Democracy Now!

Israel Bombs Gaza Over 100 Times in 3 Days, Killing Scores of Palestinians, Netanyahu's Office Downplays Reports of Progress in Gaza Ceasefire Talks, Attack on Israeli Bus and Cars in Occupied West Bank Kills 3 and Wounds 8, Biden Approves Sale of $8 Billion in Additional Bombs, Missiles and Arms to Israel, Israeli Embassy Helps Army Reservist Flee Brazil to Avoid War Crimes Inquiry, Ukraine Launches Surprise Cross-Border Offensive in Russia's Kursk Region, House Speaker Mike Johnson Narrowly Retains Gavel After Trump Intervenes, We Have a Territories & Colonies Problem": Del. Plaskett Blasts Silencing of 4 Million U.S. Citizens, Congress to Certify Trump's Electoral College Win Four Years After MAGA Rioters Stormed Capitol, NY Judge Upholds Trump's Election Subversion Felony Conviction But Will Not Sentence Him to Prison, Trump Welcomes Far-Right Italian PM Giorgia Meloni to Mar-a-Lago, Prominent Cartoonist Quits Washington Post After Editors Kill Caricature of Trump and Bezos, Pyongyang Tests Ballistic Missile as Blinken Visits a South Korea in Political Turmoil, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Reportedly on Cusp of Resigning

The Pentagon announced this week it launched a wave of airstrikes on Sana'a and other parts of Yemen on Tuesday. U.S. Central Command said it targeted command and weapons production facilities of Ansarallah, the militant group also known as the Houthis that rules most of Yemen. The attacks came just after Israel bombed the Yemeni port city of Hodeidah and the main airport in Sana'a, killing at least six people. A Houthi spokesperson said Wednesday the movement would continue attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and against Israel aimed at ending that country's war on Gaza. These are strikes on Yemeni infrastructure. These are strikes on Yemeni civilians," Yemeni American scholar Shireen Al-Adeimi says of the Israeli and U.S. strikes. The only thing that will stop Ansarallah from rerouting ships in the Red Sea and stopping their attacks ... is an end to the genocide in Gaza and an end to the starvation of the Palestinian people."

As the genocide in Gaza enters its 15th month, we look at From Ground Zero, a collection of 22 short films made in Gaza by Palestinian filmmakers surviving Israel's bombings and brutal blockade. The film has been shortlisted for this year's Academy Awards in the category for best international feature. In spite of all what happened, we were trying to search for hope," says filmmaker Rashid Masharawi, director of From Ground Zero, now playing in U.S. theaters. Masharawi was born in Gaza and has lost many relatives during the war. He says the film is an opportunity to focus on the normal stories" of survival and perseverance, calling it cinema for humanity."

We look at what we know about two deadly incidents that unfolded in the United States on New Year's Day: a truck attack in New Orleans in which a driver killed at least 14 people before being shot dead by police, and the explosion of a Tesla Cybertruck outside a Trump hotel in Las Vegas, part of an apparent suicide. The FBI has identified the New Orleans suspect as 42-year-old U.S. Army veteran Shamsud-Din Jabbar, who had posted videos to social media before the attack pledging allegiance to the Islamic State militant group. In the Las Vegas case, the driver was 37-year-old Matthew Livelsberger of Colorado, an active-duty Army Green Beret, who is believed to have shot himself before the blast. Investigators say they have not found a link between the two incidents despite both men being connected to the military, but Army veteran and antiwar organizer Mike Prysner says military service is now the number one predictor of becoming what is called a mass casualty offender, surpassing even mental health issues." Prysner says the U.S. military depends on social problems like alienation and inequality in order to gain new recruits, then spits them back out" in often worse shape, with people exposed to violence sometimes turning to extremism. We have these deep-rooted problems in our society that give rise to these incidents of mass violence. Service members and veterans ... can actually be a part of changing society and getting to the root of those issues and moving society forward," he says, citing uniformed resistance to the Vietnam and Iraq wars as examples.

How to Hide a Genocide": Al-Haq Report Shows How Israel Hides Behind Safe Zones", Doha Ceasefire Talks Set to Resume as UNSC Takes Up Israeli Attacks on Gaza Hospitals, 3,500 Children in Gaza Could Die of Malnutrition as Hunger Grips Besieged Territory, Texas Veteran Who Killed 15 People on Bourbon Street Previously Planned to Harm Family, Driver of Cybertruck That Exploded Outside Trump Hotel ID'd as U.S. Army Sgt. Matthew Livelsberger, Fate of House Speaker Mike Johnson Uncertain as 119th Congress Is Sworn In, Biden Awards Presidential Citizens Medal to Republican Ex-Rep. Liz Cheney, Federal Appeals Court Strikes Down FCC Net Neutrality Rules, Biden to Block Nippon Steel's Takeover Bid of U.S. Steel, China Sanctions U.S. Arms Makers as Xi Jinping Acknowledges Uncertainties" of Trump Trade War, Security Forces Block South Korean Police from Arresting Disgraced President Yoon Suk Yeol, Dozens of Asylum Seekers Drown in Shipwrecks Near Tunisia and Libya Attempting to Reach Europe, Biden to Designate Two New National Monuments in California

As we move into 2025, we look at how the world is cracking down on migrants and asylum seekers, and the dangers they face when trying to flee their countries due to persecution, economic conditions, the climate crisis and more. As Greek prosecutors open a murder investigation of unknown perpetrators" following a damning expose of the deadly crackdown on asylum seekers by the Greek coast guard, we revisit the BBC film, Dead Calm: Killing in the Med? The investigation revealed evidence the coast guard routinely abducted and abandoned asylum seekers in the Mediterranean Sea. The film found the Greek coast guard caused the deaths of dozens of migrants over a period of three years, including of nine asylum seekers who had reached Greek soil but were taken back out to sea and thrown overboard. We really have no real clue about the true numbers of the people that are crossing [the Mediterranean Sea]. Many people don't make it," producer Lucile Smith told Democracy Now! in an interview last year, when the film was released. And when people do arrive, they tend to disappear, because ... if you are caught by the authorities in Greece, you will be most likely subjected to some very serious violence."

For our first live interview of 2025, we go to Deir al-Balah in the Gaza Strip to get an update from Palestinian journalist Shrouq Aila, the head of Ain Media, a media company founded by her late husband, Roshdi Sarraj, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in October 2023. Aila describes worsening conditions in the winter rain and cold, and the complete hollowing out of infrastructure as Palestinians are struggling to survive. Being here in Gaza means I'm doing a change," she says about her duty" to report. Her dedication to reporting on Israel's now 15-month-long assault on Gaza was recently honored by the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Israeli Assault on Gaza Continues as Data Show 6% of Palestinians Have Fled or Been Killed, Palestinian Authority Bans Al Jazeera in West Bank After Critical Coverage, Biden Says Texan Who Killed 15 in New Orleans Pledged Allegiance to ISIS Before New Year's Assault, One Dead, 7 Injured After Tesla Cybertruck Explodes Outside Trump Hotel in Las Vegas, FBI Finds 150+ Pipe Bombs in Home of Far-Right Extremist Who Used Biden's Photo for Target Practice, Pentagon Says It Targeted Houthis in U.S. Airstrikes That Followed Israeli Attacks on Yemen, Russian Attack Kills 2 In Kyiv on New Year's Day as Ukraine Halts Flow of Russian Gas to Europe, Russia Battles Massive Oil Spill Near Crimea, Honduras May Cancel Military Cooperation with U.S. Unless Trump Cancels Mass Expulsion Plans, Ivory Coast to Expel French Soldiers, Following Other Former French Colonies in Africa, South Korea's Yoon Resists Arrest Warrant over Failed Martial Law Declaration, Flight Data Recorder Recovered from South Korean Airline Crash That Killed 179, North Carolina Governor Commutes Death Sentences of 15 Death Row Prisoners

We speak with The Nation's Chris Lehmann about President-elect Donald Trump's escalating attacks on the press and how major media figures and institutions are capitulating preemptively" to the pressure. ABC News recently settled a defamation suit brought by Trump by making a $15 million donation to his future presidential library, despite experts saying the case was easily winnable. Trump is also suing The Des Moines Register for publishing a poll before the election that showed him losing to Vice President Kamala Harris. What's happening is a very clear pattern in Trump's public life," says Lehmann. This is a show of power."

We continue to discuss the new HBO Original film Surveilled and explore the film's investigation of high-tech spyware firms with journalist Ronan Farrow and director Matthew O'Neill. We focus on the influence of the Israeli military in the development of some of the most widely used versions of these surveillance technologies, which in many cases are first tested on Palestinians and used to enforce Israel's occupation of Palestine, and on the potential expansion of domestic U.S. surveillance under a second Trump administration. Ever-increasing surveillance is dangerous for democracy," says Farrow. We're making and selling a weapon that is largely unregulated." As O'Neill emphasizes, We could all be caught up."

Is that a spy in your pocket? In a holiday special we speak to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ronan Farrow and filmmaker Matthew O'Neill about Surveilled, their new HBO documentary looking at how high-tech surveillance spyware is threatening democracy across the globe. As part of the reporting for the documentary, Farrow traveled to Israel for a rare interview with a former employee of NSO Group, the Israeli software company that makes Pegasus. He warns that it's not just repressive governments" that abuse Pegasus and other surveillance technology, but also a growing number of democratic states like Greece, Poland and Spain. U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies under both the Biden and Trump administrations have also considered such spyware, although the extent to which these tools have been used is not fully known. Surveillance technology has historically always been abused. Now the technology is more advanced and more frightening than ever, and more available than ever, so abuse is more possible," says Farrow.

International outrage is growing over Israel's abduction of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in the Jabaliya refugee camp, who was detained after Israeli forces raided and shut down the last major hospital in northern Gaza last week. A new United Nations report finds that Israeli strikes on and near hospitals in the Gaza Strip have pushed the healthcare system to the brink of total collapse." Displaced Palestinians throughout the territory are dying from the ongoing Israeli bombardment, as well as injuries, infections and diseases due to Israel's restrictions on medical care and medical supplies. At least six babies have also died of hypothermia in recent days amid plunging winter temperatures. Living conditions are just deplorable. They are not compatible with human life," says Dr. Mimi Syed, an emergency medicine physician who just left Gaza after volunteering there for a month. We also speak with trauma surgeon Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, who previously volunteered at the European Hospital in Khan Younis. It's very likely that tens or even hundreds of thousands of people are going to die of the combination of malnutrition, displacement, exposure to the elements and hypothermia this winter," says Sidhwa.

Gaza is entering its second winter under attack from Israel, and talks to reach a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas appear to have stalled yet again. For more on efforts to end the war and secure the release of captives on both sides, we speak with veteran Israeli negotiator Gershon Baskin, who has acted as a backchannel to Hamas leaders in the current and previous conflicts. We need to put the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the agenda again and make sure this is the last war we fight," says Baskin.

Russian missile and drone attacks are continuing across Ukraine as the country already faces a cold, dark winter after Russia's strikes destroyed about half of the country's energy infrastructure. This comes as Russia and Ukraine completed a prisoner swap, repatriating more than 300 prisoners of war in a deal brokered by the United Arab Emirates ahead of the new year. The Biden administration, meanwhile, has approved billions more in military and economic assistance to Ukraine before President-elect Donald Trump returns to office with a pledge to curtail aid and end the war. Since Russia's invasion nearly three years ago, Congress has approved $175 billion in total assistance to Ukraine. Putin doesn't want peace," says Oleksandra Matviichuk, a leading Ukrainian human rights lawyer, who says Russia's goal is to restore its empire by force. Russian occupation means torture, rapes, enforced disappearances, denial of your own identity, forcible adoption of your children, filtration camps and mass graves," she says.

U.N. Warns 136 Israeli Attacks on Medical Centers Have Left Gaza Healthcare Near Total Collapse", Israel's U.N. Ambassador Warns Houthis to Halt Attacks or Face Miserable Fate", Syria's New Foreign Minister Calls for Strategic" Ties to Ukraine, More Than 300 Russian and Ukrainian Soldiers Repatriated in Prisoner Swap, Biden Releases Another $2.5 Billion in Military Aid to Ukraine Ahead of Trump's Inauguration, Kenyan Police Tear-Gas Protesters Demanding Justice for Abducted Government Critics, U.S. Releases Tunisian Imprisoned at Guantanamo for 22 Years Without Charge, Trump Loses Appeal on 2023 Verdict Finding Him Liable for Sexually Abusing E. Jean Carroll, Taliban Bans NGOs That Employ Afghan Women, Says Women Should Not Be Seen in Windows, Iran Confirms Arrest of Italian Journalist Cecilia Sala in Tehran

Former President Jimmy Carter died Sunday at his home in Plains, Georgia, at 100 years old. The 39th president served a single, tumultuous term in the White House from 1977 to 1981. As we begin our look at his life and legacy, we hear Carter's own words in a Democracy Now! interview discussing his book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. Carter criticized Israel's policies in the West Bank and Gaza, and argued Israel's settlements in the Occupied Territories were the main barrier to peace. Americans don't want to know and many Israelis don't want to know what is going on inside Palestine. It's a terrible human rights persecution that far transcends what any outsider would imagine," said Carter in 2007. And there are powerful political forces in America that prevent any objective analysis of the problem in the Holy Land."

Since October 7, 2023, Israel's onslaught in Gaza has killed more than 45,500 Palestinians and injured more than 108,000. At the same time, Gaza officials continue to accuse Israel of deliberately blocking aid deliveries. Human rights organizations are condemning Israel for attacking Palestinian lifesaving infrastructure, including Gaza's water supply and medical system. All of this has led to the world's leading specialist on the subject of genocide to declare Israel is carrying out a combination of genocidal actions, ethnic cleansing and annexation of the Gaza Strip." Omer Bartov, an Israeli American professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University, describes why he believes Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza right now. There was actually a systematic attempt to make Gaza uninhabitable, as well as to destroy all institutions that make it possible for a group to sustain itself, not only physically but also culturally," says Bartov, who warns impunity for Israel would endanger the entire edifice of international law. This is a total moral, ethical failure by the very countries that claim to be the main protectors of civil rights, democracy, human rights around the world."

Gaza's Health Ministry has confirmed that close to 46,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel's ongoing assault, but Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah estimates the true number is closer to 300,000. This is literally and mathematically a genocidal project," says Abu-Sittah, a British Palestinian reconstructive surgeon who worked in Gaza for over a month treating patients at both Al-Shifa and Al-Ahli Baptist hospitals. Israel continues to attack what remains of the besieged territory's medical infrastructure. On Sunday, an Israeli attack on the upper floor of al-Wafa Hospital in Gaza City killed at least seven people and wounded several others. On Friday, Israeli troops stormed Kamal Adwan Hospital, northern Gaza's last major functioning hospital, and set the facility on fire. Many staff and patients were reportedly forced to go outside and strip in winter weather. The director of Kamal Adwan, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, was arrested, and his whereabouts remain unknown. It's been obvious from the beginning that Israel has been wiping out a whole generation of health professionals in Gaza as a way of increasing the genocidal death toll but also of permanently making Gaza uninhabitable," says Abu-Sittah. On the 7th of October, the Israelis crossed that genocidal Rubicon that settler-colonial projects cross."

Sixth Palestinian Child Dies of Hypothermia in Gaza as Israel Continues Unrelenting Attacks, Family Blames Palestinian Security Forces for Killing of West Bank Journalist Shatha al-Sabbagh, Syria's De Facto Leader Says It Could Take Four Years to Organize Elections, Israelis Hold Nationwide Rallies to Demand Gaza Ceasefire Deal and Netanyahu Resignation, South Korean Airliner Crash Kills All But Two of 181 People Aboard, Azerbaijan's Leader Calls on Putin to Admit Russia Shot Down Airliner, Georgia's Outgoing President Refuses to Quit as Mikheil Kavelashvili Is Inaugurated, Former President Jimmy Carter Dies at 100, Rare December Tornadoes Claim 4 Lives in Southern U.S. States, Video Reveals NY Prison Guards Beat Prisoner Robert Brooks to Death While Handcuffed

Silicon Valley and tech billionaires are lining up to support the incoming Trump administration. With the world's richest man, Elon Musk, as one of Trump's closest advisers, Trump has hosted Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg for dinners at Mar-a-Lago. Amazon, Meta and OpenAI's Sam Altman have all announced donations of $1 million each to Trump's inaugural committee. Trump has placed tech executives all over his new administration, including PayPal co-founder Ken Howery, venture capitalists Scott Kupor and Sriram Krishnan, and tech boss David Sacks, whom Trump has picked to be czar" of crypto and artificial intelligence. The core things come down to displacing workers with artificial intelligence, displacing the currency with crypto, and getting rid of any kind of taxation on wealth that might come up," says author and former tech investor Roger McNamee, who encourages people to consider using less Silicon Valley tech products. We have been accepting all kinds of invasions of privacy, all kinds of surveillance, all kinds of manipulation in exchange for convenience. ... Could we do with less convenience for a while in exchange for regaining human autonomy?"

Donald Trump has set his sights on the Americas, threatening to retake the Panama Canal if Panama doesn't lower fees for U.S. ships. The United States controlled the waterway until 1977, when President Jimmy Carter signed a landmark treaty to give Panama control of the canal. Trump has also recently floated the idea of annexing Canada, and even a possible soft invasion" of Mexico. Pulitzer Prize-winning Yale historian Greg Grandin explains the practical impossibilities of such plans but analyzes the political impacts of Trump's statements. There's no way the United States is going to fill out greater America. This is red meat for the Trump base," says Grandin. It's classic Trump."

We speak with a Greenlandic member of the Danish Parliament, Aaja Chemnitz, about incoming U.S. President Donald Trump's plans to make America larger, in part by taking ownership of Greenland, which is controlled by Denmark. Greenland's prime minister rejected the idea this week, saying, We are not for sale and will never be for sale." Trump's statement on Greenland was made as he announced he was picking PayPal co-founder Ken Howery as his pick for United States ambassador to Denmark. We're open for business. We're not for sale," says Chemnitz. The decision on what should happen with the future of Greenland is up to the Greenlandic people."

In northern Gaza, the director of the besieged Kamal Adwan Hospital says five medical workers were among 50 people killed in Israeli strikes near the hospital. Israeli forces then stormed the hospital and forced hundreds, including patients, into the streets. This all comes as The New York Times has confirmed past reporting by +972 Magazine that on October 7, 2023, Israel loosened military rules meant to protect noncombatants in Gaza. Award-winning Israeli journalist Gideon Levy decries the moral decay of Israel, which has gone so far as to open a luxurious rest area for soldiers in northern Gaza: It's the same moral blindness to what's going on around you." Levy also discusses his latest piece, headlined The IDF's Own Sickening 'Zone of Interest' in the Heart of Gaza."

Israel Forces Evacuation of Northern Gaza Hospital After Attack That Killed 50, Watchdog Finds 75,000 in Gaza at Risk of Famine, Buries Report After U.S. Ambassador to Israel Objects, Israel Bombs Yemeni Capital and Port City of Hodeidah, Killing 6 and Wounding Dozens, Famine Spreads as Fighting Escalates in Sudan, Prompting Exodus of Refugees, More Than 10,000 Asylum Seekers Have Died at Sea Attempting to Reach Spain in 2024, CDC Warns Sample of First Severely Ill U.S. Bird Flu Patient Contains Troublesome Mutations, South Korean Parliament Impeaches Acting President 2 Weeks After Former President's Ouster, New York Gov. Signs Bill to Hold Climate Polluters Accountable But Vetoes Anti-Deforestation Bill, L.A. Deputy Who Beat Trans Man Fired Along with 7 Others Amid FBI Probe

More than 3,100 Indigenous students died at boarding schools in the United States between 1828 and 1970 - three times the number of deaths reported earlier this year by the Department of Interior, according to a new investigation by The Washington Post. Many of the students had been forcibly removed from their families and tribes as part of a government policy of cultural eradication and assimilation. The new report was led by Dana Hedgpeth, an enrolled member of the Haliwa-Saponi Tribe of North Carolina, and expanded its reach beyond federal records to achieve a full public accounting of the death toll of what many scholars and survivors have described as prison camps," not schools. Hedgpeth shares how some tribes have now been able to recover the remains of children who had been buried at the boarding schools and return them for traditional burials in their ancestral homelands. The impact of these schools is still being felt in many ways," she says.

We go to Damascus for an update on the state of affairs in Syria after the surprise collapse of the long-reigning Assad regime, with BBC Middle East correspondent Lina Sinjab. She is reporting in Syria for the first time in over a decade, after she was forced to flee the country in 2013. She relays the sense of freedom and joy" now present on the streets of Damascus, where ordinary Syrians, for the first time in generations, feel that they are liberated and they are proud of where they are today." Current estimates put the number of forced disappearances under the Assad government at 300,000 likely tortured in prisons and buried in mass graves. We discuss Syria's new transitional government, led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, and whether it can fulfill its promises of inclusion and accountability for all Syrians. There's no way for peace and stability to happen in Syria without a prosecution, without a legal system that will hold those who have blood on their hands accountable, for the sake of reconciliation in the country," says Sinjab.

After a 15-year career in the Foreign Service, Michael Casey resigned from the State Department in July over U.S. policy on Gaza and is now speaking out publicly for the first time. He was deputy political counselor at the United States Office for Palestinian Affairs in Jerusalem for four years before he left. Casey says he resigned after getting no action from Washington" for his recommendations on humanitarian actions for Palestinians and toward a workable two-state solution. We don't believe Palestinian sources of information," Casey says about U.S. policymakers. We will accept the Israeli narrative over all others, even if we know it's not correct." He also discusses what to expect for Gaza under the incoming Trump administration.

Israeli Strikes on Gaza Kill Dozens, Including Five Journalists; Three Babies Freeze to Death, Russia Launches Massive Christmas Attack on Ukraine's Energy Grid, Azerbaijani Airlines Crash in Kazakhstan Leaves Behind 38 Dead, 29 Survivors, Turkey's Erdoan Threatens to Bury" Syrian Kurds Unless They Lay Down Arms, Dozens Killed in Violence Across Mozambique Following Disputed Election Result, Gunmen Kill 2 Haitian Journalists Covering Reopening of Port-au-Prince Hospital, Judge Voids Arkansas Law Criminalizing Booksellers and Librarians Providing Harmful" Books to Minors

His name might not be familiar to many, but his songs are sung by millions around the world. Today, we take a journey through the life and work of Yip Harburg, the Broadway lyricist who wrote such hits as Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" and who put the music into The Wizard of Oz, the movie that inspired the hit Broadway musical and now Hollywood blockbuster, Wicked. Born into poverty on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, Harburg always included a strong social and political component to his work, fighting racism and poverty. A lifelong socialist, Harburg was blacklisted and hounded throughout much of his life. We speak with Harburg's son, Ernie Harburg, about the music and politics of his father. Then we take an in-depth look at The Wizard of Oz, and hear a medley of Harburg's Broadway songs and the politics of the times in which they were created.

As foreign powers look to shape Syria's political landscape after the toppling of the Assad regime, the country's Kurdish population is in the spotlight. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoan continues to threaten the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, which Turkey regards as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers' Party militants who have fought an insurgency against the Turkish state for 40 years. Turkey's foreign minister recently traveled to Damascus to meet with Syria's new de facto ruler Ahmed al-Sharaa, the head of the Islamist group HTS. Turkey is a major threat to Kurds and to democratic experiments that Kurds have been implementing in the region starting in 2014," says Ozlem Goner, steering committee member of the Emergency Committee for Rojava, who details the persecution of Kurds, the targeting of journalists, and which powerful countries are looking to control the region. Turkey, Israel and the U.S. collectively are trying to carve out this land, and Kurds are under threat."

The U.S. House Ethics Committee has released its damning report on former Republican Representative Matt Gaetz, whom Trump had picked to be his attorney general before the Florida politician was forced to withdraw from consideration. The bipartisan committee's report found Gaetz regularly paid women for engaging in sexual activity with him" and possessed illegal drugs, including cocaine and ecstasy, on multiple different occasions." The report also found Gaetz had violated Florida's statutory rape law by paying a 17-year-old high school student for sex in 2017. The Ethics Committee also investigated a trip Gaetz made in 2018 to the Bahamas where he accepted transportation and lodging in violation of the House rules and laws on gifts. The report is detailed. There are extensive records showing these payments," says Naomi Feinstein, staff writer at Miami New Times.

President Biden has spared the lives of 37 of 40 federal death row prisoners by commuting their sentences to life in prison. This comes just weeks before President-elect Donald Trump is set to return to the White House with a promise to restart and expand federal executions. Death is in no way decreasing violence or is in no way giving anybody closure," says Herman Lindsey, who spent three years on death row before being exonerated in 2009 and condemns politicians like Trump who use executions as a political tool." Most politicians use that to put the fear into people and use it as a voting tool." President Biden's action comes after years of advocacy by civil rights and Catholic groups. Last week, he had a phone call with Pope Francis, who reportedly called for the sentences of death row prisoners to be commuted. He shares that faith and put it into action in a pretty courageous way, to speak out about the needs of healing the criminal justice system, that too often is wrong," says Sister Simone Campbell, the former executive director of the Network Lobby for Catholic Social Justice.

Israel Attacks Two Hospitals in Northern Gaza, Israel Detains 100 in West Bank; Palestinian Authority Clashes with Palestinian Fighters in Jenin, Israel Confirms It Assassinated Haniyeh as It Threatens to Kill Houthi Leaders Next, Greenland Is Not for Sale: PM Responds to Donald Trump's Remark, El Salvador: Lawmakers Vote to Overturn Ban on Mineral Mining, Mass Protest in Cuba Denounces U.S. Sanctions, House Ethics Report Finds Matt Gaetz Spent Tens of Thousands of Dollars on Sex and Drugs, Family of Rep. Kay Granger Reveals She Has Dementia; Texas Republican Has Missed Every Vote Since July, Amazon Accused of Trying to Flood Picket Lines of Striking Workers in Queens, NYC, Starbucks Strikes Expands to Three More Cities, Missouri Governor Commutes Sentence of White Cop Who Killed Cameron Lamb, Family of Slain Cop City Protester Tortuguita Sues Three Police Officers, D.C. Police Officer Convicted of Tipping Off Proud Boys Leader, Taxpayers Against Genocide Sue Two California Democrats for Funding Israeli Military

Christmas celebrations are canceled in the West Bank and the city of Bethlehem, Jesus Christ's birthplace, for the second year in a row in response to Israel's genocidal attack on Gaza and ethnic cleansing of the Occupied Palestinian Territories. We feature an excerpt of the Christmas sermon of Reverend Munther Isaac of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem, titled Christ Is Still in the Rubble," referencing a sermon he gave at this time last year titled Christ in the Rubble," about the loss of Palestinian life to Israel's assault of Gaza. We also go to Bethlehem to speak with Reverend Isaac. He shares his message to the U.S. and the rest of the world. Our fear here in Bethlehem is that there is no one who's going to hold Israel accountable," he says. We're tired and sick of these wars, which are enabled by American tax money and American politics."

In France, sentences have been handed down in the trial of Dominique Pelicot and 51 other men convicted of rape against Pelicot's ex-wife, Gisele. Dominique Pelicot had repeatedly and systematically drugged and facilitated the rape of Gisele Pelicot, approaching other men online to visit their home and assault her over a period of 10 years. Pelicot waived anonymity and fought for a public trial in the historic case, a decision that shaped the public discourse on sexual violence and the prevalence of chemical submission and drug-assisted sexual assault. We were all here to wait for Gisele, but also we were all here for one another," says Diane de Vignemont, a French journalist who reported on the Pelicot trial and found a sisterhood" that formed among women attendees to the trial, many of whom shared their own experiences with sexual assault.

After the Republican-led Congress passes a government spending bill but rejects a last-minute demand for a debt limit suspension from President-elect Donald Trump and his billionaire adviser Elon Musk, we look at the richest man in the world's growing influence, with The American Prospect editor Robert Kuttner. At the end of the day, Musk got exactly what he wanted," says Kuttner, referring to Musk's influence in the removal of an anti-China trade provision in the bill. It's a classic case of Musk rolling Trump. ... I don't think this is going to end well."

Biden Commutes Sentences of 37 Men on Federal Death Row, UNRWA Warns World Must Not Become Numb" to Israel's Escalating Attacks on Gaza, Doctor at Kamal Adwan Decries Israeli Attacks on Hospital in Northern Gaza, This Is Cruelty. This Is Not War." Pope Francis Condemns Israel on Gaza, Syria: Diplomats from U.S., Turkey, Jordan and Qatar Meet with HTS Leader, Congress Passes Spending Bill to Avert Government Shutdown, House Ethics Report Finds Gaetz Committed Statutory Rape, Panama Rejects Trump's Threat to Retake Panama Canal, Trump Says U.S. Ownership of Greenland Is An Absolute Necessity", Five Die in Germany as Car Drives Into Christmas Market, Int'l Court Rules Against El Salvador's Strict Abortion Ban, U'wa Indigenous People in Colombia Win Major Victory at Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Washington Post: 3,100 Indigenous Students Died at U.S. Boarding Schools, Top NYPD Uniformed Officer Resigns Under Investigation for Sexual Misconduct, Report: Netanyahu to Skip Auschwitz Event to Avoid Being Arrested for War Crimes

We speak with Yale historian and author Timothy Snyder, an expert on authoritarianism, about how corporate America has responded to Donald Trump's reelection. Snyder's 2017 book On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century came out just a month after Trump began his first term, and opened with the warning: Do Not Obey in Advance." That message has been widely cited following ABC News's decision to settle a Trump defamation case by donating $15 million to his future presidential library. Major tech leaders have also cozied up to the president-elect in recent days, including with major donations to Trump's inauguration. There is a problem when the people who have the most money set the example of yielding to power first," says Snyder. It's textbook anticipatory obedience."

We continue to look at the U.S. health insurance industry and how patients can fight back against their providers with advocate Elisabeth Benjamin, vice president of health initiatives at the Community Service Society of New York and co-founder of the Health Care for All New York campaign. She says her advice for patients is to always appeal denials and to seek outside help when possible, including advocacy groups like hers and external review boards. She also stresses that much of the chaos of the U.S. health system is due to corporate greed. Everyone has an incentive to charge more," says Benjamin. If we had Medicare for All, we wouldn't be paying as much, and we would probably have much better health outcomes."

Luigi Mangione, the suspect in the shooting death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, has been charged with first-degree murder and second-degree murder as an act of terrorism. Thompson's assassination has brought renewed attention to the practices of the health industry and especially UnitedHealth Group, which reported $22 billion in profits last year. For more, we speak with Kevin Dwyer, who has firsthand experience with UnitedHealthcare denying him lifesaving medication for cystic fibrosis. The thought of getting this medication that could stop my decline was everything to me. And it was devastating when I got the denial," says Dwyer, who only got approved after his case became a national news story. It shouldn't take this, but unfortunately it does," says Elisabeth Benjamin, vice president of health initiatives at the Community Service Society of New York and co-founder of the Health Care for All New York campaign.

Thousands of Amazon workers on Thursday launched the largest strike against the retail giant in U.S. history, pressuring the company at the height of the holiday period to follow the law and bargain with those who have organized with the Teamsters union. The strike includes warehouse workers and drivers at seven distribution centers in some of Amazon's largest markets, including New York, Atlanta and San Francisco; Teamsters have also set up picket lines at many other warehouses nationwide. We're engaging in a coordinated action to try to put the pressure on Amazon to stop breaking the law, come to the table," says Connor Spence, president of Amazon Labor Union-IBT Local 1, which represents workers in New York. This is an unfair labor practice strike over their refusal to bargain." We also speak with Ronald Sewell, an Amazon associate in Georgia, who says workplace safety is a major driver of worker discontent, including insufficient access to water and overheating. The danger is real. It's not something that we're making up," says Sewell.

Israel's Genocide in Gaza Claims 77 Palestinian Lives Over Past Day, Israeli Settlers Vandalize West Bank Mosque Amid Continuing Israeli Attacks Across Occupied Territory, U.S. Officials in Damascus as Syrian Kurds Seek to Fend Off Possible Turkish Incursion, Syrian Youth, Women Gather to Demand Respect for Human Rights from Incoming Gov't, Striking Amazon Workers in NYC Met with Police Crackdown as Labor Action Spreads Across U.S., Starbucks Workers Launch Escalating Strike Action, U.S. Gov't Inches Closer to Shutdown After House Rejects New, Trump-Endorsed Spending Bill, Fulton County DA Fani Willis Barred from Georgia's Election Subversion Case Against Trump, Luigi Mangione Faces Federal Murder Charges for Shooting Death of UnitedHealthcare CEO, Another Member of NYC Mayor Eric Adams's Inner Circle Is Indicted, Biden Sets Out Goal to Reduce Emissions by Up to 66% by 2035, EPA, Energy Dept. Workers Condemn Biden Admin for Funding Bombs Over Climate Crisis, Three WFP Workers Killed in Sudan Air Attack as Agency Warns 1.7 Million People Facing Famine, Macron Met with Angry Crowds as He Toured Cyclone-Devastated Mayotte, Where Aid Has Been Scarce, Crowd Crush at Nigerian School Fair Kills 35 Children, Ecuador Successfully Completes Debt-for-Nature Swap as Part of Amazon Preservation Effort

When you're in prison, the retaliation starts. ... I don't think my judge sentenced me to go through this." The U.S. government has agreed to pay a record-breaking amount of nearly $116 million to settle lawsuits brought by 103 people who survived sexual abuse and assault at a federal women's prison in California. The facility, FCI Dublin, was shuttered earlier this year. Its former warden is now himself imprisoned after being convicted of sexually abusing incarcerated people under his care. Aimee Chavira, who was formerly incarcerated at FCI Dublin and is part of the class-action sexual abuse lawsuit against the Bureau of Prisons, says the settlement, while welcomed, doesn't change anything. No amount of money will change what was done to us and what did happen." Community organizer Courtney Hanson helped advocate for survivors with the Dublin Prison Solidarity Coalition. She calls for policy changes to ensure that this type of staff sexual abuse stops happening" in prisons across the country.

Human Rights Watch is accusing Israel of committing acts of extermination and genocide by deliberately restricting safe water for drinking and sanitation to the Gaza Strip. The report details how Israel has cut off water and blocked fuel, food and humanitarian aid from entering the Gaza Strip, and deliberately destroyed or damaged water and sanitation infrastructure and water repair materials. We speak to one of the report's editors, Bill Van Esveld, the acting Israel and Palestine associate director at Human Rights Watch, who describes a clear state policy of depriving people in Gaza of water," that HRW is, for the first time in the current Israeli assault on Gaza, characterizing as a genocidal act.

We were not prepared for what we were going to see," says Human Rights Watch researcher Hiba Zayadin, who recently visited one mass execution site turned mass grave in Syria, following the sudden fall of the authoritarian Assad family from power. More than 150,000 Syrians remain unaccounted for after being held in Assad's prisons, and many are believed to be buried in mass graves. We speak to Zayadin about what's been uncovered so far and the struggle to preserve evidence, particularly in the face of a new regime that has not prioritized tracking records of the Assad government's crimes, and of Israel's ongoing shelling of crucial sites. Every minute that passes where there is inaction, where these documents, these sites are not being preserved, are not being secured, is just one more family possibly never knowing what happened to their loved ones," she says.

Israeli's Attacks Continue Across Gaza Despite Talks of Nearing Ceasefire, Twin Palestinian Sisters Killed by Israeli Attack as They Attempted to Leave Gaza, Haaretz: Israeli Soldiers Arbitrarily Kill Palestinians, Then Declare Them Terrorists, Israel Bombs Yemen, Killing at Least 9, Senate Passes $895B Pentagon Bill, Includes Ban on Healthcare for Military Trans Family Members, Government Shutdown Looms After House Republicans Reject Compromise Spending Deal, GOP Introduces DOGE Act to Slash Billions from Social Programs, House Ethics Committee to Release Report on Matt Gaetz's Sex Trafficking and Drug Use, Trump Appoints Failed Senate Candidate and Ex-NFL Star Herschel Walker as U.S. Ambassador to Bahamas, Gisele Pelicot's Ex-Husband Is Found Guilty of Mass Rape, Sentenced to 20 Years, U.S. to Pay $116 Million to Rape Club" Survivors at Federal Women's Prison in California, Texas Father Fights to Reunite Family After ICE Deports Mother and Children to Mexico, We Just Do What the Israelis Want Us to Do": State Department Official Quits over U.S. Policy on Gaza, Supreme Court Will Hear Challenge to Potential Ban on Social Media App TikTok, Indiana Carries Out First Execution in 15 Years, Killing Joseph Corcoran, Thousands of Amazon Workers Begin Strike for Union Recognition

We speak with The Nation's Chris Lehmann about President-elect Donald Trump's escalating attacks on the press and how major media figures and institutions are capitulating preemptively" to the pressure. ABC News recently settled a defamation suit brought by Trump by making a $15 million donation to his future presidential library, despite experts saying the case was easily winnable. Trump is also suing The Des Moines Register for publishing a poll before the election that showed him losing to Vice President Kamala Harris. What's happening is a very clear pattern in Trump's public life," says Lehmann. This is a show of power."

We speak with the husband and sister of Ayenur Ezgi Eygi, the 26-year-old Turkish American activist killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank in September, who have criticized the Biden administration for failing to independently investigate her death. The recent University of Washington graduate was fatally shot in the head after taking part in a weekly protest against illegal Israeli settlements in the town of Beita, which she attended as an international observer. Witnesses say she was shot by an Israeli sniper after the demonstration had already dispersed. Members of Eygi's family spoke with Secretary of State Antony Blinken earlier this week but left the meeting with little hope the U.S. would hold Israel accountable. Accountability starts with an investigation by the U.S. of the killing of one of its own citizens by an ally," says Eygi's husband Hamid Ali. The answer to the question of why my wife is not getting justice is because Israel enjoys this level of impunity throughout its existence that no other country, no other state in the world enjoys."

A new lawsuit accuses the State Department of failing to ever sanction Israeli military units under the Leahy Law, which was passed in 1997 to prevent the United States from funding foreign military units credibly implicated in gross human rights violations. The case was brought by five Palestinians in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and the United States and is supported by the human rights group DAWN. Former State Department official Charles Blaha, who served as director of the human rights office tasked with implementing the Leahy Law, says there is a mountain of evidence of Israel carrying out torture, extrajudicial killings, rape, enforced disappearances and other abuses. Despite all that, the State Department has never once held any Israeli unit ineligible for assistance under the Leahy Law," says Blaha, now a senior adviser at DAWN. We also speak with Palestinian American writer Ahmed Moor, one of the plaintiffs in the suit, who has family in Gaza and says the last year of genocide has made the lawsuit more urgent. The conditions of basic life are not being met. Gaza is unlivable," says Moor.

Israeli Attacks Kill Dozens of Palestinians Amid Signs of Breakthrough in Gaza Ceasefire Talks, Israeli Forces Kill Two More Palestinians in Occupied West Bank, U.N. Envoy Warns Syria's War Has Not Ended" as Turkish-Backed Forces Challenge Kurdish Fighters, Netanyahu Vows Israeli Forces Will Remain in Syria Indefinitely, Haaretz: Israel and Saudi Arabia Reach Breakthrough in Talks to Normalize Ties, Human Rights Groups Condemn FIFA's Selection of Saudi Arabia to Host 2034 World Cup, U.S. to Transfer 3 More Prisoners from Guantanamo Bay, Trump Sues Iowa Pollster and Des Moines Register for Brazen Election Interference", Democrats Select Gerry Connolly Over AOC as Ranking Member of House Oversight Committee, Macron to Visit Cyclone-Ravaged Mayotte Amid Anger over Slow Response to Crisis, CNN Admits It Misidentified Assad Intelligence Officer as Freed Syrian Prisoner, Manhattan DA Charges Alleged UnitedHealthcare CEO Assassin with Murder and Terrorism, Ocean Defender Paul Watson Freed from Prison as Denmark Rejects Japan's Extradition Bid