Democracy Now!

A new documentary titled Top of the World tells the story of Windows on the World, the legendary restaurant atop the World Trade Center, through the eyes of its former employees. Windows on the World served guests for 25 years, until the morning of September 11, 2001, when it was destroyed in the attacks on the World Trade Center. Seventy-nine workers and 91 diners were killed.We're joined by Top of the World's co-directors, Julie Cohen and Betsy West, and by Sekou Siby, a former line cook at Windows on the World. Siby, who immigrated to the United States from the Ivory Coast in 1996, was originally scheduled to work on the morning of September 11, but a co-worker asked him to switch shifts. He didn't make it," says Siby, who later became an organizer and longtime leader at the Restaurant Opportunities Center (ROC), an advocacy group founded by Windows on the World workers to support each other in the aftermath of the attack.The extraordinary immigrant workforce of Windows [of the World] and what they collectively created is just a reminder of the contributions of immigrant New Yorkers to the restaurant world and to the culture of the city," says Cohen. We want people to remember not just the tragedy, but the real beauty and the specific stories of what was lost on that day."Top of the World premieres on CNN Monday, September 7, 2026.

We go to Danbury, Connecticut, where residents held a mass demonstration this week to protest recent immigration arrests and to support the city's immigrant community. Danbury, like many other communities across the United States, has been the target of a spike in immigration enforcement under the Trump administration, including local reports of ICE arresting parents at school bus stops.We really have been describing it as the administration terrorizing our city, because that is what it felt like. The streets were empty. Kids stayed home from practice. Kids stayed home from school," says Juliana Soares, the lead organizer for Danbury Unites for Immigrants. Masked agents often would shut down the street to just abduct people. ... They just do a gross display of force and intimidation in a grocery store parking lot, where they're just walking around, kind of hunting their next target."

Tyson Foods, the United States' largest meatpacking and processing company, shuttered a beef processing facility in Joslin, Illinois, last month, laying off more than 2,500 primarily immigrant workers virtually overnight." Although Tyson Foods CEO and President Donnie King made over $34 million last year, nearly 800 times more than the median Tyson worker, the company cites a historic 75-year low in the U.S. cattle herd as a primary reason for the closure.We speak to Caitlyn Clark, director of the group Essential Workers for Democracy, which is working to institute democratic reforms within the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), a labor union that represents more than a million workers across the United States. These workers include the former Tyson plant meatpackers, who worked in some of the most dangerous jobs in America" while making billions of dollars in profit for Tyson." Clark ascribes the U.S. cattle shortage to climate change-induced drought in the American West, rising prices for diesel and fertilizer amid the U.S. war on Iran and years of corporate consolidation that has driven down profits for cattle ranchers.Since they were suddenly laid off, former Joslin plant workers have been protesting outside the shuttered plant, calling on Tyson to extend their severance pay, and calling on Illinois Governor JB Pritzker to intervene to help keep the plant open," Clark tells us. We need to take on the bosses and be serious about the level of inequality and exploitation that working people are facing today," she adds. Working people need more, they deserve more, and they're ready to fight for it. It's time that our union leadership catch up."

A federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration violated the constitutional rights of international students in seeking to deport them for their pro-Palestinian activism and criticism of Israel. The ruling is the result of a lawsuit filed by The Stanford Daily, the student newspaper at Stanford University, which claimed that some of its writers on student visas declined to report on topics related to Israel and Palestine, or requested their published articles be removed from the paper's website, for fear of deportation.What we were hearing from the noncitizens in our newsroom and from noncitizens across campus - current students, former students, alumni - was that they were genuinely frightened because of what they saw in the headlines, what they saw happen to Rumeysa Ozturk," says George Porteous, editor-in-chief of The Stanford Daily. Rumeysa Ozturk is the former Tufts University graduate student arrested and detained by ICE after co-authoring an op-ed encouraging Tufts to divest from Israel in her university's student newspaper.The chill is the point," adds Will Creeley, legal director at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, or FIRE, the organization that represented The Stanford Daily in court. That's a First Amendment violation every day of the week. It's flatly un-American."

As U.S. Conflict wIth Iran Enters 7th Month, Vance Declares, I Wouldn't Call This a War", Israel's National Security Minister Outlines Plan to Expel All Palestinians from Gaza Strip, 33 Democrats Join GOP Lawmakers to Pass Bill Stripping Funds from Schools That Boycott Israel, Missouri Supreme Court Blocks GOP's Gerrymandered Congressional Map, Federal Judge Warns Mail-In Voting Restrictions Would Lead to Major Disenfranchisement", DOJ Says States Must Report Undocumented Immigrants or Lose Funds for Needy Families, U.S. Sends Third Deportation Flight to Cap-Haitien Despite Rampant Insecurity in Haiti, Chinese National Is 57th to Die in Custody of ICE or Border Patrol Under Trump's Second Term, 76-Year-Old Green Card Holder with Cancer Freed After Two Months in ICE Jail, DOJ Indicts ICE Officer Who Shot Immigrant in Minneapolis, But Blocks More Serious Charges, Survivors Pulled from Flooded Tunnel in Nepal as Death Toll from Glacier's Collapse Nears 1,300, U.N. Warns the World Will Overshoot" 1.5C Limit to Global Heating, U.N. Warns Supersized" El Nino Will Persist into 2027, Fueling Extreme Weather and Food Insecurity

As part of our ongoing series on artificial intelligence, we speak with researcher Shreya Johri, who says AI has the power to revolutionize the field of medicine, particularly in diagnosing patients. Johri is a postdoctoral fellow at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and completed her Ph.D. at Harvard Medical School in 2025. She discusses ways that new technology is improving patient care, but she says AI must be treated like an additional tool and not be given control over patient care. Doctors have to be responsible, have to take the responsibility of this, until we are more confident we have frameworks developed that can deploy these AI models in a more responsible way," she says.

Ahead of the November midterm elections, Republican officials in the third most populous county of Texas have voted to slash the number of polling sites by nearly one-third. Tarrant County, which includes Fort Worth, will have just 224 polling sites for 1.3 million voters. The change was approved in a party-line vote Tuesday, with all three of the county's Republican commissioners voting in favor and the two Democrats opposing it. Civil rights groups including the ACLU and NAACP warn the changes will disproportionately affect voters of color.The eyes of the nation are on Tarrant County," says Roderick Miles Jr., a Democratic Tarrant County commissioner, who calls the voting restriction a modern-day poll tax."

An anonymous federal whistleblower has warned that the Trump administration's new system for handling mail ballots through the U.S. Postal Service is untested, fatally flawed and likely to lead to a catastrophic failure" if it's implemented ahead of November's midterm elections. This follows President Trump's executive order in March directing his administration to create federal lists of citizens and to refuse delivery of mail-in ballots to people not on those lists. The legality of Trump's executive order is being challenged.The new hurdles raised by the executive order for mail ballots and the rushed software system built to administer them create this potential for grave, catastrophic failure," says David Kligerman from Whistleblower Aid, the organization representing the whistleblower.

Feminist icon Gloria Steinem has died at the age of 92. According to her Instagram page, she died Wednesday at her home in New York City, surrounded by some of the many who loved her." Steinem was a tireless advocate for the social, economic and political advancement of women. Steinem co-founded Ms. magazine, the first major publication to be owned, run and written by women. She also helped found the National Women's Political Caucus with a group of women including Shirley Chisholm, Betty Friedan and Fannie Lou Hamer. Before becoming a feminist icon, she served as director of the Independent Research Service, a nonprofit educational foundation secretly funded by the CIA. In 2013, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama. She spoke with Democracy Now! at the historic Women's March in Washington, D.C., on January 21, 2017. We play an excerpt.

Iran's Red Crescent Asks ICC to Investigate U.S. Strike on Wedding That Killed Four, Widow of Airman Who Died Supporting U.S. Attacks on Iran Says She Was Denied Benefits, USS Abraham Lincoln Docks in Thailand After Unprecedented Wartime Deployment, Trump Nominates Hung Cao as Navy Secretary as GOP Lawmakers Call for Pete Hegseth's Ouster, Israeli Soldiers Fatally Shoot Two Palestinian Teens in Occupied West Bank, Israeli Defense Minister Seeks Trump's Support for Plans to Expel Palestinians from Gaza, Death Toll from Nepal Floods Tops 1,200 People, Former Venezuelan President Maduro and His Wife Ask Judge to Dismiss Drug Trafficking Charges, Chevron Pledges to Invest $7 Billion in Venezuela as U.S. Energy Secretary Touts Oil and Gas Deal, Rep. Greg Casar Blasts OpenAI for Withholding Info About Rogue AI Agent Hack, Trump Admin Sides with OpenAI in Legal Fight with New York Times and Other Newspapers, New York City Adopts AI Moratorium for K-8 Students, Workers Remove Giant Statue Blue" from Kennedy Center Grounds

Demonstrators gathered outside Madison Square Garden in New York City on Saturday to protest against the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a far-right Indian paramilitary Hindu nationalist organization with close ties to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The leader of the RSS, Mohan Bhagwat, was holding a rally inside the arena to launch a global speaking tour marking the 100th anniversary of the RSS.The RSS's explicitly stated mission, its purpose, is to create a Hindu Rashtra, a Hindu nation - to take the India that is a secular and inclusive democracy and transform it into a country that is just for Hindus, where Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and other minorities are basically erased," says Sunita Viswanath, co-founder of Hindus for Human Rights Action. "RSS affiliates, these Hindu right-wing organizations, exist in growing numbers in the diaspora, especially in America."In 1939, [Madison Square Garden] hosted a Nazi rally with swastikas hung from the banners around a portrait of George Washington. They said they wouldn't do something like that again, and yet here they were hosting Mohan Bhagwat, spouting a similar fascist ideology," says Brad Lander, a Democratic nominee for Congress from New York City, who joined Saturday's protest.

A year ago today, the United States bombed a small boat in the Caribbean, killing nine people on board. Two survivors clung to the wreckage for 45 minutes, reportedly waving for help, before a second double-tap" strike killed them, too. President Trump posted a video of the first attack on social media, announcing that 11 terrorists had been killed in a military operation that would be called Operation Southern Spear." The second video, showing the killing of the survivors, has never been released. The bombings have continued for a year, killing at least 227 people in nearly 70 separate strikes. The Pentagon often accuses the boats it targets of narcotrafficking.In a new documentary, the investigative team at Al Jazeera's Fault Lines traveled to St. Lucia and Colombia to speak with two families who believe their loved ones, both fishermen, were killed at sea by U.S. airstrikes. They describe it as a war. They describe these people as enemy combatants that are attacking America," says Josh Rushing, a senior correspondent for Fault Lines who worked on the documentary. In reality, it's unclear, really, if the U.S. government knows who they're killing ... They've never named anyone in any of the strikes."We had the 'war on drugs,' the 'war on terror.' This is kind of the worst of both," says Rushing.

We speak to Richard Wolff, a prominent Marxist economist, about the economic fallout from the war on Iran, which recently reached the six-month mark. Because it's only been going on for a few months, the impact on the prices we pay is about to unload itself," says Wolff.The U.S. national debt, which recently topped $40 trillion, is one of the many signs of an economy and of an empire that is now in decline," says Wolff. There is an enormous increase in defense spending, or now war spending, that is scheduled, and no comparable increase in revenue."Wolff also discusses how a global selloff of U.S. government bonds means increasing borrowing costs for everyday consumers.

U.S. Launches Wave of Attacks in Iran, Killing 11 People, German Officials Accuse Russia of an Attempted Drone Attack at Leipzig/Halle Airport Last Month, World Food Programme Announces It Will Halve Its Food Assistance in the Occupied West Bank, Israeli Court Brings Criminal Charges Against a Dozen Guards Accused of Beating Palestinian Prisoners, Ebola Outbreak Death Toll Tops 3,000 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Whistleblower Warns USPS Mail Voting System Headed for Catastrophic Failure" Ahead of Midterms, Federal Immigration Agents Arrest 50,000 People in August, 20-Year-Old Haitian Immigrant Dies by Suicide After Being Outfitted with an Ankle Monitor, Activist Ya'akub Vijandre Wins Right to Challenge ICE Detention After Nearly 1 Year Behind Bars, Mississippi Police Chief Fired over Racist Text Messages, House Censures GOP Rep. Chuck Edwards over Sexual Harassment Claims, 80-Year-Old Sen. Ed Markey Defeats Primary Challenger Who Raised Concerns over His Age

Juan Carlos Davila reports from Puerto Rico as the island grapples with a severe water crisis. A record-breaking drought has led to severe shortages and a system of water rationing that residents say could have been prevented by better infrastructure maintenance. Climate scientists have warned for years that changing weather conditions in the Caribbean are likely to exacerbate existing infrastructure failings, but rather than address the root cause of the water shortage, explains Davila, a pattern of government inaction and failed public services is used to justify increasing privatization.Puerto Rico's water woes come 10 years after the United States passed the bankruptcy law PROMESA to restructure the U.S. territory's debt, installing an unelected board colloquially known as La Junta" that continues to hold sweeping authority to determine fiscal and public policy. This water crisis taking place right now in Puerto Rico, also La Junta bears some responsibility on it," says Puerto Rican investigative reporter Luis Valentin. It did not reduce the debt, and [so] pretty much crowds out resources that could be used for infrastructure work."

As part of its mass deportation campaign, the Trump administration is secretly deporting immigrants to countries that they have no ties to. CNN correspondent Isobel Yeung recently traveled to the Central African Republic, which in recent months has accepted dozens of immigrants who had previously been granted deportation protections because they risk facing torture in their home countries. Despite the fact that the State Department warns U.S. citizens not to travel to the Central African Republic under any circumstances," the Department of Homeland Security has now deported dozens of immigrants from countries including Afghanistan, Cuba, Russia and Iran to a legal limbo in a country wracked by civil war between Muslim and Christian militias and officially ruled by a Russia-backed authoritarian dictator.We play excerpts of Yeung's report, which features interviews with immigrants who now live precarious lives in the Central African Republic capital of Bangui, without family, friends or even a common language, and at risk of malaria, extortion and violence. Many of them did not know where they were going to until they stepped foot on the flight," Yeung tells Democracy Now! They have been placed in temporary lodgings for three months, but after that, continues Yeung, I don't think anyone knows where they're supposed to go."According to Third Country Deportation Watch, the United States has signed so-called third-country deportation agreements with as many as 35 governments around the world. Most of the over 20,000 people deported under these agreements have been turned back at ports of entry to Mexico, but an increasing number are being placed on deportation flights and sent to countries like Costa Rica and Ghana, far from their countries of birth. By carrying out this scheme and by threatening other immigrants with the possibility of third-country deportation to coerce them into choosing to self-deport," the Trump administration is really attacking and undermining the entire architecture of refugee protection," says Yael Schacher, a co-lead of Third Country Deportation Watch.

The U.S. has struck a deal to take majority control of more than 65 billion barrels of Venezuela's oil reserves, nine months after the U.S. military abducted President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores in a raid on Caracas and two months after The New York Times revealed that U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has become the de facto viceroy of Venezuela, effectively controlling Venezuela's finances, the distribution of its natural resources and its government. The new oil deal gives the Department of Defense a 35% stake in a joint U.S.-Venezuelan private company that now holds 100-year leases to 17 oil fields. It also gives the U.S. the right to buy some of the oil produced at cost - a major triumph for the Trump administration as the war on Iran depletes the United States' strategic oil reserves. Venezuela's acting President Delcy Rodriguez claims U.S. investment in Venezuela's oil industry will jumpstart the country's floundering economy, but critics, including Venezuelan economist Francisco Rodriguez, say the deal is not only unfavorable to Venezuela" but also appears to violate the Venezuelan Constitution.The whole history around this is extremely shady," adds Rodriguez, who previously led Venezuela's Congressional Budget Office and now teaches at the University of Denver. It's clear that this is not a deal that any Venezuelan government would have entered into unless this country had been subject to an invasion, and unless its authorities had been held at gunpoint. So, I think we've replaced gunboat diplomacy now for gunpoint diplomacy."

Trump Reportedly Weighing More Strikes Against Iran, WaPo: Conservative Veterans Given Secret Pentagon Jobs, Army Civilian Chief Daniel Driscoll Resigns After Clashing with Hegseth, Israeli Attacks Kill at Least Four People, Including Three Children, in Gaza, School Principal in Nepal Evacuates 900 Students to Safety from Floods, Second Person Confirmed Dead After Flash Floods Sweep Grand Canyon National Park, Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Trump's Ballroom, Third Eyewitness in Fatal Shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo Released from ICE Jail, U.S. Citizen Deported to Mexico Granted Permission to Return to the U.S., Federal Judge Extends Order Temporarily Pausing Border Wall Construction at Big Bend National Park, EEOC Finds Cisco Violated Civil Rights of Middle Eastern and Muslim Employees, 12 People Killed in Russian Attacks in Ukraine, Primary Elections Held Today in Massachusetts, Activist, Writer and Farmer Wendell Berry Dies at 92

Tributes continue to pour in for Dolly Parton after the iconic country singer, actor and philanthropist's death on August 25 at age 80. Her former co-star Jane Fonda tells Democracy Now! how they made the classic workplace comedy 9 to 5, for which Parton wrote the accompanying hit song. She could see through people to their essence," Fonda says of Parton. She loved everyone."

As Gary, Indiana, recovers from flooding and a two-week power outage, we also speak with Ron Daniels, president of the Institute of the Black World 21st Century, who discusses the city's history as a site of Black struggle and organizing. In 1972, the city hosted the National Black Political Convention, which brought together thousands of activists to plan for increasing African American political power. Attendees included Coretta Scott King, Betty Shabazz, Jesse Jackson, Bobby Seale, Louis Farrakhan, Shirley Chisholm, Harry Belafonte and Amiri Baraka.It was one of the great gatherings in the history of Black people in this country," says Daniels, who calls the current backlash to racial progress the dying gasp of a system that needs a major overhaul."

Thousands of residents recently spent two weeks without power in Gary, Indiana, following a storm that ripped through the majority-Black city. The blackout ground the city to a halt, trapping residents in their apartments, forcing the closure of many businesses and leading to fuel shortages at gas stations. Officials in Indiana estimate the storm might have caused up to $5 billion in damage in Gary and other communities.We're still in the recovery phase, as we speak," says Gary Mayor Eddie Melton, who underscores that hardening the infrastructure" should be a priority for the NIPSCO utility company. We've never seen wind this strong before. ... They need to ensure that the utility grid system is going to sustain that type of wind."

Top U.S. military leaders have reportedly advised Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth against extending the war in Iran because ongoing operations in the Middle East have degraded the Pentagon's ability to confront threats elsewhere. According to The Washington Post, the warnings appeared in a classified assessment for Hegseth prepared by the heads of the Army, Navy and Air Force and the four-star commanders overseeing U.S. operations throughout Europe, Asia and Latin America. This comes after multiple reports have revealed the U.S. is facing a critical munitions shortage, having used up much of its global stockpile of expensive missile systems during the war against Iran.The Pentagon is completely dysfunctional when it comes to fighting this kind of war," says defense analyst William Hartung, principal adviser at the Project on Government Oversight. He says the U.S. policy establishment and the defense industry are less interested in effectiveness than in running a money-making machine."

More than 900 people in Nepal are confirmed dead after a massive wall of water, mud and debris crashed through a Himalayan river valley on the border with Tibet. More than 4,200 people are missing in Nepal and hundreds more in Tibet. Families are searching hospitals for loved ones, and crews have buried hundreds of unidentified bodies in shallow graves. Rescue efforts are also underway for more than 900 hydropower workers, believed to be trapped in more than a dozen underground tunnels blocked by debris. The cause of the flash flooding is believed to have been the collapse of a glacier in the mountains, leading a wave of water, rocks and debris to carve its way through the valley.This is a catastrophe of unimaginable proportions," says journalist Kunda Dixit, speaking to Democracy Now! from the Nepalese capital of Kathmandu.We used to say that the glaciers are melting in the Himalaya. Now it seems like the mountains are cracking up," says Dixit. This has sort of redefined what global warming and climate change is doing, not just to Nepal and the Himalaya, but to the planet."

U.S. Forces Target Iranian Launchers; Iran Retaliates Against U.S. Military Targets in the Region, U.S. Strikes Deal to Control 65 Billion Barrels of Venezuelan Oil, Death Toll in Nepal-Tibet Floods Surpasses 900 People, Flash Floods Sweep Grand Canyon National Park, Killing One Person, ICE Plans to Spend $2 Million to Purchase Robot Dogs", Three Palestinians Killed in Israeli Airstrike on Occupied West Bank, Masked Israeli Settlers Attack NBC News Team Reporting in the Occupied West Bank, Israeli Strikes Kill Two Palestinians, Including 3-Year-Old Boy, in Gaza, Federal Judge Rules Trump Admin Violated Rights of International Students in Seeking to Deport Them for Pro-Palestinian Activism, Russian Attack on Ukrainian Weapons Depot Kills 38 People, Trump Threatens to Report NBC's Kristen Welker to the FCC, Protesters Rally Against RSS Event at Madison Square Garden, Thousands Rally for Voting Rights on Anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s March on Washington

Experts estimate that a language is lost every two weeks - and that half of the world's 7,000 spoken languages could be lost by the end of the century. Quechua is the most widely spoken Indigenous language in the Americas, with approximately 7 to 10 million speakers living primarily in Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador. But like so many Indigenous languages, Qechua is vulnerable due to cultural pressures and discrimination.The new documentary Runa Simi - our language" in Quechua - follows Fernando Valencia, a Peruvian voice actor, Indigenous activist, radio host and single father, who has dubbed many online clips of animated movies into Quechua from his home in Cusco, Peru. In the film, Fernando pursues his most ambitious goal yet: to fully dub Disney's animated classic The Lion King into Quechua, with the help of his 8-year-old son, Dylan.I am sharing our culture to the worldwide culture," says Fernando Valencia, who started dubbing films after noticing that Quechua-speaking Indigenous children were watching movies dubbed into Spanish that they couldn't understand.There's like one hour a week of Quechua [in school], so it is very hard to actually learn it," says Fernando's son Dylan, who is now 14 years old.Indigenous people in Peru are fighting for basic rights, like having water, electricity, healthcare, education in their own language," says Augusto Zegarra, the director of Runa Simi. But they also have the right to access entertainment in their own language."

A team of researchers led by Democracy Now!'s Juan Gonzalez at the University of Illinois Chicago recently released an in-depth study on how, through a program called Tax Increment Financing (TIF), Chicago has spent some $16 billion in property taxes it collected over the past 40 years to fund downtown development. The money was supposed to be used to eliminate urban blight. "TIF funding has actually exacerbated economic inequities throughout the city, pouring more than half of the billions of dollars that it collected into downtown neighborhoods, while 70 other community areas around the city were left to share the other half," says Gonzalez.

Amy Goodman is back to hosting Democracy Now! after taking time off following a medical procedure to remove skin cells on her nose that tested positive for squamous cell cancer. I think it's important that ... we don't have to be picture-perfect on TV or video. We are not plastic; we are people. And people get by in all sorts of ways around the world," says Goodman. She reminds listeners and viewers to check in with the dermatologist: A spot, a bump on their skin, a mole or a blemish anywhere, or just a rough spot, something scaly, might be cancerous."

We get a report from Nepal, where at least 547 people are confirmed to have died and over 1,500 are still missing after a glacial collapse on Wednesday sent a wall of ice, mud and rock into a Himalayan river, triggering catastrophic flooding in the Nepal-Tibet border region that swept away entire communities. Nepali authorities say they have rescued more than 3,700 people so far. Geologists say the flash floods were set off by a landslide and glacial avalanche so powerful it set off its own seismic signal. Climate scientists warn the region is warming much faster than the global average, leading to the rapid retreat of glaciers.Scientists and civil society have been warning about the very fact that these kind of events might happen in the Himalayas," says Sunil Acharya, a climate and public policy specialist reporting from Kathmandu, Nepal. This is the result of the delayed global action to deal with climate change."The number of people being killed, the number of properties being damaged has been way beyond what we can adapt to," says Acharya. The floods have [washed] away hundreds of villages, a huge number of bridges and road infrastructure and also hydropower stations."

Calls to shut down the ICE jail known as the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in South Texas continue to grow following the detention and deportation of 5-year-old Liam Tadeo and his father Victor Martinez Nieto to Mexico. According to the family's lawyer, Nieto had begged officers to let his son go as they were arrested on their way to soccer practice in Austin last week. Nieto wanted Liam released to his mother, but ICE reportedly refused. The arrest happened just days before Liam was set to start kindergarten.Texas Democratic Congressmember Joaquin Castro previously attempted to visit Liam and his father at Dilley but was denied by ICE. Last month, Castro led a group of more than 110 Democratic House members in a nationwide call to end family detention and shut down Dilley. You have kids as young as 2 months old who have been in prison there," says Castro. And every child that's put in there - every woman, every person - there are American investors who are making money off of their imprisonment."Castro notes that children are not supposed to be held in detention centers for more than 20 days. I've met with kids who have been there three months, seven months, 10 months. And so, this is really abusive, and it's traumatizing a lot of kids."

Death Toll from Glacier's Collapse on Nepal-Tibet Border Tops 500, Iran Sets Conditions for Reopening Strait of Hormuz on 6-Month Anniversary of Trump's Excursion", Pentagon Faces Beyond Critical" Shortage of Interceptors as Iran War Exhausts Supplies, Israel Strikes Lebanon, Killing Newlywed Woman, Gaza's Children Protest as Israel's Military Chief Declares Kite Flying a Terrorist Act", U.S.-Born Children Are Sent to Haiti Aboard Second Deportation Flight in a Week, ICE Steps Up Raids on Haitian Community in Springfield, Ohio, ICE Agent Charged with Shooting Venezuelan Man in Minnesota Walks Free from Texas Jail, Trump Orders Lake Ontario to Be Renamed Lake America" Amid Canada Trade War, Fired Stars and Stripes Journalists Sue Pentagon, Alleging Retaliation by Hegseth, U.S. Navy Mulls Plan to Name Aircraft Carrier After Donald Trump Instead of Black War Hero, DOJ Suggests Demolishing Kennedy Center as Trump Once Again Looks to Add His Name to the Building, Trump Discloses 1,000+ Stock Trades in June, Including Energy Companies That Profited from War

Julian Posada's upcoming book, titled Platform Extractivism: Data Work and the People Powering Artificial Intelligence, is based on extensive fieldwork among data workers in Venezuela. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, amid a hyperinflation crisis, entire communities in Venezuela depended on data work, says Posada, a professor at Yale University. Paid as little as 50 cents per hour and monitored by surveillance algorithms, most workers did not even know who or for what end they were working for. From the perspective of the worker, you would just see the tasks. ... [T]he algorithm here is the manager."

Despite being branded as autonomous and self-sustaining, artificial intelligence relies heavily on human labor - an army of data workers all over the world, primarily in the Global South. These workers are purposely hidden by the companies that produce AI because they are the secret ingredient of AI itself," says sociologist Antonio Casilli, the author of Waiting for Robots: The Hired Hands of Automation and co-writer of the documentary In the Belly of AI. Casilli estimates that over 160 million people are involved in data work around the world.

Prosecutors across 47 states, Washington, D.C., and U.S. territories have announced a groundbreaking legal settlement with technology giant Meta over accusations that the social media company deliberately designed addictive products they knew to be harmful to children. Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, is set to pay at least $12 billion and up to $17.1 billion in financial penalties, in addition to implementing design changes for underage users. This is the least they can do to prevent harms that have metastasized and have already caused suicides ... [but] we cannot be relying on fines, or certainly even on litigation, after harms have already transpired. What we need are rules of the road. And we need rules that go to the root cause of the business model," says Amba Kak, the co-executive director of AI Now Institute, who joins us for a wide-ranging discussion on tech policy and regulation. Kak, who advises various governments on AI regulatory guidelines, adds, The era of looking to tech CEOs or tech luminaries to give us answers for what are fundamentally social and political questions, I think, is gone."

Over 350 Die and Hundreds Are Missing as Glacier's Collapse Triggers Floods in Nepal and Tibet, Pentagon Says It Killed 4 People in Latest Strikes on Alleged Drug Boats, Iran Blocks IAEA Inspectors from Visiting Nuclear Sites Bombed by U.S. and Israel, Ukraine and Russia Trade Attacks as Moscow Warns the U.K. Against Supplying Arms to Kyiv, Meta Reaches Landmark $17 Billion Settlement over Teen Social Media Addiction, ICE Arrests Parents at School Bus Stops as Agents Target Danbury, Connecticut, 5-Year-Old Liam Tadeo and His Father Deported to Mexico, Judge Blocks Minnesota's Bid to Extradite ICE Agent Accused of Firing Gun on Venezuelan Man, Alex Pretti's Family Calls for Accountability Seven Months After His Killing by Federal Agents, Appeals Court Declines to Dismiss Charges Against Rep. LaMonica McIver over ICE Jail Visit, U.S. Designates Palestine Action as Specially Designated Global Terrorists"

Earlier this month, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent publicly attacked the former labor secretary under President Clinton, Robert Reich. Reich wrote in a post online that Trump Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said this week the K-shaped economy - the widening economic gap between the rich and the poor - is 'dead.' Hogwash. Not only is the K-shaped economy very much alive, even CEOs are admitting it's a problem." The treasury secretary went on to suggest the University of California, Berkeley should fire Reich.There's something in this administration," says Reich. It's almost a kind of testosterone poisoning in which everybody has to be really nasty, put down everybody else."Reich goes on to discuss economic inequality, pointing out that while inflation is on the rise, most Americans are finding that their wages are stagnant ... which means that most Americans are getting poorer."

The Supreme Court on Monday lifted a lower court's injunction on President Trump's executive order seeking to limit mail-in voting ahead of November's midterm elections. Trump's order directs the Department of Homeland Security to create state-by-state lists of eligible voters who are citizens. The U.S. Postal Service would then use the lists provided by states to assess whether voters should be allowed to vote by mail. Justices ruled 6 to 3 that California and 22 other states lacked standing to sue over the issue. The ruling, however, did not address whether Trump had authority to impose the rules. A separate nationwide injunction against parts of the same order remains in place.This leads to a lot of uncertainty going into the midterms, because the Trump executive order would radically restrict vote by mail," says Ari Berman, the national voting rights correspondent for Mother Jones. If the ruling goes into effect, it could disenfranchise millions of voters inNovember."If voting proceeds based on these DHS lists," adds Berman, it's going to be inaccurate, it's going to be unconstitutional, and a lot of legitimate American voters are going to be wrongly labeled as noncitizens and unable to vote - either based on shoddy data or an intentional attempt by the Trump administration to prevent people from voting."

A private arbitrator has ordered The Washington Post to rehire award-winning opinion columnist Karen Attiah with back pay. Attiah was fired last fall over comments she made following the fatal shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Shortly after Kirk was killed last September, Attiah wrote online, Part of what keeps America so violent is the insistence that people perform care, empty goodness and absolution for white men who espouse hatred and violence."The Washington Post argued that my posts disparaged white men and were in violation of their social media policy," says Attiah, who attributes her ability to challenge her firing to her union, the Washington Post Guild. I am very much ready and willing to go back to writing," she says. My beat was writing about race, gender, human rights and global issues. So, I fully expect - and, frankly, demand - that I be able to publish freely, that I be able to write freely. So that is what is on the table."

Iran Announces That It's Resuming Negotiations with Oman over Strait of Hormuz, Palestinians Hold Vigil for Journalists Killed in Israeli Strike a Year Ago, Israeli Forces Storm Major UNRWA Facility in Occupied East Jerusalem, Far-Right Israeli Lawmaker Destroys Limestone Monument in Occupied West Bank, U.S. Delists Syria as a State Sponsor of Terrorism, CIA Director Makes Unannounced Trip to Moscow, Canada Responds to U.S. Tariffs as Trump Floats Renaming Lake Ontario Lake America", Interfaith Coalition Denounces RSS Leader's Visit to Madison Square Garden, ICE Detains a Record 50,000 People in July, New York Bill Prohibiting Local Law Enforcement from Cooperating with ICE Goes into Effect, Six Immigrants Who Resisted Getting Off the Plane in Liberia Were Deported to Equatorial Guinea, Federal Judge Orders the Release of Second Key Witness in Fatal Shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, Colombia's New Right-Wing President Abelardo de la Espriella Vows to Deport Thousands of Immigrants, Federal Judge Blocks Ohio from Requiring Residents to Provide Proof of Citizenship When Registering to Vote, House Democratic Leader Jeffries Lashes Out at Critics of His Meeting with Kushner, Darline Graham Wins South Carolina's Republican Senate Primary Runoff, Federal Judge Rejects Ghislaine Maxwell's Bid to Overturn Her Sex Trafficking Conviction, Two Unvaccinated People Have Died from Measles in Pennsylvania, CNN: Members of Specialized Team That Responds to Natural Disasters in National Parks Dispatched to Work on Trump's Pet Projects, Beloved Country Superstar Dolly Parton Dies at 80

I'm absolutely being imprisoned for a political agenda," activist Autumn Hill tells Democracy Now! in a phone call from Texas's Johnson County Correctional Facility, where the 30-year-old trans woman is serving a 50-year prison sentence for protesting outside the Prairieland ICE jail last July. Hill is one of nine protesters convicted of terrorism-related charges after federal prosecutors accused them of being members of an antifa terror cell."In an interview with Rolling Stone writer Jack Crosbie, Hill says that she had no intention of committing violence at the protest, which ended when a police officer was shot and wounded by a fellow protester who says he fired in self-defense. No other injuries were reported, and Hill says she had already left when the shooting occurred. It was my belief that we would go home at the end of the night to continue eating and drinking and be merry. We truly didn't think that anything was going to go wrong. And we didn't expect or want any violence to occur."For prosecutors pushing the overly broad and poorly substantiated idea that anti-fascist organizing against the Trump administration is violent and dangerous, the Prairieland case was a gold mine," says Crosbie. There's no real burden of proof. They can just say that you're 'antifa,' and that becomes sort of gospel, according to the government."

We speak to journalist Aura Bogado, whose new investigation into Illinois law enforcement and prosecutorial collaboration with ICE has revealed that dozens of immigrants have been arrested and deported with the help of local officials in violation of the state's sanctuary law. Those are 150 individuals whose lives were very often changed, communities completely split apart," says Bogado about her reporting. She further explains that while there are constitutional rights for everybody, that [are] afforded to every person, ... those rights are suspended in the immigration context. The bar that is needed to prove a case for deportability is so much lower."

The Trump administration has announced unspecified plans to further tighten sanctions on Iran, threatening other countries, including China, in the process. We speak to sanctions expert Nicholas Mulder about what he calls the rhetorical" and psychological warfare" of the announcement. For Iran, says Mulder, the announcement was not really materially all that meaningful. And to the extent that they are, they hurt ordinary Iranians and not the government." The impact on the U.S. relationship with China, however, could be much greater. If the U.S. does place secondary sanctions on Iran's trading partners, the U.S.-China trade truce might be unraveling," warns Mulder. The space for maneuver that the U.S. has in using these tools of very coercive economic statecraft has narrowed."

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Progressive California state lawmaker Aisha Wahab made history last week in a special election that will make her the first Afghan American in Congress. Wahab overcame a flood of attack ads from pro-Israel groups to beat her Democratic rival, Melissa Hernandez, in a race to replace disgraced Congressmember Eric Swalwell, who resigned in April amid allegations of sexual misconduct.Wahab tells Democracy Now! she appreciates voters in her district for seeing through" the lies that were spread by AIPAC," referring to the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee. She also discusses her history of fighting caste discrimination in California and calls on the United States to engage with the Taliban government of Afghanistan as part of an effort of steering them in the right direction" on human rights.

Progressive state Representative Angie Nixon pulled off a stunning victory in Florida last week, defeating the establishment-backed centrist candidate Alexander Vindman to win the state's Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate. Vindman, a former Army intelligence officer who testified during Trump's first impeachment trial, raised more than 16 times as much campaign money as Nixon. In November, Nixon will face incumbent Republican Senator Ashley Moody, who was appointed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to fill the seat of Marco Rubio when he resigned to serve as secretary of state. If elected, Nixon, who joined the Democratic Socialists of America in June, would become the only member of the DSA in the Senate.I know what it's like to struggle. I don't want anyone to have to struggle the way in which I did," says Nixon, whose campaign has focused on expanding healthcare, childcare and education, as well as tackling the affordability crisis.

The Montreal City Council is set to debate a controversial motion Monday calling on the Canadian city to suspend all institutional ties with the Israeli government. Avi Lewis, a leading Jewish Canadian politician and head of the progressive New Democratic Party, says it's a reflection of widespread outrage among Canadians over Israel's actions across the Middle East.Pro-Israel forces are on the defensive now," says Lewis. They still capture most of the political class and the mainstream media, but among the majority of people, we want to see our government step up and take a clear moral position against apartheid, against genocide and against the killing of civilians."

The U.S.-Canada trade war is deepening after talks collapsed without a deal on Friday. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney accused the Trump administration of issuing demands that would compromise Canada's sovereignty and undermine key industries. On Saturday, the United States slapped 50% tariffs on around $20 billion worth of imports from Canada, and Carney announced retaliatory tariffs on $20 billion of U.S. products set to go into effect on September 8.Canadians are sick of this," says Avi Lewis, leader of Canada's progressive New Democratic Party. He says that while the Liberal government has correctly identified voters' anger, its policies still favor international investors and the fossil fuel industry rather than truly Trump-proofing" the economy.We also speak with trade expert Lori Wallach, who says the U.S.-Canada trade war is pitting Trump's vision of oligarchic trade grift" against a dead neoliberal consensus represented by Carney. The two countries have balanced trade, and Wallach says the United States is being far more lenient with China despite Beijing's much more serious threat to the U.S. and wider global economy through its beggar-thy-neighbor" policies.

Iran Condemns U.S. Sanctions Ahead of Trump Administration's Economic D-Day", Israel Continues Attacks on Gaza, with Children Among the Dead and Wounded, Israel's Ben-Gvir Celebrates Construction of Gallows Where Palestinians Will Be Hanged, Syria and Israel Hold U.S.-Brokered Talks Amid Israeli Strikes, We Were Attacked": Canadian Premier Announces Retaliatory Tariffs After U.S. Halts Trade Talks, Federal Court Strikes Down Trump Administration's 75-Nation Visa Ban, Texas Lawmakers Call on ICE to Close Detention Camp Where 100+ Children Are Held, First Deportation Flight Arrives in Haiti After U.S. Suspends Temporary Protected Status, ICE Detains Father of Sailor on Record Deployment Aboard USS Lincoln, Over 3,000 Workers Laid Off as Tyson Foods Closes Meatpacking Plants, Thousands Remain Without Power in Indiana Nearly Two Weeks After Devastating Storm, Arbitrator Orders Washington Post to Rehire Fired Opinion Columnist with Back Pay

Haley Van Erem, a former career attorney in the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, has filed a complaint claiming the Trump administration task force charged with investigating antisemitism pushed universities into massive settlements despite turning up little to no evidence of anti-Jewish discrimination on campus. Van Erem said in her complaint that the government's probes into schools like Harvard, Brown and Columbia were an unlawful process designed to achieve predetermined political goals."Columbia affiliates, from the Board of Trustees down, have actually collaborated with the federal government in these sham investigations," says Marianna Hirsch, professor emerita at Columbia University. These were not probes into antisemitism accusations, but they were efforts to dismantle higher education brick by brick." Columbia and Brown settled with the administration for $200 million and $50 million, respectively. Harvard refused to settle, and a judge threw out the case against the university.

Loui Ridi, a Palestinian American man who lives in Ohio, traveled to the occupied West Bank on Monday to help relatives defend their family home in the village of Qusra, south of Nablus. Israeli settlers have surrounded the home, which Ridi owns, for more than a week. Settlers have besieged several Palestinian houses in the village, trapping people inside and cutting off water and electricity in some cases.I'm not getting no protection here. I still fear for my life. I still fear for my family's life here," says Ridi, who joins Democracy Now! from the occupied West Bank. Ridi has raised an American flag on his home and reached out to the U.S. Embassy for help. The IDF is not even making it better here. They're not allowing us to leave the house. They're not allowing anyone to come to my house freely," says Ridi, explaining that getting food to the house takes hours, if not days."The settlers can act like this because of the active support from the Israeli government that gives them weapons, gives them ATVs," says Israeli reporter Oren Ziv, who has traveled to Qusra twice in recent days. Ziv says the Israeli government also supports the establishment of more and more [settler] outposts that are kind of front bases for these terror attacks."

Israel's military on Wednesday admitted that its soldiers opened fire in January 2024 on a car trying to flee Gaza City following Israel's evacuation orders. The car was carrying 5-year-old Palestinian Hind Rajab and six of her relatives. They were all killed, as were Palestine Red Crescent Society medics dispatched to rescue them. The Israeli military said it would also investigate the killing of 15 Palestinian paramedics whose bodies and crushed emergency vehicles were recovered from a mass grave in Rafah in March 2025. It made no mention of thousands of other incidents where Palestinian civilians were killed by Israeli forces.This seems to be nothing more than political theater," says Sharif Abdel Kouddous, the Middle East and North Africa editor at Drop Site News. He was a correspondent on the Al Jazeera Fault Lines documentary The Night Won't End that investigated the killings of civilians in Gaza by the Israeli military, including Hind Rajab.Israel's internal investigations into the criminal conduct of its own soldiers ... can't be regarded as credible mechanisms for accountability," says Abdel Kouddous. They instead function primarily to shield Israel from international tribunals or prosecution abroad."