democracy-now

Deb Haaland, a tribal citizen of the Laguna Pueblo, is being sworn in as secretary of the interior and will be the first Native American ever to serve in a U.S. presidential cabinet. Just four Republicans joined Democrats in voting to confirm Haaland, who will manage 500 million acres of federal and tribal land. Haaland will also oversee government relations with 574 federally recognized tribal nations and is expected to address the legacy of uranium mining on Indigenous land and other areas.

Residents in Jackson, Mississippi, have been facing a water crisis over the last five weeks, with many people lacking reliable access to clean drinking water after deadly February winter storms caused pipes and water mains to burst. While water delivery has largely been restored, “boil water” orders remain in effect for most people. The city estimates it could cost $2 billion to fix the city’s water system.

Decades of reckless oil drilling by Chevron have destroyed 1,700 square miles of land in the Ecuadorian Amazon, but the company has refused to pay for the damage or clean up the land despite losing a lawsuit 10 years ago, when Ecuador’s Supreme Court ordered the oil giant to pay $18 billion on behalf of 30,000 Amazonian Indigenous people.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is refusing to step down despite growing calls for his resignation after multiple accusations of sexual harassment and misconduct, as well as his cover-up of thousands of COVID-19 nursing home deaths. Alessandra Biaggi, a New York state senator representing parts of the Bronx and Westchester, says it’s long past time for Cuomo to go and that the many scandals surrounding the governor reveal a consistent pattern.

Thousands of migrant children seeking refuge are being held in crowded cells amid an increase in asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border. Despite claims by Republican lawmakers during a tour of the southern border aimed at warning against rollbacks of Trump’s immigration policy, most adults at the border are still being turned away, while the Biden administration is allowing unaccompanied children to cross while their cases are processed.

Beijing has accused the U.S. of perpetuating a Cold War mentality as President Joe Biden and senior administration officials shore up alliances in the Pacific region to counter China’s growing influence and increasingly describe the country as a geopolitical threat. Vijay Prashad, director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, says the “bellicose” tone out of Washington is not because the U.S. sees China as a military threat, but because China threatens U.S.

The British royal family is facing intense criticism over its treatment of Meghan Markle, who revealed shocking details about life as a royal in an interview with Oprah Winfrey, including mistreatment and bullying from other royals, relentless harassment by the British press, and racist comments about Markle, who was born in the United States to a Black mother and a white father. One member of the royal family, according to Markle, even speculated how dark her child’s skin would be.

The World Food Programme is warning Yemen is headed toward the biggest famine in modern history, with the U.N. agency projecting around 400,000 Yemeni children under the age of 5 could die from acute malnutrition this year as the Saudi war and blockade continues. CNN senior international correspondent Nima Elbagir says Yemen is accurately described as “hell on Earth.

Decades of reckless oil drilling by Chevron have destroyed 1,700 square miles of land in the Ecuadorian Amazon, but the company has refused to pay for the damage or clean up the land despite losing a lawsuit 10 years ago, when Ecuador’s Supreme Court ordered the oil giant to pay $18 billion on behalf of 30,000 Amazonian Indigenous people.

A major provision in President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill aims to address decades of discrimination against Black, Hispanic, Native American and Asian American farmers who have historically been excluded from government agricultural programs. The American Rescue Plan sets aside $10.

The British royal family is facing intense criticism over its treatment of Meghan Markle, who revealed shocking details about life as a royal in an interview with Oprah Winfrey, including mistreatment and bullying from other royals, relentless harassment by the British press, and racist comments about Markle, who was born in the United States to a Black mother and a white father. One member of the royal family, according to Markle, even speculated how dark her child’s skin would be.

The World Food Programme is warning Yemen is headed toward the biggest famine in modern history, with the U.N. agency projecting around 400,000 Yemeni children under the age of 5 could die from acute malnutrition this year as the Saudi war and blockade continues. CNN senior international correspondent Nima Elbagir says Yemen is accurately described as “hell on Earth.

Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz says wealthy countries have a responsibility to help the developing world in overcoming the pandemic. He says the response must include vaccine equity as well as economic aid, including debt relief. “America won’t be free from the pandemic until the world is,” says Stiglitz.

President Biden has signed the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package, which Democrats are hailing as the largest anti-poverty bill in a generation. It includes stimulus checks to most adults, expanded unemployment benefits and an overhaul of the child tax credit. One study projects the law will lift almost 14 million Americans out of poverty, including 5.7 million children. “This is transformational,” says economist Joseph Stiglitz.

The British royal family is facing intense criticism over its treatment of Meghan Markle, who revealed shocking details about life as a royal in an interview with Oprah Winfrey, including mistreatment and bullying from other royals, relentless harassment by the British press, and racist comments about Markle, who was born in the United States to a Black mother and a white father. One member of the royal family, according to Markle, even speculated how dark her child’s skin would be.

The World Food Programme is warning Yemen is headed toward the biggest famine in modern history, with the U.N. agency projecting around 400,000 Yemeni children under the age of 5 could die from acute malnutrition this year as the Saudi war and blockade continues. CNN senior international correspondent Nima Elbagir says Yemen is accurately described as “hell on Earth.

Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz says wealthy countries have a responsibility to help the developing world in overcoming the pandemic. He says the response must include vaccine equity as well as economic aid, including debt relief. “America won’t be free from the pandemic until the world is,” says Stiglitz.

President Biden has signed the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package, which Democrats are hailing as the largest anti-poverty bill in a generation. It includes stimulus checks to most adults, expanded unemployment benefits and an overhaul of the child tax credit. One study projects the law will lift almost 14 million Americans out of poverty, including 5.7 million children. “This is transformational,” says economist Joseph Stiglitz.

The British royal family is facing intense criticism over its treatment of Meghan Markle, who revealed shocking details about life as a royal in an interview with Oprah Winfrey, including mistreatment and bullying from other royals, relentless harassment by the British press, and racist comments about Markle, who was born in the United States to a Black mother and a white father. One member of the royal family, according to Markle, even speculated how dark her child’s skin would be.

The World Food Programme is warning Yemen is headed toward the biggest famine in modern history, with the U.N. agency projecting around 400,000 Yemeni children under the age of 5 could die from acute malnutrition this year as the Saudi war and blockade continues. CNN senior international correspondent Nima Elbagir says Yemen is accurately described as “hell on Earth.

Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz says wealthy countries have a responsibility to help the developing world in overcoming the pandemic. He says the response must include vaccine equity as well as economic aid, including debt relief. “America won’t be free from the pandemic until the world is,” says Stiglitz.

President Biden has signed the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package, which Democrats are hailing as the largest anti-poverty bill in a generation. It includes stimulus checks to most adults, expanded unemployment benefits and an overhaul of the child tax credit. One study projects the law will lift almost 14 million Americans out of poverty, including 5.7 million children. “This is transformational,” says economist Joseph Stiglitz.

Rutgers University has voted to begin divesting from fossil fuels, following a campaign by the student-organized Endowment Justice Collective that grew out of the Global Climate Strike in 2019. The organizing efforts led to a referendum vote in 2020 in which 90% of students supported divestment. About 5% of Rutgers’s $1.

The United States and other wealthy members of the World Trade Organization have blocked a push by dozens of developing countries to waive patent rights in an effort to boost production of COVID-19 vaccines for poor nations. The proposal by South Africa and India was supported by hundreds of civil society organizations, including Doctors Without Borders, Oxfam and Amnesty International. Without the waiver, vaccine production will remain in the hands of only a few pharmaceutical companies.

The Biden administration is struggling to address the flow of migrant children crossing the U.S.-Mexico border without their parents, many fleeing extreme violence, poverty and natural disasters in their home countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. News reports show more than 3,500 children were detained at the border in just the first nine days of March, with many being held longer than the legal limit of 72 hours. “We can call it a crisis.

Former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has been cleared to run for office again after a judge annulled all convictions against him. Three years ago, Lula, a former union leader who served as president from 2003 to 2010, had been considered a favorite in the lead-up to the 2018 presidential election until he was jailed and forced out of the race on what many said were trumped-up corruption charges.

Fifty years ago, on March 8, 1971, a group of eight activists staged one of the most stunning acts of defiance of the Vietnam War era when they broke into an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania, and stole every document they found. The activists, calling themselves the Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI, began leaking shocking details about FBI abuses to the media.

Rutgers University has voted to begin divesting from fossil fuels, following a campaign by the student-organized Endowment Justice Collective that grew out of the Global Climate Strike in 2019. The organizing efforts led to a referendum vote in 2020 in which 90% of students supported divestment. About 5% of Rutgers’s $1.

The prominent scholar and activist Cornel West has announced he is leaving Harvard Divinity School after he was denied consideration for tenure, and will rejoin the faculty of Union Theological Seminary in New York City, where he started his teaching career more than 40 years ago. West had left Harvard once before in 2002 and returned to a nontenured position at Harvard in 2017.

As President Joe Biden prepares to sign the sweeping $1.9 trillion COVID relief package into law, we speak with economist Stephanie Kelton, author of “The Deficit Myth,” about how the bill could help cut child poverty in half and provide a historic economic boost to the poorest people in the United States.