The U.S. Accepts "Fruits of Migrant Labor" But Not Immigrants' Humanity: Day Laborer Organizer in L.A.
We go to Los Angeles, where immigrant workers and families are feeling the impact of ICE raids on worksites like Home Depot. While hundreds have been detained, countless others are left to wonder whether they can safely go to work or school, fearing for their families. “The life of an immigrant in Los Angeles and across this country … is full of uncertainties,” says Pablo Alvarado, co-executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. “Families don’t know whether they’re going to see their parents when they leave in the morning to go to work.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/6/12/los_angeles_protests_immigrants
Headlines for June 11, 2025
Newsom Slams Trump for Sending Troops to L.A.: “Democracy Is Under Assault Before Our Eyes”, Trump Claims Anti-ICE Protests in L.A. Are Part of “Foreign Invasion”, Curfew Enacted in Downtown L.A. as Protests Continue, Pentagon: Troop Deployment to L.A. Will Cost $134 Million, Texas Gov. Abbott Deploys National Guard as Anti-ICE Protests Grow, As Tanks Arrive in D.C., Trump Says “Very Heavy Force” Will Be Used on Protesters at Military Parade, 31 More Palestinians Killed Near Aid Distribution Site in Gaza, U.K. & Allies Impose Sanctions on Israeli Officials Smotrich & Ben-Gvir for Inciting Violence, Greta Thunberg Returns Home to Sweden After Gaza-Bound Aid Ship Is Seized, Argentina Supreme Court Upholds Prison Sentence for Ex-President Kirchner, Record 1.3 Million People Displaced in Haiti as Violence Escalates, Terry Moran Out at ABC News After Calling Stephen Miller a “World-Class Hater”, Rep. Sherrill and Ciattarelli to Face Off in NJ Gubernatorial Race, Rubio Orders Termination of
Remaining USAID Overseas Staff
Musk vs. Trump? Quinn Slobodian on the Risks of Billionaire Rule
Is the Donald Trump-Elon Musk bromance finally over? President Trump is threatening to cut off billions of dollars in federal contracts with Musk after the two billionaires engaged in a dramatic online feud just days after Musk called Trump’s budget bill a “disgusting abomination.” Musk appeared to back the impeachment of Trump and claimed the president is named in the Jeffrey Epstein files. “They are people who always have their eye on the bottom line, but they also are, obviously, titanically sized egos,” says author Quinn Slobodian, professor of international history at Boston University, who is working on a new book about Elon Musk. “This is just a sign of how dangerous it is to put … the whole future of the American economy and the political scene in the hands of two sole human beings.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/6/6/quinn_slobodian_trump_musk_fight
Fired over Gaza? Dr. Rupa Marya Sues UCSF, Says She Was Targeted for Speaking Up for Palestine
We speak with Dr. Rupa Marya, a physician, activist, author and composer, who this week filed two free speech complaints against her former employer, the University of California, San Francisco. The school fired her last month after a lengthy suspension over her criticism of Israel’s war on Gaza and its impact on healthcare in the Palestinian territory. “I didn’t expect that my career-ending move would be to say 'stop bombing hospitals,' for expressing support for Palestinian liberation and for criticizing the U.S.-backed genocide,” says Marya. She was named one of the top 20 most influential women in biomedicine by *Nature* and served on multiple national advisory boards. Since her firing, over 1,000 healthcare workers and students have signed open letters demanding her reinstatement and denouncing UCSF’s suppression of political expression.
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/6/6/university_california_san_francisco_gaza
Headlines for June 5, 2025
Trump Signs Travel Ban Targeting Citizens of 12 Countries , United States Vetoes Another U.N. Security Council Resolution Calling for Gaza Ceasefire, Israel Attacks Al-Ahli Hospital, Killing at Least 3 Journalists, Protesters Demand U.S. and U.K. Lawmakers Act to Stop Genocide in Gaza, Deadly Russian Attacks on Ukraine Follow Putin’s Threat of Retaliation over Drone Strikes, Iran’s Supreme Leader Rejects Trump Administration Demand to End Uranium Enrichment, Human Rights Watch Says U.S. Committed Apparent War Crime in Yemen Port Attack, Trump Targets Columbia’s Accreditation and Harvard’s International Students, Trump Proposes 90% Cuts to All 37 U.S. Tribal Colleges, Mexico Says It Will Reciprocate After Trump Doubles Tariffs on Steel and Aluminum, CBO Says “Big Beautiful Bill” Would End Health Coverage for 11 Million, Add $2.4 Trillion to Debt, Rep. Jerry Nadler Demands Investigation After DHS Agents Handcuff Staffer, El Salvador Court Orders Prominent Anti-Corruption Lawyer Jailed
for 6 Months Ahead of Trial
Trump Revives Travel Ban, Bars Citizens of 12 Nations in Move Decried as "Devastating"
President Trump has signed a new travel ban barring citizens of 12 countries from entering the United States. The ban applies to Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen and the Republic of Congo. The Trump administration is calling some of the countries “terrorist safe havens” and citing high visa overstay rates for others. Compared to the first Trump administration’s sweeping travel bans, which targeted travelers from Muslim-majority countries, this latest iteration is more likely to withstand legal challenges, says Baher Azmy, legal director for the Center for Constitutional Rights, which challenged the previous bans. However, the new order will be just as “devastating,” says Azmy.
Mahmoud Khalil, Trapped in "Immigration Gulag" for Nearly 3 Months, Challenges Deportation Efforts
We get an update on the case of former Columbia University student protest negotiator Mahmoud Khalil from Baher Azmy, a member of Khalil’s legal team at the Center for Constitutional Rights. Khalil has been detained in Louisiana for nearly three months, in what Azmy calls one of “our immigration gulags.” Khalil’s legal team is now challenging the State Department’s determination that his presence in the United States harms the country’s foreign policy interests.
As U.S. Vetoes U.N. Gaza Ceasefire Resolution, Kathy Kelly & Veterans Enter 3rd Week of Hunger Strike
A group of veterans and their allies have entered their third week of a “Fast for Gaza” outside the United Nations headquarters in New York City. The group is calling for an end to arms sales to Israel and of Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip. We hear from multiple hunger strikers on their decisions to join the planned 40-day action and why they are pressuring the U.N. in particular. “We wake up each morning, and we don’t worry about whether or not our children have been buried under rubble overnight. We’re not drinking poisoned water. We’re not surrounded by rubble. We’re not dealing with the horrible traumas that people in Palestine and Gaza are dealing with,” says peace activist Kathy Kelly, who started her hunger strike two weeks ago. “What would make us stop? Well, certainly, if there were a permanent, unconditional, immediate ceasefire.”
"The Shame of Israeli Medicine": How Israeli Doctors Turned on Palestinian Colleagues & Patients
We speak to political scientist Neve Gordon and medical anthropologist Guy Shalev about their new article, “The Shame of Israeli Medicine,” which looks at the “complicity of the Israeli medical establishment with Israel’s egregious violations of international law.” The article’s third author, Osama Tanous, is a Palestinian citizen of Israel and has not been able to make media appearances for fear of reprisal by the Israeli government. “The Israeli medical establishment in general identifies with Israel’s colonial project and puts the colonial project over the most basic ethical principles of their profession,” says Gordon, who previously served as the inaugural director of the organization Physicians for Human Rights Israel. Shalev, the current executive director of the group, connects the Israeli military’s targeting of healthcare workers and infrastructure in Gaza with its silencing of the great number of Palestinians who make up the medical workforce in Israel. The authors call for
an international boycott of Israeli medical institutions, until “Israel stops its colonial project, [and] after the Palestinians receive liberation and self-determination.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/6/5/physicians_for_human_rights_israel
"How to Survive the Broligarchy": Carole Cadwalladr on Tech Titans & Rising U.S. Authoritarianism
We’re joined by award-winning investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr, who in 2018 exposed the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scandal and is now taking on what she terms the “broligarchy,” the billionaire Silicon Valley businessmen who now wield major influence in U.S. government and society. “This is a new type of power, and the world hasn’t seen this before, in which you have state power now with this enormous surveillance engine machine,” says Cadwalladr. She warns that the increasing authoritarianism of the Trump administration is being facilitated by unregulated surveillance technology. “People should be freaked out. … They want as much information about the population as possible, so that they can surveil them, they can control them, they can search out their enemies, they can target them, and they can punish them, and they can silence them.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/6/5/how_to_survive_the_broligarchy
Headlines for June 4, 2025
Israel Kills 95 Palestinians Across Gaza in a Day; 18 Killed in Bombing of School Turned Shelter, Shadowy Gaza “Humanitarian” Group Suspends Operations After Massacres at Aid Sites, Israel Resumes Attacks on Syrian Military Infrastructure with Daraa Airstrikes, South Korea Liberal Candidate Lee Jae-myung Wins Presidential Election, U.N. Food Delivery Convoy Workers Killed in Darfur as Sudan’s Food and Public Health Crises Deepen, Dozens of Civilians Killed in Clashes Between Militias and South Sudan’s Army, Trump Asks Congress to Rescind $8.3 Billion in Foreign Assistance, “A Disgusting Abomination”: Elon Musk Blasts Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” , Trump Administration Rescinds Biden-Era Protections for Those Needing Emergency Abortions, ICE Detains Wife and Five Children of Man Who Attacked Colorado March for Israeli Hostages, Judge Enjoins Trump Administration from Denying Gender-Affirming Care to Trans Prisoners, Pentagon May Strip Names of Harvey Milk and Other Civil Rights Icons
from Navy Ships, White House Seeks to Shutter Independent Agency That Investigates Chemical Hazards and Disasters, Tusla Mayor Announces $105 Million Reparations Package for 1921 Race Massacre
Headlines for June 4, 2025
Israel Kills 95 Palestinians Across Gaza in a Day; 18 Killed in Bombing of School Turned Shelter, Shadowy Gaza “Humanitarian” Group Suspends Operations After Massacres at Aid Sites, Israel Resumes Attacks on Syrian Military Infrastructure with Daraa Airstrikes, South Korea Liberal Candidate Lee Jae-myung Wins Presidential Election, U.N. Food Delivery Convoy Workers Killed in Darfur as Sudan’s Food and Public Health Crises Deepen, Dozens of Civilians Killed in Clashes Between Militias and South Sudan’s Army, Trump Asks Congress to Rescind $8.3 Billion in Foreign Assistance, “A Disgusting Abomination”: Elon Musk Blasts Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” , Trump Administration Rescinds Biden-Era Protections for Those Needing Emergency Abortions, ICE Detains Wife and Five Children of Man Who Attacked Colorado March for Israeli Hostages, Judge Enjoins Trump Administration from Denying Gender-Affirming Care to Trans Prisoners, Pentagon May Strip Names of Harvey Milk and Other Civil Rights Icons
from Navy Ships, White House Seeks to Shutter Independent Agency That Investigates Chemical Hazards and Disasters, Tusla Mayor Announces $105 Million Reparations Package for 1921 Race Massacre
"Death Traps": U.S.-Israeli Aid Scheme Paused in Gaza After 100+ Palestinians Killed While Waiting for Food
Officials in Gaza say over 100 Palestinians have been killed during recent Israeli attacks on people waiting at aid sites. An additional 500 are wounded. Following the series of deadly attacks, the shadowy U.S.-Israeli humanitarian aid operation is shutting down for a day, and Israel’s military warned Palestinians that roads leading to the aid distribution centers will be considered “combat zones.” The United Nations has called for a prompt and impartial investigation into each of the attacks. The U.S.-Israeli aid system is “more about the humiliation and the control of the people” than feeding Palestinians, says Mahmoud Alsaqqa, Oxfam’s food security and livelihoods coordinator in Gaza, who joins us from Gaza City.
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/6/4/israel_aid_massacres_gaza_strip
Greta Thunberg Speaks from Aid Ship Heading to Gaza Despite Israeli Threats: It's My Moral Obligation
As Gaza faces over three months of Israeli blockade, a group of 12 activists is sailing to Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid. The *Madleen* ship was launched by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition and initially planned to sail from Malta last month, but the group’s ship was damaged in a drone attack. The new mission includes the renowned Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, who speaks with *Democracy Now!* live from the *Madleen*. “We deem the risk of silence and the risk of inaction to be so much more deadly than this mission,” says Thunberg.
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/6/4/greta_thunberg_gaza_aid_flotilla
"Empire of AI": Karen Hao on How AI Is Threatening Democracy & Creating a New Colonial World
The new book *Empire of AI* by longtime technology reporter Karen Hao unveils the accruing political and economic power of AI companies — especially Sam Altman’s OpenAI. Her reporting uncovered the exploitation of workers in Kenya, attempts to take massive amounts of freshwater from communities in Chile, along with numerous accounts of the technology’s detrimental impact on the environment. “This is an extraordinary type of AI development that is causing a lot of social, labor and environmental harms,” says Hao.
Headlines for June 3, 2025
Israeli Forces Again Fire on Crowds Trying to Access Aid in Gaza, Killing Another 27 Palestinians, U.N. Calls for Probe into Israel’s Aid Site Massacre That Killed 31 People, UNICEF: Israel Has Killed or Injured Over 50,000 Children in Gaza Since Start of Genocide, Israeli Forces Kill 14-Year-Old West Bank Palestinian as Settler Attacks Soar, Protests Erupt as ICE Arrests High School Students, Avelo Airlines Faces Protests, Boycotts over ICE Deportation Flights, Senate Takes Up Budget Bill to Make Tax Cuts for the Rich Permanent, Advocates for Poor & Disabled Arrested at Capitol Hill Protest Against Social Spending Cuts, Trump Cabinet Officials Seek Oil & Gas Drilling as Trump Ends Alaskan Wilderness Protections, Far-Right Party Withdraws from Netherlands Ruling Coalition, Toppling Government, Boulder Man Who Attacked Israeli Hostage Advocates Charged with Hate Crime, Attempted Murder, Former State Department Spokesperson Matt Miller Now Says Israel Committed War Crimes in Gaza, VA
Order Bars Doctors and Researchers from Publishing in Medical Journals, Supreme Court Leaves State Gun Control Laws Intact, for Now, NYC Vigil Supports Laila Soueif Amid Hunger Strike Hospitalization
"Panic, Terror, Chaos, Trauma": SCOTUS Ruling Lets Trump Strip Protections for 500K+ Immigrants
As the Trump administration vows to escalate its targeting of immigrants to 3,000 arrests a day, and the Supreme Court rules it can proceed with stripping some 500,000 people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela of their legal status, we get an update from Guerline Jozef, co-founder and executive director of the Haitian Bridge Alliance. “It is the biggest mass delegalization in modern history of people who followed every single rule that the U.S. government asked of them,” says Jozef. “This has been a nightmare.”
ICE Raids on Restaurants, Farmworkers, Students Spark Community Resistance Across Country
Protests over ICE raids are continuing across the United States as agents arrest immigrants at courthouses, from their workplaces, on the way to school and more. Immigration and human rights advocate Adriana Jasso with Unión del Barrio describes protests that met a massive raid in San Diego at a popular restaurant, the targeting of farmworkers, and how her organization has been conducting ICE patrols to alert the community.
"Detention Facilitates Deportation": Trump's Budget Bill Would Massively Increase ICE Jail Capacity
President Donald Trump is pushing Republican senators to back his “big, beautiful bill,” which includes new funding to carry out his mass deportation agenda by hiring additional ICE officers and adding detention space. ICE has already signed new agreements with jails around the country for additional capacity, and confirmed nine deaths in custody since Trump took office. “It really feels like a paradigm-shifting moment,” says Detention Watch Network executive director Silky Shah. “People are being packed into overcrowded cells. People are not getting medical care. They’re in conditions where they’re languishing. And they’re doing everything they can to expand, expand, expand, both here in the U.S. and also seeing people be now detained in third countries abroad.”
Palantir: Peter Thiel's Data-Mining Firm Helps DOGE Build Master Database to Surveil, Track Immigrants
The Trump administration has tapped Palantir — the notorious data-mining firm co-founded by billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel — to compile information on people in the United States for a “master database,” creating an easy way to cross-reference sensitive data from tax records, immigration records and more. Palantir also has a $30 million contract with ICE to provide almost real-time visibility into immigrants’ movements as the agency seeks to arrest 3,000 people a day. *Wired* reporter Makena Kelly says the company is “becoming an operation system for the entire government,” and describes how Palantir’s contracts with the Trump administration are an outgrowth of work done by Elon Musk’s DOGE which aims to “centralize data all across government.”
Headlines for June 2, 2025
Russia and Ukraine Hold Talks in Istanbul as Ukraine War Intensifies, Israel Accused of Opening Fire on Palestinians Waiting for Aid in Gaza, Killing at Least 31 People, Israel Demolishes Only Dialysis Facility in Gaza Amid Ongoing Destruction of Health Infrastructure, Hamas Submits Ceasefire Proposal Demanding Complete End to Israel’s Attacks, Suspect in Custody over Incendiary Attack on Boulder, Colorado, Event for Israeli Hostages, SCOTUS Allows Trump Admin to Strip Legal Protections for Half a Million Immigrants as Courts Hear Case, Armed ICE Agents Wreak Havoc as They Descend on San Diego Restaurant During Service, Community Outcry in Milford, MA, After ICE Takes Local High School Student Marcelo Gomes, Extreme Flooding in Nigerian Town Kills Over 200 People, Nationalist Karol Nawrocki Defeats Liberal Candidate in Polish Presidential Election, 3 Ex-Paramilitaries in Guatemala Get 40-Year Sentences for Rape of Maya Achi Women, Laila Soueif Hospitalized After Nearly 250 Days on
Hunger Strike for Jailed Son Alaa Abd El-Fattah, “We’re All Going to Die”: Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst Dismisses Constituent Concerns over GOP Medicaid Cuts, PBS Sues Gov’t over Funds Withdrawal; WNET Removes Episodes on Trans Identity, Gaza Freedom Flotilla Sets Sail from Italy One Month After First Vessel Came Under Attack, Chilean President Gabriel Boric Backs Arms Embargo, Import Ban on Israel in Address to Congress
Ex-Israeli Negotiator Daniel Levy: Netanyahu Wants "Permanent War" in Gaza, Not a New Ceasefire
We get an update on ongoing ceasefire negotiations between Hamas and Israel from former Israeli peace negotiator Daniel Levy. The latest proposal, mediated by U.S. Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, “walks back the commitment for a permanent ceasefire, Israeli withdrawal and allowing in of humanitarian aid.” It’s a bad deal for the Palestinians that will allow Israel to continue its ethnic cleansing of Gaza, says Levy. Meanwhile, families of Israeli hostages are protesting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s delays in securing a deal as he works toward “permanent war” and the eventual annexation of Gaza. “None of this would be possible if so much of the Israeli media and society was not mobilized in support of this, and none of that would be possible if Israel wasn’t treated with impunity.” Levy also responds to the latest massacre of Palestinians at an aid site operated by the U.S.-Israeli aid initiative, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/6/2/israeli_aid_gaza_attack
British Surgeon in Gaza Reports on Rafah Massacre as Dozens of Palestinians Killed Waiting for Aid
Health officials and witnesses in Gaza say at least 31 people were killed Sunday when Israeli forces opened fire on crowds headed to an Israeli-controlled aid distribution point near Rafah. Over 170 people were wounded. Israel denied responsibility. Dr. Victoria Rose, a volunteer surgeon in Gaza who treated some of the massacre’s survivors, decries the ongoing violence of the Israeli military upon the besieged territory’s civilian population. “There are hundreds and thousands of children needlessly dying, children being blown up, children being starved and children dying of otherwise preventable illnesses … it’s a mass destruction of an entire population, and we can’t stand by and let this happen any longer.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/6/2/gaza_doctor_israel_aid_attack
Gaza Aid Worker: Israel's New Shadowy Humanitarian Aid Scheme Is "Tool to Increase Suffering"
A massacre of dozens of starving Palestinians waiting for aid occurred at a site operated by the shadowy Gaza Humanitarian Foundation over the weekend. It is exactly what many observers warned about when they expressed skepticism over the U.S.- and Israel-backed aid scheme. “It’s not a real organization,” says Eyad Amawi, a coordinator for local NGOs based in Gaza who accuses the Israeli military of using the slow trickle of aid it allows into southern Gaza “as a tool to increase suffering.”
Georgia Abortion Ban Forces Family to Keep Pregnant, Brain-Dead Woman on Life Support
A 30-year-old Black woman in Georgia has been kept on life support for three months against her family’s wishes because of the state’s “fetal heartbeat” anti-abortion law. Adriana Smith was declared legally dead in February after a medical emergency caused her brain function to cease. Smith, a nurse, had been initially turned away when she first sought medical care. She was nine weeks pregnant at the time. But because her medical providers would face legal consequences including jail time if they were to end the pregnancy, Smith’s body is still being kept on breathing machines despite the fact that Smith herself can no longer be resuscitated. The case demonstrates once again that “it is deadly to be Black and pregnant,” says Monica Simpson of the reproductive justice organization SisterSong.
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/5/27/adriana_smith_georgia_fetal_heartbeat
The Injustice of Justice: Keith LaMar Speaks from Ohio Death Row as Movement Grows to Save His Life
As part of our Memorial Day special, we speak with death row inmate Keith LaMar live from the Ohio State Penitentiary, after the release of *The Injustice of Justice*, a short film about his case that just won the grand prize for best animated short film at the Golden State Film Festival. “I had to find out the hard way that in order for my life to be mine, that I had to stand up and claim it,” says LaMar, who has always maintained his innocence. LaMar was sentenced to death for participating in the murder of five fellow prisoners during a 1993 prison uprising. His trial was held in a remote Ohio community before an all-white jury. On January 13, 2027, the state intends to execute him, after subjecting him to three decades in solitary confinement. LaMar’s lawyer, Keegan Stephan, says his legal team has “discovered a lot of new evidence supporting Keith’s innocence” that should necessitate new legal avenues for LaMar to overturn the conviction.
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/5/26/injustice_of_justice_keith_lamar
"I'm Innocent": Keith LaMar Speaks Live from Death Row About His Case, Conditions & Pending Execution
As part of our Memorial Day special, we continue our interview with Ohio death row inmate Keith LaMar live from the Ohio State Penitentiary, after the release of *The Injustice of Justice*, a short film about his story that just won the grand prize for best animated short film at the Golden State Film Festival. LaMar talks about his case, conditions in solitary confinement, and his work with musicians and others to raise awareness about his case as he fights to stop his pending execution scheduled in 2027.
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/5/26/keith_lamar_speaks_from_death_row
Making Gaza Unlivable: Israel Intensifies Attacks as Netanyahu Vows to Seize All of Gaza
A damning new report reveals how Israel is systematically making Gaza unlivable. The independent news outlet *+972 Magazine* has spoken to Israeli soldiers who describe how they have been using bulldozers and explosives to intentionally flatten Gaza.
In the southern city of Rafah, 73% of buildings are completely destroyed, with only about 4% of the infrastructure remaining undamaged. “The real aim is to make it impossible for the Palestinians to return to these areas,” says Meron Rapoport, co-author of the *+972 Magazine* report.
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/5/20/gaza_destruction_972_mag
From a Palestinian Refugee Camp to Columbia: Mohsen Mahdawi Graduates After Being Jailed by Trump
Columbia University activist and student Mohsen Mahdawi graduated on Monday — after he was released from ICE jail late last month. As he crossed the stage, students erupted in thunderous applause. *Democracy Now!* spoke with Mahdawi after the ceremony. “I am coming here to be in the middle of this fire because I am a peacemaker, because I am a firefighter,” says Mahdawi, who plans to attend Columbia University’s graduate School of International and Public Affairs in the fall.
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/5/20/columbia_graduation_mohsen_mahdawi
Noor Abdalla Mahmoud Khalil alternative graduation
Sunday in New York, Dr. Noor Abdalla accepted a diploma on behalf of her husband, Columbia graduate Mahmoud Khalil, at an alternative graduation ceremony held by the People’s University for Palestine. Abdalla gave birth to the couple’s first child Deen last month, while Khalil remained imprisoned at a Louisiana ICE detention center over a thousand miles away after he was abducted by ICE from university housing. ICE denied Khalil’s request to be present at the birth. “You showed up,” Abdalla said as she read a statement from Khalil to his supporters. “You reminded me that while institutions may abandon us, the people never will.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/5/19/noor_abdalla_mahmoud_khalil_alternative_graduation
Project Esther: NYT Details Right-Wing Plan to "Rebrand All Critics of Israel" as Hamas Supporters
A new report in *The New York Times* takes a deep dive into Project Esther, a policy blueprint to crush the pro-Palestinian movement in the United States from the Heritage Foundation, the right-wing think tank best known for spearheading Project 2025. Project Esther was formed during the Biden administration and lays out plans for surveilling, silencing and punishing pro-Palestinian activists, including deporting non-U.S. citizens and withholding funds from universities. Many of the Heritage Foundation’s proposals appear to have been taken up by the Trump administration.
“Project Esther aims to rebrand all critics of Israel and pro-Palestinian protesters as providing material support for terrorism,” says investigative reporter Katie Baker. “They’re very explicit that this is what they’re doing. … This is all laid out online, and it has been for months.”
On 100th Birthday of Malcolm X, Family Presses Trump to Release Gov't Files on Assassination
On the 100th birthday of Malcolm X, we speak with one of his daughters, Ilyasah Shabazz, and civil rights attorney Ben Crump as they continue to press the U.S. government for answers about his assassination. The iconic Black revolutionary was just 39 years old when he was gunned down on February 21, 1965, in Harlem’s Audubon Ballroom. In 2023, the family of Malcolm X filed a $100 million wrongful death lawsuit against various government bodies, including the FBI, CIA and NYPD, for concealing evidence of their involvement in the assassination. Now his family is calling for President Trump to release more details about the assassination, just as he released thousands of unredacted files related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and vowed in an executive order to release files on the assassination of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
“When I think of my father most, he was such a young man. He was in his twenties when the world learned of him, 39 when he was assassinated,” says Shabazz.
“We continue to fight for justice for Malcolm X, by any means necessary,” says Crump. “We implore the federal government to release all of the FBI papers on Malcolm X.”
Supreme Court Hears Birthright Citizenship Case That Could Also Sharply Reduce Judicial Power
The Supreme Court has heard oral arguments in a case challenging Trump’s now-halted order to end birthright citizenship. Multiple lower courts have already ruled that the order is unconstitutional. Trump’s lawyers are seeking to reinterpret the 14th Amendment, which has guaranteed citizenship to any child born in the United States for over a century. Legal expert Andrea Flores, an immigration lawyer at FWD.us, says the government’s weak arguments about implementing the unprecedented anti-immigrant order indicate that “The administration is not prepared to do this. They just want the authority to reinterpret amendments.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/5/16/supreme_court_birthright_citizenship
"Trump's Fake Refugees": As U.S. Welcomes White South Africans, Trump Falsely Charges "Genocide"
The Trump administration has suspended refugee resettlement for most of the world, but welcomed 59 white South African Afrikaners Monday who were granted refugee status. President Trump claims Afrikaners face racial discrimination — even though South Africa’s white minority still own the vast majority of farmland decades after the end of apartheid — and claims they are escaping “genocide.” This accusation “is a conspiracy theory and a myth that has been floating around echo chambers of right-wing populists and white nationalists for many decades now,” says Andile Zulu, political essayist and researcher at the Alternative Information and Development Centre in Cape Town. We also speak with Herman Wasserman, a South African professor of journalism at Stellenbosch University, who says the Trump administration is using Afrikaners as “pawns, as props in a campaign that purports to promote whiteness.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/5/15/trump_fake_refugees_white_south_africans
Israel's "Crime of Apartheid": New Report by U.S. Professors as Palestinians Mark Nakba Day
A major new report by U.S. academics analyzes Israel’s occupation of Palestine under the legal framework of the crime of apartheid. The report was intentionally released on Nakba Day — the day that marks the mass expulsion of Palestinians from their homes during Israel’s violent founding in 1948. Citing dozens of experts, human rights organizations and judicial decisions, it concludes that Israel’s treatment of Palestinians “meets the legal threshold of apartheid.” Researchers found that Israel imposes “policies that are designed to ensure the perpetual racial subordination of the Palestinian people,” says Sandra Babcock, a clinical professor at Cornell Law School who helped author the report.
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/5/15/nakba_day_palestinians_mark_77
"Surveillance Humanitarianism": As Gaza Starves, U.S.-Israeli Plan Would Further Weaponize Food
Israel has imposed a complete block on humanitarian aid into Gaza since March 2, with hundreds of trucks with lifesaving aid waiting at the border. Now many of Gaza’s kitchens have closed, and Palestinians face mass starvation as rations run low. We speak with Alex de Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University, author of *Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine*. “The majority of people in Gaza are facing emergency or catastrophic levels of food insecurity,” says de Waal. “Rations are getting low, and the poorest and most vulnerable are beginning to starve and die.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/5/15/alex_de_waal_gaza_siege
U.S. & Saudis Sign $142B Arms Deal as Trump Meets with Syria's New Leader & Drops Syrian Sanctions
We look at President Donald Trump’s diplomatic visit to the Middle East and discuss his administration’s foreign policy in the region with Akbar Shahid Ahmed, senior diplomatic correspondent for *HuffPost*, and Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of DAWN. As Trump sells U.S. military power in the Gulf in exchange for investments in U.S. businesses, they warn that Trump’s transactional business philosophy is spreading to the administration’s dealings around the world. As Whitson puts it, “if you can pay, then you can play.” This approach extends to the new Syrian government, as Trump pledges to lift sanctions on the country. However, explains Ahmed, while the thawing of relationships between the U.S. and Arab states has the added effect of divergence from tight-knit U.S.-Israel coordination, these changes can be attributed to Trump’s “America First” agenda, rather than any concern for Palestinians, whom Trump is happy to allow Israel to “pummel.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/5/14/trump_middle_east_saudi_syria_israel
While Israel Wanted to Bomb Iran, Trump Pushes Talks; But in Gaza, Israel's Mass Killings Continue
Amid President Donald Trump’s visit to the Middle East, we continue our interview with DAWN’s Sarah Leah Whitson and _HuffPost_’s Akbar Shahid Ahmed about Trump’s acceptance of a luxury plane gifted to him by the Qatari government, nuclear negotiations with Iran and Saudi Arabia, a less cooperative relationship with Israel and more.
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/5/14/sarah_leah_whitson_akbar_shahid_hamid