Democracy Now!

We speak with award-winning journalist and author Jeff Sharlet, who has spent the last decade reporting on the growing threat of fascism across the United States. In his new book, The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War, Sharlet says the language of “civil war” has become central to right-wing rhetoric, mainstreamed by former President Donald Trump, Congressmember Marjorie Taylor Greene and other Republicans.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has spent the last four years locked up at the Belmarsh high-security prison in London, where he has been fighting extradition to the United States on espionage charges. He faces up to 175 years in prison if convicted. This week, amid growing concerns about Assange’s health, Reporters Without Borders attempted to become the first NGO to visit with Assange since his arrest four years ago. Despite being given approval, RSF representatives, including our guest, RSF secretary-general and executive director Christophe Deloire, were denied entry.

We speak with Joshua Yaffa, a close friend of Evan Gershkovich, The Wall Street Journal reporter who has been jailed in Russia since his arrest last week, when he was accused of trying to obtain state secrets related to the Russian military — days after the United States indicted a Russian man in Brazil on espionage charges. Gershkovich’s parents left the Soviet Union for the United States before he was born, and he has reported in Russia since 2017. He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted. Press freedom groups have denounced his arrest and urged Russia to immediately release him. Yaffa is The New Yorker's Moscow correspondent, where his recent piece is titled “The Unimaginable Horror of a Friend's Arrest in Moscow.” We are also joined by Christophe Deloire, secretary-general and executive director of Reporters Without Borders, which has called Gershkovich a “Russian state hostage.”

Israel Raids Al-Aqsa Mosque for Second Night, Bombs Gaza in Response to Rocket Fire, New Studies Find Ice Sheets Are Vulnerable to Rapid Collapse from Global Heating, Saudi and Iranian Envoys Agree to Reopen Embassies in China-Brokered Deal, France’s Macron Asks China’s Xi to “Bring Russia to Its Senses” over Ukraine, House Speaker Meets Taiwanese President, Urges Speed-Up of U.S. Arms Deliveries, Pence Won’t Appeal Order to Testify to Federal Grand Jury over Jan. 6 Insurrection, Indiana, Idaho and Kansas Latest States to Pass Laws Violating Trans Rights, Texas Agrees to Pay $144M to Family and Survivors of Sutherland Springs Massacre, Students Across the Nation Walk Out of Class to Demand Gun Control, Nashville Lawmakers to Vote on Expulsion of Legislators Who Protested Gun Violence , North Carolina Democrat Switches Parties, Giving State’s GOP Veto-Proof Majority, Wisconsin GOP Targets Liberal Judge Janet Protasiewicz for Impeachment After Supreme Court Win, Man Charged with Murder After Car Ramming Attack Against Reno “Food Not Bombs”, Report Reveals Widespread Sexual Abuse by 160 Baltimore Priests, MSF Rescues 440 Migrants Off Maltese Coast as U.K. Rents Barge to House Asylum Seekers

As students across the United States today join a nationwide school walkout to demand lawmakers take action on gun control, we go to Tennessee, where Republicans are trying to expel three Democratic lawmakers for supporting student-led gun control protests at the state Capitol after last week’s school shooting in Nashville. “We’re demanding that lawmakers hear that we can’t be ignored anymore,” says Ezri Tyler, a student at Vanderbilt University in Nashville and a national organizer for March for Our Lives. “This is authoritarianism,” Tennessee state Representative Justin Jones says of attempts to remove him. “This is an assault on our democracy.”

We get an update on a major victory for progressives in Chicago’s mayoral race, where union organizer and former teacher Brandon Johnson narrowly defeated Paul Vallas in a runoff election Tuesday. Johnson called for community investment, while Vallas, who was backed by the police union, focused his campaign on crime. “Now comes the difficult part of governance,” says Democracy Now! co-host Juan González, who is in Chicago and notes Johnson faces a hostile police force and skepticism from the city’s business community.

Democrat-backed Judge Janet Protasiewicz won a high-stakes Wisconsin Supreme Court race Tuesday, giving liberals a majority on the court for the first time since 2008 and renewing hopes the state’s abortion ban can be reversed. Protasiewicz’s rival, former Justice Dan Kelly, had support from Republicans and anti-abortion groups. The Wisconsin Supreme Court is also likely to weigh in on gerrymandering and voting access, with the potential to impact national elections for Congress and president. We get an update from John Nichols, national affairs correspondent for The Nation, who joins us from Madison, Wisconsin.

As we cover the historic arraignment of former President Donald Trump, we look at the crimes for which he has not been charged. We speak with Ralph Nader, longtime consumer advocate, corporate critic and former presidential candidate. Nader says that though “all presidents violate laws,” Trump has “taken it to a new and diverse height.”

Donald Trump has been formally charged with 34 felonies in an indictment unsealed on Tuesday. After surrendering to authorities at a New York courthouse, Trump was placed under arrest and fingerprinted. He then appeared in a courtroom, where he pleaded not guilty to all 34 counts of falsifying business records in connection to hush-money payments he paid out during the 2016 presidential campaign. Trump is the first U.S. president to ever be charged with a crime. For more on the charges levied against Trump and their significance, we speak to Bobbi Sternheim, a criminal defense lawyer who has tried several high-profile federal cases in New York. Sternheim outlines what observers expect from the legal strategy in the case, and the risks of harassment facing the judge and prosecution team.

Trump Pleads Not Guilty to 34 Felony Counts Before Lashing Out at DA Bragg, Judge on His Case, Teachers’ Union Leader Brandon Johnson Defeats Corporate Candidate to Become Next Mayor of Chicago, Liberal Judge Wins Wisconsin Supreme Court Race in Major Victory for Voting and Abortion Rights, Israeli Forces Violently Attack Al-Aqsa Worshipers, Arrest Hundreds During Ramadan Prayers, Colombia Tops List of Deadliest Country for Human Rights Activists, Massive Blaze at Bangladesh Clothing Market Burns Down 3,000 Shops, Anger and Mourning After 13 Women and Children Killed in Pakistan Food Distribution Stampede, World Court Rules U.S. Illegally Froze Iranian Assets, Judge Rejects Bid to Stop Construction of Highly Contested Willow Drilling Project in Alaska, Johnson & Johnson Files for Bankruptcy Again, Increases Settlement Offer in Talc Lawsuits, Activists Demand NY Budget Include Evictions Protections, Slam Gov. Hochul’s Attack on Climate Law

Finland is formally joining NATO on Tuesday in a move that doubles the military alliance’s border with Russia. Finland and Russia share an 800-mile border. Finland is joining NATO a week after Turkey’s parliament voted to ratify the Nordic country’s membership. Turkey and Hungary have yet to approve Sweden as a member of NATO, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan accusing Stockholm of harboring Kurdish dissidents he considers terrorists. Finland and Sweden had applied to join NATO in May 2022, just months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. For more on NATO’s expansion, we host a discussion between Reiner Braun, former executive director of the International Peace Bureau and longtime German peace activist, and Atte Erik Harjanne, a member of the Finnish Parliament for the Green League.

Chicago residents are voting Tuesday in a mayoral runoff election that has been dominated by issues of public safety, with the two leading candidates coming from different ends of the Democratic Party’s political spectrum. Brandon Johnson is an organizer with the Chicago Teachers Union and backed by progressive forces in the city, and Paul Vallas is the former head of Chicago Public Schools who is endorsed by the police union. Democracy Now! co-host Juan González, who lives in Chicago, gives his analysis of the race and why it holds national implications. “It raises the question of 'Can a progressive, multiracial coalition capture the mayoralty in the nation's third-largest city, as Harold Washington did so 40 years ago back in 1983?’”

A crucial election in Wisconsin on Tuesday will decide the fate of democracy in the state and have major ramifications for the 2024 presidential election, says reporter Ari Berman, national voting rights correspondent for Mother Jones. At stake is a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which currently has a 4-3 conservative majority. Although technically nonpartisan, the election is a showdown between Democratic-backed Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Janet Protasiewicz and Republican-backed former state Supreme Court Justice Daniel Kelly. Berman says the outcome of the race could determine if abortion remains illegal in Wisconsin, as well as the future of voting laws and redistricting. “Every time the state Supreme Court under conservative control has been asked whether or not they want to expand democracy or constrict democracy, they have fallen on the side of constricting democracy,” says Berman.

On the day of Donald Trump’s historic arraignment in New York, making him the first former president ever to be criminally charged, we speak with the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnston, who has covered Trump for decades. Trump is said to face 34 felony counts for falsifying business records. The case centers in part on hush-money payments Trump made during the 2016 presidential campaign to adult film star Stormy Daniels. After his appearance before a judge in Manhattan, where he is expected to plead not guilty to all charges, Trump will fly back to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, where he will speak publicly later in the day. “Hopefully this is the beginning of a revival and a renewal of American democracy,” says Johnston, co-founder of the news site DCReport and author of The Big Cheat: How Donald Trump Fleeced America and Enriched Himself and His Family. Johnston also teaches at Syracuse University College of Law.

Donald Trump Prepares to Surrender to New York Court to Face 34 Felony Counts, Philippines Announces Locations of Four New U.S. Military Bases, Syria Says 2 Civilians Killed in Israeli Missile Attacks on Damascus , Jailed U.S. Journalist Evan Gershkovich Appeals Arrest on Spying Charges in Russia , 11 Arrested at Pro-Choice Protest as Florida Senate Approves Six-Week Abortion Ban, Nashville Students Walk Out of Classes to Demand Gun Controls, Tennessee GOP Moves to Expel 3 House Democrats Who Joined Peaceful Anti-Gun Protests, Virginia Medical Examiner: Irvo Otieno Died by Homicide Due to Asphyxiation , Justice Department Sues Norfolk Southern over East Palestine, OH, Rail Disaster, Starbucks Worker Alexis Rizzo Fired After Leading Historic Union Organizing Campaign, Finland Formally Joins NATO, Doubling Military Alliance’s Border with Russia

As Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis plans to run for president in 2024, his time at Guantánamo is coming under scrutiny. Prior to entering politics, DeSantis served in the Navy as an attorney, first at the U.S. prison at the Guantánamo Bay prison in Cuba and later in Iraq. Former Guantánamo prisoner Mansoor Adayfi says DeSantis personally witnessed him being force-fed and tortured, and other prisoners have backed up Adayfi’s account. He joins us from his home in Belgrade for his first television interview about DeSantis’s role at Guantánamo. “While I was screaming, yelling because I couldn’t breathe … he was actually laughing, looking at the other officers and smiling,” Adayfi says of DeSantis. “He wasn’t involved directly in the force-feeding. I didn’t see him give any orders to the guards. But he was there, supervising, watching.” Adayfi was imprisoned without charge for 14 years and seven months before being released in 2016 to Serbia. In 2021, he published a memoir titled Don’t Forget Us Here: Lost and Found at Guantánamo.

On Friday, a Federal Judge in Memphis, Tennessee, temporarily blocked a law signed by Tennessee Governor Bill Lee banning drag shows in public, and legal experts say it will likely continue to be blocked all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. “Tennessee’s drag ban was always bad law. It was always against the First Amendment,” says Elie Mystal, justice correspondent for The Nation. “One of the things that these Republicans are trying to do is to directly attack the First Amendment when it suits them to push their bigotry against the LGBT community.”

A federal Judge in Texas on Thursday blocked the Affordable Care Act mandate for health insurance companies to provide preventive care. We speak with Elie Mystal, justice correspondent for The Nation, about his piece, “The GOP’s War on Obamacare Is Screwing Up Its War on Abortion,” and how the Republican Party opposes access to abortion but will not require insurance companies to cover basic prenatal care.

As former President Donald Trump is expected to be arrested in New York on charges related to paying hush money to adult film star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign, we speak with The Nation's justice correspondent Elie Mystal, who says the case against Trump is far from a slam dunk. Trump is reportedly facing about 30 criminal counts related to business fraud, but Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has yet to release the exact charges, which reportedly include at least one felony. Mystal says it's clear that Trump “did the deed,” but the timing of the charges could undermine the case, due to the statute of limitations that may have elapsed and because of the looming 2024 election campaign. “Why wasn’t he held accountable for that earlier, when it might have been easier to do so?” asks Mystal.

Ukraine Disputes Russian Claim It Captured Bakhmut as Russian Shelling Kills 6 in Eastern City, Russia Arrests Suspect in Pro-War Blogger Killing as It Assumes UNSC Presidency, Finnish Voters Oust PM Sanna Marin and Social Democrats, Vote in Conservative Party, Tornadoes Across Midwest and South Kill 32 People as Residents Brace for More Extreme Weather, Taliban Shuts Down Women-Run Radio Station for Playing Music During Ramadan, Israel Kills 2 Palestinians as Fundamentalist Minister Ben-Gvir Gets Wish to Form New Nat’l Guard, Iranian Police Arrest 2 Women After They Were Attacked by Man Who Poured Yogurt on Uncovered Hair, Prominent Twitter Accounts, Including NYT and Other News Sites, to Lose Checkmark Verification, Trump Uses Manhattan Indictment to Fundraise, Lashes Out at Judge Overseeing Case Ahead of Arrest, Ex-Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson to Challenge Trump for 2024 GOP Presidential Nomination, 15 Million Expected to Lose Medicaid Benefits as Pandemic Protections Expire, FDA Approves Over-the-Counter Sale of Narcan, Overdose-Reversing Nasal Spray, Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman Checks Out of Hospital After Treatment for Depression, California to Require Half of Heavy Trucks Sold by 2035 to Be Electric, Philadelphia Judge Denies New Trial to Mumia Abu-Jamal, Federal Judge Puts Temporary Hold on Tennessee Law Restricting Drag Performances, Queer and Trans Youth Lead Marches on International Transgender Day of Visibility

In the wake of the mass shooting at a private Christian elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said Wednesday Republicans “want to see all the facts” before proposing any new gun legislation. Just last week, Manuel Oliver, father of one of 17 people killed in the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, was arrested in the Republican-controlled House after he and his wife Patricia spoke out during a subcommittee hearing on the Second Amendment. He joins us to call for a national education strike to push for action on the U.S. gun violence epidemic. His new op-ed for The Daily Beast is “Arrest Gun-Loving Members of Congress—Not Grieving Fathers.”

More than a thousand students rallied at the Tennessee state Capitol Thursday to demand gun control, just days after a mass shooting at a Nashville Christian elementary school where three adults and three 9-year-olds were killed. Republicans hold a supermajority in Tennessee’s Legislature and have loosened gun restrictions. We speak with Dr. Katrina Green, an emergency physician in Nashville who has lost patients to gun violence and joined in Thursday’s protest. “People are angry, and that’s part of the reason I went down there, as well,” says Green. “Tennessee has become a state where it just seems like they want everybody to have a gun, no matter what.”

In an unprecedented move, a Manhattan grand jury voted Thursday to indict former President Donald Trump for hush-money payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign to hide an alleged affair, making Trump the first former U.S. president to face criminal charges. While the precise details of the charges are not yet known, the development culminates years of political, business and personal legal troubles for Trump, who still faces three other major investigations. We look at the charges in this case and others that Trump faces, with Ellen Yaroshefsky, who teaches legal ethics as a professor at Hofstra University Law School.

Donald Trump Criminally Charged in New York, Will Be Arraigned Tuesday, U.S. Progressives Demand Probe on Whether Israel Uses U.S. Arms in Human Rights Abuses, Israeli Law Professors Compare Treatment of Palestinians to “Apartheid”, Five Arrested in Mexico over Fire That Killed 39 Asylum Seekers Near U.S. Border, Vatican Repudiates “Doctrine of Discovery” Used to Justify European Colonialism, Students Protest Gun Violence at Tennessee Capitol in Wake of Nashville School Shooting, U.S. Lawmakers Reintroduce Trans Bill of Rights Ahead of Transgender Day of Visibility, Historically Black D.C. Church Terrorized by Proud Boys in 2020 Seeks Punitive Damages, Lawyer Barred from Courtroom as WSJ Reporter Detained in Russia Denies Spying Charges, Fox News CEO Ordered Staff to Stop Fact-Checking Trump Over False Claims of Election Fraud, 2023 Izzy Award Goes to The Lever, Mississippi Free Press, Carlos Ballesteros and Liza Gross

We speak with writer and filmmaker Jennifer Fox, whose 2018 movie The Tale dealt with childhood sexual abuse. She has now come forward to name her abuser. The film is a narrative memoir based in part on Fox’s own life experience about being abused by a coach as a young girl. While the main character is named Fox, the name of the abusive coach was fictionalized. Now Fox has revealed the man who abused her as Ted Nash, the legendary Olympic rower and coach who died in 2021. Nash took part in 11 Olympic teams as a rower or coach, and USRowing, the national governing body for the sport, is now investigating the allegations. Fox recently revealed Nash’s name to The New York Times and tells Democracy Now!, in her first broadcast interview since the story, that he began abusing her when she was 13. She says her inner voice told her she could not rest until she publicly named Nash. “It’s very important to bring this other story out to the world now and to show this other part of the man that people put on a pedestal and made into a god,” says Fox, who adds that more women may still come forward about Nash. “It’s a very important act to stand up to power in this way, for me and for others.”

We speak with Jaysin Saxton, one of the witnesses who testified at the Senate hearing Wednesday on Starbucks’ union-busting record. Saxton was a former Starbucks shift manager, fired after leading the union drive at a store in Augusta, Georgia. He tells Democracy Now! he and fellow workers were motivated to organize their store to address the “insane” working conditions, including understaffing and inconsistent schedules. “There’s no stability in how much you’re earning and how many hours you’re getting, so you can’t afford to pay your bills, and you have to choose between gas and food,” says Saxton.

Just weeks after the National Labor Relations Board accused Starbucks of engaging in “egregious and widespread misconduct” to prevent employees from unionizing, the company’s longtime CEO Howard Schultz appeared before the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on Wednesday to answer questions. Committee Chair Bernie Sanders of Vermont grilled Schultz on the company’s union-busting record and demanded an end to retaliation against workers. Since 2021, nearly 300 Starbucks locations have voted to unionize, but the company has responded by firing many organizers and shuttering unionized stores, among other tactics. Schultz is worth over $3 billion and has led Starbucks for much of its history, most recently as interim CEO for the last year as a permanent replacement was found. He stepped down on March 20. We feature excerpts from the hearing.

In Landmark Vote, U.N. General Assembly Asks for World Court’s Opinion on Climate Crisis, U.S. Auctions Oil and Gas Leases in Vast Section Gulf of Mexico, Despite Biden’s Climate Pledges, Seniors Sue Switzerland over Deadly Heat Waves Caused by Climate Crisis, Mexico to Bring Charges Against 8 People over Deadly Fire at Juárez Detention Center, Senate Votes to Repeal AUMFs 20 Years After Illegal Invasion of Iraq, Finland Poised to Become NATO Member, Russia Detains WSJ Reporter Evan Gershkovich, West Virginia and Kentucky Republicans Impose More Anti-Trans Laws, Jill Biden Attends Nashville School Shooting Vigil; Reps. Bowman and Massie Face Off over Gun Control, 7 Officers, 1 Nurse Charged with Manslaughter over Fatal 2020 L.A. Traffic Stop, Texas Observer Halts Shutdown and Will Keep Publishing After Successful GoFundMe Campaign, Australian Lawmakers Move Toward Referendum on Indigenous Voice in Parliament

We speak with journalist Alissa Quart, executive director of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, about her new book, Bootstrapped: Liberating Ourselves from the American Dream, which examines myths about individualism and self-reliance that underpin the U.S. economy and the inequality it fosters. She says a focus on succeeding through hard work obscures the degree to which many rich and powerful people have benefited from social support, resulting in a cycle of “shame and blame” for those who fall short.

A bipartisan group of senators has introduced the RESTRICT Act, which would allow the federal government to potentially ban technology from countries the U.S. considers to be adversaries, including China. Last Thursday, congressmembers grilled TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew during a five-hour hearing on the app’s ties to the Chinese government, its data practices and its effects on children’s mental health. Critics say this China-focused scrutiny largely ignores similar privacy concerns over the use of U.S.-owned apps and social media platforms. We hear more from Julia Angwin, an investigative journalist and contributing opinion writer at The New York Times, whose latest guest essay is titled “How to Fix the TikTok Problem.”

We go to Ciudad Juárez for an update on the fire that killed at least 38 men held at a Mexican immigration detention center just across the U.S. border from El Paso, Texas. Surveillance video from the jail shows guards walking away as flames spread inside the jail cells, making no effort to open the jail cells or help the migrants who were trapped. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador blamed the fire on the men who were being held at the detention jail, alleging that they set their mattresses on fire to protest conditions, while U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar claimed the tragedy was a consequence of “irregular migration.” The deaths in Mexico came just hours after the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees urged the Biden administration not to adopt a proposed anti-asylum rule that would turn more refugees away at the border. We speak with the U.S.-Mexico border-based journalist Luis Chaparro.

Asylum Seekers in Ciudad Juárez Demand Justice, Humane Treatment, Following Blaze That Killed 38, Nashville School Shooter Had 7 Legally Purchased Firearms, U.N. Nuclear Watchdog Chief Visits Zaporizhzhia in Hopes of Curbing Nuclear Disaster Risk, Russian Man Sentenced to 2 Years After 13-Year-Old Daughter Draws Antiwar Picture, The Guardian’s Owners Apologize for Founders’ Ties to Slavery, Burmese Military Dissolves Aung San Suu Kyi’s Party, Idaho House Passes Bill Criminalizing People Who Help Minors Get Out-of-State Abortions, Judge Orders Mike Pence to Testify Before Grand Jury Investigating Trump and 2020 Election, Ginni Thomas Collected $600,000 in Donations for Conservative Group, Advocates, Progressive Dems Demand Social Services Be Left Alone Amid GOP Budget Cut Threats, Appeals Court Reinstates Conviction of “Serial” Protagonist Adnan Syed

We continue to remember the lawyer and human rights activist Randall Robinson, the founder of the racial justice group TransAfrica, who died last week at age 81. Robinson was a leader in the U.S. movement against South African apartheid and was a prominent critic of U.S. policy in Haiti, including the U.S.-backed coup against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004. Democracy Now! spoke to Robinson in 2007 about that episode and how foreign powers have interfered in Haiti throughout the country’s history, beginning with the slave revolt against France that established Haiti as the first free republic in the Americas in 1804. “The Haitians believed that anybody who was enslaved anywhere had a home and a refuge in Haiti. Anybody seeking freedom had a sympathetic ear in Haiti. But because of that, the United States and France and the other Western governments, even the Vatican, made them pay for so terribly long,” said Robinson, who had just published the book An Unbroken Agony: Haiti, from Revolution to the Kidnapping of a President.

Nashville is in mourning after a gunman killed six people at a private Christian elementary school Monday before being killed by police. The victims were three adults who worked at the school and three 9-year-old students. Police identified the shooter as 28-year-old Audrey Hale, a former student, who entered the school through a side door armed with two assault-style weapons and a handgun. The shooter had written a manifesto laying out plans for the attack that included maps of the building, but no motive has been established. Monday’s massacre was the 129th mass shooting in the United States this year alone, including 13 school shootings. “People here are still just in shock,” says Holly McCall, the editor-in-chief of the Tennessee Lookout. “It’s just not difficult at all in Tennessee to get any type of weapon. Over the last six or seven years, we’ve seen the Legislature increasingly passing laws that even law enforcement officials and law enforcement organizations oppose.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has agreed to delay a push to overhaul and weaken Israel’s judiciary until the next parliamentary session. The retreat came after months of unprecedented mass protests and a general strike on Monday that shut down much of Israel. Netanyahu had earlier fired his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, for suggesting a delay to judicial changes. In a concession to his far-right governing allies, Netanyahu has also agreed to establish a new national guard under the control of Itamar Ben-Gvir, the ultranationalist national security minister who was once convicted of racist incitement against Palestinians and supporting a terrorist group. “He already has an immense amount of power over police forces that regularly inflict violence on Palestinians. Now there is talk of him having this national guard,” journalist Natasha Roth-Rowland, an editor with +972 Magazine, says of Ben-Gvir. We also speak with Palestinian American analyst Yousef Munayyer, who says the public outrage over the judicial plan is due to many Israelis seeing their own rights threatened for the first time. “The rights of Palestinians … have not been upheld by these courts for a very long time,” says Munayyer.

39 Asylum Seekers Die in Fire at Mexican Immigration Detention Center Near U.S. Border, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Says Biden Asylum Proposal Violates International Law, Six Killed, Including Three Students, in Shooting at Nashville, TN, Elementary School, Israel’s Netanyahu Agrees to Delay Far-Right Judicial Reforms Amid Massive Protests, U.S. Aircraft Carrier Arrives in South Korea as North Korea Ramps Up Nuclear Weapons Production, Taliban Arrests Leader of Campaign to Educate Afghan Women and Girls, Massive Strikes and Protests Across France Demanding Macron Restore Pension Benefits, Haitian-Chilean Businessman Pleads Guilty to Conspiring with Jovenel Moïse’s Assassins, California Braces for Another Storm as Farmworkers Suffer “Catastrophic” Flooding, Philadelphia Extends “Safe” Window for Drinking Tap Water as Questions Mount over Chemical Spill , Xcel Energy Shuts Down Minnesota Nuclear Plant After Second Leak of Radioactive Tritium, Police Raid Atlanta’s Weelaunee Forest to Clear “Cop City” Protesters, Arizona Will Delay Execution of Condemned Prisoner; Idaho Introduces Death Penalty by Firing Squad, NYC Audubon Votes to Drop Name of Founder Who Enslaved People and Espoused Racism

We remember the human rights activist and lawyer Randall Robinson, the founder of TransAfrica, who died Friday at the age of 81. Robinson played a critical role in the anti-apartheid movement in the United States and was a prominent critic of U.S. policy in Haiti. In 2004, he helped expose the U.S. role in the coup that ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. We air excerpts from a 2013 interview Robinson did with Democracy Now! about his work.

At the U.N. Water Development Conference, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland delivered the U.S. statement and called for Indigenous governance of shared waters, underscoring the importance of Indigenous-led conservation in addressing the climate and drought crises. This comes after the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments last Monday on whether to allow the Navajo Nation to argue the federal government must address the Native American tribe’s water rights. For more, we are joined in Fort Defiance, Arizona, by Crystal Tulley-Cordova, principal hydrologist for the Navajo Nation Department of Water Resources, water management branch, covering 27,000 square miles of reservation land that straddles New Mexico, Arizona and Utah, much of which borders the Colorado River. She talks about what must be done to address the ongoing lack of access to water there now as the west battles a historic drought.

A new report by the United Nations warns that a quarter of humanity lacks access to safe drinking water, and nearly half of the global population has no access to basic sanitation. Unless action is taken, 60% of the world’s population could face water supply issues by 2050. At the U.N. Water Conference in New York last week, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres addressed the report’s findings and warned of the potential link between water scarcity and war. From Abuja, Nigeria, we speak to Boluwaji Onabolu, president of the Network of Female Professionals in WASH in Nigeria, which focuses on water, sanitation, hygiene and public health. We’re also joined from Phoenix, Arizona, by Mohammed Mahmoud, the director of the Climate and Water Program at the Middle East Institute.

Workers across Israel are taking part in a general strike Monday to protest plans by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to disempower Israel’s judiciary. This comes after Netanyahu fired his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, on Sunday over Gallant’s warning that the judicial overhaul represents “a clear, immediate and tangible threat to the security of the state.” Hundreds of thousands of Israelis have taken part in protests in recent days, shutting down large parts of the country and demanding the government withdraw its plan, which would give parliament more power to appoint judges to the Supreme Court and overturn its rulings. The Supreme Court is one of the few independent checks on the Israeli government, and critics warn Netanyahu’s judicial reforms would turn the country into a dictatorship. For more on the political crisis, we speak with journalist and activist Haggai Matar in Tel Aviv.

More Mass Protests Rock Israel After Netanyahu Fires Minister Who Urged Halt to Courts Overhaul, Mississippi Reels After Tornado Kills 26 People, as South Braces for More Heavy Storms, At Least 29 Migrants Drowned While Trying to Reach Europe as Gov’ts Make It Harder to Save Lives at Sea, Russia Threatens Deployment of Nuclear Weapons in Belarus, At Least 6 Killed in Suicide Bombing Near Kabul’s Foreign Ministry, Honduras Establishes Diplomatic Ties with Beijing, Breaks with Taiwan, Kamala Harris Embarks on Africa Tour in Hopes of Countering Russian and Chinese Influence, Chad Nationalizes ExxonMobil, Germany Comes to a Standstill During 24-Hour Nationwide Strike, Los Angeles Education Workers Reach Deal over Pay After 3-Day Strike, Trump Rails Against NY Prosecutors as Possible Indictment Looms, Pioneering Independent Newspaper The Texas Observer Announces Shutdown, Explosion at Pennsylvania Chocolate Factory Kills 7 People, Philadelphia Declares Tap Water Safe for Now, Retracting Earlier Warning, After Chemical Plant Spill, Georgia Police Fired Pepperball Rounds into Tent of “Cop City” Protester Before Deadly Gunfire, First Citizens Bank to Purchase Assets of Failed Silicon Valley Bank, Democrats Push Back After House GOP Passes Bill to Expand Scholastic Book Bans

In Atlanta, a judge has denied bond for 8 of the people indiscriminately arrested at a music festival against the proposed “Cop City” police training facility in the Weelaunee Forest. Jailed since March 5, they are charged with domestic terrorism based on scant evidence like muddy clothes or simply being in the area at the time of the festival. We’re joined by Micah Herskind, an Atlanta community organizer, who calls the charges “political prosecutions” and a blatant “attempt to repress this social movement that is trying to stop Cop City.”

In his new book, Spyfail: Foreign Spies, Moles, Saboteurs, and the Collapse of America’s Counterintelligence, investigative journalist James Bamford reveals that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dispatched a secret Israeli agent to the United States in the spring of 2016 to help Donald Trump win the presidential election. The agent met with advisers to Trump and offered to share secret intelligence with the campaign against Hillary Clinton. Bamford’s investigation finds that while American media fixated on Russia’s role in swaying the 2016 election, Israeli interference was completely ignored. He joins us from Washington, D.C., for more on what’s been uncovered during his investigation. “The Israelis got what they wanted, and Trump got what he wanted, and the American public was screwed in the meantime,” Bamford says.

We speak with Democratic Congressmember Ro Khanna about the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, regulating the banking sector, and how Federal Reserve interest rate hikes contributed to the banking crisis. Silicon Valley Bank was based in Khanna’s district in California, and he has criticized fellow Democrats who supported a 2018 bill that weakened oversight for some banks. “We need to regulate large regional banks the same way that we regulate the Big Four banks,” says Khanna. He also talks about growing concern from lawmakers about the social video app TikTok, the Biden administration’s policy on Taiwan and Ukraine, and more.

French unions say nearly 3.5 million people took to the streets Thursday in a nationwide general strike to protest President Emmanuel Macron’s deeply unpopular move to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64. Macron forced the legislation through the French National Assembly last week, using a constitutional clause to bypass a parliamentary vote. Macron’s government survived a vote of no confidence Monday by just nine votes, but public anger shows no signs of abating, with France’s major trade unions planning another nationwide protest for Tuesday. “Not only is the government trying to do this pension reform that people see as fundamentally unfair, but they’re ignoring historically large protests even by French standards,” says journalist Cole Stranger from Marseille. His new guest essay in The New York Times is headlined “France Is Furious.”

Netanyahu Shielded from Charges as Protests Rage Against Far-Right Judicial Reforms, Millions Join General Strike in France After Macron Uses Executive Fiat to Slash Pensions, Biden and Trudeau to Announce Deal to Block Asylum Seekers at U.S. Northern Border, U.S. Warplanes Strike Syria After Drone Attack on U.S. Base Kills Contractor, Indian Opposition MP Rahul Gandhi Jailed for Criticizing Modi, House Panel Grills TikTok CEO as Progressives Warn Against Anti-Chinese Scapegoating, Utah Passes Law Requiring Parental Consent for Minors Using Social Media, GA and IA Ban Healthcare for Trans Youth; World Athletics Bans Trans Women from Competing, Parents of Michigan School Shooter to Be Tried for Manslaughter, Denver Schools Suspend Ban on Armed Officers After School Shootings, Los Angeles Education Workers End 3-Day Strike, Return to Classrooms Without a Deal

As we continue to mark the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, we are joined by Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, an award-winning Baghdad-born Iraqi journalist and author. Abdul-Ahad has received the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism, the British Press Awards’ Foreign Reporter of the Year and the Orwell Prize. His new book is A Stranger in Your Own City: Travels in the Middle East’s Long War. “I want the history to be told properly,” says Abdul-Ahad about his hopes for the future of Iraqi society after decades of dictatorship, sanctions, war, occupation and corruption.

As new footage is released about the shocking killing of Irvo Otieno inside a hospital in Virginia, we speak with civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who represents Otieno’s family. Surveillance video shows seven sheriff’s deputies and three hospital workers violently pinned Otieno to the floor and piled on him for more than 11 minutes, suffocating him. New video released Wednesday reveals at least one officer had also repeatedly punched Otieno earlier that day. A grand jury has indicted the 10 men involved on second-degree murder charges. Otieno was having a mental health crisis, which Crump says is too often a death sentence for Black people in police encounters. “What happened to Irvo isn’t an isolated incident in America,” says Crump.

On World Water Day, U.N. Warns 2 Billion Lack Safe Drinking Water, California Storms Kill Five, Swamp Thousands of Acres of Farmland and Spawn Rare Tornadoes, Kremlin Warns U.K. and Its Allies Against Supplying Ukraine with Depleted Uranium, CodePink Activists Disrupt Blinken’s Senate Testimony, Call for Diplomacy Over Wars, Russia Raids Homes of Workers from Banned, Nobel Peace Prize-Winning Organization, Ex-Russian President Says Russia Could Bomb International Criminal Court, U.N. Calls for Intervention in Haiti After Gang Violence Claims Hundreds of Lives, Powerful Earthquake Kills at Least 19 People in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Wyoming Abortion Ban Halted; Idaho Maternity Ward Closes as Doctors Fear Criminal Penalties, Fed Raises Interest Rate by Another 0.25%, Dismissing Unemployment Concerns, IMF Approves $3 Billion Loan for Sri Lanka as Economic Crises in Lebanon and Argentina Worsen

As we continue to look back on the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, we’re joined by Sami Rasouli, an Iraqi native who immigrated to the United States over 35 years ago and became a successful restaurateur and beloved member of the community in Minneapolis. After the U.S. invasion of his home country in 2003, he moved back to Iraq, where he founded the Muslim Peacemakers, a group that works to promote and practice nonviolent conflict resolution and intervention. Rasouli also founded the American Institute for English in Najaf, which was destroyed by a 2020 bombing. He is working on starting a new organization called the American-Iraqi Peace Initiative and currently resides in the U.S. with his family. The war in Iraq has “left scars and a visible legacy” among Iraqis, says Rasouli, who calls for “a just compensation” in the aftermath of the U.S. occupation.