Democracy Now!

We speak with Forensic Architecture's Eyal Weizman about his new book, Ungrounding: The Architecture of Genocide, a meticulous investigation into Israel's genocide in Gaza, the physical destruction of the territory and its impact on the Palestinian people.Forensic Architecture was founded in 2010 as an interdisciplinary research group focused on investigating state violence and human rights violations. Since 2023, Forensic Architecture has focused on producing evidence for South Africa's genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.Weizman says ungrounding" is a kind of destruction that we have not seen anywhere else," with Israeli bulldozers terraforming" the landscape to erase all traces of Palestinian life. With thousands of bodies still unrecovered from under destroyed buildings, Israel's flattening, extraction and reshaping of the rubble in Gaza is a continuation of its crimes, says Weizman.Israel is actively and against court order, against the order of the ICJ, destroying the evidence of the genocide that it has perpetrated," he says.

DOJ Opens Criminal Probe of California Mail-In Ballots Despite Judge's Order, Corporations Spend $737M on Midterm Elections as Super-Rich Give $4.2B to Super PACs, Trump Returns to South Carolina to Rally GOP Support as Pollsters Declare Senate Race a Toss-Up, DOJ Ramps Up Criminal Probe of Alaska Senate Candidate Mary Peltola's Campaign with Subpoenas, Famine Declared in Yemeni City of Taiz Amid Houthi Siege, Sen. Chris Murphy Calls Trump's Plans to Renew Attacks on Iran Insane", Russian Strike Kills 14 at Crowded Train Station in Ukraine as Another Ship Is Sunk in Black Sea, Ukraine Halts Attacks on Russian Refineries at Trump's Request, as Russian Diesel Heads Toward U.S., GEO Group Signs 10-Year Contract to Continue Operating Notorious Tacoma ICE Jail, El Salvador Deploys 2,000 Troops to Haiti, Flavio Bolsonaro Declares He's Brazil's Legitimate" Leader After Trump Helps Him Flee to Miami

Several tech workers at Google's AI unit DeepMind have resigned in protest over the tech giant's work with the U.S. and Israeli militaries. Last week, DeepMind research engineer Sofia Liguori announced her resignation in a letter to her colleagues titled Stay Human." She denounced what she called Google's complicity in the Gaza genocide" and the increasing integration of Google's technology into military and surveillance systems.I felt I could not, in good faith, send this message of building AI to benefit humanity while ignoring that our company was complicit in a genocide," Liguori tells Democracy Now! The problem is that when the focus is on the model capabilities and on the potential for agents 'going rogue,' we are shifting the attention from a specific human choice ... which is this unrestrained, unregulated integration of the systems without red lines."

Immigrant rights and labor icon Dolores Huerta died Wednesday at the age of 96. Huerta co-founded the National Farm Workers Association in 1962 and then the United Farm Workers of America, working with Cesar Chavez. From 1965 to 1970, the union organized the historic Delano grape strike, which ended in major gains for farmworkers' labor rights.In the years that followed, Huerta became heavily involved in the women's liberation and immigrant rights movements and became a major supporter of the Democratic Party. In March, The New York Times published an investigation into Cesar Chavez's history of sexual abuse of women and girls in the farmworkers' movement, prompting Huerta to reveal that she, too, had been raped by Chavez. Huerta said the assaults led to the births of two of her children.Dolores Huerta appeared on Democracy Now! many times over the years. We remember her legacy with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Maria Hinojosa, who says, Dolores was not only a labor organizer, a civil rights organizer, a feminist, committed, always optimistic about the possibilities of this country, but she loved life, and I want people to remember that."

Arab Parties Could Determine Next Israeli Prime Minister as Election Produces No Clear Winner, Israel Bombs Gaza Ministry as Settlers Attack Palestinians and Activists in West Bank, City of Cambridge, MA, Votes to Divest from Businesses Tied to Israel's Military, Three More Oil Tankers Erupt in Flames Near Strait of Hormuz, Pentagon Tells Congress U.S. War on Iran Has Cost $47 Billion, NYT: Democrats Recruited Another Dan Sullivan to Sow Confusion in Alaska Senate Race, Tennessee GOP House Candidate Blames Youthful Indiscretions" for Unsolicited Nude Photos, Judge Says U.S. Request to Set Aside California Ballots Would Wreak Havoc and Disrupt the Election", Right-Wing Activist James O'Keefe Charged with Unlawful Voting in Minnesota over Islamophobic Stunts, Hasan Piker Files $72 Million Defamation Lawsuit Against Scott Jennings, Labor Organizer and Civil Rights Activist Dolores Huerta Dies at 96, United Nations Condemns U.S. Economic Embargo of Cuba, Judge Overseeing Nicolas Maduro and Cilia Flores Case Dies at 92, Spain Train Crash Kills 68 People, Dozens Injured, Alexander Brothers Sentenced to 30 Years in Federal Prison for Sex Trafficking

We get analysis of the Israeli elections, the upcoming U.S. midterms, the pro-Palestine movement and more from Palestinian American scholar Rashid Khalidi and Pakistani British writer Tariq Ali. They are co-authors of the new book The Neck and the Sword: Palestine's Unfinished Struggle. The book, an extended conversation between Khalidi and Ali over two years, offers an overview of Palestinian intellectual and political history, drawing its title from a famous phrase used by the renowned Palestinian writer Ghassan Kanafani to describe the futility of peace talks" between occupier and occupied, saying it was akin to a conversation between the sword and the neck."Kanafani was assassinated by Israel in 1972, murdered simply because his words were too dangerous for Israel to tolerate," says Khalidi.Public opinion about Israel has grown increasingly negative in the United States and across much of the world in the wake of the genocide in Gaza, and it's not going to shift back," says Khalidi. People have seen something that cannot be unseen. They've seen genocide. They've seen slaughter. And Israel has no defense."Even in countries with no history of a Palestine solidarity movement, suddenly the Palestine flag emerges," says Ali. Why? Because their governments are trying to stop dissent on this issue, so they are defying their governments."

Political Gridlock in Israel After No Clear Winner Emerges from Tuesday's National Election, Israeli Troops Violently Disperse Protest in Occupied West Bank, Iranian Director Jafar Panahi Sentenced to Five Years and One Month in Prison, Lina Attalah, Editor of Independent Egyptian Outlet Mada Masr, Released from Police Custody, Ansar Allah Claim Attack on Saudi Arabia's Largest Oil Refinery, NYT: Trump Admin Considering Lifting U.S. Sanctions on Russian Government's Investment Fund, Flavio Bolsonaro Flees to the U.S. Following Defeat in Brazil's Presidential Election, Pentagon Strikes Alleged Drug Boat in the Eastern Pacific, Killing Five People, Alex Pretti's Parents Accuse Federal Gov't of Protecting CBP Officers Who Fatally Shot Their Son, Roberto Jimenez Gutierrez Dies in ICE Custody, AP: ICE Has Detained a Mentally Ill U.S. Citizen for Nearly a Year, SCOTUS Declines to Restore Biden-Era Rule Allowing Immigration Judges to Suspend Deportation Cases, CDC Deputy Director Steps Down After Four Months on Job

A court in Cairo has ordered the closure of the independent Egyptian news site Mada Masr. The court also ordered the site's editor-in-chief, Lina Attalah, to be detained until she pays a fine of over $50,000. She was convicted on charges of managing an unlicensed website. Mada Masr is the flagship independent media outlet in Egypt and a pillar of independent media in the region," says Sharif Abdel Kouddous of Drop Site News, who previously worked at Mada Masr. The independent outlet was founded in 2013 in the midst of Egypt's revolution and counterrevolution" and has managed to survive all of those years in one of the most hostile media environments" in the world. Still, what happened today is an unprecedented escalation" because Attalah and Mada Masr had never before been referred to trial.Kouddous adds that the attack on Mada Masr comes less than a month after Egyptian authorities arrested an entire newsroom at the independent fact-checking outlet Matsadaash. They remain behind bars.

With the U.S. midterm elections just a week away, the affordability crisis - intensified by President Trump's tariffs and war on Iran - has emerged as a major campaign issue. Across the country, families are struggling to make ends meet, while oil and gas companies have reported record profits during recent periods of price shocks.Economist Isabella Weber's new book, Anti-Fascist Economics: In Defense of Affordability, Dignity, and Democracy, warns economic insecurity can fuel the rise of authoritarian movements, and argues protecting democracy requires making life affordable for everybody.Anti-fascist economics is not about getting rid of the market," says Weber. It's about having public players that behave differently, and by behaving differently, changing the dynamic of the market as a whole and literally creating an alternative so that people are not dependent on often very concentrated and private providers as the only choice," she explains, providing current examples of governments enacting such policies from New York City to Mexico City to Rome.

A competitive Senate race has gripped the once reliably Republican state of Alaska. If Democratic challenger Mary Peltola wins the election against incumbent Republican Senator Dan Sullivan, it could tip the balance of power in Washington. Attorneys for Peltola and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee have submitted a motion to dismiss a Department of Justice lawsuit filed last week that seeks to block the certification of the election results in Alaska if Sullivan loses. President Trump confirmed on Friday he had ordered the DOJ to file the lawsuit, which alleges that the appearance of another candidate on the ballot with a similar name, Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., would mislead voters. The Alaska Supreme Court ruled ahead of the primary that Sullivan Jr., a retired schoolteacher who is running unaffiliated, could appear on the ballot.The ACLU - on behalf of two Alaska voters, the League of Women Voters of Alaska and Common Cause - has moved to intervene in the case and has also filed a motion asking the court to dismiss it.There is no merit to this claim," says Sophia Lin Lakin, director of the ACLU's Voting Rights Project. We've asked the court to consider sanctions, because the courts shouldn't be used to launder baseless claims into distrust in our elections. There should be consequences for that."

Netanyahu Battles to Hold Power as Israel Holds First Election in Four Years, U.N. Commission of Inquiry Finds Israel Committed Genocide in Gaza, War Crimes in West Bank, Humanitarian Crisis Grows as Houthis Lay Siege to Yemen's Third-Largest City, Seven Are Killed as Jordan Bombs Syria Following Deadly Church Attack, Health Worker Killed in DRC as Ebola Cases Approach 10,000, Russia and Ukraine Trade Drone Attacks Despite Local Ceasefire in Russian-Occupied Oleshky, Far-Right Presidential Candidate Bolsonaro Concedes Defeat in Brazil Election, Trump Continues Campaign Tour of Deep-Red States with Rally in Mississippi, Trump's Investments in Oil and Gas Stocks Doubled in Value in the Past Year, House Judiciary Committee Releases Report on Trump's Epstein Ties with New Assault Allegations, Federal Judge Rules Firing of Maurene Comey Was Unconstitutional, Justice Department Unseals Charges Against Former FBI Director James Comey, Anthropic Seeks IPO as It Reports Losses of Over $80 Billion, Egyptian Court Orders Closure of Independent News Site Mada Masr

Israeli parliamentary elections are being held on Tuesday, the first since Hamas's October 7, 2023, attack and Israel's subsequent assault on Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is currently embroiled in a corruption scandal in Israel, is up for reelection. On Friday, after two Israeli soldiers were killed at a checkpoint near Hebron, just days before Israeli polls are set to open, Netanyahu announced heavy restrictions on the movement of Palestinians out of the West Bank. Since then, Israeli forces have detained and expelled thousands of Palestinian residents from the area and begun home demolitions to clear the way for future Israeli settlements.The reason that they're doing this is because this entire election is about who is going to be tougher on Palestinians," says Palestinian human rights lawyer Diana Buttu. What [Netanyahu is] trying to do in the lead-up to this is say to Israelis that 'I'm the only person who can provide you with security.' So, while lighting the place on fire, he's also selling water." Buttu explains that Netanyahu's opponents across the Israeli political spectrum are equally punitive toward Palestinians. The fact that you have all of these parties that are advocating major war crimes and nobody is blinking says something very deep about Israeli society, but also about an international community that has fostered this and that has allowed this to brew for all of these years."

Serbia's longtime leader Aleksander Vui has been swept out of power by a historic student-led opposition movement against Vui's right-wing Serbian Progressive Party. Candidates from the Student List, who are not students themselves but largely first-time politicians selected by student-led popular assemblies, won a majority of seats in Sunday's parliamentary elections, marking a seismic shift in Serbian politics. Their victory comes two years into a student-led movement sparked by the collapse of a roof at a train station in the city of Novi Sad, which killed 16 people. The disaster became a focal point for anti-government protests over corruption, cronyism, political violence and democratic backsliding.Students really changed the whole political landscape of the country, and maybe even more important, they changed political imagination. They changed our understanding of what's politically possible for all of us," says journalist Lela Vujani, who speaks to us from Belgrade about the groundbreaking elections. This was a great democratic opening and democratic awakening, not only for the students, but for the rest of the country also."

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has won a record fourth term in office, defeating far-right challenger Flavio Bolsonaro by 4 million votes in a runoff election on Sunday. Flavio Bolsonaro is the son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, who remains under house arrest for plotting a coup against Lula four years ago. The younger Bolsonaro, who narrowly defeated Lula in the first round of voting earlier this month, is now refusing to concede.Lula's surprise comeback comes after weeks of student-led organizing and campaigning on his behalf, and amid accusations that U.S.-based tech companies were suppressing Lula's reach online in favor of his Trump-aligned opponent. The amount of organizing, the amount of marches and rallies, campaigning, pamphlets that we've seen the last three weeks has been something that I have never seen in my entire life, ever, covering elections for decades in so many different countries. It is absolutely unprecedented," says Brazil-based journalist Michael Fox. It is an absolute game-changer for the region."

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva Wins Historic Fourth Term as President, Longtime Serbian Leader Vui Concedes Defeat to Student-Led Movement, French Police Arrest More Than 1,300 People During Saturday Protests, Thousands of Protesters March in Italian Cities on Saturday, Israeli Forces Exact Collective Punishment on Hebron in the Occupied West Bank, Eight Palestinians Killed in Israeli Attacks Across the Gaza Strip, Spanish Court Hands Over Jailed U.S. Activist James Fergie" Chamber's Phone to FBI, U.S. Military Grants SpaceX Access to Pentagon's Most Secretive Satellite Tracking Data, Number of People on Food Stamps Falls by 13% After One Big Beautiful Bill, Appeals Court Rules Immigrants Jailed by ICE Have No Constitutional Right to Bond, Trump Orders DOJ Lawsuit Seeking to Block Results in Alaska Senate Election

At least 59 people have died in ICE custody since the start of President Donald Trump's second term, the highest number in more than a decade. Many deaths have been linked to medical neglect, including four of five recent deaths at California's Adelanto Processing Center, according to a 2026 report by the state attorney general. Al Jazeera English's Fault Lines investigated deaths at the facility, which is operated by the private prison company GEO Group, in the new documentary Dying in Detention.GEO Group has made over a billion dollars in profits from immigration detention. They have given more than a million dollars ... to help reelect Donald Trump," says correspondent Natasha Del Toro. That raises a lot of questions for us about the relationship between GEO and the federal government, and some of these conflicts of interest."

Brazilian voters are heading to the polls on Sunday for the presidential runoff between incumbent President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and far-right Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, with polls showing a tight race that will decide whether Brazil remains led by the left or joins the right-wing surge across Latin America.We speak to reporter Lais Martins of The Intercept Brasil.

President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance have both defended Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy after his campaign released a TV ad that appears to accuse Democratic nominee Amy Acton of lying about being sexually abused as a child. Acton's stepfather was indicted in 1978 on charges of sexually assaulting her when she was between 10 and 12 years old, though he fled before he could be convicted. Acton's mother, who lost custody of her two children, sided with her husband and remained with him as a fugitive until his death in 2004. In the controversial campaign ad, the elderly Donna Arthur says her daughter Amy has lied her entire life" and can't be trusted as governor, which has been widely interpreted as casting doubt on what Acton has said about being abused as a minor.Vivek Ramaswamy is now using that personal trauma as an effort to exploit what she went through and win this race," says Abby Vesoulis, a reporter for Mother Jones. He's currently polling beneath Amy Acton, which shows, I think, that this ad is a desperate attempt to somehow pull off a victory despite poor odds."Vesoulis says outrage over the ad, even among Republican voters, is tied to simmering anger about how the Trump administration has handled the Epstein files. She also discusses abuse allegations against Ohio Republican Congressmember Max Miller, who is running for reelection.

Netanyahu Moves to Fully Lock Down West Bank Ahead of Israeli Elections, As Trump Threatens New Strikes, U.S. Ambassador Says Iran War Could Last Another Year, Study: European Heat Waves Killed 50,000 in 2026 as Toll of Climate Crisis Grows, French Student Union Denounces Macron Ban on Illegitimate" Protests, Serbia: 150,000 Rally in Student-Led Protest Ahead of Sunday's Election, Students Lead Protests in Indonesia over Economic Crisis & Forest Fires, Press Crackdown in Egypt: Mada Masr Editor Lina Attalah Referred to Trial, Elon Musk Invests $1 Billion in Skydance, Threatens Democratic Lawmakers, Book Claims Saudi and Emirati Leaders Set Up Secret Bank Accounts for Jared Kushner, NYT: Justice Department Investigates Ex-DHS Adviser Corey Lewandowski, Ecuador: Opposition Leader Arrested in Noboa's Widening Crackdown on Left, Cuba Accuses U.S. of Threatening to Punish Nations Who Support U.N. Resolution Against Embargo, ICE Agents Filmed Trying to Rip Toddlers from Guatemalan Father's Arms in Providence, Pentagon OKs Testing Heat Ray Weapon on Migrants Along U.S.-Mexico Border, DOJ Charges Virginia Senate Leader, Louise Lucas, Polling Firm Admits It Fabricated Polls

A court in India on Wednesday ordered the release of two leaders of the Cockroach Janta Party, the youth-led movement that has led historic waves of protests in India since the summer. Ashutosh Ranka and Saurav Das were detained amid massive protests last week after they scaled a barricade to enter a site popular for protest, unfurled the national flag and called for the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. Kumar oversaw the deletion of 130 million names from the voter rolls in India since June of last year. Opposition parties say those impacted are primarily Muslims and other minorities less likely to support the BJP, the Hindu nationalist ruling party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.You have a deep and wide - an ideologically wide - historical culture of resistance in India," says acclaimed writer and activist Arundhati Roy. At the same time, the Modi government has three things in its playbook: One is false-flag attacks, two is engineering communal riots, and the third is massive repression. And I don't think we've seen its hand yet."

The growing controversy over AIPAC's impact on U.S. politics is the subject of a new Zeteo documentary titled Night Flower: Inside AIPAC's Fight for Influence. The film examines AIPAC's history and its role in shaping U.S. policy toward Israel, and questions whether its activities warrant further scrutiny under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA. It says that you have to register under this law if you are acting at the request of a foreign government," says Dion Nissenbaum, the filmmaker behind Night Flower: Inside AIPAC's Fight for Influence. And we talked to numerous people who showed us several examples of how AIPAC is acting at the request of Israel."Referencing the title of the film, Night Flower, Zeteo editor-in-chief Mehdi Hasan says AIPAC blossoms in the dark, shrivels in the light. We're trying to put some sunlight onto AIPAC."

One of the most closely watched races in the midterm elections is in Michigan between Democrat Abdul El-Sayed and Republican Mike Rogers. El-Sayed is a former public health official who is campaigning on a platform of Medicare for All, ending military aid to Israel, and getting corporate money out of politics. Rogers is a former Republican congressman backed by President Trump.If elected, El-Sayed would become the first Muslim to serve in the U.S. Senate. During Wednesday's debate in Michigan, Rogers repeated the claim, without providing evidence, that El-Sayed has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. El-Sayed has repeatedly denied the accusation.If Abdul El-Sayed wins, it will be a reminder that the left can win in a swing state like Michigan," says Mehdi Hasan, editor-in-chief of Zeteo. And it will be actually a moment to say, 'You know what? Americans rejected Islamophobia.'"

U.S. and Israeli Militaries Draft Plans to Resume Strikes on Iran After Midterm Elections, Saudi Arabia Says Four People Are Killed as Houthis Attack Oil Field, King Fahd Airport, Russia Kills More Civilians in Ukraine as U.S. Envoy Witkoff Praises Putin as a Humanitarian", Nigeria Reports First Case of Ebola in Over a Decade, U.N. Says World Has Lost Chance to Limit Global Heating, U.K. Approves Plans to Extract Natural Gas from North Sea Deposit, Chemical Tank Leak in Ohio Forces Evacuations, Ohio GOP Gubernatorial Candidate Commissions Ugly Attack Ad Featuring Opponent's Estranged Mother, Trump Travels to South Carolina to Boost GOP Senator Darline Graham, Supreme Court Bars Trump Administration from Denying Gender-Affirming Care to Prisoners, Majority of Websites on Internet Left Vulnerable After Critical Security Flaws Are Discovered, Meta Ordered to Pay $25 Billion Fine, Police Violently Restrain Three People During Utah Data Center Protest

We're joined by Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor, co-authors of the book End Times Fascism, for a wide-ranging conversation on the multitrillion-dollar global investment in artificial intelligence and its reverberating effects around the world.Klein recently spoke at the People's AI Assembly, alongside other critics of the artificial intelligence industry, including New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and former chair of the Federal Trade Commission Lina Khan. The resistance to AI is taking many forms, and it's really a resistance to oligarch power, which is concentrated in the hands of these tech companies," Klein tells Democracy Now! After 50 years of outsourcing and hollowing out of public functions of the state, the very last stage is the outsourcing of thinking, of intelligence itself."Taylor, a co-founder of the Debt Collective, warns that the circular" debt financing of much of the AI economy is a waste of resources that also endangers the public." The AI buildout is so intense, so frenetic and so redundant" that it risks causing a major economic crash akin to the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis, Taylor says. If that happens, she adds, Naomi and I think we need to use this moment, just like during the Great Depression and the New Deal era, to demand a real renovation, transformation, of our public services."

Student-led anti-corruption and cost-of-living protests in Albania are calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Edi Rama, among other demands. Hundreds of injuries and arrests have been reported amid a violent police crackdown, along with widespread damage to public and private property. The student demands are an outgrowth of the Flamingo Revolution," which erupted earlier this year in opposition to a luxury resort being developed on the ecologically sensitive Sazan Island. The planned resort is backed by Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, President Trump's son-in-law and daughter, and has been fast-tracked by the Rama government.Students find no future in Albania," says Bora Mema, a founding member of the left-wing political party Levizja Bashke, about the motivations behind the burgeoning pro-democracy movement. Many of us have to migrate because the only development model that the government proposes is to clean the toilets of the rich and the mafia in luxurious resorts, like the one that Trump and Kushner and the national oligarchs and mafia in Albania are constructing."

Ansar Allah Attacks Taiz as 250,000 Yemenis Displaced Since Fighting Erupted in July, Saudi Arabia Executes Bangladeshi Man and Woman in Mecca, Israeli Strikes in Gaza Kill Seven Palestinians, Brad Lander Detained by the IDF in the Occupied West Bank, Congressmember Tlaib Calls on DOJ to Arrest Israeli Military Commander Accused of Killing Hind Rajab, Russia Frees 74-Year-Old U.S. Citizen Imprisoned for Fighting as a Mercenary in Ukraine, France Plans Massive Surge in Police Forces for Protests Planned for This Weekend, Italian Government Deploys 500 Troops to Milan After Protests, Trump Tells Reporters Congressmember Ilhan Omar Could Go to Jail, L.A. Election Officials Say DOJ's List of Alleged Noncitizen Voters Contains People Born in the U.S., Texas Gubernatorial Candidate Hinojosa Files Lawsuit for Emails Between Musk and Governor Abbott, NYT: Billionaire Received Pardon After Family Company Gave Alina Habba $50 Million Deal, ProPublica: Defense Contractor Made Campaign Cash-for-Contracts Deal with Late Sen. Graham and Rep. Clyburn

As voters across the United States cast ballots on November 3, Californians are weighing whether to approve a one-time 5% tax on the wealth of billionaires in the state. The tax would apply to roughly 250 Californians who now hold an estimated $2.3 trillion in wealth. Supporters say the wealth tax could raise up to $100 billion, with about 90% going toward healthcare. The remaining funds would support education and food assistance programs.If Proposition 40 passes, it will mark the first time a government in the U.S. successfully taxes the wealth - rather than just the income - of the ultra-rich.It's past time that billionaires pay their fair share," says Lorena Gonzalez, president of the California Federation of Labor Unions, which is backing the initiative.We also speak with California Congressmember Ro Khanna, who criticizes fellow Democrats like Governor Gavin Newsom for opposing Proposition 40. We can either be a Democratic Party that stands for the working class in the tradition of the New Deal, or we can continue to cater to the donor class," says Khanna.

We speak with the acclaimed South African human rights lawyer and international jurist Navi Pillay, who was awarded this year's Nobel Peace Prize. Pillay has been the United Nations high commissioner for human rights and a judge at both the International Criminal Court and at an international tribunal investigating the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Most recently, she led the U.N. Independent International Commission of Inquiry that concluded Israel had committed genocide in Gaza. Hours after Pillay was announced as winner of the Nobel Prize, the United States imposed sweeping new sanctions against the International Criminal Court.It's extremely shocking to me, totally unacceptable, that the United States administration can today impose sanctions against the International Criminal Court," says Pillay, speaking to Democracy Now! from The Hague.Navi Pillay is now 85 years old. She was born into an Indian Tamil family in apartheid South Africa in 1941. The first woman to start a law practice in Natal, South Africa, in 1967, Pillay began her legal career defending anti-apartheid activists including Nelson Mandela, exposing torture, and helping establish key rights for prisoners on Robben Island. Mandela, as president, later appointed Pillay to the High Court of South Africa, making her the first woman of color on that bench.

Finland to Purchase 1 Million Landmines as Russia Continues Attacks on Ukraine, Trump Lashes Out Against Zelensky: It's Time for Somebody Else to Negotiate on Behalf of Ukraine", Drone Strike in Sudan Kills 80 People, Trump Stumps for Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall, Continuing Tour of Deep Red States, CBS News Correspondent Apologizes for Partisan Post Targeting Michigan Senate Candidate El-Sayed, Drop Site News: Mike Rogers's Wife Won Lucrative Contracts While Rogers Served as Intel Chair, Seventh Person Dies in ICE Custody in Texas, Video Shows ICE Agents in Long Beach, California Brutalizing U.S. Citizen, Mississippi Attorney General Rules Police Officer Justified in Fatal Shooting of Black Toddler, Palestinian Activist Mahmoud Khalil Appeals to the Supreme Court, Brazilian Protesters Rally Outside Meta Offices over Alleged Election Interference

The prominent Guatemalan anti-corruption lawyer Juan Francisco Solorzano Foppa was fatally shot along with another man on Saturday at a sports center in Guatemala City. For years, Solorzano Foppa had been outspoken against Guatemala's most powerful politicians, business leaders and companies. He was known for his anti-corruption work as head of the Criminal Investigations Directorate within the Public Prosecutor's Office and later as head of Guatemala's tax authority, when he helped prosecute dozens of powerful Guatemalan business figures.In more recent years, he developed a social media presence, and he was forcefully denouncing corruption," says Roman Gressier, a journalist based in Guatemala City. We were thinking about [the killing of Solorzano Foppa] not only as an assassination, but also having a deep effect on freedom of expression."Juan Francisco was a young lawyer coming from a background of pro-democracy and revolutionary activists," says Silvia Solorzano Foppa, Juan Francisco's mother. Her son was 43 years old when he was killed.

Israeli settlers backed by IDF soldiers brutally assaulted Palestinian olive farmers in the village of Abu Falah, northeast of Ramallah, on Friday. Witnesses say dozens of masked Israeli settlers armed with clubs, sticks, slingshots and guns hurled rocks at Palestinian farmers, set olive trees ablaze and drove people from their fields. Veteran Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine, a 64-year-old American, was documenting the attack when settlers began beating her. She suffered stab wounds, a broken rib, four broken vertebrae and a severe hand injury. Levine was wearing a clearly marked press vest and a helmet at the time of the attack. According to the Israeli human rights group Yesh Din, Israeli settlers have carried out at least 170 attacks against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since September 27, which marked the start of this year's olive harvest.It looked like they were killing her," says independent American journalist Jasper Nathaniel, who witnessed the attack on Levine and helped intervene. The Palestinian youth, the shabab, stepped up. They ran out ahead, and they started beating the settlers back by throwing stones at them, which is the only thing that allowed me to then run out front and grab Heidi." As the journalists and Palestinians retreated into Abu Falah, The Israeli military jeep that had been standing by the settlers who were attacking us then drives into the village itself, ... and they start firing into crowds of Palestinian people."

Hundreds of thousands of protesters marched in over 140 cities across France on Saturday, demanding relief from the high cost of living, more funding for public services and improvements to deteriorating schools, among other grievances. The demonstrations were the latest - and largest - in a series of protests that began in September with high schooler-led demonstrations against overcrowded classrooms and crumbling school infrastructure. Some cities saw property destruction, arson and theft on Saturday, with city halls and other symbols of the state coming under attack. Officials said nearly 1,000 police officers were injured and some 2,400 people were arrested.What is frustrating to see is how little the police violence is addressed and talked about, which is really the main violence and the real violence today that is taking place in France," says Rayyan Seriket, a member of the French student union.We're talking about shattered jaws, high schoolers and adolescents who have been blinded," adds Harrison Stetler, an independent journalist and teacher based in Paris.This all comes as Marine Le Pen of the far-right National Rally party is leading in the polls six months ahead of France's elections. This situation is essentially what Marine Le Pen hopes for," says Stetler.

Hundreds of Thousands March in Over 140 Cities in France on Saturday, Millions of Protesters Participate in No Kings" Demonstrations on Saturday in the U.S., Thousands March in Tunisia Against President Kais Saied, Protests Continue to Roil Albania, as Demonstrators Call for Prime Minister to Resign, Brazil's Lula Holds First and Only Debate with Flavio Bolsonaro Ahead of Presidential Runoff, Ukraine and Russia Trade Drone and Missile Strikes After Trump Waives Sanctions on Moscow, Israeli Settler Attack on Palestinian Olive Harvest Wounds Dozens, Including WaPo Photographer, Mass Funeral Held for 75 Palestinians Whose Remains Were Uncovered from Gaza Rubble, Trump Backs Netanyahu for Prime Minister Days Before Israeli Election, There's a Failure in the Leadership": Widower Confronts JD Vance over Iran War Deaths, Houthis Strike Military Training Camp as UAE Joins Saudi-Led Attacks on Yemen, Guatemalan Anti-Corruption Lawyer Juan Francisco Solorzano Foppa Is Murdered, Trump Administration Seeks to Denaturalize and Deport Rep. Ilhan Omar, Tom Homan Confirms, Katie Zacharia Ousted as Press Secretary After Just Five Days on the Job

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."

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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.

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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?

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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.

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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.