Democracy Now!

We host a roundtable discussion on President Trump's announcement Thursday that he will withdraw the United States from the landmark Paris climate accord signed by nearly 200 nations in 2015 and heralded as a rare moment of international collaboration to avert imminent climate disaster. We are joined by Michael Mann, distinguished professor and director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University; Kumi Naidoo, South African activist, former head of Greenpeace, now chairperson of Africans Rising for Justice, Peace and Dignity; Asad Rehman, executive director of War on Want; and Antonia Juhasz, oil and energy journalist, author of several books, including "The Tyranny of Oil: The World's Most Powerful Industry—and What We Must Do to Stop It."

President Donald Trump announced Thursday he will withdraw the United States from the landmark Paris climate accord that was signed by nearly 200 nations in 2015 and heralded as a rare moment of international collaboration to avert imminent climate disaster. Following the news, landmarks in cities around the world were lit up green in support of the agreement. Democracy Now! was there when demonstrators gathered near City Hall to protest.

President Trump Announces U.S. Withdrawal from Paris Climate Accord, White House Issues "Retroactive" Ethics Waivers to Senior Officials, Russian President Says "Patriotic" Hackers May Have Meddled in U.S. Election, Senators Asked Former FBI Director for Perjury Probe into AG Sessions, Jared Kushner Used Loans for Low-Income Areas to Build Luxury Tower, Philippines: 36 Dead in Failed Robbery at Manila Casino Resort, Philippines: 11 Soldiers Die in Botched Airstrike Targeting ISIS, Iraq: Attack in West Mosul Kills More Than 20 Civilians, Venezuelan Judge Who Jailed Opposition Leader Shot Dead in Caracas, Colombia: Protests Grow in Afro-Colombian City of Buenaventura, Mexican Journalists Rally for Kidnapped Reporter Salvador Adame, U.N. Campaign Seeks to Aid Central American Migrant Children, Trump Administration Issues Tough New Rules for U.S. Visa Applicants, White House Asks Supreme Court to Reinstitute Travel Ban, Professor Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor Cancels Speeches Amid Death Threats

Ben Jealous, the youngest person to ever head the NAACP, has entered the race for governor of Maryland. He announced his bid Wednesday outside of his cousin's West Baltimore flower shop, which was opened after the 2015 unrest that followed the death of Freddie Gray, who died while in police custody. A prominent Bernie Sanders surrogate in the 2016 presidential race, Jealous describes, in an extended interview, his plans to run as an activist, pursuing a broad agenda of civil rights, social and economic justice.

President Donald Trump says he will make his announcement today on whether to pull the United States out of the landmark Paris climate accord, a decision environmentalists warn would be a crime against the future of the planet and humanity. Will he or won't he? As the game show-like deliberations continue, we speak with Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune, author of "Coming Clean: Breaking America's Addiction to Oil and Coal," and with South African environmental activist and former Greenpeace head Kumi Naidoo.

Afghans Mourn Kabul Bomb Victims as Death Toll Rises to 90, Iraq: ISIS Claims Responsibility for Bombing at Ice Cream Parlor, President Trump Set to Withdraw U.S. from Paris Climate Accord, Sri Lanka: Death Toll from Flooding Tops 200, Bangladesh: Cyclone Devastates Rohingya Muslim Refugee Camps, CNN: AG Jeff Sessions Held Additional Meeting with Russian Ambassador, House Intel Committee Chair Devin Nunes Unilaterally Issues Subpoenas, Brexit Leader Nigel Farage a "Person of Interest" in Russia Probe, Press Secretary Spicer Grilled over Trump's Bizarre "Covfefe" Tweet, China: Activists "Disappear" Amid Ivanka Trump Factory Investigation, New York City to Cut Ties to Wells Fargo, Mother of Portland Stabbing Victim Calls on Trump to Condemn Hate, Noose Found Inside Smithsonian's African American History Museum, Racist Graffiti Spray-Painted on Home of NBA Star LeBron James, New York City Police Sergeant Charged with Murder in Bronx Killing, Former NAACP Head Benjamin Jealous Enters Maryland Governor's Race

An explosive new investigation by The Intercept reveals how international private security firm TigerSwan targeted Dakota Access water protectors with military-style counterterrorism measures. TigerSwan began as a U.S. military and State Department contractor. It was hired by Energy Transfer Partners, the company behind the $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline. The investigation is based on leaked internal documents, which show how TigerSwan collaborated closely with law enforcement agencies to surveil and target the nonviolent indigenous-led movement. In the documents, TigerSwan also repeatedly calls the water protectors "insurgents" and the movement an "ideologically driven insurgency." We are joined by Alleen Brown, reporter with The Intercept and co-author of their story, "Leaked Documents Reveal Counterterrorism Tactics Used at Standing Rock to Defeat Pipeline Insurgencies," and by Tara Houska, national campaigns director for Honor the Earth. She is Ojibwe from Couchiching First Nation.

A civilian monitoring group says U.S.-led airstrikes killed more than 100 civilians—including 47 children—on Thursday and Friday in the ISIS-held town of Al Mayadeen in eastern Syria. This comes as U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis says the U.S. is shifting to "annihilation tactics" in its fight against ISIS. But as the U.S. ramps up airstrikes, are Syrian civilians paying the price? That is the question posed by The Intercept reporter Murtaza Hussain, whose latest piece is headlined "The U.S. Has Ramped Up Airstrikes Against ISIS in Raqqa, and Syrian Civilians Are Paying the Price."

A newly declassified Pentagon audit shows the U.S. Army failed to keep track of more than $1 billion worth of weapons and military equipment sent to Iraq and Kuwait, including tens of thousands of assault rifles and hundreds of armored vehicles. The audit found improper record-keeping, including duplicated spreadsheets, handwritten receipts and a lack of a central database to track the transfers. Some of the weapons have been tracked down In Iraq, says our guest Patrick Wilcken, Amnesty International's arms control and human rights researcher. "It's very difficult to actually track individual weapons, but we have been looking at a lot of images and films of Islamic State deploying weapons and also the Shia militias that are now grouped under the Popular Mobilization Units," Wilcken says. "We have looked at what type of weapons that they are deploying, and they're deploying weapons from all over the world, including fairly recently produced U.S. weapons."

We go live to Kabul to speak with Lotfullah Najafizada, news director for TOLOnews, Afghanistan's 24-hour news channel, about the massive bomb blast in the Afghan capital that killed more than 80 people and wounded over 350 when it exploded during rush hour traffic on Wednesday morning in the heart of the city's diplomatic area. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack. "The Afghan story [and] probably the Syrian or the Iraqi stories are just about numbers when attacks happen. And I hope it will change again for better one day, and you hear more about the human side of it," Najafizada says. "What happened today is definitely a tragic and a huge attack, but this is not the only attack which happens in this country," Najafizada says. "We lose tens of Afghans on a daily basis across Afghanistan. And some of them are not even in the news, even locally, because of the amount of incidents and attacks you see across Afghanistan." Today's bombing comes as the White House is weighing the Pentagon's proposal to send thousands more U.S. troops to Afghanistan.

Afghanistan: Massive Bombing in Kabul Kills 80 People and Wounds 350, Trump Escalates Feud with Germany over Trade and NATO Dues, Michael Flynn to Turn Over Subpoenaed Documents to Senate Intel Committee, Trump Complains About Unnamed Sources as He Retweets Article Based on Unnamed Source, Report: Trump Expected to Roll Back Relations with Cuba, Philippines: Duterte Tells Soldiers They Can Rape Women in Region Under Martial Law, After Court Ruling, Taiwan Poised to Legalize Marriage Equality, Cleveland: Officer Who Killed 12-Year-Old Tamir Rice Fired—But Not for Killing, North Carolina: Undocumented Grandmother Taking Sanctuary in Episcopal Church, Benjamin Melendez, NYC Gang Leader Who Brokered Historic Peace Deal, Dies at 65, Reports: Trump to Pull U.S. Out of Landmark 2015 Paris Climate Deal

Is the United States sliding toward tyranny? That is the question posed by Yale University history professor Timothy Snyder in his new book that draws on his decades of experience writing about war and genocide in European history in order to find 20 key lessons that can help the United States avoid descending into authoritarianism. "I was trying to get out front and give people very practical day-to-day things that they could do," Snyder says. "What stood behind all of that was a lifetime of working on the worst chapters of European history, a sense of how things can go very wrong."

For the second time in a week, a military man was killed by a white extremist. On Friday, 53-year-old Ricky Best, a retired Army veteran, and 23-year-old Taliesin Myrddin Namkai Meche were fatally stabbed, with a third man critically injured, as they tried to defend two teenage girls against an attack by a man going on an anti-Muslim rant. The two young women, one of whom wore a Muslim hijab, were riding a commuter train when, according to witnesses, Jeremy Joseph Christian started shouting ethnic and religious slurs. Police arrested Christian, a convicted felon, soon after the attack. "In many ways, I think his rhetoric has more to do with the campaign and the ideas unleashed in the campaign over the last 16, 18 months by the Trump folks than it does with hardcore neo-Nazism. Or at least it's a mix of the two sets of ideas," says our guest Heidi Beirich, Intelligence Project director of the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Trump Faced Stern Words & Clenched Hands from European Allies, Jared Kushner Under Fire for Meeting with Russian Banker in December, Report: U.S.-Led Airstrikes in Syria Kill 100+ Civilians, Including 47 Children, Iraq: 27 Die in ISIS Attack on Ice Cream Parlor; Families Continue Fleeing Mosul, Egypt Launches Airstrikes in Libya After Attack on Coptic Christians, Sri Lanka: Half a Million Displaced by Widespread Flooding, Brazil: Thousands of Protesters Demand Ouster of President Temer, Colombia: Gov't Reaches Deal with Chocó Residents Amid Massive Civic Strike, Spain: Taxi Workers Launch Nationwide Strike to Protest Uber, Palestinian Prisoners End Hunger Strike as Israel Agrees to Some Strike Demands, Afghanistan: 18 Killed in Taliban Suicide Bombing on First Day of Ramadan, Morocco Arrests Leader of Protests Sparked by Death of Fish Seller, Portland, OR: 2 Men Killed After Intervening in Islamophobic Attack, NYC: Linda Sarsour Faces Death Threats Ahead of Her CUNY Commencement Speech, Minnesota: Police Officer Jeronimo Yanez on Trial for Killing Philando Castile, Texas: Hundreds Flood Texas House to Protest Anti-Immigrant Law SB 4, Intercept: Private Security Firm Used Counterterrorism Tactics Against DAPL Water Protectors, Former Panama Dictator Manuel Noriega Dies at Age 83

In this Democracy Now! special, we spend the hour with the world-renowned linguist and political dissident Noam Chomsky. In a public conversation we had in April, we talked about climate change, nuclear weapons, North Korea, Iran, the war in Syria and the Trump administration's threat to prosecute WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, and his new book, "Requiem for the American Dream: The 10 Principles of Concentration of Wealth & Power."

As Brazil is engulfed by a political crisis, we are joined in studio for an extended exclusive interview by Brazil's former President Dilma Rousseff, who was impeached last year in what many describe as a legislative coup. Her removal ended nearly 14 years of rule by the left-leaning Workers' Party, which had been credited with lifting millions of Brazilians out of poverty. Rousseff is a former political prisoner who took part in the underground resistance to the U.S.-backed Brazilian dictatorship in the 1960s. She was jailed from 1970 to 1972, during which time she was repeatedly tortured. Rousseff would later become a key figure in the Workers' Party under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. She was elected president in 2010 and re-elected in 2014. Her successor, Brazilian President Michel Temer, is now facing mounting calls to resign or be impeached, following explosive testimony released by the Supreme Court accusing him of accepting millions of dollars in bribes since 2010. This week, he authorized the deployment of the Army to the capital Brasília as tens of thousands of protesters marched to Congress to demand his resignation.

We spend the hour looking at the growing political crisis in Brazil and air an exclusive interview with former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, who was impeached last August in what many described as a legislative coup. Her impeachment came as Brazil was engulfed in a major corruption scandal, but Rousseff herself was never accused of any financial impropriety. Her removal ended nearly 14 years of rule by the left-leaning Workers' Party, which had been credited with lifting millions of Brazilians out of poverty.Since Rousseff's removal from power last year, Brazil's corruption scandal has only widened. At the center of the scandal are many of the right-wing politicians who orchestrated Rousseff's ouster. Rousseff's successor, Brazilian President Michel Temer, is now facing mounting calls to resign or be impeached, following explosive testimony released by the Supreme Court accusing him of accepting millions of dollars in bribes since 2010. Removing Dilma Rousseff "was just so perverse, because what you were doing was actually strengthening and empowering corruption," says our first guest, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald, who lives in Brazil. He notes that a third of Temer's Cabinet are now the targets of criminal investigations.

Appeals Court Upholds Block on Trump's Muslim Travel Ban, GOP Millionaire Wins Montana Congressional Seat a Day After Body-Slamming Journalist, Report: Jared Kushner Becomes a Focus of Probe into Russian Meddling, Trump Accuses NATO Members of Owing "Massive Amounts of Money" to U.S., 24 Coptic Christians Killed in Egypt in Attack on Bus, Egypt Blocks Access to Many News Websites , Sister of Manchester Bomber: He Wanted Revenge for Killing of Muslim Children, U.K. Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn: The War on Terror Is Not Working, Report: U.S.-Led Strikes Kill 35 Civilians in Syria, Pentagon Admits U.S. Airstrike in Mosul Killed 105 Iraqi Civilians, Lawmakers Launch Bipartisan Effort to Block $110 Billion Saudi Arms Deal, Obama: Progress on Healthcare Is Being Imperiled

Last month here in Toronto, journalist Desmond Cole was told by his editor at the Toronto Star that he had violated the newspaper's rules on journalism and activism, after Cole protested a Toronto Police Services Board meeting. In his writings, Cole has long criticized the controversial police practice of carding—stopping, interrogating and collecting data on individuals without probable cause, a practice which disproportionately targets people of color in Canada. In 2015, he wrote a widely read piece for Toronto Life titled "The Skin I'm In: I've been interrogated by police more than 50 times—all because I'm black." For more, we speak with Desmond Cole, former columnist for the Toronto Star and now a freelance journalist, activist and radio host on Newstalk 1010.

Swedish prosecutors recently dropped the investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Assange has always denied the allegations, which he calls a pretext for his ultimate extradition to the U.S. to face prosecution under the Espionage Act. Since 2012, Assange has taken refuge in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London. It's not clear whether he will emerge any time soon. Last month, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions confirmed that the U.S. has prepared a warrant for Assange, calling his arrest a "priority." To talk more about Julian Assange, we speak with two of the founders of The Intercept: Jeremy Scahill and Glenn Greenwald.

In Britain, police are expanding their investigation into Monday's suicide bombing in Manchester that killed 22 and left dozens injured. Many of those killed were young girls. While the Manchester story has dominated international headlines, far less attention has been paid to other stories this week involving the deaths of civilians. In Syria and Iraq, U.S.-led or backed airstrikes have killed dozens of civilians in the last week alone. Meanwhile, in Yemen, the human rights group Reprieve says U.S. Navy SEALs killed five civilians during a raid Tuesday night on a village in Ma'rib governorate. To talk more about how the media covers civilian casualties, we speak with two of the founders of The Intercept: Jeremy Scahill and Glenn Greenwald.

In the Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte has suggested he might impose martial law across the country, after declaring it this week in his native island of Mindanao. This comes as a transcript of the call of Trump praising Duterte for his controversial drug war was leaked and published by The Intercept. According to the leaked transcript, Trump said, "I just wanted to congratulate you because I am hearing of the unbelievable job on the drug problem. Many countries have the problem, we have a problem, but what a great job you are doing, and I just wanted to call and tell you that." Duterte’s bloody war on drugs has led to the deaths of nearly 9,000 people, most of whom are poor. Human rights groups have blasted Duterte for the way he’s waged his anti-drug campaign, defined by extrajudicial killings of thousands of suspected drug dealers and users. For more on Trump and Duterte, we speak to Jeremy Scahill, co-founder of The Intercept and host of the new weekly podcast, "Intercepted." Scahill recently co-wrote a three-part series on the leaked call for The Intercept.

NYT: U.S. Spies Heard Russian Officials Plotting to Influence Trump Through Aides, WashPost: Comey Views on Clinton May Have Been Swayed by Fake Russian Document , CNN: Sessions Hid Meetings with Russians When Applying for Security Clearances, CBO: 23 Million Would Lose Insurance Under Republican Healthcare Plan , Thousands Protest Trump's Visit to Brussels for NATO Meeting, Report: U.S. Navy SEALs Killed 5 Civilians in Raid in Yemen, Brazil: Temer Deploys Army to Capital Amid Massive Protests , Gov't Report: DEA Lied About Its Killing of 4 Civilians in Honduras in 2012, Britain Accuses U.S. of Leaking Manchester Probe Details to News Media, 34 Refugees, Including Small Children, Drown Off Coast of Libya, Montana Congressional Candidate Greg Gianforte Body-Slammed Reporter, Hundreds Protest McDonald's and United Airlines Shareholder Meetings

In Britain, nearly 4,000 soldiers have been deployed to support local police departments in the wake of a suicide bombing that killed 22 people and injured dozens at a concert on Monday night. The victims were mostly young girls and parents who had taken their daughters to the concert by American pop star Ariana Grande. Authorities have identified the bombing suspect as Salman Abedi, a 22-year-old British man whose parents emigrated from Libya. ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attack. We speak to British political commentator Tariq Ali.

On Tuesday, former CIA Director John Brennan testified to the House Intelligence Committee that he had growing concerns last year that Trump’s campaign may be colluding with Russian officials to influence the 2016 election—and that the Russians might lead Trump officials down a "treasonous path." Trump has now hired a lawyer to represent him in the ongoing investigation, which has sparked mounting calls for Trump’s impeachment. For more, we speak with John Bonifaz, co-founder and president of Free Speech for People, one of the organizations that launched the "Impeach Donald Trump Now" campaign just moments after Trump's inauguration.

Last week, Texas Democratic Congressmember Al Green became the first congressmember to call for President Trump’s impeachment from the floor of the House of Representatives. Since then, the African-American lawmaker has received a barrage of racist threats, including voicemails in which callers threaten to lynch him. For more, we speak with Congressmember Green.

As controversy continues to swirl around the investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russian officials ahead of the 2016 election, we speak to Democratic Congressmember Al Green of Texas. Last week he became the first congressmember to call for President Trump’s impeachment from the floor of the House of Representatives.

The Trump administration unveiled its $4.1 trillion budget Tuesday. The plan includes massive cuts to social programs, while calling for historic increases in military spending. The budget proposes slashing $800 billion from Medicaid, nearly $200 billion from nutritional assistance programs, such as food stamps and Meals on Wheels, and more than $72 billion from disability benefits. The plan would also completely eliminate some student loan programs. It would ban undocumented immigrants from receiving support through some programs for families with children, including the child care tax credit. The budget also calls for an historic 10 percent increase in military spending and another $2.6 billion to further militarize the U.S.-Mexico border, including $1.6 billion to build Trump's border wall. For more, we speak with Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz.

Britain: 4,000 Soldiers Deployed Nationwide After Manchester Bombing, Trump Hires Lawyer for Investigation into Campaign Ties with Russian Officials, John Brennan Reveals Concern About Collusion Between Trump Campaign & Russia, Senate Committee Subpoenas 2 of Michael Flynn's Businesses, Smiling Trump Meets with Glum-Looking Pope Francis at Vatican, Baltimore Tenants Say Kushner Companies are "Neglectful" Landlords, Philippines: Duterte Declares Martial Law in Mindanao, Trump Praised Duterte for His Bloody War on Drugs in April Phone Call, Iraqi Military Opens Probe into Human Rights Abuses by Its Troops, Pentagon: Army Failed to Keep Track of $1 Billion Worth of Arms in Iraq & Kuwait, Syrian Rights Group: U.S. Airstrikes Killed 225 Civilians over Past Month, Bahrain Troops Kill 1 Protester & Arrest 200+ at Sit-in Supporting Shia Cleric, Tunisia: Thousands Gather for Funeral of Protester Killed by Police, U.S. Sues Fiat Chrysler over Software Allowing Ram Trucks to Skirt Emissions Rules, Thousands Protest McDonald's & Amazon Shareholder Meetings

Upon the release of longtime political prisoner Oscar López Rivera, New York City's Puerto Rican Day Parade organizers have chosen to honor Rivera as the parade's first "National Freedom Hero." This prompted the city's police chief to boycott the event. "You shouldn't be telling people who their heroes should or shouldn't be," responds Jumaane Williams, New York city councilmember. In 1981, López Rivera was convicted on federal charges including seditious conspiracy—conspiring to oppose U.S. authority over Puerto Rico. In 1999, President Bill Clinton commuted the sentences of 16 members of the FALN, but López Rivera refused to accept the deal because it didn't include two fellow activists, who have since been released. In January, President Obama commuted Oscar López Rivera's sentence. He was finally freed earlier this month.

In a partial victory for the Haitian-American community, the Department of Homeland Security announced Monday it has extended Haitians' temporary protected status (TPS). Tens of thousands of Haitians were given TPS after an earthquake devastated their country in 2010, and the new extension will allow them to continue to legally reside and work in the U.S. for the time being. If the Trump administration refuses to extend TPS after the six-month reprieve expires, up to 55,000 Haitians could be forcefully repatriated to their fragile, struggling homeland. Human rights advocates note Haiti is still reeling from Hurricane Matthew, which in October 2016 destroyed the country's southwest peninsula. The hurricane killed more than 1,000 people and decimated villages and farmland. Haiti is also suffering from a devastating cholera epidemic that erupted after the earthquake. We get response from Jumaane Williams, New York city councilmember for District 45. His district represents one of the largest populations of Haitians in the United States.

In Manchester, England, at least 22 people were killed in a bombing at a concert arena at the end of a performance by American pop star Ariana Grande. Dozens more were wounded in the explosion, which appears to be a suicide attack. ISIS has now claimed responsibility. We get response from Nathan Thrall, senior analyst at the International Crisis Group, who is in Jerusalem and discusses the impact of the attack on the region. "It makes things harder for the Palestinians, because this news was then used to highlight the issue of Palestinian terrorism and the issue of payments to families of Palestinians who have fought against Israel and been killed or imprisoned."

President Trump arrived in Bethlehem Tuesday during a two-day visit to Israel as part of his first trip abroad as president and vowed to do whatever necessary to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians. This comes as Palestinians across the West Bank and Gaza launched a general strike Monday to protest Trump's visit to Israel and Palestine and to show solidarity with Palestinian prisoners currently on hunger strike in Israeli jails. We get an update from Jerusalem, where Nathan Thrall of the International Crisis Group notes leaders on both sides are unsure what to expect from Trump, who made negative comments about Israel on the campaign trail. "That's really the locus of the fear on the Israeli side with respect to Trump," Thrall says. "It's the notion that he could really try and exert pressure on Israel, threaten real consequences in the U.S.-Israeli relationship, if Israel were not to agree to, let's say, the outlines of an American proposal for a settlement of the conflict or the outlines of an American proposal on which the two sides would negotiate and work out the details." Thrall argues that if Trump uses his leverage, "we're looking at a totally different Israeli-Palestinian peace process than we have seen in the past."

New Orleans has removed the last of four Confederate statues in recent weeks. Workers wore bulletproof vests and face coverings to conceal their identities as they used a crane to remove the statue from its pedestal. New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu said threats and intimidation necessitated the overnight work and extra safety precautions. White nationalists have staged a series of protests and issued threats in the lead-up to the memorials' removals. Though the four most prominent Confederate monuments have been removed, activists are calling for New Orleans officials to remove all monuments, school names and street signs in the city dedicated to white supremacists. We speak with Malcolm Suber, co-founder of Take 'Em Down NOLA.

Manchester, U.K.: 22 Killed in Concert Arena Attack Claimed by ISIS, Palestinians Launch General Strike to Protest Trump's Visit, Flynn to Plead the Fifth; Lawmakers Accuse Flynn of Lying to Pentagon Investigators, Trump Unveils $4 Trillion Budget Calling for Massive Cuts to Health & Food Programs, DHS Extends Haitians' Temporary Protected Status, Indian Military Officer Awarded After Ordering Kashmiri Civilian Be Tied to Army Truck, Colombia: Major Protests Continue in Buenaventura, Despite Crackdown, Mexican Journalists Demand Authorities Investigate Kidnapping of Colleague, Supreme Court Rules North Carolina Lawmakers Gerrymandered 2 Districts, Denver: Undocumented Mother Wins Stay of Deportation After Seeking Refuge in Church

Last week Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's security detail assaulted a group of peaceful protesters outside the Turkish ambassador's residence. Video from the scene shows Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan looking on during the assault. It's not clear if Erdogan gave the order for the attack. The assault came shortly after Erdogan was welcomed to the White House by President Trump. For more, we speak with Seyid Riza Dersimi, who was violently attacked during the protest and rushed by ambulance to the hospital, where he received stitches on his nose and was treated for a head injury. We also speak with Ruken Isik, a Kurdish activist and Ph.D. student at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She attended last week's protest and wrote a piece for The Huffington Post titled "Will Erdogan's Thugs Face No Consequences for Attacking Us on U.S. Soil?"

President Trump vowed to isolate Iran during his major address to Gulf leaders in Saudi Arabia. He accused Iran of funding, arming and training militias and other extremist groups in region, while ignoring Saudi Arabia's role in destabilizing the region. Trump's remarks came just two days after Iranian President Hassan Rouhani was re-elected in a landslide vote Friday. Rouhani's main challenger, hardline judge Ebrahim Raisi, received only 38 percent of the vote. For more on Trump's trip to Saudi Arabia and Iran's election, we speak with Trita Parsi, founder and president of the National Iranian American Council. He's the author of the new book, "Losing an Enemy: Obama, Iran, and the Triumph of Diplomacy," out next week.

In his first foreign trip abroad as president, Donald Trump traveled this weekend to Saudi Arabia, where he signed a series of arms deals totaling $110 billion. This comes in addition to more than $115 billion offered in arms deals to Saudi Arabia by President Obama during his time in office. The deal also includes precision-guided munitions, which the Obama administration had stopped selling Saudi Arabia out of fear they would be used to bomb civilians amid the ongoing Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen. Since 2015, 10,000 people have been killed in the ongoing fighting, which has also decimated the country's health, water, sewage and sanitation systems. The arms deal includes tanks, artillery, ships, helicopters, a missile defense system and cybersecurity technology. We speak to Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CodePink and author of the book "Kingdom of the Unjust: Behind the U.S.-Saudi Connection."

Trump Visiting Israel as More Palestinians Prisoners Join Hunger Strike, Trump Visits Saudi Arabia and Signs $110B Arms Deals, Trump Called Comey "Real Nut Job" & Said His Firing Reduced "Pressure" over Russia, Students March Out of VP Mike Pence's Notre Dame Commencement Speech, Iraq: 50 People Killed in Suicide Bomb Attacks; Thousands Flee Mosul, Syrian Gov't Retakes Full Control of Homs, Once the "Capital of the Revolution", Iran: President Hassan Rouhani Re-elected in Landslide Election, NYT: Chinese Gov't Jailed or Killed Up to 20 CIA Sources Since 2010, North Korea Launches Medium-Range Ballistic Missile Test, Brazil: Temer Faces Calls to Resign over Accusations of Accepting Millions in Bribes, U.N.: South Sudanese Pro-Gov't Forces Killed 114 Civilians in Yei in Six Months, Billy Bush: 2005 Access Hollywood Tape Brought His Daughter to Tears, WA State: Officials Probe Possible Leak at Hanford Nuclear Site, Maryland: FBI Probing Murder of African-American Student as Hate Crime, Ohio: No Indictment for White Officer Who Killed 13-Year-Old African-American Boy, New Orleans Removes Confederate Statue of General Robert Lee

Civil rights advocate and best-selling author Michelle Alexander responds to the new push by Attorney General Jeff Sessions to escalate the war on drugs by rescinding two Obama-era memos that encouraged prosecutors to avoid seeking inordinately harsh sentences for low-level drug offenses. He has also instructed Justice Department prosecutors to pursue "the most serious" charges for all drug offenses.

We are joined by two leading voices in the fight against mass incarceration: Michelle Alexander, author of the best-selling book "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness," and Susan Burton, founder and executive director of A New Way of Life, a nonprofit that provides housing and other support to formerly incarcerated women. Burton is the author of the new memoir, "Becoming Ms. Burton: From Prison to Recovery to Leading the Fight for Incarcerated Women," in which she describes her journey from a childhood filled with abuse to drug addiction as an adult, and then to the fight to address the underlying issues that send women to prison. Alexander writes in the book's introduction, "There once lived a woman with deep brown skin and black hair who freed people from bondage and ushered them to safety. She welcomed them to safe homes and offered food, shelter, and help reuniting with family and loved ones. She met them wherever they could be found and organized countless others to provide support and aid in various forms so they would not be recaptured and sent back to captivity. … Some people know this woman by the name Harriet Tubman. I know her as Susan." See Burton and Alexander speak in New York City Friday night at 7pm. More details "here":https://thenewpress.com/events/susan-burton-michelle-alexander-abyssinian-baptist-church

Swedish prosecutors have dropped an investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Assange has denied the allegations, which he calls a pretext for his ultimate extradition to the U.S. to face prosecution under the Espionage Act. Since 2012, Assange has taken refuge in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London. It's not clear whether Assange will emerge any time soon. "This is a small victory, but in this long road to free Julian Assange and all the people working for WikiLeaks," says our guest Renata Avila, a Courage Foundation trustee and human rights lawyer. "But it will finally help us lawyers to focus on the main issue, which is the persecution, the political persecution, and imminent prosecution of Julian Assange in the United States."

Swedish Prosecutor Drops Sex Crimes Investigation of Julian Assange, President Trump Denies Ordering James Comey to Call Off Flynn Probe, House Democratic Leader Questions Special Counsel's Independence, Deputy AG Knew Trump Planned to Fire Comey Before Writing Memo, Trump to Announce $110 Billion Saudi Arms Deal in First Trip Overseas, Former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes Dead at 77, FCC Vote Advances Bid to End Net Neutrality, Reporter "Manhandled" by FCC Security Guards for Asking Question, In Video, Turkish President Watches Bodyguards Attack D.C. Protesters, Syria: U.S. Warplanes Attack Convoy of Pro-Assad Forces, Brazil: President Michel Temer Refuses to Resign Amid New Scandal, Venezuela: Antigovernment Protests Rage as Trump Talks Intervention, Greek Parliament Approves Fresh Austerity Measures Amid Protests, California: Police Investigate Murder of Gender Nonconforming Person, Chelsea Manning Tweets First Picture of Herself as a Free Woman

Since 2000, more than 100 journalists have been murdered in Mexico. A recent report by the International Institute for Strategic Studies says that Mexico endured the second most conflict deaths of any country in the world last year, with a staggering 23,000 people killed amid the country's so-called war on drugs. Mexico was second only to Syria, where 50,000 people were killed in 2016 by the ongoing war. The third, fourth and fifth most dangerous countries were Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen. We speak with Mexican journalist Anabel Hernández, who has faced attacks and death threats for her reporting on the Mexican drug trade and has said, "A journalist who has to walk with bodyguards is an embarrassment for any nation."

"Let them kill us all, if that is the death sentence for reporting this hell. No to silence." Those are the words of award-winning Mexican reporter Javier Valdez, after one of his colleagues, Miroslava Breach, was assassinated in late March. On Monday, Valdez was also assassinated, dragged out of his car and shot 12 times, less than a block from the office of Ríodoce, the newspaper he co-founded in the Mexican state of Sinaloa. The killing of Valdez, who wrote for the prominent newspaper La Jornada, has sparked widespread outrage across Mexico. On Tuesday, as hundreds of people gathered for Valdez's funeral in Culiacán, Sinaloa, hundreds more protested outside the Interior Ministry in Mexico City. Multiple Mexican digital media outlets also went on a 24-hour strike, refusing to publish anything but a black banner with the names of the journalists assassinated in Mexico so far this year: Cecilio Pineda, Maximino Rodríguez, Ricardo Monlui, Filiberto Álvarez, Miroslava Breach and Javier Valdez. We air Valdez's 2011 speech when he came to New York to receive the International Press Freedom Award from the Committee to Protect Journalists.

It has been another extraordinary 24 hours in the nation's capital. In the biggest news of the day, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller to serve as a special counsel to oversee a probe into Russian government efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election. The move came one day after reports emerged that President Trump had personally asked former FBI Director James Comey to end the agency's investigation into Trump's former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, who was fired for lying both publicly and privately about his contacts with Russian officials. In another new development, The New York Times reports Trump picked Michael Flynn as his national security adviser even though Flynn had warned Trump's transition team that he was under federal investigation for secretly working as a paid lobbyist for Turkey during the campaign. We speak to Marcy Wheeler, an independent journalist who covers national security and civil liberties. She runs the website EmptyWheel.net.

DOJ Names Robert Mueller Special Counsel in Russia Investigation, NYT: Michael Flynn Told Trump Transition Team of Federal Probe, Reuters: Michael Flynn Had 18 Previously Undisclosed Russia Contacts, McClatchy: Flynn Executed Turkish Policy Goal as Unregistered Agent, Rep. Al Green (D-TX) Calls on Congress to Impeach President Trump, Three House Republicans Raise Possibility of Trump Impeachment, President Trump Assails Media over Mounting White House Scandals, Islamophobic Trump Adviser Stephen Miller Pens Trump Speech on Islam, Chelsea Manning Celebrates "First Steps of Freedom", Federal Judge Opens $123 Billion Puerto Rico Bankruptcy Hearings, Greek Workers Strike Nationwide Amid Latest Push for Austerity, Brazilian President Temer Reportedly Approved of Hush-Money Payoffs, Trump Administration Raises Pace of Deportations by 40 Percent, Radical Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke to Take Homeland Security Post, Tulsa, Oklahoma: Officer "Not Guilty" in Terence Crutcher Killing, Texas: Video Shows Officer in Dallas Suburb Tasing Handcuffed Man, New Orleans Removes Another Confederate Memorial, New York: Protesters Target Nuclear Power Bailout Plan, Oscar López Rivera Free After 36 Years in Prison

Environmental activists in California are fighting plans to store 3.6 million pounds of highly radioactive nuclear waste on a popular beach in San Diego County. In 2012, a radioactive leak at the San Onofre nuclear power plant forced an emergency shutdown. The plant was fully closed by June 2013. Now residents are fighting the permit issued by the California Coastal Commission to store the millions of pounds of nuclear waste in thin, stainless steel canisters, within 100 feet of the ocean. We speak to Ray Lutz, founder of Citizens' Oversight, which has filed a lawsuit challenging the expansion of the nuclear waste storage facility.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly recently visited the San Diego-Tijuana border, where they vowed to crack down on sanctuary cities and urged local officials to cooperate fully with federal immigration agents. We speak to Enrique Morones, executive director and founder of Border Angels.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Washington, D.C., has agreed to open a case against the U.S. government for the murder and cover-up of Anastasio Hernández Rojas, who was killed by border agents seven years ago. Hernández Rojas died as he tried to cross the border to return to San Diego, where he had lived for 25 years and had fathered five children. The San Diego Coroner's Office classified Anastasio Hernández Rojas's death as a homicide, concluding he suffered a heart attack as well as "bruising to his chest, stomach, hips, knees, back, lips, head and eyelids; five broken ribs; and a damaged spine." We speak to Christian Ramirez, the director of Southern Border Communities Coalition and human rights director of Alliance San Diego.