Democracy Now!

U.N. Aid Trucks Enter Earthquake-Stricken NW Syria as Combined Death Toll with Turkey Tops 41,000, U.N. Seeks $5.6 Billion for Ukraine War Relief as NATO Says Russia’s Latest Offensive Is Underway, Israeli Soldier Attacks Palestinian Activist Issa Amro During Intv with Reporter Lawrence Wright, Biden Admin Withdraws Nomination of Human Rights Attorney for Condemning Israeli Apartheid, India Orders Search of BBC Offices After Release of Documentary Critical of Narendra Modi, Papuan Independence Fighters Hold New Zealand Pilot Hostage, Demand Freedom from Indonesia, New Zealand Minister Slams Inaction on Climate Crisis as Cyclone Kills 4 People, Climate Activists Issue Ultimatum to U.K. PM, Warning of “Escalating Disruption”, Jair Bolsonaro Says He Will Return to Brazil to Lead the Opposition, Four More Suspects, Incl. 3 U.S. Citizens, Arrested in Jovenel Moïse Assassination Probe, U.S. Says No Signs Downed Objects in North American Airspace on Weekend Were Chinese Spy Devices, South Dakota Bans Transgender Youth Healthcare as Tennessee’s GOP Advances Similar Bill, Sen. Dianne Feinstein Announces She Will Not Run for Reelection in 2024

Fears of a wider health and environmental disaster are growing, after a 150-car freight train operated by Norfolk Southern derailed and a so-called controlled burn released toxic chemicals last week in East Palestine, Ohio. Residents reported seeing a fireball and mushroom cloud of smoke fill the skyline. Data released by the Environmental Protection Agency shows the train contained more toxic and carcinogenic chemicals than initially reported, including phosgene, a poisonous gas that has been used as a chemical weapon in war. Officials lifted an evacuation order for residents last Wednesday, saying the air and water were safe, but residents have reported sore throats, burning eyes and respiratory problems, and wildlife has been found dead. Meanwhile, scrutiny has turned onto Norfolk Southern, which in recent years has challenged regulatory laws aimed at making the rail industry safer and made mass cuts to railroad staffing while spending billions on stock buybacks and executive compensation. We get an update from Emily Wright, community organizer based near the site of the derailment; Ross Grooters, a locomotive engineer and co-chair of Railroad Workers United; and Julia Rock, an investigative reporter with The Lever.

The United States struck a deal with the Philippines earlier this month to expand its military presence in its former colony to four additional bases, part of a years-long Pentagon buildup in the Asia-Pacific region meant to counter Chinese influence. The U.S. has about 750 overseas military bases in more than 80 countries, and Washington elites are pushing the country ever closer to conflict with China, says researcher David Vine. “I think the people of the United States absolutely do not want war,” says Vine. He is a professor of anthropology at American University and co-founder of the Overseas Base Realignment and Closure Coalition.

We look at the state of U.S.-China relations after the U.S. shot down a suspected high-altitude Chinese surveillance balloon off the coast of South Carolina last week. In recent days the U.S. has also shot down three additional objects flying at lower altitudes in northern Alaska, over Lake Huron and over the Yukon Territory in Canada. Meanwhile, China has accused the United States of flying surveillance balloons into Chinese airspace at least 10 times over the past year, which the Biden administration has denied. For more, we speak with Jake Werner, a historian of modern China and a research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. His new piece for The Nation with William Hartung is titled “War With China Is Preventable, Not Inevitable.”

Syria Agrees to Open Two More Border Crossings as Earthquake Death Toll Tops 37,000, CDC Warns U.S. Teen Girls Are “Engulfed in a Growing Wave of Violence and Trauma”, Gunman Found Dead After Killing 3, Injuring 5 at Michigan State University, Nikki Haley Enters Race for 2024 Republican Presidential Nomination, Derailed Ohio Train Released More Toxic Chemicals Than Initially Reported, WHO Warns of Potential Human-to-Human Spread as Bird Flu Spills Over to Mammals, Guatemalan Rights Defenders Challenge Ban from Presidential Ballot, Family Says Chilean Poet Pablo Neruda Was Poisoned After Pinochet’s 1973 Coup, Marshall “Eddie” Conway, Former Black Panther Imprisoned for 44 Years, Dies at 76

February 14 marks the 25th anniversary of V-Day, the global movement to end violence against women, gender-expansive people, girls and the planet. It is also the 10th anniversary of V-Day’s One Billion Rising campaign, a call to action based on the staggering reality that one in three women on the planet will be beaten or raped during her lifetime. The V-Day movement brings together activism and art to transform systems and change culture and was founded by the activist V, formerly Eve Ensler, author of the “The Vagina Monologues” and her new memoir “Reckoning.” This year the One Billion Rising campaign is focusing on “Freedom from Patriarchy and from all its progeny.” We discuss decades of activism, events planned this year, and what reckoning looks like with activist and V-Day founder V, alongside Monique Wilson, global director of One Billion Rising, and Christine Schuler Deschryver, director of V-Day Congo and co-founder and director of City of Joy, a revolutionary community for women survivors of gender violence in Bukavu in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

We speak with human rights expert Alena Douhan, a United Nations special rapporteur and one of several U.N. experts calling for the lifting of economic and financial sanctions against Syria in order to aid recovery efforts following last week’s devastating earthquakes. “The people of Syria are currently deprived of any possibility to rebuild their country, and their country needed reconstruction before the earthquake,” says Douhan.

We get an update from Damascus, Syria, on last week’s devastating earthquakes, as the United Nations warns the death toll in Turkey and northwest Syria will top at least 50,000. The U.N. also says the earthquake rescue phase is “coming to a close” and that efforts are expected to turn to providing shelter, food and care to survivors. Millions have been left homeless by the deadly quakes that struck the region, which includes the Syrian city of Aleppo, last week. Syrian refugees who were displaced by the war in Syria that began 12 years ago now face a compounded humanitarian crisis. The situation is a “crisis on top of a crisis,” says Emma Forster, Syria policy and communications manager for the Norwegian Refugee Council.

Earthquake Death Toll Tops 36,000 as U.N. Admits Failure in Delivering Aid to War-Torn Syria, Mass Protests Continue Amid Netanyahu Attack on Courts; Israel Announces More Illegal Settlements, U.S. Launches Somalia Airstrike, Killing 12 al-Shabab Fighters, According to Pentagon, U.S. Shoots Down 3 More Unidentified Objects Over North America, Lula and Biden Talk Political Violence, Climate Crisis on Lula’s 1st U.S. Visit After Inauguration, NC Police Bodycam Shows Cops Tasering Unarmed Black Man with Heart Problems Before Death, 250,000 March in Madrid to Oppose Dismantling of Public Healthcare System, Schoolteachers March in Portugal to Protest Low Wages and Soaring Inflation, Hundreds of Thousands March in France Against Plans to Raise Age of Retirement, Six Asylum Seekers Die at Sea While Attempting to Reach Canary Islands, Cyclone Lashes New Zealand’s Northern Island, “Stop Drilling, Start Paying”: Greenpeace Ends 2-Week Occupation of Shell Oil Vessel

As the rate of climate-fueled disasters intensifies, we speak with author and organizer Saket Soni about the workers who are hired by corporations to clean up after hurricanes, floods, blizzards and wildfires. Soni’s new book, “The Great Escape: A True Story of Forced Labor and Immigrant Dreams in America,” focuses on hundreds of Indian workers who were brought to the United States with false promises and subjected to grueling working conditions at a shipyard in Mississippi. When one of those workers called Soni in 2006 for help, it set off an extraordinary chain of events that led to their escape from the work camp and eventually focused national attention on the plight of the workers. “As disasters have grown, this workforce has grown. And these workers do all this without legal protections, without legal status,” says Soni, a longtime labor organizer and the director of Resilience Force, a nonprofit that advocates for immigrant workers who help rebuild communities after climate disasters.

In an in-depth interview with longtime consumer advocate Ralph Nader, we look at Republican-led efforts to gut Medicare and Social Security amid debt limit talks, backed by some Democrats, and other proposed cuts to the social safety net, as well as corporate greed and watchdog journalism. Nader also discusses his newly launched newspaper, the Capitol Hill Citizen. “It’s all about Congress, and Congress has to be captured by the people instead of being controlled by 1,500 corporations who swarm the corridors,” says Nader.

Aid Groups Warn of “Secondary Disaster” as Death Toll from Turkey and Syria Quakes Tops 22,000, Mike Pence Subpoenaed in Jan. 6 Probe by Special Counsel Jack Smith, White Mississippi Lawmakers Approve Bill to Disenfranchise Voters in Majority-Black Jackson, Missouri Democrats Slam “Racism” After GOP House Speaker Silences Black Lawmakers, Eleanor Holmes Norton Calls Out GOP Racism as U.S. House Blocks 2 Washington, D.C., Bills, Police Arrest Suspect in Assault of Minnesota Rep. Angie Craig, Brazil’s Lula Makes First Official U.S. Visit Since Retaking Office, Brazilian Environmental Police Target Illegal Miners in Yanomami Territory Amid Humanitarian Crisis, Nicaragua Releases 200+ Political Prisoners and Transfers Them to U.S., Uganda Shuts Down U.N. Human Rights Office Amid Reports of Persistent Rights Abuses, Jen Angel, Beloved Social Justice & Media Activist, Writer and Oakland Baker, Dies at 48, David Harris, Who Inspired Young People in the ’60s to Resist Vietnam War Draft, Dies at 76

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is in Brussels today to address the European Union Parliament. The visit comes after he made surprise trips to Paris and London where he urged European nations to begin providing Ukraine with fighter jets and long-range weapons. Meanwhile, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres has repeated his call for the war to end. For more on the war’s prognosis, our guest is Alexey Kovalev, investigative editor of Meduza, an independent Russian news outlet recently banned by the Russian government, which designated it an “undesirable organization.”

As the death toll tops 17,000 in Turkey and Syria from Monday’s twin earthquakes, we look at the situation in Syria, where 12 years of brutal war have left the country’s institutions in tatters, further complicating aid efforts. Syrian writer, dissident and former political prisoner Yassin al-Haj Saleh describes how the war has killed about 2% of Syrians and displaced 7 million more, or about a third of the population. He is author of the book “The Impossible Revolution: Making Sense of the Syrian Tragedy.”

The death toll in Turkey and Syria has passed 19,300 and continues to rise following Monday’s devastating earthquakes. Many survivors are without shelter, heat, food, water or medical care, and the first United Nations aid only reached northwest Syria three days after the quakes. Rescue efforts in Syria have been further complicated by damage and displacement from 12 years of war and harsh sanctions. Prior to the earthquake, the U.N. estimated over 14 million people inside Syria needed humanitarian assistance and that more than 12 million struggled to find enough food, including half a million Syrian children who are chronically malnourished. Syrian doctor Houssam al-Nahhas says humanitarian workers and healthcare providers working in the region urgently need support from the rest of the world. “Hundreds, if not thousands, of people are still under rubble,” says al-Nahhas. He is Middle East and North Africa researcher at Physicians for Human Rights and a former emergency trauma physician in Aleppo.

Death Toll from Turkey and Syria Earthquakes Tops 17,000, Continues to Rise, In Brussels, Ukrainian President Pushes Bid for EU Membership, Probe Finds “Strong Indications” Putin Approved Missiles Used to Down Passenger Jet in 2014, White House Denies Seymour Hersh Report That U.S. Sabotaged Nord Stream Pipelines, Antarctic Sea Ice Shrank to Lowest Extent on Record in January, Rail Operator Behind Ohio Crash That Released Toxic Chemicals Lobbied Against Safety Measures, Black Reporter Attacked and Arrested Covering Ohio Train Derailment News Conference, Asylum Seeker at Brooklyn Migrant Facility Attempts Suicide Amid Backlash to “Inhumane Conditions”, El Paso Walmart Shooter, Who Killed 23 People in Racist Attack, Pleads Guilty to Hate Crimes, Atlanta Police Release Bodycam Video Amid Growing Outrage over Activist’s Killing and “Cop City”, Temple University Rescinds Tuition Aid and Benefits for Striking Graduate Workers

President Joe Biden delivered his second State of the Union address Tuesday, touting his administration’s achievements and laying out his plans for the next two years under a divided Congress, including on immigration, the economy, the climate crisis and more. We speak with Democratic Congressmember Delia Ramirez, who delivered a response to Tuesday’s speech on behalf of the Working Families Party, and economist Dean Baker, who both applaud Biden’s focus on income inequality and making the rich pay more in taxes. “He’s clearly moved to the left,” says Baker.

Democratic Congressmember Delia Ramirez of Illinois praises President Biden for proposing a path to citizenship in his State of the Union address on Tuesday for the millions of undocumented immigrants in the country. “My problem is the militarizing of the border,” she adds. Ramirez, who delivered a response to the State of the Union speech on behalf of the Working Families Party, says compassion should be at the center of the debate on immigration. “People are escaping poverty. People are escaping death,” she says.

President Biden delivered his second State of the Union speech Tuesday and discussed his administration’s support for Ukraine, growing tensions with China and other international challenges. Foreign policy scholar and former Bernie Sanders adviser Matt Duss says one major missing theme was the “global war on terror.” “We need to acknowledge that this war is still very much ongoing,” says Duss, noting that thousands of U.S. troops are deployed around the world. He also says that while the Biden administration’s approach to the Chinese balloon that entered U.S. airspace was calm and measured, the strong anti-China position that seems to divide much of Washington is a concern. “This idea of trying to create political unity around … any external threat has a very bad history,” says Duss.

President Joe Biden delivered his second State of the Union address Tuesday, his first before a divided Congress where Republicans now hold a slim majority in the House of Representatives. Biden, who is widely believed to be gearing up for reelection in 2024, repeatedly asked lawmakers to work with him to “finish the job.” Biden spoke exactly a month after the fatal police beating of Tyre Nichols in Memphis, honoring his parents, who were in attendance, and demanding more police accountability. Color of Change president Rashad Robinson says it was an emotional moment worth recognizing, “but we have to go the extra mile at helping the public understand why change hasn’t happened, who is standing in the way of change.” He says Republicans, backed by big-money donors, have effectively foreclosed the chance of meaningful legislation on policing for the next two years.

Turkey-Syria Earthquake Death Toll Tops 11,000 as Rescue Efforts Challenged by Access, Sanctions, Biden’s SOTU Calls for Police Reform, Assault Weapons Ban, Protection of Abortion, While GOP Heckles, Officer in Tyre Nichols Beating Shared Photo of Dying Nichols; Cops Assaulted Another Man Days Before, Missouri Executes Raheem Taylor Despite Claims of Innocence and Calls for a Stay, Israeli Forces Kill 17-Year-Old Palestinian in Nablus Raid, President Volodymyr Zelensky Visits U.K. Ahead of Expected Russian Offensive, Mudslides Kill 15 People in Southern Peru After Heavy Downpours, Greenpeace Activists Continue Protest Aboard Shell Platform in Atlantic Ocean, Over One-Third of U.S. Animals and Plants at Risk of Extinction, Yusef Salaam, One of Exonerated Central Park Five, to Run for Harlem City Council Seat, Australia Becomes First Country to Approve Medical Use of MDMA and Psilocybin

A new podcast out today called “Alphabet Boys” documents how the FBI disrupted racial justice organizing after the police killing of George Floyd in 2020, including paying an informant at least $20,000 to infiltrate and spy on activist groups in Denver, Colorado. The informant also encouraged activists to purchase guns and commit violence, echoing the FBI’s use of the COINTELPRO program to sabotage left-wing activist groups in the 1960s. For more, we’re joined by three guests: journalist and creator of the “Alphabet Boys” podcast Trevor Aaronson, Denver-based activist Zebbodios Hall, who was one of many activists targeted by the FBI’s infiltration, and former FBI special agent and whistleblower Mike German, who left the agency after reporting misconduct and mismanagement in its counterterrorism efforts.

Magnitude 7.8 and 7.5 earthquakes struck Turkey near the Syrian border Monday, causing mass devastation in both countries. At least 5,000 casualties have been reported as of Tuesday morning, and rescue efforts are still underway. The WHO predicts that the final death toll could reach 25,000. The 7.8 earthquake, the largest recorded in Turkey since 1939, struck a region that has already been wracked by the Syrian civil war, compounding the existing humanitarian crisis in the region. Our guest is Evren Uzer, an associate professor of urban planning at The New School. After the İzmit earthquake of 1999, which killed more than 17,000 people in Turkey, Uzer worked to provide post-earthquake housing to survivors.

Death Toll from Earthquakes in Turkey and Syria Tops 5,000, Earthquakes Compound Humanitarian Crisis in Northern Syria, Russia’s Military Masses Hundreds of Thousands of Troops for Ukraine Offensive, 47 Hong Kong Activists Go on Trial for “Conspiring to Commit Subversion”, Crews Release Poisonous Gases from Wreckage of Train That Derailed in Ohio, White House Rejects GOP Commission as a “Death Panel for Medicare and Social Security”, Biden to Call for Assault Weapons Ban and Police Reform in State of the Union Address, George Santos Accused of Sexually Harassing Prospective Staffer, Autopsy Reveals “Cop City” Protester Was Shot 13 Times by Police in Atlanta, Documents Reveal ICE Officers’ Racist and Violent Language Against Black Asylum Seekers, Asylum Seekers End Hunger Strike at ICE Jail in Tacoma, Washington, Federal Agents Arrest Neo-Nazi Leader over Plot to Attack Maryland’s Power Grid, Protesters Demand Freedom for Leonard Peltier After 47 Years Behind Bars

We speak with renowned legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw about right-wing efforts to curtail the teaching of African American history, queer studies and other subjects that focus on marginalized communities. The College Board, the nonprofit group that designs AP courses for high school seniors, recently revised a curriculum for a course in African American studies after criticism from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and others who maligned it as “woke indoctrination.” The new curriculum removes Black Lives Matter, slavery reparations and queer theory as required topics, and drops many major writers, including Crenshaw, from the reading list. “Anybody who’s concerned about our democracy, anyone who’s concerned about authoritarianism has to wake up and pay attention to this, because this is how it happens,” she says. Crenshaw coined the term “intersectionality” to study the overlapping or intersecting social identities and systems of oppression, domination or discrimination people experience.

As the war in Ukraine nears the one-year mark, we speak with veteran war crimes prosecutor Reed Brody about a growing movement to hold Russian President Vladimir Putin and his closest allies criminally responsible for the invasion. The Ukrainian government has called for a special tribunal to prosecute Russian leaders, modeled on the Nuremberg trials of Nazi officials after World War II. On Thursday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced the formation of an international center in The Hague for the prosecution of the crime of aggression in Ukraine. “Aggression is the worst international crime,” says Brody, who notes that there is currently no venue to prosecute crimes of aggression largely due to opposition from the United States and other victorious powers after World War II. “Let’s change the rules forever, so that aggression — not only by Russia against Ukraine but any cases of aggression — could be prosecuted.” Brody has been involved in several major war crimes cases, including against Chile’s former dictator Augusto Pinochet, Haiti’s Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier and former Chadian dictator Hissène Habré.

China has accused the United States of overreacting after President Joe Biden ordered a suspected spy balloon shot down off the coast of South Carolina on Sunday. China maintains the balloon, first spotted over U.S. airspace last week, was a civilian aircraft blown off course. The U.S. and China have been conducting surveillance on each other for years using spy satellites, hacking and other means. The Pentagon has revealed Chinese balloons also entered the continental United States at least three times during the Trump administration, as well as once before under Biden. The balloon saga led to the abrupt cancellation of a planned trip by Secretary of State Tony Blinken to Beijing and threatens to further derail the relationship between the two countries. “The two countries need to speak to each other,” says Nicholas Bequelin, a visiting fellow at Yale’s Paul Tsai China Center and formerly the Asia-Pacific director for Amnesty International, in a wide-ranging interview about evolving U.S-China relations and potential for tensions to escalate further.

7.8-Magnitude Earthquake Rattles Turkey and Syria, Killing 1,700+ as Death Toll Keeps Mounting, Pentagon Downs Chinese Balloon, Blinken Cancels China Trip as Beijing Accuses U.S. of Overreacting, Israeli Forces Kill 5 Palestinians in West Bank as Mass Protests Against Israeli Gov’t Continue, Iranian Supreme Leader Pardons Some Jailed Protesters as Filmmaker Jafar Panahi Released on Bail, Iraqi Rights Groups Demand Women’s Rights Legislation After “Honor Killing” of 22-Year-Old YouTuber, Prominent Iraqi Environmentalist Jassim Al-Asadi Kidnapped Near Baghdad, Pervez Musharraf, Ex-President of Pakistan and Ally in George W. Bush’s “War on Terror,” Dead at 79, Refugees Drown in Shipwrecks Off Coasts of Greece and Italy, U.K. Medical Workers Stage Largest Strike in History of National Health Service, At Least 24 Killed in Chile as Summer Heat Fans Wildfires, Cold Snap Brings Record Wind Chill to Eastern U.S. and Canada, South Carolina Will Hold First Presidential Primary of DNC’s Revamped Calendar, The Innocence Project Demands Missouri Call Off Execution of Leonard “Raheem” Taylor, Shervin Hajipour, Who Wrote Iranian Protest Anthem, Honored at Grammy Awards

This week, New York City police evicted an encampment of asylum seekers outside the Watson Hotel who were protesting plans to house them in a remote, crowded and cold facility. Mayor Eric Adams suggested the protesters were “agitators,” not migrants themselves. We speak to a Venezuelan asylum seeker named Ruben, who was evicted from the hotel, and Desiree Joy Frías, a community organizer with South Bronx Mutual Aid, which has been deeply involved in supporting the asylum seekers arriving in the city.

We host a roundtable with three leading Black scholars about the College Board’s decision to revise its curriculum for an Advanced Placement course in African American studies after criticism from Republicans like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. The revised curriculum removes Black Lives Matter, slavery reparations and queer theory as required topics, while it adds a section on Black conservatism. The College Board, the nonprofit organization that administers Advanced Placement courses across the country, denies that it buckled to political pressure. “Florida is a laboratory of fascism at this point,” says Khalil Gibran Muhammad, professor of history, race and public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. We also speak with two scholars whose writings are among those purged from the revised curriculum: Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, professor of African American studies at Northwestern University, and E. Patrick Johnson, dean of Northwestern’s School of Communication and a pioneer in the formation of Black sexuality studies as a field of scholarship.

Pope Francis Arrives in South Sudan as Fighting Kills 27, Congolese Survivors of Abuse by Catholic Priests Demand Pope Take Action, Putin Compares Ukraine War to Battle of Stalingrad; EU Officials Meet Zelensky in Kyiv, Republicans Oust Rep. Ilhan Omar from House Foreign Affairs Committee, House Denounces “Horrors of Socialism” in Bipartisan Resolution, 1,000 Children Are Yet to Be Reunited with Families After Separation at U.S.-Mexico Border, Congressional Black Caucus Meets with Biden & Harris to Push for Police Reform , New Jersey Councilwoman Eunice Dwumfour Gunned Down in Front of Her House, U.S. Court Strikes Down Law Barring Domestic Violence Perpetrators from Owning Guns, Guantánamo Prisoner Majid Khan Freed and Resettled After 2 Decades of Detention, Years of Torture

We speak with filmmaker Shaunak Sen about his Oscar-nominated documentary, “All That Breathes,” which follows two self-taught brothers who rescue black kite birds suffering from air pollution in New Delhi. The brothers, Nadeem and Saud, have saved about 25,000 black kites from the dirty air in India’s capital over the last 15 years. “When you live in the city of Delhi, you’re almost always preoccupied with the air,” says Sen, who explains why he centered the film on the brothers and purposely stayed away from obvious environmental and political messages. “The idea is to open the conversation and not close it,” he says. “All That Breathes” became the only film ever to win the best documentary prize at both the Sundance and Cannes film festivals last year.

Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens announced Tuesday that a proposed $90 million police training facility known as “Cop City” is moving forward, despite growing opposition and the police killing of a forest defender. Just weeks ago, law enforcement officers — including a SWAT team — were violently evicting protesters who had occupied a wooded area outside the center, when they shot and killed a longtime activist and charged 19 with domestic terrorism. The activists have been camping out in Weelaunee Forest for months to prevent its destruction. Mayor Dickens vowed to address their concerns, but protesters have vowed that Cop City will not be built. We speak with investigative reporter Alleen Brown, who says the “flimsy” domestic terrorism charges appear to be part of a strategy to undermine the protest movement rather than respond to an actual threat to public safety. “These charges may not be meant to stick. Perhaps instead it’s meant to send a message,” she says.

We air excerpts from the funeral of Tyre Nichols, whose death on January 10 after a brutal police beating sparked protests across the country. “On the night of January 7, my brother was robbed of his life, his passions and his talents — but not his light,” said Nichols’s sister Keyana Dixon. We also feature remarks from Reverend Al Sharpton and Vice President Kamala Harris. “This violent act was not in pursuit of public safety,” said Harris. “It was not in the interest of keeping the public safe, because, one must ask: Was not it in the interest of keeping the public safe that Tyre Nichols would be with us today?”

Kamala Harris and Rev. Sharpton Join Mourners to Pay Tribute to Tyre Nichols at Memphis Funeral, Black Lives Matter, Slavery Reparations & Queer Theory Stripped From AP Black Studies Curriculum, Filipino Activists Protest Deal Granting Greater U.S. Military Access to Bases, Russian Missiles Pound Eastern Ukraine, U.S. to Send Another $2B as War Approaches One-Year Mark, Burmese Military Extends State of Emergency as “Silent Protest” Marks 2 Years Since Coup, Half a Million Teachers and Other Workers Bring U.K. to Standstill in Nationwide Strike, Iranian Court Sentences Dancing Couple to 5 Years in Prison Amid Brutal Crackdown, House GOP Moves One Step Closer to Ousting Ilhan Omar from Foreign Affairs Cmte., Fed Raises Interest Rates by 0.25%, with More Hikes Expected, NYC Police Clear Encampment of Asylum Seekers Outside Manhattan Hotel, 85+ People at Washington State Migrant Prison Go on Hunger Strike

Since last spring, nearly 42,000 asylum seekers have arrived in New York City, many sent to the state on buses against their will. The city says it has opened 77 emergency shelters and four Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Centers, but asylum seekers say the city has dragged its feet on providing job permits and permanent and humane housing. Many are now peacefully protesting outside a hotel not far from Times Square, where they were living for weeks until city officials suddenly evicted them over the weekend to move them to a remote warehouse facility in Brooklyn that contains 1,000 cots and lacks heating. Mutual aid organizers have rallied with the asylum seekers and vowed to fight the evictions. For more, we’re joined by Josh Goldfein, a staff attorney for the Legal Aid Society’s Homeless Rights Project, and Desiree Joy Frías, a community organizer with South Bronx Mutual Aid.

Mourners gathered in Memphis, Tennessee, Wednesday for the funeral of Tyre Nichols, who died on January 10, three days after being severely beaten by five police officers following a traffic stop near his home. The funeral will be held at Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church. Expected attendees include Vice President Kamala Harris and relatives of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, two other Black Americans who were killed by police violence. We discuss national responses to police violence and calls to abolish the police with two guests. Justin Hansford is a professor at Howard University School of Law and the founder and executive director of the Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center. Hansford is also the first American nominated and elected to the United Nations Permanent Forum for People of African Descent. Andrea Ritchie is a lawyer and organizer who has worked on policing and criminalization issues for over 30 years. Ritchie is the author of several books, including, most recently, “No More Police: A Case for Abolition,” co-authored with Mariame Kaba.

Community Leaders Join Tyre Nichols’s Family at Historic Mason Temple on Eve of His Funeral, Protests Erupt After California Police Shoot and Kill Black Man in Wheelchair, Atlanta Moves Ahead with “Cop City” in Face of Growing Protests, Democratic Lawmakers Urge Biden to Halt Peru Security Aid as Protester Death Toll Reaches 58, 4 Suspects in Assassination of Haiti’s President Moïse Transferred to U.S. to Face Criminal Charges, At Least 166 People Died in Afghanistan in January Due to Winter Weather, U.S. Accuses Russia of Violating New START Amid Ongoing Threat of Nuclear War, George Santos Recuses Himself from House Cmtes Pending Investigations as His Treasurer Resigns, California Unable to Find Compromise with 6 Other Western States on Colorado River Plan, EPA Issues Clean Water Act Protections for Alaska’s Bristol Bay, ExxonMobil Makes Record-Breaking $59 Billion in Profits, Greenpeace Workers Climb Aboard and Occupy Shell Platform Headed to North Sea, Emissions Gap Between Rich and Poor in Same Country Greater Than Emissions Gap Between Countries

As House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Biden prepare for their first face-to-face meeting this week to discuss raising the debt ceiling, we speak with Marxist economist Richard Wolff about why the limit on the federal government’s borrowing lets politicians avoid making hard choices about taxing the wealthy. House Republicans are pushing for major spending cuts as part of any deal to raise the federal government’s $31.4 trillion borrowing limit. “It’s 99% theatrics,” says Wolff, professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a visiting professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs of The New School. Wolff also discusses the economic impact of the Ukraine war.

We look at a new investigation into the collapse of an LGBTQ+ unit at the massive Rikers Island jail in New York City that was meant to help protect incarcerated trans women, stranding many in male units where they have been harassed and raped. The changes at Rikers came after Mayor Eric Adams appointed a new jails commissioner who pushed out leaders supportive of the unit and shelved a draft policy directive aimed at getting more trans and gender-nonconforming detainees into gender-aligned housing. Data shows trans women jailed in men’s facilities are many times more likely to be sexually assaulted than other incarcerated people. We are joined by George Joseph, a senior reporter at The City focusing on criminal justice and courts, who exposed the collapse of the unit, and by Robin Robinson, a former services coordinator with the LGBTQ+ unit at Rikers who quit in protest this past June.

Memphis police have revealed a sixth and a seventh officer have been placed on administrative leave in addition to the five fired officers over the death of Tyre Nichols, after Nichols was brutally beaten at a traffic stop. On Saturday, Memphis disbanded the police unit responsible for the killing, known as SCORPION, which stood for “Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in Our Neighborhood.” We look more closely at these so-called special police units in cities nationwide that operate with little oversight with investigative reporter Radley Balko, author of “Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces” and of the criminal justice newsletter, The Watch. His opinion piece for The New York Times is headlined “Tyre Nichols’s Death Proves Yet Again That 'Elite' Police Units Are a Disaster.”

In New York, asylum seekers are continuing to protest outside a Manhattan hotel where they’d been living for weeks, after city officials suddenly evicted them over the weekend to move them to a remote camp in Brooklyn with a thousand cots and no heat. We hear from migrants and activists fighting the eviction.

Antony Blinken Meets Palestinian Leaders After Reiterating “Ironclad” U.S. Support for Israel, Taliban Offshoot Claims Responsibility for Bombing of Pakistani Police Compound, Amnesty: Iranian Protesters Were Denied Fair Trials and Tortured Before Their Death Sentences, White House Will End COVID-19 Emergency Declarations in May, Memphis Fire Department Terminates 3 Who Responded to Tyre Nichols’ Violent Arrest, Family Calls for Federal Civil Rights Probe into Newark Police Killing of Carl Dorsey, New Zealand Prime Minister Blames Climate Change for Record Flooding, Missing Mexican Environmentalists’ Families Accuse Mining Company of Complicity, Manhattan DA Revives Probe into Trump’s Hush Money Payments to Stormy Daniels, French Labor Unions Lead Massive Protests Against Proposed Cuts to Pension Benefits, U.K. Unions Prepare Mass Protests as Conservative MPs Support Anti-Strike Legislation

A New Jersey grand jury has decided not to indict Newark Police Detective Rod Simpkins in the fatal shooting of an unarmed Black man named Carl Dorsey on New Year’s Day 2021 in Newark, New Jersey. The decision last week came after an investigation by the state attorney general into Dorsey’s death has dragged out, even though his family says the facts are clear: He was shot dead by Simpkins, who was undercover and in an unmarked police minivan and in plainclothes when he arrived at the scene after reportedly hearing gunshots. Within seconds of exiting his car, Simpkins fired his gun at Dorsey, and it is unclear if he first announced himself as a police officer. Now Larry Hamm, chair of the People’s Organization for Progress, says he and the family of Dorsey are calling for the U.S. attorney to launch a civil rights investigation into his death.

Memphis police released disturbing footage on Friday showing the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols by five former police officers who now face murder charges over the 29-year-old Black father’s death. The videos show officers kicked, punched, electrocuted and struck Nichols with batons for several minutes while he offered almost no resistance. It took more than 22 minutes for medics to appear on site and treat Nichols, who died three days later from his injuries. Memphis has since disbanded the SCORPION police unit that the five ex-officers belonged to and which was known for its aggressive practices, but activists are calling for deeper changes, including the end of qualified immunity that shields police officers from being sued by victims and their families. Larry Hamm, chair of the People’s Organization for Progress, and DeRay Mckesson, executive director of Campaign Zero, join us for a discussion about Tyre Nichols, police violence and more.

U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken is in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories amid an alarming rise in violence, with Israel killing at least 35 Palestinians since the beginning of January. The deadliest incident occurred on Thursday, when Israeli forces raided the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank, killing 10 people, including two children — the deadliest Israeli raid in the West Bank in two decades. A day later, a Palestinian gunman shot dead seven people in occupied East Jerusalem, targeting worshipers observing the Sabbath. Israelis living in illegal settlements in the West Bank responded by carrying out scores of attacks on Palestinians as the far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, vowed to make it easier for Israelis to get guns. We speak with Israeli activist and journalist Orly Noy, in Jerusalem, and Palestinian American scholar Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia University.

Blinken in Middle East Amid Mounting Violence Following Jenin Raid and Attack on Jewish Worshipers, Iran Says It Foiled Israeli Drone Attack on Isfahan Military Site, Suicide Bomber Kills Dozens, Wounds 150 in Attack on Mosque in Peshawar, Pakistan, Memphis Police Department Releases Video Showing How Officers Killed Tyre Nichols, Ukraine Calls on Allies to Send Long-Range Missiles and Fighter Jets, OPCW Blames Syrian Military for Chlorine Gas Attack on Douma in 2018, Tunisians Boycott Parliamentary Elections Following President Kais Saied’s Power Grab, Maldives’ Mohamed Nasheed Refuses to Concede Primary Election Defeat, Claiming Fraud, Brazil: Lula Declares Public Health Emergency for Yanomami, Accuses Bolsonaro of “Genocide”, Utah Bans Gender-Affirming Care for Transgender Youth, Mass Shooting Near Beverly Hills Is California’s 6th in 13 Days, Jan. 6 Rioter Who Assaulted Brian Sicknick Sentenced to 80 Months in Prison

A day after prosecutors charged five former Memphis police officers with murder over the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols, we speak with his parents, RowVaughn and Rodney Wells, about their drive to seek justice for their son. “He had a beautiful soul, and he touched everyone,” RowVaughn Wells says of her son. Nichols was a 29-year-old Black father, amateur photographer and longtime skateboarder who died January 10 from kidney failure and cardiac arrest, three days after he was brutally beaten by the five officers during a traffic stop. The officers were fired earlier this month and indicted on Thursday with second-degree murder, kidnapping and other charges for their role in Nichols’s death. We also speak with civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is representing the family.

Amid nationwide protests, prosecutors have charged five former Memphis police officers with murder in the death of Tyre Nichols, who died January 10 of kidney failure and cardiac arrest after a vicious beating three days earlier during a traffic stop. Memphis and other cities across the U.S. are expecting mass protests against police violence over the weekend, with body-camera footage of the deadly traffic stop set to be released Friday evening. We go to Memphis for an update from community organizer Amber Sherman, a member of the Memphis chapter of Black Lives Matter, who says police brutality is nothing new for many residents. “It’s literally just being caught on camera,” Sherman says. “We have experienced this same kind of violence over and over and over again in our communities.”

Five Fired Memphis Police Officers Arrested for Murder of Tyre Nichols, Georgia Gov. Declares State of Emergency, Calls Up National Guard Amid “Cop City” Protests, Haitian Police Blockade Port-au-Prince Streets After Gangs Kill 14 Officers, Israel Bombs Gaza Strip One Day After Israeli Forces Kill 9 in West Bank Raid, Democratic Lawmakers Slam Biden for Mass Expulsion of Migrants at U.S. Border, NYT: Bill Barr Pushed Trump-Russia Investigator to Use False Russian Intelligence Claims, Chevron to Buy Back $75 Billion in Own Stock After Posting Record Profits in 2022, Dutch Police Arrest Climate Activists Ahead of Planned Peaceful Protests, 450+ Groups Condemn Choice of Oil Executive to Lead COP28 U.N. Climate Summit, ICC Resumes Probe of Philippines’ Deadly “War on Drugs”, California Farm Where Four Were Murdered Had Another Shooting Last Year, President Biden Repeats Call for Assault Weapons Ban, Warns Against Anti-Asian Hate