Contributing Writers

We speak with Brett Murphy, the ProPublica reporter behind a blockbuster exposé that revealed the Biden administration ignored warnings from its own experts about Israel blocking humanitarian aid into Gaza in order to keep supplying the country with weapons. USAID, the U.S.

We look at the smear campaign faced by the only Palestinian American in Congress and a vocal critic of Israel, Democratic Congressmember Rashida Tlaib, after she defended the rights of student protesters. Tlaib recently criticized Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel over charges Nessel filed against 11 mostly students and alumni who were involved in a pro-Palestine encampment at the University of Michigan.

We get an update from Lebanon, where the death toll from Israeli airstrikes has risen to over 700 since Monday, following a series of explosions involving pagers and walkie-talkies in Beirut and southern Lebanon last week. The Israeli military reiterated its troops were preparing for a ground invasion of Lebanon if tensions continue to escalate. Multiple Israeli tanks and armored vehicles have appeared across Israel’s northern border with Lebanon.

On Thursday, federal prosecutors announced they are charging New York City Mayor Eric Adams for a bribery and wire fraud scheme spanning nearly a decade. Adams allegedly accepted illegal campaign contributions from corporations and foreign donors, including the Turkish government. Adams is accused of manipulating regulators for the Turkish Consulate and not recognizing the Armenian genocide in exchange for campaign donations and lavish gifts.

Democracy Now! co-host Juan González has co-authored a major new report for the Great Cities Institute at the University of Illinois at Chicago titled “Fuerza Mexicana: The Past, Present, and Power of Mexicans in Chicagoland,” which takes a deep look into Chicago’s Mexican community.

We speak with Brett Murphy, the ProPublica reporter behind a blockbuster exposé that revealed the Biden administration ignored warnings from its own experts about Israel blocking humanitarian aid into Gaza in order to keep supplying the country with weapons. USAID, the U.S.

Israel is continuing its bombardment of Lebanon and preparing for a possible ground invasion of the country, with the Netanyahu government rejecting a proposed 21-day ceasefire put forward by the United States, France, Canada, Australia, Japan, Qatar, the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams faces mounting pressure to resign after becoming the city’s first sitting mayor to be indicted on federal charges. The indictment remains sealed as of Thursday morning, but The New York Times reports the federal investigation has focused at least in part on whether Adams took illegal campaign donations from the Turkish government. Many of Adams’s top aides are also facing federal investigations. “New Yorkers deserve better.

The state of Missouri is set to kill Marcellus Williams tonight. Williams has always maintained his innocence in the 1998 killing of St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Lisha Gayle during a robbery. The jurors, prosecutors and victim’s family are all supporting Williams’s bid for clemency, which has been denied by Missouri’s Republican governor and state Supreme Court.

Democracy Now! co-host Juan González has co-authored a major new report for the Great Cities Institute at the University of Illinois at Chicago titled “Fuerza Mexicana: The Past, Present, and Power of Mexicans in Chicagoland,” which takes a deep look into Chicago’s Mexican community.

Democracy Now! speaks with the Green Party’s presidential ticket, Jill Stein and her running mate Butch Ware, after the Green Party suffered a setback Friday when the U.S. Supreme Court declined a request to put Stein on the ballot in Nevada. The Democratic Party had sued to keep Stein off the ballot for failing to submit the proper forms.

The Israeli military is reportedly preparing to invade Lebanon while continuing to launch extensive airstrikes across the country, forcing tens of thousands to flee. Lebanon’s Health Ministry reports the death toll has reached at least 569 people, with more than 1,800 wounded. Israeli strikes have killed United Nations employees, medical workers, at least one journalist and 50 children over the past two days.

The state of Missouri is set to kill Marcellus Williams tonight. Williams has always maintained his innocence in the 1998 killing of St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Lisha Gayle during a robbery. The jurors, prosecutors and victim’s family are all supporting Williams’s bid for clemency, which has been denied by Missouri’s Republican governor and state Supreme Court.

As New York City’s Climate Week begins, we speak to environmental justice activist Kumi Naidoo, the former head of Greenpeace International and Amnesty International and now the president of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, about his work to end the use of fossil fuels, the leading driver of climate change.

As the United Nations General Assembly meets in New York City alongside Climate Week, dozens of activists were arrested Monday at a protest outside of Citibank’s global headquarters while demanding the company divest from fossil fuels. Democracy Now! spoke to many activists from the Gulf South about the impact of Citibank-funded projects in their communities.

Israel’s massive aerial bombardment of Lebanon killed at least 558 people on Monday in what is the highest single-day death toll in Lebanon in nearly two decades. Thousands more have been injured in strikes that targeted hospitals, medical centers and ambulances, while tens of thousands of civilians have been forced from their homes. “It has been havoc,” says Michelle Eid, editor-in-chief of Al Rawiya, in Beirut, describing attempts by family members to flee the attacks in the south.

The Secret Service recently announced the next electoral count after the November election is scheduled for January 6, 2025, and this time the event will be classified under the same security level as the inauguration itself. The move follows a request by Washington, D.C.’s mayor and a recommendation by the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol.

With just weeks to go before the November 5 presidential vote, the pro-Trump majority on Georgia’s State Election Board voted 3-2 on Friday to require ballots to be hand-counted, potentially delaying results and sowing chaos on election night in the swing state. Voting rights advocates say hand-counting ballots is more time-consuming and could also introduce errors compared to the use of standard voting machines.

Israel stepped up its censorship of Al Jazeera on Sunday as soldiers raided the Qatar-based news network’s Ramallah offices in the occupied West Bank and ordered a 45-day closure of the bureau. This comes after the Netanyahu government banned the network inside of Israel in May under a new media law giving authorities broad power to censor foreign outlets deemed to be security threats.

​​Israel attacked more than 300 sites in Lebanon Monday, killing at least 182 people and injuring more than 700 others as fears grow of an all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah. The Israeli military also ordered residents of southern Lebanon to leave their homes if they live near any site used by the militant group.

The Secret Service recently announced the next electoral count after the November election is scheduled for January 6, 2025, and this time the event will be classified under the same security level as the inauguration itself. The move follows a request by Washington, D.C.’s mayor and a recommendation by the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The U.S. presidential election is just 45 days away, and for antiwar voters, the policy differences between the two leading candidates are vanishingly thin. As the Biden-Harris administration continues to supply billions of dollars in military aid to Israel, the Uncommitted National Movement, which for months has attempted to steer the Democratic Party toward a more critical stance on Israel, has announced it is not endorsing Kamala Harris.

Right after we broadcast, Israel carried out “targeted strikes” in Beirut as it appears to be preparing for a ground invasion of southern Lebanon as an expansion of its war on Gaza.
Following deadly Israeli attacks that blew up walkie-talkies and pagers across Lebanon this week, killing at least 37 people and wounding around 3,000, Israeli officials have pledged to ramp up their campaign against Hezbollah.

The United Nations is warning about widespread human rights abuses in Burma as the military regime intensifies the killings and arbitrary arrests of tens of thousands of civilians since seizing power in a coup over three years ago. A new report from the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights says many of those detained by the Burmese military are children taken from their parents, with dozens of minors dying in custody.