Democracy Now!

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

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

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

Protests Erupt in New York After ICE Agent Shoots and Wounds Man, Video Shows Bystanders Attempting to Intervene in Violent ICE Arrest in New Jersey, Family Seeks Damages from U.S. over ICE Killing of Silverio Villegas Gonzalez, USS Abraham Lincoln Arrives in San Diego After Arduous Deployment in Support of Iran War, Michigan Senate Candidates Clash over Trump's Wars, U.S. Support for Israel in First Debate, Ukraine Says Russian Attacks Killed 78 Civilians in Two Days, Navi Pillay Wins Nobel Prize for Efforts to Promote Peace and International Law", DOJ Seeks Charges Against Former White House Aide and Jan. 6 Whistleblower Cassidy Hutchinson, Kimberly Guilfoyle Asked MAGA Donor to Pay $100K Credit Card Bill, Promising Access to Trump World", Pentagon Plans to Live-Stream First U.S. Public Execution Since 1936, Former Student Who Alleged Gang Rape at Cornell Fraternity Faces Violent Threats, Arizona Congressional Candidate Bernadette Greene-Placentia Says She Was Raped, Trump Bought Millions of Dollars of SpaceX Bonds Days Before Space Policy Order

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

After months of threatening to take over Greenland by force, President Trump last week signed a 10-page agreement with Greenland and Denmark that bolsters the U.S. military presence on the mineral-rich and strategically located island but falls short of his earlier demands to make it American territory. Under the 1951 Defense of Greenland Treaty, the United States already has wide latitude to station forces and build military bases in Greenland. The U.S. currently has one active military base and around 160 troops on the ground. Under the new agreement, signed shortly after President Trump's speech to the United Nations General Assembly last week, the U.S. can build two new bases. The deal keeps Greenland as part of Denmark and would still apply if Greenland chooses independence.In many ways, the deal is good, because the right for self-determination is approved," says Julie Rademacher, chair of Uagut, the national organization for Greenlanders in Denmark. At the same time, after threats [for] one-and-a-half years to annex Greenland, we don't have the same faith or the same trust in Americans and the U.S. president."

U.S. and Iran Hold Indirect Talks on Deal to End Fighting, Lift Sanctions and Reopen Hormuz, Iran Denies Involvement in Alleged Plot to Bomb British Air Base Used by U.S. Bombers, Ukraine's Academy of Sciences Struck as Russian Drones Kill 9, Wound Dozens, Trump Administration Slashes Biden-Era Fuel Economy Standards, White House Airs Taxpayer-Funded Ads Promoting Trump, Texas State Election Officials Send Delayed Voter Registration Applications After Error, Top FBI Official Steps Down After a Year on the Job, OpenAI Scraps Release of Latest AI Model Due to Safety Concerns, Trump Administration Reverses Biden-Era LGBTQ School Protections, New York Prosecutor Reopens Cornell University Gang Rape Investigation

Longtime national security reporter Sharon Weinberger's new book, Valley of Death: How Big Tech Is Fueling the Future of War, follows the rise of the military-industrial complex in Silicon Valley, where defense technology companies, like Palantir, Anduril and SpaceX, and their billionaire founders, are increasingly shaping U.S. foreign policy. Weinberger explains that because the government doesn't own the underlying technology" peddled by this new class of entrepreneurs," these companies have upended the traditional procurement relationship between the U.S. government and older defense firms, and now unilaterally control access to the new weapons and systems - including drones and artificial intelligence - used in modern warfare.

A new documentary titled Britain's Gaza Secrets Exposed reveals new details about the U.K. government's internal response to alleged Israeli war crimes in Gaza. Presented by journalist Ramita Navai and produced by Ben De Pear for Channel 4's investigative program Dispatches, the documentary examines government records, some newly publicized, to show how the United Kingdom ignored or concealed mounting evidence of Israel's genocidal actions in Gaza after the October 7 attacks.We were looking at how our country, which prides itself on having an ethical foreign policy and as being one of the supporting members of the United Nations on human rights, was able to keep selling arms," says De Pear. And basically, what we found was a doctored process ... It's quite extraordinary the level of duplicity that was going on in order for us to keep selling Israel arms." Ben De Pear also produced the 2025 BAFTA-winning documentary Gaza: Doctors Under Attack, which the British Broadcasting Corporation, or BBC, initially commissioned but later refused to air. Gaza: Doctors Under Attack was broadcast instead by Channel 4.

The eviction of 87-year-old Maria del Carmen Abascal Martin in Madrid, after an investment fund bought her apartment building and more than tripled her rent, has become a symbol of Spain's rising cost of living and sparked nationwide protests against corporate greed and wealth inequality. Over 600 protesters are now camped outside Madrid's regional government headquarters demanding new tenant protections.What we have is a lot of furious people, enraged people, that are demanding from the government and from the public institutions that they give us give us some sort of solution," says Sabina Carrau, a spokesperson for the Madrid Tenants' Union, which is supporting the Maricarmen decree" named after Abascal, set to be debated by Spain's government this week.Housing in Spain, as in much of the world, is really connected to tourism, really connected to having and buying a house to make a speculation," says socialist parliamentarian Tesh Sidi, who is calling instead for the guaranteed right to housing and the right to have an affordable life." Sidi, the only Sahrawi member of the Spanish parliament, also comments on Spain's colonial relationship to Western Sahara and the state of Sahrawi rights and self-determination.

Five Men Arrested on Suspicion of Terrorism Near British Base Used by U.S. in Iran War, Trump Asked Chinese President Xi Jinping If He Would Like to Buy American-Made Weapons, White House Blocks CNN from Air Force One, OpenAI's Artificial Intelligence Reportedly Meddled with U.S. Government Websites, Seven People Killed in Airstrikes in Yemen, Palestinian Death Toll in Israel's War on Gaza Surpasses 74,000, U.K. Foreign Minister Ed Miliband Blasts Israeli Government at Labour Conference, Ebola Cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo Top 8,000, Supreme Court Allows Trump Administration to Roll Out Federal Voter Database, Federal Prosecutor Resigns Under Protest over Failed Case Against Broadview Six" ICE Protesters, U.S. Judge Issues Permanent Injunction Against Dreadful" Manhattan ICE Jail, Russia Bombs Apartment Building in Ukraine's Kharkiv, Injuring 22

We speak with journalist Akbar Shahid Ahmed, whose new book, Crossing the Red Line, looks at how President Joe Biden and top figures in his administration supported Israel's brutal war in Gaza despite the soaring death toll and growing alarm over widespread war crimes committed by the Israeli military.The policies that we've seen entrenched and, frankly, worsened and become more dangerous and deadly under Donald Trump were really established by Biden's team," says Ahmed, who says there is bipartisan continuity" on Israel-Palestine between the two presidents.

At the United Nations this week, President Trump repeated his attacks on the International Criminal Court and urged other nations to pull out of the global tribunal. The United States earlier this year imposed sanctions on the president of the ICC and a senior prosecutor who was part of the team that issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for crimes against humanity in Gaza, and the Trump administration is reportedly preparing more sanctions against the institution itself. Meanwhile, a coalition of nations has formed to defend international law in solidarity with the people of Palestine under the banner of the Hague Group, which was established last year by Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Honduras, Malaysia, Namibia, Senegal and South Africa.It's an absolute low point for the sacred grounds of the United Nations that President Trump has shown up here and attacked the international legal order," says Varsha Gandikota, executive secretary of the Hague Group.We also air remarks from South African Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola, who spoke earlier this week at the historic Riverside Church in New York City to urge respect for international law.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed a half-empty chamber at the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday, after dozens of delegations walked out in protest at the start of his speech. Netanyahu assailed his critics as antisemites," defended his country's conduct in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and Syria, and lavished praise on President Trump for joining Israel's strikes on Iran.Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator under Prime Ministers Ehud Barak and Yitzhak Rabin, says Israel's growing diplomatic isolation needs to be translated into action" like sanctions, arms embargoes and other forms of accountability.

Over 100 protesters were arrested near the United Nations in New York on Thursday ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech to the General Assembly. The sit-in, organized by Jewish Voice for Peace, denounced Netanyahu for perpetrating a genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, building more illegal settlements in the West Bank, occupying parts of Lebanon and bombing Iran alongside the United States. Democracy Now! spoke with participants, including some congressional candidates and other prominent figures.

Dozens of U.N. Delegates Walk Out in Protest as Israel's Netanyahu Addresses General Assembly, Over 100 Protesters Arrested Outside U.N. Demanding Arrest of Benjamin Netanyahu, Separatists Attack Government Forces in Ethiopia's Worst Fighting Since 2022 Ceasefire, Opposition Groups Protest in Caracas as Venezuela's Leader Promises Elections at the Right Moment", U.S. Senate Defeats Iran War Powers Resolution on Vote of 49-50, Trump Hosts Xi Jinping for State Dinner, Joined by U.S. Billionaires Worth $2.4 Trillion, Banned Reporters Allowed Back into White House After Judge's Ruling, Judge Tosses Trump's Lawsuit Against Iowa Pollster and Newspaper, Citing First Amendment, David Ellison Considers Tapping Elon Musk as Investor in Paramount-Warner Bros. Megamerger, House Democrats Decry Abusive and Life-Threatening Conditions" in Florida ICE Jails, Protests Erupt in Spanish Capital over Forced Eviction of 87-Year-Old Woman

One of the features we see in ... a lot of the billionaire tech elites is a real kind of anger," says Jacob Silverman, author of Gilded Rage: Elon Musk and the Radicalization of Silicon Valley. They're angry at what they see as the excesses of woke culture and liberal and lefty politics. ... And they're angry that they don't have free rein to enact the world they want to enact, and that includes areas like AI." Silverman also discusses how tech elites like Peter Thiel and David Sacks are shaping the Trump administration's approach to technology.

Seydina Moussa Ndiaye is a member of the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence, working on a strategy with the African Union to address the risks and benefits of AI for the continent. African countries face the threat of colonial AI," says Ndiaye. When we talk about colonialism historically, that involves the control of resources, the control of knowledge and the control of terms of exchange, and we see that in Africa when we talk about AI."

Leaders of top artificial intelligence firms, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, testified to the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday, urging nations to adopt international standards on the development of AI. This comes after AI agents at OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta and Google have gone rogue in recent months, hacking into other companies' corporate systems and, in the case of OpenAI, into the portal of Australia's public health insurance program.I think we're headed in the right direction," says Malo Bourgon, CEO of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, who has participated in several AI-related meetings on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly this week. I do think that the CEOs, while there's a bunch of reason to be cynical about them, are sincere that they think that the progress with this technology is moving too quickly and that they risk losing control of it, and that that could lead to permanent disempowerment or human extinction."

A federal judge has temporarily blocked President Trump's ban on CNN, MS NOW and Politico, ordering the administration to restore their White House access for two weeks. CBS, Fox News and NBC had suspended their coverage of President Trump Monday after he expelled CNN from the White House TV press pool. People are standing up for press freedom," says Filipino American journalist Maria Ressa, who won the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize. There are costs to standing up, but there are greater costs to giving up."Ressa is also co-chair of the United Nations Independent International Scientific Panel on Artificial Intelligence. A small group of countries and companies should not be determining the fate of the world," says Ressa about the current state of AI.

Judge Blocks White House Ban on CNN, MS NOW and Politico, Tech Leaders Urge U.N. to Regulate AI as Australia Says Rogue OpenAI Agent Hacked Website, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Greg Casar Introduce Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act", Iranian President Condemns Trump's Threat to Annihilate" His Country, Navy Admits Eight Sailors Attempted Suicide Aboard Carrier Strike Group, A Spectacle That Shames Us All": Emmanuel Macron Condemns Israel's Assault on Gaza, Trump Rolls Out Red Carpet as Xi Jinping Begins Three-Day State Visit to U.S., Guatemalan Immigrant in Michigan Dies in Car Crash After Pursuit by ICE Agents, Costa Rican Immigrant with Diabetes Dies in ICE Custody After Missing Food, Insulin Shots, Texas Congressmember Says Venezuelan Immigrant Shot by ICE Still Has Bullet Lodged in Back, House Democrats Hear Testimony from Family Members of People Killed by ICE, Harvey Weinstein Sentenced to 15 Years in Prison for Sexual Assault in New York

2026 is already the deadliest year for measles in the United States since the virus was declared eliminated in 2000. Four people died over the last month in Pennsylvania amid an ongoing outbreak in the state, which had not seen a measles-related death in at least 35 years. All four victims, including two infants, were unvaccinated (children do not receive their first dose of the measles vaccine until they have reached a year old). The deaths come as President Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. continue to defund public vaccination programs and push debunked claims that vaccines cause autism.Pediatrician and vaccine expert Dr. Paul Offit warns that the four reported measles deaths - which were reported by Pennsylvania health officials but have not yet been acknowledged by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - are likely a vast undercount. He estimates that there could be closer to 4,000" cases in the Pennsylvania outbreak. I don't think people realize how contagious this virus is," Offit says. You don't have to have direct contact with somebody who has measles. You just have to be within their airspace within two hours of them being there."We also speak to Offit about the COVID-19 virus, which he says is now affecting the United States like flu" by causing hundreds of thousands of people to be hospitalized and tens of thousands to die, just like influenza does, every year." Yearly flu and COVID-19 vaccinations, he explains, are effective at keeping people out of the hospital, effective at keeping them out of the intensive care unit, and effective at keeping them out of the morgue."

In the wake of devastating flash floods triggered by glacial collapse in the Himalayas, Nepal is demanding climate reparations from polluter countries as it embarks upon the grueling process of rebuilding. Over 1,400 bodies have been recovered from the disaster, with around 6,000 others still missing. Nepal's government estimates that the cost of infrastructure reconstruction is likely to exceed $4 billion. Nepal contributes less than 0.1% of global carbon emissions, yet as a mountainous country surrounded by glaciers, continues to be vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Recent studies estimate that global surface temperatures will likely exceed 1.5C above preindustrial levels by the end of the decade.We go to a rally outside of United Nations headquarters, where Nepali activists, including our guest Anisha Buda, are demanding climate justice, reparations and a just transition out of fossil fuels. Buda, a member of the region's ethnic minority Kaike-speaking Magar community, says that almost 90% of the victims impacted by August's flash flooding were part of Nepal's Indigenous communities. It is not just the lives of the people lost. It's not just the houses swept, but it's their culture, tradition and their very identity that is being lost by the floods, by the climate-induced disasters."