Nov 02, 2020
We go to Florida, which could prove decisive in the 2020 presidential election and where immigration is a key issue for many voters, to speak with Haitian American writer Edwidge Danticat, who says voters in the state should cast their ballots to protect immigrant families under threat of deportation by the Trump administration. Trump has repeatedly tried to end temporary protected status for Haitians in the country. We also speak with 13-year-old Christina Ponthieux, the U.S.-born daughter of two TPS recipients from Haiti. "Terminating TPS would affect all of us, especially kids like me who are U.S.-born children who have never been to their parents' country before," says Christina, a member of Family Action Network Movement, or FANM, and a co-chair of the group's Children for Family Reunification initiative.
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Nov 02, 2020
This weekend, a caravan of Trump supporters in Texas tried to run a Biden campaign bus off the road, ahead of a ruling by the Texas Supreme Court Sunday rejecting a Republican effort brought by a QAnon supporter to throw out nearly 127,000 early votes from 10 drive-thru polling locations in Harris County, but now a similar lawsuit has been filed in federal court. The drive-thru polling locations allowed any registered voter to cast their ballot in a car instead of going inside polling centers, as polls show a close race between President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden in Texas, a traditionally Republican state. Susan Hays, a special counsel to Harris County on election matters, says the drive-thru locations have been "enormously popular" during the pandemic, and tossing those ballots undermines the democratic process. "An election contest is the remedy to any issues with the voting process, not lawsuits that happen before the election," she says.
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Nov 02, 2020
Police in Alamance County in North Carolina pepper-sprayed a peaceful get-out-the-vote march Saturday, descending on the crowd after they stopped near a Confederate monument to kneel in honor of George Floyd, who was killed by police in Minneapolis in May. Viral videos of the violent police action show officers in riot gear attacking the marchers, including young children and elderly people, who had intended to walk to a polling place on the last day of early voting in North Carolina. At least eight people were arrested, including march organizer Rev. Greg Drumwright, who says police gave the crowd of hundreds only 14 seconds to clear out before attacking. "We never made it to the polls," says Drumwright. "We believe that this interaction, this interference from local authorities, has obstructed our marchers from not only lifting up our First Amendment rights to protest, to speak out, but also our rights to vote."
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Nov 02, 2020
Police Arrest, Pepper-Spray Peaceful Voters at North Carolina Rally, TX Court Denies GOP Attempt to Throw Out 127,000 Early Ballots as Case Goes Before Federal Court, Trump Outlines Post-Nov. 3 Strategy to Win Election as He and Biden Campaign in Battleground States, U.S. COVID-19 Cases Top 9 Million, as Study Finds Trump Rallies May Have Led to 700 Deaths, Trump Suggests He May Fire Dr. Fauci After Election, Report Finds 25,000 Migrant Children Locked Up for More Than 100 Days over Past 6 Years, Ongoing Protests Against Polish Abortion Ban Draw 150,000 People to Streets of Warsaw, At Least 12 People Killed in Ivory Coast in Election Day Violence, 8 Hong Kong Opposition Politicians Arrested as National Security Law Crackdown Continues, Super Typhoon Goni Kills at Least 16, Displaces 1 Million People in Philippines, Aegean Sea Earthquake Kills at Least 80 People as Rescue Efforts Continue, Robert Fisk, Noted Middle East Reporter and Critic of Western Imperialism, Dies at 74
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Oct 30, 2020
As Donald Trump and Joe Biden make their final campaign pushes in battleground states that could decide the election, we speak with author and journalist Jesse Wegmen about the case for abolishing the Electoral College system altogether and moving toward a national popular vote for electing the president. Two of the last three presidents — George W. Bush and Donald Trump — came to office after losing the popular vote. "The Framers who met at the Constitutional Convention really had no idea what they were doing when they established how to pick a president," says Wegman, New York Times editorial board member and author of "Let the People Pick the President."
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Oct 30, 2020
Native American voters could sway key Senate races in next week's election in Montana, North Carolina, Arizona and Maine. Investigative journalist Jenni Monet says that for many tribal citizens, the contest is not just about Democrats and Republicans. These voters "support those who understand their sovereignty," says Monet, who writes the newsletter "Indigenously." She is a tribal citizen of the Pueblo of Laguna.
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Oct 30, 2020
As the 2020 campaign enters its final days, we go to Georgia, where two Senate seats are up for grabs and both Republican incumbents face stiff opposition. Joe Biden is also spending significant time in the state, which no Democratic presidential candidate has won since 1992. "Georgia is truly in play," says Emory University professor Carol Anderson. "We have had grassroots organizing and mobilizing, registering folks to vote, working through getting through all of the voter suppression barriers to bring people out to the polls in unprecedented numbers." Anderson is the author of "One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy."
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Oct 30, 2020
U.S. Records Nearly 90,000 Daily Coronavirus Infections, a New Record, Trump Admin Cleared Nursing Homes Where 40,000 Died of COVID-19 of Infection-Control Violations, Trump and Biden Hold Competing Rallies in Battleground State of Florida, Pennsylvania On-Time Mail Delivery Plummets as Voters Cast Record Number of Mail-In Ballots , Family of Walter Wallace Jr. Calls for Police Reforms Rather Than Murder Charges for Officers, Justice Department Quietly Ended Probe into Police Killing of 12-Year-Old Tamir Rice, "Reckless Incompetence and Intentional Cruelty": Lawmakers Blast Trump Family Separations, ICE Sued for Records on Forced Sterilizations at Georgia Immigration Jail, Family of David Villalobos Demands Justice After Fatal Shooting by U.S. Border Patrol, U.S. Speeds Deportations to Haiti, Risking Further Coronavirus Spread, 60 Bodies Found in Mass Graves in Mexico's Guanajuato State, U.S. Drone Strikes and Raids on Yemen Accelerated Under President Trump, U.K. Labour Party Suspends Jeremy Corbyn After He Challenged Findings of Anti-Semitism Report, IRS Audited Just 0.03% of Wealthiest U.S. Families Under President Trump in 2018, Glenn Greenwald Resigns from The Intercept, Citing "Censorship" of His Story on Hunter Biden, Trump Administration to End Protections for Endangered Gray Wolves, Peace Activist Ted Glick Nearing End of Month-Long Fast to Defeat Trump
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Oct 29, 2020
The massive $2 trillion CARES Act — which sent households one-time payments and boosted unemployment checks with an additional $600 a week through July — helped keep millions afloat, but more than 8 million people have been forced into poverty since the aid ended. "The relief was temporary, and much of it has now expired, so now we're seeing poverty rise again," says Megan Curran, a researcher at the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University. "We know that families can be protected again, but it does require action at the federal level."
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Oct 29, 2020
Big Tech CEOs were grilled Wednesday about how they moderate election disinformation and extremist content, and were accused by Republicans of censoring conservatives. Overlooked were reports that Facebook designed changes to its news feed algorithm in 2017 to reduce the visibility of left-leaning news sites like Mother Jones. Mother Jones editors wrote in 2019 that the site had seen a sharp decline in its Facebook audience, which translated to a loss of around $600,000 over 18 months. "The fact that we are trying to do everything we can to get the truth out and Facebook is deliberately sabotaging our readership is so disturbing, at the same time that Facebook is spreading all of this dangerous information by conservatives, by President Trump," responds Ari Berman, senior writer at Mother Jones magazine, who has been reporting extensively on the 2020 election.
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Oct 29, 2020
Lawmakers grilled the chief executives of Facebook, Google and Twitter just days before Election Day on how they moderate hate speech, extremist content and election disinformation, including tweets from President Trump. Republicans have long accused Big Tech platforms of censoring conservative views, but tech policy expert Ramesh Srinivasan says the argument is shaped around talking points that are aimed at invalidating election results. "What we see coming from the Republicans is this argument that lacks any evidence, frankly, that there are systematic biases in terms of censorship, as well as algorithmic biases that skew against conservative talking points," says Srinivasan, a professor at UCLA, where he also directs the Digital Cultures Lab. "In fact, in reality, the opposite is exactly what is true."
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Oct 29, 2020
A record 76 million people have already voted in the U.S. election, but the battle over the counting of mail-in ballots continues, with the Supreme Court issuing rulings on how long after Election Day ballots can be counted in the battleground states of Wisconsin, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. We speak with Mother Jones senior writer Ari Berman, author of "Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America," who says the Supreme Court could yet decide who wins the presidency if a close result leads to legal challenges. "My message to voters in these states and other states is drop your ballot off," says Berman. "Don't leave it to chance that your vote could be thrown out."
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Oct 29, 2020
"Unrelenting, Broad Community Spread": U.S. Coronavirus Cases Surge to Record Highs, L.A. Dodgers' Justin Turner Celebrated with Teammates Despite Positive Coronavirus Test, France and Germany Lock Down Again as COVID-19 Cases Surge, Supreme Court to Allow Counting of Absentee Ballots Past Election Day in PA, NC, International Crisis Group: Trump's "Toxic Rhetoric" Fuels Election-Related Violence, 7 Hospitalized in Nebraska as Trump Campaign Leaves Hundreds Stranded in Cold, Former DHS Official Miles Taylor Was "Anonymous" Critic Within Trump Administration, Virginia to Curb Militarized Police Departments, Ban No-Knock Raids, Philadelphia Activist Anthony Smith Arrested Amid Protests of Police Killing of Walter Wallace Jr., Hurricane Zeta Is Fifth Named Storm to Strike Louisiana During Record 2020 Season, Trump to Open Alaska's Tongass National Forest to Logging and Road Building, 21 Civilians Killed as Azerbaijan and Armenia Continue War over Nagorno-Karabakh, Colombian Riot Police Evict Hundreds of Indigenous People from Homes in Amazonas, ICE to Pay $100,000 Settlement for Targeting Migrant Justice Leaders in Vermont, Baltimore Museum of Art Calls Off Auctions to Fund New Exhibits by Women and Artists of Color
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Oct 28, 2020
We get an update from Chile, where an overwhelming majority have voted to rewrite the country's Pinochet dictatorship-era constitution and tens of thousands poured into the streets to celebrate, just one year after mass protests against social and economic inequalities rocked the country and set it on a path to social reform. Javiera Manzi, a spokesperson for Chile's largest feminist advocacy group, Coordinadora Feminista 8M, says the referendum is the result of people doing what politicians had refused to do for decades. We also speak with journalist Pablo Vivanco, who says Chile's neoliberal model has long been held up as an example to follow across Latin America. "Now with this vote … it really sends a signal throughout the region that this selling of the Chilean model and of the neoliberal state is a lie," Vivanco says.
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Oct 28, 2020
Two members of a Kentucky grand jury convened after the Louisville police killing of Breonna Taylor have spoken on camera for the first time, calling the actions of the Louisville officers responsible for Taylor's death "criminal" and saying the state's Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron never gave them the option to consider murder or manslaughter charges against the police officers involved. "From the very beginning, we have seen a campaign of prevarication, of dishonesty, of outright neglect of any semblance of justice for Breonna Taylor or for her family," responds Marc Lamont Hill, professor of media studies and urban education at Temple University, who notes that in lieu of justice, her family at least deserves accountability.
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Oct 28, 2020
Less than a week out from Election Day, we look at President Trump's call for poll watchers in battleground states like Pennsylvania that he needs to win. Trump is "framing this all as a left-wing conspiracy to take away his presidency," says Marc Lamont Hill, professor of media studies and urban education at Temple University in Philadelphia. "When he calls for people to come and form this sort of 'army,' when he calls for people to be his security force, he's calling in his white nationalist base. … Trump very clearly knows the numbers are against him."
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Oct 28, 2020
Protesters in Philadelphia mark a second night of calling for the abolition of police after two Philadelphia police shot and killed Walter Wallace Jr., a 27-year-old Black man, while he was having a mental health crisis. The shooting reflects decades of defunding of social services, including for mental health, while police departments have continued to grow, says author and activist Marc Lamont Hill, who argues, "If all you have is a hammer, then every problem looks like a nail." Lamont Hill is professor of media studies and urban education at Temple University and author of "We Still Here: Pandemic, Policing, Protest, and Possibility."
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Oct 28, 2020
White House Credits Trump with "Ending the COVID-19 Pandemic" as U.S. Cases Hit Record Highs, As 54 Million U.S. Residents Struggle for Food, Senate Adjourns Without Passing Relief Bill, Family of Walter Wallace Jr. Demands Justice After Fatal Police Shooting, Grand Jurors Call Actions of Louisville Police Officers Who Killed Breonna Taylor "Criminal", Trump Mocks Media Coverage of Coronavirus Crisis, Trump on Counting Votes Beyond Election Day: "I Don't Believe That's by Our Laws", Muslims Denounce French President for Defending Caricatures of Prophet Muhammad, Yemen's Humanitarian Workers Plead for International Aid as Malnutrition Soars, United Arab Emirates Opens Consulate in Moroccan-Occupied Western Sahara, Hong Kong Activists Arrested Under Chinese National Security Law, Hurricane Zeta Strengthens and Takes Aim at New Orleans, NXIVM Cult Leader Keith Raniere Sentenced to 120 Years for Sex Trafficking, Forced Labor, Federal Judge Will Allow E. Jean Carroll to Sue Donald Trump for Defamation over Rape Allegations, Poland Protesters Denounce Court Ruling Banning Nearly All Abortions
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Oct 27, 2020
In her new book, "The Purpose of Power," Black Lives Matter co-creator Alicia Garza lays out how people can build power and effect change. "Movements are not just about protests," she says. "Movements are absolutely about how we get more power into the hands of more people."
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Oct 27, 2020
This election season, Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza says President Trump is "stoking fires he has no intention of controlling" and inciting far-right extremists. She was recently approached by the FBI after agents found her name on a list in the home of a white supremacist in Idaho who was arrested on weapons charges. "Racial terror has always been used as a form of control, particularly during periods of people fighting for social change," she says.
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Oct 27, 2020
As right-wing judge Amy Coney Barrett is sworn in as the ninth justice to the Supreme Court of the United States, just 30 days after President Trump announced her nomination and eight days ahead of the November 3 election, we speak with Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza, who says the rushed confirmation shows that the Supreme Court "is not a neutral body — it is incredibly political." Barrett's confirmation to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg just six weeks after her death seals the court's 6-3 conservative majority potentially for decades to come and could have major consequences for reproductive rights, civil rights, environmental protections, the Affordable Care Act and the 2020 presidential election. "It is concerning that Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed yesterday, particularly given her complete lack of qualifications for the role, but also considering her extreme views on everything from reproductive justice and reproductive rights to civil rights and racism," says Garza, the principal at Black Futures Lab and co-founder of Supermajority.
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Oct 27, 2020
Amy Coney Barrett Sworn In, Giving SCOTUS Heavy Conservative Majority Ahead of Pivotal Cases, SCOTUS Rules Wisconsin Cannot Count Ballots Received After Election Day, Surging COVID-19 Cases Trigger Curfews; Doctors Say 800,000 Children Have Been Infected, China Testing 5 Million People After One Asymptomatic Case in Xinjiang, New Lockdowns in Germany, Mask Orders in Russia as COVID-19 Cases Surge, Oxford Vaccine Shows Promising Results as New Data Suggests Antibodies in Recovered Cases Don't Last, U.S. Imposes Harsh New Sanctions on Iranian Oil, Airstrikes Kill Dozens at Training Camp in Idlib, Syria, Explosion at Religious School in Pakistan Kills at Least 7 People, Injured 120 , Bolivian Court Dismisses Terrorism Charges and Arrest Warrant Against Evo Morales, Mexico Reaches Disputed Deal with U.S. in Water Debt Case, Thai Protesters Ask Germany to Probe King's Activity as Protests Show No Sign of Slowing Down, China Imposes Sanctions on U.S. Military Contractors After U.S.-Taiwan Arms Deal, Japan Says It Will Become Carbon Neutral by 2050, Climate Activists Arrested in NYC After Shutting Down Construction of North Brooklyn Pipeline, Protests Erupt in Philadelphia After Police Killing of a Black Man, Walter Wallace Jr., Illinois Police Officer Fired After Fatally Shooting a Black Teenager, Activists Demand Probe into Fatal Shooting of Mexican Man by Border Patrol, Jared Kushner Makes Racist Comments About Black People "Complaining" About Systemic Problems, 100,000 SoCal Residents Evacuated as New Blaze Explodes in Size, Diane di Prima, Feminist Utopian Beat Poet and San Francisco Poet Laureate, Dies at 86
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Oct 26, 2020
As the presidential race enters its final full week, we speak with filmmaker Nadine Natour about "Natours Grocery," her new documentary short that tells the story of her Palestinian American family living in Trump's America. Natour's immigrant parents own a store in the highly conservative town of Appomattox, Virginia, which voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump in 2016. The Natours say they don't talk about politics or religion with their customers to avoid confrontation, but as they strive to build bridges with their neighbors, President Trump's anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim rhetoric inspires a backlash in Appomattox. "In the election of Donald Trump we saw a lot of that bubbling racist sentiment toward immigrants, towards Muslims, become part of the mainstream discourse," says Natour. "You really could see a shift in attitudes." "Natours Grocery" premieres tonight as part of "POV Shorts" on PBS.
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Oct 26, 2020
An independent medical review team has submitted a report to Congress on a lack of informed consent and "disturbing pattern" of questionable gynecological surgical procedures at the Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia, after an account from a nurse whistleblower in September prompted congressional and federal investigations. At least 19 women, most of whom are Black and Latina, have come forward to allege they were pressured into "unnecessary" gynecological treatment and surgeries — including procedures that left them sterile — while they were detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. We speak with Jaromy Floriano Navarro, a survivor of medical abuse and neglect at Irwin who was the original source of the information about medical abuse by Dr. Mahendra Amin that was eventually included in the whistleblower report. "From day one that I met Dr. Amin, he said, 'OK, you need surgery,'" Navarro says. "They were really trying to do the surgery on me, for whatever reason. They wanted to take my womb out." We also speak with Dr. Maggie Mueller, an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Northwestern Medical Center who was part of the independent medical review team that produced the new report, and Adriano Espaillat, Democratic congressmember from New York who visited the Irwin County Detention Center in September as part of a delegation from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.
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Oct 26, 2020
Pence Remains on Campaign Trail Despite COVID Outbreak in Inner Circle as U.S. Cases Surge, Trump Administration Pressures CDC to Sign off on Locking Up Migrant Children, Citing Pandemic, Illinois Public Health Official Breaks Down in Tears While Reporting Coronavirus Toll, New Wave of Restrictions in Europe as COVID-19 Cases Explode in Spain, Italy, France, GOP-Ruled Senate Set to Confirm Amy Coney Barrett, Trump's Third SCOTUS Justice, Early Voting Brings Huge Turnout as New York Voters Face Hours-Long Lines, TX Court Reinstates Limit on Drop Box Sites; PA Court Allows Ballots with Mismatched Signatures, Sudanese Political Parties Reject U.S.-Brokered Deal to Normalize Sudanese-Israeli Relations, Nigerian Police Orders Further Crackdown on Protests as Death Toll Mounts, Security Forces Kill at Least 10 Protesters in Guinea During Post-Election Unrest, 3rd Ceasefire Between Armenia and Azerbaijan Breaks Down Within Minutes, Suicide Bomber Kills 24, Including Children, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Iraqis Rally to Mark First Anniversary of Anti-Government Protests, Libyan Government Signs "Permanent Ceasefire" with Khalifa Haftar's Forces, Palestinian Teen Dies After Beating by Israeli Forces, Chileans Overwhelmingly Approve Rewrite of Pinochet-Era Constitution, Pope Francis Names Wilton Gregory as First African American Cardinal, Far-Right "Boogaloo" Gunman Arrested for Shooting Minneapolis Police Precinct, Black Lives Matter Leader Alicia Garza Says FBI Warned Her About White Supremacist, Colorado's Two Largest Fires on Record Continue to Burn, Power Cut to Hundreds of Thousands in California to Prevent Wildfires, 50th Nation Ratifies Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
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Oct 23, 2020
During the second and final presidential debate in Nashville, Tennessee, moderator Kristen Welker asked Trump and Biden about immigration and family separation. Trump deflected questions during the debate, repeatedly stating that the Obama-Biden administration "built the cages" and falsely claiming that kids seeking asylum in the U.S. are "well taken care of." However, the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy "took children away from their families at the border," says Erika Andiola, advocacy chief at RAICES Action, the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services. "He's not owning up to that."
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Oct 23, 2020
President Trump and Joe Biden sparred on their records over race and criminal justice in Thursday's presidential debate. Trump simultaneously promoted his criminal justice reform efforts while continuing to lean on "tough on crime" rhetoric. Trump also criticized Biden for authoring the 1994 crime bill and supporting other laws that intensified mass incarceration in the U.S., which Biden acknowledged was "a mistake." Rashad Robinson, spokesperson for Color of Change PAC, says Biden's admission highlights the importance of continued pressure on politicians on racial justice issues. "The Democrats can't just make this about hating Trump. They also have to continue to fight and build and put out the policies that are going to change lives and remove barriers and systems that have stood in people's way," Robinson says.
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Oct 23, 2020
President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden met in Nashville, Tennessee, on Thursday in the second and final debate of the 2020 campaign. It was a more subdued debate than their first clash, when Trump refused to abide by the rules and interrupted Biden at least 128 times. Thursday's debate was moderated by NBC's Kristen Welker, who began by asking the candidates about COVID-19. Biden criticized Trump for repeatedly downplaying the severity of the pandemic, while the president boasted about his handling of the crisis, falsely claiming a vaccine was "ready" to be deployed within weeks. Epidemiologist Dr. Ali Khan, dean of the College of Public Health at the University of Nebraska Medical Center and former director of the CDC's Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response, says the political divide on how to deal with COVID-19 would be "unimaginable" for any other disease. He also says the Trump administration's aims of reaching "herd immunity" by letting the virus run rampant in the U.S. is cruel and scientifically unsound. "That is the most unethical, disastrous approach possible," he says.
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Oct 23, 2020
Donald Trump and Joe Biden Meet for Final Debate of 2020 Campaign, U.S. Confirms Over 71,000 Daily Coronavirus Cases as Some Hospitals Near Capacity, FDA Approves Remdesivir for COVID-19 Despite WHO Study Showing No Benefit, France Extends Curfew and Czech Republic Locks Down as COVID-19 Surges Across Europe, India's BJP Party Promises Free COVID-19 Vaccines But Only If It Wins Regional Election, Senate Democrats Boycott as Judiciary Committee Advances Amy Coney Barrett's Confirmation, Rocky Mountain National Park Closes as Colorado Experiences Two Largest Wildfires on Record, Asylum Seekers Say ICE Agents Tortured Them into Signing Deportation Orders, 19 Women Now Say ICE Subjected Them to Invasive Surgeries Including Sterilizations, Google Artificial Intelligence Technology to Aid "Virtual Wall" on U.S.-Mexico Border, Florida Officials Accused of Voter Suppression over Last-Minute Changes to Ballot Drop Box Rules, SCOTUS Allows Alabama to Ban Drive-Up Voting During Pandemic, U.S. Billionaires' Wealth Jumped by $931 Billion During Pandemic, Federal Workers Call Trump Executive Order a "Declaration of War on the Civil Service", Venezuelan President Calls on National Assembly to Pass Marriage Equality Bill, Poland's Highest Court Outlaws Almost All Abortions
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Oct 22, 2020
As fighting continues between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, we look at the roots of the conflict that has already killed at least 700 people since fighting began in late September and which threatens to escalate despite two ceasefire attempts brokered by Russia. Nagorno-Karabakh, which lies inside Azerbaijan but is controlled by ethnic Armenians, was the site of a bloody conflict in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union. This latest spike in violence is the worst since the 1990s and holds the risk of spiraling into a regional war, with Turkey openly supporting Azerbaijan while Russia has a mutual defense pact with Armenia. "You enter into the capital, Stepanakert, and the lights are off. The city is in complete darkness, and everyone is in bunkers and shelters," says reporter Roubina Margossian, who has been reporting from the region. We also speak with UC Berkeley professor Stephan Astourian, author of the forthcoming book "At the Crossroads of the Armenian-Azerbaijani Conflict: History, Territory, Nationalisms."
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Oct 22, 2020
Mass protests against police brutality continue in Nigeria after security forces shot and killed 12 peaceful protesters in Lagos this week. Video widely shared on social media shows security forces firing directly into a crowd of demonstrators in Lagos singing the country's national anthem. Authorities have imposed a curfew to clamp down on the growing demonstrations, which started as a demand to disband the notorious police unit known as the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, or SARS, but which have since grown into a wider movement against police brutality and official impunity. "We are asking for justice. We are asking for our lives to be preserved, not to be killed arbitrarily," says lawyer and human rights activist Aderonke Ige, who has taken part in the protests. We also speak with Omoyele Sowore, who says young people in the streets are also confronting other systemic issues. "They are fighting against police brutality, but they are also fighting against army brutality, they are fighting against unemployment, they are fighting against the incompetence and indifference of the regime that has been in power," he says.
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Oct 22, 2020
Columbia Researchers Say Trump's Failures Led to at Least 130,000 Coronavirus Deaths, California to Slash San Quentin Prison Population After Massive Coronavirus Outbreak, Obama Blasts Trump's Record as Candidates Head to Nashville for Final Presidential Debate, NYT: Trump Maintains Chinese Bank Account and Paid Nearly $200,000 in Taxes to China, DNI John Ratcliffe Claims Iran Is Meddling in 2020 Election to "Damage President Trump", Democrats to Boycott Senate Committee Vote on Amy Coney Barrett's SCOTUS Nomination, Billionaire Sackler Family Gets No Jail Time in $8 Billion OxyContin Settlement, In Historic Shift for Catholic Church, Pope Signals Support for LGBTQ Civil Unions, Protesters at U.S. Border Decry Trump's "Remain in Mexico" Policy for Asylum Seekers, Leaders of National Strike in Colombia Demand Meeting with President Iván Duque, Mass Grave Discovered in Tulsa May Be Linked to 1921 Racist Massacre, Trump Rape Accuser E. Jean Carroll "Stunned" by DOJ's Handling of Defamation Lawsuit
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Oct 21, 2020
We speak with legendary Mexican investigative journalist Anabel Hernández about a case that has sent shockwaves throughout Mexico: the U.S. arrest of Mexico's former defense secretary for allegedly working with a major drug cartel while heading Mexico's military. General Salvador Cienfuegos served as secretary of defense from 2012 to 2018 in the former government of President Enrique Peña Nieto and has long been accused of human rights abuses, including refusing to allow investigators to interview soldiers who may have been involved in the 2014 disappearance and likely massacre of 43 students from a teachers' college in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero. Hernández's book "Narcoland: The Mexican Drug Lords and Their Godfathers" links top Mexican government officials to the world's most powerful drug cartels, and she has received so many death threats that the National Human Rights Commission assigned her two full-time bodyguards. Despite the danger, she has continued to report. We are also joined by John Gibler, author and independent journalist based in Mexico, and examine how Mexican soldiers were involved in the 2014 disappearance and apparent massacre of the 43 students in Ayotzinapa.
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Oct 21, 2020
Fordham law professor Zephyr Teachout says Senate Democrats can still block the confirmation of President Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, if they use every possible procedural method available to them to slow and frustrate the process. "A Barrett confirmation is a catastrophe," Teachout says. "A 6-3 majority on the court is basically a bomb coming at what is left of our protections against corruption in politics, against corporate money, against what is left of the Voting Rights Act."
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Oct 21, 2020
The Department of Justice and 11 states have filed a major antitrust lawsuit against Google in a move that could lead to the breakup of the company's business and holds major implications for other tech giants. The lawsuit accuses Google of engaging in illegal practices to maintain a monopoly on the search market, which fuels its dominance in online advertising. Fordham law professor Zephyr Teachout, who has long advocated for breaking up Big Tech monopolies, says it's "an incredibly important lawsuit" that should be the start of a wave of legal and legislative action to tackle "this incredible democratic crisis we have of Big Tech really becoming a form of private, for-profit government that is taking over so many parts of our lives."
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