Democracy Now!

Since Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted under claims of self-defense for fatally shooting two people and wounding a third during racial justice protests last year in Kenosha, Wisconsin, another case in the city is drawing new national attention. Human rights advocates are calling for charges to be dropped in the case of Chrystul Kizer, who faces homicide and other charges for killing her white sex trafficker in 2018 after he drugged her and tried to rape her when she was just 17-years-old. Court records show police knew Randall Volar had a history of sexually abusing underage Black girls. Although the court initially ruled Kizer could not use a self-defense argument, an appellate court reversed the decision and the Wisconsin Supreme Court will now consider the ruling. "It has huge ramifications for her, but it also has a huge potential impact for other victims of trafficking," says reporter Anne Branigin. "We have a very clear case where we are not receiving the same support, the same outcry from folks who got behind Kyle Rittenhouse to defend this young Black woman," says Wisconsin state representative David Bowen. "She was trying to defend herself to get out of the sex trafficking she was being abused with."

After a Georgia jury reached a verdict of "guilty" in the closely watched trial of three white men who chased and fatally shot 25-year-old unarmed Black man Ahmaud Arbery, many activists and racial justice advocates following the case have expressed some relief in hearing the conviction. We speak with Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza, who says while it might feel important that the murders were held accountable for their actions, "justice would be that Ahmaud Arbery would still be with us today." Garza also discusses the broader context of other trials of white supremacists, like Kyle Rittenhouse, and the role the federal government can play. "Unfortunately, I think the Biden-Harris administration could have been a lot stronger in their condemnation of this kind of behavior and activity," says Garza. "But what we saw was actually more of a milquetoast response, which is especially concerning in this political context of white nationalism and a rise in vigilantism."

We go to Cape Town, South Africa, to speak with a leading health justice advocate about how scientists in the country have identified a new Omicron coronavirus variant, and the World Health Organization warns it could be more transmissible than previous variants. Against the advice of the WHO, several countries have closed their borders to foreign travelers. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa criticized the travel bans and called on wealthy nations to help poorer nations gain greater access to COVID vaccines. The bans are "actually quite racist," says Fatima Hassan, founder and director of Health Justice Initiative. "We need to urgently … vaccinate as many people in Africa as possible."

South Africa Blasts Travel Bans As Countries Race to Curb Spread of Omicron Variant, Federal Govt Sends Health Workers to Michigan, Which Leads U.S. COVID Surge, Jury Finds Ahmaud Arbery's Three White Killers Guilty of Murder, Shipwreck Kills 27 Refugees in Largest Recorded Tragedy in English Channel, Opposition Leader Xiomara Castro Claims Victory After Record Turnout in Honduras Election, Ukraine's Zelensky Says He is Target of Imminent Coup as Allies Warn of Possible Russian Invasion, High Death Toll Reported as Ethiopian Soldiers Press Offensive in Afar Region, Oil Well Rupture Leaves Niger Delta Residents Hungry and Homeless, Police Use Violence to Suppress Protests Demanding Elimination of Violence Against Women, Rep. Ilhan Omar Calls on Congressional Leaders to Punish Rep. Boebert Over Anti-Muslim Remarks, Amazon Faces Climate Protests and Labor Actions on Black Friday

We speak with Mansoor Adayfi, a former Guantánamo Bay detainee who was held at the military prison for 14 years without charge, an ordeal he details in his new memoir, "Don't Forget Us Here: Lost and Found at Guantánamo." Adayfi was 18 when he left his home in Yemen to do research in Afghanistan, where he was kidnapped by Afghan warlords, then sold to the CIA after the 9/11 attacks. Adayfi describes being brutally tortured in Afghanistan before he was transported to Guantánamo in 2002, where he became known as Detainee #441 and survived years of abuse. Adayfi was released against his will to Serbia in 2016 and now works as the Guantánamo Project coordinator at CAGE, an organization that advocates on behalf of victims of the war on terror. "The purpose of Guantánamo wasn't about making Americans safe," says Adayfi, who describes the facility as a "black hole" with no legal protections. "The system was designed to strip us of who we are. Even our names were taken."

Democracy Now! first aired on nine community radio stations on February 19, 1996, on the eve of the New Hampshire presidential primary. In the 25 years since that initial broadcast, the program has greatly expanded, airing today on more than 1,500 television and radio stations around the globe and reaching millions of people online. We celebrate 25 years of The War and Peace Report with an hour-long retrospective, including highlights from the show's early years, some of the most controversial interviews, and groundbreaking reports from East Timor, Standing Rock, Western Sahara and more.

As Democrats in Congress struggle to pass the $1.75 trillion Build Back Better Act, there is large bipartisan consensus in the U.S. Congress to spend over $7 trillion over the next 10 years in military spending. The United States spends more each year on defense than China, Russia, India, the U.K., Germany, France, Japan, South Korea, and Australia combined. "Democrats have to engage in theater about human rights and international law and due process, but they ultimately, at the end of the day, are just as aggressive as Republicans," says investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill of the Intercept. His most recent piece is titled, "The War Party: From Bush to Obama, and Trump to Biden, U.S. Militarism Is the Great Unifier." We also speak with Scahill about the Biden administration’s ongoing persecution of military whistleblowers, including Daniel Hale.

The survivor of a serial rapist who received probation joins us to speak out after a New York judge sparked international outrage when he ruled it is inappropriate to jail the man who attacked her. Christopher Belter pleaded guilty to raping and sexually assaulting her along with three other teenage girls age 15 and 16, but he will avoid serving time in prison, and instead receive 8 years of probation. Belter is white, and from a prominent family who lives in a wealthy neighborhood near Niagara Falls. "This sentencing is telling rapists it's OK to rape and telling victims that there’s no point in coming forward," says Mara. Her lawyer Steven Cohen of the HoganWillig law firm notes a non-white defendant who pleaded guilty to these crimes would "absolutely and appropriately be in prison."

**Update on Nov. 24:** _Jurors on Wednesday afternoon returned guilty verdicts against all three of the white men charged with killing 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery in February 2020. Travis McMichael fired the fatal shots and was convicted on all counts, including the charge of malice murder. His father Gregory McMichael, a former police officer, and neighbor William "Roddie" Bryan were convicted of felony murder and other charges._As the jury deliberates in the trial of the three white men charged with hunting down and murdering 25-year-old Black jogger Ahmaud Arbery, we speak with Nicole Lewis, Senior editor of Jurisprudence at Slate about her piece titled, "Why Are Ahmaud Arbery’s Killers So Scared?" She says claims of self-defense from armed white people serve as a "racist dog whistle," and that it is inevitably a one-sided trial when "the McMichaels are the only ones [surviving] that get to claim they’re scared."

A federal jury has ordered a group of white supremacists to pay over $26 million in damages for their role in organizing the deadly 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. "Is bankrupting these organizations, is bankrupting these individuals enough to actually stop the growing threat … of white supremacy and Nazism in the United States?" asks Slate senior editor Nicole Lewis. "I don’t think so." Lewis also discusses the Ahmaud Arbery murder case and why claims of self-defense from armed white people serve as a "racist dog whistle." She says it’s inevitably a one-sided trial when "the McMichaels are the only ones [surviving] that get to claim they’re scared."

We feature dramatic video footage just released that shows a violent raid Friday by Canadian federal police on one of the camps set up to keep Coastal GasLink out of sovereign Indigenous territory. Fifteen people in total were arrested, including two journalists. Wet'suwet'en land defender Sleydo', also known as Molly Wickham, has now been released. The new footage was filmed by documentary filmmaker Michael Toledano, who was also just released. The raid ended a 56-day blockade of the drilling site. The 400-mile pipeline within Wet’suwet’en land violates both Indigenous and Canadian laws.

Jury Finds "Unite the Right" Organizers Responsible for Deadly Violence, House Cmte Subpoenas Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers Over Jan. 6 Insurrection, Georgia Jury Deliberates For Second Day In Murder Trial of Men Who Killed Ahmaud Arbery, Kevin Strickland Exonerated and Freed 43 Years After He Was Wrongfully Convicted by All-White Jury, Ethiopian State TV: Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Has Gone to Battlefront in Escalating Conflict, Chun Doo Hwan, U.S.-Backed, Ex-Military Dictator in South Korea, Has Died, Portugal Shutters Last Coal-Fired Plant, U.S. and Other Nations To Tap Oil Reserves In Attempt To Lower Consumer Fuel Prices, Apple Sues Israeli Spyware Firm NSO Group, Federal Jury Finds CVS, Walgreens and Walmart Responsible For Fueling Ohio's Opioid Crisis, Survivors and Families of 2018 Parkland Massacre Settle For $130 Million With DOJ, New York City Poised To Expand Voting Rights to 800,000 Non-Citizen Residents in Local Elections, Malikah Shabazz, One of Malcolm X's 6 Daughters, Found Dead in NYC Home, Indigenous Activist Amber Ortega Faces Prison Time For Protecting Ancestral Lands

We feature an excerpt from our recent interview with world-renowned scholar and political dissident Noam Chomsky about how the Biden administration is continuing a reckless foreign policy, despite taking a softer tone than the Trump administration. "The trajectory is not optimistic," Chomsky says. "The worst case is the increasing provocative actions towards China. That's very dangerous." Chomsky will join us on our 25th anniversary online celebration on the evening of December 7.

Amid a right-wing attack on teaching critical race theory, we speak in-depth with Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, creator of the New York Times Magazine’s 1619 Project, which reframes U.S. history by marking the year when the first enslaved Africans arrived on Virginia soil as the foundational date for the United States. The project launched in 2019, and has been expanded into an anthology of 18 essays along with poems and short stories, even as several states have attempted to ban it from school curriculums. “We should all as Americans be deeply, deeply concerned about these anti-history laws because what they’re really trying to do is control our memory and to control our understanding of our country,” says Hannah-Jones. Hannah-Jones’s new book that she co-edited is out this month, titled “The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story,” along with an adaptation of the 1619 Project for children, “Born On The Water.” Hannah-Jones describes the role of her own teachers in opening her eyes beyond the usual curriculum that excluded the history she has now uplifted. She also discusses the trial of the murderers of Ahmaud Arbery, and how she felt when she won the Pulitzer Prize on the same day as one of her heroines, the formerly enslaved pioneering anti-lynching journalist, Ida B. Wells.

Jury to Decide Fate of Three White Men Charged With Murdering Black Jogger Ahmaud Arbery, Yemeni Protesters Condemn U.S. Support for Saudi-Led War and Blockade, Senators Move to Block Biden's Planned $650M Weapons Sale to Saudi Arabia, U.S. COVID-19 Cases Surge Ahead of Thanksgiving Holiday, Israel Arrests Relatives of Palestinian Man Behind Jerusalem Attack, El Salvador President Plans "Bitcoin City" as Government Cracks Down on NGOs, Driver of SUV That Plowed into Wisconsin Parade Has Record of Domestic Violence, Trump Allies Roger Stone and Alex Jones Subpoenaed by January 6th Panel, U.S. Added to List of "Backsliding Democracies" for First Time , Biden Renominates Jerome Powell as Federal Reserve Chair, NY Lawmakers Find "Overwhelming Evidence" Andrew Cuomo Sexually Harassed Women, Florida Exonerates Four Black Men Falsely Accused of Raping White Woman in 1949

The parents of Anthony Huber, one of two men killed by Kyle Rittenhouse, say they are heartbroken and angry over the jury’s Friday verdict, and argue it failed to deliver justice for any of Rittenhouse's victims. In a statement Friday, they said: “Make no mistake: our fight to hold those responsible for Anthony’s death accountable continues in full force.” Rittenhouse shot and killed 26-year-old Huber within seconds after Huber attempted to disarm the gunman by hitting him with a skateboard. “Huber stepped in to try to stop this person. And in almost any scenario we call that person a hero,” says Anand Swaminathan, the attorney representing Huber’s parents, who have filed a federal lawsuit against the ​​Kenosha Police Department, the Kenosha County Sheriff’s Department as well as the sheriff and police chief.

Jacob Blake Sr., whose son was shot by Kenosha police in 2020 and left partially paralyzed, says the family is part of a larger movement fighting for victims of police violence and racial injustice. "We were always pro-Black activists and then after this happened to my son, we’ve become activists for everyone who’s been affected," he says. The Blake family has a long history of activism going back to the civil rights movement and beyond. Justin Blake, Jacob Blake's uncle, says it's in the family's DNA. "We cannot sit down, we must make change.”

In Missouri, white Kansas City police detective Eric DeValkenaere was found guilty Friday of fatally shooting Cameron Lamb, a Black man, who was backing his truck into his garage in December of 2019. DeValkenaere, who had no arrest warrant nor evidence of a crime at the time of shooting, was convicted of second-degree involuntary manslaughter and armed criminal action. The jury decision was unexpected and may set a precedent for future cases in Missouri. The jury system “worked in Kansas City for the first time in 147 years,” says Jacob Blake Sr., who has been supporting Lamb’s family. “We should have that national coverage because that's a victory.”

Protests erupted nationwide after a jury in Kenosha, Wisconsin, acquitted Kyle Rittenhouse on all five counts for fatally shooting two people and wounding a third last year during protests sparked by the police shooting that left Jacob Blake paralyzed. Kyle Rittenhouse claimed he acted in self-defense when he killed Anthony Huber and Joseph Rosenbaum with an AR-15-style rifle. The jury's decision was announced Friday afternoon after about 26 hours of deliberations. To discuss the significance of their verdict, we speak with Jacob Blake Sr. and Justin Blake, the father and uncle of Jacob Blake, who protested outside the trial of Rittenhouse everyday. “This is a tragedy and a slap in the face to all the families that are involved. It made a mockery of the judicial system,” says Justin Blake. “The system of justice works if I look like Kyle Rittenhouse. It does not work if I look like Jacob Blake,” says Jacob Blake Sr. The Blakes say their family had predicted a not guilty outcome. Jacob Blake Sr. also responds to the Biden’s administration’s decision to not seek federal charges against the police officer who shot his son.

Wisconsin Jury Acquits Kyle Rittenhouse For Killing 2 People, Injuring a Third, Serial Rapist Who Pleaded Guilty To Sexually Assaulting 4 Teenagers Avoids Any Jail Time, White Missouri Police Detective Found Guilty in Fatal Shooting of Black Man, SUV Plows Through Christmas Parade in Waukesha, WI, Killing 5 People, Wounding At Least 40, Europe Sees Massive Protests Against COVID Restrictions As Cases Surge, U.S. Regulators Approve COVID Boosters For All Adults as Officials Warn of Possible Winter Surge, Sudan's Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok Reinstated As Teenager Killed in Ongoing Anti-Coup Protests, Chinese Tennis Star Peng Shuai Appears in Videos and Photos As Concerns Over Safety Remain, Chile Presidential Runoff Will Pit Far-Right Populist Against Progressive Student Protest Leader, Venezuelan Regional Elections Hand Victory to Party of President Nicolás Maduro, Haitian Criminal Gang Frees Two of 17 North American Missionaries Held Hostage, Somali Journalist Abdiaziz Mohamud Guled Killed by Suicide Bomber, Greek Court Delays Trial of Humanitarians Facing "Trumped-Up" Charges for Helping Refugees, House of Representatives Approves $2 Trillion, Ten-Year Build Back Better Bill, Denver Airport Janitors Win Big Wage Increases After Strike

Wielding assault rifles, helicopters and canine units, Canadian police raided Wet'suwet'en territory this week and arrested 14 people in an effort to break up the Indigenous-led blockade of the multibillion-dollar Coastal GasLink pipeline being constructed by TC Energy. The occupation started in September and halted the company's efforts to build a key portion of the over 400-mile pipeline within Wet'suwet'en lands that violates both Wet'suwet'en and Canadian laws. We speak with land defender and matriarch of the Gidimt'en Clan of Wet'suwet'en Nation Molly Wickham, one of the witnesses to the police raid. "This project does not have free, prior, informed consent of the Wet'suwet'en people," says Wickham. "It's as if we don't exist as Indigenous people and that we don't have our own governance and that we don't have our own system of law."

We look at how the fossil fuel industry is shaping children's education in the United States. The Texas State Board of Education is set to vote on whether or not new science standards for middle schoolers should include climate change. The language they choose will ultimately dictate how textbooks nationwide address the issue. The board already watered down the standards after fierce lobbying by fossil fuel companies, despite urging from climate scientists that school curriculums should reflect how human activity, such as the release of greenhouse gases, has affected the climate. We speak with investigative reporter Katie Worth, who visited schools across the United States and found corporate and political interests are blocking the truth about the climate crisis from being taught in classrooms. Her new book is "Miseducation: How Climate Change Is Taught in America." "There's a long history of the fossil fuel industry trying to get their messages to children, because that shapes how future generations will think about their industry and how they will regulate their industry," says Worth.

We speak to legendary activist and scholar Angela Davis about the latest war waged by ultraconservative lawmakers against teaching the racist history of the United States. North Dakota's Republican Governor Doug Burgum signed legislation banning the teaching of critical race theory, defining it as any suggestion that racism is systemically embedded in American society. The law prohibits even discussion of the law in state schools. Critics say the ban also endangers honest narratives of slavery, redlining and the civil rights movement. "What we are witnessing are efforts on the part of the forces of white supremacy to regain a control which they more or less had in the past," says Davis.

We speak with independent researcher Abdur-Rahman Muhammad, whose work is featured in the Netflix documentary "Who Killed Malcolm X?" and helped ignite widespread public support for two men falsely convicted of assassinating the civil rights activist in 1965. Muhammad was in the courtroom this week as a judge exonerated 83-year-old Muhammad Aziz and the late Khalil Islam due to revelations uncovered by the Manhattan District Attorney's Office and the Innocence Project that key evidence was withheld at the trial. Aziz has maintained his innocence and addressed the court after he finally received an official apology, saying his false conviction was "the result of a process that was corrupt to its core." Muhammad says being in the courtroom was "surreal." "To watch the government admit that these brothers were sent to prison for a crime they didn't commit was stunning."

House to Vote on Build Back Better Act After Filibuster-Style Delay by Republican Leader, Julius Jones Granted Clemency Hours Before Scheduled Execution, Henry Montgomery, Sentenced to Life Term at 17, Leaves Angola Prison on Parole, Belarus Shelters Some Asylum Seekers on Polish Border, Deports Iraqi Refugees, As COVID Surges in Europe, Austria Orders New Lockdown and National Vaccine Mandate, 18,000 Cut Off by Flooding in British Columbia; Millions of Kenyans at Risk of Hunger Amid Drought, Amazon Deforestation in Brazil Hits 15-Year Peak; Indigenous Groups in Ecuador Oppose Mining Plans, Delhi School Shutdown Expanded as Toxic Haze Blankets Indian Capital, Narendra Modi Renounces Indian Agricultural Reform After a Year of Farmers' Protests, Chinese Tennis Star Peng Shuai Has Not Been Seen in Weeks After Posting About Assault by Politician, Travis McMichael Admits Ahmaud Arbery Never Threatened Him as Defense Rests , Aurora, CO to Pay $15 Million Settlement to Family of Elijah McClain, GOP Sen. John Kennedy Uses "Red Scare" Tactics to Discredit Biden Treasury Nominee

In an extended interview, we speak with archeologist David Wengrow, who co-authored the new book "The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity" with the late anthropologist David Graeber. The book examines how Indigenous cultures contributed greatly to what we have come to understand as so-called Western ideas of democracy and equality, but argues these contributions have been erased from history. "What the broad sweep of history shows is that living in large-scale, densely populated, technologically sophisticated societies really doesn't require people to simply give up social freedoms," says Wengrow. The two completed the book just weeks before Graeber died unexpectedly last year at the age of 59. Graeber is credited with helping to coin the phrase "We are the 99%." His book "Debt: The First 5,000 Years" made the case for sweeping debt cancellation.

Jurors in Charlottesville, Virginia, are hearing closing arguments today in a civil trial that seeks to hold white supremacists accountable for organizing the deadly "Unite the Right" rally there in 2017 and conspiring to commit racially motivated violence. Two of the white supremacists have been defending themselves in the courtroom: Richard Spencer and Christopher Cantwell. They took the stand Tuesday and tried unsuccessfully to have the judge dismiss the case for lack of evidence, even as they used racial slurs during the trial. Jurors are expected to begin deliberations Friday. Both Spencer and Cantwell have "failed utterly to take responsibility for the roles they played," says Slate legal correspondent Dahlia Lithwick, who lived in Charlottesville during the 2017 rally and is reporting on the trial, which is not being broadcast. She also discusses the homicide trial of white teenage gunman Kyle Rittenhouse and the broad use of the "self-defense" argument by white supremacists on trial.

Republican Congressmember Paul Gosar is the first lawmaker to be censured in more than a decade for posting an animated video on social media where he murders Congressmember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and attacks President Biden. The U.S. House of Representatives also voted Tuesday to censure Gosar and strip him of committee assignments. He has refused to apologize, and after the vote he retweeted the video. Speaking from the House floor before the vote, Congressmember Ocasio-Cortez said, "This is not about me. This is not about Representative Gosar. This is about what we are willing to accept." The co-sponsor of the censure vote, Congressmember Jackie Speier of California, said, "Congressmember Ocasio-Cortez has become the go-to subject of the radical right to stir up their base, as too often is the case for women of color."

White House Plan Would Expand U.S. Vaccine Production by One Billion Doses a Year, House Censures Arizona Republican Rep. Paul Gosar for Violent Video Targeting AOC, "QAnon Shaman" Jacob Chansley Gets 41 Month Prison Term for Role in Capitol Riot, Attorneys for Teen Gunman Kyle Rittenhouse Ask Judge to Declare Mistrial, Travis McMichael, Who Shot and Killed Ahmaud Arbery, Testifies in Own Defense , Students Walk Out of Oklahoma Schools to Protest Planned Execution of Julius Jones, Two Men Convicted of Killing Malcolm X Will Be Exonerated, Biden Administration to Hold Massive Auction for Oil and Gas Leases in Gulf of Mexico, Biden to Host "Three Amigos" Summit With Leaders of Mexico and Canada , Bernie Sanders Blasts Record-Shattering Pentagon Budget Proposal , Sudanese Military Continue Deadly Crackdown on Protests, Bringing Death Toll Since Coup to 39, 200+ Voting Rights Demonstrators Arrested Outside White House, John Deere Workers End Strike After Winning Wage Increases and Bonuses, U.S. Overdose Deaths Topped 100,000 in One Year For First Time Ever, Nat'l Book Awards Go to Jason Mott for Fiction, Tiya Miles for Non-Fiction, Martín Espada for Poetry

Activists are criticizing the British government for excluding Western Sahara, occupied by Morocco since 1975, from the U.N. climate summit in Scotland. Meanwhile, Morocco is counting renewable energy developments in Western Sahara toward its own climate pledges. Sahrawi activists and the Sahrawi government in exile, known as SADR, the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, have described this as climate colonialism. Negotiators from Western Sahara independently announced a plan to reduce carbon emissions outside COP26, as the climate crisis has brought extreme weather conditions, including drought, extreme heat and flooding, to the region. In an interview last week in Glasgow, Scotland, while COP26 was underway, Oubi Bouchraya Bachir, a representative of the Polisario Front for Europe and the European Union, estimated 30% of the solar energy produced by Morocco "will be produced from within the illegal context of occupation." We also spoke with climate change consultant Nick Brooks, who has traveled to Western Sahara for decades to carry out archaeological and palaeo-environmental fieldwork and helped release the Sahrawi climate plan adjacent to the COP26. "They have been completely and systematically excluded from international processes of climate governance and climate finance," Brooks said of the Sahrawi.

We speak with Jennifer Gosar, the youngest sister of far-right Arizona Congressmember Paul Gosar, who faces censure in a House vote today for posting an animated video on social media that features him murdering Congressmember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and attacking President Biden with swords. Gosar will be required to stand in the well of the House while the resolution is read. His colleagues will also vote to strip him of his assignments on the Committee on Oversight and Reform, alongside Ocasio-Cortez, and the Committee on Natural Resources. "He's continuing to sing to that white supremacist base that he fundraises from," says Jennifer Gosar, who has previously described him as a "sociopath."

Advocates in Oklahoma are rallying outside the barricaded Governor's Mansion ahead of the planned Thursday execution of prisoner Julius Jones, who was convicted of a 1999 murder but has maintained his innocence. Another man privately admitted to committing the murder and framing Jones, and Oklahoma's Pardon and Parole Board has recommended twice that his death sentence be commuted to life in prison with the possibility of parole, but the final decision now rests with Governor Kevin Stitt. "There should be no doubt that Julius Jones is innocent," says longtime death penalty opponent Ben Jealous, president of People for the American Way and former president of the NAACP.

Republicans are set to claim the House majority in next year's midterm elections with help from heavily gerrymandered congressional district maps in states nationwide that could shape politics for the next decade, securing Republican wins even as the party's popular vote shrinks at the national level, says Mother Jones reporter Ari Berman. "The same states that are pushing voter suppression are also pushing extreme gerrymandered maps to lock in white Republican power for the next decade at the state and federal level," says Berman.

Republicans may retake control of the House next year thanks largely to extreme gerrymandering by Republican state legislators, even as Republican opposition in Congress has impeded critical legislation to combat discriminatory voting practices and eliminate barriers to the ballot. As pressure grows for Democrats to pass two key voting rights bills, activists are holding the last in a series of protests at the White House, where nearly 100 have been arrested since August, including Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr's 13-year-old granddaughter Yolanda King. “States are suppressing the vote across the South, across the Midwest, even out in the far West, and there’s only one way to stop it,” says Ben Jealous, president of People for the American Way and former president of the NAACP. “Congress has to pass urgently needed federal voting rights bills now.”

Pfizer Seeks Approval For COVID Pill, Agrees to Deal To Make it Available in 95 Poorer Countries, Record Flooding Kills One Person, Displaces 1,000s in British Columbia, Climate Activists Disrupt Operations at World's Largest Coal Port For 11 Straight Days, Jury in Rittenhouse Trial Enters Second Day of Deliberations, Medical Examiner Says Ahmaud Arbery Shot at Close Range as Prosecution Rests Case, Julius Jones Set to Be Executed on Nov. 18 Unless Clemency Granted, Despite Evidence of Innocence, U.S. and China Agree to Hold Nuclear Talks, Burmese Coup Leaders Levy New Charges Against Aung San Suu Kyi; Freed U.S. Reporter Speaks Out, Chile's Senate Votes Against Impeaching President Sebastián Piñera, U.S. Bars Entry For Nicaraguan President Ortega and Other Officials Following Election, Burkina Faso: Protesters Demand President Resign Amid Instability and After Deadly Militant Attack , U.S. Temporarily Curbing Refugee Admissions to Prioritize Resettlement of Afghan Evacuees, North Dakota Bans Teaching About Structural Racism in Schools, Sandy Hook Families Win Case Against InfoWars Propagandist Alex Jones, Workers at Fast-food Chain Burgerville Reach Tentative Agreement 3 Years After Launching Union Effort

President Joe Biden’s virtual summit Monday with Chinese President Xi Jinping follows the two countries’ announcement just days earlier they will work together to confront the climate emergency after Xi did not attend the U.N. climate summit in Glasgow. Tension has been mounting between the two superpowers, especially over Taiwan and Hong Kong, with some speculating that a new Cold War is developing. “The United States, in the immediate future, is faced with the possibility of fighting a war over Taiwan … that it would probably lose,” says Alfred McCoy, professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in an extended interview about U.S.-China relations. “China is also working to break the U.S. geopolitical hold over the Eurasian landmass.” McCoy is a prolific author and his newest book is out today: “To Govern the Globe: World Orders and Catastrophic Change."

Humanitarian and economic conditions are rapidly deteriorating in Afghanistan, where the U.N. estimates that more than half of the population suffers from acute hunger. The country has fallen into an economic crisis after the U.S. and other Western countries cut off direct financial assistance to the government following the Taliban takeover in August. Taliban leaders are also unable to access billions of dollars in Afghan national reserves that are held in banks overseas. “Forty million civilians were left behind when the NATO countries went for the door in August,” says Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, who recently visited Afghanistan and with refugees in Iran, where as many as 5,000 Afghans are fleeing everyday. “They told me very clearly, ‘We believe we will starve and freeze to death this harsh winter unless there is an enormous aid operation coming through.’”

Biden Signs $1.2 Trillion Infrastructure Bill; Build Back Better Act Remains Stalled in Senate, Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping Pledge Cooperation in U.S.-China Virtual Summit, Three Killed and Dozens Wounded as Suicide Bombers Strike Ugandan Capital City, Spanish Coast Guard Rescues More Refugees in Waters Near Canary Islands , Polish Border Guards Fire Tear Gas and Water Cannons at Asylum-Seekers , Thai Protesters Call for Reforms to Monarchy After Court Rules Against Activists, U.S. Condemns Russia Over "Dangerous and Irresponsible" Anti-Satellite Missile Test, Biden Proposes Drilling Ban Near Sacred Indigenous Sites in Chaco Canyon, Sen. Patrick Leahy to Resign in 2022; Beto O'Rourke Will Run for Texas Governor, Steve Bannon Surrenders to FBI; Wyoming GOP Dumps Liz Cheney Over Trump Criticism, 30,000 Kaiser Healthcare Workers Win Tentative Contract, Averting Planned Strike, IATSE Narrowly Approves Film and TV Contracts, Averting Strike of 60,000 Production Workers, 500 National Guard Troops on Standby as Jury Deliberations Open in Kyle Rittenhouse Trial, Judge Rejects Defense Request to Bar Black Pastors from Trial of Ahmaud Arbery's Killers, Howard University Reaches Agreement With Students Who Protested Campus Housing Conditions

We speak with Bishop William Barber of the Poor People's Campaign, who was one of the Black pastors who visited the trial of the three white men who hunted down and shot dead Ahmaud Arbery, where last week a defense attorney claimed Black pastors sitting with the Arbery family in the courtroom could be "intimidating" for the jury, which is almost all white. Barber says Arbery's killing and the trial proceedings expose that for many, "Blackness itself is the crime." This Thursday, more than 100 Black pastors plan to march in front of the Glynn County Superior Courthouse. Barber joins us from Washington, D.C., where he is planning a protest call for Congress to pass the $2 trillion social spending and climate package known as the Build Back Better plan.

Among the unprecedented moments for Indigenous participation in the U.N. climate summit in Glasgow were the protests to protect the Amazon rainforest, the largest remaining rainforest on the planet, that activists argue is on the brink of ecological collapse. "We cannot win the battle against climate unless we protect the world's remaining rainforests," Atossa Soltani, founder of Amazon Watch, tells Democracy Now! We also speak with Uyunkar Domingo Peas Nampichkai, Indigenous Achuar Nation leader from the Ecuadorian Amazon, who is demanding an end to logging, mining and oil drilling. "We don't want more extraction," says Nampichkai.

The U.N. climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, ended Saturday with over 190 nations agreeing to the Glasgow Climate Pact, which calls on governments to return next year in Egypt with stronger plans to curb their emissions and urges wealthy nations to provide more funds to vulnerable countries in the Global South. It also pushes countries to phase out fossil fuel subsidies and reduce the use of coal, but activists say the final language of the agreement is too weak to meaningfully reduce emissions and limit global heating to 1.5 degrees Celsius, which scientists say is needed in order to avoid the most catastrophic consequences of the climate crisis. "There has been no real progress," says Mitzi Jonelle Tan, a youth climate justice activist from the Philippines. "Once again, the U.N. climate summit just prioritized the voices of the privileged and not those that are most affected by the climate crisis." We also speak with Brandon Wu, director of policy and campaigns at ActionAid USA, who says rich countries are scapegoating India and China for blocking stronger action on phasing out fossil fuels, while still growing their own oil and gas projects. "The real climate criminals are the wealthy countries," says Wu.

COP26 Final Agreement Waters Down Coal Pledges, Leaves World on Track for Climate Disaster, NYT: U.S. Covered Up 2019 Syria Airstrikes That Killed 70 Women and Children, Austria Enacts Lockdown for the Unvaccinated as Europe Becomes Pandemic's Epicenter Again, COVID Cases Rising in Over Half of U.S. States; OK Nat'l Guard Defies Pentagon's Vaccine Mandate, Sudanese Military Kills Eight People During Latest Anti-Coup Protests, Detains Al Jazeera Bureau Head, Eight Refugees Found Dead, Dozens Others Rescued on Boat Near Canary Islands, U.S. Journalist Danny Fenster Freed from Burmese Prison, Journalist and Minority Shia Muslims Killed in Afghanistan Blasts, Schools Close in New Delhi Due to Toxic Air Quality, Violence Leaves 68 Dead at Ecuador Prison Where 118 Were Killed in September Riots, Mark Meadows Faces Contempt of Congress Charge; Steve Bannon to Surrender to Authorities, Biden Nominates Robert Califf to Reprise Role as FDA Commissioner, Nat'l Guard Called In to Kenosha Ahead of Rittenhouse Verdict as Closing Arguments Get Underway, 9-Year-Old Boy Dies of Injuries Sustained at Astroworld, Pushing Death Toll to 10

Today marks the 30th anniversary of the Santa Cruz massacre in East Timor, when Indonesian troops armed with U.S. M16s fired on a peaceful memorial procession in the Santa Cruz cemetery in Dili, killing more than 270 East Timorese. Indonesia had invaded East Timor in 1975 and maintained a brutal occupation until 1999, when East Timorese voted overwhelmingly for independence in a United Nations referendum. The massacre on November 12, 1991, sparked widespread outrage against the Indonesian government led by dictator General Suharto, a staunch U.S. ally, and marked a turning point in international public opinion. We play an excerpt of "Massacre: The Story of East Timor," a 1992 documentary produced by Amy Goodman and Allan Nairn, who witnessed and survived the killings after being severely beaten by Indonesian troops.

As the U.N. climate summit in Glasgow concludes, activists staged a walkout Friday in response to late decisions made by negotiators to severely weaken commitments in the final agreement. While the earlier draft of the unbinding Glasgow Agreement called for "phasing-out of coal and subsidies for fossil fuels," the new draft calls for the phaseout of "unabated coal power and of inefficient subsidies for fossil fuels." We get an update on the walkout from one of its leaders: COP26 Coalition lead spokesperson Asad Rehman. "We should not call it a Glasgow pact, we should call it the Glasgow suicide pact for the poorest in the world," says Rehman. "They're ramming through so many loopholes that it makes a mockery of these climate negotiations." Rehman was part of a group of members from U.N. constituencies that took over one of the main negotiation rooms inside COP26 this morning to issue a "people's declaration" in light of the weakened language.

Health leaders are warning governments of "unimaginable" health consequences from the climate crisis if world leaders don't take decisive action to decarbonize. This week at the U.N. climate summit in Glasgow, the Global Climate and Health Alliance presented a letter to the COP26 president signed by 46 million health workers who are calling for global climate action on health. Meanwhile, a delegation of mothers from Brazil, Britain, India, Nigeria, Poland and South Africa attended COP26 to deliver their own letter to the summit's president that was signed by about 500 parent groups from 44 countries and calls for limits on air pollution. We go inside COP26 to speak with Jeni Miller, executive director of the Global Climate and Health Alliance and co-chair of the World Health Organization's Civil Society Working Group to Advance Action on Climate Change and Health, and medical student Amit Singh, a member of Students for Global Health. "Climate change is a threat multiplier," says Miller. "Increasingly, we're recognizing that we can't care for the patients and the communities that we serve if we don't step outside the clinic and address this driver of health impacts, which is climate change."

New Draft Agreement Weakens Earlier Calls to Phase Out Coal, Fossil Fuel Funding as COP26 Nears End, Beyond Oil and Gas: Denmark and Costa Rica Lead New Push to Phase Out Fossil Fuels, Biden and Xi Jinping to Hold Virtual Summit Amid Ongoing Tensions, NIH and Moderna in Legal Battle over COVID Vaccine Patent Rights, Another Explosion Targets Mosque in Afghanistan, 5,000 Afghan Refugees Fleeing to Iran Every Day as Humanitarian Crisis Worsens, U.N.: 84 Million People Worldwide Displaced by War, Insecurity and the Climate Crisis, Eastern Europe Refugee Crisis Intensifies as Poland Blocks Border, Belarus Issues Threats, Burmese Military Court Sentences U.S. Journalist to 11 Years Behind Bars, Sudanese Military Coup Leader Sworn In Amid Ongoing Protests, Mexican Indigenous Land Protector Irma Galindo Barrios Missing for Over 2 Weeks, Palestinian Prisoner Ends Hunger Strike, 5 Others Continue Protest Against Detention Without Charge, U.S., Israel, Bahrain, UAE Hold Joint Military Training in Red Sea, Trial of White Teenage Gunman Kyle Rittenhouse Moves to Closing Statements, "We Don't Want Any More Black Pastors": Lawyer for Arbery's Killer Says Pastors Are Intimidating Jury, Olympic Gold Medalist Sunisa Lee Suffers Racist Attack in L.A., "It's Common Sense": Trump Defends Calls to Hang Mike Pence on Jan. 6, 3,000 Graduate Workers on Strike at Columbia University, U.K. Prison Authorities to Allow Julian Assange to Get Married in Prison

The United States and China made a surprise announcement on Wednesday at the U.N. climate summit in Glasgow on a joint pledge to reduce methane emissions and slow deforestation. The United States is the largest historical emitter of carbon emissions, while China has been the largest emitter in recent years. As negotiations continue, we speak with British journalist George Monbiot and British climate scientist Kevin Anderson about how world leaders and even some climate scientists are downplaying the climate emergency. "Everything we've been hearing here and at the previous 25 summits is basically distraction," says Monbiot, adding that global leaders could "fix" the worst impacts of the climate crisis "in no time at all if they wanted to." Both guests highlight the role of extreme wealth in fueling the climate crisis, with Anderson noting it's unfair to penalize nations like China, whose rising emissions correlate to the production of goods transported to wealthier countries. "Equity has to be a key part of our responses," says Anderson.

Kyle Rittenhouse took to the stand on Wednesday before his defense team asked for a mistrial with prejudice in the case. If a mistrial is granted, Rittenhouse cannot be tried again, though the judge did not immediately rule on the request and said jury deliberations could begin on Monday. Now 18 years old, Rittenhouse was 17 when he fatally shot two men and injured one with a semiautomatic rifle during racial justice protests last year in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Rittenhouse is pleading not guilty to six charges, including homicide. While questioned, Rittenhouse broke down in tears, admitting to using deadly force but denying intent to kill his victims, and Judge Bruce Schroeder seemed to side with the defense at a handful of different points during Rittenhouse's testimony. Meanwhile, the judge's cellphone went off while the court was in session and played a ringtone for the song "God Bless the U.S.A." by Lee Greenwood, the opening song played at Donald Trump's rallies. For more on the Rittenhouse trial, as well as the murder trial for the three men who killed Black jogger Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia, we speak with Elie Mystal, justice correspondent for The Nation, and antiracist activist Bree Newsome Bass. Mystal says Judge Schroeder "has pre-judged the trial in favor of Rittenhouse," and "that was obvious before the trial." Newsome Bass says, irrespective of the trials' outcomes, "the legal system itself is an affront to the notion of justice." She adds, "What does justice even mean in a system that was established to strip Black people of their humanity and for the greater part of its history has never really held white people accountable for murdering Black people?"

U.S. and China Pledge to Reduce Emissions as COP26 Climate Summit Hits Homestretch, Kyle Rittenhouse Breaks Down in Tears on Witness Stand, Claims Self-Defense , U.S. Coronavirus Cases Rise Again; Texas Judge Halts Ban on School Mask Mandates, Ethiopia Detains World Food Programme Drivers in War-Torn Northern Region, Sudan Restores Internet Service for First Time Since Coup; Civilian Leaders Reject Talks with Junta, Poland Increases Troops at Border Amid Reports of Migrant Deaths, Brutality by Belarusian Soldiers, Chilean Lawmakers Advance Impeachment Effort Against President Piñera, F.W. de Klerk, South Africa's Last Apartheid President, Dies at 85, Judge Approves $626M Settlement for Flint Residents Who Were Poisoned by Lead in the Water, Boeing Accepts Responsibility for Ethiopia Airlines 737 MAX Crash, Will Compensate Families, DOJ Sues Uber for Discriminating Against Passengers with Disabilities, Advocacy Group Demands Gov. Hochul Increase Clemencies as NY Announces Plan to Close 6 Prisons

As talks at the Glasgow U.N. climate summit accelerate, we look at how the roots of the climate crisis date back to Western colonialism with award-winning Indian author Amitav Ghosh, who examines the violent exploitation of human life and the natural environment in his new book, "The Nutmeg's Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis." Ghosh speaks about the political significance of fossil fuels in global politics, saying that "if fossil fuels were to be completely substituted at scale, what you would have is the complete inversion of the world's geopolitical order." Ghosh's previous books include "The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable" and the novel "Gun Island."