“In normal times, Americans don’t think much about democracy. Our Constitution, with its guarantees of free press, speech, and assembly, was written more than two centuries ago. Our electoral system has never failed, not during two world wars, not even during the Civil War. Citizenship requires very little of us, only that we show up to vote occasionally. Many of us are so complacent that we don’t bother.
The new documentary film Union, premiering this week, follows Amazon workers at the JFK8 fulfillment center on Staten Island as they formed the first-ever U.S. Amazon union in 2022. Co-directed by Stephen Maing and Brett Story, the film follows “the invisible working class” as they face an uphill battle against the notoriously anti-labor corporation, says Maing, who joins Democracy Now! to discuss the film.
“There is nothing antisemitic about fighting for people’s right to live,” says Jewish Voice for Peace organizer Elena Stein, who on Monday joined hundreds of protesters arrested to block entrances to the New York Stock Exchange. We discuss the historic mass protest, which called for an Israeli arms embargo and an end to war profiteering by companies like Raytheon and Lockheed Martin.
The Biden administration is sending an advanced anti-missile defense system and 100 U.S. troops to Israel in advance of expected retaliatory strikes against Iran. This marks the first significant deployment of American troops to Israel since the beginning of its assault on Gaza, though the U.S. has spent an estimated tens of billions of dollars on the Israeli military and related operations.
You might never get on its planes—but it’s already done more for you than you know.
In the age of climate change, is owning your home a bigger liability than an asset?
Goodbye, haunted houses. Hello, gingerbread houses.
Climate migration doesn’t work the way you might expect.
Why America still loves a weatherman.
The stakes of overpriced dinner delivery have never been higher.
Arizona is one of several states where right-leaning groups are backing conservative judges as they prepare to challenge newly passed ballot measures protecting abortion.
Missteps by the World Health Organization, a vaccine manufacturer and an African country led to another health emergency, experts say.
Trump says he’ll veto legislation to ban the procedure.
The ruling allows abortions to resume beyond six weeks into pregnancy.
Still angry about the Covid response, GOP lawmakers want to overhaul the National Institutes of Health if they win in November.
The Democratic nominee isn’t campaigning much on the Biden administration’s bigger, slower-moving policies.
The Treasury secretary is defending her legacy — and warning that the stability of the U.S. economy is at stake.
It was her first solo interview with a national network as the Democratic presidential nominee.
Interest rate cut “is not a declaration of victory, it’s a declaration of progress.
The move signals that the central bank is growing nervous about the declining labor market.
Over the past week, Donald Trump has been on a fascist romp. At rallies in Colorado and California, he amped up his usual rants, and added a rancid grace note by suggesting that a woman heckler should “get the hell knocked out of her” by her mother after she gets back home.
Not so long ago, dogs were valued primarily for the jobs they performed. They hunted, herded livestock, and guarded property, which required them to have an active prey drive, boundless energy, and a wariness toward strangers. Even a few decades ago, many dogs were expected to guard the house and the people in it. Prey drive kept squirrels off the bird feeders and used up some of that boundless energy.
In just a generation, we humans have abruptly changed the rules on our dogs.
“Cancer,” Susan Sontag observed in Illness as Metaphor, “is a rare and still scandalous subject for poetry; and it seems unimaginable to aestheticize the disease.” Though she wrote this in the late 1970s, her point still stands. When it comes to descriptions of cancer, in real life or in books, many people struggle to stretch beyond the limited range of accepted, often military metaphors. You’re supposed to “battle” cancer, not prettify it.
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In today’s reading list, our editors have compiled a list of stories that explore the legacy and meaning of Columbus Day and Indigenous Peoples’ Day, and some other reads from recent weeks that are worth your time.
A year of conflict in the Middle East has destroyed the foreign-policy approach of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. His strategy was always implausible, but its collapse has led Iran to the brink of its first international war since 1988.
What I like to call the Khamenei Doctrine—those close to him have variously dubbed it “strategic patience” or, more to the point, “no peace, no war”—rests on a duality that has remained constant through Khamenei’s 35 years in power.
Israel is facing international condemnation after repeatedly attacking U.N. peacekeeping forces in southern Lebanon. At least five members of the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon, UNIFIL, have been injured in recent days. The U.N. also accused Israel of forcibly entering and destroying part of a UNIFIL base near the Israeli border after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called to remove the peacekeeping forces from the region.
We speak with the reporter who revealed the Israeli plan to displace or kill the entire Palestinian population of north Gaza. Israeli Major General Giora Eiland has proposed ordering everyone in northern Gaza to evacuate within one week, after which Israel will conduct a total siege on the area and deem anyone who remains an eligible target for military attack.
We get another update on Israel’s brutal siege and bombing in the north of the Gaza Strip, where hospitals are desperate for supplies. “Every day is a breaking point. Every day is a desperate rush for food, water, fuel and medicine and shelter,” says Dr. Samer Attar, who has volunteered four times as a surgeon in north Gaza, most recently in June. “It never ends. Every day you wake up to more and more of it. That’s just what makes it so horrifying.
We speak with Dr. Mohammed Salha, the acting director of Al-Awda Hospital at the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, as Israel continues to escalate attacks against northern Gaza and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is considering implementing a “surrender or starve” policy there. Palestinians in north Gaza report Israeli forces are conducting a strict and deadly siege while bombing more tent encampments, hospitals and schools this weekend.
