Democracy Now!

Power Cuts, Freezing Temperatures Plague Millions as Texas Energy Producers Boast of Profits, Sen. Ted Cruz Fled to Cancún as Millions of Texans Endured Blackouts and Winter Cold, South Africa Switches to Johnson & Johnson Vaccine in Battle Against Coronavirus Variant, Peruvian VIPs Secretly Received First Doses of COVID-19 Vaccine, Pfizer Says its COVID-19 Vaccine Might Not Need Ultra-Cold Temperatures, U.S. COVID Deaths Drop in February But Still on Pace to Top Half-Million by Month's End, U.S. to Give $4 Billion to COVAX as Biden Tries to Repair International Ties, Biden's New ICE Guidelines Continue to Target and Demonize Immigrants, Residents Describe Harrowing November Massacre in Ethiopian Holy City, U.S. Open to Holding Talks on Relaunching Iran Nuclear Deal, Israel Expanding Dimona Nuclear Facility, U.S. Capitol Police Suspends 6 Officers over Actions During Jan. 6 Insurrection, New York Moves Closer to Releasing NYPD Disciplinary Records, Vice President Harris Calls Women's Exodus from Workforce a National Emergency, Protests in Guatemala Call for an End to Violence Against Indigenous Communities

As Democracy Now! prepares to mark 25 years on air, we celebrate Nermeen Shaikh's 10th anniversary as a Democracy Now! co-host and feature a report she filed from protests at New York's JFK Airport against the Trump administration's Muslim ban, one of the many highlights from her time on the program.

Students, campaigners and top Democrats have been pushing President Joe Biden to use executive authority to cancel at least $50,000 in student loan debt per person. Student loan debt in the U.S. stands at $1.7 trillion, with some 45 million people owing money. Filmmaker and organizer Astra Taylor, an author, documentary director and organizer with the Debt Collective, says Biden has clear legal authority to cancel student debt. "Not doing this is a choice," she says. We also speak with Braxton Brewington, a digital strategist with the Debt Collective, who says student debt cancellation is also politically smart. "President Biden has a unique opportunity to bring together a broad coalition of individuals who otherwise would be unlikely to come together around a policy," he says.

While COVID-19 infection rates and hospitalizations appear to be waning, the United States has a long way to go before people can safely return to everyday life without masks. Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease physician and professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, says it's vital to stay vigilant even as vaccinations ramp up. "If we can get our transmission down as low as possible, that is actually going to make the vaccines more effective."

Millions of people in Texas were plunged into freezing cold and darkness as a major winter storm overwhelmed the state's power grid. More than 12 million Texans face water disruptions and have been ordered to boil tap water for safe consumption, and some parts of the state have no running water at all. The state is also running out of food as the storms disrupt key supply chains. Leading Republicans, including Texas Governor Greg Abbott, falsely blamed renewable energy sources for the state's blackouts, warning against a shift to more green energy, but the state's own energy department said the outages were primarily due to freezing at natural gas, coal and nuclear facilities. Despite the crisis, state leaders say they will not integrate Texas's power grid with the rest of the country. "The impact of this storm is more than just power outages and inconveniences," says Texas Southern University professor Robert Bullard, who warns that the additional costs associated with the crisis will hurt Black and Brown communities most. "That's the inequity that's piled on top of the inequity."

Texans Face Deadly Winter Storm with Ongoing Power Outages, Water Shortages, U.S. Life Expectancy Falls by 1 Year in 2020, Drops Nearly 3 Years for Black Americans, Florida Gov. DeSantis Prioritizes Vaccines for Rich White Residents, Then Threatens Critics, Mexico Denounces Vaccine Hoarding as U.N. Warns 130 Nations Have Yet to Receive Any Vaccines, Top Executives at Vaccine Manufacturers Sold $500 Million in Stocks Last Year, FBI Probes Cuomo over Nursing Home COVID Deaths; Cuomo Threatens to "Destroy" Critic, White House Unveils Immigration Bill with 8-Year Path to Citizenship, Burmese Anti-Coup Protests Continue Two Weeks After Military Takeover, Bolivia Returns $350 Million Loan to IMF, Taken Out After 2019 Coup, Biden Speaks to Israeli PM Netanyahu; U.S. to "Recalibrate" Saudi Relations, Dubai Princess Says She Is Being Held Hostage by Her Family in New Video, U.S. Approves $200 Million in Arms Sales to Egypt Amid Human Rights Concerns, Gunmen Kidnap 42 at Nigerian School, South Carolina Passes Bill to Ban Nearly All Abortions, Biden Supports Slavery Reparations Study, HUD Faulted for Failing to Protect Residents from Lead Poisoning, Rush Limbaugh Is Dead, Atlantic City Demolishes Trump Casino

Amid the economic crisis and precarious working conditions for millions of people during the pandemic, we look at a new book by Sarah Jaffe, an independent journalist and author who covers labor and economic justice. "Work Won't Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone" looks at the unsustainable expectations of fulfillment around work and how the "labor of love" myth has contributed to the rise of toxic workplaces. Jaffe says the pandemic has shown that work can always get worse, and that more and more people are pushing back. "It's not just that it's a bad, grinding, slow, miserable job, but it's also a bad, grinding, slow, miserable job that could kill you now."

Amazon workers in Bessemer, Alabama, are continuing to vote on whether to become the first unionized Amazon warehouse in the United States. Their demands include stronger COVID-19 safety measures and relief from impossibly high productivity standards that leave many unable to take bathroom breaks. "We want to be heard. We want to be treated like people and not ignored when we have issues," says Jennifer Bates, a worker at Amazon's BHM1 facility who has been part of the union drive from the beginning. We also speak with Michael Foster, a poultry plant worker, union member and member-organizer with RWDSU. "Amazon has a lot of authority going on right now. And we, as the union, trying to take on Amazon in a right-to-work state, gives you the perfect image of David and Goliath," he says.

As school districts across the U.S. debate how to safely bring children into the classroom, we speak with two leaders of the teachers' union movement on what's at stake as schools reopen. Stacy Davis Gates, executive vice president of the Chicago Teachers Union, says years of underfunding and privatization have left many school districts ill-equipped to meet the needs of students, as well as educators. "It's not just the context of opening schools. It's reopening schools safely with the resources that are necessary to keep people safe," she tells Democracy Now! We also speak with Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, who says when a clear safety program is in place, a majority of teachers are on board with returning to in-class instruction. "The people who are in school trust it and trust that they're going to be safe," Weingarten says.

Severe Winter Storm Kills 23 People, Cuts Power to Millions as Texas Energy System Fails, Storm Creates Havoc for COVID-19 Vaccine Rollout as Biden Seeks Support from Public for Stimulus, NAACP Files Lawsuit Against Trump, Giuliani over Jan. 6 Insurrection, French Assembly Approves Bill Accused of Targeting Muslim Communities, Chad Sending Troops to Sahel, France Will Maintain Military Presence, as Conflict Claims More Lives, Protests Erupt over Spanish Rapper Arrested for Anti-Monarchy Lyrics and Tweets, Biden Directs DHS to Stop Using Word "Alien" to Refer to Immigrants and Asylum Seekers, Biden Received $5 Million from Border Security and Immigrant Prison Companies During Campaign, Meat Plant Workers Suffer Discrimination for Seeking Healthcare, Compensation After Nitrogen Leak, Tribune Publishing Acquired by Hedge Fund Alden Global; Baltimore Sun Will Go to Nonprofit, Beloved Palestinian Poet Mourid Barghouti, Exiled from His Homeland, Dies at 76

Ecuador's presidential front-runner says the country is facing a "double crisis" of COVID-19 and austerity. "We need a renewal in our politics," Andrés Arauz tells Democracy Now! The left-wing economist secured nearly 33% of the vote in the first round of Ecuador's presidential election on February 7 but fell short of the 40% needed to win outright. He will face right-wing banker Guillermo Lasso or Indigenous candidate Yaku Pérez in a runoff election on April 11, depending on the results of a recount after both candidates secured just over 19% of the vote. Arauz has pledged to end austerity measures imposed by Ecuador's outgoing right-wing President Lenín Moreno and is close to former President Rafael Correa, who led the country from 2007 to 2017 and has been credited with lifting over a million Ecuadorians out of poverty. Arauz served in Correa's administration as director of the Central Bank and later as a minister. Arauz says he would seek to work with the Biden administration, if elected, and rejects attempts to interfere in Latin American affairs. "We need to talk about peace, democracy, development as the key issues in Latin America," says Arauz. "We do not want foreign interference in our region. … We hope the Biden administration will stay away from trying to create division within the region."

Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she has authorized a 9/11-style commission to further investigate the January 6 insurrection and the actions that led up to it, as calls grow for the criminal prosecution of former President Donald Trump after his acquittal in his second Senate impeachment trial. The Nation's justice correspondent Elie Mystal says House impeachment managers presented "a fairly compelling case for criminal liability" for Donald Trump over the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. "I think there's a case for indictment. I think we should at least try," he says.

Speaker Pelosi Authorizes Independent Commission to Investigate Jan. 6 Insurrection, Deadly U.S. Cold Snap Leaves Millions Without Power, New Orleans Cancels Mardi Gras Parade One Year After It Became Coronavirus Superspreader Event, Gov. Cuomo Acknowledges Not Reporting Nursing Home Deaths But Stops Short of Apology, New World Trade Organization Chief Warns Against Vaccine Nationalism, One Killed, 9 Injured in Missile Attack on U.S. Military Base in Northern Iraq, As Taliban Fighters Surround Afghan Cities, Biden Weighs U.S. Withdrawal Plans, U.S. Removes Houthis from Terror List as Yemen's Humanitarian Crisis Worsens, Western Sahara Independence Activist Sultana Khaya Assaulted by Moroccan Police, Dozens Dead and Hundreds Missing After Overloaded Boat Capsizes in Congo River, Palestinians Say Israel Has Halted Shipment of Vaccines to Gaza Strip, Federal Court Overturns Arkansas Law Requiring Pledge Not to Boycott Israel, St. Louis Reaches $5 Million Settlement with Black Undercover Cop Assaulted by White Officers , L.A. Police Officers Circulated Racist Meme Mocking George Floyd's Killing, New Jersey Attorney General to Investigate Cops Who Beat Arab American Teen, Guatemalan Women and Girls Protest Skyrocketing Cases of Femicides

As the U.S. death toll from COVID-19 approaches half a million, a new report says nearly 40% of the deaths were avoidable. By comparing the pandemic in the U.S. to other high-income nations, the medical journal The Lancet found significant gaps in former President Donald Trump's "inept and insufficient" response to COVID-19, as well as decades of destructive public policy decisions. One of the report's recommendations is reforming the system to a single-payer model like Medicare for All, which President Joe Biden has so far rejected in favor of bolstering the Affordable Care Act. "The Affordable Care Act still left millions of people — 29 million people — without healthcare insurance coverage," says Dr. Mary Bassett, one of the authors of The Lancet report. "Single payer would address that."

As the Senate votes to acquit former President Donald Trump for inciting the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, we speak with constitutional lawyer and former Reagan administration official Bruce Fein, who says the insurrection was not just an attack on the U.S. Capitol, but "an effort, basically, to destroy the rule of law and the Constitution itself." Fein says failure to convict Trump will give license to future presidents to break the law. "It really is quite frightening that now we have a precedent that says a president has the right to do anything he wants, that he wishes to, without sanction," he tells Democracy Now! "That is no longer the rule of law."

The Senate voted 57 to 43 to convict Donald Trump for inciting the January 6 insurrection, but the vote fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to find the former president guilty. Seven Republicans voted with Democrats to convict, making it the most bipartisan impeachment trial verdict ever. House impeachment managers did not include any witnesses, after Republicans threatened to prolong the trial for weeks or even months and grind other congressional business to a halt if witnesses were called to testify. Instead, a single statement by Congressmember Jaime Herrera Beutler was entered into the record before the final vote on conviction. "This was about choosing country over Donald Trump, and 43 Republican members chose Trump," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said after the vote.

Senate Acquits Trump for Inciting Jan. 6 Insurrection Despite Most Bipartisan Vote Ever, Roger Stone Security Guards and Dozens of GOP Officials Were Part of Mob Who Attacked U.S. Capitol, U.S. COVID Cases Decrease, But Experts Warn Variant Spread, Relaxed Measures Could Derail Progress, Most U.S. Adults Should Have Access to Vaccine Starting in April, Be Inoculated by Summer, CDC Issues Safe Reopening Guidelines for Schools, U.K. Gov't Under Fire for Response to Disabled COVID Patients; New Zealand Locks Down Largest City, Guinea Declares Ebola Epidemic After 3 Deaths, DRC Also Reporting Cases, Burmese Protests Continue as Fears Mount of Military Crackdown, Indian Climate Activist Arrested After Sharing Information on Supporting Farmworkers' Protest, Blast in Mogadishu Kills 3 as Somali Government Embroiled in Election Crisis, Haitian Protesters Accuse President Jovenel Moïse of Carrying Out a Coup to Remain in Power, Asian Americans Call for Action and More Attention Paid to Surge in Anti-Asian Hate Crimes, Allegiant Air Accused of Racial Profiling After Stranding Black Teens in Arizona, U.N. Human Rights Commission to Hear Report on Racist U.S. Policing, New York Accused of Failing Unhoused People After Subway Stabbing Attacks, White House Aide T.J. Ducklo Resigns After Threatening Reporter, James Ridgeway, Investigative Journalist Who Fought Prisoner Abuse, Dies at 84

Amid a global rise in domestic violence during the pandemic, we speak with the founder of V-Day, a day of action to fight violence against women. V, the award-winning playwright of "The Vagina Monologues," formerly known as Eve Ensler, says organizers around the globe are finding ways to fight back. "I'm so moved to see our grassroots women movements around the world finding ways to rise in spite of people being locked in and shut in and in spite of COVID," she says. We also speak with blues poet and organizer Aja Monet, V-Day's VOICES artistic creative director, who says Black women are particularly at risk. "For every Black woman who reports rape, at least 15 Black women do not," Monet says. "We can go down the list and see the impact that sexual violence and harm and abuse has had on Black women primarily, but on women across the world." VOICES is a new interdisciplinary performance arts project and campaign grounded in Black women's stories by V-Day to unify the vision of ending violence against women — cis women, trans women, and nonbinary people across the African continent and African diaspora. VOICES' goal is to use art to embody and inspire solidarity-making in our collective imagination.

Legendary consumer advocate Ralph Nader says the U.S. is experiencing a "corporate crime wave" and that the Trump administration's $2.5 billion settlement with Boeing over the manufacturer's faulty 737 MAX jets amounts to a "slap on the wrist." Boeing's faulty planes were involved in two fatal crashes that killed 346 people in 2018 and 2019, including Nader's 24-year-old grandniece Samya Stumo. Nader says the Biden Justice Department should reopen the previous administration's settlement and hold Boeing fully accountable. "This is just another example of giant companies getting away with their corporate criminality — a shocking sweetheart deal, an insult to the memories of the lost ones — and further endangering the safety of air travelers in the future," he says.

As the historic Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump continues, we speak with longtime consumer advocate, corporate critic and former presidential candidate Ralph Nader, who says Democrats have set themselves up for defeat by rushing proceedings and failing to call witnesses — including Trump himself. "The narrow approach of the articles of impeachment keep the Democrats from having a full hand," says Nader. "They have like 10 arrows in their quiver, and they're using one or two."

Democratic House impeachment managers have wrapped up their case against Donald Trump, saying the former president remains a threat and should be convicted of inciting the deadly January 6 insurrection at the Capitol. The trial now moves ahead to Trump's legal team presenting their defense. We air highlights from the third day of the impeachment trial, including lead House impeachment Manager Jamie Raskin's reiteration of Trump's long history of inciting violence prior to January 6. "Is there any political leader in this room who believes that if he is ever allowed by the Senate to get back into the Oval Office, Donald Trump would stop inciting violence to get his way?" Raskin said. "President Trump declared his conduct totally appropriate. So if he gets back into office and it happens again, we'll have no one to blame but ourselves."

House Managers Rest Their Case in Donald Trump's Senate Impeachment Trial, Biden Blasts Trump's Failures to Prepare for Vaccinations as U.S. COVID-19 Death Toll Tops 475,000, As U.S. Secures 200 Million More Doses, Concern Grows over Vaccine Inequity, NYTimes: Trump Was Far Sicker from COVID-19 Than Previously Reported, Five Killed in Attack on U.S. Convoy in Afghanistan's Capital, Lawmakers Plead with President Biden to End "Catastrophic Impact" of U.S. Sanctions, U.S. Has Sold Over a Million Barrels of Iranian Oil Seized as Part of Sanctions, China Bans BBC's World News Channel, Trump's "Remain in Mexico" Program to Be Phased Out, Biden Admin Cancels National Emergency Order Used by Trump to Build U.S.-Mexico Wall, Authorities Searching for Truck with Dozens of Migrants After Harrowing 911 Call, New Details Emerge over 2010 Killing of Mexican National by Border Patrol, Grand Jury Clears Officers Who Assaulted 75-Year Old Protester in Buffalo During BLM Uprising, Damning New Video Shows Minutes After Police Handcuffed, Pepper-Sprayed 9-Year-Old New York Girl, Colorado Police Officer Fired for Excessive Force Against Trespassing Suspect, Family of Black Cyclist Killed by L.A. Sheriff's Deputies Files $35 Million Claim

Indian farmworkers are continuing to take to the streets to demand Prime Minister Narendra Modi repeal three highly contested agricultural laws. Farmworkers say the laws, which seek to deregulate markets and allow large corporations to set prices, threaten their livelihoods. Dozens have died since the start of the protests, with many deaths caused by the harsh winter as tens of thousands of farmers have camped out in the cold on the outskirts of New Delhi and other parts of the country. The Modi government has come under harsh criticism for its response to the uprising as it raided the offices of the progressive news site NewsClick and demanded that Twitter remove hundreds of accounts as part of a crackdown on information about the protests. "The main idea of doing this is to send a warning and a message to the rest of us, the independent media, to say that you guys are not immune," says P. Sainath, award-winning Indian journalist and founder of the People's Archive of Rural India. "Independent media is having it as hard as it gets just now."

Anne Feeney, the legendary Pittsburgh folk singer-songwriter and self-described rabble-rouser, has died of COVID at age 69. Her death comes a decade after she joined in the Wisconsin uprising against a draconian anti-union bill and "sang its solidarity song," remembers The Nation's John Nichols, who covered the protests and is based in Madison.

Democratic House impeachment managers laid out their case against former President Donald Trump on the second day of the Senate trial, releasing shocking video from inside the Capitol during the January 6 insurrection. The footage shows violent Trump supporters were just 58 steps away from lawmakers' offices. John Nichols, national affairs correspondent for The Nation, says impeachment managers aimed to show that Trump bears clear responsibility for what happened and that the mob attack represented "a genuine threat" to the transition of power. "This is the most important impeachment trial in American history," says Nichols. "It goes to the heart of why the impeachment power was created in 1787. It is to hold presidents to account when they act in a manner that might be that of a monarch or a king, when they take actions to perpetuate their own power that are dangerous to the republic."

On the second day of former President Trump's second impeachment trial, House impeachment managers presented detailed documentation of the events leading up to the January 6 insurrection and shared dramatic new footage of the violence as it unfolded. We air excerpts of video from security cameras, which show the pro-Trump mob searching the Capitol building for lawmakers, including Republicans like Vice President Mike Pence, coming within about 100 feet of the room where he was sheltering with his family. House impeachment managers also played audio of Capitol Hill police officers seeking backup.

"The Inciter-in-Chief": Democrats Accuse Trump of Being "Singularly Responsible" for Insurrection, Trump Attacked Pence on Twitter Minutes After Learning VP Was Evacuated from Capitol, Georgia Prosecutor Opens Criminal Probe of Trump over Election Interference, U.S. COVID Death Toll Tops 471,000; Half of All Deaths Occurred Since Nov. 1, WHO Backs Use of Oxford-AstraZeneca Vaccine, Saudi Women's Rights Activist Loujain al-Hathloul Released After 1,001 Days in Prison, Biden & Xi Jinping Speak on Phone as U.S. Forms Military Task Force on China, U.S. Sanctions Military Junta as Anti-Coup Protests Continue in Burma, Israel Approves $3B U.S. Arms Deal; Soldiers Demolish Palestinian Village, Journalist Says He Was Fired by Guardian over Tweet Criticizing U.S. Military Support to Israel, Biden Administration to Continue Trump-Era Policy of Turning Away Asylum Seekers at Southern Border, U.S. Sides with Haitian President Jovenel Moïse as Protesters Continue to Demand He Step Down, Outrage in Honduras After 26-Year-Old Student Dies in Police Custody, Amazon Hires Koch Bros.-Linked Anti-Labor Consultant to Fight Union Drive in Alabama, Kings Bay Plowshares Activist Clare Grady Reports to Prison, Sen. Bernie Sanders Grills Neera Tanden, Biden's Pick to Head OMB

As the U.S. deals with the aftermath of the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, we speak with Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha Blain, co-editors of a new book that situates the white supremacists who rallied around Trump in the longer arc of U.S. history. "Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019" brings together prominent Black writers to collaborate on what they call a "choral history" of Black American life in 80 short essays, including by the renowned scholar and activist Angela Davis, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones and others. "We wanted to bring together so many different voices from so many different backgrounds within the Black community to really share the history of this incredibly diverse and complex community," says Kendi, director of the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research. Blain, associate professor of history at the University of Pittsburgh, says despite the mammoth undertaking in the midst of the pandemic, all the contributors were excited to take part. "They shared our enthusiasm," she says. "They recognized the significance of this project as a work of history — being history in and of itself."

Historians Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha Blain dedicate their new book, "Four Hundred Souls," to the "Black lives lost to COVID-19." They put the content of their book in the context of the disparate impact of the pandemic on the African American community in the United States. "This has been in the making for decades. Even though this is a new virus, … it connects to a larger history of racial inequality, and we wanted to make sure that was clear," says Blain. Kendi is a cancer survivor and notes Black and Latinx are more at risk from preexisting conditions because of a history of racist policies, but "Americans don't know that history."

As the impeachment trial of Donald Trump proceeds, we speak with two historians about the importance of accountability for the January 6 insurrection and white supremacist attacks in the United States. The scenes of violence at the U.S. Capitol were "familiar" to Black people, says Ibram X. Kendi, author, professor and founding director of the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research. "We have consistently, over the course of 400 years, faced white supremacist mob violence." We also speak with Keisha Blain, an author and associate professor of history at the University of Pittsburgh, who says Trump must be held accountable for inciting the Capitol insurrection. "We cannot hold back and play games here," she says. "Whatever decision we make in this moment will determine the future of this nation."

Congressmember Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the lead Democratic impeachment manager in former President Donald Trump's second impeachment trial, closed the first day of proceedings in the Senate with an emotional speech describing the terror of the January 6 Capitol attack. "All around me people were calling their wives and their husbands, their loved ones, to say goodbye," said Raskin.

The Senate has voted 56 to 44 to proceed with the impeachment trial of Donald Trump for inciting the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6. Six Republicans joined Democrats in rejecting arguments from Trump's defense team that it is unconstitutional for a former president to face an impeachment trial. Trump is the first president to ever be impeached twice and the first to be tried after leaving office. We air highlights from the first day of Trump's historic second impeachment trial, including clips from a dramatic video mixing Trump's words on January 6 with scenes of rioters breaking into the Capitol.

Senate Votes to Proceed with Impeachment as Managers Present Harrowing Video of Jan. 6 Insurrection, Gov't to Send Vaccines to Community Health Centers as U.S. Continues Ramping Up Vaccinations, WHO Team Confirms COVID-19 of Animal Origin; Ghana Shuts Parliament After Outbreak Infects Lawmakers, Protesters in Burma Defy Bans, Escalating Crackdown by Police, Journalists Decry Raid on Progressive Indian News Site NewsClick, U.S. to Pursue Extradition of Julian Assange as Press Freedom Groups Warn of Dangerous Precedent, Fossil Fuel Pollution Causes One in Five Global Deaths, Calls Growing to Shut Down DAPL as Key Hearing on Fate of Pipeline Postponed, Chicago Teachers Vote to Return to In-Person Teaching After Battle with City Officials, Four Louisiana Officers Arrested over Police Brutality Cases and Other Misconduct, Two NYT Journalists Exit Paper Following Revelations of Improper Conduct

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has deported at least 72 people to Haiti, including a 2-month-old baby and 21 other children. The deportations appear to be a contradiction of the Biden administration's order to deport only people with serious charges against them. Haiti faces an increase in political violence and ongoing protests against President Jovenel Moïse's U.S.-backed regime, and Guerline Jozef, co-founder and executive director of Haitian Bridge Alliance, says sending people to Haiti is putting them in danger. "We should be providing protection for those people, but we are sending them into a burning house," says Jozef.

As the U.S. death toll from the coronavirus tops 465,000, we speak with two disability rights activists about growing calls to prioritize giving COVID vaccines to people with physical and mental disabilities. Some states, including California, are failing to prioritize vaccines for people with serious physical or developmental disabilities, even though studies show they are up to three times more likely to die from COVID-19. "I use a ventilator to breathe, and I have respiratory failure," says disabled activist Alice Wong, founder of the Disability Visibility Project and host of the podcast "Disability Visibility." "If I get the virus, I will not survive. That is a certainty." We also speak with Rabbi Elliot Kukla, a disability activist who offers spiritual care to those who are ill, dying or bereaved at the Bay Area Jewish Healing Center in San Francisco. "Since the beginning of this pandemic, it's been clear that disabled lives simply don't matter as much," he says.

The historic second impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump marks the first time a president will face impeachment after leaving office, and many Republicans claim the trial of a former president is unconstitutional. But most legal experts disagree. "Of course the Senate can conduct this trial," says Alan Hirsch, author and chair of the Justice and Law Studies program at Williams College. He says doing otherwise would give presidents a "get-out-of-impeachment-free card" at the end of their terms. Since the U.S. was founded, the Senate has conducted just three other presidential impeachment trials: Andrew Johnson in 1868, Bill Clinton in 1999 and Donald Trump in 2020. The House's second impeachment of Trump came a week before his term ended for inciting the deadly insurrection in the U.S. Capitol on January 6, which was aimed at stopping lawmakers from counting the Electoral College votes.

Second Impeachment Trial of Donald J. Trump Opens in the Senate, Georgia's Secretary of State to Probe Trump's Efforts to Overturn 2020 Election, U.S. Mulls Plan to Require Negative COVID-19 Test for Domestic Airline Passengers, Texas GOP Rep. Ron Wright Dies After 18-Day Battle with COVID-19, FEMA to Pay Low-Income Families Up to $7,000 for Funeral and Burial Costs During Pandemic, New York Nursing Home Residents Got Experimental COVID-19 Treatments Without Families' Knowledge, Senate Confirms Denis McDonough to Lead Department of Veterans Affairs, Haitian Asylum Seekers, Including Children, Deported Despite Biden Administration's Promises, Colombia to Grant Protected Status to Venezuelan Asylum Seekers, Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández Under U.S. Investigation for Bribery, Drug Trafficking, More Remains of Mexico Massacre Victims Identified, Former Chicago Teachers Union Leader Karen Lewis Dies at 67

With former President Donald Trump's impeachment trial set to begin in the Senate this week, we feature the speech Democratic Congressmember Cori Bush of Missouri made Thursday on the floor of the House of Representatives to demand accountability for the attack on the U.S. Capitol. "On January 3, we stood together to swear our oath to office, to the Constitution. We swore to defend it against all enemies foreign and domestic," Bush said. "It was attacked by a domestic enemy called white supremacy, and we must stand together now, today, to uphold that oath and hold every single person who helped incite it accountable."

As Democrats in Congress push forward on passing President Joe Biden's sweeping $1.9 trillion stimulus package, many experts say measures to combat the economic fallout from COVID-19 must address the pandemic's disproportionate impact on women — especially women of color. Women in the U.S. lost 5.5 million jobs in the first 10 months of the pandemic, nearly 1 million more job losses than men, and, combined with increased responsibilities for caregiving at home, are experiencing a "shecession," according to researcher C. Nicole Mason. "Women have been disproportionately impacted by job and income losses during the pandemic and during this economic downturn," says Mason, who is president and CEO of the Institute for Women's Policy Research, a leading voice on pay equity, economic policies and research impacting women. "The reason for this is because women are overrepresented in the hardest-hit sectors: service, leisure/hospitality, education and healthcare services."

The World Health Organization estimates there have been 51,312 confirmed cases and 522 deaths from COVID-19 in Gaza since reporting began in July 2020, and the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees warns the Gaza Strip's health system could collapse if the number of cases continues to rise. We get an update from Raji Sourani, human rights lawyer and director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza, on how Gaza has been impacted by COVID-19 as an ongoing blockade has destroyed its health infrastructure. "Our equipment is unable to deal with the emerging situation," Sourani says.

In a landmark decision, judges at the International Criminal Court say the body has jurisdiction over war crimes committed in the Palestinian territories, opening the door to possible criminal charges against Israel and militant groups like Hamas. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the international tribunal's decision "pure anti-Semitism" and rejected its claim of jurisdiction, as did the United States, while Palestinian officials and human rights groups welcome the news. Human rights lawyer Raji Sourani, director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza, says the decision restores "the independence and the credibility of the ICC." We also speak with Katherine Gallagher, senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights and a legal representative for Palestinian victims in front of the ICC. She says the court's ruling is "a landmark decision" that provides "some measure of accountability" when war crimes are committed in Palestinian territories. "There are just an array of violations that have been going on for years," Gallagher says.

Dems to Introduce $3,000 Benefit for Children as They Push Ahead with $1.9 Trillion Stimulus, Pentagon to Deploy Troops for Vaccination Effort as Fans Defy Warnings Around Super Bowl Parties, South Africa Halts Rollout of Oxford-AstraZeneca Vaccine, Wyoming GOP Censures Rep. Liz Cheney for Backing Trump's Impeachment, Judge Rules NY Republican Claudia Tenney Won Last Open House Race, Mass Protests Continue in Burma Opposing Military Coup, Removal of Aung San Suu Kyi, Indian Farmworkers Blockade Roads as Mass Protests Show No Sign of Slowing Down, Scores of People Missing and Feared Dead After Himalayan Glacier Collapse, Leftist Economist Andrés Arauz Claims Victory in First Round of Ecuador's Presidential Election, Protests Break Out in Chile After Police Shoot and Kill Street Performer, Haitian Gov't Claims It Halted a Coup Amid Dispute over Jovenel Moïse's Presidency, Ongoing Protests, Biden Says U.S. Will Not Remove Trump-Era Sanctions on Iran, Egypt Frees Al Jazeera Journalist Mahmoud Hussein, Jailed for Four Years Without Trial, Israeli PM Netanyahu Pleads Not Guilty to Corruption Charges Ahead of Fresh Elections, U.S. to Remove Yemen's Houthis from Terrorism List Amid Warnings of Humanitarian Catastrophe, Biden Ends Trump-Era "Safe Third Country" Agreement on Central American Asylum Seekers, Cameroonian Asylum Seekers in Louisiana Say ICE Threatened Them with COVID-19 Exposure, Black Sheriff's Deputy in Louisiana Dies by Suicide After Condemning Police Violence and Racism, Amazon Workers in Alabama Begin Historic Vote on Unionization, Teachers in Philadelphia, Chicago and San Francisco Fight for Coronavirus Safety Measures, Virginia Poised to Become 23rd State to Abolish Death Penalty

President Donald Trump broke with decades of U.S. foreign policy in the waning days of his administration and recognized Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara, a territory the country has occupied since 1975 in defiance of the United Nations and the international community. U.S. recognition came as Morocco agreed to establish diplomatic relations with Israel, becoming the fourth Arab nation to do so in recent months as part of a regional push by the Trump administration to strengthen Israel without addressing the Palestinian conflict. Now the Biden administration must weigh whether to reverse Trump's decision on Western Sahara. "It'll be very dangerous if Biden does not reverse Trump's unprecedented recognition of Morocco's takeover of Western Sahara," says Stephen Zunes, professor of politics and international studies at the University of San Francisco. "The United Nations Charter is very clear that the expansion of territory by military force is illegitimate."

President Joe Biden has pledged to end U.S. support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen, supported by both the Obama and Trump administrations, describing it as a "humanitarian and strategic catastrophe." The six-year war in Yemen has devastated the country, killing at least 100,000 people and pushing 80% of the country into instability requiring some form of aid or protection, according to the United Nations. Biden's remarks on Yemen come amid a freeze of U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia, with similar sales to the United Arab Emirates also up for review. "This is the culmination of six years of activism and advocacy to end the U.S.'s role in the war in Yemen," says Yemeni scholar and activist Shireen Al-Adeimi, an assistant professor at Michigan State University. "We have a president who finally acknowledged the devastating war that is, frankly, caused by the U.S.'s participation."

As the U.S Senate prepares its impeachment trial of President Trump for inciting the January 6 insurrection, House lawmakers took to the floor Thursday to detail their experiences and demand accountability. We air excerpts from dramatic speeches by Democratic Congressmembers Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan. "Some are already demanding that we move on or, worse, attempting to minimize, discredit or belittle the accounts of survivors," Ocasio-Cortez said. "In doing so, they not only further harm those who were there that day and provide cover for those responsible, but they also send a tremendously damaging message to survivors of trauma all across this country, that the way to deal with trauma, violence and targeting is to paper it over, minimize it and move on."

Countries across the African continent are facing a second COVID-19 outbreak, linked to a variant first found in South Africa that has been detected in Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Comoros and Zambia and more than 20 non-African countries so far. There is concern new variants, which scientists believe are more infectious, could spread the virus further before widespread vaccination begins. More than 40 African countries have been hit by this second wave, and just six have received relatively small shipments of vaccines. John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, says the world faces "a moral catastrophe" without vaccine equity. "It has to be very clear that no part of the world will be safe until all parts of the world are safe," he says. "We either come out of this together or we go down together. There's no middle ground in this."

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China faces widespread condemnation following a BBC report about the mass rape and sexual torture of Uyghur women and other Muslims detained in the province of Xinjiang. Women who spoke with the BBC described gang rapes, routine sexual torture using electrocution tools, forced sterilizations and men outside the prison camps paying for access to the detainees. China has rejected the report as "wholly without factual basis" and claims its mass detention of Muslim minorities is part of a "vocational training" program to counter extremism. Meanwhile, The Intercept has obtained a massive police surveillance database used by the Chinese government to monitor residents of Xinjiang, confirming China collects millions of text messages, phone contacts and call records — as well as biometric data — from Muslim minorities in Xinjiang. Information collected is used to decide who to detain. We speak with Abduweli Ayup, a Uyghur linguist and poet who was detained for 15 months for running a Uyghur-language kindergarten in Xinjiang. He says he was raped, tortured with electric shocks and subjected to humiliation rituals during his detention. "What's happening there is inhuman, and the target is the Uyghur, because of their religion and because of their culture," he says. We also speak with anthropologist Darren Byler, author of two forthcoming books on China's treatment of Uyghurs and technologies of reeducation.

As the U.S. COVID death toll tops 450,000, the Biden administration is attempting to ramp up its vaccination campaign to slow the spread of new coronavirus variants. Meanwhile, health experts warn any vaccination progress in the United States will be threatened without global vaccine equity. "We need to, as quickly as possible, expand access to the vaccines, both in this country, in the United States, as well as around the world," says Dr. Wafaa El-Sadr, director of the ICAP at Columbia University and professor of epidemiology and medicine at the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health. She argues that the U.S. needs to do more to supply the world with COVID-19 vaccines, as it did with HIV medications. "This is a model that can be emulated at this point in time in recognition of the fact that viruses know no borders."

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