Democracy Now!

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."

U.S. Treasury to Sanction Iran and Its Trading Partners: You Are Either With Us or Against Us", USS Abraham Lincoln Heads for San Diego After Record Wartime Deployment, Houthis Clash with Yemeni Forces in Largest-Scale Fighting Since 2022 Truce, Sudan's Humanitarian Catastrophe Grows as 200,000 Are Displaced by Fighting and Flooding, The People Want the Fall of the Regime": Tunisian Protesters Demand Ouster of Kais Saied, Human Rights Watch: Russian Mercenaries Led Massacre of Civilians in Mali Village Raid, Armed Israeli Settlers Kill and Wound Palestinians During Raid on Village Near Hebron, Aisha Wahab Wins Special Election, Becoming First Afghan American U.S. Congressmember, FBI Searches Eric Swalwell's Home and Seizes Devices Amid Sexual Assault Investigations, Crypto, Gambling and AI Companies Drive Record Spending on U.S. Congressional Races, Trump Travels to South Carolina to Back Sen. Darline Graham Despite Disastrous Debate Performance, Third Country" Deportees from U.S. Arrive in Liberia, ICE Detains San Diego Padres Minor League Coach Despite Pending Asylum Claim, Rochester Resident's First Amendment Lawsuit Accuses ICE Agents of Unlawful Intimidation, NYT: U.S. Importing Dominican Sugar from Trump Ally Despite Evidence of Forced Labor

James Muldoon is a sociologist who writes about the changing nature of human-technology relationships. Love Machines: How Artificial Intelligence Is Transforming Our Relationships investigates how people form emotional attachments with large language models, including OpenAI's ChatGPT and Anthropic's Claude. Feeding the Machine: The Hidden Human Labor Powering A.I., co-written by fellow researchers Mark Graham and Callum Cant and based on more than a decade of fieldwork, follows Global South workers whose knowledge and labor are the basis of AI tools and assistants.A lot of people see artificial intelligence as something that is largely automated, frictionless, and just appears as a useful tool for us. But most of the human hours that go into making artificial intelligence possible are not done in labs in Google or OpenAI. The majority of the work is actually very piecemeal 'data annotation' work, which is outsourced to various locations in the Global South, everywhere from India to East Africa to the Philippines," explains Muldoon.Meanwhile, on the other side of the production process, consumers are increasingly turning to artificial chatbots to fulfill social needs, incentivizing tech companies to amplify the addictive and manipulative, controlling behaviors" embedded into their systems to keep users increasingly dependent on their products. We need much stricter regulation to stop these companies ... that can get people hooked and give people harmful and dangerous advice," says Muldoon.

Sixty-nine-year-old Wynd Kaufmyn, a retired teacher from Berkeley, California, is believed to be the first person imprisoned for protesting the development of artificial intelligence, after she and other members of the group StopAI were arrested during a sit-in protest at the headquarters of OpenAI. Democracy Now! reached Kaufmyn at the San Francisco County Jail, where she is now serving a two-week sentence for charges including interfering with a business." Kaufmyn says she participated in the protest because this technology is fueling a dystopian level of surveillance. It's fueling a fascist state. It's going to take all of our jobs. It's already taken many of them. It's causing suicides, homicides and mass shootings. This needs to stop."Another group, named ControlAI, has made it a mission to brief lawmakers on adversarial" threats from unchecked emergent technologies. We speak to ControlAI's executive director, Connor Leahy, who first came to national prominence for reverse-engineering OpenAI's GPT-2 model in his college dorm room in 2019. Even though I was able to build such an AI system, I was not able to understand it," says Leahy, who warns against the development of autonomous so-called superintelligence and calls for governments to criminalize the creation of superintelligence the same way that it is illegal to build a nuclear bomb."

Restrictions on women's rights have expanded in Afghanistan since U.S. forces withdrew from the country five years ago, ceding control to the Taliban in the process. Afghan women are banned from attending schools and gyms, books written by women are removed from libraries, doctors and nurses are unable to practice, and child marriage rates have increased. Wives have been rendered legally subordinate to their husbands, and women are required to stay silent in public. Women and girls of Afghanistan are suffering the most darkest situation in the world," says Negina Yari, an Afghan women's rights activist living in exile in Germany, who discusses the impacts of what some advocacy groups are characterizing as gender apartheid," as well as the effects of regional diplomatic normalization on the Taliban's political influence.

U.S. National Debt Tops $40 Trillion as Trump's Tariffs and Wars Drive Deficit Spending, Trump Announces Most Crushing Economic Operation Ever" Against Iran and Its Partners, Israeli Strikes Kill 10 More Palestinians in Gaza, Israel's Military Admits to Attacks That Killed 5-Year-Old Hind Rajab, Her Family and Paramedics, Israel Advances Construction of New Homes in Massive Illegal Settlement, U.K. Jury Refuses to Convict Palestine Action Members, Former DOJ Attorney Files Complaint Against Antisemitism Task Force, Russian Assault on Kyiv Overnight Kills at Least 13 People, Ukraine's Former Defense Minister Calls for Presidential Elections in Challenge to Zelensky, Former Fauci Adviser Pleads Guilty to Concealing Documents Related to COVID-19 Pandemic, New mRNA Treatment Shows Promising Signs of Preventing Skin Cancer, Trump Nominates Anti-Abortion Activist to Lead FDA, Minnesota Sues Texas Gov. Abbott to Force Extradition of ICE Agent on Felony Assault Charges, Trump Leads Press Corps on Bizarre 40-Minute Tour of the White House, Touting Plans for New Helipad, CPJ Calls on the Mexican Government to Protect Media Workers

A protest camp in the small border town of Lochiel, Arizona, is seeking to stop federal contractors from building another portion of President Trump's border barrier with Mexico. At the center of the protest camp is a 200-year-old cottonwood known as a grandmother" tree, with activists sitting in the tree to physically stop its destruction.People are successfully forcing the government to stop, to slow down, or at least change course on border wall construction," says journalist John Washington, a staff writer for the queer news outlet Lookout and author of multiple books about immigration. They've been very clear that this is both an environmental and a political fight."

The Trump administration has paused construction of border infrastructure in Big Bend National Park in Texas following public criticism of the controversial project. Crews were filmed bulldozing pristine desert wilderness earlier this month, sparking rare bipartisan pushback. The construction is part of a larger plan for the Big Bend region to build hundreds of miles of walls, vehicle barriers and other border infrastructure. The Department of Homeland Security waived requirements that federal contractors comply with a broad slate of environmental laws, including the Endangered Species Act, to proceed with construction in the national park.I think the administration made such a massive miscalculation when they sicced their bulldozers on this great American national park," says Laiken Jordahl, a national public lands advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity. Laiken says the movement to protect Big Bend cuts across partisan and ideological lines and is a force to be reckoned with."

We speak with Brendan Ballou, CEO of the Public Integrity Project, which is part of a lawsuit against President Donald Trump over his plan to monetize access to his social media platform Truth Social, where he routinely makes market-moving announcements. Truth API went live on August 1 and already has subscribers. Truth Social is charging up to $100,000 per month for early access to the president's posts, giving investors an edge on major news events.It's profoundly corrupt," says Ballou. The government can't discriminate who it gives information to based on who they are, what they believe, what they're willing to pay the president."

We look at major media news with Jessica Gonzalez, co-CEO of the advocacy organization Free Press. She discusses the landmark lawsuit against Meta for making its social media platforms addictive for young people, efforts to halt the Paramount-Warner Bros. megamerger, and Disney's lawsuit against the Federal Communications Commission over what it calls the Trump administration's retaliatory campaign" against the ABC television network.Gonzalez says President Donald Trump's authoritarian takeover attempt of our media system" must be opposed.

Israeli Strikes Kill at Least Seven Palestinians in Gaza, Palestinian American Travels to Occupied West Bank to Defend Home Against Settlers, Iran Claims U.S. Begging to Talk, as Trump Posts Map of Strait of Hormuz Labeled New U.S. Territory", Syrians Protest Death of Man in Police Custody, Trump Admin Imposes Sanctions on ICC President and Senior Prosecutor, Federal Judge Revokes TPS for 5,000 Ethiopian Immigrants, CBS News: Trump Deporting Mexican Immigrants to Other Central American Countries, DOJ Pushes Federal Appeals Court to Reinstate Criminal Charges Against Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Immigrant Hospitalized After He Was Brutally Beaten and Arrested by ICE, South Korean President Pushes for Military Control Independent from the U.S., ABC Files First Amendment Lawsuit Against FCC, Trump Admin Plans to Open Nearly 45 Million Acres of Forest to Road Construction and Logging, Democratic Socialist Pulls Off Stunning Victory in Florida's Democratic Senate Primary, Alaska's Incumbent Republican Senator Sullivan and Congressmember Peltola Advance to General Election for Senate, Pakistan's Supreme Court Rules Authorities Must Transfer Jailed Ex-Prime Minister Imran Khan to a Private Hospital

President Trump's son-in-law and envoy Jared Kushner met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Monday after Israel rejected a 15-point plan for Gaza promoted by President Trump's Board of Peace." The proposal would have seen Hamas gradually disarm and turn over governance of Gaza to an international force in exchange for Israel's withdrawal from the besieged territory.Israel, supported by Kushner, is pushing for a deal whereby it would not be obliged to conduct any of its obligations unless and until Hamas was fully disarmed," says Middle East analyst Mouin Rabbani. This is essentially Israel throwing a poison pill into an agreement by including conditions that can never be met."Rabbani argues that Jared Kushner is not a suitable negotiator because there is a very intimate ideological, political connection between the Kushners and Israel."

We continue our conversation with Maggie Haberman, whose recent book with fellow New York Times journalist Jonathan Swan, Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, digs into the handling of the Epstein files and the president's decision to wage war on Iran.Haberman says Trump basically ignored many of his own advisers and just went ahead" with the war on Iran after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed regime change would be easily accomplished during a briefing in the Situation Room.This is a government run by ... about a half-dozen people, give or take," says Haberman. The way Trump has been operating the government during his second term is a form of regime change in our own country," says Haberman. This is a reimagining of the U.S. presidency, an expansion of executive power on a level we have not seen before in modern history, in some ways ever."

Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Maggie Haberman is the co-author of the new book Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump. In the book, Haberman and her fellow New York Times journalist Jonathan Swan provide an inside look at how the administration has handled many of the biggest crises of Trump's second term.Haberman, who has been reporting on Trump since the 1990s, details his frequent attacks on the press over critical reporting, particularly against female reporters. She also discusses the renewed controversy over his close aide Natalie Harp, whom Haberman describes as something like a human binky" for Trump.

Iran Threatens New Offensive as Memorandum of Understanding with U.S. Expires, Yemen's Houthis Claim Another Attack on Saudi Ship in Red Sea, Russian Oil Spills from Grounded Tanker, Fouling Beaches in Oman, Trump Denies Reports of Deteriorating Conditions Aboard USS Abraham Lincoln as Fake News", U.N. Warns of Alarming" Surge of Violence as Israel Ramps Up Attacks on Lebanon, Kushner and Netanyahu Hold Talks on U.S.-Backed 15-Point Gaza Plan, Israel's Far-Right Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir Demands Kill Quota in Gaza, Netanyahu Posts Image Comparing NYC Mayor Mamdani to Middle East's Authoritarian Leaders, Voters Head to the Polls for Primary Elections in Florida, CBP Temporarily Pauses Border Wall Construction in Big Bend National Park, SCOTUS Rejects Trump's Bid to Undo Verdict Finding Him Liable for Sexually Abusing E. Jean Carroll, New York Judge Pushes Back Luigi Mangione's Murder Trial, Opening Statements Begin in Murder Trial of Tupac Shakur

A new book by longtime Bay Area journalist Gil Duran investigates tech fascism" and its mounting influence on U.S. politics. The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy follows the rise of Vice President JD Vance, the former venture capitalist whose outsider" campaign for Senate was bankrolled by the billionaire co-founder of PayPal and Palantir, Peter Thiel. Duran traces the ideological lineage of the current Trump administration back from Vance to Thiel and the far-right-wing monarchist Curtis Yarvin, whose right-libertarian" political theory has long made the rounds among Silicon Valley elite. These guys were never libertarians," says Duran. Now that they are the government, we see their true face: They're fascists, and they're authoritarians."

A prominent human rights lawyer in the United Kingdom has been charged with criminal contempt for his closing speech in the trial of his client, Charlotte Lottie" Head, one of four Palestine Action activists who were sentenced as terrorists over their involvement in a 2024 protest and raid on an Israeli weapons factory. Their sentencing marked the first time a British judge issued terrorism sentencing enhancements on people who were not actually convicted of terrorism. An additional 21 currently jailed Palestine Action protesters could face similar sentences, which carry multiyear prison terms.The charges against Rajiv Menon are similarly unprecedented in British legal history. He is accused of encouraging a jury to acquit Head according to their conscience. Menon denies this accusation and says he was simply informing the jury of a prior legal case. He adds that, along with the U.K. government's ban on Palestine Action under anti-terrorism laws, the case against him is intended to have a chilling effect" against pro-Palestine protest, and carries serious constitutional implications."

Newly released federal documents have revealed the existence of an expansive surveillance program launched by the federal government against activists, labor unions, community groups, and even a bicycle repair collective, in Minnesota last winter. Operation Puppet Master" was launched in response to statewide protests against the ICE killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good. The program has come to light in the course of a federal case against 15 Minnesotans who have been accused of conspiracy" to impede ICE's immigration enforcement surge in Minnesota. Isaac Sant, one of the defendants in the case, says the charges levied against him are politically motivated" and intended to quell dissent."As part of its spying operation, DHS sent undercover agents to meetings in churches, parks, libraries, schools and union halls and secretly obtained the financial records of left-leaning national organizations such as the Communications Workers of America and Sunrise Movement. We were sick to hear that we were also in this list of people that were organizing using their First Amendment rights and the right to petition to their government, but also not surprised," says Emilia Gonzalez Avalos, the executive director of Unidos MN, a local organization that was one of the groups surveilled by DHS. This is one of the tactics they have used across the world to repress and scare and disrupt movements that are organizing with other people against racism, that are organizing for justice, and that are organizing for a multiracial, high-functioning democracy."

Trump Threatens to Bomb the S- Out of Oman," Downplays Concerns About USS Abraham Lincoln, Israeli Airstrikes Kill at Least 11 People in Lebanon, Jared Kushner Meets with Hamas's Political Chief in Cairo, Israel Announces Plans to Hand Over Policing of Settlers to an Israeli Civilian Police Force, Ukrainian Drones Kill at Least Nine People in Russia, Taliban Marks Five Years in Power Since U.S. Withdrawal, Migrants Protest in Spain's North African Enclave of Ceuta, Survivors Go Hungry After Earthquakes Kill Dozens in Indonesia, Mass Shooting Erupts at Virginia State University Hours After Freshmen Orientation Events, Attorney General Todd Blanche Won't Pledge to Operate Independently from White House, Federal Judge Blocks Idaho from Prosecuting Doctors Who Provide Health-Saving Abortions, South Carolina to Vote First in Democrats' Revamped 2028 Presidential Primary Calendar

The new documentary American Doctor tells the story of how the besieged hospitals of Gaza have continued to treat the sick and wounded throughout Israel's genocidal war on the Palestinian territory, with local medical staff risking their own lives in the process. According to Palestinian officials, Israeli attacks have killed about 1,700 healthcare workers in Gaza since October 2023. The documentary follows three U.S. doctors as they volunteer in Gaza hospitals.Director Poh Si Teng says the film rose out of her deep despair" over what was happening in Gaza, including deadly Israeli attacks on her former Al Jazeera colleagues. American Doctor is her attempt to bring Palestine back to the United States," Teng says.We also speak with two of the subjects of the film: trauma surgeon Dr. Feroze Sidhwa and emergency physician Dr. Thaer Ahmad, who is Palestinian American.

One of the biggest upsets from Democratic primary elections this month was Donavan McKinney's defeat of two-term Congressmember Shri Thanedar in the House primary to represent parts of Detroit and Wayne County in Michigan's 13th District. McKinney, a democratic socialist state lawmaker, won on a platform to get corporate money out of politics, support Medicare for All and end military aid to Israel, among other issues. Like many other insurgent Democrats running for office, he has also proposed strict limits on artificial intelligence data centers. He took no corporate PAC money, and his campaign was supported by the Justice Democrats, Working Families Party, Democratic Socialists of America and major labor unions.We built the biggest and baddest coalition in the country," says McKinney of his win. People have come together and realized that our district deserves better."

We speak with Tennessee lawmaker Justin J. Pearson, who just won the Democratic primary to represent part of Memphis in the state's 9th Congressional District. Pearson's campaign focused in part on opposing large artificial intelligence data centers, particularly Elon Musk's Colossus 1 and Colossus 2, which are in the Memphis area.People don't want toxic data centers polluting the air that they breathe," says Pearson. It's not a fight of right versus left; it's a fight of those who are at the top and the rest of us."Pearson is a longtime environmental justice organizer and advocate who first gained national prominence three years ago, when he was expelled from Tennessee's House of Representatives for protesting Republicans' inaction on gun violence. He is now running in a congressional district that was recently gerrymandered to dilute Black voting power in the state following a Supreme Court ruling that weakened the Voting Rights Act. His opponent in November is Republican state Senator Brent Taylor, who is endorsed by President Donald Trump.

CIA Carried Out Drone Strikes, Disappearances and Torture Near Ecuador's Coast, Rights Groups Say Israel Is Covering Up War Crimes Evidence as It Clears Gaza's Rubble, Israeli Settlers' Siege of Palestinian Homes Draws Rare Rebuke from U.S. Ambassador, Lebanon Condemns Home Demolitions by Israel as a Serious Violation of International Law", Pentagon Sends New Aircraft Carrier to Relieve USS Abraham Lincoln Following Attempted Suicides, DHS Targeted Left-Leaning Groups in Minnesota with Mass Surveillance Program, ICE Confirms Death of Third Immigrant at Privately Run ICE Jail in New Jersey, 140 Immigrants Hold Hunger Strike at For-Profit ICE Jail in Tacoma, Washington, Activists Try to Halt Border Wall Construction as Contractors Bulldoze Landmarks, Russian and Ukrainian Attacks in Black Sea Raise Fears of Skyrocketing Global Food Prices, Japan Rejects Putin Visit to Disputed Islands as Poland Says It Thwarted Russian Assassination Plot, Indiana Declares Statewide Disaster Emergency Amid Historic Flooding, Federal Judge Tosses Trump Administration's Antisemitism" Lawsuit Against Harvard, Congressional Black Caucus Calls for Federal Probe into Death of Nolan Wells, Kennedy Center Board Orders Trump's Name Restored to Performing Arts Center, Flouting Court Order

We speak with Timnit Gebru, a leader in the field of AI ethics, about how artificial intelligence is entrenching societal biases and inequality. Gebru is the founder and executive director of the Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research Institute, a group of academics, activists and engineers who produce research rooted in the belief that technology should benefit everyone. She also co-founded Black in AI, a nonprofit that works to increase the inclusion and visibility of Black people in the field of AI. Gebru previously served as co-lead of the Ethical AI research team at Google but was fired in 2020 for writing a paper that warned about the financial and environmental costs of large language models, as well as their propensity to promote racism. The internet, which is what AI uses to train itself, represents hegemonic views," says Gebru. We even know articles like Wikipedia are heavily biased. It's overwhelmingly Western and male."

Militaries across the world are in an AI arms race," says Heidy Khlaaf, a chief AI scientist at the AI Now Institute, which just released a joint report with Airwars titled Anatomy of an AI Kill Chain."What it is is a series of different types of AI algorithms that are chained together, each with their own pitfalls, each with their own flaws," she says. And these systems build off of each other and feed into one another to, unfortunately, end up resulting in civilian casualties."This can lead to faulty targeting because humans are prone to just accepting recommendations of AI algorithms without corroborating that evidence," adds Khlaaf.

The Washington Post reported Monday that due to an alleged Iranian threat to assassinate President Trump, he secretly swapped planes before departing the July NATO summit in Turkey - leaving senior administration officials, staff and members of the press corps on board.The Israelis passed a tip, a concern, that the plane and potentially the president was under threat," says Dan Lamothe, one of the Washington Postreporters who broke the story. But it turns out the "CIA had low confidence" in the Israeli tip, according to a more recent Post story Lamothe co-authored on Thursday. I think that kind of leaves the Secret Service in a tough spot of assessing: What do you do in this zero-fail mission to keep the president safe?"

Declassified Pentagon Report Found U.S. Killed 153 Civilians in Yemen Last Year, Sailors on U.S. Aircraft Carrier Attempt to Jump Overboard as Lengthy Deployment Grinds On, CIA Had Low Confidence" in Israeli Claim That Iran Sought to Shoot Down Air Force One, Firefighters Accuse Israeli Forces of Deliberately Starting Wildfires in Southern Lebanon, A Policy of Attrition by Design": MSF Condemns Israeli Blockade of Crucial Supplies, Israeli Settlers Besiege Palestinian Homes in Occupied West Bank Village of Qusra, Hegseth Says Colombia Will Conduct Joint Military Operations with U.S., Urges Partners to Reject ICC, NYT: Fishermen in Ecuador Report Attacks by English-Speaking Assailants, Trump Admin Announces End of Federal Funding for Arctic Report Card, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito Earned Up to $2.9M from Fossil Fuel Interests, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt to Step Down, Lawsuit Seeks to Halt Truth Social's Plan to Charge $100K for Early Access to Trump's Posts, DOJ Arrests Southern Poverty Law Center's Former Chief Financial Officer, Daughter of Pastor Jailed by ICE Says Father Suffered Stroke-Like Symptoms", ICE Agent Filmed Pushing an Elderly Activist Pleads Guilty to Misdemeanor Battery Charge, ICE Agent Points Gun at Driver in Virginia

From London, we revisit the Gaza Tribunal, an independent, nongovernmental inquiry into the United Kingdom's complicity in the Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. The tribunal, held nearly one year ago, was chaired by our three guests: former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, Israeli professor of human rights law Neve Gordon and Palestinian legal scholar Shahd Hammouri. Their new book is titled The Gaza Tribunal: Britain's Complicity in Genocide. We discuss the recent apology from Prime Minister Andy Burnham over the Labour Party's early support for Israel's assault on Gaza, the United Kingdom's crackdown on the Palestine Action protest group under counterterrorism laws, and whether British policymakers will face any accountability for participating in one of the biggest crimes in humanity."

Death Toll from Colombia Earthquake Tops 250 as Rescue Crews Scramble to Reach Survivors, Iran Nears Deal with Oman over Control of Strait of Hormuz, Trump Hid in Catering Truck to Sneak Off Air Force One Amid Alleged Threat from Iran, Former Ukrainian Prisoners Recount Torture and Sexual Abuse in Russian Jails, Minnesota Progressive Peggy Flanagan Wins Democratic Party Nomination for U.S. Senate Seat, David Crowley Tops Democratic Socialist Francesca Hong in Wisconsin Democratic Gubernatorial Primary, Lindsey Graham's Sister Darline Advances to a Runoff in South Carolina Senate Race, Federal Judge Blocks U.S. Postal Service from Enforcing Trump Order on Mail Ballots, ICE Plans to Spend $20M to Purchase Electric Shock Gloves, Group Founded by Former ICE Agent Awarded $158M to Represent Unaccompanied Immigrant Children, DRC Reports More Than 4,000 Confirmed Ebola Cases, U.S. Could See Three Executions in Same Day for First Time Since 2010, Millions in Europe Will Witness a Total Solar Eclipse Today

We spend the hour with civil rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson, founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative. In 2018, the organization opened the Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama, to tell the history of millions of enslaved Africans who were abducted and trafficked across the Atlantic to the Americas by European powers, and to chronicle the legacy of slavery, racism, lynchings and segregation in the United States. The Legacy Museum has just opened its first international exhibition as part of the Edinburgh International Festival in Scotland.In putting together the content we have at the Legacy Museum, you begin to appreciate just how global the institution of slavery was," Stevenson tells Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman in Edinburgh. We were eager to have an opportunity to present this content on this continent, which ... hasn't done very much to acknowledge this history."Stevenson details the Equal Justice Initiative's goal of educating the public about racial iniquities, as well as his own family's connection to slavery. My foreparents did not come to this country seeking greater opportunity. They did not come seeking shelter from some distant threat. They came in chains. They were victims of a brutal abduction," he says.

More Than 160 People Dead After a 7.4 Magnitude Earthquake Strikes Colombia, NOAA: July Was the Hottest Month Ever Documented in the U.S., More Than a Million People Evacuated as Typhoon Dolphin Makes Landfall in China, Trump Issues Executive Order Reducing Childhood Vaccinations, Trump Demands Compensation from Iran Threatening Ceasefire Negotiations, Syrian Court Sentences Ousted Leader Bashar al-Assad to Death, Trump-Linked Oil Company Preparing to Drill in Greenland, Colombia Recognizes Morocco's Sovereignty Over Occupied Western Sahara, State Department Revokes More Than 175,000 Visas from Foreign Nationals, U.S. Appeals Court Allows Thousands of Lawsuits Against Social Media Companies, Judge Orders Emergency Pause on NYC Mayor Mamdani's Pied-a-Terre Tax, Tens of Thousands of Student Protesters March on State Legislature in Jharkhand, India, Massachusetts Expands Late-Term Abortion Access

We continue our coverage from the Edinburgh International Festival, where acclaimed Brazilian actor and filmmaker Wagner Moura stars in the play A Trial - after An Enemy of the People. A sequel to the 1882 Henrik Ibsen play An Enemy of the People, A Trial - after An Enemy of the People interrogates themes of authoritarianism, misinformation and public judgement. It is directed by Brazil's Christiane Jatahy.We in Brazil, we know what a dictatorship is. We know how harmful that is, how horrible that is, how bad that is," says Moura, referencing the military dictatorship in Brazil that took place from 1964 to 1985. He draws parallels between that period and the leadership of Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro, who is in prison for an attempted coup d'etat.

Democracy Now! is broadcasting from Scotland at the Edinburgh International Festival, which features music, opera, theater and dance and is one of Europe's biggest arts festivals. We are joined by the acclaimed Scottish violinist Nicola Benedetti, one of the most celebrated classical violinists in the world. She became the first woman and first Scottish artist to become director of the Edinburgh International Festival in 2022.I think what is quite unusual about the Edinburgh International Festival is the humanitarian mission that is woven into all of its origin rhetoric," says Benedetti. She explains that this year's festival focuses on the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution. We're not celebrating only dark or dazzling. We're trying to present these things alongside each other."

We speak with Keith LaMar, an artist, teacher and writer on death row in Ohio. LaMar, who has spent three decades in solitary confinement, was sentenced to death for the murder of five fellow prisoners during a 1993 prison uprising. He has always maintained his innocence. His trial was held in a remote Ohio community before an all-white jury. LaMar is one of three men on death row for whom Ohio Governor Mike DeWine issued reprieves, pushing back their execution dates to 2030.The reprieve, while good in a legal sense in giving us more time, it also increases the pressure, the harassment that I'm undergoing," says Keith LaMar. I've been undergoing consistent torture since the last reprieve," explains LaMar, who received a previous reprieve three years ago.LaMar's lawyer Keegan Stephan says there is incredible new evidence" of his client's innocence, and Amy Gordiejew, campaign manager of Justice for Keith LaMar, says he was framed."

Netanyahu Rejects Trump's 15-Point Gaza Peace Plan, NYT: Global Sumud Flotilla Activists Detail Beatings, Electric Shocks and Other Abuse in Israeli Detention, Iran Close to Final Pact with Oman to Reopen Strait of Hormuz, Yemen's Iran-Backed Houthis Attack Saudi Aramco Refinery, Ukrainian Drone Attack Kills at Least 13 People in Russia, Trump's Former Personal Lawyer Todd Blanche Confirmed as Attorney General, Federal Court Rules Trump Cannot Build Ballroom Without Congressional Approval, Right-Wing President Abelardo de la Espriella Sworn In as Colombia's President, Federal Judges Terminate TPS for Immigrants from South Sudan and Burma, AP: Trump Admin Detains Parents and Spouses of Active-Duty U.S. Military Personnel in Immigration Crackdown, Private Prison Companies CoreCivic and GEO Group Report $1.4B in Revenue, Rallies Held to Mark One Month Since ICE Killing of Mexican Father Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 178,000 Immigrants Forced to Flee South Africa Amid Violence and Harassment, Wildfires Force 20,000 People in British Columbia to Evacuate, Nagasaki Mayor Warns Against Nuclear Weapons as Japan Marks 81 Years Since Atomic Bombing

We speak with Dr. Abdul El-Sayed after his victory in Michigan's primary race for U.S. Senate sent shockwaves through the Democratic Party. El-Sayed, a former public health official, ran a progressive campaign focused on affordability, Medicare for All, getting money out of politics, and opposing Israel's genocide in Gaza. He defeated Congressmember Haley Stevens, who was backed by tens of millions in outside spending including by AIPAC, the powerful pro-Israel lobby group.In an era where many of us can't afford basic things like groceries or rent or healthcare, the idea that your government is sending your tax dollars to buy bombs and tanks for foreign governments seems anathema," El-Sayed says. That money could be spent to fix your potholes, rebuild your kid's school."El-Sayed says his focus now is on beating Republican nominee Mike Rogers, whom he calls a bootlicker for Trumpism," and to present a positive vision for his party that can lead into the next Democratic presidential administration.

Composer and playwright Cesar Alvarez joins Democracy Now! to discuss their new musical, The Potluck. It tells the story of the 1979 Greensboro Massacre, when Klansmen and American Nazis opened fire on an antiracist demonstration in Greensboro, North Carolina, killing five members of the Communist Workers' Party. In 2020, the Greensboro City Council passed a resolution apologizing for the attack and the police department's complicity in the killings.Alvarez tells Democracy Now! the musical is an attempt to grapple with what it has meant to grow up in the aftermath of this state-sanctioned murder," as well their personal connection to the massacre. Alvarez's parents were part of the Communist Workers' Party, and Alvarez is named in honor of two of their slain comrades.

Kansas state Senator Cindy Holscher won Tuesday's primary race to become the Democratic nominee in the state's gubernatorial race, facing Republican Ty Masterson in November. Holscher clinched the nomination over fellow state lawmaker Ethan Corson, who was backed by the outgoing Democratic Kansas Governor Laura Kelly. Holscher's victory is seen as another resounding defeat for establishment Democrats in Kansas and nationwide. The fight over data centers became a defining issue in the Kansas race.We see [data centers] suck up the resources in terms of water. We see energy usage causing utility bills to skyrocket. So, certainly not things that you want to have happen during an affordability crisis," Holscher tells Democracy Now!Holscher also celebrates the defeat of a ballot measure to change how state Supreme Court justices are elected, which she calls a backdoor attempt" to attack abortion rights, voting access and public education.

Reproductive rights activists are alarmed over a pledge by acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to institute nationwide abortion restrictions. Blanche, whose confirmation for attorney general is currently before the Senate, made the remarks in a private call with anti-abortion activists that was later posted online. According to the audio recording, Blanche said the Trump administration is pursuing policies so that the Dobbs decision becomes permanent in every single state," referring to the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that ended the constitutional right to abortion and left the matter to individual states.Amy Littlefield, The Nation's abortion access correspondent, says the administration is likely to focus on limiting abortion pills delivered by mail, perhaps by invoking the 1873 Comstock Act, which banned the mailing of lewd" and indecent" materials through the mail. Littlefield calls it a zombie law from the Victorian era" that reflects the frustration of the anti-abortion movement's inability to reduce abortions despite victories at the Supreme Court.Abortion bans do not stop abortion. What they do is they kill and harm the people who need them," she says.Littlefield is the author of Killers of Roe: My Investigation Into the Mysterious Death of Abortion Rights.

Trump Signs New Executive Orders Restricting Birthright Citizenship, Sen. Murkowski to Vote Against Blanche as AG, Trump Denies Munition Shortages While Threatening Jail Time over Leaks, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan Sign Joint Defense Agreement, Two Top Mossad Officials Fired over Israel's Failed Plot to Topple Iranian Gov't, Houthis Kill at Least 30 Saudi-Backed Yemeni Forces, Israeli Killing of Lebanese Journalist Amal Khalil Was a War Crime: Human Rights Groups, Gaza Board of Peace Issues Construction Contract for Military Outpost in Gaza, Justin Pearson Wins Tenn. House Primary After Campaigning Against Data Centers, New Mexico Judge Orders Meta to Pay Additional $567M in Child Safety Lawsuit, Senate Homeland Security Committee Votes to Hold Fauci in Contempt of Congress, Trump Administration Moves to Dismantle Anti-Poverty Head Start Program, FCC Votes to Lift Limits on TV Station Ownership, Scholar Who Accused Israel of Genocide Wins $250K Settlement from Univ. of Minnesota

In Pakistan-administered Kashmir, a coalition of local politicians, activists and small-business leaders called the Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC) has been leading mass protests over the soaring cost of living and the limits placed on political autonomy. In response, the Pakistani government banned the group under counterterrorism laws and ordered a communications blackout. Security forces have been accused of indiscriminately firing on nonviolent demonstrators, killing at least 40 people. For more, we speak to Kashmiri writer Mirza Waheed, who grew up in India-administered Kashmir, on the other side of the Line of Control."In the Pakistani-controlled region known locally as Azad Kashmir, the center of the JAAC protests, the discontent is not recent," explains Waheed. It's been simmering under the surface for a while, and now it's kind of burst out [in] the open." He traces the turmoil in the disputed territory to the 1947 Partition of the Indian subcontinent by the departing British colonialists. All these grievances about increasing prices, unemployment, healthcare, infrastructure, they have coalesced into a larger, broader critique of the political arrangement."

Is AI superintelligence inevitable? AI safety researcher David Krueger says it doesn't have to be. Krueger, an assistant professor at the University of Montreal and founder of the nonprofit Evitable, warns that we need to mitigate the risk of extinction" with regulation and moratoriums to halt the development of AI's computational power and complexity, which he says is progressing at a rate much faster than current levels of human supervision can manage. Public statements from AI companies that their models have circumvented test constraints and broken into other systems are what we should expect to happen with the way that we're building AI, with how little we understand it and how primitive our techniques are for controlling it," Krueger says. We just don't know how to build it safely. End of story."

The Pacific Northwest is facing its worst fire season in more than 30 years. Scientists say drought, extreme heat and climate change are making wildfire seasons longer, more frequent and more destructive across the western United States.The homes, the communities, they're just not simply prepared for fire," says Paul Hessburg, former senior research ecologist at the U.S. Forest Service and professor of fire and landscape ecology at the University of Washington. Hessburg walks us through the history of the region, from the controlled fires practiced by Indigenous peoples before European settlement to present-day ecologically unsound factors including accidental ignitions, dense forests, the wrong kinds of fuels on the ground [and] rapidly changing climate."

Trump Blasts Democratic Nominee for Senate Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche Pledges to Make Dobbs Permanent" Nationwide, Senate Votes to Confirm Dr. Erica Schwartz to Lead the CDC, New Mexico Sues the DOJ for Stonewalling" State Probe into Epstein, Federal Lawsuit Accuses Trump Admin of Targeting Children for Deportation, Authorities in Ceuta Looking to Transfer Unaccompanied Minors to Mainland Spain, NYT: CIA Secretly Established New Cuba Task Force, Iran and Oman Agree on Coordinates for Shipping Corridor Through the Strait of Hormuz, Israeli Prosecutors Indict Settler Yinon Levi over the Killing of Palestinian Activist Awdah Hathaleen, Israeli Military Conducts Targeted Strikes in Southern Lebanon, Head of Russian Drone Manufacturer Critically Injured in Car Bombing, Austria Breaks National Heat Record for Second Time in Two Days, Forecasts Suggest El Nino Could Drive Roughly 50 Million People into Acute Hunger by 2027, Fuego Volcano in Guatemala Expels Fresh Ash and Mud, Bangladesh's Former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Announces Plans to Return from Exile

In the wake of a third ICE death at the Delaney Hall ICE jail in Newark, New Jersey, we speak with Gabriela Soto, whose husband Martin was one of the leaders of the May hunger strike at the immigration jail. Martin was transferred to Elizabeth Detention Center, New Jersey's other ICE facility, during the hunger strike at Delaney. Gabriela is calling for the closure of both facilities.At first, I was fighting for my husband, but then I started to meet all of these people who are just innocent, and they are the people that make this country great," says Soto, who blames her recent miscarriage on the stress of her husband being detained. I am still grieving," she says. To me, this is an ICE murder, too."This comes as Edwin Lopez-Cornejo, a Salvadoran immigrant, died Saturday after being held for six weeks at Delaney Hall. He is the third immigrant to die at the ICE jail, which has been open since May 2025. Lopez-Cornejo's mother, Maria Cornejo, says her son took medicine to manage diabetes, seizures and his blood pressure, but had not received his medications regularly since being detained. ICE said in a statement that Lopez-Conejo experienced a medical emergency" on Saturday and was transported to University Hospital in Newark, but Maria Cornejo says her son died at Delaney Hall.More than 70 people inside the ICE jail have filed lawsuits alleging medical neglect. That neglect was one of the factors that led to the hunger strike. Individuals are not receiving the kind of healthcare that they in fact need, particularly for chronic health conditions, for pregnancies, for cancers," says Analilia Mejia, Democratic congressmember from New Jersey. Being undocumented should not be a death sentence."

Voters went to the polls in Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Virginia and Washington state on Tuesday. We continue to look at the results of those primary elections, with The Nation's John Nichols calling it a very good night for insurgent candidacies and for outsiders," especially for candidates that campaigned around the fight against AI data centers.

Progressive candidate Abdul El-Sayed has been declared the winner of Michigan's closely watched Democratic Senate primary, narrowly beating out Congressmember Haley Stevens, according to the Associated Press and other news agencies. AIPAC and its affiliated groups spent as much as $46 million to help Stevens in what has become the most expensive Democratic Senate primary contest in U.S. history. El-Sayed will face former Republican Congressman Mike Rogers in November to fill the seat now held by Democratic Senator Gary Peters, who is retiring. If El-Sayed wins the general election, he would become the first Muslim senator in U.S. history. His key supporters included Senator Bernie Sanders, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the United Auto Workers.Dr. Abdul El-Sayed worked unbelievably hard in this race," says John Nichols, executive editor of The Nation, pointing out that El-Sayed campaigned in rural counties across Michigan. It was literally about physically going to the people early, and then again and again and again, and talking to them about issues."We also speak with Andy Levin, a former Democratic congressmember from Michigan who lost to Stevens in 2022 after AIPAC spent $4.3 million on her campaign. El-Sayed's rise represents a movement of Americans who are saying, 'Enough of politics as usual,'" says Levin. 'We're done with the parties as they are. We need some way more active effort for us to be able to have living wages and healthcare and education and childcare and retirement.'"

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