More than 50 Democrats in the Texas Legislature have left the state to block the passage of a new congressional map, which was gerrymandered to give Republicans five extra seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. The new map would especially harm Latino and Black representation in Congress, but President Trump is pushing for it in order to retain a Republican majority in the 2026 midterm election. “Texas is essentially just going to be the guinea pig.

Former Amazon Labor Union President Chris Smalls joins us for one of his first interviews since he returned to the United States after he was beaten, arrested and detained by the Israeli military for attempting to bring aid to starving Palestinians in Gaza. Smalls calls Israel’s assault and starvation of Gaza a “working-class issue,” and was the only Black member of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition’s latest attempt to break Israel’s near-total blockade of Gaza.

Police arrested over 40 people outside the Trump International Hotel in New York City as hundreds gathered for a peaceful action led by Jewish leaders calling for the end to Israel’s starvation and ethnic cleansing of Gaza. Democracy Now! was at the demonstration and spoke to some of the protesters, including Motaz Azaiza, renowned photojournalist from Gaza, and Rabbi Ari Lev Fornari, who was arrested.

We get an update from the occupied West Bank, where U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson led a delegation to an illegal settlement amid escalating settler violence against Palestinians. Israel is refusing to release the body of Palestinian activist Odeh Hadalin, who was shot to death by an Israeli settler a week ago. Eyewitness Ty Kavanaugh, a former U.S.

President Trump is pushing for a major redrawing of Texas’s congressional districts to favor Republicans and shape the outcome of future elections, including next year’s midterms. Voting rights expert Ari Berman says this “unprecedented” Republican gerrymandering scheme manipulates an already-gerrymandered map that “limits democratic representation. It already limits representation for communities of color, and now that would be much worse.

A new investigation reveals the months of physical and mental abuse Venezuelan men deported by the Trump administration endured inside a Salvadoran prison. The men describe beatings, medical neglect and unhygienic conditions in CECOT, where a prison director reportedly told them, “Welcome to Hell, where you enter alive and leave dead.” Of the 238 Venezuelan men who were held in El Salvador, at least 197 had not been convicted of any crime.

As Palestinians face dire starvation caused by the Israeli blockade on the Gaza Strip, at least 181 Palestinians, including 94 children, have now died from hunger-related causes in Gaza. At the same time, in the West Bank, dozens of women are on hunger strike after an Israeli settler killed a Palestinian activist, Odeh Muhammad Hadalin. Israel is now refusing to return Hadalin’s body to the family as his alleged killer walks free.

Rashid Khalidi, the renowned Edward Said professor emeritus of modern Arab studies at Columbia University, says he is withdrawing from teaching his fall course after the school has agreed to pay a $200 million settlement in a major new deal with President Trump, who accused the university of failing to protect Jewish students during campus protests against Israel’s assault on Gaza. Columbia will also pay $21 million to settle investigations brought by the U.S.