Democracy Now!

Hundreds Killed as Powerful Earthquake Hits Iran Near Iraqi Border, In Philippines, Trump Embraced by Notorious President Duterte, Hundreds Protest Ahead of Trump's Visit to the Philippines, ASEAN Summit Blasted for Silence on Burmese Persecution of Rohingya, President Trump Calls North Korea's Kim Jong-un "Short and Fat", Former Intelligence Chiefs Dispute Trump on Russia Election Meddling, 750,000 Protest in Catalonia for Release of Jailed Leaders, Poland: 60,000 Far-Right Nationalists March in Warsaw, German Newspaper Tallies 33,293 Migrant Deaths, Former Prime Minister Hariri Says He'll Return to Lebanon Within Days, U.S. Drones Strike Somalia Amid Increased Troop Presence, Alabama Senate Candidate Roy Moore Denies Child Sexual Assault Charges, More Prominent Men Face Sexual Assault and Abuse Allegations, In Hollywood, Hundreds Join #MeToo March Against Sexual Assault

As Democracy Now! heads to the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Bonn, Germany, we speak with 350.org's Bill McKibben. Several U.S. delegations are scheduled to attend despite the fact that President Donald Trump says he is pulling the U.S. out of the landmark 2015 Paris climate accord. The Trump administration is sending officials to push coal, gas and nuclear power during a presentation at the U.N. climate summit. Meanwhile, a coalition of U.S. cities, companies, universities and faith groups have opened a 2,500-square-meter pavilion outside the U.N. climate conference called "We are Still In"—an effort to persuade other countries that wide swaths of the United States are still committed to the landmark 2015 Paris climate accord. McKibben also discusses his newly published first novel, "Radio Free Vermont: A Fable of Resistance."

President Donald Trump's five-nation tour of Asia will include a stop in the Philippines to meet with President Rodrigo Duterte, who has been overseeing a controversial "war on drugs." Since Duterte was elected in 2016, more than 7,000 people have been extrajudicially killed by police or vigilantes. While human rights groups have condemned Duterte, he has received backing from Trump, who invited Duterte to visit the White House. Human Rights Watch slammed the invitation, saying, "Trump has made himself morally complicit in future killings." We speak with Raffy Lerma, an award-winning photojournalist who has documented Duterte's "war on drugs." He describes his work and the situation in the Philippines and says he hopes Trump will address the deadly crisis.

President Donald Trump continued his five-nation tour of Asia, landing in Vietnam today for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. This comes as Trump said on Thursday that he wants Russia's help in getting North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons. In Korea, he attempted to visit the Demilitarized Zone, but his fleet of helicopters was turned back due to bad weather. We speak with Professor Bruce Cumings, who just returned from Seoul, South Korea, where Trump was met with protests. He is professor of history at the University of Chicago and the author of several books on Korea, including "Korea's Place in the Sun: A Modern History."

Woman Accuses Roy Moore of Sexually Assaulting Her When She was 14, Minnesota State Senator Dan Schoen Accused of Sexual Harassment, KY State Rep. Jeff Hoover Faces Pressure to Resign over Sexual Harassment Settlement, Five Women Accuse Louis C.K. of Sexual Harassment and Misconduct, Writer Kater Gordon Accuses "Mad Men" Creator Matthew Weiner of Sexual Harassment, Ridley Scott Edits Kevin Spacey Out of Film After Spacey Accused of Harassment & Assault, Bonn, Germany: U.S. Cities, Universities & Faith Groups Declare "We are Still In", New Data Shows Deaths in Puerto Rico Spiked Dramatically After Hurricane Maria, Number of U.S. Troops in Afghanistan Could Hit 16,000 by Early 2016, U.N. Warns of Humanitarian Crisis in Syria's Besieged Eastern Ghouta, Senate Republicans Unveil Competing Plan to Overhaul U.S. Tax Code, Mueller Probing Whether Mike Flynn Plotted to Kidnap & Repatriate Turkish Cleric in PA, Trump's Ex-Bodyguard Says He Rejected Russian Offer to Send Women to Trump's Hotel Room in 2013, John Kelly Tried to Pressure DHS to Cancel Immigration Status for 50,000+ Hondurans, Boston Residents Demand ICE Release Activist Siham Byah

Saudi authorities arrested scores of prominent officials over the weekend, including 10 princes, four ministers and dozens of former ministers, in a massive shakeup by King Salman aimed at consolidating power for his son, Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, the main architect of the kingdom's war in Yemen. Among those arrested was Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, one of the world's richest people, with an estimated net worth of at least $17 billion. Talal has investments in many well-known U.S. companies, like Apple, Twitter, Citigroup—and Rupert Murdoch's media empire, News Corp. The arrests, on unspecified "corruption" charges, came just hours after the crown prince convened a new anti-corruption committee with wide-ranging powers to detain and arrest anyone accused and to search their homes and seize their assets. Meanwhile, the White House said President Trump called King Salman to offer thanks for the kingdom's purchases of billions of dollars in U.S. weaponry, while praising what it called the kingdom's "modernization drive." We speak with Toby Jones, associate professor of history and director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Rutgers University, and with Afrah Nasser, Yemeni journalist and founder and editor-in-chief of the Sana'a Review.

United Nations officials say Yemen will face the world's largest famine in decades if the Saudi-led coalition refuses to lift its blockade on deliveries of aid. On Monday, the coalition shut air, land and sea routes into Yemen after Houthi rebels fired a missile that was intercepted near the Saudi capital, Riyadh. Saudi Arabia says its blockade is needed to stop Iran from sending weapons to the rebels. The U.N. says aid agencies were given no prior notice of the Saudi decision to shut down all land, air and seaports in Yemen. Meanwhile, medical experts warn the clampdown will worsen Yemen's cholera epidemic, which has sickened more than 900,000 people. We are joined by Afrah Nasser, an independent Yemeni journalist who is the founder and editor-in-chief of the Sana'a Review. Facing death threats, she is in exile from Yemen but continues to report on human rights violations, women's issues and press freedom there. She is here in the U.S. to receive the International Free Press Award from the Committee to Protect Journalists.

We go to Beijing for an update on President Trump's meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping as part of his five-nation trip to Asia. Trump used the talks to call on China to sever ties with North Korea, and address the U.S. trade deficit with the country he once accused of "raping" the United States. Human rights activists have urged him to use his trip to discuss climate change and challenge China over its crackdown on dissidents and call for the release of political prisoners. We speak with Joanna Chiu, China correspondent for Agence France-Presse, and Rajan Menon, professor of political science at the Powell School at the City University of New York and senior research fellow in the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University.

In State Visit to Beijing, Trump Presses China over North Korea, Senate Committee Will Review Trump's Authority to Start Nuclear War, Trump Rolls Back Cuba Thaw with Restrictions on Travel, Businesses, Under Trump, State Department Is Being "Depleted at Dizzying Speed", Report on Inequality Finds 3 Richest Americans Wealthier Than Bottom Half, Vice President Pence Blames Mental Illness, Bureaucracy for Texas Massacre, Spain Says It Might Allow Independence Referendum as Catalan Protests Rage, Egyptian Court Upholds Harsh Sentence for Activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah, Charlotte, NC: Black Lives Matter Activist Elected to City Council, Virginia: Democratic Socialist Ousts Powerful Republican in State House Race, Texas Officials Execute Mexican National Despite Diplomatic Pressure, In Reversal, Notre Dame University to Continue Contraceptive Coverage, Kevin Spacey Dropped from Film Amid New Sexual Assault Allegations, Prisoner in Texas Immigration Detention Center Alleges Sexual Assaults, Federal Judge Rules DACA Recipients Have Due Process Rights

Examining the Paradise Papers, The Guardian reports seven Republican super-donors mentioned in the papers stored some of their fortunes offshore, beyond the reach of public scrutiny and tax authorities. Together, the billionaires pumped more than $350 million into the 2016 election. Some are well-known backers of conservative causes, like casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and Charles and David Koch. Another investigation focuses on Democratic donor James Simons, who spent $11 million to back Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. Simons is the founder of Renaissance Technologies, the world’s most profitable hedge fund. Leaked records show he kept much of his $8 billion fortune in an offshore private wealth fund in Bermuda in order to avoid "particularly severe" taxes that would be triggered if he tried to bring the funds onshore. We speak with Jon Swaine, senior reporter for The Guardian.

The Paradise Papers revealed Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross is conducting business with Russian President Vladimir Putin's son-in-law through a shipping venture in Russia. According to the leaked documents, Ross owns a stake through offshore entities in Navigator Holdings, a shipping firm that receives millions of dollars from a company owned by Putin's close allies. On Monday, Ross told the BBC he had declared his interests earlier this year when he joined Trump's administration, and had done nothing wrong. "This Trump administration is responsible for imposing sanctions on various Russians, some of whom are involved in this company, Sibur," responds our guest Jon Swaine of The Guardian. "That's a pretty big conflict."

A major new investigation by The Guardian based on the Paradise Papers shows how billionaire Robert Mercer and his family built a $60 million war chest for conservative causes inside their family foundation by using an offshore investment vehicle to avoid U.S. taxes. The report traces the money directly to future White House chief strategist Steve Bannon of the far-right news outlet Breitbart Media. We speak with Jon Swaine, senior reporter for The Guardian.

As voters on Tuesday turned against the Republican Party one year after Donald Trump was elected president, a new report, "Autopsy: The Democratic Party in Crisis," examines the role of Democratic Party loyalists in the party's 2016 defeat. We look at the outcomes from election night and speak with the report's co-author, Norman Solomon.

Democrats Claim Electoral Victories One Year After Trump's Election, Virginia Democrat Set to Become First Transgender State Lawmaker, In South Korea, Trump Threatens War, Promotes NJ Golf Course, Texas Gunman Escaped Psychiatric Hospital in 2012, Made Death Threats, Trump DOD Nominee: "Insane" That Texas Gunman Had Access to Rifle, Paradise Papers Reveal Wealthy Donors Funneled $350M into 2016 Election, Yemen: Saudi Arabia Seals Off Aid Shipments Amid Famine and Cholera, Afghanistan: NATO to Add 3,000 Troops to War Effort, India: Health Emergency Declared as Toxic Air Shrouds New Delhi, U.N. Climate Delegates Approve COP 23 Agenda as Activists Urge Bold Action, New Yorker: Weinstein Hired Ex-Israeli Intel Agents to Suppress Accusations, Puerto Rican Electric Power Chief Cancels Congressional Appearance, Texas Prepares to Execute Mexican Man, Drawing Diplomatic Protests, DOJ Drops Case Against Protester for Laughing at Jeff Sessions

Best-selling Chilean writer Isabel Allende discusses her new novel, "In the Midst of Winter," which centers around the lives of several immigrants, and the role of writers and artists in the Trump era.

Acclaimed novelist Isabel Allende, an award-winning author who has written 23 books, including "The House of the Spirits," "Paula" and "Daughter of Fortune." Her latest novel, "In the Midst of Winter," is a love story that explores the plight of immigrants and refugees. Her books have been translated into 35 languages, sold over 57 million copies around the world. Her father's first cousin was Salvador Allende, Chile's president from 1970 until September 11, 1973, when Augusto Pinochet seized power in a CIA-backed military coup. Salvador Allende died in the palace that day. Isabel Allende would later flee from her native Chile to Venezuela.

In New York City, two police officers have quit the New York Police Department after they were charged with rape, kidnapping and official misconduct. Prosecutors say former NYPD detectives Edward Martins and Richard Hall arrested an 18-year-old woman after stopping her car and finding a small amount of marijuana and a few anti-anxiety pills in her purse. Testing shows the DNA of both officers was found on the teenager. The former police officers are claiming the acts were consensual as their defense. "Violence is learned," responds Mariame Kaba, an organizer and educator who works on anti-domestic violence programs. "Of course people exposed to violence all the time will use it."

The 26-year-old white man named Devin Patrick Kelley who allegedly killed 26 people Sunday as they attended church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, had a history of domestic violence. He was court-martialed on charges he repeatedly hit his wife and attacked his stepson. But after he was kicked out of the Air Force with a bad conduct discharge, officials failed to report his crimes to a federal database, so Kelley had no problem buying the gun he used Sunday. We look at the link between mass shootings and domestic violence with Soraya Chemaly, director of the Women's Media Center Speech Project, and with Mariame Kaba, an organizer and educator who works on anti-domestic violence programs.

Air Force Failed to Report TX Gunman’s Domestic Violence Court-Martial, Allowing Him to Buy Gun, Trump Pressures Japan to Buy Billions of Dollars of U.S. Weapons, U.N.: 2017 Among Hottest Years on Record, Wilbur Ross Under Pressure After Paradise Papers Leak, Saudis Accuse Iran of "Act of War," Escalating Tensions Between Regional Powers, Trump Admin Ends Temporary Protected Immigration Status for Nicaraguans, 2 NYPD Cops Quit After Being Charged with Rape & Kidnapping of Teen Girl, NYPD Cop Acquitted on Charges of Murdering Delrawn Small in 2016, 100+ Rally to Support Gothamist Journalists Fired for Unionizing, Nation Heads to Polls to Vote for Governors, Mayors & Ballot Initiatives

This weekend, a slew of 13.4 million leaked documents revealed how the world's richest men stash away billions of dollars in wealth in offshore tax havens. The revelations, known as the Paradise Papers, implicate more than a dozen of President Trump's Cabinet members, advisers and major donors. The 13.4 million leaked documents also reveal how millions of pounds of the British queen's private estate were hidden in an offshore fund based in the Cayman Islands, and how the senior adviser to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau helped funnel millions of dollars to offshore tax havens. For more, we speak with Frederik Obermaier, co-author of the Paradise Papers. He is an investigative reporter at Germany's leading newspaper, Süddeutsche Zeitung. Obermaier also worked on a separate investigation, the Panama Papers, and is co-author of the book "Panama Papers: The Story of a Worldwide Revelation."

While Sunday's shooting in Sutherland Springs, Texas, has received wall-to-wall media coverage, there was another mass shooting in Texas in September that received far less attention. In Plano, Texas, a man allegedly killed his estranged wife and her friends in what appears to be the deadliest incident of domestic violence in the town's history. Twenty-seven-year-old Meredith Hight was watching the Cowboys football game with a group of friends and family when her estranged husband reportedly entered her house and opened fire, killing her and seven other adults. The shooter was killed by police. Local news reports Hight had filed for divorce in July. Hight's mother said her daughter "loved hosting friends and families. This was her first opportunity to do it after the divorce, and he didn't take it well." For more, we speak with Ed Scruggs, vice chair and spokesperson for Texas Gun Sense, and Sarah Tofte, research director at Everytown for Gun Safety. Her team has just published a new report on the links between domestic violence and mass shootings.

Sunday's shooting in Sutherland Springs, Texas, was one of the deadliest mass shootings in Texas state history. It comes only a month after the shooting massacre in Las Vegas, where another white man, Stephen Paddock, opened fire on concertgoers, killing 59 people, including himself. The majority of mass shootings are carried out by white men. For more on the connections between race, white supremacy and mass shootings, we speak to George Ciccariello-Maher, political science professor at Drexel University and the author of "Decolonizing Dialectics." He was banned from campus after questioning why mass shootings in the United States are almost always carried out by white men.

On Sunday, suspected shooter Devin Patrick Kelley walked into the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, wearing a ballistic vest and carrying a Ruger AR-556 assault-style rifle and opened fire, killing at least 26 people and wounding at least 20 more. Among the victims was a pregnant woman, the 14-year-old daughter of the church's pastor and other children as young as five years old. In April 2016, Kelley purchased the Ruger AR-556 rifle at an Academy Sports + Outdoors store in San Antonio, Texas, despite having been court-martialed and jailed for a year for assaulting his wife and child. In filling out the background check paperwork, Kelley indicated he did not have a criminal history that disqualified him from purchasing the firearm. For more on gun control and background checks, we speak with Ed Scruggs, vice chair and spokesperson for Texas Gun Sense.

We begin today's show with Sunday's mass shooting at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, a tiny rural community east of San Antonio, Texas, which killed 26 people and wounded 20 more. The suspected shooter has been identified as a 26-year-old white man named Devin Patrick Kelley from New Braunfels, Texas. Kelley enlisted in the U.S. Air Force in 2010. In 2012, he was court-martialed for assaulting his wife and child, leading to a year-long imprisonment and a "bad conduct" discharge in 2014. The "bad conduct" discharge—versus a "dishonorable discharge"—meant Kelley was still eligible to buy firearms legally.For more, we speak with Sarah Tofte, research director at Everytown for Gun Safety. Her team has just published a new report on the links between domestic violence and mass shootings.

Gunman Massacres 26, Wounds 20 at Church Service in Rural Texas, In Asia, Trump Threatens North Korea, Urges Weapons Sales to Japan, "Paradise Papers" Reveal Massive Tax Evasion by World's Wealthiest, Afghanistan: U.S. Airstrikes Reportedly Kill Scores in Kunduz Province, Saudi Princes, Officials Arrested as Royal Family Consolidates Rule, Saudi-Led Coalition Launches Massive Attack in Yemen Following Missile Launch, Lebanese PM Resigns During Trip to Saudi Arabia, Vietnam: 49 Dead Amid Flooding from Powerful Typhoon, U.S. Government Report Finds Climate Change Massive, Human-Caused, United Nations Climate Talks Open in Bonn Amid U.S. Withdrawal, Germany: Thousands March in Bonn, Shut Down Open-Pit Coal Mine, Belgian Judge Grants Conditional Release to Catalan Leaders as Spain Seeks Arrests, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul Suffers Broken Ribs After Assault by Neighbor, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl Gets Dishonorable Discharge, No Prison Term, Donna Brazile Considered Swapping Biden for Clinton in 2016 Race, Hundreds March Against Trump and Fascism in Cities Across the U.S.

We speak with former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis about the rise of the far-right Golden Dawn party in his country and how their policies "have infiltrated the mainstream" in European politics, including anti-immigrant measures similar to those proposed by Trump. Varoufakis says Trump's vow to crack down on immigration after the attack in New York City will only inspire more attacks, noting that "ISIS loves Donald Trump."

President Trump and House Republicans have unveiled their long-promised proposal to reform America's tax code, with Trump calling it a "big, beautiful Christmas present" for the American people. Critics say the gift is a tax cut for the richest Americans. We discuss the proposal with economist and former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, who argues, "It's an out-and-out class war waged against the poorest, the weakest, the disenfranchised—the very same people that Donald Trump appealed to in order to get elected."

As the White House finally agrees to release FEMA disaster aid with more flexibility to try to help rebuild Puerto Rico's devastated power grid and other infrastructure, we speak with economist Yanis Varoufakis, former Greek finance minister, about the history of the island's debt crisis and what to do as it recovers from Hurricane Maria.

Six weeks after Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico, millions of residents are still living without safe drinking water and electricity. Health experts say the storm's massive damage to Puerto Rico's water system is threatening to cause a public health crisis, as more and more people are exposed to contaminated water. Over the weekend, Democracy Now! was in Puerto Rico, and we traveled about three hours into Puerto Rico's mountainous highland region in the interior of the island in order to look at the ways austerity has exacerbated the crisis caused by Hurricane Maria.

Catalan Ministers Jailed on Charges of Rebellion & Sedition over Independence Vote, Republicans Unveil Tax Bill That Would Shower Billions upon Rich, ISIS Claims Responsibility for NYC Attack, Sessions Demands Tech Companies Turn Over Encrypted Communications, Pope Francis Warns the World Is Headed "Forcefully into War", Donna Brazile: DNC Struck Unethical Deal with Clinton During Election Campaign, On Final Day of Work, Twitter Employee Deactivates Trump's Twitter Account, The New Republic's Publisher Hamilton Fish & Longtime Editor Leon Wieseltier Accused of Sexual Harassment, SEIU Ousts Two Top Staffers over Sexual Harassment Accusations, Robert Mercer Steps Down from Company After Backlash over His Ties to Breitbart, Bannon, U.N.: Humanitarian Crisis Escalates at Closed Australian Refugee Detention Center on Manus Island, Notre Dame to Stop Covering Birth Control for Professors, Staff & Students, Billionaire Shuts Down Gothamist and DNAinfo a Week After Newsrooms Vote to Unionize

Sayfullo Saipov, the alleged assailant in the Tuesday attack that killed at least eight people in New York City, is an immigrant from Uzbekistan, a country that is now the focus of much attention, with some in the media calling it a hotbed of Islamist terror. We go to Tashkent, Uzbekistan, to speak with Steve Swerdlow, Central Asia researcher for Human Rights Watch. We're also joined by Edward Lemon, postdoctoral fellow at the Harriman Institute at Columbia University.

We look at how the treatment of Muslims and how the phrase "Allahu akbar" is used in the media after so-called terror attacks, like the one in New York City, with Farhana Khera, the executive director of Muslim Advocates.

Sayfullo Saipov, the suspect in the New York City attack that left eight people dead, is an immigrant from Uzbekistan who entered the United States in 2010 through the diversity visa lottery program. Now President Trump has called for a crackdown on immigration, telling Congress to cancel the program. We speak with Yolanda Rondon, staff attorney with the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, who argues that blaming the visa program "scapegoats the vulnerable, which always happens to be immigrants under this administration."

In the deadliest terror attack on New York City since September 11, 2001, Sayfullo Saipov is accused of carrying out a relatively low-tech plan to kill people when he drove a rented Home Depot truck down a bicycle path, striking pedestrians and bicyclists, then crashing into a school bus. "With low-tech attacks, I think people tend to look at them and throw up their hands and think, 'What can we do if someone's using knives or driving a car into a crowd?' But the reality is, we can do a lot to make ourselves harder targets," says Shayana Kadidal, senior managing attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights. He outlines calls by transportation advocates to install barriers that keep cars from being able to drive onto bike and pedestrian paths.

After Sayfullo Saipov reportedly drove a rented Home Depot truck down a bike path along Manhattan's Hudson River, killing multiple people before crashing into a school bus, President Trump called for his execution and said he would consider sending him to Guantánamo Bay. We get response from Shayana Kadidal, senior managing attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, who says Trump wouldn't be talking about sending the alleged attacker to Guantánamo Bay "if [Saipov] weren't a Muslim guy with a beard."

Trump Calls for Death Penalty for Suspect in New York City Attack, Trump Called Justice System "Laughingstock," Then White House Claims Otherwise, WH Press Secretary Refuses to Answer Whether Trump Thinks Slavery is Wrong, U.S. Votes Against U.N. Resolution to End Embargo on Cuba, Further Rolling Back Relations, Trump to Nominate Multimillionaire Banker Jerome Powell to Chair Federal Reserve, Defense Secretary Michael Fallon Resigns over Sexual Harassment Claims, Multiple Women Accuse Renowned Islamic Scholar Tariq Ramadan of Rape, Three Dartmouth Professors Placed on Paid Leave over Sexual Harassment Accusations, Dustin Hoffman Apologizes After Accusations He Touched 17-Year-Old Without Consent, NPR's Michael Oreskes Resigns over Accusations of Sexual Assault, Six Women Accuse Filmmaker Brett Ratner of Sexual Harassment and Assault, Matt Taibbi Apologizes for 2000 Book That Boasts of Sexual Harassment, Says It was Satire Not Memoir, Eritrea: Opposition Groups Say Security Forces Killed 28 People at Protest, India: Explosion at Coal-Fired Power Plant Kills 26 People, Three Killed in Mass Shooting in Colorado, White Student Arrested & Charged with Hate Crime After Harassing Black Roommate, Musician, Author & Environmental Activist Katie Lee Dies at 98

As a federal judge blocks part of President Trump's transgender military ban, we speak with a trans former marine who is challenging the ban, and look at how six active-duty transgender servicemembers sued the Trump administration. We speak with Z Shane Zaldivar, a former marine and community advocate, and Jennifer Levi, director of GLAD's Transgender Rights Project. She is the lead attorney in Doe v. Trump, the first case filed against President Trump’s transgender military ban.

While in Puerto Rico this past weekend, Democracy Now! spoke to Ángel Figueroa Jaramillo, the head of UTIER, the electrical workers' union in Puerto Rico, about Elon Musk's proposal to make Puerto Rico the model of sustainable energy. We also visited the Casa Sol Bed and Breakfast in San Juan, which runs entirely on solar power.

We look at the recovery of Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, which dominated a Senate hearing Tuesday and was supposed to be the focus of another hearing in the House today, before it was canceled. San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz was set to testify at the hearing alongside FEMA chief Brock Long. Earlier Tuesday, Long testified before the Senate that his agency had nothing to do with approving the controversial $300 million no-bid contract with Whitefish Energy, a tiny company based in the Montana hometown of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. Meanwhile, Democracy Now!'s Juan González says other companies are moving in to privatize other services on the island, such as the public water utility.

We look at shocking revelations released Tuesday that link the assassination of renowned Honduran indigenous environmental leader Berta Cáceres to the highest levels of the company whose hydroelectric dam project she and her indigenous Lenca community were protesting. We speak with New York Times reporter Elisabeth Malkin, who has read the new report by a team of five international lawyers who found evidence that the plot to kill Cáceres went up to the top of the Honduran energy company behind the dam, Desarrollos Energéticos, known as "DESA." The lawyers were selected by Cáceres's daughter Bertha Zúniga and are independent of the Honduran government's ongoing official investigation. They examined some 40,000 pages of text messages. The investigation also revealed DESA exercised control over security forces in the area, issuing directives and paying for police units' room, board and equipment.

NYC: 8 Dead and 11 More Wounded in Attack Officials Are Calling Act of Terror, Up to 8 Dead After ISIS Bombing in Kabul, Afghanistan, NYT: U.S. Military Redacts Key Statistics in Report on Afghan Security Forces, Yemen: U.S.-Backed, Saudi-Led Airstrike Kills 26 Civilians in Hotel and Market, Lawmakers Question Facebook, Twitter over Russian Ads Ahead of U.S. Election, Mueller Widens His Investigation, Planning to Interview Current WH Officials, Historians Slam John Kelly for Claiming "Lack of Ability to Compromise" Led to Civil War, Israel Blocked Amnesty's Raed Jarrar from Entering Occupied West Bank, Iraq: Kurdish Journalist Arkan Sharif Assassinated, Danish Inventor Admits to Dismembering Journalist Kim Wall, Peru: Beauty Pageant Contestants Protest Violence Against Women by Reciting Murder Statistics Instead of Bust Sizes, NBC Fires Mark Halperin & NPR Suspends Michael Oreskes over Sexual Harassment, Utah Nurse Wins Settlement After Arrest for Refusing to Draw Blood from Unconscious Man, New Jersey Sues Purdue Pharma, Maker of OxyContin, over Opioid Crisis

We continue our coverage of Puerto Rico, where United Nations experts are warning of "alarming" conditions, now more than five weeks after Hurricane Maria. This weekend, the Democracy Now! team traveled to the island, and on Friday afternoon we sat down with Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz for an extended interview about how Hurricane Maria had changed Puerto Rico since it struck the island on September 20, Trump's attacks and her vision for the future.

Democracy Now! goes to Puerto Rico, where the FBI is investigating the $300 million contract between Puerto Rico's electric power company and the tiny Montana-based company Whitefish, named for the hometown of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. "It truly is unnerving that people can just swindle, swindle an entire population when they are at their most vulnerable," says San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz. We also speak with Vice Mayor Rafael Jaume about the Whitefish contract.

President Donald Trump's former campaign chair Paul Manafort and his former business associate Rick Gates surrendered to the FBI, after being indicted on charges that include money laundering, acting as unregistered agents of Ukraine's former pro-Russian government and conspiracy against the United States. The White House said the indictments have nothing to do with the president's 2016 campaign. However, Trump stopped tweeting yesterday after his former campaign adviser, George Papadopoulos, pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. We speak with Marcy Wheeler, who in a new piece writes, "George Papadopoulos's Indictment is Very, Very Bad News for Attorney General Jeff Sessions."

Trump Associates Charged as Special Counsel Reveals First Indictments, Tillerson, Mattis Ask Lawmakers for Authorization to Attack Anytime, Anyplace, Federal Court Halts Trump's Ban on Transgender Military Service, Syria: U.N. Convoy Delivers Aid to Starving Syrians in Damascus Suburb, Israel Bombs Gaza Tunnel, Killing 8 Palestinians, In Brussels, Catalan Leader Vows to Continue Independence Fight, Kenyan President Kenyatta Claims Victory in Disputed Revote, U.S. Navy Investigating Navy SEALs over Murder of Green Beret in Mali, France: Protesters Disrupt Roman Polanski Event over Sex Crimes Charges, Thousands of French Women March Against Sexual Assault in #MeToo Protests, Netflix Cancels "House of Cards" Amid Kevin Spacey Sexual Assault Allegations, Carbon Dioxide at Record Level Ahead of U.N. Climate Talks in Bonn, Amnesty International Joins Call to End Immigrant Family Detentions, ACLU Calls for Release of 10-Year-Old Girl Detained by ICE After Surgery

Tensions continue to mount between the United States and North Korea, after U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis's week-long visit to Asia and ahead of Trump's 12-day visit later this week. Mattis emphasized a diplomatic resolution to the standoff between the two countries, but warned that the U.S. would not accept a nuclear North Korea. Congressional Democrats are pushing legislation that would prevent President Trump from launching a preemptive strike against North Korea. We speak with Christine Ahn, founder and executive director of Women Cross DMZ, a global movement of women mobilizing to end the Korean War.

Democracy Now! has just returned from Puerto Rico, where we interviewed Ángel Figueroa Jaramillo, head of the Puerto Rico electrical workers' union, just as the island's governor announced he was instructing the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, known as PREPA, to cancel its controversial $300 million contract with the tiny Montana-based company Whitefish Energy. The move came after enormous pressure and scrutiny of the contract to reconstruct Puerto Rico's electrical power grid devastated by Hurricane Maria. Whitefish Energy is based in the tiny hometown of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. The head of the private equity company that backs Whitefish, Joe Colonnetta, was a Trump campaign donor. All of this comes as a leaked copy of the contract sparked even further outrage last week, when it revealed that the terms barred penalties for work delays and prohibited the project from being audited.

Spanish prosecutors say they will seek charges of rebellion, sedition and embezzlement against ousted Catalan Cabinet officials. This comes after Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy announced his Cabinet had fired Catalan President Carles Puigdemont and dissolved the region's Parliament, just after Catalonia's regional Parliament voted Friday for independence by a margin of 70 votes to 10. On Sunday, tens of thousands of pro-unity demonstrators waved Spanish, Catalan and European Union flags on the streets of Barcelona. We are joined by John Carlin, a journalist and contributor to the Spanish newspaper El País until two weeks ago, when he was fired for writing an article in The Times of London headlined "Catalan independence: arrogance of Madrid explains this chaos."

Former Trump Campaign Chair and Associate Arrested in Russia Probe, Russian Lawyer Who Met Trump Campaign Had Kremlin Talking Points, Pentagon Chief Threatens "Overwhelming" U.S. Attack on North Korea, Vice President Pence: "No Greater Force for Peace" Than U.S. Nuclear Arsenal, Somalia: Attack on Mogadishu Hotel Kills 29, Wounds 30+, Spanish Government Seizes Control of Catalonia After Independence Declaration, Puerto Rico to Cancel $300 Million No-Bid Contract to Whitefish Energy, Rose McGowan Says She Rejected $1M Hush-Money Payoff over Weinstein Charges, More Women Accuse Former President George H.W. Bush of Sexual Assault, White House Says 16 Women Accusing Trump of Sex Crimes are Liars, JFK Files Reveal CIA Planned to Stage Bombings, Then Blame Castro, New Yorkers Demand Climate Action on 5th Anniversary of Superstorm Sandy, NFL Players Protest After Team Owner Calls Them "Inmates Running the Prison", AIM Co-Founder and Anishinaabe Leader Dennis Banks Dies at 80

President Trump announced Thursday that he is directing the Department of Health and Human Services to declare the opioid crisis a public health emergency—walking back his plans, announced in August, to declare it a more serious "national emergency." The shift means the federal government will not, as of now, direct any new federal funds to address the opioid crisis, which killed 64,000 Americans last year. We speak with Columbia University psychology and psychiatry professor Carl Hart, who argues people are dying because of ignorance, not because of opioids.