Democracy Now!

Trump Nominates Amy Coney Barrett to SCOTUS; GOP-Led Senate Could Confirm Before Nov. 3, NYT: Trump Paid $750 in Fed. Income Taxes in 2016, No Income Taxes in 10 of Last 15 Years , Protests Continue over Impunity in Breonna Taylor's Case as Her Family Speaks Out, U.S. Coronavirus Cases Top 7 Million, on the Rise in Two Dozen States, Global Coronavirus Deaths Approach 1 Million; Latin America Has Half of Most Infected Nations, Armenia and Azerbaijan Declare Martial Law as Fighting Kills at Least 23 People, Belarus Protests Continue as EU and U.S. Refuse to Recognize Lukashenko as Legitimate Ruler, At Least 16 Refugees Feared Dead After Shipwreck Off Libya's Coast, Lebanese Prime Minister-Designate Steps Down, Salvadoran Woman Who Was Jailed for Having Stillbirth Released After 6 Years Behind Bars, Youth Climate Activists Mark Global Day of Climate Action, Activists Take Aim at KKR's New York Building, in Solidarity with Wet'suwet'en Land Defenders, Wildfires Continue to Ravage California; At Least 1,200 Fatalities Linked to Inhaling Toxic Smoke , Judge Blocks Trump's Unlawful Public Lands Head from Serving , Judge Orders Halt to Trump's Ban on TikTok Downloads, Philadelphia Housing Activists to Set Up Community Land Trust for Unhoused People

We speak with Michael Curry, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church and the first African American to lead the denomination, about systemic racism and the Black Lives Matter movement, the 2020 election and President Trump's use of faith as a political prop. "The church must not be used for partisan political purposes," Curry says. "The faith, the Christian faith, is not up for sale." Curry's latest book is "Love Is the Way: Holding on to Hope in Troubling Times."

In an address to the country, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has issued a stark warning about the threat posed by President Trump's refusal to commit to a peaceful transfer of power after the November election. Trump, who has made spurious claims of voter fraud and election-rigging against Democrats for months, recently ramped up his efforts to discredit the election results by suggesting he will refuse to concede if he loses. "This is an election between Donald Trump and democracy. And democracy must win," Sanders said. We air excerpts from his speech.

As President Trump refuses to commit to accepting the results of the upcoming election, we speak to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Barton Gellman, whose latest piece in The Atlantic looks at how Trump could subvert the election results and stay in power even if he loses to Joe Biden. "Trump's strategy is never to concede. He may win, he may lose, but under no circumstances will he concede this election," says Gellman. "That's a big problem, because we don't actually have a mechanism for forcing a candidate to concede, and concession is the way we have ended elections."

Sen. Bernie Sanders Warns of an Election "Between Donald Trump and Democracy", FBI Director Sees No Evidence of Widespread Voter Fraud, 24 Arrested as Louisville Protesters Defy Curfew to Demand Justice for Breonna Taylor, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul Says Goal of Black Lives Matter Is "Terrorism", Drivers Attack Peaceful Black Lives Matter Protesters in Los Angeles, Family of Tucson Man Who Died in Police Custody Demands Charges for Officers, Virginia Officials Warn of "Severe Public Health Threat" If Trump Rally Allowed to Proceed, Iowa Slaughterhouse Fined $957 After COVID-19 Outbreak Infected Hundreds of Workers, U.N. Says 1 Million Coronavirus Deaths Due to Nations' Lack of Preparedness and Solidarity, Global Youth Climate Strikes Return "For as Long as It Takes", U.S. Households Face Widespread Hunger as 1.5 Million File New Jobless Claims, "Vote Him Out": Trump Heckled While Viewing Ruth Bader Ginsburg's Casket at Supreme Court, Congressional Report Finds Immigrants in ICE Custody Died from Medical Neglect, Mexican Soldiers May Be Arrested in Case of 43 Disappeared Ayotzinapa Students, Volkswagen to Pay $6.4 Million to Brazilian Dictatorship Torture Survivors

As outrage mounts over the grand jury ruling in the police killing of Breonna Taylor, we look at the shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin, where an investigation is in its final stages. The case sparked renewed national protests in August after viral video showed Kenosha police shooting the Black father in the back seven times, paralyzing him. We speak with Blake's father, Jacob Blake Sr. He says police shootings and killings of Black people reveal there are "two systems of justice" in the United States, and asks, "Why are our children scared to death of people that are supposed to protect and serve them?"

We go to Louisville, where protests erupted after police officers who shot Breonna Taylor in her own home were not charged for her death. A grand jury indicted a third officer for "wanton endangerment" for shooting into an adjacent apartment during the fatal raid that killed Breonna Taylor in March. Tens of thousands of people took to the streets in cities across the country demanding justice for Taylor and defunding of police departments. "The lack of indictments in the grand jury process is an indictment on the system itself," says Sadiqa Reynolds, president and CEO of the Louisville Urban League. "They have created a completely separate grand jury system for police officers."

Officer Who Shot into Breonna Taylor's Apartment Charged, But Not for Her Killing, Donald Trump Won't Commit to Peaceful Transfer of Power If He Loses Election, Dr. Deborah Birx Reportedly "Distressed" by Direction of WH Coronavirus Response, Dr. Anthony Fauci Warns of Long-Term Effects of COVID-19 on Survivors, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, Who Opposes Mask Mandates, Tests Positive for Coronavirus, Canadian PM Justin Trudeau Warns of Second Wave of Coronavirus Infections, Antarctic Ice Melt May Bring 8 Feet of Sea Level Rise Even If Paris Climate Goals Are Met, Climate Crisis Drives Record Fires in Brazil, Western United States, China Accused of Forcing Thousands of Tibetans into Mass Labor Camps, Amnesty International Tells Senate to Reject Chad Wolf as Homeland Security Secretary, Trump Administration Restores "Public Charge" Wealth Test for Green Card Applicants, Trump Praises "Good Genes" of White Audience, Cites Eugenics Theory, Far-Right Trump Supporters in Portland Planned Political Assassinations, Zoom, Facebook and YouTube Censor SFSU Seminar Attended by Palestinian Activist, Florida Voting Rights Activist Denied Pardon He Needs to Join Bar Association

As immigration authorities say they have stopped sending women to a Georgia gynecologist accused of sterilizing female prisoners without their consent, we continue our look at United States' disturbing history of forced sterilization with the producer and historian behind the 2016 documentary called "No Más Bebés," which tells the story of how a whistleblower doctor spoke out about a large number of tubal ligations performed on mostly Latinx patients at the Los Angeles County+USC Medical Center some 46 years ago. "Quite often they did not understand the terminology. They did not, in some cases, understand the language," says Virginia Espino. "They didn't quite know what was happening to them." She notes, "It feels like definitely the Georgia case is mirroring what had taken place in Los Angeles. You had people not fully understanding the procedures that were being performed on them."

As President Trump appears poised to announce a nominee to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court, we speak with a former member of the secretive Catholic group People of Praise, known for its rigid gender roles and lifelong loyalty oaths, which apparent front-runner Judge Amy Coney Barrett is a member of. "Many call it a community, but I describe it as a cult," says Coral Anika Theill, who was a member of People of Praise from 1979 to 1984 and is now speaking out against the organization.

We look at President Trump's top pick for a woman to fill the Supreme Court seat left vacant by the death of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg: U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Amy Coney Barrett, who is a devout Catholic who has taken conservative stances on abortion, gun rights, immigration and LGBTQ rights. Barrett's involvement with the conservative Catholic group People of Praise, whose members pledge a lifelong loyalty oath to the group, has also raised questions about her ability to rule independently. "There's some real concerns about whether her involvement in there will affect her ability to be impartial and fair as a judge," says Heidi Schlumpf, executive editor of the National Catholic Reporter.

U.S. Coronavirus Death Toll Tops 200,000, On Track to Double by Year's End, FDA Reportedly Planning Stricter Guidelines for Release of COVID-19 Vaccine, Pentagon Spent $1 Billion of Coronavirus Funds on Military Supplies, Trump Says Coronavirus "Affects Virtually Nobody" as U.S. Death Toll Tops 200,000, U.N. Secretary-General Warns of New Cold War as Trump Attacks China over Coronavirus, Sen. Mitt Romney Backs Rapid Vote on Trump's Supreme Court Nominee, Officer Involved in Breonna Taylor's Killing Defends Actions, Calls Protesters "Thugs", Federal Agents Tapped Cellphones of Portland Protesters, President Trump Dodges Question About Poisoning of Kremlin Critic Alexei Navalny, Belarusian Leader Sworn In at Secret Ceremony as Protests Continue Against His Rule, Jailed Transgender Woman Dies After Describing Horrid Conditions in Ohio Prison, For-Profit ICE Jail Will No Longer Send Women to Doctor Accused of Forced Sterilizations, Mexico Demands U.S. Investigation into Alleged Forced Hysterectomies at ICE Jail, California Prisoner Firefighter Transferred to ICE Custody, Census Watchdog Says Order to Cut Short Data Collection Came from Outside Bureau, Kamala Harris Urges Black Michiganders to Vote as Joe Biden Declares "I Am Not a Socialist", William LeCroy Becomes Sixth Federal Prisoner Put to Death Under Trump, University of California Admitted White, Wealthy Students Over More Qualified Applicants

Revelations about forced hysterectomies at an ICE facility in Georgia have forced a reckoning with the long history of sterilizations in the U.S. — particularly of Black, Brown, poor and disabled people — and the way this procedure has continued in jails and prisons to the present day. We speak with Kelli Dillon, who was sterilized at the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla in 2001 and who is featured in the documentary "Belly of the Beast," which tells the stories of women subjected to unwanted sterilization behind bars in California. She says incarcerated women are "punished" for simply requesting medical records. "If we begin to press … we are reprimanded and sometimes put in lockdown," says Dillon, who in 2006 became the first survivor of sterilization abuse to sue the California Department of Corrections for damages. Between 2006 and 2010, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation sterilized nearly 150 women without required state approval. "Forced sterilization is genocide," notes filmmaker Erika Cohn, who directed "Belly of the Beast" and spent nearly a decade making it. The film opens in theaters on October 16 and will premiere on PBS's "Independent Lens" on November 23.

As ICE confirms the 20th person to die in its detention in fiscal year 2020, making it one of the deadliest periods in the agency's history, we talk to the whistleblower at the center of an explosive complaint that accuses an ICE jail in Georgia of failing to adhere to coronavirus safety protocols and performing a large number of unwanted hysterectomies on detainees. The doctor who carried out the procedures became known to women inside the facility as "the uterus collector." Whistleblower Dawn Wooten, a nurse at the Irwin County Detention Center, says the neglect and abuse at the facility was "jaw-dropping." We also speak with Azadeh Shahshahani, legal and advocacy director at Project South, who says authorities must take action now. "What else would it take for decision makers to finally move and do something about this before we see additional tragedies at these facilities?" she says.

GOP, Trump Charge Forward with Effort to Replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Supreme Court, DOJ Designates New York City, Seattle, Portland as "Anarchist" Cities, CDC Again Retracts Information About Coronavirus on Website; HHS Head Azar Exerts Control Over FDA, 150+ Countries, Not Including the U.S., Join U.N.'s Effort to Fairly Distribute COVID-19 Vaccine, House Report Finds Immigrant Prisoners Denied Access to Essential Care, Forced into Labor, Mexican National Dies in Georgia Immigration Prison, One Week into Peace Talks, Scores Killed in Bloody Day of Fighting Across Afghanistan, 6 People Killed in Colombian Massacre as Rampant Violence Has Claimed Over 240 Lives in 2020, Calls Mount for Release of Sudanese Filmmaker and Activist Hajooj Kuka, Global Heating Sees Arctic Sea Ice Shrink to Second-Lowest Level on Record, Trump Admin Taps Climate Change Denier Ryan Maue for Top Position at NOAA, Tropical Storm Beta Makes Landfall as Record-Breaking Atlantic Storm Season Continues, Kumeyaay Land Defenders Arrested During Peaceful Border Wall Demonstration, Tohono O'odham Land Defenders in Arizona Protest Border Wall Construction on Sacred Land, Gov't Watchdog Probing Pentagon Use of Force and Interest in Deploying "Heat Rays" Against Protesters, Florida Governor DeSantis Announces Legislation to Suppress Protests, White Bar Owner in Omaha Who Killed Black Protester Dies by Suicide, Louisville Police Announce State of Emergency Ahead of Breonna Taylor Grand Jury Decision

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg first gained fame in the 1970s when she co-founded the Women's Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union and argued six gender discrimination cases before the Supreme Court. One of those cases was Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld, which centered on a widower who was refused Social Security benefits after his wife died during childbirth. We speak with Stephen Wiesenfeld, who was told his gender made him ineligible and that only women were entitled to survivor's benefits. Ginsburg argued in the Supreme Court that denying fathers benefits because of their sex was unconstitutional, and won a unanimous 8-0 decision in the case. Wiesenfeld, who would become a lifelong friend to the late Supreme Court justice, says she "took their very conservative court and taught them that the stereotypes when they hurt one gender, hurt the other gender, as well."

In her later years, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was internationally known simply as her initials — RBG — and a 2018 documentary film by the same name about Ginsburg's legal career, personal history and unexpected celebrity became a surprise smash hit. We speak with Julie Cohen, co-director of the Academy Award-nominated documentary "RBG," about Ginsburg's early years and leadership in fighting for equal rights for women, including arguing a case before the Supreme Court with all male justices who were condescending to her. "She never let that condescension get her down," notes Cohen. "She was a deeply strategic person."

We look at the life and legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, as well as the future of the Supreme Court, in a wide-ranging interview with Dahlia Lithwick, senior editor at Slate, where she is the senior legal correspondent and Supreme Court reporter. Ginsburg died September 18 at the age of 87 after serving 27 years as a Supreme Court justice, where she became the most prominent member of the court's liberal wing. Her death just 46 days before the November election sets up a major political battle over her replacement, with President Trump vowing to nominate her replacement by Saturday. In 2016, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to hold confirmation hearings for Merrick Garland, President Obama's pick to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, who died 269 days before the election. "Hypocrisy doesn't begin to touch on that," says Lithwick. "The court is profoundly misaligned both with popular opinion polling and with the will of this country."

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Dies at 87, Sparking a Deluge of Tributes and a Fierce Succession Battle, U.S. COVID-19 Death Toll Poised to Top 200,000, U.N. Says 150 Million More Children May Face Poverty as Global Coronavirus Death Toll Nears 1 Million, California Grapples with Evacuations, Toxic Air as Record-Breaking Wildfires Continue to Blaze, Trump Announces $13 Billion for Puerto Rico, as Elections Near and 3 Years After Hurricane Maria, Leaked Docs Show Major Banks Helped Criminals Launder Billions of Dollars, International Community Counters Trump over U.N. Iran Sanctions, Peru's President Survives Impeachment Attempt, Belarus Protests Continue Amid Mass Arrests, Leak of Police Officer Data, Thai Youth Call for General Strike as They Ramp Up Anti-Gov't, Anti-Monarchy Protest, Cameroonian ICE Prisoner Who Was Subjected to Forced Sterilization Granted Humanitarian Release, NYPD Arrests 86 Anti-ICE Protesters in Times Square, Climate Activists Unveil Climate Clock in NYC Ahead of Global Climate Strike, TikTok Ban Averted After Oracle-Walmart Deal Approved; Judge Blocks Trump WeChat Ban, Stephen Cohen, Noted Author and Historian of Russia, Dies at 81

This week President Trump described the work of the legendary historian Howard Zinn, who died in 2010, as "propaganda" meant to "make students ashamed of their own history." But Zinn believed the opposite, that teaching the unvarnished truth about history was the best way to combat propaganda and unexamined received wisdom. We air excerpts from a 2009 interview with Zinn in which he explained his approach to education. "We should be honest with young people; we should not deceive them. We should be honest about the history of our country," Zinn said.

As climate-fueled wildfires continue to ravage the West, the Trump administration has tapped a well-known climate change denier for a top position at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. University of Delaware professor David Legates has written papers calling for more fossil fuel emissions and has had his work supported by the Robert Mercer-funded Heartland Institute and Koch Industries, as well as major gas companies. He was recently hired as NOAA's deputy assistant secretary of commerce for observation and prediction. We speak with David Goodrich, a former top climate scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who says Legates's appointment goes against the overwhelming consensus of the scientific community. "You have about 97% of the scientists disagreeing with the position of Dr. Legates," says Goodrich, who served as director of NOAA's Climate Observations Division from 2009 to 2011. We also speak to David Goodrich about his latest book, "A Voyage Across an Ancient Ocean," in which he examines the impact of the fossil fuel industry through an epic bicycle journey from the Alberta tar sands to the Bakken oil field of North Dakota.

As the official United States death toll from COVID-19 approaches 200,000 people, we speak with infectious disease expert Dr. Monica Gandhi, who says President Trump's refusal to promote face masks has made the pandemic much worse. "Masks are a pillar of pandemic control. They are incredibly important," says Dr. Gandhi, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, as well as a division head at San Francisco General Hospital. "There is no country in the world right now that has been fighting masks like this, especially at the presidential level. If we could have started mask wearing, consistent mask wearing, at the beginning, we would have averted deaths and cases."

White House Scuttled Plan to Mail 650 Million Face Masks to U.S. Households, NYC Schools Delay In-Person Classes Amid Staffing Shortages and Coronavirus Fears, CDC Watered Down Coronavirus Testing Guidelines Over Objections of Scientists, Trump Coronavirus Adviser Threatens to Sue Stanford Doctors over Criticism, WHO Warns of "Alarming" Coronavirus Transmission Rates Across Europe, U.S. Billionaires Added $845B to Net Worth Since March as Pandemic Exposed Racial Inequities, Court Halts "Drastic Operational Changes" at USPS, Warning of Widespread Disenfranchisement, Ex-Coronavirus Task Force Aide Endorses Biden, Citing Trump's "Disregard for Human Life", Bolivian Leader Who Seized Power in Military Coup Drops Presidential Bid, Aides of Kremlin Critic Alexei Navalny Say Banned Nerve Agent Found on Hotel Water Bottle, Amy Dorris Becomes 26th Woman to Accuse Trump of Sexual Misconduct, Lawsuit Alleges Rampant Sexual Violence Against Women in Florida Prison, Report Finds Pattern of Abuses Against Pregnant Asylum Seekers at ICE Jails, House Passes Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, Utah Officer Charged with Assault for Ordering K9 to Attack Black Man, Trump "Patriotic Education Plan" to Counter "Left-Wing Indoctrination" in Schools, Condemned Federal Prisoner Asks Americans to Rethink Death Penalty

Legendary Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg says Julian Assange's extradition hearing in London could have far-reaching consequences for press freedoms. The WikiLeaks founder faces an ever-evolving array of espionage and hacking charges related to the release of diplomatic cables that revealed war crimes committed by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Assange faces almost certain conviction, if extradited, and 175 years in prison. "The American press has remained in kind of a state of denial for 40 years, really, since my case, that the Espionage Act has wording in it that could be aimed directly at them," says Ellsberg, who testified in Assange's defense at his extradition trial via video stream from the United States. "Now the American press is staring right down the barrel at the use of the Espionage Act against American journalists and publishers for doing journalism."

We get an update on the massive fire at the Moria refugee camp in Lesbos, Greece, which has left 13,000 refugees and migrants from Afghanistan, African countries and Syria without access to shelter, food or sanitation. The fire has raised concerns about a coronavirus outbreak and comes as migrants protest their living conditions during the pandemic. Some of the asylum seekers — many of them women and children — are demanding they be allowed to leave the island of Lesbos, but the Greek government is refusing to relocate most people displaced by the fire to the mainland. "The calculation of the Greek government was, in my opinion, to really break people's spirit," says reporter Franziska Grillmeier, who joins us from Lesbos.

The humanitarian crisis in Yemen is deepening amid the pandemic and cuts to international aid from the United States and its allies, leaving millions of Yemenis facing famine after years of a brutal U.S.-backed, Saudi-led bombing campaign that has devastated the country. CNN’s senior international correspondent Nima Elbagir says what is happening in Yemen is not a natural disaster but a "man-made catastrophe" directly tied to U.S. policies. Elbagir says, "Not only is the U.S. profiting from the war by selling weapons to the UAE and Saudi Arabia," but it is also ignoring the impact on civilians. We also feature her exclusive CNN report, "Yemen: A Crisis Made in America."

Trump Sidelines Science as He Contradicts CDC Director on Vaccines and Masks, Israeli Journalists Quarantine After White House Staffer Tests Positive for Coronavirus, Big Ten Football to Resume with Plans to Study Hearts of Student-Athletes Infected with COVID-19, Oxfam: Wealthy Nations Bought Up More Than Half of World's Coronavirus Vaccine Contenders, Hurricane Sally Brings Record Rainfall and Massive Flooding to Gulf Coast, Attorney General Barr Sought Sedition Charges for Racial Justice Protesters, HHS Spokesperson on Medical Leave After Rant About Left-Wing Militants Preparing for Insurrection, Homeland Security Secretary to Defy Subpoena, Won't Testify to House Committee, Senate Confirms Two More Anti-Choice Judges to Lifetime Appointments, Nebraska Shop Owner Indicted for Shooting Death of Black Lives Matter Protester, Lawmakers Demand Investigation of Reports of Forced Sterilizations at Georgia ICE Jail, Supreme Court to Weigh Trump's Plan to Exclude Undocumented Immigrants from Census, Barbados Will Remove Queen Elizabeth as Head of State to "Leave Our Colonial Past Behind"

As the Trump administration celebrates deals establishing diplomatic ties between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, we speak with Palestinian American legal scholar Noura Erakat, who says Trump's "peace" agreements are a sham. "This is not about advancing any kind of meaningful, enduring peace, but instead about entrenching a geopolitical alliance that would otherwise increase oppression for people of the Middle East," says Erakat, assistant professor at Rutgers University and author of "Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine."

Journalist and author Mychal Denzel Smith joins us for a wide-ranging discussion on the uprising against racist police, the upcoming presidential election and why he says a Biden win won't cure his Trump-era depression, and his new book, "Stakes Is High: Life after the American Dream." Denzel Smith questions whether arresting and charging the police officers who killed Breonna Taylor, a core demand of many protests in the wake of her death, represents justice, despite the historic settlement between Louisville and her family. "The only way to prevent another instance of the situation that took Breonna Taylor's life is to defund, dismantle police departments across the nation," Smith says. He argues defeating Donald Trump in November will not solve systemic racism, inequality or the climate crisis. "What Joe Biden has offered thus far is not a transformative enough agenda to be able to face those issues."

The city of Louisville, Kentucky, will pay a historic $12 million settlement to the family of Breonna Taylor, more than six months after police shot and killed the 26-year-old Black emergency room technician in her own apartment and Taylor became a household name as part of the nationwide uprising in defense of Black lives. It is one of the largest payouts ever for a police killing of a Black person in the U.S. The city will also institute major reforms to the police department responsible for Taylor's death. Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer announced the settlement at a press conference, where he was joined by members of Taylor's family. We air excerpts from the remarkable press conference.

Louisville, KY Reaches Wrongful Death Settlement over Breonna Taylor's Killing by Police, Trump Says "Herd Mentality" Will Make COVID-19 "Go Away", LSU Coach Says Most Football Players Have Already Caught COVID-19, Meatpacking Executives Drafted Trump's Order to Keep Plants Open Amid Pandemic, India Surpasses 5 Million Cases as Coronavirus Infections Skyrocket, Catastrophic Flooding Feared as Slow-Moving Hurricane Sally Makes Landfall in Alabama, Record-Shattering Fires Continue to Shroud Western U.S. in Smoke, ICE Prepares to Deport Jailed Immigrant Who Says She Was Forcibly Sterilized, Israel Signs U.S.-Brokered Deal Normalizing Relations with UAE and Bahrain, Trump Admits to Plotting Assassination of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, Contradicting Past Denial, Top Pentagon Official Disputes Reports That Russia Paid Taliban Bounties for Dead U.S. Soldiers, Documents Show Rochester Police Tried to Cover Up Killing of Daniel Prude, Demonstrators in Lancaster, PA Get $1 Million Bail for Protesting Police Killing, House Report Condemns Boeing and Federal Regulators for Deadly 737 MAX Crashes, Scientific American Endorses Joe Biden, Saying Trump "Rejects Evidence and Science", University of Illinois Hospital System Workers Strike for Better Pay, Safe Staffing and PPE

The online giant Amazon has made an extraordinary amount of money during the COVID-19 pandemic, as many people shelter at home and shop online. A new Public Citizen report documents how Amazon set prices for essential products during the crisis at levels that would violate price gouging laws in many states, and marked up some products by as much as 1,000%. "This is an ongoing thing. They are doing this currently. They've been doing it throughout the pandemic," says Alex Harman, competition policy advocate for Public Citizen and author of the report. "They are looking to maximize profit during a pandemic."

We examine California's history of forest management and how a century of fire suppression has made the current climate fires even more destructive. For thousands of years, Native American tribes in California would regularly burn the landscape to steward the land, but colonization led to the suppression of these tactics and decades of misguided policy. A return to these Indigenous practices could help better steward the land and foster greater climate resiliency, says Don Hankins, a pyrogeographer and Plains Miwok fire expert who teaches geography and planning at California State University, Chico. "If we all work together and we use the same mindset in terms of process, being able to use fire within the landscape, we can start to put fire back in at the scale that it needs to be for the right ecological and cultural purposes," Hankins says.

With just seven weeks to go before the U.S. presidential election, the battle for the White House is increasingly being fought in courts across the country. From Wisconsin to Florida, Pennsylvania to Colorado, judges are making major rulings deciding who gets on the ballot, how a record number of mail-in ballots are handled and distributed, and who ultimately gets to vote on November 3. Ari Berman, senior writer at Mother Jones and author of "Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America," says Republicans are carrying out a nationwide attack on voting rights aimed at keeping a shrinking white minority in power. "This is the Republican Party's game: Don't do anything for the American people, make it as hard as you can to vote, and then put in place judges who will then uphold those new voter suppression laws."

Trump Doubles Down on Climate Crisis Denial as West Coast Burns, World's Largest Vaccine Maker Says It Could Take 5 Years for Universal COVID-19 Vaccination, Trump Calls COVID-19 "The Plague" in April Interview with Woodward as He Called for U.S. to Reopen, Nevada City Fines Venue That Hosted Trump Rally Which Violated State's Coronavirus Restrictions, Appeals Court Gives Trump Greenlight to End Immigration Protections for 400,000 TPS Holders, Whistleblowing Nurse Says Georgia Immigration Jail Performing Forced Hysterectomies, Palestinians Form Unified Front as Israel, UAE and Bahrain Sign Deal Normalizing Relations, Migrant Ship Capsizes in Mediterranean, At Least 24 Killed or Missing, Refugees in Greece Protest Dire Conditions as Many Remain Unsheltered After Moria Fire, Protests Continue in Belarus Despite Widespread Reports of Torture, Mistreatment by Security Forces, Alexei Navalny Posts Instagram Photo as He Continues Recovery from Poisoning, Yoshihide Suga Poised to Become New Japanese Prime Minister, Record Heat Sweeps the Globe as Massive Ice Chunk Falls Off Largest Remaining Ice Shelf in Greenland, Brazilian Pantanal, World's Largest Wetland, Suffers Devastating Loss of Wildlife from Historic Wildfires, Hurricane Sally Threatens Gulf Coast with Potentially Lethal Floods and Storm Surges, NOAA Taps David Legates, Notorious Climate Change Denier, for Top Role, HHS Spokesperson Caputo Goes on Facebook Live Rant, Warns of Armed Insurrection, Sedition in CDC, Judge Blocks New Trump Immigration Restrictions, Says DHS's Chad Wolf Is in His Role Unlawfully, Protests in Lancaster, PA, After Fatal Police Shooting of Man with History of Mental Illness

With less than two months before November, the Poor People's Campaign has launched a push to register tens of millions of poor and low-income voters, who could decide the fate of the election. "Voting is power unleashed," says Rev. Dr. William Barber, co-chair of the Poor People's Campaign and president of Repairers of the Breach. "We've got to train the people on the power of the vote, the power to protect the vote, and the power to shape public policy by the vote." The initiative is called MORE, which stands for Mobilizing, Organizing, Registering, Educating People for a Movement That Votes.

President Trump has said little about the wildfires raging in California, Oregon and Washington for three weeks, other than to suggest poor forest management was primarily to blame. But the states' governors are pushing back and directly linking the fires to the climate crisis. "These are climate fires," says Timothy Ingalsbee, an Oregon-based wildland fire ecologist and former wildland firefighter who now directs Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics, and Ecology. "Though some scientists hesitate to attribute a single event to climate change, these are exactly the conditions predicted by climatologists."

As devastating fires burn across the West Coast, some of the most vulnerable people are farmworkers — many of whom are undocumented. Despite the risks of the pandemic and the climate-fueled fires, many feel they have to keep working even if that means working inside evacuation zones. The state of California has repeatedly allowed growers to continue harvesting despite evacuation orders putting workers at great risk. Estella Cisneros, legal director of the agriculture worker program for California Rural Legal Assistance, says farmworkers who speak out against unsafe working conditions risk losing their jobs. "Farmworkers have continued to work during this whole time, despite fears of contracting COVID-19 in the workplace, despite fears of getting heat stress while they're at work, and now despite fears of the dangers that wildfire smoke brings," Cisneros says.

Historic Climate-Fueled Wildfires Kill 35 People, Burn 5 Million+ Acres Across West Coast, Trump Holds Packed Rally as U.S. Coronavirus Deaths Near 200,000 , ICE Flew Migrant Prisoners to Virginia, Fueling Outbreak, to Skirt Rules on Flying ICE Staff, WHO Says World Saw Biggest Daily Rise in Global Cases, Court Blocks Floridians with Unpaid Felony Conviction Fines from Voting, Trump Defends Police Killing of Portland Anti-Fascist Activist, Palestinians Decry Israeli Normalization Deals with UAE and Bahrain, Intra-Afghan Peace Talks Kick Off in Doha, Salvadoran Ex-Colonel Convicted for 1989 Murder of Jesuit Priests, Lawmakers Launch Impeachment Proceedings Against President Martín Vizcarra, Protesters in Pakistan Demand Change After Two Violent Rapes, At Least 50 Dead in DRC After Heavy Rains Trigger Gold Mine Collapse, Georgia Sheriff's Deputy Fired After Video Shows Him Beating Black Man, Two L.A. Sheriff's Deputies Survive Shooting; Local Reporter Attacked and Arrested for Covering Protests, Congress to Probe Series of Deaths at Fort Hood Military Base, Veterans Face Down Pro-Trump Caravan, Defend Massive "Defund the Wall" Street Mural, Charlottesville Tears Down Confederate Statue Near Site of 2017's "Unite the Right" Rally, Portland, OR Becomes First U.S. City to Ban Corporate Use of Facial Recognition Surveillance , Oracle Beats Out Microsoft to Take Over TikTok's U.S. Operations, Naomi Osaka Wins Second U.S. Open, Keeps Focus on Black Lives

As the world races to find a COVID-19 vaccine, one of the most promising vaccine trials has hit a major roadblock. AstraZeneca paused its Phase 3 COVID-19 vaccine trial after a woman in the trial developed severe neurological symptoms consistent with transverse myelitis, or inflammation of the spinal cord. Details were only revealed during a CEO call with investors, and "everyone was left to guess what went wrong," writes Ed Silverman, senior writer at the health news site STAT, which broke the story. Silverman says the halting of the U.K. trial raises several issues, including whether pharmaceutical companies are being pushed to move faster than is safe. "Is the FDA being pushed to authorize or approve a vaccine faster than it should?"

Since the police killing of George Floyd in May sparked a nationwide uprising against police brutality, armed white supremacists have taken to the streets of U.S. cities in response to Black Lives Matter protests. Organizing against systemic racism has been met with apparent attempts by the Trump administration to cover up white supremacist violence. We speak to legendary Black feminist scholar Barbara Smith, founder of the Combahee River Collective, about her proposal for an antiracist program called the Hamer-Baker Plan — named for Fannie Lou Hamer and Ella Baker — to eradicate white supremacy in the U.S. "I'm not just talking about white supremacist groups or organized white supremacy," Smith says. "What I'm talking about is a system that actually dictates and shapes every aspect of life in the U.S."

As the United States marks 19 years since the September 11 terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, a new report finds at least 37 million people in eight countries have been displaced since the start of the so-called global war on terrorism since 2001. The Costs of War Project at Brown University also found more than 800,000 people have been killed since U.S. forces began fighting in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Pakistan and Yemen, at a cost of $6.4 trillion to U.S. taxpayers. "The U.S. has played a disproportionate role in waging war, in launching war and in perpetuating war over the last 19 years," says report co-author David Vine, a professor of anthropology at American University.

500,000 Evacuated Across Oregon as Record-Shattering Fires Rage in Western States, AstraZeneca CEO Warned Investors of Vaccine Recipient Who Became Ill, Trump Admin Fines Pork Processor $13,500 for Lapses at Plant Where 1,300 Contracted Coronavirus, India Records Another Record Daily Coronavirus Toll, Senate Coronavirus Relief Bill Fails as Another 857,000 File New Unemployment Claims, Amazon Accused of Price Gouging After Raising Prices Up to 1,000% During Lockdown, Philadelphia Activists Defy City Order to Vacate Encampment for Unhoused Residents, Joe Biden Says He May Further Increase Military Spending If Elected, Trump Rallies Thousands of Maskless Supporters at Michigan Campaign Event, Portland Mayor Orders End to Police Use of Tear Gas as Thick Smoke Blankets Oregon, Witness Says Police Shot Portland Homicide Suspect Without Warning, Attempting No Arrest, 35 Arrested as Los Angeles Police Use Tear Gas Against Anti-Police-Brutality Protesters, Senior New York Police Officer Accused of Invasive and Degrading Body Cavity Searches, Houston Fires Four Officers Who Fired 24 Bullets at Man in Mental Health Crisis, Eight Killed and Hundreds Injured in Colombia Amid Protests over Police Killing, Mexican Feminists Occupy Offices to Demand End to Femicides, O'odham Activists Arrested for Trying to Halt Construction of U.S.-Mexico Border Wall, Federal Court Blocks Trump Order Excluding Immigrants in 2020 Census, 13,000 Asylum Seekers Left Homeless in Greece After Fires Engulfed Refugee Camp, Rio Tinto CEO Steps Down Amid Furor over Company's Destruction of Aboriginal Sites, Standing Rock Water Protector Red Fawn Fallis Leaves Federal Prison, Kansas City Football Fans Boo Moment of Silence for Equality as NFL Season Opens

We look at the history of clinical vaccine trials and exploitation of vulnerable people in the U.S. and India, which recently surpassed Brazil as the country with the second most infections worldwide. Kaushik Sunder Rajan, an anthropologist at the University of Chicago, says there is a documented history of "ethical lapses" and lack of accountability in vaccine studies in India. "The critical issue here is not whether vaccines are good or bad, but … even more, I would suggest what is at stake is a democratic public health," he notes.

As President Trump pushes to release a coronavirus vaccine before the November election, a National Institutes of Health report details how the process could be slowed by a lack of participation in vaccine studies by African American and Latinx people, many of whom mistrust the U.S. healthcare system due the history of racist medical exploitation. "The written history of medicine, the canon, has been carefully curated to elide the experience of African Americans," says medical ethicist Harriet Washington, author of "Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present."

The skies of the Bay Area and Northern California turned a dark orange as 90 major fires burn in the western United States, from San Diego to the Canadian border. At least seven people have died as a result of the fires, which have already burned 2.5 million acres in California alone. Despite heavy coverage in the mainstream media, however, few outlets are highlighting the link between the blazes and the accelerating climate crisis. "The fact is that TV news is completely abdicating its responsibility when it comes to telling the truth of what the West is dealing with right now," says Leah Stokes, assistant professor of political science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a researcher on climate and energy policy. "This is climate change. It's not rocket science. And when will the media start calling it that?"

Wildfires Destroy Oregon Towns, Bringing "Apocalyptic" Orange Skies to West Coast, Human Activity Blamed for 68% Drop in Animal Population Since 1970, President Donald Trump Acknowledges Downplaying COVID-19 Threat to U.S. Public, Biden Blasts Trump's "Life-and-Death Betrayal of the American People" on COVID-19, Bob Woodward Blasted for Withholding Trump's Comments on COVID-19 for Months, NIH Director Says Politics Shouldn't Trump Science in Vaccine Development, UW-Madison Halts In-Person Classes After 1,000+ Students Test Positive for Coronavirus, India Reports Record Daily Coronavirus Infections as Global Death Toll Tops 900,000, DHS Whistleblower Claims He Was Ordered to Downplay Risks of White Supremacists, Facebook Engineer Quits "An Organization That Is Profiting Off Hate", Mike Pence to Join Fundraiser Hosted by QAnon Conspiracy Theorists, Massive Fire Erupts in Beirut Port, Site of August's Catastrophic Explosion, Mexican Crime Reporter Julio Valdivia Found Murdered and Decapitated, Thousands of Farmers Storm Mexican Dam That Diverts Water to United States

We look at how decades of U.S. military intervention in Central America have led to the ongoing migrant crisis, with Salvadoran American journalist Roberto Lovato, author of the new book "Unforgetting: A Memoir of Family, Migration, Gangs, and Revolution in the Americas." Lovato recounts his own family's migration from El Salvador to the United States, his return to the country as a young man to fight against the U.S.-backed right-wing government responsible for grave human rights violations, and his embrace of journalism to tell the stories of people on the margins. "I'm unforgetting a history of not just El Salvador, but the United States and of myself," says Lovato.

As the long-awaited extradition hearing for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange gets underway in London, his legal adviser, Jennifer Robinson, says the case could set a chilling precedent for press freedoms around the world. "He faces 175 years in prison for doing his job as a journalist and a publisher. That's why this case is so dangerous," says Robinson. Assange faces numerous charges, including under the U.S. Espionage Act, related to the release of diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks that revealed war crimes committed by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. He faces a possible life sentence if he is extradited to the U.S.

California Governor Has "No Patience for Climate Change Deniers" Amid Historic Fires, Report Estimates Sturgis Motorcycle Rally Led to Quarter-Million COVID-19 Cases, Peru COVID-19 Death Toll Reaches 30,000, Senate Republicans Abandon New Stimulus Checks Despite Economic Crisis, Tropical Storm Rene Forms, Continuing Record Atlantic Hurricane Season, Sudan Under State of Emergency as Nile River Flooding Sets Records, Senegal's Capital Partially Submerged Following Record-Shattering Rainfall, Trump Extends Offshore Drilling Bans in Republican-Led States, DOJ Seeks to Defend Trump from Rape Accuser's Defamation Lawsuit, 13-Year-Old Autistic Boy Shot by Salt Lake City Police After Mother Calls 911 for Help, Rochester Police Chief and Commanders Resign over Police Killing of Daniel Prude, Thousands Flee as Fires Consume Refugee Camp in Greece, 10 Killed in Roadside Bomb Attack Targeting Afghan Vice President, Pentagon to Draw Down U.S. Troops in Iraq, Report: U.S. "Global War on Terror" Displaced at Least 37 Million People, Press Organizations Demand Justice for Murdered Pakistani Journalist Shaheena Shaheen Baloch, Michael Cohen's New Book Recounts Donald Trump's Racist Diatribes, DHS Identifies White Supremacists as Most Lethal Threat to U.S., Graduate Students Strike in Michigan, Form New Union in Arizona, Thousands Join Two-Day Scholar Strike to Protest Racism and Police Violence