Democracy Now!

Longtime tech worker organizers Clarissa Redwine and JS Tan's new book, Against Tech Oligarchy: Worker Resistance in the World's Most Powerful Industry, draws on the authors' experiences at major tech companies to chronicle the rise and fall of the tech worker movement, its early victories, and the repression and slide to corporate control that followed.Over the course of the 2010s, what we saw was that the tech industry wasn't quite the industry that it had promised to its workers and to the public. Rather than making the world more open, more democratic, we saw it really be the culprit of misinformation," says Tan, who was pushed out of Microsoft after raising objections to the company's ties to fossil fuel companies.Silicon Valley's slide to the right was influenced by corporate backlash to labor's demands, explains Redwine, who was fired from Kickstarter for union organizing. She says she hopes to inspire a new generation of tech workers to organize within these tech oligarchs' own empires, to stand up and push back."

We're joined by Latino USA host Maria Hinojosa as she shares the story of Estrella Diamantina Gonzalez, an undocumented transgender woman and trafficking survivor from Mexico caught up in the United States' criminal and immigration systems. This summer, after serving a nine-year sentence in a Texas men's prison, Diamantina Gonzalez was released, but she wasn't free. She was immediately transferred to an immigration detention facility and then deported. Hinojosa, who has been reporting on Diamantina Gonzalez's ordeal for the last decade, followed her to Mexico in the new audio documentary Estrella: Bittersweet Freedom for a 'Bad Mexican.'"

Earlier this week, ICE confirmed it had secretly used a federal government warehouse in Roxbury, New Jersey, to stage and to process detentions in September, despite an order from a judge barring the site's use until an environmental study was complete. "ICE and this administration cherry-picks which laws it adheres to, and then breaks due process and equal protection for the many," says New Jersey Democratic Congressmember Analilia Mejia. This administration is just moving with a level of impunity and cruelty that, frankly, should shock every single American."

Teenage Shooter Kills Three Children and Teacher in Bend, Oregon, Neo-Nazi Teen Allegedly Attempted Mass Shooting at Illinois Hindu Temple, But Rifle Jammed, Trump Cancels Hegseth's Plans to Live-Stream Firing Squad Execution, Pentagon to Withhold Internal Report on Attack on Iranian School Until After Midterms, Houthis Attack Presidential Palace in Aden, Killing 5, U.S. Approves Sale of Helicopter Gunships to Israel Amid Continued Attacks on Gaza, Children's Book on Palestine Withdrawn as Authors Accuse Publisher of Sanitizing" History, Israeli Firm Used Targeted Ads to Infect Al Jazeera Devices with Zero-Click Spyware, Turkish Police Raid Headquarters of Opposition-Aligned Broadcaster, Donors Gave $330 Million to White House Ballroom While Benefiting from Trump's Policies, Student-Led Protests Spread Beyond France to Albania and Argentina

We speak with tech journalist Paris Marx about his new book, Hyperscale: The Ambition and Excess of Big Tech's Data Empires. In the book, Marx exposes the deceptive ways tech companies are taking resources from vulnerable communities in order to build massive AI data centers. We have seen the tech companies that, back in 2019, 2020, wanted us to see them as climate leaders ... completely throw their targets out the window in order to pursue generative AI and this data center buildout," says Marx. He notes that after failing to connect to electrical grids in the locations where they were building data centers, some AI companies have pivoted to building on-site gas plants," further increasing dependency on fossil fuels.Tech companies want us to believe" that AI models are starting to become so powerful that within 10 years they could decide that they want to wipe out humanity or a significant chunk of humanity," says Marx. That is a mix of science fiction and delusion ... and it is also a very effective way to distract from the real harms that we're seeing from these generative AI products."

The energy needs of the AI boom and the construction of massive data centers in states across the country have created a backlash from both Democratic and Republican voters. The battle against data centers is at the heart of a campaign in Tennessee: Democratic state Representative Justin J. Pearson is opposed to the Colossus data centers built by Elon Musk's xAI in the Memphis area. Pearson is running against Republican state Senator Brent Taylor in Tennessee's 9th Congressional District, which, after recent redistricting, includes parts of Memphis, as well as rural and suburban counties.Across the 15 counties that I've traveled, I've yet to meet anyone, including folks who are Republicans who are voting for us, who want data centers," says Pearson. Gas is high; groceries are high; healthcare costs are high; wages are low. Yet the billionaire class continues to profit off of our pain and pillage our communities and our pocketbooks."

The Trump administration on Friday placed sweeping sanctions on the International Criminal Court that target the institution as a whole. This comes on top of earlier sanctions against individual ICC judges and personnel. The administration has been escalating attacks on the ICC since the court issued arrest warrants in 2024 for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. It announced the sanctions just hours after former ICC Judge Navi Pillay - the South African jurist who led the United Nations commission of inquiry that concluded that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza - was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.This is really an insurance policy against accountability for crimes that the United States and its ally Israel are committing in plain sight," says war crimes prosecutor Reed Brody, a member of the International Commission of Jurists. The sanctions, which prevent U.S.-based banks and companies from transacting with the ICC, constitute an existential attack" on the court, he says.

WFP Warns Growing Conflict in Yemen Has Cut Off Aid Deliveries to 800,000 People, Two Cargo Ships Sunk Near Strait of Hormuz as Iran Steps Up Attacks, Ukraine Resumes Strikes on Russian Energy Sites as Zelensky Says He Feels Betrayed" by Trump, Seven Sailors Are Missing Off Romania's Coast After Suspected Drone Attack in Black Sea, Trial of Ukrainian Ex-Officer Accused of Blowing Up Nord Stream Pipelines Gets Underway in Germany, U.S. Deploys Hundreds of Soldiers to Assist War on Drugs" in Colombia and Honduras, Costa Rica Opens High-Security Prison Modeled on El Salvador's Notorious CECOT, Publisher Pulls Sally Rooney's Books from U.K. Shelves over Her Support of Palestine Action, Judge Pauses U.S. Sanctions on Pro-Palestinian Groups That Support International Criminal Court, NYC to Stop Investing Pension Funds in Israeli Bonds, U.S. Inflation Rate Hits 3.7%, Driven by Energy Prices, Trump Continues Tour of Deep Red GOP Strongholds Ahead of Midterm Elections, WSJ: Trump Administration's Probe of Rep. Ilhan Omar Aimed at Stripping Her Citizenship, Houston DA Considering Criminal Charges for ICE Agent Who Ran Over Fleeing Man, White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia Failed California Bar Exam

Israeli forces have raided what they say are the offices of several Palestinian NGOs in the occupied West Bank. Palestinian officials say a child was injured from Israeli gunfire, while others suffered from tear gas inhalation. At least one journalist was reportedly detained in the raids, which come four years after the forced closure of multiple NGOs that the Israeli government designated as terrorist" organizations.This is part of the whole propaganda show that this government is actually implementing just before the Israeli election," says human rights lawyer Sahar Francis. They just wanted to cause harassment, and this is the main message: the persecution and the collective punishment for the whole Palestinian community." Francis was formerly the general director at Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, one of the organizations that Israel claims to have raided this week despite the fact that it was already forced to close its West Bank offices in 2022.

On Monday, federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security raided the Washington, D.C., home of Congressmember Ilhan Omar. Omar has faced years of racist targeting from President Trump over her ethnicity and immigrant background. She immigrated to the United States as a refugee from Somalia when she was a child. Omar is the first Somali American elected to federal office, the first woman of color to represent Minnesota and, along with Michigan's Rashida Tlaib, one of the first Muslim women to serve in Congress.Congresswoman Omar has been under attack by this administration for the last decade. ... She's a symbol of everything that this administration hates: an immigrant who stands up for her community, who fought to be here in this country, and now is doing her job and her duty to serve her constituents," says our guest Zaynab Mohamed, a fellow Somali immigrant who represents Minneapolis in Minnesota's state Senate. As Trump spews racist invective against the Somali American community in Minnesota, Mohamed says, We will continue to do everything we can to reject this type of hate and rhetoric from this administration."

The midterm elections are in less than three weeks, on November 3. With Republican majorities in both chambers of Congress on the line, the Trump administration has thrown its time and resources into holding rallies in newly competitive states. We take a look at key Senate races in Georgia, Texas, Michigan and Maine with The Lever's David Sirota. Ultimately, says Sirota, election results will hinge on voter turnout. Will there be that surge of turnout based on how unpopular Trump is and how bad the affordability crisis is?" And, if they win, can Democrats then deliver" on their promises?

Fighting Escalates in Yemen Between the Houthis and Saudi-Backed Gov't Forces, NYT: Israel Levels 48 Villages and Towns It Occupies in Southern Lebanon, Kimberly Guilfoyle Resigns as U.S. Ambassador to Greece, WSJ: Texas GOP Attorney General Ken Paxton Partied in Dubai with Two Indicted Fugitives, Federal Agents Subpoena Relatives of Democratic Congressmember Ilhan Omar, Maine GOP Senator Susan Collins Faces Off Against Democratic Challenger Troy Jackson in Debate, Reuters: DOJ Gives California Officials 48 Hours to Review List of Alleged Noncitizen Voters, Man Shot by ICE in New York Held in Solitary Confinement with Bullet Still Lodged in His Neck, Immigrants Sue ICE for Keeping Their Documents Long After Their Release, Cornell University Bans All Fraternities from Hosting Parties, Ebola Cases Surpass 9,000 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sixth Person Dies of Measles in Pennsylvania, Vatican Announces Pope Leo Diagnosed with Lung Cancer, Trump Reportedly Has Doubts of Live-Streaming Execution of Fort Hood Shooter, 600,000 People Left Without Electricity in Ukraine After Russian Strikes, Indian Court Orders Two Leaders of Youth-Led Cockroach Janta Party Jailed for Five Days, Tens of Thousands March in Solidarity with Students in France, Anti-Government Student Protests Erupt in Albania

We speak with the Academy Award-winning director Alex Gibney about his new documentary Musk, an expansive, nearly four-hour examination of the world's first trillionaire and how he has amassed unprecedented power in business, technology and politics. The film traces Elon Musk's early ventures and the rise of SpaceX and Tesla, examining the role of government support in their growth. It also explores his acquisition of Twitter, now X; his alliance with President Donald Trump and the MAGA movement; and his role in the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, whose cuts devastated federal programs, including USAID.Gibney says Musk has carefully crafted an image of a polymath" who can solve the world's most pressing problems, but that he is really kind of a ruthless businessman" willing to do whatever it takes to succeed, including a series of elaborate cons" to win government support for his companies.

Yemen's Ansar Allah, also known as the Houthis, have repeatedly attacked the Saudi capital of Riyadh in recent days. On Saturday, a missile strike on the airport in Riyadh killed at least 12 and injured over 300 in the deadliest attack on Saudi soil in over a decade. President Trump is now weighing whether to join the Saudi fight against the Houthis in Yemen.This latest escalation comes after Ansar Allah captured key areas along Yemen's Red Sea coastline in recent weeks, driving back the Saudi-backed, internationally recognized government and taking control of the strategic Bab al-Mandab Strait.Yes, the Houthis are attacking Saudi Arabia with airstrikes, but there is now, actively, a real ground war going on within Yemen, and that is a far more relevant and important issue for the Yemenis on a day-to-day basis because they are now back into a full-scale civil war," says Middle East scholar Helen Lackner.

Houthis Warn of Swift and Painful" Response If U.S. Joins Saudi-Led Attacks on Yemen, 139 Migrants Die and 84 Go Missing as Yemen-Bound Boat Capsizes Off Djibouti, Iran's IRGC Says It Struck Another Tanker in Strait of Hormuz, Bulgaria Summons Russian Ambassador as Drones Attack Black Sea Ships, Bipartisan Group of Senators Calls on Trump to Reverse Plans to Buy Diesel from Russia, Homeland Security Agents Raid Rep. Ilhan Omar's D.C. Home Amid Trump's Attacks, NYT: Elon Musk Gives GOP $366M in Campaign Contributions During 2025-26 Election Cycle, GOP Senator Graham Spars with Democratic Opponent Annie Andrews, Israeli Forces Raid Offices of Palestinians NGOs in Occupied West Bank, Netanyahu Seeks to Identify and Prosecute IDF Soldiers in Investigative Documentary NAZA, Israeli Academic and Independent Analyst Ori Goldberg Dies at Age 50

On Indigenous Peoples' Day, we feature a conversation with one of the world's most prominent champions for Indigenous rights, Leonard Peltier. Indigenous Day is a day that's been long overdue for any type of recognition," says Peltier. I am not going to give up, because we are not free yet. We are in danger. Trump and these organizations, they're talking about doing away with our reservations and our treaties and everything else. ... We're going to stay here. You're not going to get rid of us."Peltier is a longtime political prisoner who spent nearly half a century behind bars for a crime he says he did not commit - the 1975 fatal shooting of two FBI agents. In the final hours of his administration last year, President Biden commuted Peltier's sentence, but his conviction has not been overturned, and he remains under home confinement on the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Reservation in Belcourt, North Dakota.It was one crime against the justice system after another in order to frame Leonard for the assassination of these two federal agents," says David France, co-director of the new documentary Free Leonard Peltier. And although he and his team were able to prove over and over that every bit of evidence used against him in his conviction was brought into question, he was never able to get a retrial."

Tens of thousands of people in India have taken to the streets in recent days to protest the deletion of 130 million names from the voter rolls, a large majority of which are believed to be opposed to Narendra Modi's ruling BJP party. The demonstrations, joined by leaders from India's opposition parties, are being led by students and the youth-led Cockroach" movement. Tens of thousands of security forces, including paramilitary and police, were out on the streets over the weekend cracking down on the uprising, detaining protesters en masse, including lawyers, journalists and protest leaders.The demonstrations represent an outpouring of anger, of frustration at what many Indians feel is the fact that their democracy has been taken away," says Shoaib Daniyal, political editor of Scroll, who was arrested on Saturday along with 7,000 other protesters. He points out that the deletions have affected Muslims far more than they have affected other Indians."On Monday, in one of largest recent protests in India's capital of New Delhi, India's main opposition leader, Rahul Gandhi of the Congress Party, led a march to the Supreme Court of India. This march has become a people's march, with all of them heading towards this constitutional authority, which they feel should safeguard the rights of Indian people, especially this very basic right to vote," says Jahnavi Sen, managing editor of The Wire.

Houthi Attack on Riyadh Airport Kills One Person, a Day After Another Strike Killed 12 People, Pentagon Quietly Raises Count of U.S. Troops Killed in Iran War, Two Palestinians Killed in Gaza Today, Russia Bombs Ukrainian Power Plant After Trump Declares Energy Ceasefire, Protests Against Right-Wing Government of Indian Prime Minister Modi Rock Delhi, DOJ Probing Whether Major TV Networks Broke Federal Antitrust Law, Federal Judge Orders Trump Admin to Stop Running Taxpayer Funded Ads Promoting the President, Federal Judge Issues Temporary Order Blocking Deportation of Man Shot by ICE Agents in NYC, ICE Agent in Houston Runs Over Man with Vehicle, Breaking Both His Legs, I Can Call Him Whatever the Hell I Want": Trump Misnames Michigan Senate Candidate Abdul El-Sayed, Christa Pike Discharged from Hospital and Sent Back to Prison After Surviving Botched Execution, U.S. Imposes Further Sanctions on ICC After Navi Pillay Wins Nobel Peace Prize, Conservative TV Personality Katie Zacharia Appointed White House Press Secretary

University students across the United States held a national day of action in solidarity with Jane Doe," the anonymous former student whose lawsuit alleging she was gang-raped by seven Cornell University Chi Phi fraternity members in 2024 has reignited outrage over how campuses and local law enforcement mishandle sexual assault cases and fail survivors. We go to Cornell's campus in Ithaca, New York, where faculty have introduced a no-confidence resolution against the university administration.The number one message that Cornell students have is that Jane Doe's ordeal is the tip of the iceberg, that there have been many, many other cases where women have been sexually assaulted and raped at Cornell University, and they're afraid of coming forward. They're afraid of going to the authorities because the investigation may be botched or they may be shamed," says Paul Ortiz, a professor of labor history and the lead sponsor of the resolution.Rape culture and sexual assault culture thrives on campus," adds Saya Taylor, a Cornell sophomore and a member of the group Students for a Democratic Cornell. The true outrage in this case doesn't just come from what happened to Jane Doe. It comes from the fact that it could have happened to anybody, and they still would have not received any justice."

The 2026 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Navanethem Navi" Pillay, the South African jurist who led the United Nations commission of inquiry that concluded that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza. Pillay's long career in international human rights law includes work as a defense attorney for anti-apartheid activists, president of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, a former judge at the International Criminal Court and the U.N.'s high commissioner for human rights from 2008 to 2014.Everybody in the human rights movement reveres Navi Pillay," says war crimes prosecutor Reed Brody, who calls the award a stinging rebuke to Donald Trump." Brody, a member of the United Nations Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua, also comments on the Trump administration's decision to deport a Nicaraguan opposition activist, Jeffrey Jarquin, from the United States, where he was in the process of seeking asylum. Upon his return to Nicaragua, Jarquin was immediately imprisoned at the same facility in which he was once tortured.

Protests have erupted in New York City after a federal immigration agent shot and wounded a man in the Bronx on Thursday afternoon. As masked agents reportedly posing as construction workers attempted to arrest 28-year-old Oscar Belgal, they opened fire on his car. Belgal was shot in the neck. His 5-year-old child, who was in the back seat, was physically unharmed. Belgal was taken to a local hospital, where hundreds, including our guests, Democratic congressional candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier and New York City Councilmember Carmen De La Rosa, gathered to demand his release.What we saw yesterday was a prime example of why [ICE] is a terror to our communities, why it should not exist," says Avila Chevalier. She was among multiple people assaulted by officers with the NYPD unit that specializes in protest policing, known as the Strategic Response Group (SRG). Four others were arrested at Thursday evening's protest. Avila Chevalier, who was knocked down to the ground by officers, says, This is why we also must demand that we get rid of and disband the SRG, because this type of response should have never happened for folks who were just simply trying to protect their neighbor."I personally witnessed the NYPD escalating aggressively towards our community, barricading the community in ... I also witnessed NYPD helping the ICE vehicles whisk away our neighbors and come in and out of the hospital," adds De La Rosa.We have become less safe with the presence of ICE, and we need to make sure that we are actually upholding the sanctuary policies of the city. There is no reason why NYPD should be collaborating this way," says Avila Chevalier.

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This week marks 25 years since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, the beginning of what would become the longest war in U.S. history. After installing a pro-Western government in Kabul in December 2001, U.S. and other NATO troops would remain in the country for the next two decades battling a stubborn insurgency - until a chaotic U.S. withdrawal in August 2021 that saw the Taliban return to power.During the 20 years of America's longest war in Afghanistan, we could clearly see that failure was coming," says journalist Emran Feroz, just back from a month of reporting in Afghanistan. He says the relative economic and political gains under the Western-backed government were undercut by widespread corruption and violence, particularly in rural Afghanistan. You had torture prisons next to Burger King and KFC and Starbucks."

As the development of artificial intelligence accelerates, more voices inside and outside the industry are warning that the technology poses major risks to humanity. The new film, The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist, features interviews with leading AI executives, researchers, as well as critics, who all voice similar concerns. Since the film's release earlier this year, a number of AI-driven hacks and other incidents have further alarmed people studying this topic.I'm really scared, and I'm struggling in my own life to sort of compartmentalize what I learned, what I know, what I understand, what I see happening around me," says filmmaker Daniel Roher. He began work on The AI Doc as he was about to become a father and wondered what kind of world his children would inherit.We also speak with Tristan Harris, co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology, a leading AI safety advocate who is featured in the film. He says part of the risk of AI development is that it has the logic of an arms race," with companies and countries racing to gain supremacy rather than building guardrails.The race changes as soon as the fear of all of us losing becomes bigger than the fear of me losing to you," he says.

The 87-year-old pensioner in Spain whose eviction from her lifelong home sparked nationwide protests has died. Maria del Carmen Abascal, better known as Maricarmen, died on Wednesday just hours before she was set to sign a new rental agreement. She was forcibly removed from her Madrid apartment last month on a stretcher after the private investment company that owns the building hiked her rent. After massive public outcry, the landlord had agreed to allow her back into her apartment.Independent Spanish journalist Maria Carrion says that although Maricarmen's story galvanized much of the country, evictions like hers are a daily occurrence" in Spain.Rents have gone up 80% in the last 10 years, while salaries have not kept up," Carrion says. Young people cannot leave their homes. They cannot become independent or start families. And this is what people are trying to change from the street."

Maricarmen," Whose Eviction from Lifelong Home Sparked Housing Protests Across Spain, Dies at 87, France's Education Minister Meets Student Leaders as Mass Protests Demand Education Reforms, WHO Demands Answers as Russia Denies Reports of Second Case of Plague, Protesters Repeatedly Interrupt Trump at Rally for Texas GOP Senate Candidate Ken Paxton, DHS Conducts Massive Election Fraud" Operation as ICE Ramps Up Pace of Arrests Ahead of Midterms, Yemen's Displaced Population Tops 200,000 as Saudi-Backed Forces Battle Houthis, Russian Missile Strike Kills 22 in Ukraine, Tanker Struck North of Qatar After Iran Warns Ships Against Bypassing Strait of Hormuz Blockade, Venezuela's Second-Largest Refinery Idles as Natural Gas Line Rupture Triggers Fire, Trump Admin Temporarily Allows Truckers to Fill Up on Dyed Diesel, Tropical Storm Isaias Intensifies to Become First Atlantic Hurricane of the Season, Death Row Prisoner Christa Pike Walking and Speaking After Failed Execution Attempt, Democratic Congressmembers Call for Criminal Probe into Epstein Associate Leon Botstein

In Gaza, October 7, 2023, is viewed as the beginning of the genocide. Over the past three years, Israel killed over 74,000 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, but many believe that number is a vast undercount. The killing continues despite a so-called ceasefire that took effect about a year ago.Every single aspect of the life of the people of Gaza has changed once and forever," since October 7, says Akram al-Satarri, a Gaza-based journalist. He points out that a large majority of structures in the Gaza Strip have been reduced to rubble and that Israel controls around 70% of Gaza. The Israeli Air Force is still hovering all around different parts of the Gaza Strip, and the IDF is still hunting Gazans, disturbing the already disturbed life, spreading death and displacement once and once again."

Twelve Days That Shook the Middle East: Origins of a Genocide is the new book by Al Jazeera senior political analyst Marwan Bishara discussing the crucial 12 days between Benjamin Netanyahu's October 7 speech and Biden's rare" Oval Office speech on October 19. October 7 was bloody, and it was horrific. ... But Netanyahu and his government had to go overboard, to exaggerate, to lie, to deceive about what exactly happened" in order to justify their actions in Gaza, says Bishara. Genocides don't start with bombs; they start with ideology. And in this case, the ideology has been decades in the making."During the Biden administration, the United States was basically complicit in genocide," adds Bishara.

Israelis and Palestinians are marking three years since October 7, 2023, when Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel. Nearly 1,200 Israelis were killed, and around 250 were taken hostage. It was the deadliest such attack in Israel's history, after which Israel immediately began bombing the Gaza Strip, killing at least 5,000 people by October 23, 2023. At least 74,000 Palestinians have been killed.Israeli peace activist Maoz Inon lost both of his parents, who lived on a kibbutz just north of the Gaza border, in the Hamas attack. In the aftermath, Inon called for peace and reconciliation rather than revenge. He has spent much of the past three years working closely with Palestinian peace activist Aziz Abu Sarah.The Israeli government exploited the trauma, the pain, the fear of the Israelis after the October 7th massacre to change the status quo from conflict management to ethnic cleansing," says Inon. Those who choose ethnic cleansing, those who choose bloodshed, those who choose destruction must be sanctioned," he adds.

Israel Marks Three Years Since the Hamas-Led Surprise Attack on October 7, 2023, Israeli Forces Kill at Least Three Palestinians in Gaza, Houthi Militias Fire Drones and Missiles at the Aden International Airport in Yemen, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy Denied Access to U.S. Air Base in Qatar, More Than 250,000 People March in Student Protests in France, Spain's Gov't Approves Two Housing Decrees Rejected by Parliament, Death Row Prisoner Christa Pike Regains Consciousness After Surviving Execution Attempt, Pentagon Schedules Execution of Fort Hood Attacker by Firing Squad, Cornell Trustees Name Sally Yates to Investigate Handling of Sexual Misconduct Complaints, Paramount Completes Takeover of Warner Bros., Giving CEO David Ellison $150 Million Payday, Protests Rage Across India as Government Purges 130 Million Names from Voter Rolls, ProPublica: 500+ U.S. Citizens Have Been Detained by ICE, Immigrants Begin Hunger Strike at Folkston ICE Jail in Georgia, Martin Soto, Who Led Hunger Strike of Immigrants at ICE Jail, Released After 8 Months Behind Bars

In a victory for environmentalists and immigration rights' advocates, a federal judge in El Paso, Texas, has blocked further border wall construction inside Big Bend National Park. We slammed the brakes on $7 billion worth of corrupt construction contracts," says Laiken Jordahl, a national public lands advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity, which sued to block the expansion. We have effectively stopped construction across West Texas, and it's incredible."Jordahl also responds to the Trump administration's excavation of a 200-year-old cottonwood tree on the Arizona-Mexico border that had been protected by activists for months. Watching those videos of them toppling this ancient tree that was very likely older than the border itself is symbolic of how DHS has treated the border region. They see our communities, our wildlife, our nature as a sacrifice zone," says Jordahl.

We go to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the site of the fastest-growing Ebola outbreak in history. Health authorities believe the outbreak first began in January but was not detected until May, in part due to cuts in global health investments, like the dismantling of USAID. Since then, over 8,000 cases have been recorded, with more than 4,000 fatalities so far. From Bunia, Ituri province, the epicenter of the outbreak, we speak to Congolese journalist Akilimali Chomachoma. Chomachoma describes the strain on the underfunded Congolese healthcare system as the disease spreads. Many frontline workers have not been paid for months.We are seeing this outbreak emerge, and really unfurl, in a setting of decreased global health support," says Craig Spencer, a doctor and public health expert based in the United States who contracted Ebola while on a medical mission to Guinea in 2014. The U.S. has not shown up in the same way that it has in previous Ebola outbreaks." Spencer also comments on the unprecedented" measles outbreak in the United States, which he warns is likely to continue and lead to additional deaths.

Nearly 2,000 French high schools are blockaded or closed today amid massive student-led protests over school funding and inequality. The demonstrations began in September at a single school in the economically deprived suburbs of Paris, where students protested teacher shortages, overcrowded classrooms and dilapidated school buildings beset by rats, falling debris and more. But the scope of the protests has widened amid a violent crackdown by French police. French authorities have arrested more than 5,000 people, largely underage students, since the movement began. Violent police tactics have led to serious injuries. One protester lost an eye after being hit by a rubber bullet, while another lost a hand when he picked up a police stun grenade.We hear from an anonymous protester who describes the violence meted out on students, who aren't even adults yet," and from Claire Vigneau, general secretary of Federation Syndicale Etudiante, the French student union, who reports from a protest in Rennes, Brittany, where we are trying to escape from the policemen that are chasing us with tear gas and with water cannon[s]."The amount of spending that France has done on education has stagnated, if not declined," explains French American journalist Cole Stangler. The critiques that high school students are making are actually very similar to what teachers' unions have been saying for quite some time."Everyone is deeply, deeply angry. We are completely fed up [with] the living conditions, the school conditions, the work conditions that we have," says Alys Rowlands, a university student in Lille and also a member of Federation Syndicale Etudiante. The true violence is the violence of the state that we are being faced with all day, every day, all year. That's the true violence: having no money, having difficulty finishing the month, having less and less help from the state, having to choose between eating and putting your heating on during the winter."

Supreme Court Case Will Determine Whether State and Local Governments Can Sue for Climate Harms, Pentagon Says Latest Boat Strike Killed Four Narcotraffickers, Provides No Evidence, Turkey and Pakistan to Send Troops to Saudi Arabia as Yemeni Government Forces Battle Houthis, Trump Defends Decision to Attack Iran, Says Let Them Take Out" Los Angeles and San Diego, Ukraine Launches Massive Drone Attack on Moscow, Blames Russia for Sinking Ship in Romanian Waters, Kenya Detects First Case of Ebola, New York Declares Disaster Emergency Due to Rapid Spread of Measles, Worker at an Anti-Plague Lab Dies from Pneumonia of Undetermined" Origin in Russia, Opposition Mounts Against Proposed ICE Jail in San Antonio, Texas, Marimar Martinez Files Civil Lawsuit After Being Shot Five Times by Border Patrol Agent, Federal Agents Raid Border Wall Protest Camp in Arizona, Uproot 200-Year-Old Cottonwood Tree, Federal Agencies Decline to Renew Permits for Water Stations to Help Migrants, Mexican President Sheinbaum Requests Evidence After U.S. Claims Shots Targeted U.S. Coast Guard, Trump Says Super PAC Will Now Pay for Campaign-Style Ads, Not Federal Funds

We speak with Palestinian human rights defender Issa Amro after he was detained at an Israeli military base for seven hours on Friday. Amro, the founder of the Hebron-based group Youth Against Settlements, was helping a Palestinian family that he says had been attacked by armed Israeli settlers at their farmhouse outside Hebron in the occupied West Bank. Amro says when Israeli soldiers arrived, they ignored the settlers and instead targeted the Palestinians, including him. Amro tells Democracy Now! that soldiers handcuffed and blindfolded him before transporting him to the base in the back of a military vehicle. He was freed after an international outcry over his arrest.What happened to me is happening to many Palestinian families and many Palestinian human rights defenders and many Palestinian journalists," says Amro. It's not the first time. It's not the last time. We have to keep working to make occupation [and] apartheid costly and make this kind of human rights violation costly for the offenders."

Revelations of sexual assault at a Cornell University fraternity in 2024 and how the university responded have sparked national outrage, reigniting a public debate about the extent to which fraternities, the extent to which athletics really support this kind of culture that allows perpetrators to escape with little or no accountability," says law professor Deborah Tuerkheimer.In 2024, seven male students avoided criminal prosecution after allegedly drugging and gang-raping a female student at the Chi Phi fraternity house. Cornell is now under intense scrutiny for its handling of the original investigation, which found that the student identified as Jane Doe was sexually assaulted by two of seven men, resulting in expulsions for two and lesser consequences for the other five. Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten has admitted that his office at the time did not independently investigate the case when it declined to bring charges. The DA has now reopened the case, and New York Governor Kathy Hochul has named Attorney General Letitia James as special prosecutor to investigate how the case was handled.Around the country, we see a pattern of investigators, police officers and even prosecutors deciding at the outset that the allegations are not worth pursuing, and dismissing the case before any kind of investigation gets off the ground," says Tuerkheimer.

Brazil's presidential election is headed to a runoff between leftist incumbent Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and far-right Senator Flavio Bolsonaro after neither candidate cleared 50% in Sunday's vote, in which the right made gains in Congress and in governor races across the country. Bolsonaro received 47% of the vote compared to Lula's 45%. The second round of voting is on October 25. If elected, Flavio Bolsonaro has vowed to grant amnesty to his father, former President Jair Bolsonaro, who is under house arrest and serving a 27-year sentence for plotting a coup in 2022 to overturn Lula's last victory. He has also vowed to strengthen ties to the Trump administration, which is accused of trying to influence the result in Bolsonaro's favor.The momentum has been with the right since 2018," says Brazilian philosopher Rodrigo Nunes, who explains that public disillusionment with politics is part of that shift. Lots of people see the far right as promising them, 'Well, if this is all there is, if all we can expect from the future is ever more dog-eat-dog conditions, an ever more competitive struggle of all against all, at least what the far right says is the state will get off our backs.'"Nunes is author of Neither Vertical nor Horizontal: A Theory of Political Organization and the new book Anatomy of Disintegration: What Brazil Reveals About the Global Far Right. He recently wrote about the stakes of the Brazilian election for North South Notes.

Brazil's Presidential Election Heads to a Runoff, U.S. Pulls Bombs Out of RAF Fairford After New Warnings of an Iranian-Backed Plot Targeting the Base, Iran Says Strait of Hormuz Will Remain Closed, Yemen's Saudi-Backed Forces Announce Major New Operation Against Houthis, Israeli Airstrike in Gaza Kills at Least Five Palestinians, U.K.'s Green Party Votes to Classify Zionism as a Form of Racism, Cornell University President Welcomes Independent Probe into Gang Rape of Undergraduate Student, Tennessee's Prison Chief Steps Down After Botched Execution Attempt of Christa Pike, Federal Judge Blocks Further Border Wall Construction Inside Big Bend National Park, Trump Names DNI Jay Clayton as New AI Czar, Tens of Thousands Protest in Spain Demanding Action on Housing Crisis, Thousands of Students Protest School Conditions in France, Cockroach Movement in India Launches New Protests Demanding Resignation of Chief Election Commissioner

Drop Site News released a major investigation this week into the U.S. bombing of the Shajareh Tayyebeh children's school in the Iranian city of Minab on February 28, the first day of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. Drop Site spoke to survivors, first responders, parents and witnesses in one of the most in-depth reports on the massacre to date. The bombing killed at least 156 people - 120 of the victims were children, 26 were teachers, and the rest were parents. A United Nations fact-finding mission recently concluded that the U.S. strike was a war crime, but the Trump administration has not yet even acknowledged U.S. responsibility.This was not a single bombing or collateral damage," says Drop Site News's Jeremy Scahill, lead author of the investigation. There were at least two direct hits on a school packed with children ... and a couple of hours after those initial hits, as first responders came, as parents came, the U.S. launches more strikes."Scahill points out that until 2013, the area where the school is was a facility operated by Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps. But in satellite photos from just weeks before the strike, You could see the murals on the wall. You could see the soccer field. Some of the satellite photos show shadows of tiny people playing outside."

Tennessee's Governor Bill Lee has halted executions for the remainder of the year after a death row prisoner survived two lethal injections on Wednesday. According to her lawyers, Christa Pike was still breathing after she was strapped to a gurney and injected with two syringes of pentobarbital in a botched execution that spanned more than two hours. Prior to the scheduled execution, Pike and her lawyers argued a single-dose lethal injection could be tantamount to torture due to Pike's small veins. Pike was sentenced to death for a 1995 murder she committed when she was 18. Now in the hospital in critical condition, she is the first person to ever survive lethal injection in the United States.I have seen five executions in Tennessee," says Steven Hale, a criminal justice reporter for the Nashville Banner, who witnessed Christa Pike's botched execution. And I've never seen anything like what we saw Wednesday night."Christa Pike has just experienced the most agonizing attempt at lethal injection in the country's history," says Sandra Babcock, director of the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide. Babcock says Pike should have never been sentenced to death, because she was an immature 18-year-old" with a history of severe childhood and sexual trauma who was not receiving medication for post-traumatic stress disorder and bipolar disorder at the time of [the murder], which she committed with her abusive boyfriend at the time."

Christa Pike Hospitalized in Critical Condition After Surviving Cruel and Torturous" Execution, Pentagon Deploys Third Carrier Strike Group and Marines to Middle East, Fighting Intensifies Between Houthis and Saudi-Backed Government Forces in Yemen, U.K. Police Arrest British Iranian Dual National as Questions Grow over Alleged Plot at Air Base, DoorDash Driver Shot by ICE Has Surgery to Remove Bullet from His Back After Agonizing 11-Day Wait, Family of Renee Good Sues ICE Agent Jonathan Ross and Top U.S. Officials, Trump Opens Red State Campaign Tour with Pitch for Texas GOP Senate Candidate Ken Paxton, New Jersey Data Center Ran Unpermitted Gas Generators for Nearly a Year, Driving Air Pollution, New York AG Letitia James Appointed Special Prosecutor in Cornell Gang Rape Case, Ethiopia and Eritrea Sever Diplomatic Ties as Tigray Rebels Claim Drone Strikes on Addis Ababa, Brazilians to Vote Sunday in Contest Between Lula and Flavio Bolsonaro, Son of Ex-President, Protests Against Spiraling Housing Costs Spread Across Spain as Parliament Mulls Eviction Ban

As we continue our coverage on the rise of right-wing political parties across Europe, we speak to Wiebke Judith from the German organization for asylum seekers' rights, PRO ASYL, about Germany's far-right party Alternative fur Deutschland, or AfD, and its recent wins in September's state elections. Judith calls the historic wins - won by margins not seen in German elections since the Nazi era - deeply concerning for everyone who cares about our democracy," and says that the growing influence of the AfD's anti-immigration stance over the German political landscape poses grave risks to refugees, asylum seekers, immigrants and ethnic minorities in the country.

Democracy Now!'s Amy Goodman is in Berlin, Germany, this week, where the crackdown on pro-Palestine speech is shaped by the German policy of Staatsrason, or reason of state." The concept refers to Germany's commitment to the existence of the Israeli state in light of the Holocaust. Since the start of Israel's war on Gaza in 2023, Staatsrason has manifested itself as German military aid to Israel and heavy policing of Palestine activism inside Germany.Germany's guilt regarding the Holocaust" has been abused to justify the support of the genocidal war of Israel against the population in Gaza," says Berlin-based lawyer Alexander Gorski, who recently represented the Berlin Four," three European Union citizens and one United States citizen whom Germany attempted to deport for participating in pro-Palestine campus protest. Gorski, who also represented the British Palestinian surgeon Ghassan Abu-Sittah and the leftist Greek economist Yanis Varoufakis when they were denied entry into Germany ahead of a pro-Palestine conference in Berlin, discusses Germany's use of immigration law to crack down on anti-Zionist activism, which he says the state wholly conflates with antisemitism.Germany has a historic responsibility for challenging antisemitism, but at the same time, what we should learn - especially as Germans - from the Holocaust, that 'never again' means never again for anyone," says Gorski.

We speak to the prominent AI researcher and leading critic of the AI industry, Timnit Gebru, who was recently awarded a 2026 Right Livelihood Award for her work investigating the harms and hype behind the global buildup of artificial intelligence.Instead of discussing faulty, unreliable systems," Gebru says tech leaders like SpaceXAI's Elon Musk, OpenAI's Sam Altman and Anthropic's Dario Amodei are marketing their systems as all-knowing, superpowerful, superintelligent," and lobbying for self-policing and self-regulation" to avoid being held liable through existing laws." Gebru expresses skepticism over increasingly widespread claims that AI algorithms pose an existential risk to humanity, warning that such claims are overblown and that what is actually happening is regulatory capture."

Tennessee Halts Executions as Condemned Prisoner Christa Pike Survives Lethal Injections, Hegseth Announces AutoWarCom" to Oversee Autonomous Drones and Robots, Judge Orders Pentagon to Provide Rationale for Lethal Boat Strikes, Passengers and Crew Say Pilot Tried to Crash Airliner Bound for Israel, Palestinians Hold Mass Funeral in Gaza for 105 People Killed by Israel, Cambridge for Palestine Delivers Open Letter Calling on City Officials to Divest from Israel, Immigration Judge Rules Salah Sarsour Can Be Deported, DOJ Indicts 10 in Minnesota on Voter Fraud Charges, Accuses Judges of Misconduct

Eight decades after the Nuremberg trials against Nazi war criminals, the Trump administration has launched an all-out assault on the International Criminal Court, primarily over the tribunal's pursuit of Israeli leaders for war crimes committed in Gaza. In his recent address to the United Nations, President Donald Trump called the ICC a rogue institution" and urged other states to abandon it, and his administration has vowed to dismantle it through sanctions and other pressure tactics.It's so sad to remember that the core group behind the Nuremberg trials were Robert Jackson, Telford Taylor and Benjamin Ferencz, the U.S. prosecutors," says Wolfgang Kaleck, lawyer and founder of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights. His new book is The Power of Law: Reconciling Legality and International Justice.

We speak with Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil about his new memoir, No Land to Stand On: Notes from Detention. It details his 104 days of detention inside a Louisiana ICE jail after he was targeted for arrest and deportation by the Trump administration over his pro-Palestine campus advocacy at Columbia University. Khalil missed the birth of his first child, Deen, while he was separated from his wife, Noor Abdalla, who is a U.S. citizen. The administration is still trying to deport Khalil, who has launched civil rights lawsuits against the government and Columbia University over his treatment.Eighteen months after my arrest, this administration has never charged me with any crime or even presented any evidence that I committed any crimes, yet they are able to get away with this because I'm Palestinian," Mahmoud tells Democracy Now!Khalil's memoir also looks beyond his own case, recounting the people he met behind bars and what their stories taught him about the broader human cost of the U.S. immigration detention system. This book is about a story of so many incredible men, fathers and workers who came here seeking safety and a better future, only to be snatched off the street," he says.

Pentagon Announces Withdrawal of All U.S. Troops from Iraq, Iranian Rial Hits Record Low Against the Dollar as War Takes Heavy Toll on Economy, Israeli Settlers Riot in Occupied West Bank, Stopping Palestinian Family from Returning Home, Israeli Airstrike Kills Senior Hamas Commander in Gaza, SCOTUS Temporarily Allows Trump Admin to Deport Immigrants to Third Countries, California Bans Law Enforcement Agents from Using Electric Shock Gloves, Trump Admin Files Criminal Charges Against Asylum Seeker Shot by ICE, Interfaith Clergy Begins 8-Day, 96-Mile Pilgrimage Demanding Shutdown of ICE Jails, Former Special Counsel Jack Smith Testifies on His Two Prosecutions Against Trump, Spain Issues Ban on All Evictions Until 2030 After Mass Protests over Housing Crisis, Trump and Tech Executives Sign Voluntary Safety Standards for Artificial Intelligence, 2026 Right Livelihood Awards Announced in Stockholm

Award-winning Danish Afghan journalist and filmmaker Nagieb Khaja's most recent documentary, Winning Heart and Minds, is an investigation into what went wrong in the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan. In the film, Khaja travels to Musa Qala, the capital of the southern Helmand province. Danish and British troops had been deployed to Musa Qala in 2006 to defend their allies, the local police, against Taliban insurgents.While urban areas benefited from U.S. occupation during the war, Western forces allied themselves with forces that in rural Afghanistan were considered worse than the Taliban," says Khaja. The police forces and the warlords that were fighting side by side with American, Danish and British forces, they were drug cartels, they were ruthless criminals, they were rapists."

The Palestinian death toll from Israel's war on Gaza has surpassed 74,000, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza. While this figure represents the official death toll as confirmed by local authorities, the true number could be much higher when missing people and indirect deaths are taken into account, such as from disease, exposure, denial of medical treatment and the destruction of civic infrastructure. And since the so-called ceasefire brokered by Trump last October, nearly 1,400 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks.The [ceasefire] plan ended up just buying more time for the genocide," says Muhammad Shehada, a writer and analyst from Gaza speaking to Democracy Now! in Copenhagen. Instead of suspending attacks on Gaza, Israel has been bombing Gaza every day."The idea of the plan was to divide the reconstruction, rehabilitation, Israeli withdrawal, decommissioning of Hamas and Palestinian statehood into three phases," says Shehada. So far, only one item of the 20 items on the Trump plan has been fulfilled, and that is the release of every single Israeli hostage in Gaza."