Headlines for March 10, 2025
Syrian Security Forces Accused of Massacring Hundreds of Christian and Alawite Civilians, Palestinians Queue in Long Bread Lines as Israel Cuts Electricity to Gaza, Trump Defends Putin’s Attacks on Ukraine as Russian Air Raids Kill Dozens, Canada’s Mark Carney Wins Liberal Party Election, Will Replace Trudeau as Prime Minister, DHS Strips Union Rights from 47,000 TSA Workers; HHS Offers Buyouts to 80,000 Workers, Trump Reportedly Reins In Musk’s Power After “Explosive” Cabinet Meeting, Trump Expands Retribution Campaign, Targeting Law Firm Tied to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Campaign, ICE Detains Columbia Campus Protest Leader as Trump Cuts $400 Million to University, Trump-Appointed Federal Prosecutor Says He Won’t Hire Georgetown Law Students over DEI Curriculum, Survivors of “Bloody Sunday” Lead 60th Anniversary March Across Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge, Trump Administration Transfers Transgender Women to Men’s Prisons, Arts Groups Sue National Endowment for the Arts over Trump’s Order
on “Gender Ideology”, “Reinstate Queer Programming”: Drag Performers Lead Protest Outside Kennedy Center, “Our Rights Are Consistently Under Attack”: Protesters Slam U.S. Gov’t on International Women’s Day
Stand Up for Science: Nationwide Protests Oppose Trump Cuts to Research from Cancer to Climate Change
Scientists rallied nationwide last Friday in opposition to the Trump administration’s sweeping cuts for scientific research and mass layoffs impacting numerous agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Weather Service. Thousands gathered at Stand Up for Science protests in over two dozen other cities. We air remarks from speakers in Washington, D.C., including former USAID official Dr. Atul Gawande and Dr. Francis Collins, who led the Human Genome Project and the National Institutes of Health.
“I study women’s health, and right now you’re not able to really put into proposals that you are studying women,” says Emma Courtney, Ph.D. candidate at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York and co-organizer of Stand Up for Science. She tells *Democracy Now!* it’s critical for federal policy to be “informed by science and rooted in evidence.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/10/stand_up_for_science_doge_protests
Mahmoud Khalil: ICE Detains Green Card Holder over Columbia University Gaza Activism
Immigration agents with the Department of Homeland Security have detained a leader of the Gaza solidarity encampment at Columbia University in New York. Mahmoud Khalil, who is an Algerian citizen of Palestinian descent, is a green card holder and is married to a U.S. citizen; his wife is eight months pregnant. Immigration officials told Khalil’s lawyer his green card was being revoked. Khalil recently graduated from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, and his whereabouts are unknown. “The [Trump] administration doesn’t seem to know exactly how to justify this very haphazard, unilateral move,” says Prem Thakker, political correspondent and columnist for *Zeteo*.
The arrest comes as Donald Trump’s Federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism announced last week that it would cancel $400 million in federal grants and contracts to the university, despite Columbia’s suppression of pro-Palestine activism. The Trump administration doesn’t “really care about antisemitism or keeping Jews safe. All they care about is crushing dissent,” says Joseph Howley, associate professor of classics at Columbia University.
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/10/columbia_university_mahmoud_khalil
Headlines for March 7, 2025
Trump Exempts Goods in U.S.-Mexico-Canada Trade Pact from 25% Tariff After Talks with Pres. Sheinbaum, State Dept. Implements Trump EO Halting Most U.S. Funding for South Africa, State Dept. to Close Overseas Missions, Dozens of Consulates, U.S. Judge Blocks DOGE from Firing Head of U.S. African Development Foundation, 8 Democratic States Sue Education Dept. over Frozen Training Funds, U.S. Judge Orders Reinstatement of Illegally Fired NLRB Member, Tells Trump He Is Not a King, USDA Told to Reinstate 6,000 Fired Workers Pending Review, Head of Gov’t Watchdog Ends Challenge to Trump Admin After Court OKs His Firing, State Department Deploys AI to Deny Visas to Visitors with Pro-Palestinian Views, Pentagon Inspector General Halts Efforts to Root Out Extremism, CAIR Issues Travel Advisory as Trump Readies New Muslim Ban, Trump Considers Revoking Temporary Protected Status for 240,000 Ukrainian Refugees, European Leaders Agree to Boost Military Aid to Ukraine as Trump Suspends U.S.
Support, Trump Says He’ll Rein In Elon Musk’s Role in Mass Firings, Senate Votes to Overturn CFPB Rule on Digital Payments App, Boosting Elon Musk’s Plans for X, SpaceX Starship Explodes and Rains Rocket Debris Across Caribbean, Weeks After Similar Disaster, OSHA Fines Tesla Less Than $50,000 over Factory Worker’s Electrocution Death, Supreme Court Lifts Restraints on Wastewater Discharges, Further Eroding Clean Water Act, State Department Halts Air Pollution Monitoring at U.S. Embassies and Consulates, Sudan’s Military Rulers Accuse UAE of Abetting Genocide by Arming Rebel Forces, 70 Killed as Syrian Forces Clash with Assad Loyalists, UNRWA Says Israel Is Undertaking Largest Displacement of West Bank Palestinians Since 1967, Gaza Teen Who Narrated Acclaimed Documentary Condemns BBC Censorship, Civil Rights Groups Promote John Lewis Voting Rights Act on 60th Anniversary of Bloody Sunday
"Impeachment Is a Remedy for a Runaway President": Rep. Al Green on Why He Disrupted Trump's Address
We speak with Democratic Congressmember Al Green of Texas a day after he was censured by the House of Representatives for disrupting President Donald Trump’s joint address to Congress on Tuesday night. His dramatic protest came near the start of Trump’s record-long speech. In instantly iconic images, Green rose and shook his walking cane at the president on the rostrum, telling him “You have no mandate” to cut vital government programs. Green was ejected from the chamber. This comes as Democrats continue to scramble for a unified response to the onslaught of radical actions by the Trump administration, with party leadership reportedly urging restraint and decorum while some members are taking a more confrontational approach. “We now live in a government that is of the plutocrats, by the plutocrats, for the plutocrats,” Congressmember Green tells *Democracy Now!* “We have to fight to protect those who cannot protect themselves.” Green has repeatedly called to impeach Trump and says he
is currently preparing another such effort, calling impeachment “a remedy for a runaway president who believes that there are no guardrails.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/7/impeachment_is_a_rremedy_for_a
Bishop William Barber: GOP Tax Cuts "Mathematically Impossible" Without Gutting Medicaid and More
Republicans in Congress are pushing forward budget plans that would cut trillions in federal spending and give trillions more in tax cuts that disproportionately benefit corporations and the ultra-rich. This week, hundreds of faith leaders gathered on the Christian holy day of Ash Wednesday on Capitol Hill to voice their opposition. “There’s no way you can do the kinds of cuts they’re talking about — it’s mathematically impossible — without touching Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid,” says Bishop William Barber, one of the participants. Barber also reflects on the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, when civil rights marchers were brutalized in Selma, Alabama, and stresses that economic justice was always at the heart of the movement alongside ending segregation and winning voting rights.
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/7/bishop_william_barber_gop_tax_cuts
Nicaragua Is in the Grips of Another Dictatorship, Decades After Sandinista Revolution: Reed Brody
Nicaragua announced last week it is withdrawing from the United Nations Human Rights Council, following a U.N. report that slammed the government’s human rights violations and warned the country was becoming an authoritarian state. The report by a panel of independent human rights experts adds to international pressure on the Nicaraguan government led by President Daniel Ortega and first lady Rosario Murillo, who was recently named co-president. “Nicaragua has become a country of enforced silence and surveillance for those who stay in the country, while those who dare to speak out face a life of exile and denationalization,” says Reed Brody, a member of the U.N. expert panel, who has spent decades investigating rights abuses in Nicaragua.
He speaks to *Democracy Now!* 40 years to the day since the release of his landmark 1985 fact-finding report *Contra Terror in Nicaragua*, which laid out how U.S. policy attempted to destabilize Nicaragua’s Sandinista government by funding the Contras and their campaign of torture, rape, kidnapping and murder.
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/7/nicaragua_is_in_the_grips_of
Headlines for March 6, 2025
SCOTUS Rejects Trump Attempt to Keep U.S. Foreign Aid Frozen, Trump EO Targeting Education Dept. Expected Imminently as NEA, ACLU Sue Dept. over DEI Ban, VA to Cut 80,000 Jobs; Judge Blocks Cap on NIH Spending; Small Development Agency Blocks DOGE, Trump Delays Auto Tariffs by One Month Amid Escalating Trade War, U.S. Suspends Intelligence Sharing with Ukraine as European Leaders Scramble to Support Kyiv, Russian Attacks Kill 4 in Kryvyi Rih, One in Odesa, Arab League Agrees to $53 Billion Gaza Reconstruction Plan, U.S. Holds First-Ever Direct Talks wIth Hamas as Trump Issues “Last Warning” Against Group, Police Arrest 9 Protesters as Barnard Students Occupy and Rename Bldg in Honor of Gaza Doctor, South Carolina Prepares to Execute Prisoner Brad Keith Sigmon by Firing Squad, Trump Administration Drops Effort to Force Idaho Hospitals to Provide Emergency Abortions, Called Before Congress, Democratic Mayors Blast GOP Crackdown on Sanctuary Cities, Texas Rep. Sylvester Turner Dies at 70,
Hours After Attending Trump’s Address to Congress, Virginia Gov. Youngkin Pardons White Cop Who Fatally Shot Black Man Accused of Shoplifting, Elon Musk Calls on Trump to Pardon Ex-Cop Derek Chauvin, Who Murdered George Floyd, Faith Leaders Mark Ash Wednesday with Calls to Reverse Trump and Musk’s Attacks on the Poor, RTS Journalism Award Goes to “The Night Won’t End: Biden’s War on Gaza”
"Lift the Freeze": HIV/AIDS Advocates Win Supreme Court Victory in Fight over Trump Foreign Aid Cuts
The Supreme Court has rejected a request by the Trump administration to continue refusing to pay out nearly $2 billion for work completed by USAID, with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joining the court’s three liberal justices in the majority. However, the court’s decision did not specify when the money must be released, allowing Trump’s team to further dispute the issue in lower courts. We speak to two people involved in the lawsuit brought by the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition, or AVAC. The Trump administration’s decision to unilaterally slash foreign assistance, including funding critical to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS, “for no good reason and with no clear strategy,” was an unlawful “abuse of executive power,” says attorney Nicolas Sansone, who serves as counsel for the plaintiff. “People will die,” adds Mitchell Warren, the executive director of AVAC. Warren condemns the “willful ignorance” and “disregard of science” being promoted by Trump and his
allies, many of whom are former supporters of bipartisan global health initiatives.
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/6/usaid_supreme_court_foreign_aid_frozen
Leaked USAID Memos Warn 100,000s Will Die from Cuts to Polio, TB, Malaria, Ebola, AIDS Programs
“They cut everything at once.” ProPublica reporter Brett Murphy is tracking the aftermath of the “haphazard” and “draconian” dismantling of USAID, which experts warn will lead to a dangerous rise in disease epidemics around the world, including risking the resurgence of Ebola and tuberculosis. Despite the administration’s claims in court, says Murphy, “this is the opposite of a careful review,” and has left in its wake wasted resources, unpaid workers and an end to “literally lifesaving work.” Much of this demolition has been spearheaded by Trump ally Peter Marocco, whose alignment with Christian nationalist movements, says Murphy, appears to be influencing the current direction of U.S. foreign aid.
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/6/usaid_memo_disease_nicholas_enrich
U.S. Humanitarianism Often Reproduces Inequality, But Killing USAID Is Wrong Answer: Kathryn Mathers
Amid ongoing chaos and outrage stemming from the Trump administration’s gutting of the U.S. Agency for International Development, we hear a critique of USAID and the “humanitarian-industrial complex” from South African anthropologist Kathryn Mathers. ”USAID is very much a part of a system and industry that not only depends on global inequality … but in many ways produces it,” she says. Funding for foreign assistance, much of which actually flows back to the United States, ultimately “does its job of supporting U.S. interests” and “renders the causes of global inequality invisible, hiding the ways that often U.S. policies, U.S. trade agreements and other forms of extractive capitalism are often the causes.” Mathers emphasizes, however, that Trump’s abrupt cuts to the agency, rather than resolving the “paradox” of humanitarian aid, are “doing only harm.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/6/usaid_critique_humanitarian_industrial_complex
Headlines for March 5, 2025
Trump Delivers Partisan and Divisive 100-Minute Address to Joint Session of Congress, Rep. Al Green Disrupts Trump’s Speech to Congress as Other Democrats Protest Silently, After Cutting Aid to Ukraine, Trump Reads Conciliatory Letter from President Zelensky, USAID Memo Warns Trump’s Foreign Aid Freeze Could Lead to Millions of Preventable Deaths, As Measles Spreads, Health Secretary RFK Jr. Promotes Vitamins and Cod Oil Liver, Not Vaccines, Judge Extends Hold on Trump’s Order Denying Gender-Affirming Care to Transgender Youth, Trump Administration Plans to Cut IRS Workforce in Half, Trump Says He’ll Cut Funds to Universities That Allow Campus Protests, Mexican President Says She’ll Announce Retaliatory Tariffs Against U.S. on Sunday, Supreme Court Justices Appear Skeptical of Mexican Government Lawsuit Against U.S. Gun Makers, UNICEF Says Over 200 Children and Infants Have Been Raped During Sudan’s Civil War, Serbian Lawmakers Disrupt Parliament with Smoke Grenades as Anti-Corruption
Protests Rage
"A Declaration of War Against the American People": Ralph Nader on Trump's Address to Congress
President Donald Trump delivered the longest presidential address to a joint session of Congress in modern history Tuesday night, laying out his vision for the next four years as he defended his many executive actions to dismantle large portions of the federal government. For an hour and 40 minutes, Trump repeatedly lied and exaggerated his accomplishments and his opponents’ failures, deploying racist and dehumanizing language to describe immigrants, LGBTQ people and his critics. Trump heaped praise on billionaire Elon Musk and his efforts to slash entire government agencies. The speech was “a declaration of war against the American people, including Trump voters, in favor of the super-rich and the giant corporations,” says Ralph Nader, longtime consumer advocate, corporate critic and former presidential candidate.
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/5/ralph_nader_trump_speech_joint_congress
Fact-Check: Juan González on Trump's "Outrageous" Lies About Panama Canal
In his first speech to a joint session of Congress in his second term, Trump once again threatened to annex the Panama Canal. Juan González, co-host of *Democracy Now!*, fact-checks some of the lies that Trump used to justify U.S. control of the Panama Canal. In his address, Trump claimed 38,000 Americans were killed during the creation of the Panama Canal. In reality, the vast majority of the labor force that built the canal was from the West Indies, largely Barbados. Over 5,600 laborers died, but only about 300 U.S.-born workers died. “No matter how many times you repeat a lie, it still doesn’t make it true,” says González.
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/5/juan_gonzalez_trump_speech_congress_2025
"Far from the Truth": As Trump Vilifies Immigrants Again, Activist Erika Andiola Slams Trump's Lies
President Trump on Tuesday once again focused on the importance of securing the U.S. border and criticized former President Biden’s so-called open border policies. He accused Biden of allowing migrants to “overwhelm” towns like Aurora, Colorado, and Springfield, Ohio, and pushed for even more funding to implement his campaign promise of mass deportations. The Trump administration is “doubling down on creating this image that immigrants are to blame for every single one of their problems,” says longtime immigrant rights activist Erika Andiola.
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/5/erika_andiola_trump_immigration
"Betrayal": Canadian Researcher Responds to Trump's Tariffs & Trade War Amid Fears of Recession
As stiff new tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China took effect on Tuesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau warned that Trump’s moves are aimed at “a total collapse of the Canadian economy, because that’ll make it easier to annex us.” Canada relies on the U.S. for 75% of exports and a third of its imports. For more, we speak with a senior researcher at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood. “If there’s one feeling in Canada right now, it’s probably betrayal. We trusted this relationship with the U.S. for a century. We count on the U.S. as an economic partner. We’re obviously very closely culturally tied. And this just kind of throws everything into question,” says Mertins-Kirkwood.
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/5/trump_canada_tariffs_trade_war
"War on Trans People": Transgender Journalist Imara Jones Responds to Trump's Speech
President Trump has signed a number of anti-trans executive orders in the first month of his second term. He has attempted to ban trans women from sports, declared that there are only two sexes, and placed restrictions on gender-affirming care for trans youth. Trump continues to target trans people with hateful rhetoric, leaving trans people uncertain of their futures. “The Trump administration has declared war on trans people,” Imara Jones, founder and CEO of TransLash Media and host of its investigative podcast, *The Anti-Trans Hate Machine*, tells *Democracy Now!*
Why NJ Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman Brought a Doctor Who Worked in Gaza as Her Guest to Trump's Speech
Trump’s speech to a joint session of Congress discussed the Middle East without any mention of Palestinians. This comes as Trump has called for ethnic cleansing of Gaza and posted an AI-generated video depicting Gaza as a resort town with a golden statue of Trump. Congressmember Bonnie Watson Coleman attended the speech with her guest Dr. Adam Hamawy, an Army veteran and reconstructive surgeon who recently volunteered at a Gaza hospital. “The whole issue of Gaza, with the exception of the president wanting to make it a spa for millionaires, was being overlooked at a time when the infrastructure is absolutely devastated, the people are devastated,” says Watson Coleman.
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/5/trump_speech_gaza_palestine_omission
Headlines for March 4, 2025
Trump Halts Arms Shipments to Ukraine After “Manufactured Escalation” Against Zelensky, Trump Imposes Tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China, Sending Markets Tumbling, Trump Announces Plans for Strategic Cryptocurrency Reserve, Israel Continues Deadly Attacks in Gaza Despite Ceasefire Agreement, Palestinian Prisoner Khaled Abdullah Dies in Israeli Prison Amid Reports of Torture and Neglect, M23 Rebels Abduct Scores of Patients from Hospitals in DRC’s Goma, Former Social Security Chief Warns DOGE Cuts Could “Collapse” Benefits Within Weeks, “We Need to Keep This Agency Strong”: Protests Erupt over NOAA Firings, Senate GOP Confirms Linda McMahon as Education Sec. Amid Threats to Public Education, Acting U.S. Attorney Ed Martin Demotes Jan. 6 Prosecutors, Claims He Is “Trump’s Lawyer”, ACLU Sues Trump Administration over Transfer of Immigrants to Guantánamo, Pentagon Orders Another 5,000+ Troops to Southern Border, Protesters Decry Trump Plan to Use Dublin Federal Facility, Dubbed “Rape
Club,” as ICE Prison
Greenpeace on Trial: $300M Lawsuit over Standing Rock Protests Could Shutter Group & Chill Free Speech
A closely watched civil trial that began in North Dakota last week could bankrupt Greenpeace and chill environmental activism as the climate crisis continues to deepen. The multimillion-dollar lawsuit by Energy Transfer, the oil corporation behind the Dakota Access Pipeline, claims Greenpeace organized the mass protests and encampment at Standing Rock between 2016 and 2017 aimed at stopping construction of the project. Although the uprising at Standing Rock was led by Indigenous water defenders, Energy Transfer is instead going after Greenpeace for $300 million in damages — an amount that could effectively shutter the group’s U.S. operations. “This case is not just an obvious and blatant erasure of Indigenous leadership, of Indigenous resistance,” says Deepa Padmanabha, a senior legal adviser for Greenpeace USA. “It is an attack on the broader movement and all of our First Amendment rights to free speech and peaceful protest.”