Democracy Now!

We speak with Dr. Rupa Marya, a physician, activist, author and composer, who this week filed two free speech complaints against her former employer, the University of California, San Francisco. The school fired her last month after a lengthy suspension over her criticism of Israel's war on Gaza and its impact on healthcare in the Palestinian territory. I didn't expect that my career-ending move would be to say 'stop bombing hospitals,' for expressing support for Palestinian liberation and for criticizing the U.S.-backed genocide," says Marya. She was named one of the top 20 most influential women in biomedicine by Nature and served on multiple national advisory boards. Since her firing, over 1,000 healthcare workers and students have signed open letters demanding her reinstatement and denouncing UCSF's suppression of political expression.

We get an update from the Madleen, the Freedom Flotilla ship sailing to Gaza with vital humanitarian aid for Palestinians. Brazilian activist Thiago Avila, one of 12 people on the ship, says spirits are high" despite the constant presence of drones overhead and threats from the Israeli government. Palestine is now the strategic place for all peoples to unite and fight against oppression, exploitation and the destruction of nature," says Avila. People's power is the ultimate power, and love and solidarity can beat any hateful, racist and supremacist ideology, like Zionism." Earlier this week, the ship made a detour to respond to a mayday call to help dozens of migrants aboard a deflating vessel. The Madleen is expected to reach Gaza on Monday, though Israeli officials have said they will not allow it to land.

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka has filed a federal lawsuit, after he was arrested by masked federal agents outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement jail in Newark. They arrested me without any evidence," says Baraka of his decision to sue. They humiliated me. They cuffed me. They dragged me in the car, took me to the cell. ... It was completely unwarranted." President Trump's Justice Department is also suing Newark over its sanctuary policies, along with three other New Jersey cities, including Jersey City, where the mayor, Steve Fulop, is running for governor. Baraka is also running for governor in the primary election this Tuesday, June 10.

President Donald Trump's big, beautiful bill" now before the Senate could result in over 51,000 preventable deaths each year in the United States. That's according to public health experts at Yale and the University of Pennsylvania, who sent a letter warning about the bill's impact to the Senate Finance Committee. An estimated 16 million people stand to lose their health coverage as a result of the changes in the bill, which imposes onerous paperwork and fails to safeguard healthcare tax credits," says Alison Galvani, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Modeling at Yale and one of the signatories to the letter. She also notes universal healthcare would have the opposite effect and save tens of thousands of lives each year. There are a lot of ways we can improve how expensive our healthcare is, but taking healthcare away from people is not how to do it," says Galvani.

Is the Donald Trump-Elon Musk bromance finally over? President Trump is threatening to cut off billions of dollars in federal contracts with Musk after the two billionaires engaged in a dramatic online feud just days after Musk called Trump's budget bill a disgusting abomination." Musk appeared to back the impeachment of Trump and claimed the president is named in the Jeffrey Epstein files. They are people who always have their eye on the bottom line, but they also are, obviously, titanically sized egos," says author Quinn Slobodian, professor of international history at Boston University, who is working on a new book about Elon Musk. This is just a sign of how dangerous it is to put ... the whole future of the American economy and the political scene in the hands of two sole human beings."

Trump and Musk Trade Threats and Insults as Deepening Rift Threatens Trump's Signature Bill, Netanyahu Acknowledges Israel Armed Gangs Accused of Looting Humanitarian Aid, Israel Attacks Beirut's Suburbs and Southern Lebanon in Latest Ceasefire Violation, French Stevedores Refuse to Move Military Cargo Bound for Israel, House Progressives' Block the Bombs Act" Would End Transfer of Offensive Arms to Israel, State Department Sanctions ICC Judges over War Crimes Investigations, Trump Withdraws Nomination of Elon Musk Ally to Lead NASA, Trump Administration Waives Environmental Laws to Speed Border Wall Construction, ICE Agents and Their Prisoners Left Stranded in Shipping Container in Djibouti, Judge Grants Release to Massachusetts High School Student After 6 Days in ICE Custody, Trump Administration Returns Wrongly Deported Guatemalan Immigrant, Lawsuit Alleges Jared Polis Collaborated with ICE to Share Residents' Personal Data, Judge Halts Deportation of Family of Egyptian Man Charged in Boulder Attack, Ethics Complaint Accuses Attorney General Pam Bondi of Serious Professional Misconduct"

We're joined by award-winning investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr, who in 2018 exposed the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scandal and is now taking on what she terms the broligarchy," the billionaire Silicon Valley businessmen who now wield major influence in U.S. government and society. This is a new type of power, and the world hasn't seen this before, in which you have state power now with this enormous surveillance engine machine," says Cadwalladr. She warns that the increasing authoritarianism of the Trump administration is being facilitated by unregulated surveillance technology. People should be freaked out. ... They want as much information about the population as possible, so that they can surveil them, they can control them, they can search out their enemies, they can target them, and they can punish them, and they can silence them."

We speak to political scientist Neve Gordon and medical anthropologist Guy Shalev about their new article, The Shame of Israeli Medicine," which looks at the complicity of the Israeli medical establishment with Israel's egregious violations of international law." The article's third author, Osama Tanous, is a Palestinian citizen of Israel and has not been able to make media appearances for fear of reprisal by the Israeli government. The Israeli medical establishment in general identifies with Israel's colonial project and puts the colonial project over the most basic ethical principles of their profession," says Gordon, who previously served as the inaugural director of the organization Physicians for Human Rights-Israel. Shalev, the current executive director of the group, connects the Israeli military's targeting of healthcare workers and infrastructure in Gaza with its silencing of the great number of Palestinians who make up the medical workforce in Israel. The authors call for an international boycott of Israeli medical institutions, until Israel stops its colonial project, [and] after the Palestinians receive liberation and self-determination."

A group of veterans and their allies have entered their third week of a Fast for Gaza" outside the United Nations headquarters in New York City. The group is calling for an end to arms sales to Israel and of Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip. We hear from multiple hunger strikers on their decisions to join the planned 40-day action and why they are pressuring the U.N. in particular. We wake up each morning, and we don't worry about whether or not our children have been buried under rubble overnight. We're not drinking poisoned water. We're not surrounded by rubble. We're not dealing with the horrible traumas that people in Palestine and Gaza are dealing with," says peace activist Kathy Kelly, who started her hunger strike two weeks ago. What would make us stop? Well, certainly, if there were a permanent, unconditional, immediate ceasefire."

We get an update on the case of former Columbia University student protest negotiator Mahmoud Khalil from Baher Azmy, a member of Khalil's legal team at the Center for Constitutional Rights. Khalil has been detained in Louisiana for nearly three months, in what Azmy calls one of our immigration gulags." Khalil's legal team is now challenging the State Department's determination that his presence in the United States harms the country's foreign policy interests.

President Trump has signed a new travel ban barring citizens of 12 countries from entering the United States. The ban applies to Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen and the Republic of Congo. The Trump administration is calling some of the countries terrorist safe havens" and citing high visa overstay rates for others. Compared to the first Trump administration's sweeping travel bans, which targeted travelers from Muslim-majority countries, this latest iteration is more likely to withstand legal challenges, says Baher Azmy, legal director for the Center for Constitutional Rights, which challenged the previous bans. However, the new order will be just as devastating," says Azmy.

Trump Signs Travel Ban Targeting Citizens of 12 Countries, United States Vetoes Another U.N. Security Council Resolution Calling for Gaza Ceasefire, Israel Attacks Al-Ahli Hospital, Killing at Least 3 Journalists, Protesters Demand U.S. and U.K. Lawmakers Act to Stop Genocide in Gaza, Deadly Russian Attacks on Ukraine Follow Putin's Threat of Retaliation over Drone Strikes, Iran's Supreme Leader Rejects Trump Administration Demand to End Uranium Enrichment, Human Rights Watch Says U.S. Committed Apparent War Crime in Yemen Port Attack, Trump Targets Columbia's Accreditation and Harvard's International Students, Trump Proposes 90% Cuts to All 37 U.S. Tribal Colleges, Mexico Says It Will Reciprocate After Trump Doubles Tariffs on Steel and Aluminum, CBO Says Big Beautiful Bill" Would End Health Coverage for 11 Million, Add $2.4 Trillion to Debt, Rep. Jerry Nadler Demands Investigation After DHS Agents Handcuff Staffer, El Salvador Court Orders Prominent Anti-Corruption Lawyer Jailed for 6 Months Ahead of Trial

The new book Empire of AI by longtime technology reporter Karen Hao unveils the accruing political and economic power of AI companies - especially Sam Altman's OpenAI. Her reporting uncovered the exploitation of workers in Kenya, attempts to take massive amounts of freshwater from communities in Chile, along with numerous accounts of the technology's detrimental impact on the environment. This is an extraordinary type of AI development that is causing a lot of social, labor and environmental harms," says Hao.

As Gaza faces over three months of Israeli blockade, a group of 12 activists is sailing to Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid. The Madleen ship was launched by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition and initially planned to sail from Malta last month, but the group's ship was damaged in a drone attack. The new mission includes the renowned Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, who speaks with Democracy Now! live from the Madleen. We deem the risk of silence and the risk of inaction to be so much more deadly than this mission," says Thunberg.

Officials in Gaza say over 100 Palestinians have been killed during recent Israeli attacks on people waiting at aid sites. An additional 500 are wounded. Following the series of deadly attacks, the shadowy U.S.-Israeli humanitarian aid operation is shutting down for a day, and Israel's military warned Palestinians that roads leading to the aid distribution centers will be considered combat zones." The United Nations has called for a prompt and impartial investigation into each of the attacks. The U.S.-Israeli aid system is more about the humiliation and the control of the people" than feeding Palestinians, says Mahmoud Alsaqqa, Oxfam's food security and livelihoods coordinator in Gaza, who joins us from Gaza City.

Israel Kills 95 Palestinians Across Gaza in a Day; 18 Killed in Bombing of School Turned Shelter, Shadowy Gaza Humanitarian" Group Suspends Operations After Massacres at Aid Sites, Israel Resumes Attacks on Syrian Military Infrastructure with Daraa Airstrikes, South Korea Liberal Candidate Lee Jae-myung Wins Presidential Election, U.N. Food Delivery Convoy Workers Killed in Darfur as Sudan's Food and Public Health Crises Deepen, Dozens of Civilians Killed in Clashes Between Militias and South Sudan's Army, Trump Asks Congress to Rescind $8.3 Billion in Foreign Assistance, A Disgusting Abomination": Elon Musk Blasts Trump's Big Beautiful Bill", Trump Administration Rescinds Biden-Era Protections for Those Needing Emergency Abortions, ICE Detains Wife and Five Children of Man Who Attacked Colorado March for Israeli Hostages, Judge Enjoins Trump Administration from Denying Gender-Affirming Care to Trans Prisoners, Pentagon May Strip Names of Harvey Milk and Other Civil Rights Icons from Navy Ships, White House Seeks to Shutter Independent Agency That Investigates Chemical Hazards and Disasters, Tulsa Mayor Announces $105 Million Reparations Package for 1921 Race Massacre

The Trump administration has tapped Palantir - the notorious data-mining firm co-founded by billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel - to compile information on people in the United States for a master database," creating an easy way to cross-reference sensitive data from tax records, immigration records and more. Palantir also has a $30 million contract with ICE to provide almost real-time visibility into immigrants' movements as the agency seeks to arrest 3,000 people a day. Wired reporter Makena Kelly says the company is becoming an operation system for the entire government," and describes how Palantir's contracts with the Trump administration are an outgrowth of work done by Elon Musk's DOGE which aims to centralize data all across government."

President Donald Trump is pushing Republican senators to back his big, beautiful bill," which includes new funding to carry out his mass deportation agenda by hiring additional ICE officers and adding detention space. ICE has already signed new agreements with jails around the country for additional capacity, and confirmed nine deaths in custody since Trump took office. It really feels like a paradigm-shifting moment," says Detention Watch Network executive director Silky Shah. People are being packed into overcrowded cells. People are not getting medical care. They're in conditions where they're languishing. And they're doing everything they can to expand, expand, expand, both here in the U.S. and also seeing people be now detained in third countries abroad."

Protests over ICE raids are continuing across the United States as agents arrest immigrants at courthouses, from their workplaces, on the way to school and more. Immigration and human rights advocate Adriana Jasso with Union del Barrio describes protests that met a massive raid in San Diego at a popular restaurant, the targeting of farmworkers, and how her organization has been conducting ICE patrols to alert the community.

As the Trump administration vows to escalate its targeting of immigrants to 3,000 arrests a day, and the Supreme Court rules it can proceed with stripping some 500,000 people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela of their legal status, we get an update from Guerline Jozef, co-founder and executive director of the Haitian Bridge Alliance. It is the biggest mass delegalization in modern history of people who followed every single rule that the U.S. government asked of them," says Jozef. This has been a nightmare."

Israeli Forces Again Fire on Crowds Trying to Access Aid in Gaza, Killing Another 27 Palestinians, U.N. Calls for Probe into Israel's Aid Site Massacre That Killed 31 People, UNICEF: Israel Has Killed or Injured Over 50,000 Children in Gaza Since Start of Genocide, Israeli Forces Kill 14-Year-Old West Bank Palestinian as Settler Attacks Soar, Protests Erupt as ICE Arrests High School Students, Avelo Airlines Faces Protests, Boycotts over ICE Deportation Flights, Senate Takes Up Budget Bill to Make Tax Cuts for the Rich Permanent, Advocates for Poor & Disabled Arrested at Capitol Hill Protest Against Social Spending Cuts, Trump Cabinet Officials Seek Oil & Gas Drilling as Trump Ends Alaskan Wilderness Protections, Far-Right Party Withdraws from Netherlands Ruling Coalition, Toppling Government, Man Who Attacked Israeli Hostage Advocates in Boulder Charged with Hate Crime, Attempted Murder, Former State Department Spokesperson Matt Miller Now Says Israel Committed War Crimes in Gaza, VA Order Bars Doctors and Researchers from Publishing in Medical Journals, Supreme Court Leaves State Gun Control Laws Intact, for Now, NYC Vigil Supports Laila Soueif Amid Hunger Strike Hospitalization

It's graduation season in the United States, and many brave students are taking the opportunity to demonstrate support for Palestinian rights despite an ongoing campus crackdown on pro-Palestine speech. We play excerpts from commencement and graduation addresses at MIT and Harvard and are joined by a student who spoke at Harvard Divinity School's graduation ceremony. Zehra Imam, a Muslim associate chaplain at MIT, recounts the collaborative, interfaith process of writing her speech with Christian and Jewish classmates and explains why she decided to quote students from Gaza in her address. This is a moment that calls for courage," Imam says.

A massacre of dozens of starving Palestinians waiting for aid occurred at a site operated by the shadowy Gaza Humanitarian Foundation over the weekend. It is exactly what many observers warned about when they expressed skepticism over the U.S.- and Israel-backed aid scheme. It's not a real organization," says Eyad Amawi, a coordinator for local NGOs based in Gaza who accuses the Israeli military of using the slow trickle of aid it allows into southern Gaza as a tool to increase suffering."

Health officials and witnesses in Gaza say at least 31 people were killed Sunday when Israeli forces opened fire on crowds headed to an Israeli-controlled aid distribution point near Rafah. Over 170 people were wounded. Israel denied responsibility. Dr. Victoria Rose, a volunteer surgeon in Gaza who treated some of the massacre's survivors, decries the ongoing violence of the Israeli military upon the besieged territory's civilian population. There are hundreds and thousands of children needlessly dying, children being blown up, children being starved and children dying of otherwise preventable illnesses ... it's a mass destruction of an entire population, and we can't stand by and let this happen any longer."

We get an update on ongoing ceasefire negotiations between Hamas and Israel from former Israeli peace negotiator Daniel Levy. The latest proposal, mediated by U.S. Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, walks back the commitment for a permanent ceasefire, Israeli withdrawal and allowing in of humanitarian aid." It's a bad deal for the Palestinians that will allow Israel to continue its ethnic cleansing of Gaza, says Levy. Meanwhile, families of Israeli hostages are protesting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's delays in securing a deal as he works toward permanent war" and the eventual annexation of Gaza. None of this would be possible if so much of the Israeli media and society was not mobilized in support of this, and none of that would be possible if Israel wasn't treated with impunity." Levy also responds to the latest massacre of Palestinians at an aid site operated by the U.S.-Israeli aid initiative, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

Russia and Ukraine Hold Talks in Istanbul as Ukraine War Intensifies, Israel Accused of Opening Fire on Palestinians Waiting for Aid in Gaza, Killing at Least 31 People, Israel Demolishes Only Dialysis Facility in Gaza Amid Ongoing Destruction of Health Infrastructure, Hamas Submits Ceasefire Proposal Demanding Complete End to Israel's Attacks, Suspect in Custody over Incendiary Attack on Boulder, Colorado, Event for Israeli Hostages, SCOTUS Allows Trump Admin to Strip Legal Protections for Half a Million Immigrants as Courts Hear Case, Armed ICE Agents Wreak Havoc as They Descend on San Diego Restaurant During Service, Community Outcry in Milford, MA, After ICE Takes Local High School Student Marcelo Gomes, Extreme Flooding in Nigerian Town Kills Over 200 People, Nationalist Karol Nawrocki Defeats Liberal Candidate in Polish Presidential Election, 3 Ex-Paramilitaries in Guatemala Get 40-Year Sentences for Rape of Maya Achi Women, Laila Soueif Hospitalized After Nearly 250 Days on Hunger Strike for Jailed Son Alaa Abd El-Fattah, We're All Going to Die": Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst Dismisses Constituent Concerns over GOP Medicaid Cuts, PBS Sues Gov't over Funds Withdrawal; WNET Removes Episodes on Trans Identity, Gaza Freedom Flotilla Sets Sail from Italy One Month After First Vessel Came Under Attack, Chilean President Gabriel Boric Backs Arms Embargo, Import Ban on Israel in Address to Congress

President Donald Trump has signed a wave of pardons for people convicted of fraud, including a Virginia sheriff who took tens of thousands of dollars in bribes and a reality TV couple who evaded millions in taxes after defrauding banks. Last month, Trump pardoned a Florida healthcare executive convicted of tax evasion for stealing nearly $11 million in payroll taxes from the paychecks of doctors and nurses. Many of Trump's pardons have gone to supporters of his or those who made political donations to the president.These pardons are not indiscriminate," says constitutional lawyer Bruce Fein. They're targeted to help people who are politically his supporters, raise money for him or otherwise."

President Donald Trump has vowed to go to the Supreme Court to keep his tariffs in place after a whirlwind 24 hours that saw a court temporarily reinstate the measures, soon after two courts blocked most of the tariffs, saying Trump overstepped his presidential authority. Trump has been infuriated by the legal challenges and lashed out on social media against the Federalist Society and conservative legal activist Leonard Leo. We get an update from Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice and an expert on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act that Trump has invoked to justify his global tariffs. She says the fate of Trump's tariffs remain uncertain, given that the powers available under the IEEPA have to be used to deal with an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy or economy of the United States, and they cannot be used for any other reason."

We speak with esteemed historian scholar Ellen Schrecker about the Trump administration's assault on universities and the crackdown on dissent, a climate of fear and censorship she describes as worse than McCarthyism."During the McCarthy period, it was attacking only individual professors and only about their sort of extracurricular political activities on the left. ... Today, the repression that's coming out of Washington, D.C., it attacks everything that happens on American campuses," says Schrecker. The damage that the Trump administration is doing is absolutely beyond the pale and has never, never been equaled in American life with regard to higher education."Schrecker is the author of many books about the McCarthy era, Cold War politics and right-wing attacks on academic freedom. Her recent piece for The Nation is headlined Worse Than McCarthyism: Universities in the Age of Trump."

Israel Uses Continued Displacement, Bombing and Starvation in Gaza as Genocide Passes 600 Days, Families Fight to Find Food as Israel's Blockade Starves Children and Babies in Gaza, Ongoing Israeli Strikes, Gunfire on Lebanon Kill Two as Israel Repeatedly Violates Ceasefire, U.S. Flagged Raised Over Embassy in Syria as Countries Move to Reestablish Ties, Saudi Prince to Iran's Leaders: Negotiate New Nuclear Deal with U.S. or Face Israeli Strikes, Federal Appeals Court Reinstates Trump's Power to Impose Sweeping Tariffs, Mexico to Hold First-Ever Judicial Elections on Sunday, Haitian Government Enlists Blackwater Founder Erik Prince to Battle Gangs, Two Canadian Provinces Declare States of Emergency as Wildfires Grow Rapidly, Family of Woman Who Died in Seattle Heat Wave Sues Oil and Gas Companies for Wrongful Death, Supreme Court Sharply Limits Scope of Landmark Environmental Law, EPA Plan Would Eliminate All Limits on Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Power Plants, German Court Ruling Opens Path to Hold Polluters Accountable for Climate Crisis, As Bird Flu Spreads, HHS Cancels $600 Million Contract to Develop Influenza Vaccines, ACLU Sues to Block New Texas Law Requiring Public Schools to Display Ten Commandments, Judge Shields Columbia Student Yunseo Chung from Deportation Ahead of June 5 Hearing, Muckraking New York Journalist Tom Robbins Dies at 76, Texas Observer Founder Ronnie Dugger Dies at 95, Renowned Kenyan Author and Academic Ngg wa Thiong'o Dies at 87

The point of this is to lure Palestinians as though they're animals going into a cage, lure them with the bait of promise of aid, and then entrap them in the south of Gaza." As starving Palestinians in Gaza compete for the limited trickle of supplies admitted into the enclave by a new U.S.- and Israeli-backed humanitarian aid scheme, journalist Jeremy Scahill of Drop Site News says the sparse aid is actually another Israeli military tactic meant to serve as part of Netanyahu's war of annihilation. ... They're using food as a weapon of war in an effort to further dehumanize Palestinians."

Israel has repeatedly claimed without evidence that Hamas endangers civilians by hiding behind human shields. It turns out, however, that Israel has systematically used Palestinians as human shields in violation of both international and Israeli law. A new investigation by the Associated Press joins reports by +972 Magazine, Haaretz and the Red Cross in documenting how Palestinians have been used as human shields to inspect buildings, tunnels and other sites in Gaza and the West Bank. The investigation includes testimony and evidence from both Israeli soldiers and Palestinian civilians, collected in part by the anti-occupation Israeli veterans' group Breaking the Silence. In what is being called the mosquito procedure," Israeli soldiers are ordered by senior officers to grab Palestinians next to them and to use them as human shields," explains Breaking the Silence's executive director, Nadav Weiman. Dehumanization of Palestinians in Israel [has] become something so common that it also leads to these kind[s] of practices inside the IDF."

The Trump administration is escalating its campaign against international students at U.S. colleges and universities, announcing that it will begin aggressively" revoking the visas of Chinese students, in addition to freezing visa processing for all foreign-born students as it prepares to require additional social media vetting for every applicant. It's really just difficult for me to think of any conceivable theory on which this is going to help the United States," says Jameel Jaffer, noting that international students pay a disproportionate share of tuition costs on U.S. campuses. Jaffer is the director of the Knight First Amendment Institute, which has previously sued the government over its social media vetting policy for visa applications. The policy, which began as a pilot program during the Obama administration, is ineffective at identifying national security threats, but it is very effective at chilling free speech," says Jaffer.Jaffer also comments on the high-profile immigration detention of former Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil and Harvard graduate researcher Kseniia Petrova, as well as a case brought by the Knight Institute challenging the constitutionality of the Trump administration's crackdown on campus pro-Palestine protest.

Deliberate Israeli Mismanagement of Desperately Needed Aid Is Killing More Palestinians in Gaza, Israel Kills Journalist Moataz Rajab, at Least the 221st Media Worker Killed in Genocide, Int'l Doctors Barred from Entering Gaza as U.S. Surgeon Testifies Child Protections in Gaza Are Gone", Israel Approves Largest Settlement Expansion Amid Mounting Raids, Killing of West Bank Palestinians, Federal Trade Court Blocks Most of Trump's Tariffs, Trump Nominates Personal Defense Attorney Emil Bove to Serve as Appellate Judge, Trump Administration to Aggressively" Revoke Visas of Chinese Students, Judge Rules U.S. Efforts to Deport Palestinian Activist Mahmoud Khalil Are Likely Unconstitutional, Police Violently Arrest Protesters Who Rallied to Defend Immigrants Detained at NYC Courthouse, Immigration Judges Toss Over a Dozen Cases Involving Men Expelled to Salvadoran Prison, Federal Judge Weighs Fate of Temporary Protected Status for Haitian Immigrants, Elon Musk Leaves Trump Administration Amid Rift over Big, Beautiful Bill", Harvard Relinquishes Photos of Enslaved People, Capping 15-Year Legal Struggle, Namibia Marks First National Genocide Remembrance Day with Calls for Reparations from Germany

We speak with Robert Weissman of Public Citizen about Donald Trump's various conflicts of interest after Trump hosted a private dinner at his Virginia golf club for the 220 top buyers of his $TRUMP cryptocurrency. The Trump family has also announced it is expanding its holdings in cryptocurrencies, with the Trump tech startup set to raise $2.5 billion to invest in bitcoin. There's millions of losers for every few winners in the crypto game. Trump is rigging the rules to make sure he's on the winning side, but regular people are going to be hurt," says Weissman, who was among protesters outside Trump's crypto dinner. He adds that the Trump family's crypto business is part of an overall authoritarian mission" to reward the rich and powerful by skirting the rules while bringing the full weight of the government down on immigrants, protesters and other voices of dissent.

The Trump administration has reached a deal with the aerospace giant Boeing that will allow the company to pay $1.1 billion to avoid criminal prosecution for two deadly crashes of the company's 737 MAX jet in 2018 and 2019, which together killed 346 people. Under the non-prosecution agreement with the Justice Department, Boeing would pay fines and fund safety improvements while providing an additional $445 million for crash victims' families, among other measures. The Justice Department says the deal is supported by many victims' relatives, but some, like Nadia Milleron, say they want to keep pushing for a public reckoning in court. We have a corporate criminal that committed the deadliest crime in U.S. history," says Milleron, whose daughter Samya Rose Stumo was killed when Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, a Boeing 737 MAX, crashed in 2019. Boeing is continuing to risk people's lives." Robert Weissman, the co-president of the consumer rights advocacy group Public Citizen, says the Trump administration's deal with Boeing is another sign that it's soft on corporate criminals."

We speak with the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Maria Hinojosa after she got extraordinary access to an ICE detention center in Colorado, where she interviewed the immigrant rights activist Jeanette Vizguerra. The undocumented mother of four was arrested by federal agents in Denver in March after she successfully fought multiple deportation efforts since 2009, including when she took sanctuary in a Denver church with her children in 2017. She received a stay of removal but returned to sanctuary in 2019 when it expired, then received additional stays under the Biden administration that also expired. She now finds herself in the sights of the Trump administration as it seeks to fulfill its goal of mass deportations of immigrants. I am a political prisoner," Vizguerra told Hinojosa. She believes that she is not being held in immigrant detention because of her immigration status, but rather she is being held because of her words and because of her activism," says Hinojosa.

As Gaza's Food Crisis Deepens, Israeli Troops Fire on Hungry Palestinians at Aid Distribution Site, They All Have Names": Protesters Honor Gaza's Dead at 24-Hour Vigil, Cholera Outbreak Leads to 172 Deaths in Sudan Amid Fighting Between Rival Military Factions, U.S. to Stop Issuing Student Visas While It Plans Further Scrutiny of Applicants' Social Media, El Salvador Won't Let Maryland Rep. Meet with Wrongfully Deported Father Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Trump Administration Seeks to Deport 4-Year-Old Who Could Die If She Loses Healthcare, ICE Agents Arrest Bronx High Schooler Outside Routine Immigration Check-In, Trump Pardons Former Reality TV Couple Convicted of Bank Fraud and Tax Evasion, RFK Jr. Orders CDC to Stop Recommending COVID Shots for Children and Pregnant People, Public Radio Stations Sue to Block Trump from Defunding Public Broadcasting, PBS Executive Removed Scene Critical of Trump from American Masters" Episode, Supreme Court Won't Hear Case by Indigenous Opponents of Arizona Copper Mine, Former New York Rep. Charles Rangel, Who Led Congressional Black Caucus, Dies at 94

A last-minute addition to President Trump's big, beautiful" budget bill seeks to ban Affordable Care Act healthcare plans from covering abortion, in addition to defunding hundreds of Planned Parenthood clinics that provide reproductive healthcare throughout the United States. Congress is literally walking us into a crisis of forced birth," says Mini Timmaraju, president of the advocacy group Reproductive Freedom for All, which is launching a series of campaigns targeting key senators ahead of the Senate vote on the GOP-backed budget bill.

A 30-year-old Black woman in Georgia has been kept on life support for three months against her family's wishes because of the state's fetal heartbeat" anti-abortion law. Adriana Smith was declared legally dead in February after a medical emergency caused her brain function to cease. Smith, a nurse, had been initially turned away when she first sought medical care. She was nine weeks pregnant at the time. But because her medical providers would face legal consequences including jail time if they were to end the pregnancy, Smith's body is still being kept on breathing machines despite the fact that Smith herself can no longer be resuscitated. The case demonstrates once again that it is deadly to be Black and pregnant," says Monica Simpson of the reproductive justice organization SisterSong.

A court has temporarily blocked the Trump administration's attempt to prevent Harvard University from enrolling international students. The move would cause over a quarter of Harvard's student body to lose visas that allow them to study in the United States. One of the students affected is Francesco Anselmetti, a member of the graduate student union, who emphasizes that visa revocations would affect graduate researchers and teaching staff, constituting one of the largest threats of vast deportation on a unionized workforce in American history." It is the latest attack by the Trump administration against universities that receive federal funding.When announcing the revocation order, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem accused Harvard of antisemitism" and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party," but Harvard professor Alison Frank Johnson warns that the prestigious university is only a test case for Trump's wider crackdown on knowledge production and academic freedom. Harvard is not really the target here. It's the independent scholarship that's being produced by universities."

Pediatric physician Dr. Alaa al-Najjar had just begun work in the emergency room at Nasser Medical Complex when she was suddenly called to return to her home in Khan Younis. When she arrived, emergency workers were pulling the charred bodies of her children from piles of rubble. An Israeli airstrike had destroyed her home, killing nine of al-Najjar's 10 children and seriously wounding her husband, Dr. Hamdi al-Najjar, and their only surviving child, Adam. Adam's arm was amputated, and his father is currently in intensive care with severe brain damage. Democracy Now! reached Graeme Groom, a volunteer doctor from the U.K. who treated Adam al-Najjar after the attack. Dr. Groom also speaks about his Palestinian medical colleagues who have been abducted or killed by the Israeli military.

Israel Bombs Gaza School Sheltering Displaced Palestinians, Killing 36, Including Children, Director of Israel- and U.S.-Backed Gaza NGO Quits to Protest Restrictions on Aid, Israeli Nationalists March Through Occupied East Jerusalem Chanting Death to Arabs", Russia Unleashes Largest Wave of Drone Strikes Since Invading Ukraine, Advocates Warn of ICE Ambush Arrests at Immigration Courts, Chief Justice Temporarily Blocks Freedom of Information Request for DOGE Records, Lawyer for Families of Boeing Crash Victims Condemns Deal to Drop Prosecutions, CUNY Schools Join Nationwide Student Hunger Strike for Gaza as U. of Oregon, Stanford Continue Fast, Seattle Residents Protest Event by Anti-LGBTQ+, Far-Right Christian Group, Maduro's Party Wins Elections Boycotted by Opposition, Asserts Claim Over Guyana's Essequibo, Sebastiao Salgado, Renowned Photographer Who Captivated with His Photos, Dies at 81

As part of our Memorial Day special, we continue our interview with Ohio death row inmate Keith LaMar live from the Ohio State Penitentiary, after the release of The Injustice of Justice, a short film about his story that just won the grand prize for best animated short film at the Golden State Film Festival. LaMar talks about his case, conditions in solitary confinement, and his work with musicians and others to raise awareness about his case as he fights to stop his pending execution scheduled in 2027.

As part of our Memorial Day special, we speak with death row inmate Keith LaMar live from the Ohio State Penitentiary, after the release of The Injustice of Justice, a short film about his case that just won the grand prize for best animated short film at the Golden State Film Festival. I had to find out the hard way that in order for my life to be mine, that I had to stand up and claim it," says LaMar, who has always maintained his innocence. LaMar was sentenced to death for participating in the murder of five fellow prisoners during a 1993 prison uprising. His trial was held in a remote Ohio community before an all-white jury. On January 13, 2027, the state intends to execute him, after subjecting him to three decades in solitary confinement. LaMar's lawyer, Keegan Stephan, says his legal team has discovered a lot of new evidence supporting Keith's innocence" that should necessitate new legal avenues for LaMar to overturn the conviction.

We begin our Memorial Day special with acclaimed director Ryan Coogler about his latest film Sinners, which is set to be one of the biggest box office hits of the year. Starring Michael B. Jordan, the genre-bending horror film is set in the Mississippi Delta during Jim Crow and is a cinematic gumbo" of various influences and themes, Coogler tells Democracy Now!I wanted to make a film that was kind of raging against the concept of genre and making the audience constantly question it, even while they were watching it," he says. In particular, the film celebrates Delta blues, music made by Black artists living under a back-breaking form of American apartheid," and what Coogler describes as our country's most important contribution to global popular culture."Coogler also discusses his family connection to Mississippi, producing the film with his wife Zinzi Coogler, his highly publicized contract with Warner Bros. and more. Coogler's previous films include Black Panther, Creed and Fruitvale Station.

Historian Jeanne Theoharis's new book, King of the North: Martin Luther King Jr.'s Life of Struggle Outside the South, is a major reexamination of the civil rights leader that offers a different picture of both King's own experiences of police brutality and his sustained critique of police brutality and the criminal legal system in the North as well as the South.We've southernized Dr. King. And so, his critique of police brutality outside the South, his long-standing critique of school segregation, of housing segregation, of job discrimination, King sees these as national, not local," says Theoharis, distinguished professor at Brooklyn College.

This Sunday marks five years since George Floyd was murdered by former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. In a video that shocked the world and spurred a global movement for racial justice, Chauvin pinned Floyd to the ground with a knee to his neck for eight minutes while Floyd gasped for air. Floyd repeatedly said, I can't breathe."Despite the nationwide uprising that followed Floyd's killing, Congress failed to pass legislation that sought to reduce racial profiling and the use of force by law enforcement. The Trump Justice Department dismissed police reform and oversight agreements in Minneapolis and Louisville earlier this week, just days ahead of the fifth anniversary. We speak with Nekima Levy Armstrong, Minneapolis-based civil rights attorney, activist and founder of the Racial Justice Network, on where the movement for racial justice stands today.

Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil testified at his asylum hearing on Thursday, telling an immigration judge in Jena, Louisiana, that his deportation from the United States could lead to his assassination, kidnapping, torture." Hours before the hearing, Khalil was allowed to meet and hold his 1-month-old son Deen for the first time. The emotional moment came after a federal judge blocked the Trump administration's efforts to keep Khalil behind a plexiglass barrier for a visit with his wife and infant son.Khalil's legal team has raised concerns about the impartiality of immigration judges overseeing the case. They serve at the pleasure of the president, and this is a president who has not been shy about firing immigration judges," says Ramzi Kassem, part of the legal team representing Mahmoud Khalil.

Trump's sweeping budget legislation has been described as the biggest Medicaid cut in U.S. history. House Republicans passed the bill early Thursday morning in a 215-214 vote. The legislation would trigger massive cuts to Medicare and Medicaid over the next 10 years, denying coverage to an estimated 7.6 million Americans, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Food assistance under the federal SNAP program would also see $300 billion in cuts, while adding billions in funding for Trump's mass deportation agenda and giving the wealthiest Americans a tax break.The legislation is basically a mugging conducted by the 1% against the rest of us. It represents the single largest upward redistribution of wealth effectuated by any piece of legislation in our history," says Chris Lehmann, D.C. bureau chief for The Nation.Senate Republicans, who have voiced some concerns over the bill, will now have to pass their own version of the budget. With all Democratic senators opposed to the package, Republicans are working to use the reconciliation process to avoid a filibuster.