Democracy Now!

At the Munich Security Conference, Vice President Kamala Harris announced the United States has formally determined Russia committed crimes against humanity in Ukraine. Her remarks come amid a “massive justice mobilization” in Ukraine, where investigators are documenting abuses and seeking to prosecute Russian soldiers and leaders, says Reed Brody, a veteran war crimes prosecutor and former counsel for Human Rights Watch. Brody notes that for international law to have force, it must apply to powerful countries including the United States. “You can’t have it both ways. The tools of international justice should not only be aimed at enemies and outcasts,” says Brody.

President Biden made a surprise visit to Ukraine ahead of this week’s first anniversary of Russia’s invasion and announced another $500 million in military aid to Ukraine and more sanctions on Russia. The visit underlines what Biden called his “unwavering support” for Ukrainian independence at a time when growing numbers of people in the United States and other countries are pushing for a negotiated end to the fighting. “For an American president to make a trip like this is enormously symbolic,” says Matt Duss, visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and former Bernie Sanders adviser. “I feel this is a propaganda move to shore up support for a senseless war that the American public are starting to realize has no end in sight except for more senseless waste of lives,” says CodePink co-founder Medea Benjamin.

Biden Visits Ukraine, Pledges More Weapons Ahead of First Anniversary of Russian Invasion, Europe to Increase Flow of Weapons to Ukraine as Peace Protesters Call for Diplomacy Over War, Kamala Harris Accuses Russia of Crimes Against Humanity, Warns Beijing Against Supporting Russia, Japan, U.S., South Korea Threaten More Sanctions After N. Korea Ballistic Missile Drills, Turkey Winding Down Earthquake Rescue Operations as Anger Grows over Scale of Deaths & Destruction, Thousands Protest as Extreme-Right Israeli Gov’t Presses Ahead with Attack on Judiciary, Israeli Airstrikes Kill 15 in Damascus; U.S. Says It Killed ISIS Leader in Syria Raid, 18 Afghan Refugees Found Dead Inside Abandoned Truck in Bulgaria, Tunisia Expels European Trade Union Official Amid Crackdown by President Kais Saied, Extreme Weather Kills 36 in Brazil; Death Toll from New Zealand Cyclone Rises to 11, Asylum Seekers at Two California ICE Detention Centers Hold Hunger Strike, For-Profit Prison Corporation CoreCivic Sued for Death of Bahamian Immigrant, Five Memphis Ex-Cops Plead Not Guilty to Murdering Tyre Nichols, U.S. Logs 80th Mass Shooting of 2023 After Another Bloody Weekend of Gun Violence, Fox News Officials Pushed Conspiracy Theories About 2020 Election They Didn’t Believe, Former President Jimmy Carter, 98, Enters Hospice Care

The new Brazilian government recently conducted operations to expel thousands of illegal gold miners from Indigenous Yanomami land in the Amazon rainforest. The miners have caused a humanitarian crisis among the Yanomami who have suffered from severe malnutrition and illness from illegal mining operations that have polluted rivers and destroyed forests. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva recently accused Jair Bolsonaro’s far-right government of committing genocide against the Yanomami people. Bolsonaro, who is expected to return to Brazil from Florida next month, could face genocide charges for his actions. Democracy Now! spoke to Davi Kopenawa Yanomami, a leader and shaman for the Yanomami people, while he was in Washington, D.C., last week. Yanomami says he supports the prosecution of Bolsonaro.

Last Friday, the State Department announced the nomination of James Cavallaro, a widely respected human rights attorney, to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. But earlier this week, the State Department withdrew Cavallaro’s nomination after reports emerged that he had described Israel as an apartheid state and had criticized House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’s close ties to AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Defending the withdrawal of Cavallaro’s nomination, State Department spokesperson Ned Price said, “His statements clearly do not reflect U.S. policy. They are not a reflection of what we believe, and they are inappropriate to say the least.” The decision has sparked outrage within the human rights community. Cavallaro joins us to explain that this move by the Biden administration is particularly troubling because the role he was nominated for does not have any authority over U.S.-Israel relations and is an independent position.

We look at the failures that led to the massive train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, that blanketed the town with a toxic brew of spilled chemicals and gases, fouling the air, polluting waterways and killing thousands of fish and frogs. Residents are suffering ailments including respiratory distress, sore throats, burning eyes and rashes, all with unknown long-term consequences. Many say they do not trust officials who tell them it is safe to return to their homes. This catastrophe could have been prevented, had it not been for lax regulation and the outsized lobbying power of corporations like Norfolk Southern, says Matthew Cunningham-Cook, a researcher and writer at The Lever who is part of a team that is reporting on the disaster.

Ukraine’s Zelensky Rules Out Trading Territory for Peace, U.N. Appeals for $1 Billion for Turkey Earthquake Relief, World Food Programme Plans to Slash Food Aid to Rohingya Refugees, Biden Remarks on Unidentified Objects Shot Down Over North America, Israel Approves Law Allowing Palestinians to Be Stripped of Citizenship and Deported, U.S. Won’t Rule Out Veto of U.N. Resolution on Illegal Israeli Settlements, Georgia Grand Jury Finds Evidence of Perjury in Testimony on Trump’s Bid to Overturn 2020 Election , 2024 Presidential Hopeful Nikki Haley Calls for “Mental Competency Tests” for Older Politicians, PA Sen. John Fetterman Seeks Treatment for Depression , Jeremy Corbyn Barred from Running on Labour Ticket in U.K., Nicola Sturgeon Resigns as Scottish Leader Amid Challenges over Independence, NYT Writers Call Out Newspaper’s Bias in Coverage of Transgender Issues, Norfolk Southern Train Derails in Michigan as EPA Chief Visits Site of Toxic Ohio Crash, Tesla Recalls 360,000 Self-Driving Cars; Worker Organizers Accuse EV Maker of Retaliatory Firings, NY Senate Votes Down Gov. Hochul’s Judicial Pick After Backlash from Unions, Rights Groups

Hundreds of residents of East Palestine, Ohio, packed into their first town hall meeting Wednesday night after a train carrying hazardous materials derailed and a “controlled” burn sent a mushroom cloud of toxic chemicals into the air. Many said they distrusted the train operator Norfolk Southern and their elected officials, who told residents the air and water were safe last Wednesday. We get an update from Emily Wright, development director for River Valley Organizing, which is working with residents to call for justice-centered healing.

Soaring inflation and devalued currencies have created a catastrophic debt crisis for much of the world, including in countries like Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt, Sri Lanka and Pakistan. Malaysian economist Jomo Kwame Sundaram says the instability is largely driven by interest rate hikes by the U.S. Federal Reserve, which have the effect of increasing borrowing costs for poorer countries and devaluing their currencies compared to the U.S. dollar. The intensifying U.S. economic war on China is also hurting many countries of the Global South that are linked to Chinese industry, he says.

We get an update on last week’s earthquakes from Turkish parliament member Hişyar Özsoy, in the Kurdish-majority city of Diyarbakır in southern Turkey, who says the devastation there reflects a lack of planning and regulation that led to so many buildings collapsing. “This is not a natural disaster in Turkey. It is a human-made disaster,” says Özsoy.

The death toll from the massive earthquakes that struck Turkey and Syria on February 6 is nearing 42,000 and continues to rise as many face a lack of shelter and access to aid. The effects are especially dire in northwest Syria, which was already facing a humanitarian crisis prior to the earthquakes after nearly 12 years of war. Othman Moqbel, CEO of Action For Humanity, the parent charity of Syria Relief, says other countries must do more to support Syrians. “We have [a] duty to support them. The international community needs to do more,” he says, adding that sanctions on Syria are further hampering the delivery of aid.

Earthquake Death Toll Reaches 42,000 As Aid Workers Condemn US-Led Sanctions on Syria, Russian Journalist Maria Ponomarenko Sentenced to 6 Years in Prison Amid Crackdown on War Reporting, Buffalo Supermarket Shooter Gets Life in Prison Without Parole for Racist Massacre, One Killed, Three Injured Near Site of 2019 Racist Mass Shooting in El Paso, TX, Father Indicted for Helping Son Get Guns Used in Highland Park Mass Shooting, Michigan State University Students Hold Sit-In Protest to Demand Gun Controls, Special Counsel Subpoenas Mark Meadows in Jan. 6 Probe, Georgia Court Orders Partial Release of Grand Jury Findings on Trump and 2020 Election, Virginia Republicans Thwart Bill to Safeguard People’s Private Menstrual Data, 73 People Presumed Dead After Migrant Boat Deflates off Libyan Coast, Bus Carrying Migrants Plunges off Cliff in Panama, Killing at Least 39 People, Antarctica’s “Doomsday Glacier” Headed for Collapse, Portending Disastrous Sea Level Rise, World Bank President to Resign Early Amid Backlash to Climate Crisis Denial

The Michigan State University community is in mourning after a mass shooting on campus Monday in which a gunman killed three students and severely wounded five more. In response to Monday’s killings, both Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and President Joe Biden have called for tighter gun laws to restrict the purchase of weapons. Monday’s bloodshed came just a day before the fifth anniversary of the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, highlighting the ever-present risk of gun violence in the lives of young people in the United States. “Young people now experience gun violence multiple times throughout our lives,” says gun violence prevention advocate Robert Schentrup, whose sister Carmen was killed in the 2018 Parkland massacre. We also speak with pediatrician Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, who teaches at Michigan State and says gun violence must be seen as a public health crisis. “The number one killer of children is guns,” says Dr. Hanna-Attisha.

When the Nord Stream pipelines carrying natural gas from Russia to Germany were damaged last September, U.S. officials were quick to suggest Russia had bombed its own pipelines. But according to a new report by the legendary investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, it was the U.S. Navy that carried out the sabotage, with help from Norway. Citing a source “with direct knowledge of the operational planning,” Hersh writes on his Substack blog that planning for the mission began in December of 2021. The White House and the Norwegian government have since denied the claims. Hersh joins us for an in-depth interview to discuss his report and says the U.S. decision to bomb the pipelines was meant to lock allies into support for Ukraine at a time when some were wavering. “The fear was Europe would walk away from the war,” he says. Hersh won a Pulitzer Prize in 1970 for his reporting on the My Lai massacre. His reporting on CIA spying on antiwar activists during the Vietnam War era helped lead to the formation of the Church Committee, which led to major reforms of the intelligence community, and in 2004, he exposed the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal in Iraq.

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.