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2025-04-16 14:39:11

Headlines for April 16, 2025
Judge Overseeing Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s Case Considers Contempt Charges for U.S. Officials, Judge Blocks Trump’s Order Ending Protections for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans & Venezuelans, “Do Not Attempt to Remain in the United States”: CBP Orders U.S. Citizens to “Self-Deport”, Video Shows Violent Arrest of Venezuelan Man by Federal Agents Who Wounded Bystander, Republicans Face Protests over Trump’s Agenda at Raucous Town Hall Meetings, Israeli War Chief Refuses Calls to End Gaza Siege, U.S. Envoy Says Iran Must Completely End Uranium Enrichment , Trump Escalates Trade War, Saying China Now Faces 245% Tariff, NATO Leader Pledges Support to Kyiv as Trump Blames Ukraine, Not Russia, for Invasion, White House Restricts Access to Wire Service Reporters Including AP and Reuters , Russian Journalists Sentenced to 5+ Years in Prison for “Extremism”, Hungary Amends Constitution to Ban LGBTQ+ Pride Events , U.K. High Court Ruling Excludes Trans Women from Equality Act Protections, U.S.
Threatens Retaliation as U.N. Shipping Agency Reaches Deal to Curb Greenhouse Gases, Climate Activists Demand Protections for Indigenous Communities Ahead of COP30 Summit
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/4/16/headlines

2025-04-16 14:39:05

Mohsen Mahdawi's Abduction "Should Terrify" Us, Says VT Rep. Balint, Whose Grandfather Was Killed in Holocaust
The Trump administration is now seeking to deport Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi, who is being held in a prison in northwest Vermont. He was detained by Homeland Security agents when he went to an immigration services center to take a civics test that is the final step in the process of becoming a naturalized citizen. Mahdawi moved to Vermont from the West Bank in 2014 and has been a legal permanent resident, or green card holder, since 2015.
All three members of Vermont’s congressional delegation are calling for Mahdawi’s release, including Congressmember Becca Balint. “This should terrify every single person living in this country, regardless of your citizenship status,” says Balint. “This is Trump creating his own army of brownshirts right here in our country.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/4/16/mohsen_mahdawi_becca_balint_ice

2025-04-16 14:39:00

Facebook Whistleblower Frances Haugen: Breaking Up Meta's Monopoly Would Improve Service, Safety
In one of its first major actions under the Trump administration, the Federal Trade Commission is arguing Meta has an illegal monopoly in social media and should be forced to divest Instagram and WhatsApp. CEO Mark Zuckerberg took the stand Monday as the highly anticipated antitrust trial kicked off in Washington, D.C. If Meta loses the trial, it could be forced to sell off those platforms. “We’ve let one company, one man, influence the information environment for the world,” says Frances Haugen, former Facebook employee and whistleblower.
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/4/16/frances_haugen_facebook_meta_antitrust

2025-04-16 14:38:54

"Unquestionably Unconstitutional": Harvard Law Prof Slams Cuts as School Rejects Trump Demands
Harvard University has pushed back as President Trump ramps up his attacks on higher education. After Harvard rejected demands by the Trump administration to eliminate all DEI initiatives and further crack down on Palestinian rights protests, including reporting international students to federal authorities, the Trump administration said it’s freezing $2.2 billion in federal grants and $60 million in contracts to Harvard. University President Alan Garber wrote in a letter to the school community on Monday, “The University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.”
“This is an effort to try to take over the ideological agenda of the country by taking over universities,” says Andrew Manuel Crespo, professor at Harvard Law School and general counsel of the Harvard faculty chapter of the American Association of University Professors.
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/4/16/trump_vs_harvard

2025-04-15 14:22:22

Headlines for April 15, 2025
El Salvador’s President Rejects Return of Wrongfully Removed Maryland Father, “Homegrowns Are Next”: Protests Erupt as Trump Proposes Sending U.S. Citizens to Salvadoran Prisons, Trump Orders Military to Take Control of Vast Stretch of Southern Border, Trump Administration Seeks $45 Billion to Expand ICE Detention Centers, ICE Arrests Mohsen Mahdawi, Columbia Protest Leader and Green Card Holder, Jewish Peace Activists Mark Passover with Protest at New York ICE Office, Trump Administration Freezes $2.2 Billion in Grants to Harvard, Citing DEI and Protests, Death Toll from Israel’s Assault on Gaza Passes 51,000, Up to 400,000 Displaced as Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces Seize Refugee Camp, Killing Hundreds, Pete Marocco Exits State Department After Gutting USAID, Trump Admin Moves to Cancel $9.3 Billion of USAID, Public Media Funds, Jury Selection Opens in Retrial of Sarah Palin’s Defamation Suit Against New York Times, On Tax Day, IRS Workers Brace for Mass Layoffs, Zuckerberg Takes Stand
in Meta Antitrust Trial
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/4/15/headlines

2025-04-15 14:22:16

Liberation Seder: Hundreds of Jewish Protesters Demand Release of Foreign Students Abducted by ICE
Hundreds of members of Jewish Voice for Peace in New York protested outside of the office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Monday on the third night of the major Jewish holiday Passover. They gathered in support of a growing number of immigrant activists who have been taken prisoner by ICE, including New York residents Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi, both Palestinian participants of pro-Palestine protests at Columbia University last year. *Democracy Now!* spoke to some of the Passover Seder attendees. “I’ve always thought of Passover as a celebration of liberation. And liberation can never be just the Jews,” said protester Marianne Pita. “The only way to fight for liberation is to fight for everybody.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/4/15/jewish_voice_for_peace_passover_protest

2025-04-15 14:22:11

Trump Weighs Expelling U.S. Citizens as Salvadoran Pres. Says He Won't Return Wrongfully Removed Man
We speak to Nayna Gupta, policy director at the American Immigration Council, and José Olivares, an award-winning investigative journalist specializing in Latin American politics, about El Salvador’s immigrant detention collaboration with the United States. Over 300 people have been disappeared to El Salvador’s dangerous maximum-security prisons, including at least one man who was targeted for removal by mistake. U.S. President Trump and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele now say they have no power to bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to the United States, despite a Supreme Court order to “facilitate” his return. “What we saw yesterday was political theater and a set of administration officials lying to the American public,” says Gupta about Trump and Bukele’s meeting Monday in the Oval Office, which was open to the press. “Donald Trump and his administration can absolutely bring home Mr. Abrego Garcia. That is well within their power and authority.” Olivares recounts the origins of
U.S.-Salvadoran collaboration and the Salvadoran government’s own close ties to the MS-13 criminal organization.
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/4/15/nayna_gupta_jose_olivares

2025-04-15 14:22:06

Cover-Up in Ecuador? Disputed Presidential Election Rocked by New Allegation from 2023 Assassination
As Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa claims victory in a contested election, Noboa’s leftist rival Luisa González is challenging the results, calling Noboa a “dictator” who committed election fraud to be reelected. The widow of former candidate Fernando Villavicencio also released a new video seemingly confirming allegations that Noboa had been involved in an attempt to frame a third candidate for Villavicencio’s assassination during the 2023 presidential election. Journalist José Olivares, who reported on the allegations for *Drop Site*, responds to the new video and the Noboa administration’s “cozying up” to Donald Trump and his allies, including the notorious private military contractor Erik Prince.
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/4/15/ecuador_daniel_noboa

2025-04-15 14:22:01

"The Dark Money Game": Director Alex Gibney on How Citizens United Ushered in "Legalized Corruption"
A new set of documentaries directed by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney premieres April 15 and April 16 on HBO. The films in *The Dark Money Game* series investigate the origins and impacts of campaign finance in the U.S. “Our country is being run by a small group of people who have an enormous amount of money, and they dominate our politics,” says Gibney. “It’s almost as if bribery has become utterly legalized. It’s pay to play. It’s quid pro quo.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/4/15/alex_gibney_dark_money_game

2025-04-14 14:53:46

Headlines for April 14, 2025
Israel Bombs Last Functioning Hospital in Northern Gaza, 1,600 Israeli Ex-Soldiers and Intelligence Agents Demand End to Assault on Gaza, Return of Hostages, Houthis Say U.S. Attacks on Yemen Killed Seven, Wounded 29, 34 Killed, Over 100 Injured in Sumy, Ukraine, as Russia Bombs Palm Sunday Celebrations, U.S. Demands Control Over Ukrainian Gas Pipeline as Part of Arms-for-Minerals Deal, Trump Administration Ends Protected Status for Cameroonian and Afghan Immigrants, Judge Rules Trump Admin Can Deport Mahmoud Khalil for His Beliefs, State Dept. Has No Evidence Tying Abducted Tufts Student Rumeysa Ozturk to “Antisemitic” Activity, Trump Hosts El Salvador’s Bukele at White House Amid Uproar over U.S. Transfers to CECOT, Judge Rules Against Religious Groups, Says ICE Can Raid Houses of Worship, Trump Exempts Smartphones and Other Electronics from Steep Tariffs on China, Democrats Dig In on Suspected Insider Trading by Trump Associates Amid Tariffs Roller Coaster, Trump Plans for More Cuts
to Federal Climate Science Research, Trump Moves to Get Rid of Head Start, Which Offers Free Child Care to Poor Families, Bernie Sanders and AOC Address L.A. Crowd of 36,000 as Part of “Fighting Oligarchy” Tour, Ecuadorian Presidential Challenger Alleges Fraud After Incumbent Noboa Wins Reelection, Gabon Coup Leader Brice Oligui Nguema Wins Presidential Election, Suspect Charged in Arson Attack on Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s Home, Firing Squad Executes South Carolina Prisoner Mikal Mahdi, Protest in Cambridge Demands Harvard Refuse to Comply with Trump Threats
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/4/14/headlines

2025-04-14 14:53:46

2025-04-14 14:53:40

Mahmoud Khalil's Lawyer: Trump Admin Is Delaying in Federal Court While Racing to Deport Activist
We get an update on the case of Mahmoud Khalil from Diala Shamas, senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights and part of Khalil’s legal team. An immigration judge in Louisiana ruled Friday that the Trump administration has grounds to deport Khalil for taking part in Gaza student protests, despite being a legal permanent resident of the United States. The government’s evidence in the case consists of a two-page memo from Secretary of State Marco Rubio conceding that Khalil has no criminal history and that the U.S. is seeking to deport him based purely on his “beliefs, statements, or associations.” Despite the setback, Khalil still has a separate case playing out in New Jersey, where lawyers are challenging the legality of his detention. “We are moving with urgency. The government is trying to slow down the case in federal court and speed it up in immigration court,” says Shamas, who notes that throughout his detention, Khalil has continued to highlight the U.S.-backed
Israeli war on Gaza. “That is the reason that he and many others are being subject to this retaliatory policy of arresting, detaining and transferring people simply for their protest.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/4/14/mahmoud_khalil_columbia_immigration_judge

2025-04-14 14:53:40

2025-04-14 14:53:35

Maria Hinojosa: El Salvador's "Dictator" Key to Disappearing Migrants Like Kilmar Abrego Garcia
Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele is meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House on Monday, part of a growing alliance between the two right-wing leaders. In recent months, El Salvador has imprisoned hundreds of people for the Trump administration who were expelled from the United States with little or no due process, ending up in the brutal mega-prison known as CECOT. One of those men is Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whom the Trump administration deported despite a protective order meant to prevent his removal from the country. The Trump administration has so far refused to bring Abrego Garcia back, despite a unanimous Supreme Court ruling ordering the government to “facilitate” his return. Bukele, who has described himself as “the world’s coolest dictator,” has ruled for years under a state of emergency in El Salvador, imprisoning tens of thousands of people without trial as part of a supposed war on gangs. “Never did I imagine that we would be in a situation
where the Trump administration, the United States, is looking to El Salvador, to the Bukele administration, saying, 'Huh, we kind of like what you are doing,'” says Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Maria Hinojosa, who just returned from a reporting trip to El Salvador.
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/4/14/el_salvador_nayib_bukele_immigration_ice

2025-04-14 14:53:35

2025-04-14 14:53:30

"I'm Not Really Free": Pulitzer Winners "Suave" & Maria Hinojosa Examine Life After Prison in Season 2
As the Pulitzer Prize-winning podcast *Suave* returns for its second season, we speak with journalist Maria Hinojosa and David Luis “Suave” Gonzalez, the subject of the series. Gonzalez was sentenced to life in prison at age 17, but got an unexpected second chance when he was paroled in 2017 following a Supreme Court ruling that found sentences like his unconstitutional. The first season of the podcast followed Gonzalez’s case, his decadeslong friendship with Hinojosa and his eventual release from prison. The second season looks at how his freedom is complicated by the long shadow of prison. “I’m on parole for the rest of my life. That’s not freedom,” Gonzalez tells *Democracy Now!* “If somebody makes a false phone call and says, 'He looked at me wrong, I feel a threat,' I could go back to prison. … When the United States Supreme Court said that it was unconstitutional to keep a juvenile in prison for life, then it should be unconstitutional to keep that same juvenile on parole for
life.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/4/14/suave_podcast_criminal_justice

2025-04-14 14:53:25

"Suave" Returns: Maria Hinojosa and Suave on Freedom, Breakdown & Redemption After 31 Years in Prison
As the Pulitzer Prize-winning podcast *Suave* returns for its second season, we continue our conversation with journalist Maria Hinojosa and David Luis “Suave” Gonzalez, the subject of the series. Gonzalez was sentenced to life in prison at age 17, but got an unexpected second chance when he was paroled in 2017 following a Supreme Court ruling that found sentences like his unconstitutional. The first season of the podcast followed Gonzalez’s case, his decadeslong friendship with Hinojosa and his eventual release from prison. The second season looks at his struggle to reintegrate into society.
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/4/14/web_exclusive_suave_maria_hinojosa

2025-04-14 14:53:25

2025-04-11 15:19:01

Headlines for April 11, 2025
China Hikes Up Tariffs Against U.S. to 125% Amid Escalating Trade War, Democrats to Investigate Trump Allies for Insider Trading over Tariffs, SCOTUS Orders Trump Admin to Return Kilmar Abrego Garcia to U.S. from El Salvador’s CECOT Prison, Avelo Airlines Faces Protests, Boycotts After Agreeing to Use Planes for Deportations, U.S. Admits It’s Seeking to Deport Mahmoud Khalil for His Beliefs Ahead of Key Ruling, Israel Kills More Palestinians in Gaza, Including Children, as It Presses Ahead with Rafah Seizure, Ahmad Manasra, Jailed by Israel When He Was 13, Freed After Decade Behind Bars, Activists Protest Travis Air Base; Greenpeace UK Activists Dye U.S. Embassy Pond Blood Red, Sudan Tells World Court the UAE Is Abetting Genocide as Civil War Nears 2nd Anniversary, Ukraine’s Allies Gather to Rally Military Support for Kyiv Amid Stalled Ceasefire, House GOP Passes Voter ID Bill That Critics Say Would Disenfranchise Millions, “Guilty of Treason”: Trump Orders DOJ Probe into Two Former
Officials Who Criticized Him, Democrats Attempt to Push Elon Musk Out of Trump Administration by May 30, House GOP Passes Budget Bill to Slash Federal Spending and Taxes on the Wealthy, Death Toll in Dominican Republic Nightclub Disaster Rises to 221, New Zealand Lawmakers Reject Bill to Roll Back Māori Rights
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/4/11/headlines

2025-04-11 15:18:55

Supreme Court Orders U.S. to “Facilitate” Return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia from El Salvador
In a unanimous ruling, the Supreme Court has ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the United States, after the Maryland resident was denied due process rights and deported to the notorious CECOT prison in El Salvador. But the court remains vague on how exactly this would happen, and the Trump administration has claimed it has no way of ensuring his safe return. Elsewhere, a federal immigration judge in Louisiana is set to rule today on whether the Trump administration has grounds to deport Mahmoud Khalil, a permanent resident of the United States who was involved in a campus protest at Columbia University. Ahead of today’s ruling, Secretary of State Marco Rubio filed a short memo that concedes Khalil has no criminal history, and argues he should be deported as part of U.S. efforts to combat antisemitism. We speak to attorney Ramzi Kassem, who is part of Khalil’s legal team, about the cases of Abrego Garcia and Khalil. Kassem says the
Supreme Court decision on Abrego Garcia’s case is “a step in the right direction and will hopefully lead to his return home.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/4/11/ice_updates

2025-04-11 15:18:50

Michigan Lawyer Detained at Detroit Airport, Phone Seized; He Represents Pro-Palestine Protester
A lawyer who represents a pro-Palestinian student protester in Michigan was detained Sunday at the Detroit Metro Airport on his way back from a family vacation. Dearborn attorney Amir Makled was separated from his wife and children and asked to surrender his cellphone by Border Patrol agents. “This wasn’t something that was random,” says Makled. “They had a whole profile about me.” He was eventually released after 90 minutes of questioning and refusing to provide sensitive client information to the agents. Makled believes he was targeted due to his involvement in cases that challenge the current administration of President Donald Trump.
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/4/11/lawyer_detained_border

2025-04-11 15:18:45

Microsoft Worker Fired for Israel Protest: "Cloud & AI Are the Bombs & Bullets of the 21st Century"
Microsoft fired two workers who protested the company’s ties to Israel’s assault on Gaza at its 50th anniversary celebration last Friday. The workers protested after leaked documents revealed that Microsoft supplies the Israeli military with AI and cloud technology, as well as an Air Force unit known as the Ofek, to build “kill lists.” “We wanted everyone to know that Microsoft’s cloud and AI are the bombs and bullets of the 21st century,” says Vaniya Agrawal, No Azure for Apartheid organizer and a former Microsoft employee who was fired after disrupting an April 4 discussion between current and former Microsoft CEOs, including Bill Gates.
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/4/11/no_azure_for_apartheid

2025-04-11 15:18:40

"The Teacher": Director Farah Nabulsi and Actor Saleh Bakri on New Film Based in Occupied West Bank
A feature film about life in the occupied West Bank, *The Teacher*, opens in New York tonight and in theaters across the U.S. next week. The film, which is inspired by true events, centers a Palestinian schoolteacher who struggles to reconcile his commitment to political resistance with supporting his student. “It’s a fiction narrative, this film, but it is deeply, deeply rooted in reality,” says Farah Nabulsi, director of *The Teacher*, which is partially based on the 2011 prisoner exchange deal between Hamas and Israel, in which one Israeli soldier was exchanged for over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners. Nabulsi and Saleh Bakri, the acclaimed Palestinian actor who stars in *The Teacher*, speak to *Democracy Now!* about the resonance of the film in the midst of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. “The occupation wants us separated,” Bakri says. “I want to dismantle these checkpoints … I dream of Palestinians coming together again.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/4/11/the_teacher

2025-04-10 14:22:13

Headlines for April 10, 2025
Trump’s Trade U-Turn Lowers Tariffs to 10% for Most Countries, Hikes Them to 125% for China, Israel Kills at Least 35 People in Shuja’iyya Attack as Israeli Forces Prepare to Seize Rafah, Deepening Hunger in Gaza as Israel’s Illegal Blockade Stretches Through Sixth Week, U.S. Senate Confirms Christian Zionist Mike Huckabee as Israel Ambassador, U.S. Continues Air Attacks on Yemen, Killing at Least 16 People Since Tuesday, U.S. Treasury Levies New Sanctions Against Iran Ahead of Nuclear Negotiations, DOGE Reverses “Death Sentence” Aid Cuts for Several Nations, But Not Yemen or Afghanistan, 8 People Died in South Sudan While Forced to Walk 3 Hours for Care After U.S. Aid Cuts
, Federal Judges Temporarily Block Deportations of Some Immigrants Under 1798 Wartime Law, USCIS to Screen Immigrants’ Social Media Sites for So-Called Antisemitic Activity, Germany’s Christian Democratic Union Forms Governing Coalition with Social Democrats, Children and Babies Suffer Malnutrition in Greek Refugee Camp, Mexican President Rejects Potential U.S. Drone Strikes on Drug Cartels, House Speaker Johnson Delays Vote on Budget Framework Amid Far-Right Revolt, Trump Orders DOJ to Block States from Enforcing Climate Laws, Trump Executive Orders Seek to Boost U.S. Coal Production and Consumption
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/4/10/headlines

2025-04-10 14:22:08

From "Liberation Day" to Chaos: Trump Pauses Most Tariffs While Escalating Trade War with China
President Trump has announced a 90-day pause on new tariffs for most countries and a steep increase to tariffs on China. The 125% tariff rate on China comes after China retaliated in an escalating trade war between the two largest economies in the world. For most other countries, a 10% tariff remains in place, but higher tariffs were paused just hours after they went into effect, causing global stock markets to shoot back up after a historic plunge. We speak with two economists, Nancy Qian and Joseph Stiglitz, about the “chaos” of the week since Trump’s initial unveiling of his tariff plan on April 2, which he termed “Liberation Day.” There is “no economic theory behind what he is doing,” says Stiglitz. He calls Trump a “schoolyard bully” who is upending international markets based on a flawed understanding of the role of trade deficits and the feasibility of reintroducing manufacturing to the U.S. economy. “We’ve just never seen anything like this before,” says Qian, who adds that
China appears to be digging in for the long, drawn-out trade war that Trump has now ignited.
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/4/10/tariffs_trade_war_china_markets

2025-04-10 14:22:03

Trump Threatens Joint U.S.-Israeli Attack on Iran If Talks on Iran's Nuclear Program Fail
As the U.S. and Iran prepare for talks this weekend in Oman to discuss Iran’s nuclear weapons program, we speak to journalist Negar Mortazavi about the Trump administration’s negotiation strategy of “threats and pressure” and his diplomatic doctrine of “peace through strength.” Mortazavi is skeptical that the talks will result in Iran giving up its nuclear weapons program, as Trump’s team is demanding, and comments on the impacts of severe sanctions on Iran, which have devastated the country’s fragile economy.
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/4/10/us_iran_nuclear_weapons_deal

2025-04-10 14:21:57

Columbia Prof. Marianne Hirsch: Mahmoud Khalil Arrest Reminds Me of Growing Up Under Authoritarianism
Columbia University professor Marianne Hirsch’s new article in *The Forward* is titled “I grew up under a terrifying authoritarian regime. Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest is right out of their playbook.” She tells *Democracy Now!* that seeing footage of the ICE arrests of Khalil and Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk “brought back these feelings of terror that I had as a child.” Hirsch grew up in Romania under the authoritarian regime of Nicolae Ceaușescu and says she sees parallels between the climate of fear she was raised in and the repression of speech and protest on campuses today. Hirsch, who is Jewish, condemns the “anticipatory capitulation” of universities, like Columbia, to the Trump administration’s threats to pull funding and says “the reason for this was never to fight antisemitism, but it was to decimate academia.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/4/10/columbia_mahmoud_khalil_marianne_hirsch

2025-04-04 14:36:28

Headlines for April 4, 2025
Many Children Among the 112+ Palestinians Killed over Past Day in Israel’s Escalating Gaza Attacks, 15 Senators Vote Against $8.8 Billion Arms Sale to Israel, Global Markets, Future of International Trade in Turmoil After Trump Tariffs, South Korean Court Removes Disgraced President Yoon Suk Yeol over Martial Law Decree, At Least 16 Asylum Seekers Drown in Pair of Shipwrecks Near Turkey and Greece, Trump Fires National Security Council Officials Deemed “Disloyal” by Far-Right Activist, Pentagon IG to Probe Pete Hegseth’s Use of Signal App to Discuss War Plans, Education Department Warns Public Schools to End DEI Programs or Lose Funding, DOGE Gains Access to Personal Records of Unaccompanied Immigrant Children, ICE Arrests 37 Workers at Washington State Roofing Company, Senate Confirms Dr. Mehmet Oz to Lead Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Judge Blocks Trump Administration’s Freeze on $11 Billion in Health Funding, Central U.S. Faces Flooding After Storms Spawn Nearly 100
Tornadoes
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/4/4/headlines

2025-04-04 14:36:23

Reproductive Rights Crackdown: Planned Parenthood CEO on Supreme Court Case, Title X & More
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday in a case that may cut off Planned Parenthood from Medicaid funding. Planned Parenthood says the move violates the Medicaid Act’s “free choice of provider” provision, which says patients are entitled to choose their own doctors. The case, brought by the state of South Carolina, could impact the care of low-income patients who rely on Planned Parenthood for a range of non-abortion services, including cancer screenings and full physical exams. Federal law already bans Medicaid from funding abortions for patients in most cases. “South Carolina had a hard time trying to prove that it had a right to take away the dignity of patients who choose to go to Planned Parenthood,” says Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/4/4/abortion_alexis_mcgill_johnson_planned_parenthood

2025-04-04 14:36:17

"An Attack on Labor": Washington Farmworker Organizer "Lelo" Detained in Trump Immigration Crackdown
Longtime immigrant farmworker and organizer Alfredo “Lelo” Juarez Zeferino was pulled over last week by a plainclothes agent with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in an unmarked car who broke his car window and forcibly detained him. “Within not even a minute of interaction, of getting pulled over, he was already in handcuffs,” says Edgar Franks, the political director of independent farmworkers union, Familias Unidas por la Justicia, which he co-founded with Lelo. “The reason of his detainment was because of how politically active he was.” Lelo is currently jailed at the privately run Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington, where hundreds have rallied in support of his release.
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/4/4/alfredo_lelo_juarez_zeferino_ice_jail

2025-04-04 14:36:12

"Can't Look Away": New Documentary Examines How Social Media Addiction Can Harm — Even Kill — Kids
*Can’t Look Away: The Case Against Social Media* is a new documentary that exposes the real-life consequences of the algorithms of big tech companies and their impact on children and teens. In 2022, social media companies made an estimated $11 billion advertising to minors in the U.S., where 95% of teenagers use social media. One in three teens uses social media almost constantly. “These products, they’re not designed to hook us, adults,” says Laura Marquez-Garrett, an attorney at the Social Media Victims Law Center in Seattle who is featured in *Can’t Look Away*. “They are designed to hook children.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/4/4/can_t_look_away_social_media

2025-04-03 15:12:50

Headlines for April 3, 2025
Netanyahu Wants to Further Divide Gaza Strip as Daily Genocidal Attacks Continue, Israeli Attack on Syria Kills 9; Suspected U.S. Strike on Yemen Kills 5, Hungary Withdraws from ICC as Orbán Hosts Netanyahu, Wanted on War Crimes Warrant, Columbia Students Chain Themselves to Gates to Protest University Collaboration with ICE, Trump Slaps Blanket Tariffs on All Imported Goods, Hikes Up “Reciprocal Tariffs” on Trade Partners, Disability Groups Sue Social Security Administration over Service Cuts Amid Web Portal Crashes, NYC Mayor Eric Adams Announces Reelection Bid After Judge Drops Corruption Charges, Court Orders Trump Administration to Restore Legal Aid to Unaccompanied Immigrant Children, Burmese Junta Declares 20-Day Ceasefire as Earthquake Toll Tops 3,000, Pakistan Begins Mass Deportation of 3 Million Afghan Refugees, U.N. Chief Warns South Sudan Against Return to Civil War, Amazon Makes Bid to Buy TikTok with U.S. Ban Set to Take Effect on Saturday, Mourners Demand Justice for
Murdered Indigenous Teen Emily Pike, Haitian Human Rights Champion Mario Joseph Dies in Car Crash
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/4/3/headlines

2025-04-03 15:12:45

"American Empire Is in Decline": Economist Richard Wolff on Trump's Trade War & Tariffs
As President Trump finally unveils his global tariff plan — setting a baseline 10% tariff on all imported goods, with additional hikes apparently based on individual countries’ trade balances with the United States — economists like our guest Richard Wolff warn it will have grave economic effects on American consumers and lead to a recession. Wolff says the Trump administration’s tariff strategy is borne out of an ahistorical “notion of the United States as a victim” despite the fact that “we have been one of the greatest beneficiaries in the last 50 years of economic wealth, particularly for people at the top.” In response to the growing economic fortunes of the rest of the world and the associated decline in U.S. hegemony, Trump and his allies are “striking out at other people” in desperation and denial of an end to U.S. imperial dominance. “[It’s] not going to work,” says Wolff.
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/4/3/trump_tariffs_global_markets

2025-04-03 15:12:40

Jewish Students Chain Themselves to Columbia Gates to Protest ICE Jailing of Mahmoud Khalil
Jewish students at Columbia University chained themselves to a campus gate across from the graduate School of International and Public Affairs Wednesday, braving rain and cold to demand the school release information related to the targeting and ICE arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a former SIPA student. *Democracy Now!* was at the protest and spoke to Jewish and Palestinian students calling on the school to reveal the extent of its involvement in Khalil’s arrest.
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/4/3/ice_students_immigrants_mahmoud_khalil

2025-04-03 15:12:34

ICE Detains Mother & Her Three Children in Farm Raid Near NY Home of Border Czar Tom Homan
We speak with New York Immigration Coalition President Murad Awawdeh about a mother and three children who were swept up in an ICE raid not far from the home of Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan in Sackets Harbor, New York, handcuffed and taken to a family detention center in Texas despite having no order of deportation. A protest calling for the family’s return is planned for this Saturday, and the mayor has called a state of emergency. Awawdeh also responds to what appears to be a pattern of collaboration with the Trump administration’s mass deportation plan among local leaders and institutions in New York, from Eric Adams’s mayoral administration to Columbia University. Adams had federal corruption charges against him dropped after agreeing to support increased immigration enforcement, while Columbia had federal funding restored after allowing ICE officers to carry out arrests and searches on campus and in university-owned housing.
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/4/3/tom_homan_ice_new_york_family

2025-04-02 14:48:13

Headlines for April 2, 2025
Gaza’s Residents Go Hungry as U.N. Condemns “Ridiculous” Israeli Claims of Enough Food , U.S. Attacks on Yemen Kill 4 as Pentagon Deploys Second Aircraft Carrier to Middle East, White House Won’t Punish Mike Waltz over Disclosure of Yemen War Plans, Federal Judge Rules Mahmoud Khalil’s Immigration Case Must Continue in New Jersey, Unions Rally in Defense of Immigrants Snatched by Plainclothes ICE Agents, Germany to Deport 4 Foreign Residents over Gaza Solidarity Protests, Republicans Win Two Open Florida House Seats, But Democrats Make Gains, Liberal Judge Susan Crawford Wins Wisconsin Supreme Court Election After Record Spending Led by Elon Musk, Health and Human Services Department Begins Mass Firing of 10,000 Workers, Trump to Announce New Tariffs on Self-Declared “Liberation Day”, Sen. Cory Booker Sets Record in 25-Hour Speech to Protest Trump’s Policies, Trump Admin Freezes Millions of Dollars in Funding to Planned Parenthood Affiliates, Federal Judge Blocks Alabama Law
Criminalizing Those Who Aid Abortion Access, Supreme Court to Hear Case on South Carolina’s Efforts to Defund Planned Parenthood, Feds Seek Death Penalty for Luigi Mangione over Killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/4/2/headlines

2025-04-02 14:48:08

Elon Musk Fails in Attempt to Buy Wisconsin Supreme Court as Judge Susan Crawford Beats Brad Schimel
We go to Madison, Wisconsin, to speak with *The Nation*'s John Nichols about Tuesday's pivotal state Supreme Court election, in which liberal Judge Susan Crawford convincingly defeated conservative candidate Brad Schimel. Crawford’s election is a major victory for Democrats after billionaire Trump ally Elon Musk poured about $25 million into the Wisconsin race, helping to make it the most expensive judicial election in U.S. history. “This is a huge signal from a battleground state that Americans are genuinely upset, genuinely angry, I think, with Trump and with Musk,” says Nichols. Tuesday also saw a pair of special House elections in Florida where Republicans held both seats, helping to maintain the party’s narrow majority in Congress. While Democrats were unlikely to flip the deep-red districts, Nichols notes “there was a huge shift in both of the Florida districts toward the Democratic candidates.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/4/2/wisconsin_supreme_court_susan_crawford

2025-04-02 14:48:02

A "Coup" at Columbia? Former Law Prof. Katherine Franke on School's Capitulation to Trump
Princeton has become the latest university to be targeted by the Trump administration, as the federal government pauses dozens of federal grants to the school. The news comes after the Trump administration threatened to cut off more than $8.7 billion to Harvard and earlier suspended $175 million in federal funding to the University of Pennsylvania and $400 million to Columbia University. In all cases, the Trump administration has claimed to be fighting antisemitism, citing the schools’ responses to student-led campus protests in solidarity with Gaza. “It’s time for us to step back … and think more critically about how we run our universities,” says former Columbia law professor Katherine Franke, who says students from abroad, even those with green cards and U.S. citizenship, are now “terrified” of being swept up in the Trump administration’s crackdown. “It feels like a kind of racial and ethnic cleansing that is happening on our campuses.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/4/2/university_trump_gaza_harvard_princeton_columbia

2025-04-02 14:47:57

Trump Sends Hundreds of Immigrants to Brutal Salvadoran Prison as Mass Deportations Expand
Since President Donald Trump took office, the U.S. has expelled hundreds of immigrants and asylum seekers to El Salvador without due process to be detained at the supermax mega-prison complex known as CECOT, with many of them accused of belonging to gangs largely on the basis of having tattoos. The Trump administration recently admitted in a court filing that a Salvadoran father with protected status was among those sent to El Salvador. Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia lived in Maryland with his family and had been granted protected status in 2019, blocking the federal government from removing him. Despite admitting to an “administrative error,” the Trump administration says it will not seek to return Abrego Garcia to his family. “Every single day now, news stories are coming out showing that they made a lot of mistakes,” says Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council. “Their goal is to ramp up deportations and arrests as quickly as they can, and if that
leads to a bunch of innocent people getting swept up alongside, the message that the White House is sending is they don’t care.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/4/2/trump_deportations_el_salvador_immigrants

2025-04-01 14:05:33

Headlines for April 1, 2025
Israeli Attacks on Gaza Kill 42 Palestinians as Army Orders Rafah Residents to Flee, Israel Bombs Beirut Suburb, Killing at Least 4, Top Netanyahu Aides Arrested on Corruption Charges as Anti-Government Protests Continue, Cornell Doctoral Student Momodou Taal Leaves U.S. Amid Deportation Threats, Columbia Grads Tear Up Diplomas to Protest University’s Capitulation to Trump over Gaza Protests, Trump Administration Threatens to Withhold $8.7 Billion in Grants to Harvard over Gaza Protests, Iran’s Supreme Leader Promises “Reciprocal Blow” to Trump’s Threat of Violence, China Holds War Games Off Taiwan After Hegseth Pledges Military Cooperation with Japan, Sen. Cory Booker Holds All-Night Filibuster Against Trump Agenda, Federal Court Temporarily Restores Protected Status for 350,000 Venezuelan Immigrants, U.S. Transfers More Immigrants to Salvadoran Prison, Admits to “Error” in Deportation of Maryland Dad, On Transgender Day of Visibility, Activists Condemn MAGA Attacks on Trans and
Nonbinary People
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/4/1/headlines

2025-04-01 14:05:27

Workers vs. Musk: Federal Unions Resist Attacks on Bargaining Rights & Cuts to Essential Services
As federal unions lead the resistance to cuts by billionaire Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, President Trump has pushed to end collective bargaining rights for nearly half the federal workforce in a new executive order that calls them “hostile” to his agenda. Unions say the order is the biggest attack on the labor movement in U.S. history. “It’s designed to silence workers,” says Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal employee union. He says they are also planning to join the April 5 mass rallies called by the group Indivisible.
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/4/1/everett_kelley_trump_unions

2025-04-01 14:05:21

A Blueprint for Resisting Trump Education Cuts? Chicago Teachers Reach "Powerful" Tentative Contract
In a major labor victory, the Chicago Teachers Union reached a tentative agreement with Chicago Public Schools Monday night that reaffirms sanctuary school protections, protects the ability to teach Black history, gives veteran teachers a raise, and more. The deal comes amid attacks on public education by the Trump administration. “The collective bargaining agreement is a very powerful tool to use, especially in this moment, to ensure that people are protected,” says Stacy Davis Gates, president of the Chicago Teachers Union. She also discusses the new posthumous memoir by former CTU President Karen Lewis, titled *I Didn’t Come Here to Lie: My Life and Education*, and lessons Lewis shared for the struggle ahead.
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/4/1/stacy_davis_gates

2025-04-01 14:05:16

"The Darkest Hour of Need": Burmese Junta Continues Bombing in Aftermath of Devastating Earthquake
We get an update on “the darkest hour of need” for the Burmese people, from Maung Zarni, a Burmese human rights activist, after a 7.7-magnitude earthquake hit Burma Friday, leaving at least 2,700 dead, with the death toll expected to rise as rescue efforts continue. Aid groups in the worst-hit areas of Burma, also known as Myanmar, said there was an urgent need for shelter, food and water. The country’s civil war has complicated efforts to reach those injured and made homeless in the disaster, and Amnesty International says the military needs to allow aid to reach areas of the country not under its control.
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/4/1/burma_maung_zarni_earthquake

2025-04-01 14:05:10

"We Are Killing the Essence of What the University Is": Dr. Joanne Liu on NYU Canceling Her Talk
The former international head of Doctors Without Borders is speaking out after New York University canceled her presentation, saying some of her slides could be viewed as “anti-governmental” and “antisemitic” because they mentioned the Trump administration’s cuts to foreign aid and deaths of humanitarian workers in Israel’s war on Gaza. Dr. Joanne Liu, a Canadian pediatric emergency medicine physician, was scheduled to speak at NYU, her alma mater, on March 19 and had been invited almost a year ago to discuss the challenges of humanitarian crises. Censoring speech is “killing the essence of what the university is about,” says Liu. “I truly and strongly believe that universities are the temple of knowledge.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/4/1/joanne_liu_msf_nyu

2025-03-31 14:46:09

Headlines for March 31, 2025
Earthquake Death Toll Passes 2,000 in Burma; Trump’s USAID Cuts Slow Rescue Effort, Deadly Israeli Attacks on Gaza Continue as 15 Aid Workers Found in Mass Grave Near Rafah, Israeli Settlers & Soldiers Attack Masafer Yatta Again, But Only Palestinians Are Arrested, Israel Bombs Beirut Suburb for First Time Since November, U.S. Bombing Campaign on Yemen Continues, Trump Refuses to Rule Out Using Military Force to Take Greenland After Vance Visit, Trump Asks Supreme Court to Rule on Alien Enemies Act of 1798, Immigration Protests Held in Dallas & Outside Krome Detention Center in Florida, Report: U.S. Secretly Revoking Immigration Statuses of International Students, Columbia University Board Installs New President After Interim Leader Resigns, Law Firm Skadden Arps Agrees to Provide $100M in Pro Bono Work to Avoid Trump Sanctions, Tesla Takedown: Anti-Elon Musk Protests Held at Over 200 Dealerships, Musk Gives Out $1 Million Checks in Wisconsin Ahead of Critical Supreme Court Election,
Trump: “There Are Methods” He Could Use to Stay in Power for a Third Term, After Being Forced Out, Top FDA Vaccine Regulator Decries RFK’s “Misinformation & Lies”, Sudanese Military Seizes Major Market in Omdurman, Cementing Control of Capital Region, French Court Bars Far-Right Marine Le Pen from Running for Office for Five Years
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/31/headlines

2025-03-31 14:46:04

"Obsessed": Elon Musk Pours $20 Million into Wisconsin Supreme Court Race as Voter Anger Builds
Why is billionaire Elon Musk spending about $20 million to shape the outcome of Wisconsin’s Supreme Court election on Tuesday, in what has become the most expensive judicial election in U.S. history, giving away $1 million checks to two voters who signed one of his petitions? We speak with longtime Wisconsinite John Nichols of *The Nation* about the pivotal race on Tuesday that will shape the majority of the state’s top court and have a far-reaching impact on issues like abortion and voting rights. The court is also expected to rule on congressional redistricting in the state, which could whittle down the razor-thin Republican majority in the House of Representatives. “The richest man in the world, Elon Musk, has since January been obsessed with this race,” says Nichols, who notes that a liberal victory would be widely interpreted as a rebuke of the Republican agenda. “This is a politically volatile moment for Donald Trump.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/31/wisconsin_musk

2025-03-31 14:45:59

"Taking Down Everything Black": Fired Kennedy Center VP Marc Bamuthi Joseph on Trump's Takeover
President Donald Trump’s efforts to take over cultural institutions and attack diversity, equity and inclusion programs has centered on the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the venerable arts institution in Washington, D.C. The Kennedy Center was established by Congress and has been run by a bipartisan board since it opened in 1971, but Trump upended that in February when he moved to install his loyalists in key positions and make himself chair. Last week, the Kennedy Center’s new leadership fired at least seven members of its social impact team that worked to reach more diverse audiences and artists, including vice president and artistic director of social impact Marc Bamuthi Joseph. The acclaimed artist and playwright joins *Democracy Now!* to discuss Trump’s changes at the Kennedy Center, which he criticizes for destroying a “sanctuary for freedom of thought and freedom of creative expression.” Joseph notes that while the Kennedy Center has not yet made drastic programming
changes, the rhetoric from Trump and others “severely restricts and almost criminalizes demographic realities outside of white, straight, male Christianity.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/31/kennedy_center

2025-03-31 14:45:54

Remembering Robert McChesney, Prescient Critic of Media Consolidation & Big Tech
We remember media scholar Robert McChesney, the co-founder of the advocacy group Free Press, who died on March 25 at age 72. McChesney was a professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and a prolific author, with nearly three dozen books on media, democracy and digital rights. He warned decades ago that corporate consolidation of the press was putting too much power in the hands of wealthy interests, and was an early critic of Big Tech’s control over online communications. “What we’ve seen is that the internet was promised to be this great engine of economic competition. It was going to spur economic growth, create all these new businesses, huge amounts of jobs. Remember the term 'new economy' from the late '90s? And instead what we've seen is the internet is arguably the biggest generator of monopoly in history,” says McChesney in a 2013 excerpt from one of his many appearances on *Democracy Now!* over the years. We also speak with his longtime friend and collaborator
John Nichols, national affairs correspondent for *The Nation*. “Bob McChesney was one of the great public intellectuals of our era,” says Nichols. “He could have easily lived in the ivory tower. Instead, he chose to become an activist.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/31/robert_mcchesney

2025-03-28 14:53:34

Headlines for March 28, 2025
Major Earthquake Strikes Burma and Thailand, Collapsing Buildings as Rescuers Rush to Find Survivors, Israeli Attacks on Gaza Continue After It Broke Ceasefire, Killing More Students and Aid Workers, Israel Attacks Southern Lebanon, Beirut in Flagrant Breach of Ceasefire, Marco Rubio Says Rumeysa Ozturk Is One of “More Than 300” Visa Holders Targeted by Trump, U.S. Court in New Jersey Hearing Arguments in Mahmoud Khalil Case, U.S. and Colombia Agree to Share Biometric Data of Immigrants, Protesters in El Salvador Denounce Nayib Bukele’s Human Rights Abuses, Collaboration with Trump, Turkish Authorities Escalate Crackdown on Protesters and the Media Amid Political Crisis, U.S. Escalates Yemen Airstrikes, Bringing Total Deaths Since March 15 to at Least 57, U.S. Judge Orders Waltz, Vance, Rubio to Preserve Messages from Signal War Group Chat, HHS Cutting 10,000 More Jobs as DOGE Carries Out Mission to Gut the Government, “We Can Eliminate an Entire District Court”: Mike Johnson Escalates
Attack on Courts That Defy Trump, Trump Withdraws Elise Stefanik Nom for U.N. Ambassador as GOP Frets Over Slim House Majority, New York County Clerk Refuses to Enforce Texas Penalty Against NY Abortion Provider, Trump EO Orders Gov’t Agencies to End Collective Bargaining with Federal Unions, EPA Created Email So Polluters Can More Easily Obtain Exemptions from Environmental Rules, Robert McChesney, Free Press Co-Founder and Staunch Defender of Media and Democracy, Has Died, New Trump EO Aims to Gut Smithsonian Institution
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/28/headlines

2025-03-28 14:53:29

Hip-Hop Star Macklemore on New Film "The Encampments" & Why He Speaks Out Against Israel's War on Gaza
We’re joined by the four-time Grammy-winning musician Macklemore, a vocal proponent of Palestinian rights and critic of U.S. foreign policy. He serves as executive producer for the new documentary *The Encampments*, which follows last year’s student occupations of college campuses to protest U.S. backing of Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza. He tells *Democracy Now!* why he got involved with the film and the roots of his own activism, including the making of his song “Hind’s Hall,” named after the Columbia student occupation of the campus building Hamilton Hall, which itself was named in honor of the 5-year-old Palestinian child Hind Rajab. Rajab made headlines last year when audio of her pleading for help from emergency services in Gaza was released shortly before she was discovered killed by Israeli forces. “We are in urgent, dire times that require us as human beings coming together and fighting against fascism, fighting against genocide, and the only way to do that is by opening
up the heart and realizing that collective liberation is the only solution,” Macklemore says.
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/28/macklemore_the_encampments_gaza_columbia

2025-03-28 14:53:24

"The Encampments": New Film on Mahmoud Khalil & Columbia Students Who Sparked Gaza Campus Protests
The new documentary *The Encampments*, produced by Watermelon Pictures and BreakThrough News, is an insider’s look at the student protest movement to demand divestment from the U.S. and Israeli weapons industry and an end to the genocide in Gaza. The film focuses on last year’s student encampment at Columbia University and features student leaders including Mahmoud Khalil, who was chosen by the university as a liaison between the administration and students. Khalil, a U.S. permanent resident, has since been arrested and detained by immigration enforcement as part of the Trump administration’s attempt to deport immigrants who exercise their right to free speech and protest. “Columbia has gone to every extent to try to censor this movement,” says Munir Atalla, a producer for the film and a former film professor at Columbia.
We speak with Atalla; Sueda Polat, a Columbia graduate student and fellow campus negotiator with Khalil; and Grant Miner, a former Columbia graduate student and president of the student workers’ union who was expelled from the school over his participation in the protests. “Functionally, I was expelled for speaking out against genocide,” he says. All three of our guests emphasize their continued commitment to pro-Palestine activism even in the face of increasing institutional repression. *The Encampments* is opening nationwide in April.
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/28/the_encampments_columbia_university_documentary

2025-03-27 16:05:11

Fired Kennedy Center VP Marc Bamuthi Joseph Speaks Out After Trump Guts Social Impact Team
The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has fired at least five members of its social impact team, including its artistic director, the renowned artist Marc Bamuthi Joseph. The team aimed to expand the art center’s reach to diverse audiences and to commission new works by Black composers.
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/27/kennedy_center_marc_bamuthi_joseph

2025-03-27 14:41:46

Headlines for March 27, 2025
ICE Agents Abduct Tufts Ph.D. Student in Escalating Crackdown on Anti-Genocide Campus Protests, ICE Detains Iranian Ph.D. Student in Alabama and Farmworker Union Leader in Washington, Israel Kills Another 25 Palestinians in Gaza, Threatens to “Seize Territory”, 17-Year-Old Walid Khaled Abdullah Ahmad Dies in Notorious Israeli Prison, South Sudanese Vice Pres. Machar Is Arrested in Sharp Escalation of Tensions, Sudanese Army Declares “Khartoum Is Free” After Seizing Capital Airport, Brazil’s Top Court Says Jair Bolsonaro Must Stand Trial over 2022 Coup, Poisoning Plot, DHS Sec. Noem Parades in Front of El Salvador Supermax Jail as U.S. Courts Block Trump Expulsions, Housing Dept. Collaborating with DHS to Identify Undocumented Residents in Subsidized Housing, White House Announces Scaled-Down Trip to Greenland Even as Trump Insists “We Need Greenland”, SCOTUS Backs Regulations on Ghost Guns; Trump Tries to Cancel $65M Teacher-Training Grants, “Capitulation Is the Wrong Way to Go”: Dir.
Julie Cohen Resigns from duPont-Columbia Award Jury, UC Davis Suspends Law Student Association over Its Vote to Divest from Israel, USAID to Cancel Funding for Global Vaccine Alliance, a Possible Death Sentence for 1.2M Children, Calls Mount for Hegseth and Waltz Resignations as More Signal Chats from Yemen Attack Emerge, “Fire Elon, Not Elmo”: Democrats Ridicule GOP Hearing Aimed at Defunding Public Media, Trump Announces 25% Tariffs on Imported Cars and Auto Parts, Democrat Wins PA State Election in Major Upset Ahead of Key U.S. House Races in Florida, Kennedy Center Fires Social Impact Employees, Including Artistic Director Marc Bamuthi Joseph
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/27/headlines

2025-03-27 14:41:40

"Kidnapped": 1,000+ Protest After Masked ICE Agents Abduct Tufts Ph.D. Student Rumeysa Ozturk
Over a thousand protesters gathered near Tufts University on Wednesday after masked plainclothes immigration agents snatched Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts Ph.D. student and Fulbright scholar, from the streets of Somerville, Massachusetts. Surveillance video shows agents approaching her on the streets near her home Tuesday evening and handcuffing her while she screamed for help. Tufts University’s president said the school had no prior notice of her arrest. Last March, Ozturk co-wrote a piece in the student newspaper criticizing the Tufts administration’s response to Palestinian solidarity protests on campus that were calling for divestment from Israel. *Democracy Now!*'s Hany Massoud and Ariel Boone were in Somerville at Wednesday's protest. “One of our community members was taken by armed agents of the state who kidnapped her from right outside her home,” said Lea Kayali, an activist with the Palestinian Youth Movement. “People are here to stand up for the movement that she was punished for
supporting.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/27/rumeysa_ozturk_tufts_ice_abduction

2025-03-27 14:41:35

Can Elon Musk Buy Wisconsin? Ari Berman on Billionaire-Funded Attempt to Flip State Supreme Court
After spending over a quarter of a billion dollars on Donald Trump’s presidential election campaign, Elon Musk is pouring money into a Supreme Court election in Wisconsin. Musk has spent more than $18 million to support Trump-backed candidate Brad Schimel over liberal Susan Crawford and has been paying Wisconsin voters $100 to help flip the state’s top court. This election could impact abortion rights, unions and Republicans’ ability to keep gerrymandered districts in place to control Congress. “The level of corruption at play here, the level of money at play here, really is a warning sign for what’s happening to our democracy,” says Ari Berman, voting rights correspondent for *Mother Jones* magazine.
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/27/elon_musk_wisconsin_supreme_court_race

2025-03-27 14:41:30

Elon Musk's Family History in South Africa Reveals Ties to Apartheid & Neo-Nazi Movements
Elon Musk was born in 1971 in Johannesburg, South Africa, and raised in a wealthy family under the country’s racist apartheid laws. Musk’s family history reveals ties to apartheid and neo-Nazi politics. We speak with Chris McGreal, reporter for *The Guardian*, to understand how Musk’s upbringing shaped his worldview, as well as that of his South African-raised colleague Peter Thiel, a right-wing billionaire who co-founded PayPal alongside Musk. “Musk lived what can only be described as a neocolonial life,” said McGreal. “If you were a white South African in that period and you had any money at all, you lived with servants at your beck and call.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/27/elon_musk_south_africa

2025-03-26 14:21:46

Headlines for March 26, 2025
Israel Kills 38 Palestinians in Gaza; Israeli Court Orders Dr. Abu Safiya Held for 6 Months More, Palestinian Filmmaker Hamdan Ballal Freed After Being Assaulted by Israeli Settlers & Soldiers, Israel Kills 6 in Syria as U.S. Lanches New Attacks on Yemen, Hegseth & Waltz Face Calls to Resign Over Yemen Attack Plans Disclosure on Signal Chat, U.S. Intelligence Agencies Omit Climate Change as National Threat, Russia and Ukraine Agree to Naval Ceasefire in Black Sea, JD Vance to Join Delegation Headed to Greenland Amid Trump Threats to Seize Territory, ACLU Warns Trump Targeting of Another Law Firm Is “Despotic, Unpresidential”, AAUP & Middle East Studies Assoc. Sue Trump for Creating Climate of Repression on Campuses, Salvadorans Protest U.S. Sending Venezuelans to “Imperial Prison”, 54 Die in Sudanese Airstrike on Market in North Darfur; South Sudan on Brink of Civil War, 24 Die in South Korea’s Largest Wildfires Ever, UNAIDS Warns Millions Could Die from U.S. Aid Cuts, Report: DOGE
Employee Known as “Big Balls” Once Helped Cybercrime Gang, Senate Committee Advances Nomination of Dr. Mehmet Oz, Backer of Privatizing Medicare, Trump Signs New Voting Executive Order; Critics Warn Millions Could Be Disenfranchised
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/26/headlines

2025-03-26 14:21:41

Hands Off Social Security: Drastic DOGE-Backed Changes Put Benefits for Millions at Risk
The Social Security benefits of millions of people in the United States are at risk as the Trump administration institutes drastic changes billed as “anti-fraud” measures, but which critics say are aimed at weakening the popular program and potentially laying the groundwork to privatize it. The Social Security Administration has already shuttered dozens of offices across the country and is laying off thousands of workers. At the same time, the agency is demanding people make more in-office visits for routine business. The changes are part of government-wide efforts led by billionaire Elon Musk and DOGE, the so-called Department of Government Efficiency.
“They are destabilizing the program,” says Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works and chair of the Strengthen Social Security Coalition. “It’s really hard to imagine what they have in mind, what their endgame is, other than destroying our Social Security system.”
We also speak with *Jacobin* staff writer Branko Marcetic, who says Trump’s nominee to head the Social Security Administration, financial services executive Frank Bisignano, has a reputation for slashing costs and pushing out staff. “All of that is a pretty grim portent” of his plans for the Social Security Administration, if Bisignano is confirmed, says Marcetic. “The people that are going to be hurt by it are the actual Social Security beneficiaries.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/26/social_security

2025-03-26 14:21:36

10 Years of War on Yemen: Leaked War Plan Chats Overshadow U.S. Deadly History Targeting Yemen
Democratic lawmakers are calling for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and national security adviser Michael Waltz to resign, after they discussed bombing Yemen in a group chat that also included journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of *The Atlantic*. Waltz had set up the chat on the messaging app Signal and appeared to accidentally add Goldberg, who then got a front-row seat as top officials, including Vice President JD Vance, discussed classified information. The attacks ultimately killed dozens of people in Yemen, including children. Journalist Safa Al Ahmad, who has been reporting on Yemen since 2010, says that while Washington is obsessing over the U.S. national security implications of the group chat, there is almost no criticism of the bombing campaign at the heart of the scandal. “They are killing Yemenis with no recourse for Yemenis themselves,” says Al Ahmad, who notes that U.S. involvement in attacks on Yemen started almost exactly 10 years ago, when a Saudi-led
coalition began bombing the country with support from the Obama administration.
“There was actually no legal rationale under the Constitution for doing these strikes,” adds Branko Marcetic, staff writer for *Jacobin*. “Only Congress is actually able to declare war.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/26/signal_yemen

2025-03-26 14:21:31

1,400+ Arrested in Turkey as Erdoğan Jails Istanbul Mayor & Intensifies Authoritarian Crackdown
Mass demonstrations are continuing in Turkey, where Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu has been arrested on corruption charges. Since protests broke out last week, Turkish authorities have detained more than 1,400 people, including students and journalists. İmamoğlu is the main rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the 2028 presidential election and was recently nominated for president by the Republican People’s Party. Erdoğan has led the country since 2003, but his popularity has dropped in recent years amid increasingly authoritarian policies cracking down on dissent. “Everyone knows that this is politically motivated and that Erdoğan is scared that he’s not going to win against Ekrem İmamoğlu,” says Turkish political scientist Ezgi Başaran.
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/26/turkey

2025-03-25 14:34:12

Headlines for March 25, 2025
“Do Not Let the World Look Away”: Israel Kills 2 More Journalists, Incl. Al Jazeera’s Hossam Shabat, Israeli Settlers Brutally Attack Hamdan Ballal, Oscar-Winning Filmmaker, in Occupied West Bank, Trump’s National Security Team Accidentally Shares Yemen War Plans with Journalist in Signal Chat, U.S. Attacks on Yemen Kills at Least 2 More People in Sana’a, Russian Missiles Injure Dozens in Ukraine’s Sumy; Ukraine Kills 6, Incl. 3 Russian Journalists, SCOTUS Rejects Landmark Youth Climate Case, Ending 10-Year Battle That Inspired New Legal Strategy, SCOTUS Rejects Case Challenging NYT v. Sullivan, SCOTUS Hears Arguments in Key Louisiana Redistricting Case, Trump Threatens 25% Tariffs on Countries That Buy Venezuelan Oil, USPS Chief Louis DeJoy Resigns as DOGE Prepares to Gut Agency, U.S. Judge Reaffirms Order Blocking Trump from Expelling Immigrants Using Wartime Order, Columbia Student and Green Card Holder Sues Trump Administration After ICE Attempts to Arrest Her
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/25/headlines

2025-03-25 14:34:07

Oscar-Winning Palestinian Filmmaker Hamdan Ballal Brutally Beaten in Mob Attack by Israeli Settlers
Hamdan Ballal, the Oscar-winning Palestinian director of *No Other Land*, was attacked by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank community of Masafer Yatta, arrested by Israeli soldiers and held overnight. The group entered their village and started the assault shortly after residents broke their daily Ramadan fast. Ballal’s *No Other Land* co-director Basel Adra witnessed the attack. He tells *Democracy Now!* that “settlers and soldiers together attacked [Ballal] physically, brutally, and abducted him,” while soldiers pointed guns and fired warning shots at a group of villagers including women and children. Ballal screamed “I’m dying” as he was being beaten. “Although the Israeli military has accused Ballal and two other Palestinians of throwing stones at soldiers, another eyewitness, Jewish American peace activist Anna Lippman, says the accusations are groundless. “The double standard is so strong here in the West Bank that Palestinians know that if they were to touch a stone,
that could mean their life.” Adra calls on international intervention to end the violent occupation of Masafer Yatta, where “almost every day there is [an] attack.” Since this interview was conducted, Ballal has reportedly been released from Israeli custody and returned to his family.
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/25/hamdan_ballal_no_other_land_settlers

2025-03-25 14:34:01

Remembering Hossam Shabat: Gaza Journalist Killed by Israel Was Placed on "Hit List" Before His Death
On Monday, Israeli strikes killed two Palestinian journalists: Al Jazeera’s Hossam Shabat, who was 23 years old, and Palestine Today’s Mohammed Mansour, who was killed in his apartment alongside his wife. This brings the total number of journalists that Israel has killed in Gaza over the past year and a half to 206. Just before his death, Shabat had shared news of Mansour’s killing on social media and filed an article with *Drop Site News* describing Israel’s scorched-earth campaign in his hometown of Beit Hanoun. His editor Sharif Abdel Kouddous remembers Shabat as a “warm and funny person,” dedicated to his job and his community. In recent months, he had been under increasing surveillance by the Israeli military, which labeled him a terrorist and placed him on a “hit list.” Despite being “targeted and openly hunted,” Shabat “continued nevertheless to cover the genocide of his people.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/25/hussam_shabat_journalist_killed_gaza

2025-03-25 14:33:56

"Much Worse Than Ever Before": Abubaker Abed Reports from Gaza as Israel Weighs Broader Invasion
We go to Gaza for a report on the brutal conditions of Israel’s genocide of Palestinians from Abubaker Abed, a 22-year-old journalist who has recently been diagnosed with malnutrition as a result of Israel’s total siege of the Gaza Strip. “It’s unending misery,” says Abed. “We’re here stranded. We’re seeing the systematic killing of everyone, as Israel is targeting every single one here in Gaza.” In the week since Israel’s abrupt desertion of its ceasefire agreement, says Abed, the total suffering in Gaza “is much worse than ever before.” He pleads for international intervention and accountability. “As long as the world allows Israel to do so, this will not stop.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/25/israel_genocide_gaza_journalist_abubaker_abed

2025-03-24 14:50:07

Headlines for March 24, 2025
Israel Renews Attacks on Gaza’s Hospitals as Its Full-Scale War Continues, Erdoğan Intensifies Crackdown on Rival İmamoğlu as Court Jails the Detained Istanbul Mayor, Columbia Caves to Trump Demands, Outlines Plans to Militarize Campus, Reinforce Censorship, Trump Orders DOJ and DHS to Punish Law Firms That Challenge His Agenda, Trump to Revoke Temporary Status of 530,000 People from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, WaPo: IRS Could Soon Release Personal Data of Immigrant Taxpayers to DHS, U.S. Judge Blocks ICE from Deporting Activist Jeanette Vizguerra, Social Security Head Briefly Threatens to Shut Down Agency, Pentagon Hosts Elon Musk But Skips Briefing on China After Media Reports, Musk’s PAC Offers Wisconsin Voters $100 as He Pours Millions into Key Supreme Court Race, U.S. and Russia Hold Talks in Saudi Arabia as Negotiations Continue to End Ukraine War, Sudanese Army Sweeps Major Sites in Khartoum After Seizing Presidential Palace, South African Ambassador Returns Home to
Warm Welcome After Expulsion from D.C., South Korean Court Reinstates Prime Minister Han Duck-soo as President Ahead of Yoon Suk Yeol Ruling, Canadian PM Calls for Snap Election to Take On Trump, “Most Significant Crisis of Our Lifetimes”, Greenland Pushes Back on “Highly Aggressive” Planned Visit by Members of Trump White House, 34,000 Rallygoers Attend Bernie and AOC’s Denver Stop on “Fighting Oligarchy” Tour
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/24/headlines

2025-03-24 14:50:01

Pro-Palestinian Cornell Student Momodou Taal Ordered to Surrender to ICE, Faces Possible Deportation
The Trump administration has ramped up efforts to target free speech on college campuses and one doctoral student at Cornell University who was involved in pro-Palastinian protests on campus now finds himself targeted for deportation once again. Momodou Taal is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Africana Studies at Cornell University who is a dual citizen of the United Kingdom and the Gambia. He was suspended twice last year for joining a demonstration calling on Cornell to divest from Israel and faced deportation until massive protests pressured Cornell to allow him to reenroll, thereby extending his visa. Earlier this month, Taal, along with two U.S. citizens, filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration’s executive orders that target foreign nationals who it claims are national security threats. “I believed I was going to be a target eventually,” says Taal.
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/24/momodou_taal_cornell_deportation_palestine_protests

2025-03-24 14:49:55

Georgtown Scholar Badar Khan Suri Remains in Immigration Jail After Masked Agents Snatched Him in D.C.
Badar Khan Suri is one of the many pro-Palestine scholars being targeted by the Trump administration. Suri, originally from India, is a Georgetown University professor and postdoctoral scholar on religion and peace processes in the Middle East and South Asia. Last Monday evening, Suri was ambushed by masked federal agents with the Homeland Security Department as he and his family returned to their home in Rosslyn, Virginia, after attending an iftar gathering for Ramadan. Suri was taken into custody without being charged with or accused of any crime. He was told the federal government had revoked his visa. Over the next 72 hours, Suri was transferred to multiple immigration detention centers, and he is currently jailed at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Louisiana, separated from his wife, a U.S. citizen of Palestinian descent, and his three children. Unlike Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate facing deportation, Suri “is not a political activist,” says
Nader Hashemi, a professor of Middle East and Islamic politics at Georgetown University. “He was just a very serious young academic focusing on his teaching and his research.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/24/badar_khan_suri_georgetown_nader_hashemi

2025-03-24 14:49:50

Law Prof. Katherine Franke Accuses Columbia of Empowering Trump by Agreeing to $400M "Ransom Note"
Education Secretary Linda McMahon says Columbia University is on track to regain its federal funding after the Ivy League institution yielded to the Trump administration’s demands on Friday. The demands include banning face masks on campus, hiring 36 new security officers with greater power to arrest and crack down on students and appointing a “senior vice provost” to oversee the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies and the Center for Palestine Studies. Students say they will continue to fight for Palestinian rights and for Columbia to divest from Israel, but free speech experts are sounding the alarm. “We have no idea what comes next, but groveling before a bully, we all know, just encourages the bully,” says Katherine Franke, former professor at Columbia Law School.
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/24/katherine_franke_columbia_university

2025-03-14 14:46:02

Headlines for March 14, 2025
U.S. Judges Order Agencies to Reinstate Fired Workers, Trump and Musk to Halt Mass Layoffs, “A Slap in the Face”: Democrats Accuse Schumer of “Betrayal” After He Backs GOP Funding Bill, Jewish Protesters Takes Over Trump Tower to Demand Release of Mahmoud Khalil, Columbia Punishes Students in Historic Hind’s Hall Protest as Trump Issues Ultimatum to Admin, Harvard Law Students Vote to Divest from Israeli War Machine, Trump and Putin Set to Talk as Zelensky Accuses Moscow of “Manipulation” over Truce Conditions, NBC: Pentagon Preparing Plans to Illegally Seize Panama Canal, Syria Signs Transitional Constitution Against Backdrop of Israeli Airstrikes, Military Occupation, U.N. Warns “Entire Families” Killed in Syrian Sectarian Violence as Some Alawites Flee to Lebanon, Argentinian Riot Police Crack Down on Pensioner-Led Anti-Government Protests, Cuba Releases 553 Prisoners, Fulfilling Its End of Collapsed Deal with U.S., Trump Resumes Family Detentions, Including Children as Young as 1,
DOJ Drops Sexual Abuse Lawsuit Against Immigraton Housing Contractor, Raúl Grijalva, Longtime AZ Congressman and Defender of Immigrant & Environmental Rights, Dies at 77
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/14/headlines

2025-03-14 14:45:57

"Never Again for Anyone": 100 Jewish Activists Arrested at Trump Tower Protesting Mahmoud Khalil Arrest
Over 300 protesters with the group Jewish Voice for Peace flooded the lobby of Trump Tower in New York on Thursday wearing red shirts saying “Not in Our Name.” They demanded the immediate release of Mahmoud Khalil and held banners reading “opposing facism is a Jewish tradition.” About 100 protesters were arrested and face charges of trespassing, obstruction and resisting arrest. *Democracy Now!* was at the protest. “I refuse to allow this administration to speak in my name, to use our names as Jews, to carry out a fascist agenda,” protester Josh Dubnau said. “The Trump administration is a government that has far-right white supremacists, people that do the Nazi salute, and [Trump’s] fine with that.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/14/jvp_sitin_trump_tower_mahmoud_khalil

2025-03-14 14:45:50

"Imperialism and Totalitarianism Go Hand in Hand": M. Gessen on Trump's Policies at Home & Abroad
We speak with the acclaimed Russian American writer M. Gessen, who says Donald Trump has entered his second term prepared to enact his radical Project 2025 agenda, including a crackdown on LGBTQ rights and dissent. Gessen, who has spent decades writing about authoritarianism at home and abroad, argues that while he was something of an “accidental president” in his first term, “Trump has been transformed by power” and is now increasingly “imperialist” and “totalitarian.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/14/m_gessen

2025-03-14 14:45:45

If Successful, I Would Call It a Coup: A Retired Judge's Warning About Elon Musk's Abuse of Power
A pair of federal judges have ordered the Trump administration to reinstate thousands of fired federal workers at the departments of Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Interior and Treasury. The White House vowed to fight what it called an “absurd and unconstitutional order.” This comes as the White House and its allies have increasingly targeted judges who rule against the administration. Elon Musk has posted dozens of messages on his social platform X calling for the impeachment of judges who rule against the administration. We speak with retired federal Judge Nancy Gertner, who served as a federal district judge in Massachusetts for 17 years, from 1994 to 2011. “The distance between what they are trying to do and what is lawful is so enormous that anyone would rule as these judges are doing,” says Gertner.
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/14/nancy_gertner_constitutional_crisis

2025-03-13 16:59:41

Headlines for March 13, 2025
Mahmoud Khalil Speaks to Lawyers After NY Hearing, Judge Extends Block on Deportation, U.N. Experts: Israel Has Committed Genocide Through Attack on Women’s Health, EPA Moves to Undo Decades of Regulations on Air, Water, Polluting Industries, NOAA Faces More Layoffs; DOJ Guts Oversight Unit for Corrupt Public Officials, Acting Social Security Commissioner Privately Admits DOGE Cuts Have Imperiled Benefits, USAID Destroys Classified Documents After Judge Orders Trump Admin to Pay Out Foreign Aid, Trump Administration Flies 40 Remaining Immigrants from Guantánamo to Louisiana, Russia Recaptures Ukraine-Occupied Territory as U.S. Envoy Arrives in Moscow for Ceasefire Talks, Canada Hits Back at Trump wIth 25% Reciprocal Tariffs on Steel, Aluminum and Other Goods, Greenland Center-Right Party Wins Surprise Election Victory Amid Trump’s Threats to Take Over, Ugandan Forces Deploy to South Sudan as Power-Sharing Deal That Ended Civil War Unravels, Yale Suspends Legal Scholar and Palestinian
Rights Supporter Helyeh Doutaghi
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/13/headlines

2025-03-13 16:59:36

As U.N. Accuses Israel of Genocidal Acts, Doctors in Gaza Denounce Israeli Blockade on Aid, Food & Fuel
A new report by United Nations experts says Israel has carried out “genocidal acts” against Palestinians in Gaza, including the destruction of women’s healthcare facilities, intended to prevent births, and the use of sexual violence as a strategy of war. This comes as talks on resuscitating the ceasefire deal continue in Qatar and as Israel continues its total blockade of food, fuel, medicine and other humanitarian aid into the Palestinian territory. For more, we speak with two American doctors volunteering at Nasser Medical Complex in Gaza. “It’s a very difficult situation, and the attacks on the healthcare system that were done in the past 16 months have really undermined its ability to help people,” says trauma surgeon Dr. Feroze Sidhwa. We also speak with Dr. Mark Perlmutter, an orthopedic and hand surgeon, who says about 350 Palestinian medical workers who remain in Israeli prisons without charge must be freed. Many who have been released describe horrific abuse. “The physical and
mental torture … presents a tremendous weight on the healthcare system here,” says Dr. Perlmutter.
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/13/united_nations_israel_palestine_genocide

2025-03-13 16:59:30

Mahmoud Khalil's Lawyers Press for Release of Columbia Univ. Activist Jailed in Free Speech Case
We get an update on the Trump administration’s attempt to deport Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, whose case has alarmed immigrant advocates and civil rights groups. Khalil, a legal permanent resident who is married to a U.S. citizen, was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in New York on Saturday and told his green card was being revoked because of his role in Columbia University student protests last year opposed to Israel’s war on Gaza. He has since been moved to an ICE jail in Louisiana with little access to legal counsel or to his family, including his pregnant wife. On Tuesday, a federal judge extended an order blocking Khalil’s deportation while he considers whether the arrest was unconstitutional.
“It’s been very clear from the beginning that the government’s strategy is to cut Khalil off not just from access to the court here in New York, not just from access to his legal team, but from access to his support base,” says Ramzi Kassem, part of Khalil’s legal team.
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/13/mahmoud_khalil_case_law

2025-03-13 16:59:25

Ex-Education Dept. Official: Trump Is Dismantling Agency as He Weaponizes It Against Gaza Protesters
Education Secretary Linda McMahon has issued a warning to 60 universities that they’re being investigated for antisemitism and could face penalties. Her warning came days after the Trump administration withdrew $400 million in federal grants and contracts to Columbia University and as the administration attempts to deport Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil over his involvement in campus antiwar protests at the school. At the same time, President Trump has pledged to abolish the Education Department entirely, with plans announced this week to fire an additional 1,300 employees, effectively cutting the agency’s workforce in half. “It’s pretty clear what this administration is trying to do, and it has nothing to do with antisemitism,” says former Education Department official Tariq Habash, who resigned last year to protest the Biden administration’s support of Israel’s war on Gaza. “It has everything to do with Donald Trump’s vision for America, which is consolidating his authoritarian
power.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/13/education_department_trump_abolish

2025-03-13 16:59:20

Tesla Takedown: Protests Grow Across the U.S. as Trump & Musk Brand Activists as Terrorists
We speak with Valerie Costa, an organizer behind the grassroots Tesla Takedown movement peacefully protesting outside Tesla showrooms to oppose billionaire owner Elon Musk’s role in government. Since Donald Trump’s return to the White House, Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency have led mass firings of federal workers and dismantled entire agencies. As protests against Tesla grow and sales plummet, the company’s stock has lost about 40% of its value since the start of the year. This week, President Trump personally intervened on behalf of his adviser and held a promotional event with Musk at the White House, where he said he would buy an electric vehicle and declared attacks on Tesla dealerships to be “domestic terrorism.” Meanwhile, Musk personally attacked Costa, falsely accusing her of “committing crimes” in a post on his X social network. “They’re peaceful, nonviolent protests,” says Costa, an activist and organizer in Seattle. “Protesting Tesla … is
ultimately about hitting Elon Musk’s bottom line.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/13/tesla_protests_elon_musk_doge

2025-03-12 14:17:49

Headlines for March 12, 2025
U.S. Resumes Military Aid and Intelligence Sharing as Ukraine Backs 30-Day Ceasefire Plan, MSF Condemns Israel’s Gaza Blockade: “Aid Should Never Be Used as a Bargaining Chip in War”, Israeli Forces Kill 4, Including Palestinian Grandmother, in West Bank Raids, “Absolutely Unacceptable and Illegal”: Lawmakers Demand Release of Mahmoud Khalil from ICE Jail, House GOP Approves Short-Term Spending Bill with $13 Billion in Nonmilitary Cuts, Department of Education to Fire Additional 1,300 Workers, Cutting Workforce in Half, EU Retaliates as Trump’s 25% Tariffs on Steel and Aluminum Imports Takes Effect, “Have You No Decency?”: Republican Congressman Misgenders Rep. Sarah McBride in Transphobic Attack, New York Gov. Hochul Bans 2,000 Prison Guards from Civil Service Jobs After Wildcat Strike, Texas and Louisiana Death Row Prisoners Win Reprieves from Execution
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/12/headlines

2025-03-12 14:17:44

Trump's Trade War: Why Lack of Universal Healthcare Makes U.S. Less Competitive
President Donald Trump’s growing trade war against other countries is wreaking havoc on financial markets, upending the global trade system and angering long-standing U.S. allies. Trump has imposed sweeping tariffs on a range of imports, including aluminum and steel, since his inauguration. Many countries have responded with their own retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods, though countries have also delayed or withdrawn some of the levies as the Trump administration makes near-daily changes to its trade policies. We speak with investigative journalist and author Dave Lindorff, who says the Trump administration’s drive to bring back manufacturing and other jobs that have been outsourced over the last several decades is ignoring the role of healthcare in raising costs. “The fact that we don’t have national healthcare here like they have in Canada … is making American industry not competitive,” says Lindorff.
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/12/tariffs

2025-03-12 14:17:39

"Impeach Trump Again": John Bonifaz on Fighting Trump's Lawlessness, Corruption & Attacks on Judges
More than 250,000 have signed a petition to support an impeachment investigation of President Donald Trump, who was twice impeached during his first term. The Impeach Trump Again campaign is being led by the advocacy group Free Speech for People. “This president has already committed multiple abuses of power since assuming the presidency, and the framers designed the Constitution to ensure that we would not have a monarch or a tyrant govern this nation,” says the group’s president, John Bonifaz. “When we see these abuses of power, we have to invoke this impeachment clause.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/12/donald_trump_impeachment

2025-03-12 14:17:34

"Monumental Step": Ex-Philippines Pres. Duterte Arrested, Sent to Hague for Crimes Against Humanity
Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is being flown to The Hague to face charges of crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court over his brutal “war on drugs,” during which police extrajudicially killed thousands of people, including many children. The ICC has been investigating Duterte since 2018. Duterte, now 79, served as president of the Philippines from 2016 to 2022. He once compared himself to Hitler, saying he would be “happy to slaughter” 3 million drug addicts, and last year admitted under oath that he oversaw a “death squad” of gangsters while he served as mayor of the southern city of Davao. “It is really a monumental step in the dispensation of justice,” says Filipino scholar and activist Walden Bello, who previously served in the House of Representatives of the Philippines. He notes that despite the Duterte family’s protestations, the former president’s arrest is the result of a meticulous legal process that offers him a fair trial. “Due process is
something that he never gave his victims,” says Bello.
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/12/walden_bello

2025-03-11 14:43:06

Headlines for March 11, 2025
Ukrainian Drones Kill 3 in Moscow; U.S. and Ukrainian Officials Meet in Jeddah for Ceasefire Talks, Israel Accused of Weaponizing Aid and “Imposing Starvation” Amid Gaza Blockade, Judge Blocks Deportation of Green Card Holder and Columbia Campus Protest Leader Mahmoud Khalil, Linda McMahon Warns Universities to Combat “Antisemitism” or Lose Funding, Syria’s Kurdish Forces Sign Deal to Join Interim Syrian Government, Ex-Philippines Leader Rodrigo Duterte Arrested on ICC Warrant for Drug War Killings, U.S. Stocks Plummet as Trump’s Trade War Takes Its Toll, Elon Musk Says DOGE Is Coming for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and More, “Shockingly Unlawful”: Trump Executive Order Targets Public Service Student Loan Program, Climate Activists Arrested in Protest of Houston Energy Conference, Climate Groups Sue EPA over Freeze on $20B of Federal Funds, Trump Withdraws US from Climate Damage Compensation Fund, Longtime Washington Post Writer Resigns After Publisher Denies Piece Critical of
Bezos, Crews Start to Dismantle D.C.’s Black Lives Matter Plaza
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/11/headlines

2025-03-11 14:43:01

"This Is All Retaliatory": Judge Blocks Mahmoud Khalil's Deportation as Trump Vows More Arrests
A federal judge has blocked the deportation of recent Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil, a permanent legal resident of the U.S. who was arrested by immigration authorities for helping organize campus solidarity protests with Gaza. He had been receiving daily threats stemming from an online smear campaign launched by pro-Israel activists before his arrest and repeatedly appealed to university administrators for protection. Khalil, who is a Palestinian green card holder, is married to a U.S. citizen. Upon his arrest, he was separated from his pregnant wife and transported to a detention facility in Louisiana, where legal experts say he is more likely to appear before Trump-friendly judges if his case moves forward. “Her husband was abducted before her very eyes [and] disappeared,” says Ramzi Kassem.
Kassem is the founder of the legal clinic CLEAR, which is contesting Khalil’s “baseless” detention and Louisiana transfer in New York court. Khalil’s unprecedented arrest makes good on President Trump’s promise to punish antiwar student activists, bringing together his administration’s attacks on free speech, education and immigrant rights. It is “part and parcel” of “Trump’s racist and fascist agenda,” says immigrant rights activist Murad Awawdeh, who adds that the Columbia University administration’s lack of response to Khalil’s high-profile case has been “incredibly shameful.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/11/mahmoud_khalil_ice_columbia_university_palestine

2025-03-11 14:42:56

Noura Erakat: Trump's Abuses & Mahmoud Khalil's Arrest Are Products of U.S. Imperialism Coming Home
Palestinian human rights attorney Noura Erakat responds to the arrest of Columbia University student protest leader Mahmoud Khalil and situates it in the long, bipartisan history of anti-Palestine suppression of free speech. “It was the Biden administration, it was the Democratic establishment, that has created the conditions that we are now seeing taken advantage of,” she says of Khalil’s targeting by the Trump administration for deportation. Erakat calls for continued resistance and study of U.S. imperialism and Zionism in the face of racist repression. “This is the precise moment we should be studying Palestine in order to understand ourselves and what’s coming and our responsibility in the world as an imperial power.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/11/noura_erakat_palestine_mahmoud_khalil

2025-03-11 14:42:51

"A Devastating Tragedy": 1,000+ People Killed in Syria Amid Reports of Massacres Against Alawites
In Syria, over a thousand people have been killed, the vast majority of them civilians, in a spate of massacres largely targeting the country’s Alawite religious minority. Syria’s longtime ruling family, the Assads, are members of the Alawite sect. The recent clashes began Thursday after coordinated attacks by gunmen linked to the former regime killed over 200 members of the new government’s security forces. In response, government forces along with armed groups and individuals poured into Alawite villages throughout the region, carrying out reprisal attacks. Syria’s interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa has denounced the attacks and vowed to hold those responsible to account. Al-Sharaa is “trying to present a more acceptable image,” after years of Syria’s isolation from the global capitalist economy, says Syrian scholar Yasser Munif. “His priority is to end the sanctions against Syria and bring the funding for reconstruction. … He is managing all these tensions and contradictions, and it
will be quite the challenge for him to succeed.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/11/syria_democratic_forces_al_assad

2025-03-10 14:43:37

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
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/10/headlines

2025-03-10 14:43:32

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

2025-03-10 14:43:26

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

2025-03-07 16:21:38

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
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/7/headlines

2025-03-07 16:21:32

"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

2025-03-07 16:21:26

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

2025-03-07 16:21:20

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

2025-03-06 15:43:06

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”
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/6/headlines

2025-03-06 15:43:01

"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

2025-03-06 15:42:56

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

2025-03-06 15:42:50

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

2025-03-05 15:24:25

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
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/5/headlines

2025-03-05 15:24:20

"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

2025-03-05 15:24:15

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

2025-03-05 15:24:10

"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

2025-03-05 15:24:04

"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

2025-03-05 15:23:59

"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!*
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/5/trump_anti_trans

2025-03-05 15:23:54

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

2025-03-04 15:28:01

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
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/4/headlines