Democracy Now!

Democratic New York Governor Kathy Hochul has shocked constituents this month with a surprise decision to cancel New York City's congestion program plan just weeks before it was set to start. Hochul had previously supported the plan, which would have charged drivers $15 to enter parts of Manhattan in order to fund the city's public transportation budget. New York City's public transportation system, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), is used daily by millions of city residents but has long been plagued by underfunding for necessary expansions and repairs. Congestion pricing has been championed by a wide coalition that includes disability rights advocates, low-income residents and climate activists. The program was expected to dramatically reduce air pollution and fossil fuel emissions in the third-highest emitting city in the world. We hear from two New Yorkers: David Jones, an MTA board member and the president and CEO of the Community Service Society of New York, and Keanu Arpels-Josiah, a young climate activist with Fridays for Future NYC who has just graduated high school. We're at a dire point in the climate crisis," and Governor Hochul is failing on this issue," says Arpels-Josiah.

We discuss the plea deal and release of Julian Assange with Australian journalist Antony Loewenstein, and the reaction in Assange's home country of Australia to his release and WikiLeaks's legacy, which he says helped open the door to whistleblowers and leakers in the era of digital journalism. Loewenstein, the author of The Palestine Laboratory, also discusses the state of press freedom in Israel's war on Gaza. The Israeli military doesn't view Palestinian journalists as journalists, he argues. Instead, it views them as akin to terrorists" to justify its targeting of them, an issue that Loewenstein argues should be of more concern to Western media outlets.

We discuss the plea deal and release of Julian Assange with press freedom advocate Trevor Timm. Thankfully, Julian Assange is finally going free today, but the press freedom implications remain to be seen," says Timm, who explains the U.S. espionage case against Assange, which was opened under the Trump administration and continued under Biden. Timm expresses disappointment that Biden chose to continue prosecuting Assange rather than demonstrating his stated support of press freedom. If convicted, Assange could have been sentenced to 175 years in U.S. prison, which Timm calls a ticking time bomb for press freedom rights."

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been freed from Belmarsh Prison in London, where he has been incarcerated for the past five years, after accepting a plea deal with U.S. prosecutors. After a decade-plus of legal challenges, Assange will plead guilty to a single felony count of illegally obtaining and disclosing national security material for publishing classified documents detailing U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan on WikiLeaks. The Australian publisher is expected to be sentenced to time served and allowed to return home, where he reportedly will seek a pardon. Assange's brother Gabriel Shipton describes learning of his release as an amazing moment." He speaks to Democracy Now! about Assange's case and what led up to the latest developments, as well as what he expects will happen next.

Julian Assange Secures Freedom After Reaching Plea Deal with U.S., Leaving U.K. Prison, A Nightmare from Which They Cannot Wake": UNRWA Head on Gaza's Catastrophic Reality, Gaza Health Workers Call on International Community to Protect Palestinian Medical Sector, Israel's Supreme Court Rules Ultra-Orthodox Jews Must Serve in Military, Russian Strike Kills 5 in Eastern Ukraine's Pokrovsk, as Moscow Vows Retaliation for Crimea Attack, Kenyan Police Crack Down as Protesters Call for National Strike Against Tax Plan, Kenya Prepares to Deploy 400 Troops to Haiti, Protests Revived in New Caledonia After Independence Activists Extradited to France for Prosecution, SCOTUS to Hear Appeal to Tennessee's Ban on Gender-Affirming Care for Young People, Abortion Rights Advocates Mark 2 Years Since SCOTUS Overturned Roe v. Wade, Louisiana Families Sue over State's Ten Commandments" Law, Prosecutors Recommend Criminal Charges Against Boeing

We go to Gaza to speak with Palestinian journalist Maha Hussaini after the International Women's Media Foundation came under fire for rescinding its Courage in Journalism Award to her following a smear campaign. Hussaini is an award-winning journalist and human rights advocate who has extensively documented Israel's war on Gaza since October, including reporting on the mass displacement of Palestinians while being repeatedly displaced herself. This is not the first time, by the way, that I have been subjected to such smear campaigns," says Hussaini, who recounts a career spent defending her work against attacks and intimidations from Israel and its supporters. Hussaini speaks to us from Deir al-Balah in central Gaza and reports on dire conditions there. The war waged on the Gaza Strip is not a war against particular armed factions, but against the entire population of 2.3 million residents," Hussaini says.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced that the Israeli military plans to shift its focus to Lebanon, from where attacks on Israel by Hezbollah have escalated in recent months. The Lebanon-Israel border is more dangerous than ever because of the capabilities that Hezbollah has," says Palestinian American journalist Rami Khouri. He explains how the balance of power has shifted in the region, but warns of the potentially devastating" effects of a full-scale war in Lebanon. Khouri adds, We've passed the point where Israel and the U.S. dominate the strategic realities, military realities, in the Middle East."

Democratic Congressmember Ayanna Pressley is a founding member of a congressional task force aiming to stop the right-wing Heritage Foundation's Project 2025," the moniker given to a Donald Trump-associated political plan to reduce the power of the federal government and push forward socially conservative policies. Pressley calls Project 2025 an extreme manifesto" and explains why she has made preventing its coming into fruition a top priority during the 2024 election.

Tuesday is the culmination of the most expensive primary race in U.S. history in New York's 16th Congressional District. Democratic Congressmember Jamaal Bowman, a former Bronx middle school principal and one of the first to call for a ceasefire in Gaza in October, is being challenged by a former corporate executive, George Latimer, who was encouraged to run by the Democratic Majority for Israel PAC. Outside spending in the race has topped $23 million, much of it from pro-Israel groups like AIPAC. Bowman, a recent guest on Democracy Now!, is a member of the progressive Squad" in Congress, a coalition of congressional representatives that includes New York's Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who campaigned for Bowman at a reelection rally in New York City Saturday, and Massachusetts's Ayanna Pressley. Bowman needs to be decisively returned" to Congress, says Pressley, who joins Democracy Now! to discuss the final push to get out the vote for Bowman and characterizes him as the pro-peace, pro-humanity, pro-justice candidate."

Israeli Strike Kills Head of Gaza Emergency Medical Operations Amid Ongoing Assault on Health System, 20,000 Gazan Children Are Unaccounted For, at Least 4,000 Buried Under the Rubble, IDF Straps Palestinian Man to Military Vehicle as a Human Shield in Occupied West Bank, Leaked Audio Reveals Covert Israeli Plan to Fully Annex Occupied West Bank, 150,000 Israelis Call for New Elections, Immediate Ceasefire Deal, Two Air Force Members Seek Conscientious Objector Status over U.S. Complicity in Gaza Slaughter, The World Cannot Afford Another Gaza": U.N. Warns Against Escalation of Israel's War in Lebanon, 1,300 Pilgrims Died While Performing Hajj Amid Extreme Heat, Shooting Spree on Religious and Police Sites in Russia's Dagestan Kills 19, Russia Targets Ukrainian Power Infrastructure in String of Attacks; Ukraine Attack Kills 5 in Crimea, Kenya's President Seeks to Quell Protests After 2 Killed, 200 Injured in Police Response, Dozens of Asylum Seekers Feared Dead in Mediterranean Shipwreck, Blaze at South Korea Battery Plant Kills at Least 22, SCOTUS Upholds Ban on Domestic Abusers Possessing Guns; Clarence Thomas Dissents, 4 Killed, 10 Injured at Arkansas Grocery Store Mass Shooting, Buoyed by NYC Conviction, Trump Raises $141M in May to Biden's $85M, British Editor Won't Take Washington Post Job Amid Outcry over Plan to Shake Up Newsroom, Texas Police Charge Woman with Attempted Murder for Trying to Drown Palestinian American Toddler

The new film Green Border, from acclaimed Polish director Agnieszka Holland, dramatizes the humanitarian crisis facing millions of migrants seeking refuge in Europe. It tells the true story of how refugees from the Middle East and Africa became trapped in 2021 at the so-called green border between Poland and Belarus, through the perspectives of refugees, border guards and refugee rights activists. Fear and the hate are so easy to be spread when our borders or our comfort is attacked by the challenge of newcomers," warns Holland, who connects the crisis depicted in the film to Europe's growing anti-migration political atmosphere. Frankly, it is an incredible mess right now. And it's going in a very dangerous direction," she says. Green Border opens today in New York and nationwide next Friday.

The Night Won't End, a new documentary from Al Jazeera English, takes an in-depth look at attacks on civilians by the Israeli military in Gaza and the United States' role in the war. The film follows three Palestinian families as they recount the horrific experiences they have endured under relentless Israeli assault, including the family of 6-year-old Hind Rajab, the young Palestinian girl who made headlines when it emerged in January that she had been trapped in a car with family members killed by Israeli ground troops, and the Salem family, who first lost dozens of family members in an Israeli airstrike and then additional family members who were executed by Israeli soldiers. We play clips from the documentary and speak to journalists Kavitha Chekuru and Sharif Abdel Kouddous, the director and correspondent on The Night Won't End, respectively. We also discuss the plight of journalists in Gaza and U.S. complicity in Israel's war. There's no question that U.S. weapons have killed civilians in Gaza," says Kouddous. This violates both international humanitarian law and domestic law."

Hunger, Death, Homelessness, Orphanhood: The Unimaginable Toll of Israel's War on Gaza's Children, Majed Abu Maraheel, Palestine's First-Ever Olympian, Dies Due to Israel's Medical Blockade on Gaza, U.N. Warns Israel's War on Gaza Has Led to an Unprecedented Environmental Catastrophe, U.S. Media Org. Rescinds Award for Celebrated Gaza Journalist Maha Hussaini, Wikipedia Declares ADL an Unreliable" Source on the Israel-Palestine Conflict, AIPAC-Affiliated Groups Pour Record Sums into Defeating Progressive NY Rep. Jamaal Bowman, Trump Says He Wants to Grant Green Cards to Foreign Graduates of U.S. Colleges, Climate Crisis Made Extreme Heat Waves in U.S., Mexico and Central America 35 Times More Likely, Hawaii Agrees to Decarbonize Transportation in Victory for Youth Climate Movement, U.K. High Court Rules New Fossil Fuel Projects Must Account for Global Heating, Supreme Court Rejects Billionaires' Challenge to Tax on Overseas Investments, South Korea Responds to Russia-North Korea Defense Pact as Vladimir Putin Wraps Hanoi Trip, Donald Sutherland, Movie Star and Antiwar Activist, Dies at 88

Democratic Congressmember Delia Ramirez of Illinois says big money in politics" is a threat to U.S. democracy, pointing to Jamaal Bowman's primary race as an example of how deep-pocketed interest groups can impact election contests. Bowman is a progressive Squad" member facing a tight nomination race in New York's 16th Congressional District against his Democratic challenger George Latimer, who has the backing of groups affiliated with the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, which have pumped millions of dollars into the primary. Bowman was one of the first lawmakers to call for a Gaza ceasefire after October 7. They are literally trying to purchase that election because he dared to stand for peace and justice," says Ramirez.

President Joe Biden's latest executive order on immigration gives legal protections to about half a million undocumented immigrants who are married to American citizens, preventing their deportation and providing a streamlined pathway to citizenship for them and their children. The announcement is being welcomed by immigrant rights groups, but comes just weeks after Biden signed another order giving himself far-reaching power to shut down the U.S. border with Mexico to limit asylum requests. The two executive orders could not be more different from each other," says Congressmember Delia Ramirez of Illinois. She attended Tuesday's White House ceremony with her husband Boris Hernandez, who came to the U.S. as a teenager and would qualify for protections under the new rule, and says Biden must offer an alternative to hard-line Republican policies. Be the administration that shows the stark difference between Donald Trump and Joe Biden as it pertains to immigration. Tuesday was a good step in that direction. What he did two-and-a-half weeks ago was not," says Ramirez.

The U.S. military ran a secret anti-vaccination campaign at the height of the pandemic in the Philippines and other nations to sow doubt about COVID vaccines made by China, according to a new investigation by Reuters. The clandestine Pentagon campaign, which began in 2020 under Donald Trump and continued into mid-2021 after Joe Biden took office, relied on fake social media accounts on multiple platforms to target local populations in Southeast Asia and beyond. The campaign also aimed to discredit masks and test kits made in China. Within the Pentagon, within Washington, there was this fear that they were going to lose the Philippines" to Chinese influence, says Joel Schectman, one of the reporters who broke the story. Schectman says that while it's impossible to measure the impact of the propaganda effort, it came at a time when the Chinese-made Sinovac shot was the only one available in the Philippines, making distrust of the vaccine incredibly harmful."

Boeing CEO David Calhoun appeared before a Senate committee on Tuesday to face questions about the aerospace giant's safety record, just hours after the release of a damning report on Boeing's business practices. Released by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, the report found that the company lost track of hundreds of substandard aircraft parts, eliminated quality inspectors and put manufacturing workers in charge of signing off on their own work. We speak with Nadia Milleron, an aviation safety advocate, whose daughter Samya Stumo was killed on Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 in 2019 when a Boeing 737 MAX 8 jet crashed due to the plane's malfunctioning software that put the plane into a nosedive. She attended Tuesday's hearing and is also running for Congress in Massachusetts. Why is Dave Calhoun paid $32 million? He's paid that money to cut costs. That's what he's good at. He's not good at production. He's not an engineer. He's paid to strip-mine the company," says Milleron, who signed a letter along with other families of Boeing crash victims calling on the Justice Department to consider criminal prosecutions against company leadership. They need to clean house."

U.N. Accuses Israel of Systematically Violating the Laws of War in Gaza, White House Cancels Israeli Meeting After Netanyahu Accuses U.S. of Withholding Arms, Tension Escalates in Lebanon as Israel & Hezbollah Exchange Threats, Putin Visits Vietnam After Signing Security Pact with N. Korea, Trump Attacks Biden for Moving to Shield Undocumented Spouses of U.S. Citizens from Deportation, Over 900 Muslim Pilgrims Die from High Heat During Hajj in Mecca, Tropical Storm Alberto Makes Landfall, Heat Alerts Issued in 14 States for Record-Breaking Heat Wave, New Mexico Declares State of Emergency over Devastating Wildfire, Study: Air Pollution Caused 8 Million Deaths in 2021, U.K. Climate Activists Spray Orange Paint at Stonehenge & Airport Housing Taylor Swift Airplane, New Caledonia: French Police Arrest 11 Including Independence Leader, Sudan: Three Killed as RSF Shells Hospital in Omdurman, 200 Protesters Arrested in Kenya as Anger Mounts over Proposed Tax Hikes, Biden Administration Approves Sale of 1,000 Armed Drones to Taiwan, Club Q Shooter Pleads Guilty to Federal Hate Crimes Charges, Louisiana Orders Public Schools to Display Ten Commandments, Noam Chomsky Leaves Hospital After Suffering Stroke

Another Wasted Life." That's the name of a remarkable new song by the Pulitzer Prize-winning, Grammy-winning artist Rhiannon Giddens. She released a video of the song on October 2 to mark International Wrongful Conviction Day. The song was inspired by Kalief Browder, a Bronx resident who died by suicide in 2015 at the age of 22 after being detained at Rikers Island jail for nearly three years, after being falsely accused at the age of 16 of stealing a backpack. He was held in solitary confinement for two years and was repeatedly assaulted by guards and other prisoners.In the video for Another Wasted Life," Rhiannon Giddens features 22 people who were wrongly incarcerated. Together, they collectively served more than 500 years in prison for crimes they didn't commit. The video includes two men, David Bryant and Tyrone Jones, who each spent 40 years in prison. Another seven of the men each spent over 25 years locked up after wrongful convictions. Rhiannon Giddens made the video in partnership with the Pennsylvania Innocence Project.

As part of our Juneteenth special broadcast, we feature our interview with pioneering musical artist Rhiannon Giddens, who won a Pulitzer Prize for her opera Omar, about Omar ibn Said, a Muslim scholar in Africa who was sold into slavery in the 1800s.

We feature a special broadcast marking the Juneteenth federal holiday that commemorates the day in 1865 when enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, learned of their freedom more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation. We begin with our 2021 interview with historian Clint Smith, originally aired a day after President Biden signed legislation to make Juneteenth the first new federal holiday since Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Smith is the author of How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America. When I think of Juneteenth, part of what I think about is the both/andedness of it," Smith says, that it is this moment in which we mourn the fact that freedom was kept from hundreds of thousands of enslaved people for years and for months after it had been attained by them, and then, at the same time, celebrating the end of one of the most egregious things that this country has ever done." Smith says he recognizes the federal holiday marking Juneteenth as a symbol, but it is clearly not enough."

We speak with Israeli American Jewish scholar Raz Segal about the University of Minnesota's move to rescind a job offer over his comments early in the war on Gaza, when he characterized the Israeli assault as a textbook case of genocide." Segal was set to lead the university's Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, but after two board members quit in opposition to Segal's selection and a smear campaign led by the pro-Israel group Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas (JCRC), the school revoked the offer. Segal says he has been targeted because of my identity as a Jew who refuses the narrowing down of Jewish identity to Zionism" and calls the JCRC-led opposition a hateful campaign of lies and distortions" and crude political intervention." This was a completely legitimate hiring process," states Segal. He says rescission of his offer spells the end of this idea of free inquiry, of academic freedom, of research and teaching - and all in the service, of course, of supporting an extremely violent state."

We host a roundtable conversation on Maryland Governor Wes Moore's historic pardons of 175,000 marijuana-related convictions in the state, including drug paraphernalia-related convictions. Jheanelle Wilkins is the chair of Maryland's Legislative Black Caucus; Maritza Perez Medina is the director of federal affairs at the Drug Policy Alliance; and Jason Ortiz, who was himself arrested at the age of 16 for cannabis possession, is director of strategic initiatives at the Last Prisoner Project. It's incumbent upon us to make sure we take action to repair the harms" of the war on drugs, says Wilkins. Maryland legalized the use of recreational marijuana in 2022, but the mass pardons provide historic relief for those who faced criminal consequences while the drug was illegal. Moore says he timed the pardons for the week of Juneteenth, the federal holiday on June 19 to mark the end of slavery in the United States - a symbolic move that underlines the disproportionate impact of drug criminalization on Black communities. Our guests call on other states and the federal government to follow Maryland's example, as we also discuss the Biden administration's recent descheduling of marijuana from a Schedule I to Schedule III drug. This needs to go further," says Medina. We want to make sure we're also focusing on community investment and retroactive relief," adds Ortiz.

Israeli Attack Kills Gazans Awaiting Humanitarian Aid Shipments, Israelis Protest Outside Netanyahu's Home to Demand New Elections & Ceasefire, Key Democrats Agree to $18 Billion U.S. Arms Sale to Israel, ICAN Calls for Restraint as Russia and NATO Weigh Deploying More Nuclear Warheads, Vladimir Putin Travels to North Korea for State Visit, Will Meet with Kim Jong-un, Hundreds of Millions to Face Heat Advisories as Summer Heat Wave Spreads, EU Approves Landmark Habitat Restoration Law, 11 Die, Dozens Go Missing as Ships Carrying Asylum Seekers Capsize Off Italy, Biden to Extend Protections to Undocumented Immigrant Spouses of U.S. Citizens, NY Gov. and NYC Mayor Float Reinstating a Pre-Pandemic Ban on Masks in Public, Gov. Hochul Faces Backlash, Legal Challenges for Suspending Congestion Charge, Judges Block New Title IX Protections as Republican-Led States Object to Expansion of Trans Rights, Thai Senate Passes Marriage Equality Bill After Decades of LGBTQ+ Organizing, Former Black Panther Veronza Bowers Is Free After Half-Century in Prison

Acclaimed author Arundhati Roy could soon face trial under India's contested anti-terror" laws in a case that has drawn outrage from free speech advocates in India and beyond. An official from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's far-right ruling Bharatiya Janata Party gave the go-ahead on Friday for Roy's prosecution over comments she made about Kashmir in 2010. This comes as Modi was sworn in last week to his third term as prime minister after the BJP won the most seats in Indian's Parliament, but lost its outright majority. This case is so convoluted, it's hard to say where it begins and where it ends - and that's the point. The process is the punishment," says Indian author and journalist Siddhartha Deb, who teaches at The New School in New York. Deb says Modi is trying to show that everything is normal" despite the shocking electoral setback, with the case against Roy being used to placate his rabid attack dogs of Hindu nationalism."

Democratic Congressmember Jamie Raskin of Maryland says he may not attend Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's address to Congress in July, as some other Democrats have already vowed to boycott the speech. My main commitment at this point is to see a ceasefire to end the bloodshed, to get the hostages returned and to surge humanitarian aid into Gaza," says Raskin. He says Israel had a right to retaliate after the October 7 attack led by Hamas, but only within the constraints of international law," and says there needs to be a two-state solution to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and end the nightmare that has been going on for decades now."

Former President Donald Trump returned to the U.S. Capitol last week for the first time since the January 6 insurrection in 2021, where he met with Republican lawmakers including House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and reportedly discussed how to quash his 34 felony convictions stemming from his New York fraud case, as well as how to punish prosecutors involved in the various cases against him. His return to Capitol Hill showed that he has cemented his political stranglehold over the Republican Party," says Democratic Congressmember Jamie Raskin of Maryland. While they are attacking the rule of law ... they're doing everything they can to compromise the judiciary and to destroy the rule of law in our country."

The Israeli military on Sunday announced a daily tactical pause" in its attacks on Rafah to allow humanitarian relief to enter the Gaza Strip, after systematically blocking aid from reaching Palestinians in Gaza since October 7. While a full ceasefire is still vital, any pause in the bombing is good news for children," says UNICEF spokesperson James Elder, speaking to Democracy Now! from Rafah. The physical and psychological exhaustion they face is almost impossible to capture," he says, characterizing Israel's offensive as a war on children."

50,000 Children in Gaza Need Immediate Medical Treatment for Malnutrition, 60 Families in Gaza Have Lost Over 25 Family Members in Israeli Attacks Since Oct. 7, Aid No Longer Entering Gaza by Sea as U.S. Pier Falters, Israeli Protests Calling for Ceasefire Deal Continue as Netanyahu Dissolves War Cabinet, U.S. Sanctions Israeli Group Tsav 9 for Attacking Gaza-Bound Aid Trucks, SCOTUS Overturns Bump Stock Ban in Major Blow to Gun Control Efforts, Michigan Gunman Injures 9 People at Children's Play Area, International Conference Reaffirms Support for Territorial Integrity" of Ukraine, Millions in Sudan Could Die from Hunger; UNSC Calls for RSF to Halt Attack on El Fasher, French Left-Wing Parties Form New Coalition to Defeat Macron and the Threat of the Far-Right, Global Nuclear Spending Surged to $91 Billion in 2023 with U.S. Leading the Charge, Cyril Ramaphosa Reelected as South Africa's President After ANC Coalition Deal, Reuters: Pentagon Ran Covert Anti-Vax Smear Campaign Against China During Pandemic, Missouri Woman Freed After 43 Years Behind Bars for a Crime She Did Not Commit, Maryland Gov. Issues 175,000 Marijuana Pardons Ahead of Juneteenth, U.S. Surgeon General Wants Social Media Apps to Include Mental Health Warnings, Climate Activists Blast G7 for Again Failing to Effectively Address the Climate Crisis, U. of Minnesota's Holocaust Center Revokes Post for Raz Segal, Who Qualified Israeli War as Genocide

We continue our conversation with Christian Cooper, author of Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World and host of the Emmy Award-winning show Extraordinary Birder. Cooper shares stories of his life and career, including his longtime LGBTQ activism and how his father's work as a science educator inspired his lifetime passion for birdwatching. Birding forces you outside of yourself [and] whatever your woes are," says Cooper. It makes you feel connected to the whole planet. It engages your senses, your intellect. It is incredibly healing. ... For people whose history is about being enslaved, for us to be able to relate to this bird, it's liberating."

New York City's chapter of the Audubon Society has officially changed its name to the New York City Bird Alliance as part of an effort to distance itself from its former namesake John James Audubon, the so-called founding father of American birding. The 19th century naturalist enslaved at least nine people and espoused racist views. Christian Cooper is a Black birder and a longtime board member of the newly minted New York City Bird Alliance. In 2020, he made headlines after a white woman in Central Park called 911 and falsely claimed Cooper was threatening her life. He joins Democracy Now! to discuss Audubon's legacy, which put North American birds on the map" yet was funded by the trafficking [of] other human beings," and the significance of the birdwatching community's efforts to detach Audubon's association with the pastime. We're trying to diversify birding, which traditionally has been a very, very white activity," says Cooper, who also discusses the 2020 park incident, which occurred on the same day that George Floyd was killed by police in Minneapolis.

The Supreme Court has unanimously rejected a challenge from anti-abortion groups to the nationwide availability of the abortion medication mifepristone, which is available by mail and can be taken at home in many states. However, advocates warn the far-right-dominated court's ruling on the FDA's authority to regulate the pill was purely on procedural grounds, and could even offer a roadmap" for future challenges. Mifepristone is used in roughly two-thirds of all U.S. abortions, including in some states that have severely limited or banned abortions. This is just one of the strikes - not the first strike, not the second or third, but one of the strikes - in an artillery that is aimed at reproductive freedom," says our guest, legal scholar Michele Goodwin. We discuss the ruling and the anti-abortion movement's playbook" of attacks on reproductive healthcare with Goodwin.

Children Keep Dying of Hunger in Gaza as Israel Continues Its Unrelenting Assault, SCOTUS Keeps Mifepristone Access in Place, But Rights Advocates Warn the Challenges Are Not Over, SCOTUS Rules in Favor of Starbucks in Worker Challenge to Retaliatory Firings, G7 Leaders Agree to $50 Billion Ukraine Loan; Biden Reaffirms U.S. Military Support for Kyiv, Protesters Highlight Inequality, War, Climate Destruction as G7 Leaders Feast at Banquet, Russia to Try U.S. Reporter Evan Gershkovich for Espionage, Christophe Deloire, Journalist and Head of Reporters Without Borders, Dies at 53, Elders Take the Baton in Ongoing Climate Protest Against Citigroup, Rich Nations Are Not Willing to Pay": U.N. Climate Talks Falter over Disaster Funding, Power Outages Affect 350,000 in Puerto Rico Amid Extreme Heat Wave, Macron Halts Voting Reforms in New Caledonia, Oklahoma High Court Tosses Suit Brought by Tulsa Race Massacre Survivors, Trump Returns to Capitol Hill for First Time Since Jan. 6 Insurrection, Reproductive Rights Groups Protest as Brazilian Lawmakers Advance Anti-Abortion Bill

Israel and Hamas are both facing calls to support the U.S.-backed ceasefire and hostage deal that was endorsed by the U.N. Security Council earlier this week. While Hamas has welcomed the proposal, Israeli leaders have yet to publicly commit to its terms, including a full end to the war rather than just a pause in the fighting for the exchange of captives. This comes as a major new U.N. report accuses Israel of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity throughout its eight-month assault on the territory. Meanwhile, the death toll in Gaza has now passed 37,000, including more than 15,000 children. This is inhumane and catastrophic," says senior Palestinian diplomat Majed Bamya, who says 2.3 million Palestinians, every single day, are fighting to survive" while the ceasefire proposal languishes. He also stresses that peace in the region is only possible by ending the occupation and allowing two states to live side by side."

The world saw the highest number of state-based conflicts last year since the end of World War II, as fighting raged in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia and other areas. That's the finding of a new report from the Peace Research Institute Oslo. Siri Rustad, research director at the Norwegian think tank, tells Democracy Now! that it's a worrying trend. The three past years are the three most violent years since the Cold War," she says.

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, caught on a secret recording, recently attacked ProPublica for its reporting on Supreme Court ethics. The nonprofit investigative news outlet has spearheaded coverage of possible conflicts of interest among judges on the nation's top court, including Justice Clarence Thomas, who has accepted millions in gifts and trips from conservative billionaires. Alito told a filmmaker posing as a conservative activist that ProPublica gets a lot of money" to dig up any little thing they can find," suggesting the reporting was politically motivated. That notion is just wrong," says Justin Elliott, one of the lead ProPublica journalists reporting on the Supreme Court. We took a very hard look at the Democratic-appointed justices, and we simply haven't found anything close to similar to what we found when it came to Justice Thomas and Justice Alito." He also says the Senate Judiciary Committee has power it is not currently using to investigate the court amid the ongoing ethics scandal. There's really no reason to believe that we actually know all the facts about what these justices have gotten."

We speak with filmmaker Lauren Windsor, whose recorded conversations with U.S. Supreme Court justices have sparked the latest firestorm over how the country's top jurists are ruling on consequential cases. Windsor posed as a conservative activist to speak with Justice Samuel Alito at a June 3 event of the Supreme Court Historical Society, where he appeared to endorse running the U.S. as a Christian theocracy and said he was doubtful about living peacefully with political opponents. In a separate recording from the same event, Alito's wife, Martha-Ann Alito, complained about rainbow flags during Pride Month and made other incendiary remarks. Alito has refused to recuse himself from cases involving Donald Trump and the January 6 insurrection even after photos emerged of two flags associated with election deniers flying in front of his homes. It wasn't hard to speak with either of them," says Windsor, who collected the recordings as part of her upcoming film Gonzo for Democracy and paid a total of $650 to get into the event. These are individuals who have to operate professionally at the highest degree of discretion," she says of Supreme Court justices. It should tell you something that [Alito] felt comfortable enough to make these admissions to an almost virtual stranger."

Famine-Like Conditions" Spread Across Gaza Amid Lagging Ceasefire Deal, Rising Death Toll, U.S. Blames Hamas for Ceasefire Stalemate, But Israel Has Yet to Address Deal, House GOP Holds Attorney General Garland in Contempt of Congress, Democrats Push Ethics Legislation for Captured and Corrupted" SCOTUS, Southern Baptist Convention Votes to Ban IVF, Climate Activists Disrupt Congressional Baseball Game, Block NYC's Citibank, Indigenous Climate Leaders Demand Biden Admin Stop DAPL as It Greenlights MVP, Swiss Lawmakers Toss Landmark European Ruling in Favor of Older Women Affected by Climate Change, DRC: Officials Report 42 Deaths After ADF Attack on Same Day Shipwreck Killed 80 Passengers, Kuwait Fire Kills at Least 49, Mostly Migrant Workers from India, Argentine Senate Approves Milei's Plan for Economic Shock Therapy" Amid Mass Protests, Ecuadorian Workers and Students Take to Streets to Protest Govt's Economic Policies

In a landmark case in Florida, a federal jury has ordered Chiquita Brands International to pay over $38 million in damages to the families of eight Colombian men who were killed by paramilitaries the banana giant funded. Chiquita previously pleaded guilty to paying the far-right United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia paramilitary group, or AUC, $1.7 million from 2001 to 2004. Though Chiquita argued the payments were meant to protect company employees, the AUC has been found responsible for committing mass human rights abuses and murdering civilians from 1997 to 2006. Chiquita essentially had a partnership with the paramilitaries," says Marco Simons, general counsel for EarthRights International. They voluntarily paid these groups in order to protect Chiquita against left-wing guerrillas and essentially to pacify the operating environment in the banana-growing region of Colombia." Chiquita is one of the world's largest banana producers and says it plans to appeal the jury's verdict. The company is due to face a second so-called bellwether trial starting July 15. For the past 17 years, we have been trying to get justice," says Simons. This is only the start of the judicial reckoning for Chiquita."

A federal jury found Hunter Biden guilty Tuesday of three felony charges for illegally purchasing a gun at a time when he was using drugs, making him the first child of a sitting U.S. president to be found guilty of a crime. This was a fairly straightforward case," says Ben Schreckinger, reporter for Politico. Most criminal trials result in convictions. This wasn't an exception." Schreckinger lays out the political implications for President Joe Biden, compares this conviction to Trump's criminal proceedings and explains Hunter Biden's upcoming trial for tax fraud in California.

A pair of new United Nations reports has accused Israel, as well as Hamas, of committing war crimes in Gaza. The damning documents come as Israel and Hamas are being urged to accept the three-phase ceasefire and hostage deal outlined by President Biden and endorsed by the U.N. Security Council. Israel has no interest in international law, and the United States has no interest in demanding that Israel actually comply with international law besides rhetorical flourishes," says Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of DAWN. It will come to haunt and hurt America for decades to come."

Hamas and Islamic Jihad Respond to U.N. Ceasefire Plan, U.N. Inquiry on Gaza Finds Israel Committed War Crimes Including Starvation, Torture and Murder, Israeli Strike on Lebanon Kills Hezbollah Commander, 15,000 Kids Dead Is Not Self-Defense!": Protesters Confront Jake Sullivan over Gaza Assault, Hunter Biden Found Guilty of Three Felony Gun Charges, 49 Drown and 140 Others Feared Lost at Sea as Boat Ferrying Refugees Sinks Off Yemen's Coast, Malawian Vice President Saulos Chilima Confirmed Dead After Plane Crash, Biden Administration Will Allow Arms Shipments to Ukrainian Unit with Neo-Nazi Past, Johnson & Johnson Agrees to $700M Settlement over Carcinogenic Talcum Powder, Federal Judge Strikes Down Key Parts of Florida Anti-Trans Law

We speak with U.S. Army Major Harrison Mann, the first military and intelligence officer to publicly resign over the Biden administration's support for Israel's war on Gaza. Mann left his role at the Defense Intelligence Agency after a 13-year career, saying in a public letter explaining his resignation that nearly unqualified support for the government of Israel ... has enabled and empowered the killing and starvation of tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians." Mann submitted his resignation on November 1, just over three weeks into Israel's assault on Gaza, but his separation from the military became effective last week. Even in the first weeks after October 7 ... it was really clear that they were prepared to inflict huge numbers of civilian casualties," Mann tells Democracy Now! I understood that every day that I was going to go into the office, I was going to be contributing to the Israeli campaign." Mann also explains how his Jewish background impacted his decision to resign, saying that while he was proud to wear the same uniform of soldiers who liberated Nazi concentration camps during World War II, it was impossible" not to see echoes of the Holocaust in the devastation of Gaza. Seeing photos of charred bodies and burnt corpses and starved, emaciated children that are from 2023, 2024, not the '40s, it's impossible not to make that connection," says Mann. The situations are not perfectly analogous, but the moral similarities were very clear to me."

More than eight months into Israel's devastating assault on Gaza, the territory's healthcare system is barely functioning, with the World Health Organization reporting this week that there have been 464 Israeli attacks on Gaza's healthcare system since October 7, affecting 101 health facilities. Gaza's Health Ministry warns that the few remaining hospitals still partially functioning could completely shut down due to Israel's near-total blockade of the territory, which is keeping out parts needed to maintain hospital diesel generators, as well as crucial medical supplies. Over 37,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's war on Gaza, and nearly 85,000 Palestinians have been wounded. The situation in Gaza ... remains catastrophic," says Dr. James Smith, an emergency medical doctor just back from Gaza, where he treated patients for nearly two months. There are no fully functional hospitals any longer in Gaza and no health facilities that are able to absorb the sheer scale of need now."

Residents in all 27 countries of the European Union went to the polls this weekend to vote for the European Parliament, which resulted in a surge of support for far-right parties across much of the continent while many liberal and Green parties stumbled. Far-right parties did especially well in Italy, Germany and France, prompting French President Emmanuel Macron to dissolve the National Assembly and call snap elections. Lawmakers in the European Parliament can veto and shape laws, though they cannot introduce them. They also set the EU's budget and approve the selection of the European Commission president - a powerful role currently held by Ursula von der Leyen of the center-right European People's Party, which remains the strongest bloc. For more on European politics, we speak with Mehreen Khan, the economics editor at The Times of London and a former Brussels and EU correspondent for the Financial Times. Khan says that while some observers celebrated the relative strength of mainstream conservative parties, that is more a reflection of how successful racist, nationalist parties have been in reshaping the continent's politics, particularly on immigration. These formerly center-right parties are now definitely occupying territory that we used to call that of the far right," she says.

U.N. Security Council Approves U.S.-Backed Gaza Ceasefire Resolution, 15-Year-Old Among Palestinians Killed by Israeli Forces in West Bank Raid, Federal Appeals Court Hears Lawsuit Accusing Top U.S. Officials of Complicity in Genocide, Police Attack, Arrest UCLA Protesters as Students Continue to Pressure School over Israel Ties, U.S. Jury Orders Chiquita to Pay $38 Million to Families of Colombians Killed by Paramilitary Group, Belgian Prime Minister Resigns After Far-RIght Victory in EU Elections, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito Agrees with Fundamentalist Ideas in Leaked Audio, Trump Interviewed by NY Probation Officer; Giuliani Posts Bond in AZ Election Interference Case, Jury Deliberations Begin in Hunter Biden Gun Trial, Rev. James Lawson, Who Taught Nonviolence to Civil Rights Activists, Dies at 95

Israelis celebrated the return of the four hostages in Saturday's raid. The four hostages - Noa Argamani, Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov and Shlomi Ziv - were all in good medical condition. Just hours after the rescue, thousands of Israelis gathered in Tel Aviv and other cities to protest Netanyahu's government and to call for a deal to free the remaining hostages. We speak to Ami Dar, an Israeli social entrepreneur based in New York, who supports the exchange of hostages and prisoners and a permanent ceasefire deal. Let's get all the hostages back, and if that means that every single detainee and prisoner, Palestinian, is freed, then so be it. Life comes first," says Dar, the executive director of Idealist.org. We also hear more from Maoz Inon, an Israeli peace activist whose parents, Bilha and Yakovi Inon, were killed in the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel. We are not going to compromise for anything less than a lasting peace," he says.

Four Israeli hostages have returned to their families after Israel's deadly raid on the Nuseirat refugee camp that killed at least 274 Palestinians. All four hostages were in good medical condition. As Israel's war on Gaza continues unabated, families and supporters of many of the remaining hostages see the Israeli government's refusal to negotiate for a ceasefire as a barrier to their loved ones' safe return. I already lost my parents, and I don't want [anyone] to be in the position I am," says Maoz Inon, whose parents were killed in the Hamas attack on October 7. Inon is a supporter of an all for all" exchange, in which all surviving Israeli hostages would be returned to Israel in exchange for the release of the thousands of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli detention before and after October 7. It's time for action to stop the war immediately, to make a deal - all hostages in exchange for all Palestinian prisoners - and start working to build a better future," says Inon.

Israel's weekend attack on the Nuseirat refugee camp that freed four Israeli hostages and killed at least 274 Palestinians and wounded nearly 700 was reportedly supported by the Biden administration, which provided intelligence to Israel ahead of the raid. There's no question that what unfolded in that operation was a massacre," says Palestinian American political analyst Omar Baddar. To look at a death toll of this scale and then to celebrate this kind of operation as some sort of success, you would basically have to openly say that the lives of Israelis are more valuable than the lives of Palestinians." Baddar discusses the political and humanitarian impact of the raid and his outlook on ceasefire negotiations. When push comes to shove, the Biden administration is unwilling to apply any meaningful pressure on Israel," he says. That dynamic is not going to lead to anything positive."

In one of the single bloodiest Israeli attacks in Gaza over the last eight months, at least 274 Palestinians were killed, including at least 64 children, and nearly 700 were wounded in a raid on the Nuseirat refugee camp on Saturday that freed four Israelis held hostage in Gaza since October 7. Children were shot dead. Elderly people were shot dead. Women were shot dead," says Gaza-based journalist Akram al-Satarri, who was at the Nuseirat refugee camp on Saturday. Speaking to us from outside the Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah - one of the last remaining hospitals that are partially functioning in Gaza - al-Satarri says the death toll is rising by the minute, as wounded Palestinians aren't able to receive the care they need. Al-Satarri also discusses the World Food Programme's recent suspension of aid operations in Gaza City and Israel's withholding of aid on the entire Gaza Strip.