Democracy Now!

The world needs to impose wide-scale sanctions against the state of Israel to force it to end the starvation and genocide of civilians." More than 100 humanitarian organizations are demanding action to end Israel's siege of Gaza, warning mass starvation is spreading across the Palestinian territory. Michael Fakhri, the U.N. special rapporteur on the right to food, says Israel's 78-day-long extreme blockade of Gaza constitutes the fastest starvation campaign we've seen in modern history." Fakhri says the mass suffering has been both preventable" and predictable," thanks to the impunity Israel has received from the international community, and calls on the United Nations to impose sanctions on Israel and ensure humanitarian aid delivery into Gaza.

Virginia Commonwealth University is withholding the diploma of a Palestinian American student because of her campus activism. In a hearing Tuesday, officials examined the case of VCU student Sereen Haddad, who was told she would not receive her diploma at her graduation this year because of her participation in a peaceful memorial commemorating violent police arrests at a student encampment for Palestine in 2024. Sereen Haddad is the daughter of Tariq Haddad, a cardiologist who grew up in Gaza. Dr. Haddad made headlines last year for rejecting an invitation to meet with then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken because of the Biden administration's support for Israel's actions in Gaza. The Haddads have lost more than 200 members of their extended family in the nearly two-year-long assault.We speak to the duo about the repression and retaliation that Sereen has faced for her student activism as she awaits a final decision by the university on the conferral of her degree. Whatever VCU decides, I have made peace with the fact that I don't need a university who is materially invested in a genocide's approval," she tells Democracy Now! I am on the right side of history, and I don't need a university to tell me that."

Over 100 NGOs Demand End to Gaza Siege, Warning of Mass Starvation, WHO Calls for Release of Staff Member Abducted by Israel, Thousands of Antiwar Protesters March in Tel Aviv, Columbia University Punishes Student Activists over Gaza Protests, Trump Warns U.S. Could Attack Iran Again, Bedouins Evacuated from Syria's Suwayda Describe Massacres, Ukraine and Russia to Begin Third Round of Peace Talks, U.S. and Japan Announce Trade Deal; Far-Right Party Makes Gains, U.S. and Philippines Strike Trade Deal, Announce Expanded Military Ties, House Speaker Mike Johnson Announces Early Recess to Avoid Vote on Epstein Files, Trump Claims Obama Committed Treason", Family Demands Justice for Saniyah Cheatham, Found Hanged to Death in NYPD Holding Cell, Videos Show Inhumane Conditions at Manhattan ICE Detention Center, Chicago Tenant Union Continues Rent Strike to Fight Evictions

As the federal government begins to implement some $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts called for in President Trump's budget bill passed by the Republican-led Congress, a new investigative documentary, Life After, examines the moral dilemmas and profit motives surrounding assisted dying that could increasingly confront members of the disabled community. Reid Davenport, who directed the film, notes the film is not about suicide. It is about the phenomenon that leaves disabled people desperate to find their place in a world that perpetually rejects them." People with disabilities already experience huge health disparities," adds Colleen Cassingham, who produced the film. When you introduce a policy like assisted suicide, it takes a group of people who are already incredibly marginalized by our system and gives the institutions and the people with power a profit motive for denying those people care." Life After is now screening in person at select theaters and virtually online.

A new report titled You Feel Like Your Life Is Over" details the dangerous and abusive conditions faced by immigrants held at three ICE jails in Miami, Florida, since Trump returned to office. One testimony describes how detention officers made men eat while shackled with their hands behind their backs. One man said, We had to bend over and eat off the chairs with our mouths, like dogs." The report describes how detained immigrants are also routinely denied access to legal counsel and critical medical attention, while some have been held incommunicado in solitary confinement as an apparent punishment for seeking mental healthcare. Democracy Now! spoke with Belkis Wille, associate director in Human Rights Watch's Crisis, Conflict and Arms Division. The immigration system is abusive and is treating immigrants in detention in a dehumanizing manner," she says.

ICE is reportedly racing to build more detention tent camps nationwide after Congress allocated an unprecedented $45 billion in new funding over the next four years to lock up immigrants, as part of Trump's massive tax and spending package. The Department of Homeland Security is also preparing to start detaining immigrants at more military bases, including in New Jersey and Indiana, as well as to transfer more immigrants to the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to NPR. This comes as the Trump administration is moving to revoke access to bond hearings for people who entered the U.S. through non-approved channels." The new policy could potentially impact millions of undocumented people and orders officers to detain immigrants for the length of their removal proceedings - a process which can take months or even years. This administration is using every tool that it has to target the immigrant community, to scare the immigrant community," says Adriel Orozco, senior policy counsel at the American Immigration Council. Orozco notes that most immigrants will likely never get the chance to fight their case before a judge under Trump's aggressive deportation policies.

As Congress approved some $45 billion to expand ICE's immigration detention capacity, including the jailing of families and children, we look at the case of one family. In May, plainclothes ICE agents detained a 6-year-old boy from Honduras who has acute lymphoblastic leukemia, along with his 9-year old sister and their mother, as they left their immigration court hearing in Los Angeles. In detention, the boy missed a key doctor's appointment, and the family said his sister cried every night. As pressure grew over their conditions, the family was released on July 2. The little boy doesn't want to leave his home. He's terrified. He sobs, cries and screams when his mother takes him out of the house," says attorney Elora Mukherjee, who represents the boy and his family and is director of the Immigrants' Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School. She says the young children are traumatized after their month in ICE detention.

15 More Palestinians Die of Malnutrition as Gaza's Starvation Crisis Deepens, 28 Countries Call for Immediate End to Israel's Assault on Gaza, Ex-Officer in Breonna Taylor Killing Sentenced to 33 Months in Prison, Officers Caught on Camera Beating Black Motorist Will Not Face Charges, Pentagon to Withdraw 700 Marines from Los Angeles, ICE Detains Former Haitian Presidential Candidate in Florida, 21 Attorneys General Sue Trump Admin over Federal Benefits to Undocumented Immigrants, CBO: Trump's Tax and Spending Bill to Add $3.4T to National Debt, Judge Orders OMB to Restore Public Funding Tracker Website, Speaker Mike Johnson Backtracks on Call for DOJ to Release Epstein Files, Trump Admin Releases Over 240K Pages of FBI Records on Martin Luther King Jr., Judge Hears Harvard's Challenge to Trump Admin's $2.6 Billion Cuts to Research Funds

A new audio series published by the group Federal Workers Against DOGE looks at the plight of fired federal workers whose jobs and careers were cut short by the Trump administration's systematic defunding of government services in favor of tax cuts for the wealthy and the reallotment of resources to anti-immigration enforcement. I Do Solemnly Swear, co-created and directed by filmmaker Laura Nix, features interviews with current and former employees of federal agencies including the FAA, CDC, EPA, IRS and more. I felt it was very important to focus on not just the illegality of the firings, but the impact on Americans," says Nix. We've depended for a very long time [on] these benefits, the safety of our highways, our water, our airspace, [but] we're learning that these are all being taken away."

The Trump administration has shuttered the Environmental Protection Agency's scientific arm, the EPA Office of Research and Development. Hundreds of chemists, biologists, toxicologists and other scientists will lose their jobs under the administration's plan to aggressively tear down environmental regulations and defund the EPA. Jennifer Orme-Zavaleta, a former top administrator in the Office of Research and Development, says the loss of the division means the loss of essential services like air and water quality monitoring that protects public health. We are losing a treasure trove of historical knowledge, of scientific expertise, and really it's going to limit what information, what science would be available for the agency to consider in protecting our health and our environment," she says.

The independent news outlets +972 Magazine and Local Call are reporting that Israel is increasingly using grenade-firing drones to enforce evacuation orders. Israeli soldiers have admitted that they deliberately target civilians and likened their use of the weapons to a video game." Israeli journalist Meron Rapoport explains how soldiers are instructed to initiate strikes on all residents, not just belligerent targets. Once a commander defines an imaginary red line that no one is allowed to cross, anyone who does is marked for death," says Rapoport.

The starvation crisis in Gaza is deepening under Israel's brutal blockade and amid regular massacres of civilians attempting to secure aid at the only officially sanctioned aid sites, run by Israeli troops and American mercenaries. The so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and the onset of famine are the subjects of a new report by analysts Davide Piscitelli and Alex de Waal for the research organization Forensic Architecture on the architecture of genocidal starvation" in Gaza. I've been working on this field of famine, food crisis and humanitarian action for more than 40 years, and there is no case, over those four decades, of such minutely engineered, closely monitored, precisely designed mass starvation of a population as is happening in Gaza today," says de Waal, who is also the author of Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine.

Israeli Tanks & Snipers Kill 79 Palestinians at Aid Site in Northern Gaza, At Least 19 Palestinians Starve to Death as U.N. Warns Gaza Has Reached New Levels of Desperation", Pope Leo Calls for End to Barbarity of War" After Israeli Fatal Attack on Gaza Church, U.K. Police Arrest Another 100 for Supporting Banned Group Palestine Action, Gaza-Bound Freedom Flotilla Ship Sets Sail for Gaza, Syrian Gov't Announces New Ceasefire in Suwayda After 1,000+ Killed, U.S.-Venezuelan Prisoner Swap Frees 250 Men Held in El Salvador, Human Rights Watch Exposes Abuse at Krome Immigration Jail in Florida, 82-Year-Old Torture Survivor Secretly Sent from Pennsylvania to Guatemala After Losing Green Card, Queens High School Student Reunites with Family After Month in ICE Detention, Journalist Mario Guevara Still Faces Deportation Even After Charges Were Dropped Against Him, Don't You Dare Ever Say That Again": DHS Secretary Kristin Noem Denies ICE Is Racially Profiling Latinos, DRC and M23 Fighters Sign Deal to End Fighting in Eastern Congo, Brazilian Police Raid Home of Bolsonaro; Court Orders Ankle Bracelet for Ex-President Charged with Coup Plot, EPA to Shut Down Scientific Research Arm, Trump Calls on Washington Commanders & Cleveland Guardians to Resume Using Old Team Names, Trump Signs Cryptocurrency Bill to Regulate Stablecoins, Trump Sues Murdoch over WSJ Report About Trump Letter to Jeffrey Epstein, Writers Guild Calls for Probe of Paramount's Cancellation of Stephen Colbert Show, Democrats Endorse Omar Fateh to Be Next Mayor of Minneapolis

We speak to Loris Taylor, president of Native Public Media, about the Trump administration's drastic defunding of public media and its impact on tribal nations. Fifty-nine tribal radio stations and one tribal television station that depend on federal funding will be among the first to face possible closure, putting some of the essential services that public broadcasting provides, including warning systems for missing Indigenous women and girls, at risk. Taylor shares how Native-led public media helps preserve Indigenous languages and helped keep communities informed during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. She fears that without these same resources and with the climate crisis increasing, [we] are going to be operating on the margins of information and are not going to have real lifesaving information available to our citizens when they need it most."

We speak with Democratic Congressmember Ro Khanna about his bipartisan bill calling for the full release of federal documents pertaining to Jeffrey Epstein's criminal charges for sexual trafficking and abuse, which is also currently backed by nine Republicans and every House Democrat. Khanna explains why he's calling for transparency and accountability regarding the Epstein case, and how Trump is working to prevent the same.Ro Khanna also discusses the massive loss to public media and local news as the Trump administration has successfully stripped $1.1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds over 1,500 NPR and PBS stations across the country. The major cut to funding is possible thanks to the rare process of rescission, which allows the president to request Congress to rescind already-allocated federal funding. Trump's OMB Director Russell Vought has indicated that the administration intends to expand its use of rescission in future legislative sessions. It's a devastating blow to the education of our children in America and to our democracy," says Khanna, who notes that the cut to public media comes just one week after Republicans voted to pass Trump's deficit-enlarging budget bill. It's just not true that this has anything to do with fiscal responsibility," Khanna adds.

We speak to a survivor of sexual abuse perpetrated by Jeffrey Epstein and enabled by his partner Ghislaine Maxwell. Teresa Helm was sexually assaulted by Epstein at what she was told was a job interview in the early 2000s. She now works as the survivor services coordinator for the National Center on Sexual Exploitation and joins many voices calling for the release of federal documents pertaining to Epstein's criminal case, though Helm emphasizes that the goal of their release must be to promote accountability and justice for victims, not as a form of political score-settling. I really urge everyone to focus their commitment, their intention, all this time, effort and energy onto ... these survivors and their healing," says Helm. We're talking about people's lives, and it should not be weaponized either way, in any administration."

A major rift has formed within Donald Trump's MAGA base over his reversal of a campaign promise to release the Epstein files" to the public. Many supporters see his denials of the existence of a client list" belonging to Jeffrey Epstein, the powerful and well-connected investor who was charged with the sexual trafficking and assault of numerous teenage girls and young women before his death, as a betrayal of Trump's promises to drain the swamp" and expose what many supporters believe is proof of criminal corruption among primarily Democratic elites." Trump's insistence that his supporters drop their fixation on Epstein-related conspiracy theories that his people have long nurtured" is making it exceedingly difficult for some of his biggest supporters and boosters to not start at least suspecting that he has something to hide," says Rolling Stone's Asawin Suebsaeng, who has been reporting on the fallout from Trump and his Attorney General Pam Bondi's handling of the Epstein case.

White House Poised to Claw Back $9B in Foreign Aid, Public Media Funding After House Vote, 14 Members of Gazan Family Die as Israel Bombs Their Home and Attacks Rescue Efforts, UNICEF: Israel Has Killed Over 17,000 Children in Gaza and Injured 33,000 Others, Christian Leaders in West Bank Call for Accountability and End to Israeli Settler Violence, Sectarian Fighting Resumes in Syria's Suwayda After Latest Ceasefire Effort, Trump Moves to Release Some Epstein Documents But Fails to Allay MAGA Revolt, Senate Republicans Cut Off Debate to Advance Judicial Nomination of Trump Loyalist Emil Bove, ICE Will Have Access to Personal Medicaid Data, Immigrant Rights Groups Sue over ICE Courthouse Arrests, ICE Targets Sex Workers in Mounting Raids, Anti-Corruption Watchdog Flees El Salvador Amid Crackdown, French Troops Withdraw from Senegal, Ending Permanent Presence, DOJ Requests One-Day Sentence for Louisville Cop Convicted over Breonna Taylor's Killing, Judge Lifts Domestic Travel Restrictions on Columbia Student Activist Mohsen Mahdawi, CBS Cancels The Late Show" After Stephen Colbert Skewers $16 Million Settlement with Trump

Israel launched airstrikes that destroyed part of the Syrian Defense Ministry and a facility near the presidential palace in Damascus on Wednesday, killing three people. This comes weeks after Israel launched unprovoked strikes on Iran, which led to a brief war that killed over 900 Iranians and 29 people in Israel. Adam Shatz, U.S. editor at the London Review of Books, says Israel's motivation in the Middle East is to settle accounts with any force in the region that might challenge its domination." He also notes violent language around foreign policy has become banal" in many Western countries. It's not simply Trump and the far right who speak blithely about overthrowing foreign governments, about bombing other foreign populations. It's people who have a reputation ... for being liberals and moderates," says Shatz.

We speak with leading Israeli American historian Omer Bartov about his latest essay for The New York Times, headlined I'm a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It." Bartov cites the United Nations definition of genocide," which includes an intent to destroy a group of people that makes it impossible for the group to reconstitute itself. This is precisely what Israel is trying to do," he says. Israel is trying to concentrate the population of Gaza in the southernmost parts of the strip, to enclose them and to enforce, eventually, either that they would just die out there or that they would be removed from the Gaza Strip altogether."

Israeli Forces Kill More Palestinians Sheltering in Gaza Schools, Fire on Church, Killing 2 Women, This Aid Is a Trap": Crowd Crush Kills 21 Palestinians Waiting for Supplies from GHF, Israel Is Seeking Endless Chaos": Al-Sharaa Condemns Israel's Attacks on Syria, Two Ultra-Orthodox Parties Leave Netanyahu's Government Coalition, Coalition of Nations Announces Steps to End Israel's Era of Impunity" After Global Summit, Senate Approves Bill Clawing Back $9 Billion in Foreign Aid and Public Broadcasting, U.S. to Impose 19% Tariff on Indonesian Goods in Lopsided Trade Deal, Trump Pushes Texas GOP to Gerrymander Congressional Maps Ahead of 2026 Midterms, U.S. Expels Five Immigrants to Eswatini, Where They Have No Ties, California Landscaper Beaten by Federal Agents Released on Bond After Three Weeks in ICE Jail, Disabled Army Vet and U.S. Citizen Demands Full Investigation" into His 3-Day Detention by ICE, Trump Administration Fires Maurene Comey, Who Prosecuted Jeffrey Epstein, I Don't Want Their Support Any More!": Trump Blasts MAGA Base over Calls to Release Epstein Files, Federal Court Blocks Rule to Scrub Medical Debt from Credit Reports, Writers Against the War on Gaza Lays Out New York Times's Ties to Israeli Occupation, Gaza Genocide, At Least 69 Die as Fire Consumes Newly Opened Shopping Mall in Iraqi City of al-Kut, Good Trouble Lives On": Protests Across U.S. to Target Trump's Rollback of Civil Rights

The Trump administration's mass deportation machine continues to shatter families and communities with violent, indiscriminate raids on schools, homes and workplaces. Farms are a particular target of its brutal, racist crackdown; around two-thirds of U.S. farmworkers are immigrants, largely from Mexico. Earlier this month, a raid on a farm in California turned fatal when 57-year-old Jaime Alanis died after falling from the roof of a greenhouse. Dozens of his fellow workers were rounded up and loaded onto buses destined for a detention center. Many of the targeted farmworkers are members of the United Farm Workers, the nation's oldest farmworkers' union. Its president, Teresa Romero, a longtime labor leader who is the first Latina and first immigrant to head the organization, says farmworkers are terrified." She says that replacing people who are experienced, who are professional, who have been in agriculture, working sometimes for decades, [is] not how we should repay them for the sacrifice and hard work," and adds that sooner or later, the agriculture industry is going to suffer."

On July 16, 1945, the United States carried out the Trinity test, the world's first nuclear detonation. Today, 80 years later, the University of Chicago - the site of the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction - is host to the Nobel Laureate Assembly for the Prevention of Nuclear War, an event that brings Nobel laureates and nuclear experts together to confront the growing global risk of nuclear war. The event features a performance by the award-winning string ensemble Kronos Quartet, who have spearheaded two new renditions of Bob Dylan's A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" featuring nearly 50 more artists from around the world. Titled Hard Rain" and Hard Rain (Drone)," the new pieces aim to raise awareness of the ongoing threat of nuclear war.As the global political situation becomes increasingly unstable, says professor Daniel Holz, chair of the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and one of the organizers of the assembly, the likelihood that we'll sort of stumble into a nuclear war and the end of civilization ... has gone way up." Holz joins Democracy Now! alongside violinist, artistic director and founder of the Kronos Quartet, David Harrington, to share what inspired them to commission and create Hard Rain," which debuts today. We need everyone in the world to know how dangerous and how awful this is for all of us. And if music and musicians can step up and project those kinds of concerns about all of our futures, then music is doing its job," says Harrington.

In a major new New York Times expose on health insurance behemoth UnitedHealth, deputy investigations editor David Enrich reveals how the largest insurer in the country works to intimidate and silence critics of its often predatory and exploitative treatment of patients. While companies do this kind of stuff all the time," Enrich says, UnitedHealth's lawyers were really going after some fairly obscure stuff, and that suggested to me that this was a campaign of desperation." Enrich's investigation found instances of this very aggressive campaign to shut down criticism and scrutiny" from even before the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December. UnitedHealthcare is one of two main subsidiaries, alongside Optum, of UnitedHealth. Enrich discusses the experiences of some of these critics, from doctors on TikTok to newspaper reporters like himself.

21 Killed as Guards at Gaza Humanitarian" Site Fire Tear Gas, Triggering Stampede, Huckabee Calls on Israel to Probe Killing of U.S. Citizen as Settlers Continue Attacks on Palestinians, Israel Bombs Syrian Army HQ in Damascus, Steps Up Attacks on Suwayda, U.N. Rapporteur Urges Nations to Cut Ties to Israel to Stop Genocide" in Gaza, Senate Advances Bill to Claw Back $9 Billion in Funds for Foreign Aid and Public Broadcasting, Pentagon to Withdraw Half of 4,000 National Guard Troops Deployed to Los Angeles, 22-Year-Old Palestinian Released After 9-Day Immigration Detention at Houston Airport, Farm Labor Organizer Alfredo Juarez Zeferino Ends Deportation Fight After 4 Months in ICE Jail, Federal Agents Arrest 9 over Spokane ICE Protests, Including Former City Council President, Trump's Nominee for U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Grilled over Signalgate" Scandal, AG Bondi Deflects Questions About Convicted Sex Trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, Wired: Nearly 3 Minutes Were Cut from FBI's Raw" Surveillance Video of Epstein's Cell, Adelita Grijalva Wins Democratic Primary in Arizona to Replace Her Late Father in Congress

Protesters across the United States targeted Palantir Monday in a day of action focused on the technology company's work with ICE, facilitating President Trump's expanding immigration crackdown, and work with the Israeli military. New York police arrested at least four people Monday after demonstrators blocked the entrance to the company's Manhattan offices. Democracy Now! spoke to protesters, including some who work in the technology sector, about the Purge Palantir" campaign and how Palantir's data mining, surveillance and automation tools are being weaponized against vulnerable communities. We speak with Wired senior writer Makena Kelly, who has been covering Palantir and says many Silicon Valley firms are trying to find opportunity in this chaos" as the Trump administration slashes government services and pursues mass deportations.

Florida Democratic Congressmember Maxwell Frost joins us to discuss how he observed horrific conditions in Florida's new immigration detention jail in the Everglades, known as Alligator Alcatraz," when he joined other lawmakers in a visit. I saw myself in those cages. It was a lot of people my age that looked like me," says Frost. The administration is essentially trying to ethnically cleanse the country." We also speak with a reporter at the Miami Herald, which reports hundreds of detainees at the Everglades immigration prison have no criminal records or charges, contradicting claims by the Trump administration. The newspaper recently published a list of people detained or believed to be detained at the facility, helping families locate their loved ones.

We go to the occupied West Bank for an update on how the family of a 20-year-old Palestinian American from Florida, Sayfollah Saif" Musallet, is demanding justice after he was beaten to death by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank. Musallet and another Palestinian, 23-year-old Mohammad al-Shalabi, were attacked by a group of Israeli settlers on Friday in the town of Sinjil, northeast of Ramallah, where their families own farmland. Eyewitnesses say the settlers brutally beat Musallet and fatally shot al-Shalabi, then prevented ambulances from reaching their victims for hours. Musallet was pronounced dead before he could reach a hospital.The settlers and the military don't only work hand in hand," says anti-Zionist activist Jonathan Pollak, who was injured in the same protest. They are part and parcel of implementing the same policy ... of ethnic cleansing in the West Bank."Palestinians here have zero rights," adds Nizar Milbes, a distant relative and close friend of the Musallet family, who says settlers have been encroaching on Palestinian lands even more aggressively since October 7, 2023.

SCOTUS Greenlights Dismantling of Education Department, Unleashing Untold Harm", 24 States and D.C. Sue Trump Admin over $7 Billion in Frozen Education Funds, WaPo: Trump Admin Denies Bond Hearings to Immigrants Who Entered Without Approval, Trump Admin to Ramp Up Transfer of Immigrants to Third Countries Without Due Process, Court Delays Termination of TPS for 12,000 Afghans as Both Sides Asked to Submit Arguments, U.N. Warns Lifelines Will Vanish" for Entire Gaza Population Without Immediate Access to Fuel, Like a Video Game": Israeli Forces Targeting Forcibly Evacuated Palestinians with Drones, Israel Strikes Syria as Ceasefire Is Announced in Suwayda Province, Israel Bombs Lebanon's Beqaa Valley in Ongoing Ceasefire Violation, Trump Announces Plan to Send Arms to Ukraine via NATO Amid Growing Ire with Putin, Sudan's RSF Accused of Killing 300 People, Burning Villages Amid Ongoing Civil War, Pam Bondi Fires DOJ's Top Ethics Lawyer and 20 Staffers in Political Purge, Elon Musk's xAI Gets $200M Contract with Pentagon, Activists in NY, CA, CO and WA Protest Palantir's Role in Fueling ICE, Gaza Genocide, Largest Transfer of Wealth Since Slavery": Faith Leaders, Community Members Protest Trump Budget, NYT: UnitedHealth Systematically Silencing Critics After CEO Killing, Cuomo Announces Third-Party Run for NYC Mayor After Crushing Primary Defeat by Zohran Mamdani

An immigration raid in Camarillo, California, on Thursday led to an hourslong standoff between protesters and federal border agents, who blocked the roads with military-style vehicles and tear-gassed community members, including children, as crowds attempted to protect dozens of farmworkers from arrest.The Department of Homeland Security said over 300 immigrants were detained in dual raids on cannabis farms and agricultural fields in Camarillo and the coastal city of Carpinteria. One farmworker fell from the roof of a greenhouse during the immigration raid and later died of his injuries. Jaime Alanis, 57, had worked at the farm in Camarillo for 10 years and provided for his wife and daughter who live in Mexico. Alanis is the first known person to die during an immigration raid since President Trump returned to office.It was almost unlike anything that we had ever seen before," says Angelmarie Taylor, astudent and volunteer with 805 Immigrant Coalition who was present during the raid in Camarillo.We're talking about human beings. We're talking about parents, just like the gentleman that passed because of the chaotic actions of ICE," says Luis McArthur, mayor of nearby Oxnard.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly rejected ceasefire deals and other chances to deescalate the devastating war in Gaza and beyond, all to remain in power and avoid corruption charges, according to a new investigation in The New York Times Magazine. Netanyahu put the integrity of the coalition, the safety of his continuous rule of the government and the state ... as a first priority ahead of any other priority," says Ronen Bergman, Pulitzer Prize-winning Israeli investigative reporter.

The official death toll in Gaza has topped 58,000, with Israeli forces continuing to shoot at Palestinians seeking aid and talks over a ceasefire agreement stalled in Doha. This morning's injured were taken to Nasser Hospital, the largest functioning hospital in Gaza, facing fuel shortages and a widening Israeli offensive in the area. Democracy Now! spoke with Dr. Tarek Loubani, an emergency room medical doctor who has been volunteering in Nasser Hospital in Gaza since June, live from Gaza.Every day seems to be a new exercise in the depths of human depravity in terms of targeting men, boys, women and children, especially in terms of the youngest children," says Loubani. I think every doctor who operates and works in Palestine will tell you that that's the most jarring, the most terrible part of our job, is just the war on children on every level."

Israel Kills 200 Palestinians over Another Deadly Weekend as Gaza Genocide Death Toll Tops 58,000, Israeli Settlers Kill 20-Year-Old U.S. Citizen Visiting Family in Palestine, The Handala Ship Sets Sail with International Crew in Hopes of Breaking the Siege on Gaza, U.K. Police Arrest Another 71 People for Supporting Activist Group Palestine Action, California Farmworker Who Fell from Roof in ICE Raid Dies from Injuries, U.S. Judge Blocks Mass Raids in Los Angeles Area, Says Detainees Must Get Access to Lawyers, Dems Slam Inhumane Conditions at Everglades Internment Camp" Known as Alligator Alcatraz", Two Arizona Samaritans Who Help Asylum Seekers at Border Seek Damages for Mistreatment by DHS, Judge Orders Release of Two Vermont Immigrant Justice Leaders, FEMA Only Answered 16% of Calls 2 Days After Catastrophic Texas Floods That Killed 132+ People, Wildfires Burn at Grand Canyon, Razing Historic Lodge, Trump Says He'll Send Patriot Missiles to Ukraine as He Ramps Up Criticism of Putin, Iranian President Pezeshkian Suffered Minor Injury During Israeli Attack in June, U.N.: Nearly 5,000 Haitians Killed over Nine Months Amid Ongoing Gang Violence, A Catastrophic Blow to Our National Interests": State Dept. Fires Over 1,300 Staff, Trump Threatens Mexico, EU with 30% Tariffs, White House Handling of Epstein Files Leads to Fracture in Trump's MAGA Base, Trump Threatens to Take Away Rosie O'Donnell's U.S. Citizenship, Muhammadu Buhari, Nigerian Coup Leader Turned Democratically Elected President, Dies at 82

Democracy Now! recently interviewed U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk in Geneva, Switzerland. The wide-ranging conversation touched on immigration policy in the United States, climate change around the world, the global fight to preserve human rights and more.See Part 1 of our conversation with Turk, including his response to Israel's brutal war on Gaza.

A federal judge in New Hampshire has issued a nationwide injunction against President Trump's executive order ending birthright citizenship for children born in the United States since February 20. In a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of immigrant parents, the ACLU argued that the order would leave children born to undocumented parents effectively stateless." We speak to ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt about the case, which he calls cruel" and without merit, as well as new evidence that the Trump administration is lying about its power over people it has expelled to the Salvadoran mega-prison CECOT.

Rescue teams in central Texas are still searching for about 160 people who went missing in the catastrophic flash floods on July 4. The official death toll has climbed to at least 121 victims. State policymakers are now in the spotlight, as questions swirl around Texas's lack of emergency precautions and the climate denialism of Republican political leaders. Many of those lost lives could have been saved if links in our disaster response chain hadn't been broken," says Monica Medina, a former official at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the federal administration that, among other tasks, monitors extreme weather. NOAA has been hit by major cuts to funding and staffing under Trump, despite the increasing frequency and intensity of natural disasters from climate change. Medina is among many climate and policy experts sounding the alarm on the defunding of NOAA and other meteorological and disaster preparedness services. We are firing the people. We're stopping taking in the data. We're ending the research. We're turning off the satellites. We're doing everything we possibly can to put our heads in the sand in the midst of what is increasingly dangerous weather."

U.N.: Israel Has Killed 800 Palestinians Seeking Aid in Gaza, Many at U.S. Aid" Operation GHF, Israel Kills 16 Palestinians, Including 8 Children, Waiting for Nutritional Supplements, Gaza Doctors Using Incubators for Four Babies at Once Amid Israel's Blockade, Trump Ramps Up Tariff Threat on Canada as Brazil Vows to Impose Reciprocal 50% Tariff on U.S., U.S. Judge Blocks Trump's Birthright Ban, Allows Class-Action Lawsuit to Proceed, Protesters Confront Feds in Camarillo, CA, as Agents Target Farmworkers, CPJ Calls for Release of Journalist Mario Guevara, Trump Admin Withdraws Head Start Services for Undocumented Children, Gutting of State Department Resumes Following SCOTUS Ruling, Kristi Noem Blames FEMA for Slow" Response in Texas - FEMA Says Delay Caused by Noem Rule, Texas Flood Death Toll Reaches 121; 160 People Still Missing, Texas Dems Slam Gov. Abbott Gerrymander Attempt in Wake of Flooding Disaster, 4 Million People Could Perish in HIV-Related Deaths in Next Four Years Due to U.S. Aid Cuts, U.S. Cuts Aid to Somalia But Continues to Bomb It, Illegal and Inhumane": Rights Groups Condemn Greece for Halting Processing of Asylum Claims, Iranian Lawyer Says 100 Transgender Prisoners Died in Israeli Bombing of Evin Prison, CUNY Targets Pro-Palestinian Students and Staff in Latest Crackdown, Grok to Be Installed in Teslas Days After MechaHitler" Scandal, Video Game Actors Sign New Contract After Yearlong Strike

We speak with United Nations expert Francesca Albanese, one day after the Trump administration announced it is imposing sanctions on her over her advocacy for Palestinian rights. Albanese has served as the U.N. special rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territory since 2022. She recently released a report highlighting dozens of companies aiding Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory and fueling its genocidal war machine in Gaza, including U.S. tech giants. Secretary of State Marco Rubio characterized Albanese's work as political and economic warfare" against the United States and its allies.It seems that this administration is quite allergic to justice," says Albanese, speaking to Democracy Now! from Slovenia. It's trying to distract us from where our focus should be: What's happening to the Palestinians in the little that remains of their tormented land, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem."

Brazilian filmmaker Petra Costa's latest documentary, Apocalypse in the Tropics, explores the impact of evangelical Christianity on Brazil's political landscape. Once a small minority, evangelicals now constitute about 30% of Brazil's population and played a key role in the rise of former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro. It's one of the fastest-growing religious shifts in the history of mankind," Costa tells Democracy Now! She says right-wing evangelicalism in Brazil is largely a U.S. import, after Washington sought to undermine the influence of left-wing Catholic teachings during the Cold War.U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday threatened to impose 50% tariffs on Brazil, partly as retribution for what he calls the witch hunt" against Bolsonaro, now facing trial in Brazil for an alleged coup attempt following his defeat in the 2022 presidential election to Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.Apocalypse in the Tropics is available on Netflix starting July 14. Costa's previous film, The Edge of Democracy, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

The Trump administration's immigration crackdown is sowing fear and chaos in communities across the United States, as heavily armed and masked agents descend on workplaces, schools and public spaces. In Los Angeles, dozens of federal agents, including some on horseback, swept MacArthur Park, located in a predominantly immigrant and working-class part of the city. It felt like an occupation of L.A.," says Vladimir Carrasco, who works with the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, or CHIRLA.Meanwhile, community leaders in Chicago are expressing outrage after federal immigration forces showed up at the National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture and refused to identify themselves. Although Homeland Security later claimed the agents were at the museum on an unrelated matter, We know that they were there to intimidate us," says Veronica Ocasio, director of education and programming at the organization. Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens.

Gaza's Doctors Warn Hospitals Will Become Graveyards" as Fuel Supplies Dwindle, Israel's Netanyahu Leaves D.C. Without Ceasefire Deal and with Carte Blanche to Continue Genocide, Trump Admin Sanctions U.N. Expert Albanese for Exposing Companies Profiting from Gaza Genocide, Four Dead, 11 Missing in Wake of Houthi Attack on Red Sea Vessel, New Gaza Freedom Flotilla Ship Handala" to Set Sail from Italy, Trump Threatens 50% Levy on Brazil, Citing Bolsonaro Witch Hunt," in Latest Wave of Tariffs, Trump Praises Liberian President Boakai for His English, Liberia's Official Language, Russia Attacks Ukraine as New Audio Reveals Candidate Trump Told Putin He'd Bomb Moscow, SoCal Bishop Tells Worshipers to Skip Mass over ICE Raid Fears, Advocates Warn Arizona Woman Could Die of Cancer If She's Not Released from ICE Jail, Outrage in Chicago After Immigration Agents Show Up at Puerto Rican Museum , Supreme Court Won't Allow Florida to Enforce Law Criminalizing Undocumented Immigrants, June Heat Wave Killed 2,300 People Across 12 European Cities, Shoot Their Legs": Kenyan President Orders Police to Further Crack Down After Deadliest Protest Day, Imprisoned Kurdish Leader Announces End to 40-Year Armed Struggle Against Turkey

The largest municipal workers' strike in decades in the city of Philadelphia has ended after 9,000 members of AFSCME District Council 33, who are primarily sanitation workers, walked off the job a week ago. Growing piles of trash on the streets of Philadelphia brought the strike into clear view for city residents. Labor historian Francis Ryan says the workers won the hearts of a lot of Philadelphians" with a popular social media campaign. What I saw on the picket lines last week was a spark of social justice unionism," says Ryan. The average sanitation worker salary in Philadelphia is currently $46,000 a year, which the union has argued is not a living wage for workers required to live within the city limits.

The first trial in a case challenging the Trump administration's policy of detaining and deporting international students and professors who participate in pro-Palestinian activism is underway in Boston. The American Association of University Professors and the Middle East Studies Association brought the lawsuit. Government lawyers tried to get it dismissed, but U.S. District Judge William Young, an 84-year-old Ronald Reagan nominee, ordered a trial, saying it was the best way to get at truth."Students and faculty all over the country are quite literally terrified about the possibility that their advocacy and expression will lead to detention," says Jameel Jaffer, director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and one of the lawyers challenging the Trump administration. They are terrified that ICE agents will show up at their door any day and take them away."

Ukraine's Air Force says Russia launched its largest aerial attack overnight since its 2022 full-scale invasion, firing a record 741 drones and missiles, most of them targeting the city of Lutsk in western Ukraine. The barrage prompted Poland to activate its air defenses and scramble fighter jets. Russia's attack came after President Trump on Tuesday sharply criticized Vladimir Putin in his latest in a series of U-turns on Ukraine policy. We speak with Matt Duss, executive vice president at the Center for International Policy and former foreign policy adviser to Senator Bernie Sanders, on the latest developments. Trump is learning that it's actually not that easy," he says. And it's not that easy because Vladimir Putin is not interested in a peace deal."

President Trump met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House for a second straight day Tuesday, as Trump's Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, claimed Israel and Hamas were nearing a breakthrough on a ceasefire agreement. Israeli media are reporting Netanyahu is under extreme" pressure to reach a 60-day ceasefire deal, but Netanyahu's interests and the interests of his government remain to make this a perpetual, ongoing war," says Matt Duss, executive vice president at the Center for International Policy. The U.S.-Israeli proposal would see 10 living Israeli hostages released, along with the bodies of deceased hostages, in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. Hamas negotiators are also seeking the withdrawal of Israeli forces, guarantees for an end to the war, the resumption of humanitarian aid shipments overseen by the U.N. and the International Committee of the Red Cross, and an end to the operations of the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

Netanyahu and Trump Meet at the White House for Second Day Amid Gaza Ceasefire Talks, Starving Palestinians Move South in Search of Food as GHF Closes Central Gaza Aid Site, Gaza Fuel Shortage Reaches Critical Point" as Israeli Attacks Kill 100 Palestinians in a Day, Israel Once Again Breaches Lebanon Ceasefire with Deadly Strikes, Houthis Sink Cargo Ship in Red Sea, Killing 3 Sailors, Supreme Court OKs Trump's Mass Firings and Elimination of Federal Agencies, Three Killed in New Mexico Flash Foods; Texas Flood Death Toll Rises, with 170+ Still Missing, Russia Launches Massive Aerial Attack on Western Ukraine as Trump Blasts Putin, ICC Seeks Arrest of Taliban Leaders for Persecution of Women and Girls, El Salvador Says U.S. Controls Fate of Venezuelans Transferred to Notorious Mega-Prison, Immigrants Describe Torturous Conditions at Alligator Alcatraz" ICE Detention Camp, Democrats Demand Release of Trump-Related Epstein Files as AG Bondi Says No Client List Exists, First-Ever Treatment for Malaria in Infants and Children Wins Regulatory Approval, Doctors and Public Health Groups Sue RFK Jr. for Ending COVID-19 Vaccine Recommendations

What is MAGA imperialism? Monthly Review editor John Bellamy Foster says that, despite its feints toward anti-imperialist isolationism, President Donald Trump's foreign policy has coalesced into a hyper-nationalist" form of populism that rejects the U.S.'s post-WWII adherence to liberal internationalism and promotes dominance over other countries via military power rather than through economic globalization. Foster explains that this Trump doctrine is opposed to multi-ethnic empires and multi-ethnic nations," operating under a racial definition of foreign policy, with the notion that the United States is a white country and other ethnicities don't belong." And while some analyses of the Trump coalition locate its base in the white working class," in reality this ideology is rooted in the lower middle class, which owns more property and is less opposed to the wealthy capitalist class. If you go back to the 1930s, to Italy and Germany, it's the same constituency that drove the fascist movement, but it's a result of an alliance between big capital ... and the lower middle class."

We speak to Peter Beinart, editor-at-large at Jewish Currents, about changing popular opinion in the U.S. toward Israel and Palestine. I'm not sure there's any political issue in the United States, perhaps other than gay marriage, over the last couple of decades where public opinion has shifted as fast," he says, citing the surprise victory of pro-Palestinian mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani in New York City's Democratic primary as evidence of a shifting political landscape. We also discuss a recent article in The New York Times that criticizes Mamdani, a Ugandan-born Indian Muslim who immigrated to the U.S. as a child, for self-identifying as both Asian and Black/African American on a college application. Beinart, whose own parents are of European Jewish background and were raised in multiracial South Africa, explains how the limitations of formal racial categories often elide the true complexity of racial, ethnic and national identity. It's not the case that Zohran Mamdani was trying to pull some sleight of hand to try to take advantage of affirmative action. This was a very deep statement about what he believed it was to have grown up in Uganda," he says.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump this week in Washington, D.C. Trump and Netanyahu are discussing Israel's war in Gaza, with Netanyahu suggesting that new plans for the forced relocation of refugees to other countries would give Palestinians the freedom" to choose. But what Palestinians actually want is the freedom to return to the places from which their families were expelled," says Peter Beinart, editor-at-large at Jewish Currents and the author of Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza. What kind of freedom is it when you have an area where most of the buildings and the hospitals and the schools and the bakeries and the agriculture have all been destroyed, where you have more child amputees than any other place on Earth?"

The most important thing that we have to do right now is hold the Republicans that voted for this bill accountable for the devastation that they are causing and the lives that will be impacted." Democratic Congressmember Yassamin Ansari of Arizona explains how Trump's new federal budget, which introduces major cuts to Medicaid, food assistance, housing and education, will worsen wealth inequality and the health disparities, while actually increasing the U.S. deficit by trillions of dollars and supercharging spending for immigration and border enforcement. The congressmember shares her recent experience visiting a detention center outside of Phoenix, calling some of the conditions there the most dehumanizing" she has ever seen. Ansari, the first Iranian American Democrat to serve as a member of Congress, also condemns the Trump administration's strikes on Iran in June. I do not believe that the president of the United States should be conducting unilateral military action without authorization from Congress," she says.