democracy-now

President Biden acknowledged Thursday his Build Back Better agenda is in jeopardy due to two Senate Democrats: Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. Both senators have pushed Biden to slash in half his $3.5 trillion proposal that would be spent over 10 years to vastly expand the safety net and combat the climate crisis. We take an in-depth look at the two lawmakers, starting with Sinema.

We go to Brunswick, Georgia, for an update as jury selection began this week in the trial of three white men who fatally shot 25-year-old unarmed man Ahmaud Arbery while he was out for a jog last year. Gregory McMichael and his son Travis McMichael claim they were attempting a “citizen’s arrest” of Arbery last February when they pursued him in their pickup truck.

A damning new report shows that one of the leading COVID-19 vaccine makers appears to have played a role in restricting access to those very vaccines. The report, “Pfizer’s Power,” published this week by the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, examines Pfizer’s contracts with the United States, United Kingdom, European Commission, Albania, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Dominican Republic and Peru.

As President Biden negotiates the final size and scope of the Build Back Better Act with fellow Democrats, Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia has emerged as a major hurdle to his agenda. The conservative Democrat and his family would potentially profit from his opposition to the key planks of the bill, including green energy investment and raising corporate taxes to pay for the package.

President Biden acknowledged Thursday his Build Back Better agenda is in jeopardy due to two Senate Democrats: Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. Both senators have pushed Biden to slash in half his $3.5 trillion proposal that would be spent over 10 years to vastly expand the safety net and combat the climate crisis. We take an in-depth look at the two lawmakers, starting with Sinema.

We go to Brunswick, Georgia, for an update as jury selection began this week in the trial of three white men who fatally shot 25-year-old unarmed man Ahmaud Arbery while he was out for a jog last year. Gregory McMichael and his son Travis McMichael claim they were attempting a “citizen’s arrest” of Arbery last February when they pursued him in their pickup truck.

A damning new report shows that one of the leading COVID-19 vaccine makers appears to have played a role in restricting access to those very vaccines. The report, “Pfizer’s Power,” published this week by the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, examines Pfizer’s contracts with the United States, United Kingdom, European Commission, Albania, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Dominican Republic and Peru.

As President Biden negotiates the final size and scope of the Build Back Better Act with fellow Democrats, Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia has emerged as a major hurdle to his agenda. The conservative Democrat and his family would potentially profit from his opposition to the key planks of the bill, including green energy investment and raising corporate taxes to pay for the package.

President Biden acknowledged Thursday his Build Back Better agenda is in jeopardy due to two Senate Democrats: Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. Both senators have pushed Biden to slash in half his $3.5 trillion proposal that would be spent over 10 years to vastly expand the safety net and combat the climate crisis. We take an in-depth look at the two lawmakers, starting with Sinema.

We go to Brunswick, Georgia, for an update as jury selection began this week in the trial of three white men who fatally shot 25-year-old unarmed man Ahmaud Arbery while he was out for a jog last year. Gregory McMichael and his son Travis McMichael claim they were attempting a “citizen’s arrest” of Arbery last February when they pursued him in their pickup truck.

As early voting kicks off Saturday in a nationally watched mayoral race in Buffalo, New York, we speak with India Walton, who shocked the Democratic establishment when she defeated four-term Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown in the Democratic primary. Since then, the self-described socialist has faced stiff opposition from within her party, with many top Democrats in the state, including Governor Kathy Hochul and Senator Chuck Schumer, refusing to endorse her.

The Biden administration says it is withholding about 10% of its annual military aid to Egypt because of concerns over human rights abuses by the government of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. Egypt will still get nearly $1.2 billion in military assistance, even as a new report by Human Rights Watch finds Egyptian authorities have killed perhaps hundreds of secretly held dissidents in extrajudicial executions in recent years.

As Senator Joe Manchin demands Democrats drop critical climate funding to replace coal- and gas-fired power plants with renewable energy sources, investigative reporting into the financial dealings of Manchin reveals that he has profited over $4.5 million from investments in West Virginia coal companies since he became a U.S. senator.

For weeks, conservative Democrats in Congress have prevented the passage of the Build Back Better Act and the Freedom to Vote Act. Congressmember Ilhan Omar of Minnesota has been a vocal critic of Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who have stalled the bills and forced President Biden to radically scale back the price tag of his agenda.

As early voting kicks off Saturday in a nationally watched mayoral race in Buffalo, New York, we speak with India Walton, who shocked the Democratic establishment when she defeated four-term Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown in the Democratic primary. Since then, the self-described socialist has faced stiff opposition from within her party, with many top Democrats in the state, including Governor Kathy Hochul and Senator Chuck Schumer, refusing to endorse her.

A group of New York City taxi drivers launched a hunger strike Wednesday demanding the city provide debt relief from their taxi medallion loans. Since 9/11, thousands of taxi drivers have accrued massive debt largely due to the city artificially inflating the cost of taxi medallions, the permits required to drive a taxi. Drivers have also denounced the mental health impacts triggered by the financial ruin. At least nine have died by suicide.

We go to the picket line in Iowa, where thousands of workers are on strike at John Deere after the United Auto Workers failed to reach an agreement with the company to improve wages. Despite reporting record profits in 2021, John Deere forced employees to work overtime and announced significant cuts to raises and benefits. Chris Laursen, 19-year John Deere worker on strike in Ottumwa, Iowa, says profit margins went to shareholders and a 160% salary increase for the CEO.

We begin our coverage of what some are calling “Striketober” with a look at how the union of 60,000 television and film production workers averted a strike just hours before a midnight deadline on Saturday, when it reached a tentative agreement with an association of Hollywood producers representing companies like Walt Disney, Netflix and Amazon.

We speak with Ethan Paul, a former reporter with the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong who is now with the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. China’s military revealed last week that it had conducted beach landing and assault drills in the province across from Taiwan. This comes as the CIA has set up a new mission center focused solely on China. CIA Director William Burns has described China as “the most important geopolitical threat facing the United States.

The Biden administration is launching a national vaccination campaign for about 28 million children between the ages of 5 and 11. The vaccine will be two doses and one-third as potent as the one being given to people over the age of 12. An independent panel is set to offer a recommendation to the FDA that evaluates the safety and efficacy of the vaccines in late October. We’re joined by Dr.

In an exclusive interview, we speak with Jean Montrevil, an immigrant rights leader who was deported to Haiti in 2018. He returned home to New York and reunited with his family Monday on a special 90-day parole. He hopes to stay longer. Montrevil was a founding member of the New Sanctuary Coalition, which worked with Families for Freedom to engage churches in immigrant defense. ICE targeted him for his activism, using a decades-old conviction as pretext to deport him.

We look at the life and legacy of Colin Powell, who is best known for giving false testimony to the U.N. Security Council in 2003 about nonexistent weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, paving the way for the U.S. invasion and occupation that would kill over 1 million Iraqis.

We get an update from New Jersey, where the People’s Organization for Progress is leading a 67-mile march to demand the state Legislature pass legislation to hold police accountable. The nine-day march wraps up Saturday, and activists are demanding passage of a state policy that would give police review boards subpoena power, ban and criminalize chokeholds, establish requirements for use of deadly force and end qualified immunity in New Jersey.

We speak with Ethan Paul, a former reporter with the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong who is now with the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. China’s military revealed last week that it had conducted beach landing and assault drills in the province across from Taiwan. This comes as the CIA has set up a new mission center focused solely on China. CIA Director William Burns has described China as “the most important geopolitical threat facing the United States.

The Biden administration is launching a national vaccination campaign for about 28 million children between the ages of 5 and 11. The vaccine will be two doses and one-third as potent as the one being given to people over the age of 12. An independent panel is set to offer a recommendation to the FDA that evaluates the safety and efficacy of the vaccines in late October. We’re joined by Dr.

Residents of Benton Harbor, Michigan, are calling for immediate action on replacing the city’s lead pipes, which have endangered their drinking water. Since 2018, tap water in the predominantly Black city has contained lead levels up to 60 times the federal limit. Yet government officials have only addressed the toxic contamination as an urgent crisis in recent days. Dr.

We get an update from New Jersey, where the People’s Organization for Progress is leading a 67-mile march to demand the state Legislature pass legislation to hold police accountable. The nine-day march wraps up Saturday, and activists are demanding passage of a state policy that would give police review boards subpoena power, ban and criminalize chokeholds, establish requirements for use of deadly force and end qualified immunity in New Jersey.

We take an in-depth look at the growing humanitarian crisis at the world’s largest jail complex, Rikers Island in New York City. After touring the jail, New York City Public Advocate ​​Jumaane Williams describes it as “a disaster.” In response to mounting public pressure, most of the women and transgender people at Rikers are being transferred to two prisons, including a maximum-security facility, even as most are still awaiting trial.

This week over 530 climate activists were arrested during Indigenous-led civil disobedience actions in Washington, D.C., calling on President Joe Biden to declare a climate emergency and stop approving fossil fuel projects. Indigenous leaders have issued a series of demands, including the abolition of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, whose offices they occupied on Thursday for the first time since the 1970s. The protests come just weeks before the start of the critical U.N.

As the House committee probing the January 6 attack on the Capitol ramps up its investigation, new details continue to emerge about former President Donald Trump’s efforts to stay in the White House despite losing the 2020 election. The Senate Judiciary Committee recently revealed Trump directly asked the Justice Department nine times for help overturning the election.