Democracy Now!

Senate Republicans are expected to use the filibuster to block debate on the For the People Act, a sweeping bill that would protect voting rights across the United States and improve ballot access. The Senate vote comes as Republican state lawmakers are passing sweeping measures to suppress the vote. According to the Voting Rights Lab, 18 states have enacted more than 30 laws to restrict voting since the November election. The For the People Act is "the most important voting rights bill since the Voting Rights Act of 1965," says Mother Jones reporter Ari Berman. "It just goes to show you how afraid the Republican Party is of democracy that they won't even debate legislation to make it easier to vote, let alone vote on the actual bill."

South African President Blasts Big Pharma for Refusing to Share COVID-19 Vaccine Technology, Cuba Says Abdala Vaccine Shows 92% Efficacy Against COVID-19, Coronavirus Surges in Indonesia; Colombia Death Toll Passes 100,000, White House Falls Behind Goal of Donating 80 Million Vaccine Doses by End of June, Deaths Soared by 32% in U.S. Nursing Homes, Where 4 in 10 Had COVID-19 in 2020, Senate GOP to Filibuster Restoration of Voting Rights Protections, Belarus Hit with New Sanctions as U.N. Rights Chief Decries Torture and Other Abuses, Zapatistas Arrive in Spain, Marking 500 Years Since Cortés's Conquest of Mexico, U.S. Bishops Seek to Deny Communion to Joe Biden over His Support for Reproductive Rights, California to Pay Off All Past-Due Rent Accumulated During the Pandemic, Dozens of Incarcerated Texans Died in Prison After They Were Cleared for Parole, Lawsuit Accuses Smithfield Foods of Stoking Fears over Meat Shortages as Workers Died of COVID-19, Tornado Devastates Chicago Suburbs; Record Heat Wave Sparks Fires in Western States, 400-Mile Youth Climate March Ends with Protest at Houston Home of Sen. Ted Cruz, New York Mayoral Primary to Be Decided by Largest-Ever Ranked-Choice Vote, Supreme Court Rules NCAA Can't Deny Education-Related Pay and Benefits to Student Athletes, Carl Nassib Becomes First Active NFL Player to Come Out as Gay

We look at the push to end what the World Health Organization is calling "vaccine apartheid," as many countries have yet to see a single COVID-19 vaccine shot amid mounting infections. "What we're looking for is an alternative to a system that has basically allowed for COVID-19 vaccines to be absolutely concentrated in the higher-income countries," says Carina Vance Mafla, former health minister of Ecuador, who co-chaired this weekend's emergency Summit on Vaccine Internationalism. She argues vaccine access can be improved by expanding vaccine "production in other countries ... that have developed vaccine candidates, but also having pricing that is based on solidarity." We also speak with Achal Prabhala, coordinator of the AccessIBSA project, which campaigns for access to medicines in India, Brazil and South Africa. Prabhala says the pandemic is now "largely a developing country problem."

More than 2.6 billion COVID-19 vaccines have been administered worldwide, but many countries have yet to see a single shot amid mounting infections. Eighty-five percent of vaccines administered worldwide have been in high- and upper-middle-income countries. Only 0.3% of doses have been administered in low-income countries. Last week, G7 nations pledged to donate just 613 million new vaccine doses — far less than the 1 billion originally promised. This was the focus of an emergency four-day virtual Summit for Vaccine Internationalism this weekend, attended by government ministers, parliamentarians and public health officials from many countries, including Argentina, Bolivia, Vietnam, India, Greece, the United Kingdom, Canada and Cuba. The summit was organized by Progressive International, an organization founded by Senator Bernie Sanders and former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis. "This is how we radicalize the world in order to be able to end the patent monopoly of Big Pharma," says Varoufakis in his address, "so that there are no more patents that prevent people from access to pharmaceuticals … available in order to save lives."

Fears are growing in Peru that supporters of right-wing presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of imprisoned former dictator Alberto Fujimori, will stage a coup to prevent her rival, the socialist teacher and union leader Pedro Castillo, from taking power. With 100% of votes counted from the June 6 election, Castillo has a 44,000-vote lead, but Fujimori is claiming fraud without offering any evidence. She is calling for hundreds of thousands of votes, mostly from poor Andean regions, to be annulled. Thousands took to the streets in Lima to protest against Fujimori's claims. We speak with José Carlos Llerena, a Peruvian educator and activist, who recently co-authored a piece for Peoples Dispatch titled "The coup that is taking place in Peru."

Hard-line cleric Ebrahim Raisi won the Iranian presidential election with about 62% of the vote. Raisi has headed Iran's judiciary since 2019 and is seen as a protégé and possible successor of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Turnout in the election was just 49% — the lowest since the 1979 Iranian revolution — and dozens of candidates were barred from running in the election, including former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Raisi appears to "have higher ambitions than just [the] presidency," says Nega Mortazavi, an Iranian American journalist and host of "The Iran Podcast." "He is preparing to be a potential successor to the supreme leader," Mortazavi says. "The hard-liners tried to disqualify any serious moderate or reformist rival to Ebrahim Raisi to clear a path to victory for him."

More Transmissible Delta Variant Becoming Dominant, Threatening COVID Recovery, Cuba's Soberana 02 Vaccine Offers Hope as COVID Surges in Latin America, Brazil Tops 500,000 Deaths, Japan, Uganda Impose New Measures Amid Mounting COVID Cases, Hard-Line Judiciary Chief Ebrahim Raisi Wins Iranian Presidency as Nuclear Deal Talks Continue, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to Meet with Biden Amid Surging Violence and Taliban Advance, MSF Warns Access Urgently Needed to Bring Aid to Syria's Idlib Region, Authorities Uncover Likely Remains of Missing Indigenous Activist 3 Weeks After Disappearance, Ethiopia Holds Twice-Delayed Elections Amid Conflict and Hunger Crisis, U.N. Resolution Condemns Coup in Burma, Stops Short of Calling for Arms Embargo As Crisis Deepens, Over 82 Million People Were Forcibly Displaced in 2020, Two Guantánamo Prisoners Granted Release After 17 Years in Captivity Without Charge, Georgia GOP Secretary of State to Purge Over 100,000 from Voter Rolls, Seven Killed, Dozens Injured in Mass Shootings Across U.S., Portland Riot Police Quit Unit En Masse After Officer Indicted for Assaulting Protester, 13 Killed as Tropical Storm Slams Southeastern U.S., Hugs Not Walls: Separated Families Briefly Reunite at U.S.-Mexico Border

We look at another significant June 19 in the history of slavery in the United States: June 19, 1838, when Jesuit priests who ran what is now Georgetown University sold 272 enslaved people to pay off the school's debts. In 2016, Georgetown University announced it would give preferential admissions treatment to descendants of the Africans it enslaved and sold. "Ours, as Americans, is an uninterrupted line of inheritance that many of us refuse to believe that we are descendants of," says Mélisande Short-Colomb, who is one of the first two Georgetown University students to benefit from legacy admission for direct descendants and serves on the Board of Advisors for the Georgetown Memory Project.

As President Biden signs legislation to make Juneteenth a federal holiday to mark the day in 1865 when enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, learned of their freedom more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation, we speak to the writer and poet Clint Smith about Juneteenth and his new book, "How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America." "When I think of Juneteenth, part of what I think about is the both-endedness of it," Smith says, "that it is this moment in which we mourn the fact that freedom was kept from hundreds of thousands of enslaved people for years and for months after it had been attained by them, and then, at the same time, celebrating the end of one of the most egregious things that this country has ever done." Smith says he recognizes the federal holiday marking Juneteenth as a symbol, "but it is clearly not enough."

Biden Signs Bill Making Juneteenth a Federal Holiday Commemorating End of Slavery, Senate GOP to Filibuster Voting Rights Legislation, Reject Sen. Manchin Compromise Bill, House Votes to Repeal War Powers Granted to President Ahead of U.S.-Led Invasion of Iraq, Brazilian Senate Inquiry Reveals Bolsonaro Ignored Pfizer's Offers to Supply COVID-19 Vaccines, British Lockdown to Continue Until July 19 as Delta Coronavirus Variant Drives Surge of Cases, Israel Bombs Gaza Strip in Second Breach of Ceasefire That Capped Deadly May Assault, Palestinians Mourn West Bank Teenagers Killed While Protesting Illegal Israeli Settlements, Iranians Begin Voting in Presidential Election, North Korea's Kim Jong-un Acknowledges Food Crisis Due to Sanctions, COVID-19 and Crop Failures, Bolivian Ex-Defense Minister Plotted to Use U.S. Mercenaries to Launch Coup in 2020, Affordable Care Act Survives Third Supreme Court Challenge, SCOTUS Rules in Favor of Nestlé & Cargill in Child Slave Labor Case, Supreme Court Sides with Anti-LGBTQ Foster Agency in "Religious Freedom" Case, DOJ Asks SCOTUS to Reinstate Death Penalty for Boston Marathon Bomber, South Carolina Delays Executions So Prisoners Can Choose Between Electrocution or Firing Squad, Arizona to Pay Prisoners $1.50/Hour to Fight Wildfires as Record Heat Scorches Western U.S., Police Arrest Editors of Hong Kong Newspaper Under National Security Law

Early voting is underway in a historic New York City Democratic primary election for mayor, 35 City Council seats and several other key races. For the first time in almost a century, New Yorkers will use ranked-choice voting, which allows them to choose up to five candidates in order of preference in each race. In the mayor's race, Brooklyn borough president and former New York police officer Eric Adams has led recent polls, while businessman Andrew Yang seems to be falling behind. Tens of thousands of New Yorkers have already cast their votes ahead of the June 22 Democratic primary, with the general election set for November 2. Journalist Ross Barkan says despite New York City's reputation as a progressive stronghold, the Democratic primary for mayor reflects "an incredible amount of diversity" within the Democratic coalition. "You have a real competition of ideas," he says.

U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin met in Geneva Wednesday for a three-hour summit and agreed to set up working groups to deal with nuclear arms control, as well as cyberattacks. The sides also agreed to send ambassadors back to their posts, restoring "normal diplomatic relations of a kind which exist between most countries on the face of the Earth," says Anatol Lieven, senior fellow for Russia and Europe at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. "A more cooperative atmosphere has been established so that the U.S.A. and Russia can work together." He also discusses ongoing tensions over NATO's expansion into Eastern Europe, American hypocrisy about its actions in other countries and how China's rise impacts the U.S.-Russian relationship.

Biden, Putin to Restore Diplomatic Ties After Brief Summit in Geneva, CureVac COVID-19 Vaccine Shows Disappointing 47% Efficacy in Large Clinical Trial, Arizona Bars COVID-19 Vaccine and Testing Requirements for Public Colleges, Amid Record Temperatures, NASA, NOAA Say Earth's Energy Imbalance Has Doubled Since 2005, House of Representatives Votes 415-14 to Establish Juneteenth as Federal Holiday, DOJ Ends Trump-Era Rules Blocking Survivors of Domestic and Gang Violence from Receiving Asylum, Department of Education Will Restore Title IX Protections to LGBTQ+ Students , North Carolina's Ban on Abortions After 20 Weeks Ruled Unconstitutional by Federal Court, Remains of Third Victim of Mexico's 2014 Ayotzinapa Massacre Identified , Peruvian Presidential Candidate Pedro Castillo, Who's Vowed to Fight Inequality, Declares Victory, Rep. Jim McGovern Calls on Biden to End U.S. Sanctions on Venezuela over "Needless Death", Chinese Military Sends Record 28 Warplanes into Airspace Controlled by Taiwan, Three Taikonauts Arrive at New Chinese Space Station After Successful Launch, Saudi Arabia Beheads Man Accused of Joining Anti-Government Uprising as Teenager, 3 Honolulu Police Officers Face Murder Charges in Fatal Shooting of Teenager , Video Shows Honolulu Officers Failed to ID Themselves Before Killing Black Man Who Posed No Threat , Texas Signs Law to Allow Permit-Free Gun Carrying; San Jose Tightens Gun Rules After Mass Shooting, Jack Weinstein, Federal Judge Who Sided with Ordinary Citizens Against Corporations, Dies at 99, Another Power Outage Hits Puerto Rico After Takeover of Grid by LUMA Energy, Greek Unions Strike Against Labor Reform Bill

President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin are meeting in Geneva for a closely watched summit between the world's two largest nuclear powers. Topics expected to be discussed include nuclear arms, cybersecurity, Syria, the Iranian nuclear deal, Afghanistan, Ukraine, the Korean Peninsula, Putin's crackdown on dissent inside Russia and the U.S. military presence near the Russian border. The two world leaders are coming to the summit with fundamentally different goals, says Russian American journalist and writer Masha Gessen. Putin "accomplishes what he has come to Geneva for by simply having the summit," Gessen says. "Biden is concerned … with finding areas of common interest, and he is alone in that. He is alone in actually trying to negotiate in good faith." Gessen also discusses the ongoing imprisonment of Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny, Russia's low vaccination rate and their own experience with COVID-19.

Presidents Biden and Putin Meet in Geneva for Highly Anticipated Summit, Israeli Soldiers Shoot and Kill Palestinian Woman After Overnight Air Raids on Gaza, Palestinians Protest Ultranationalist Israeli "March of the Flags" in Occupied East Jerusalem, New York and California Lift Majority of Coronavirus Restrictions, Senate Approves Bill Making Juneteenth a National Holiday, Texas Bans Critical Race Theory in Schools, Reps. Cori Bush and Bonnie Watson Coleman Unveil Bill Decriminalizing All Drug Possession, Bomb Blast Kills 15 People in Mogadishu, Hungarian Lawmakers Advance Legislation Barring LGBTQ Content for Minors, Arctic Scientists Say We May Have Already Passed Climate Tipping Point, Indigenous Activists Continue Resistance Against Line 3 After Setback in Court, Antitrust Leader Lina Khan Confirmed by Senate, Named as Chair of FTC, Biden Administration Lays Out New Strategy to Combat White Supremacist Domestic Terror, Trump and Aides Pressured DOJ to Back Fabricated Voter Fraud Claims, Program Allowing Central American Children to Reunite with Parents in U.S. Set to Be Expanded, Janitors Unite to Demand Justice, Fair Working Conditions, William vanden Heuvel, Former Gov't Adviser and Advocate for Prisoners, Dies at the Age of 91, 2021 Goldman Environmental Prize Honors Climate Justice Activists Around the World

More than 1 million people in Puerto Rico were left in the dark this month after power transmission and distribution for the island was taken over by a private company under a 15-year contract. Much of Puerto Rico lost power after a fire at an electrical substation caused a massive blackout just days after the private U.S. and Canadian company LUMA Energy formally took over management of the island's electric grid from the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, or PREPA, which was devastated by Hurricane Maria. Many people are still without power or facing ongoing blackouts. "This is a classic example of disaster capitalism," says Arturo Massol-Deyá, executive director of Casa Pueblo, a community-based natural resources conservation and sustainable development group.

China says NATO is adopting a "Cold War mentality" after the military alliance singled out China and Russia for criticism during a summit in Brussels. In its final communiqué, NATO leaders said, "China's stated ambitions and assertive behavior present systemic challenges to the rules-based international order." NATO leaders also criticized Russia and called on Moscow to withdraw troops from Ukraine, Georgia and the Republic of Moldova. Stephen Wertheim, a historian of U.S. foreign policy, says he is concerned that the Biden administration is "moving toward a quite hostile posture toward China and Russia simultaneously." He also says policymakers need to urgently reevaluate the purpose of NATO, which he says could fuel greater conflict. "Is that really what the American people need for the rest of the 21st century?" he asks.

Former National Security Agency contractor Reality Leigh Winner was released from prison Monday to serve the rest of her sentence in a halfway house. We get an update from the lawyer handling her commutation and pardon process. Winner was arrested in 2017 under the Espionage Act for leaking classified government information about Russian interference in the 2016 election to reporters at The Intercept. Prosecutors told The New York Times she got the longest sentence ever given by a federal court for unauthorized disclosure of government information to the press. Winner's family and legal team say she should receive a pardon and are calling for her sentence to be commuted. "Reality released a document that gave us information that we needed to know at a time that we absolutely needed to know it," says Alison Grinter Allen, Winner's attorney.

China Blasts "Cold War Mentality" as Biden Pushes NATO to Declare China a Security Risk, WHO Says G7 Vaccine Pledge Falls Far Short of What's Needed to End Pandemic, COVID-19 Surges in Unvaccinated African Nations; Chile Locks Down Santiago Despite Vaccinations, Brazilian Indigenous Leaders March Against Copa América, Demanding Vaccines, Not Soccer Matches, U.S. COVID-19 Deaths Top 600,000, the Worst Toll in the World, NSA Whistleblower Reality Winner Released from Prison, Sen. Mitch McConnell Suggests Republicans Won't Confirm Biden SCOTUS Nominees After 2022 Election, Boeing to Resume Campaign Contributions to Republicans in "Sedition Caucus", Marjorie Taylor Greene Won't Apologize for Calling Democrats "Nazis" After Comparing Masks to Holocaust, Protesters Demand West Virginia Sen. Manchin End Opposition to Filibuster Reform, Voting Rights Bill, Progressives Reject "Compromise" Infrastructure Bill They Say Fails to Meet Scale of Climate Crisis, Massive Fire Erupts at Illinois Chemical Plant, Driver Kills Peaceful Protester at Minneapolis Vigil for Black Man Killed by Police, Burmese Military Junta Begins Closed-Door Trial for Deposed Leader Aung San Suu Kyi, ICC Prosecutor Seeks Probe of Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte over Drug War Killings

As President Biden meets with leaders of NATO countries, where he is expected to continue stepping up rhetoric against China and Russia ahead of his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin this Wednesday in Geneva, we speak with famed Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg about why he recently released another classified document showing that U.S. military planners in 1958 pushed for nuclear strikes on China to protect Taiwan from an invasion by communist forces. The top-secret study revealed the U.S. military pressed then-President Dwight Eisenhower to prepare a nuclear first strike against mainland China during the Taiwan Strait crisis of 1958. Taiwan "could really only be defended, if at all, by the U.S. initiating nuclear war against China," says Ellsberg. The document also shows that U.S. military planners were ready to accept the risk that the Soviet Union would launch its own nuclear retaliation, including against Japan. Although Ellsberg's online release of the document was publicized in May, he reveals that he shared the same information with Japan decades earlier. "I had given the entire study to the Japanese Diet," Ellsberg says.

Fifty years ago this week, The New York Times began publishing excerpts of the Pentagon Papers — 7,000 pages of top-secret documents outlining the Pentagon's secret history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam since the 1940s. The leak exposed years of government lies about the war, revealed that even top officials believed it was unwinnable, and would end up helping to end the Vietnam War and lead to a major victory for press freedom. The Times exposé was based on documents secretly photocopied by Daniel Ellsberg and Anthony Russo, who both worked as Pentagon consultants at the RAND Corporation. Ellsberg, who had been deeply involved in the Vietnam War as a defense analyst, decided to risk life imprisonment to reveal the truth about Vietnam. "I'd been lied to. The whole country had been lied to. The Congress had been lied to as to what the situation was," Ellsberg says. He says top officials knew for years that the war had "very little likelihood of helping anyone, but leading just to an escalating stalemate."

New Israeli Gov't Coalition Ousts Benjamin Netanyahu After 12 Years as Prime Minister, G7 Concludes as Activists Slam Failure to Act on Climate Crisis, Vaccine Inequality, Biden to Meet with Turkey's President Erdogan as NATO Summit Kicks Off, Novavax Vaccine 90% Effective; U.S. COVID Cases Continue to Fall as California Readies for Reopening, U.K. Delays Reopening as Moscow Sees New Surge in Cases; India Moves to Reopen as Infections Drop, Bombs Kill at Least 7 in Afghanistan as Hazara Shia Come Under Mounting Attacks, Shelling in Afrin, Syria, Kills at Least 13 People, Tunisian Protesters Call for an End to Police Brutality After Recent Killings of Civilians, Israeli Forces Killed 5 People in the Occupied West Bank Over Past Week, Including a 15-Year-Old Boy, Nigerians Protest on Democracy Day After Deadly Raid in Zamfara Kills at Least 53 People, Fire at New Delhi Rohingya Refugee Camps Leaves Hundreds Without Shelter, Calls for Justice in Guatemala After Two Trans Activists Killed, Shootings Over Weekend Bring U.S. to More Than 270 Mass Shootings Since Start of 2021, AG Merrick Garland Says DOJ Will Work to Protect Voting Rights, Louisiana ICE Jail Puts Prisoners on "Communications Lockdown" After Mishandling Tuberculosis Case, Record Temperatures Hit Southwest as Drought Conditions Worsen Across Western U.S., Pulitzer Prize Honors Darnella Frazier; Les and Tamara Payne Win for Malcolm X Biography

Germany has apologized for its role in the first genocide of the 20th century, which took place in Namibia, a former colony then known as German South West Africa. Between 1904 and 1908, German colonizers killed tens of thousands of Ovaherero and Nama people in Namibia. German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas officially described the massacre as genocide and outlined an offer of more than $1.34 billion in development aid to the Namibian government. The offer was not negotiated with survivors of the genocide, and critics have described it as a pittance. We speak with Nyoko Muvangua, born of the Ovaherero people who were targeted for ethnic cleansing by the German government, and Namibian researcher Emsie Erastus.