Democracy Now!

We look at the life and legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, as well as the future of the Supreme Court, in a wide-ranging interview with Dahlia Lithwick, senior editor at Slate, where she is the senior legal correspondent and Supreme Court reporter. Ginsburg died September 18 at the age of 87 after serving 27 years as a Supreme Court justice, where she became the most prominent member of the court's liberal wing. Her death just 46 days before the November election sets up a major political battle over her replacement, with President Trump vowing to nominate her replacement by Saturday. In 2016, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to hold confirmation hearings for Merrick Garland, President Obama's pick to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, who died 269 days before the election. "Hypocrisy doesn't begin to touch on that," says Lithwick. "The court is profoundly misaligned both with popular opinion polling and with the will of this country."

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Dies at 87, Sparking a Deluge of Tributes and a Fierce Succession Battle, U.S. COVID-19 Death Toll Poised to Top 200,000, U.N. Says 150 Million More Children May Face Poverty as Global Coronavirus Death Toll Nears 1 Million, California Grapples with Evacuations, Toxic Air as Record-Breaking Wildfires Continue to Blaze, Trump Announces $13 Billion for Puerto Rico, as Elections Near and 3 Years After Hurricane Maria, Leaked Docs Show Major Banks Helped Criminals Launder Billions of Dollars, International Community Counters Trump over U.N. Iran Sanctions, Peru's President Survives Impeachment Attempt, Belarus Protests Continue Amid Mass Arrests, Leak of Police Officer Data, Thai Youth Call for General Strike as They Ramp Up Anti-Gov't, Anti-Monarchy Protest, Cameroonian ICE Prisoner Who Was Subjected to Forced Sterilization Granted Humanitarian Release, NYPD Arrests 86 Anti-ICE Protesters in Times Square, Climate Activists Unveil Climate Clock in NYC Ahead of Global Climate Strike, TikTok Ban Averted After Oracle-Walmart Deal Approved; Judge Blocks Trump WeChat Ban, Stephen Cohen, Noted Author and Historian of Russia, Dies at 81

This week President Trump described the work of the legendary historian Howard Zinn, who died in 2010, as "propaganda" meant to "make students ashamed of their own history." But Zinn believed the opposite, that teaching the unvarnished truth about history was the best way to combat propaganda and unexamined received wisdom. We air excerpts from a 2009 interview with Zinn in which he explained his approach to education. "We should be honest with young people; we should not deceive them. We should be honest about the history of our country," Zinn said.

As climate-fueled wildfires continue to ravage the West, the Trump administration has tapped a well-known climate change denier for a top position at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. University of Delaware professor David Legates has written papers calling for more fossil fuel emissions and has had his work supported by the Robert Mercer-funded Heartland Institute and Koch Industries, as well as major gas companies. He was recently hired as NOAA's deputy assistant secretary of commerce for observation and prediction. We speak with David Goodrich, a former top climate scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who says Legates's appointment goes against the overwhelming consensus of the scientific community. "You have about 97% of the scientists disagreeing with the position of Dr. Legates," says Goodrich, who served as director of NOAA's Climate Observations Division from 2009 to 2011. We also speak to David Goodrich about his latest book, "A Voyage Across an Ancient Ocean," in which he examines the impact of the fossil fuel industry through an epic bicycle journey from the Alberta tar sands to the Bakken oil field of North Dakota.

As the official United States death toll from COVID-19 approaches 200,000 people, we speak with infectious disease expert Dr. Monica Gandhi, who says President Trump's refusal to promote face masks has made the pandemic much worse. "Masks are a pillar of pandemic control. They are incredibly important," says Dr. Gandhi, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, as well as a division head at San Francisco General Hospital. "There is no country in the world right now that has been fighting masks like this, especially at the presidential level. If we could have started mask wearing, consistent mask wearing, at the beginning, we would have averted deaths and cases."

White House Scuttled Plan to Mail 650 Million Face Masks to U.S. Households, NYC Schools Delay In-Person Classes Amid Staffing Shortages and Coronavirus Fears, CDC Watered Down Coronavirus Testing Guidelines Over Objections of Scientists, Trump Coronavirus Adviser Threatens to Sue Stanford Doctors over Criticism, WHO Warns of "Alarming" Coronavirus Transmission Rates Across Europe, U.S. Billionaires Added $845B to Net Worth Since March as Pandemic Exposed Racial Inequities, Court Halts "Drastic Operational Changes" at USPS, Warning of Widespread Disenfranchisement, Ex-Coronavirus Task Force Aide Endorses Biden, Citing Trump's "Disregard for Human Life", Bolivian Leader Who Seized Power in Military Coup Drops Presidential Bid, Aides of Kremlin Critic Alexei Navalny Say Banned Nerve Agent Found on Hotel Water Bottle, Amy Dorris Becomes 26th Woman to Accuse Trump of Sexual Misconduct, Lawsuit Alleges Rampant Sexual Violence Against Women in Florida Prison, Report Finds Pattern of Abuses Against Pregnant Asylum Seekers at ICE Jails, House Passes Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, Utah Officer Charged with Assault for Ordering K9 to Attack Black Man, Trump "Patriotic Education Plan" to Counter "Left-Wing Indoctrination" in Schools, Condemned Federal Prisoner Asks Americans to Rethink Death Penalty

Legendary Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg says Julian Assange's extradition hearing in London could have far-reaching consequences for press freedoms. The WikiLeaks founder faces an ever-evolving array of espionage and hacking charges related to the release of diplomatic cables that revealed war crimes committed by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Assange faces almost certain conviction, if extradited, and 175 years in prison. "The American press has remained in kind of a state of denial for 40 years, really, since my case, that the Espionage Act has wording in it that could be aimed directly at them," says Ellsberg, who testified in Assange's defense at his extradition trial via video stream from the United States. "Now the American press is staring right down the barrel at the use of the Espionage Act against American journalists and publishers for doing journalism."

We get an update on the massive fire at the Moria refugee camp in Lesbos, Greece, which has left 13,000 refugees and migrants from Afghanistan, African countries and Syria without access to shelter, food or sanitation. The fire has raised concerns about a coronavirus outbreak and comes as migrants protest their living conditions during the pandemic. Some of the asylum seekers — many of them women and children — are demanding they be allowed to leave the island of Lesbos, but the Greek government is refusing to relocate most people displaced by the fire to the mainland. "The calculation of the Greek government was, in my opinion, to really break people's spirit," says reporter Franziska Grillmeier, who joins us from Lesbos.

The humanitarian crisis in Yemen is deepening amid the pandemic and cuts to international aid from the United States and its allies, leaving millions of Yemenis facing famine after years of a brutal U.S.-backed, Saudi-led bombing campaign that has devastated the country. CNN’s senior international correspondent Nima Elbagir says what is happening in Yemen is not a natural disaster but a "man-made catastrophe" directly tied to U.S. policies. Elbagir says, "Not only is the U.S. profiting from the war by selling weapons to the UAE and Saudi Arabia," but it is also ignoring the impact on civilians. We also feature her exclusive CNN report, "Yemen: A Crisis Made in America."

Trump Sidelines Science as He Contradicts CDC Director on Vaccines and Masks, Israeli Journalists Quarantine After White House Staffer Tests Positive for Coronavirus, Big Ten Football to Resume with Plans to Study Hearts of Student-Athletes Infected with COVID-19, Oxfam: Wealthy Nations Bought Up More Than Half of World's Coronavirus Vaccine Contenders, Hurricane Sally Brings Record Rainfall and Massive Flooding to Gulf Coast, Attorney General Barr Sought Sedition Charges for Racial Justice Protesters, HHS Spokesperson on Medical Leave After Rant About Left-Wing Militants Preparing for Insurrection, Homeland Security Secretary to Defy Subpoena, Won't Testify to House Committee, Senate Confirms Two More Anti-Choice Judges to Lifetime Appointments, Nebraska Shop Owner Indicted for Shooting Death of Black Lives Matter Protester, Lawmakers Demand Investigation of Reports of Forced Sterilizations at Georgia ICE Jail, Supreme Court to Weigh Trump's Plan to Exclude Undocumented Immigrants from Census, Barbados Will Remove Queen Elizabeth as Head of State to "Leave Our Colonial Past Behind"

As the Trump administration celebrates deals establishing diplomatic ties between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, we speak with Palestinian American legal scholar Noura Erakat, who says Trump's "peace" agreements are a sham. "This is not about advancing any kind of meaningful, enduring peace, but instead about entrenching a geopolitical alliance that would otherwise increase oppression for people of the Middle East," says Erakat, assistant professor at Rutgers University and author of "Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine."

Journalist and author Mychal Denzel Smith joins us for a wide-ranging discussion on the uprising against racist police, the upcoming presidential election and why he says a Biden win won't cure his Trump-era depression, and his new book, "Stakes Is High: Life after the American Dream." Denzel Smith questions whether arresting and charging the police officers who killed Breonna Taylor, a core demand of many protests in the wake of her death, represents justice, despite the historic settlement between Louisville and her family. "The only way to prevent another instance of the situation that took Breonna Taylor's life is to defund, dismantle police departments across the nation," Smith says. He argues defeating Donald Trump in November will not solve systemic racism, inequality or the climate crisis. "What Joe Biden has offered thus far is not a transformative enough agenda to be able to face those issues."

The city of Louisville, Kentucky, will pay a historic $12 million settlement to the family of Breonna Taylor, more than six months after police shot and killed the 26-year-old Black emergency room technician in her own apartment and Taylor became a household name as part of the nationwide uprising in defense of Black lives. It is one of the largest payouts ever for a police killing of a Black person in the U.S. The city will also institute major reforms to the police department responsible for Taylor's death. Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer announced the settlement at a press conference, where he was joined by members of Taylor's family. We air excerpts from the remarkable press conference.

Louisville, KY Reaches Wrongful Death Settlement over Breonna Taylor's Killing by Police, Trump Says "Herd Mentality" Will Make COVID-19 "Go Away", LSU Coach Says Most Football Players Have Already Caught COVID-19, Meatpacking Executives Drafted Trump's Order to Keep Plants Open Amid Pandemic, India Surpasses 5 Million Cases as Coronavirus Infections Skyrocket, Catastrophic Flooding Feared as Slow-Moving Hurricane Sally Makes Landfall in Alabama, Record-Shattering Fires Continue to Shroud Western U.S. in Smoke, ICE Prepares to Deport Jailed Immigrant Who Says She Was Forcibly Sterilized, Israel Signs U.S.-Brokered Deal Normalizing Relations with UAE and Bahrain, Trump Admits to Plotting Assassination of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, Contradicting Past Denial, Top Pentagon Official Disputes Reports That Russia Paid Taliban Bounties for Dead U.S. Soldiers, Documents Show Rochester Police Tried to Cover Up Killing of Daniel Prude, Demonstrators in Lancaster, PA Get $1 Million Bail for Protesting Police Killing, House Report Condemns Boeing and Federal Regulators for Deadly 737 MAX Crashes, Scientific American Endorses Joe Biden, Saying Trump "Rejects Evidence and Science", University of Illinois Hospital System Workers Strike for Better Pay, Safe Staffing and PPE

The online giant Amazon has made an extraordinary amount of money during the COVID-19 pandemic, as many people shelter at home and shop online. A new Public Citizen report documents how Amazon set prices for essential products during the crisis at levels that would violate price gouging laws in many states, and marked up some products by as much as 1,000%. "This is an ongoing thing. They are doing this currently. They've been doing it throughout the pandemic," says Alex Harman, competition policy advocate for Public Citizen and author of the report. "They are looking to maximize profit during a pandemic."

We examine California's history of forest management and how a century of fire suppression has made the current climate fires even more destructive. For thousands of years, Native American tribes in California would regularly burn the landscape to steward the land, but colonization led to the suppression of these tactics and decades of misguided policy. A return to these Indigenous practices could help better steward the land and foster greater climate resiliency, says Don Hankins, a pyrogeographer and Plains Miwok fire expert who teaches geography and planning at California State University, Chico. "If we all work together and we use the same mindset in terms of process, being able to use fire within the landscape, we can start to put fire back in at the scale that it needs to be for the right ecological and cultural purposes," Hankins says.

With just seven weeks to go before the U.S. presidential election, the battle for the White House is increasingly being fought in courts across the country. From Wisconsin to Florida, Pennsylvania to Colorado, judges are making major rulings deciding who gets on the ballot, how a record number of mail-in ballots are handled and distributed, and who ultimately gets to vote on November 3. Ari Berman, senior writer at Mother Jones and author of "Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America," says Republicans are carrying out a nationwide attack on voting rights aimed at keeping a shrinking white minority in power. "This is the Republican Party's game: Don't do anything for the American people, make it as hard as you can to vote, and then put in place judges who will then uphold those new voter suppression laws."

Trump Doubles Down on Climate Crisis Denial as West Coast Burns, World's Largest Vaccine Maker Says It Could Take 5 Years for Universal COVID-19 Vaccination, Trump Calls COVID-19 "The Plague" in April Interview with Woodward as He Called for U.S. to Reopen, Nevada City Fines Venue That Hosted Trump Rally Which Violated State's Coronavirus Restrictions, Appeals Court Gives Trump Greenlight to End Immigration Protections for 400,000 TPS Holders, Whistleblowing Nurse Says Georgia Immigration Jail Performing Forced Hysterectomies, Palestinians Form Unified Front as Israel, UAE and Bahrain Sign Deal Normalizing Relations, Migrant Ship Capsizes in Mediterranean, At Least 24 Killed or Missing, Refugees in Greece Protest Dire Conditions as Many Remain Unsheltered After Moria Fire, Protests Continue in Belarus Despite Widespread Reports of Torture, Mistreatment by Security Forces, Alexei Navalny Posts Instagram Photo as He Continues Recovery from Poisoning, Yoshihide Suga Poised to Become New Japanese Prime Minister, Record Heat Sweeps the Globe as Massive Ice Chunk Falls Off Largest Remaining Ice Shelf in Greenland, Brazilian Pantanal, World's Largest Wetland, Suffers Devastating Loss of Wildlife from Historic Wildfires, Hurricane Sally Threatens Gulf Coast with Potentially Lethal Floods and Storm Surges, NOAA Taps David Legates, Notorious Climate Change Denier, for Top Role, HHS Spokesperson Caputo Goes on Facebook Live Rant, Warns of Armed Insurrection, Sedition in CDC, Judge Blocks New Trump Immigration Restrictions, Says DHS's Chad Wolf Is in His Role Unlawfully, Protests in Lancaster, PA, After Fatal Police Shooting of Man with History of Mental Illness

With less than two months before November, the Poor People's Campaign has launched a push to register tens of millions of poor and low-income voters, who could decide the fate of the election. "Voting is power unleashed," says Rev. Dr. William Barber, co-chair of the Poor People's Campaign and president of Repairers of the Breach. "We've got to train the people on the power of the vote, the power to protect the vote, and the power to shape public policy by the vote." The initiative is called MORE, which stands for Mobilizing, Organizing, Registering, Educating People for a Movement That Votes.

President Trump has said little about the wildfires raging in California, Oregon and Washington for three weeks, other than to suggest poor forest management was primarily to blame. But the states' governors are pushing back and directly linking the fires to the climate crisis. "These are climate fires," says Timothy Ingalsbee, an Oregon-based wildland fire ecologist and former wildland firefighter who now directs Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics, and Ecology. "Though some scientists hesitate to attribute a single event to climate change, these are exactly the conditions predicted by climatologists."

As devastating fires burn across the West Coast, some of the most vulnerable people are farmworkers — many of whom are undocumented. Despite the risks of the pandemic and the climate-fueled fires, many feel they have to keep working even if that means working inside evacuation zones. The state of California has repeatedly allowed growers to continue harvesting despite evacuation orders putting workers at great risk. Estella Cisneros, legal director of the agriculture worker program for California Rural Legal Assistance, says farmworkers who speak out against unsafe working conditions risk losing their jobs. "Farmworkers have continued to work during this whole time, despite fears of contracting COVID-19 in the workplace, despite fears of getting heat stress while they're at work, and now despite fears of the dangers that wildfire smoke brings," Cisneros says.

Historic Climate-Fueled Wildfires Kill 35 People, Burn 5 Million+ Acres Across West Coast, Trump Holds Packed Rally as U.S. Coronavirus Deaths Near 200,000 , ICE Flew Migrant Prisoners to Virginia, Fueling Outbreak, to Skirt Rules on Flying ICE Staff, WHO Says World Saw Biggest Daily Rise in Global Cases, Court Blocks Floridians with Unpaid Felony Conviction Fines from Voting, Trump Defends Police Killing of Portland Anti-Fascist Activist, Palestinians Decry Israeli Normalization Deals with UAE and Bahrain, Intra-Afghan Peace Talks Kick Off in Doha, Salvadoran Ex-Colonel Convicted for 1989 Murder of Jesuit Priests, Lawmakers Launch Impeachment Proceedings Against President Martín Vizcarra, Protesters in Pakistan Demand Change After Two Violent Rapes, At Least 50 Dead in DRC After Heavy Rains Trigger Gold Mine Collapse, Georgia Sheriff's Deputy Fired After Video Shows Him Beating Black Man, Two L.A. Sheriff's Deputies Survive Shooting; Local Reporter Attacked and Arrested for Covering Protests, Congress to Probe Series of Deaths at Fort Hood Military Base, Veterans Face Down Pro-Trump Caravan, Defend Massive "Defund the Wall" Street Mural, Charlottesville Tears Down Confederate Statue Near Site of 2017's "Unite the Right" Rally, Portland, OR Becomes First U.S. City to Ban Corporate Use of Facial Recognition Surveillance , Oracle Beats Out Microsoft to Take Over TikTok's U.S. Operations, Naomi Osaka Wins Second U.S. Open, Keeps Focus on Black Lives

As the world races to find a COVID-19 vaccine, one of the most promising vaccine trials has hit a major roadblock. AstraZeneca paused its Phase 3 COVID-19 vaccine trial after a woman in the trial developed severe neurological symptoms consistent with transverse myelitis, or inflammation of the spinal cord. Details were only revealed during a CEO call with investors, and "everyone was left to guess what went wrong," writes Ed Silverman, senior writer at the health news site STAT, which broke the story. Silverman says the halting of the U.K. trial raises several issues, including whether pharmaceutical companies are being pushed to move faster than is safe. "Is the FDA being pushed to authorize or approve a vaccine faster than it should?"

Since the police killing of George Floyd in May sparked a nationwide uprising against police brutality, armed white supremacists have taken to the streets of U.S. cities in response to Black Lives Matter protests. Organizing against systemic racism has been met with apparent attempts by the Trump administration to cover up white supremacist violence. We speak to legendary Black feminist scholar Barbara Smith, founder of the Combahee River Collective, about her proposal for an antiracist program called the Hamer-Baker Plan — named for Fannie Lou Hamer and Ella Baker — to eradicate white supremacy in the U.S. "I'm not just talking about white supremacist groups or organized white supremacy," Smith says. "What I'm talking about is a system that actually dictates and shapes every aspect of life in the U.S."

As the United States marks 19 years since the September 11 terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, a new report finds at least 37 million people in eight countries have been displaced since the start of the so-called global war on terrorism since 2001. The Costs of War Project at Brown University also found more than 800,000 people have been killed since U.S. forces began fighting in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Pakistan and Yemen, at a cost of $6.4 trillion to U.S. taxpayers. "The U.S. has played a disproportionate role in waging war, in launching war and in perpetuating war over the last 19 years," says report co-author David Vine, a professor of anthropology at American University.

500,000 Evacuated Across Oregon as Record-Shattering Fires Rage in Western States, AstraZeneca CEO Warned Investors of Vaccine Recipient Who Became Ill, Trump Admin Fines Pork Processor $13,500 for Lapses at Plant Where 1,300 Contracted Coronavirus, India Records Another Record Daily Coronavirus Toll, Senate Coronavirus Relief Bill Fails as Another 857,000 File New Unemployment Claims, Amazon Accused of Price Gouging After Raising Prices Up to 1,000% During Lockdown, Philadelphia Activists Defy City Order to Vacate Encampment for Unhoused Residents, Joe Biden Says He May Further Increase Military Spending If Elected, Trump Rallies Thousands of Maskless Supporters at Michigan Campaign Event, Portland Mayor Orders End to Police Use of Tear Gas as Thick Smoke Blankets Oregon, Witness Says Police Shot Portland Homicide Suspect Without Warning, Attempting No Arrest, 35 Arrested as Los Angeles Police Use Tear Gas Against Anti-Police-Brutality Protesters, Senior New York Police Officer Accused of Invasive and Degrading Body Cavity Searches, Houston Fires Four Officers Who Fired 24 Bullets at Man in Mental Health Crisis, Eight Killed and Hundreds Injured in Colombia Amid Protests over Police Killing, Mexican Feminists Occupy Offices to Demand End to Femicides, O'odham Activists Arrested for Trying to Halt Construction of U.S.-Mexico Border Wall, Federal Court Blocks Trump Order Excluding Immigrants in 2020 Census, 13,000 Asylum Seekers Left Homeless in Greece After Fires Engulfed Refugee Camp, Rio Tinto CEO Steps Down Amid Furor over Company's Destruction of Aboriginal Sites, Standing Rock Water Protector Red Fawn Fallis Leaves Federal Prison, Kansas City Football Fans Boo Moment of Silence for Equality as NFL Season Opens

We look at the history of clinical vaccine trials and exploitation of vulnerable people in the U.S. and India, which recently surpassed Brazil as the country with the second most infections worldwide. Kaushik Sunder Rajan, an anthropologist at the University of Chicago, says there is a documented history of "ethical lapses" and lack of accountability in vaccine studies in India. "The critical issue here is not whether vaccines are good or bad, but … even more, I would suggest what is at stake is a democratic public health," he notes.

As President Trump pushes to release a coronavirus vaccine before the November election, a National Institutes of Health report details how the process could be slowed by a lack of participation in vaccine studies by African American and Latinx people, many of whom mistrust the U.S. healthcare system due the history of racist medical exploitation. "The written history of medicine, the canon, has been carefully curated to elide the experience of African Americans," says medical ethicist Harriet Washington, author of "Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present."

The skies of the Bay Area and Northern California turned a dark orange as 90 major fires burn in the western United States, from San Diego to the Canadian border. At least seven people have died as a result of the fires, which have already burned 2.5 million acres in California alone. Despite heavy coverage in the mainstream media, however, few outlets are highlighting the link between the blazes and the accelerating climate crisis. "The fact is that TV news is completely abdicating its responsibility when it comes to telling the truth of what the West is dealing with right now," says Leah Stokes, assistant professor of political science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a researcher on climate and energy policy. "This is climate change. It's not rocket science. And when will the media start calling it that?"

Wildfires Destroy Oregon Towns, Bringing "Apocalyptic" Orange Skies to West Coast, Human Activity Blamed for 68% Drop in Animal Population Since 1970, President Donald Trump Acknowledges Downplaying COVID-19 Threat to U.S. Public, Biden Blasts Trump's "Life-and-Death Betrayal of the American People" on COVID-19, Bob Woodward Blasted for Withholding Trump's Comments on COVID-19 for Months, NIH Director Says Politics Shouldn't Trump Science in Vaccine Development, UW-Madison Halts In-Person Classes After 1,000+ Students Test Positive for Coronavirus, India Reports Record Daily Coronavirus Infections as Global Death Toll Tops 900,000, DHS Whistleblower Claims He Was Ordered to Downplay Risks of White Supremacists, Facebook Engineer Quits "An Organization That Is Profiting Off Hate", Mike Pence to Join Fundraiser Hosted by QAnon Conspiracy Theorists, Massive Fire Erupts in Beirut Port, Site of August's Catastrophic Explosion, Mexican Crime Reporter Julio Valdivia Found Murdered and Decapitated, Thousands of Farmers Storm Mexican Dam That Diverts Water to United States

We look at how decades of U.S. military intervention in Central America have led to the ongoing migrant crisis, with Salvadoran American journalist Roberto Lovato, author of the new book "Unforgetting: A Memoir of Family, Migration, Gangs, and Revolution in the Americas." Lovato recounts his own family's migration from El Salvador to the United States, his return to the country as a young man to fight against the U.S.-backed right-wing government responsible for grave human rights violations, and his embrace of journalism to tell the stories of people on the margins. "I'm unforgetting a history of not just El Salvador, but the United States and of myself," says Lovato.

As the long-awaited extradition hearing for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange gets underway in London, his legal adviser, Jennifer Robinson, says the case could set a chilling precedent for press freedoms around the world. "He faces 175 years in prison for doing his job as a journalist and a publisher. That's why this case is so dangerous," says Robinson. Assange faces numerous charges, including under the U.S. Espionage Act, related to the release of diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks that revealed war crimes committed by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. He faces a possible life sentence if he is extradited to the U.S.

California Governor Has "No Patience for Climate Change Deniers" Amid Historic Fires, Report Estimates Sturgis Motorcycle Rally Led to Quarter-Million COVID-19 Cases, Peru COVID-19 Death Toll Reaches 30,000, Senate Republicans Abandon New Stimulus Checks Despite Economic Crisis, Tropical Storm Rene Forms, Continuing Record Atlantic Hurricane Season, Sudan Under State of Emergency as Nile River Flooding Sets Records, Senegal's Capital Partially Submerged Following Record-Shattering Rainfall, Trump Extends Offshore Drilling Bans in Republican-Led States, DOJ Seeks to Defend Trump from Rape Accuser's Defamation Lawsuit, 13-Year-Old Autistic Boy Shot by Salt Lake City Police After Mother Calls 911 for Help, Rochester Police Chief and Commanders Resign over Police Killing of Daniel Prude, Thousands Flee as Fires Consume Refugee Camp in Greece, 10 Killed in Roadside Bomb Attack Targeting Afghan Vice President, Pentagon to Draw Down U.S. Troops in Iraq, Report: U.S. "Global War on Terror" Displaced at Least 37 Million People, Press Organizations Demand Justice for Murdered Pakistani Journalist Shaheena Shaheen Baloch, Michael Cohen's New Book Recounts Donald Trump's Racist Diatribes, DHS Identifies White Supremacists as Most Lethal Threat to U.S., Graduate Students Strike in Michigan, Form New Union in Arizona, Thousands Join Two-Day Scholar Strike to Protest Racism and Police Violence

Iván Velásquez is a Colombian prosecutor who headed the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala from 2013 to 2019, a powerful U.N.-backed commission formed to investigate corruption in the country and supported by the Obama administration. But Velásquez and other investigators were expelled from the country after the Trump administration agreed to withdraw support for the commission in apparent exchange for Guatemala's support of Trump's immigration and Middle East policies. The details of that quid pro quo between President Trump and Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales are detailed in a new investigation by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting. We speak with reporters Aaron Glantz and Anayansi Diaz-Cortes.

Filmmaker Yoruba Richen, director of The New York Times documentary "The Killing of Breonna Taylor," says the 26-year-old EMT's killing was not just a devastating blow to her friends and family, but a "loss of the entire community." Police officers in Louisville, Kentucky, fatally shot Taylor during a raid on her home in March, part of a botched drug investigation. Richen says that in visiting Louisville and speaking with Taylor's loved ones, she "personally felt the trauma that we endure as African American people" as a result of police killings.

Months after the police killing of Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky, new details have emerged about the final moments of the 26-year-old EMT's life and the police raid that brought it to a violent end, as detailed in a New York Times documentary that includes dozens of interviews and a review of more than 1,200 new photos of the crime scene. Taylor, whom police shot five times in her own home on March 13, has since become a household name and rallying point in the national movement for racial justice. The police officers responsible for her death have not been charged. We speak with Yoruba Richen, director and producer of "The Killing of Breonna Taylor," who says the case exposes the systemic violence at the heart of U.S. policing.

Record-Breaking Wildfires and Heat Scorch California, Rochester Protests Continue as Mayor Promises Changes After Police Killing of Daniel Prude, Major Drug Companies Pledge to Not Rush COVID-19 Vaccine as U.S. Cases Top 6.3 Million, India Becomes Second Most Infected Country; Spain First European Country to Surpass 500,000 Cases, Belarusian Opposition Leader Resists Expulsion at Border with Ukraine After Reports of Abduction, Alexei Navalny Out of Induced Coma as He Continues Recovery from Poisoning, Extradition Hearing Resumes for Julian Assange in U.K., Hundreds of Rohingya Refugees Arrive on Dry Land After Months at Sea, Duterte Pardons U.S. Marine Convicted of Killing Transgender Woman, U.N. Calls Saudi Sentences in Jamal Khashoggi Murder a "Parody of Justice", Trump Lashes Out at Pentagon Following Report He Called U.S. Soldiers "Losers" and "Suckers", Trump Goes After Gov't Antiracism Training, Threatens to Cut DOE Funding over Use of 1619 Project, Prosecutors Drops Case Against Curtis Flowers After Six Trials and 23 Years Behind Bars, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy Under Fire over Reports He Made Employees Donate to GOP Candidates, CA Judge Halts Trump Effort to End Census Collection Efforts Early, Climate Activists Target News Outlets for Failing to Truthfully Report the Climate Crisis, Beloved Peace Activist and Lawyer Kevin Zeese Dies at the Age of 64

In a Democracy Now! special, we revisit our June 2020 interview with the legendary activist and scholar Angela Davis about the uprising against police brutality and racism launched in May after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The protests have helped dramatically shift public opinion on policing and systemic racism, as "defund the police" becomes a rallying cry of the movement. Davis is professor emerita at the University of California, Santa Cruz. For half a century, she has been one of the most influential activists and intellectuals in the United States and an icon of the Black liberation movement.

In a Democracy Now! special, Harvard professor Cornel West and Ben Jealous, president of People for the American Way and former president of the NAACP, discuss the 2020 DNC, Joe Biden's vow to fight systemic racism and "overcome this season of darkness in America," the historic nomination of Kamala Harris as his partner on the ticket, and how the convention was a showcase for a broad anti-Trump coalition, including prominent Republican figures given plum speaking slots, but few voices from the party's insurgent left wing. "At this moment, with the decline and fall of the American empire, it looks as if the system is unable to generate enough energy to seriously reform itself. It remains sanitized, superficial," says Dr. West. "I want fundamental change." Jealous says Biden is someone progressives can work with and pressure. "The theme of this convention was really one of unity," he notes. "This is a time when we have to come together to defeat a president who is the most evil, the most corrupt that any of us have seen." We originally interviewed West and Jealous last month as the DNC ended.

Upon the death of acclaimed anthropologist and anarchist David Graeber, we feature his 2011 interview on Democracy Now!, two days after the Occupy encampment began. Graeber helped organize the initial Occupy Wall Street protest and was credited with helping to develop the slogan, "We are the 99%." "The idea is the system is not going to save us; we're going to have to save ourselves," says Graeber. "So, we're going to try to get as many people as possible to camp in some public place and start rebuilding society as we'd like to see it." He also discusses how his influential book "Debt: The First 5,000 Years" makes the case for sweeping debt cancellation.

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the election of socialist President Salvador Allende in Chile, a significant moment in the history of political revolutions. We speak with Chilean American author, human rights defender and poet Ariel Dorfman, who was cultural and press adviser to Allende's chief of staff in the last months of his presidency, about how the revolution used peaceful means to bring about radical change in Chile and beyond. "Allende's revolution, which was a peaceful revolution, was the attempt to put the resources of the country and the future of the country into the hands of the majority," Dorfman says.

As President Trump openly embraces the far-right conspiracy theory QAnon and promotes "law and order" while refusing to condemn armed followers of his who target antiracist protesters, we speak with Jason Stanley, Yale philosopher and scholar of propaganda, author of "How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them." Stanley says Trump built a cult of personality within the Republican Party, as evident during the Republican National Convention, and has moved the United States steadily into authoritarianism during his term. "Fascism is a cult of the leader who promises national restoration in the face of supposed threats by leftist radicals, minorities and immigrants. He promises only he can save us," Stanley says. "In the RNC, what we saw is we saw a cult of the leader."

Key Model Projects 410,000 Dead in U.S. from COVID-19 by January 1, Trump Mocks Biden for Wearing Mask During Pandemic, COVID-19 Cases Surge on College Campuses, Amnesty: Over 7,000 Health Workers Have Died During Pandemic, 1,300 in Mexico, U.S. Marshals Kill Anti-Fascist Activist Suspected in Fatal Portland Shooting, Rochester Suspends Seven Officers Tied to Death of Daniel Prude, D.C. Protesters Condemn Police Killing of Black Teenager Deon Kay, Biden Visits Kenosha, Wisconsin, to Meet Family of Jacob Blake, L.A. Airport Workers Stage Die-In Calling for Benefits for Laid-Off Workers, Attorney General Barr Refuses to Criticize Trump for Urging Supporters to Vote Twice, Report: Trump Called War Veterans "Losers" & "Suckers", Portuguese Youth Sue European Countries over Climate Crisis, Massive Oil Tanker on Fire Off Coast of Sri Lanka, White Professor Admits to Pretending to Be Afro-Latina for Years, Prominent Trans Activist Killed in Mexico, Anthropologist & Occupy Wall Street Activist David Graeber, 59, Dies

As Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden heads to Kenosha, Wisconsin, to meet with the family of Jacob Blake, we speak with Congressmember Mark Pocan, who was born and raised in Kenosha. "Clearly, what happened — someone shot in the back seven times, close range, in front of their children, by the police — was another example of the policing problem we have in this country," Pocan says. He also discusses Attorney General Barr's attacks on mail-in voting, his proposal to cut the Pentagon budget by 10% to make more funds available for COVID-19 and unemployment relief, and calls for those behind the homophobic smear campaign in the Alex Morse primary to be fired.

Mass protests entered their fourth week in Belarus to demand the ouster of authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko, who claimed victory in the country's August 9 election that critics say was rigged. But Lukashenko shows no sign of backing down, and authorities have responded to protests with violence and arrests. Sadakat Kadri, a human rights lawyer and writer, says Russian President Vladimir Putin is invested in keeping Lukashenko in power. "He can't afford to see Belarus fall," Kadri notes.

The top commander at Fort Hood is removed from his post, and the U.S. Army has launched an investigation, after a series of murders and accusations of sexual abuse at the base, with 23 deaths at Fort Hood this year and 13 soldiers disappeared, killed or who died by suicide. In April, the remains of soldier Vanessa Guillén were found near the base, and the main suspect in that case killed himself in July shortly after he was accused of her murder. Her case sparked national outrage about sexual assault in the military and led to the introduction of legislation to make it easier for military personnel to report sexual assault and harassment. "Rape culture, systemic racism, corruption and impunity has been really part and parcel in the Department of Defense for decades," says Air Force veteran Pam Campos-Palma, who leads the Vets for the People project, adding that Congress must provide proper oversight of the military.

CDC Urges States to Be Ready by Late October to Distribute COVID-19 Vaccine, Iowa Sen. Ernst Spreads COVID-19 Conspiracy Theories as Cases Soar in State, U.S. Pulls $62 Million in Funding for World Health Organization, U.S. Sanctions Top ICC Prosecutors for Investigating U.S. War Crimes, Trump Campaign Aide Justifies Vigilante's Killing of Black Lives Matter Protesters, Trump Moves to Cut Billions in Federal Aid to Cities, Citing "Anarchist Jurisdictions", The Killing of Daniel Prude: Naked Black Man Suffocated After Police Put Hood Over His Head, California Police Officer Charged with Shooting Dead Black Man in Walmart, Did an L.A. Sheriff Deputy Kill a Teenager as Part of Police Gang Initiation?, In Violation of Law, Trump Urges North Carolinians to Vote Twice, Lara Trump Campaigns with Self-Described Islamophobe GOP Candidate Laura Loomer, Federal Appeals Court Rules NSA Bulk Collection of Phone Records Is Illegal, Germany: Russian Dissident Alexei Navalny Poisoned in Russia by Nerve Agent, Trial Begins in 2015 Attack on Charlie Hebdo Newspaper, Calls Grow for U.S. to Halt Deportation of Ugandan Pastor Steven Tendo, Reparations Lawsuit Filed over 1921 Massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma

The mainstream media's role in perpetuating racism has come under increased scrutiny during the nationwide uprisings against injustice, leading to resignations and firings at news outlets across the country and calls for more diverse newsrooms. Daniel Thompson, the former digital editor at Kenosha News, says that's what led him to quit his job after his news outlet ran a misleading headline and article about a peaceful Jacob Blake protest that focused almost exclusively on one speaker's threat of violence. "Now more than ever for the media, it's important to try to give a full, accurate picture." says Thompson. "I don't think the situation happened out of any malicious intent. I think it was simply ignorance and a lack of diversity or diverse voices that were part of the decision."

New York unions representing teachers and principals have reached a deal with the city over how to reopen the largest public school system in the United States, averting a planned strike by educators. "We feel betrayed, and we feel as if it's an inadequate plan," says Aixa Rodriguez, a Bronx-based high school teacher. We also speak with education writer Eric Blanc, who says New York has failed to learn the lessons of other school districts that reopened too quickly without adequate safety measures in place against COVID-19. "When educators in New York are saying it's not safe to go back, that's not just born out of paranoia; that's born out of looking at what happens when you open schools," says Blanc.

As the coronavirus pandemic contributes to a glut of fossil fuels, groups like Greenpeace are calling on Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden to ban fossil fuel interests from his campaign and administration, if he wins, even as he recently declared at a campaign stop that he "will not ban fracking." We discuss the politics of fossil fuels with reporter Antonia Juhasz, who says the end of oil could be near, and look at how the industry has profited from the COVID bailout. "The pandemic has taken essentially every weakness that already existed in the oil industry and then made each of them much, much worse, leaving the oil industry in a situation where I would argue it is at its weakest since its inception," she says.