democracy-now

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has announced the launch of Operation Southern Spear to target suspected drug traffickers in South America, Central America and the Caribbean. The U.S. now has 15,000 military personnel in the region. Over the past two months the U.S. has blown up at least 20 boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. “80 people have been killed in what are extrajudicial executions under international law,” says Juan Pappier, Americas deputy director at Human Rights Watch.

Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani is less than two months away from taking office in New York City. Mamdani’s history-making campaign, grounded in community organizing, propelled the little-known Assembly-member to victory. Candidate Mamdani famously began the campaign polling at just 1% and overcame the intense scrutiny, Islamaphobic attacks, criticism for his support for Palestinian rights, and more.

Democracy Now! speaks to William Hartung about his new book “The Trillion Dollar War Machine” and who profits from the United States’ runaway military spending that fuels foreign wars. Hartung says that U.S. policy is “based on profit” and calls for a rethinking of our foreign entanglements. “We haven’t won a war in this century. We’ve caused immense harm. We’ve spent $8 trillion,” he says.

252 Venezuelan immigrants in the United States were flown to El Salvador in the dead of night and indefinitely imprisoned at the Salvadoran mega-prison CECOT, the Terrorism Confinement Center. The detainees had no ability to communicate to the outside world before they were finally released to Venezuela in a prisoner exchange.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has announced the launch of Operation Southern Spear to target suspected drug traffickers in South America, Central America and the Caribbean. The U.S. now has 15,000 military personnel in the region. Over the past two months the U.S. has blown up at least 20 boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. “80 people have been killed in what are extrajudicial executions under international law,” says Juan Pappier, Americas deputy director at Human Rights Watch.

Democracy Now! speaks with the renowned Iranian filmmaker Sepideh Farsi, the director of the new documentary “Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk.” The film is based on regular video calls Farsi made with the Palestinian photojournalist Fatma Hassona in Gaza over the course of a year from April 2024 to April 2025.
Hassona was killed with her family by an Israeli missile that targeted her apartment building in northern Gaza.

“We had the cure for death from malnutrition, and we took it away.” We speak to surgeon and health policy expert Atul Gawande about the Trump administration’s near-total dismantling of USAID. Gawande, the head of global health at USAID during the Biden administration, is featured in the short film Rovina’s Choice, filmed at a refugee camp at the border between Kenya and South Sudan earlier this year.

Arizona Democrat Adelita Grijalva was finally sworn into office by House Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday, fifty days after winning her seat in Congress. Grijalva won a special election to fill the seat left vacant when her father, longtime Congressmember Raúl Grijalva, died in March.

After months of delays, House Republicans have released tens of thousands of pages of documents from Jeffrey Epstein’s estate, after Democrats earlier publicized emails suggesting that President Trump was aware that Epstein was abusing and trafficking young girls and women. In one of those emails, Epstein wrote that Trump “knew about the girls.

Democracy Now! speaks with the renowned Iranian filmmaker Sepideh Farsi, the director of the new documentary “Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk.” The film is based on regular video calls Farsi made with the Palestinian photojournalist Fatma Hassona in Gaza over the course of a year from April 2024 to April 2025.
Hassona was killed with her family by an Israeli missile that targeted her apartment building in northern Gaza.

A new series by Drop Site News looks at Jeffrey Epstein’s ties to Israeli intelligence and how he secretly brokered numerous deals for Israeli intelligence. Drop Site revealed that Epstein had played a role in brokering a security agreement between Israel and Mongolia and setting up a backchannel between Israel and Russia during the Syrian civil war.
Epstein had an “extensive relationship with Israeli intelligence, U.S.

The government shutdown has brought attention to food insecurity in the United States, as it disrupted the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, or SNAP, which helps about 42 million people across the country. Delayed and partial payments have occurred despite the availability of contingency funds to keep the program going during the shutdown, because the Trump administration initially chose not to use those funds.

The longest U.S. federal government shutdown in history has entered its 43rd day. The House of Representatives is returning to session today to vote on a short-term funding bill to end the shutdown. The Senate approved the measure on Monday after seven Democrats and one independent backed the Republican bill even though the bill did not include an extension of the Affordable Care Act subsidies, which was a key demand for Democratic lawmakers.

Jelani Cobb, the acclaimed journalist and dean of the Columbia Journalism School, has just published a new collection of essays, “Three or More Is a Riot: Notes on How We Got Here.” The book collects essays beginning in 2012 with the killing of Travyon Martin in Florida. It traces the rise of Donald Trump and the right’s growing embrace of white nationalism as well as the historic racial justice protests after the police killing of George Floyd in 2020.

The new documentary Free Joan Little chronicles the landmark case of the first woman in U.S. history to be acquitted on the grounds of self-defense against sexual violence. Joan Little’s 1975 murder trial inspired a national campaign for racial justice, prisoner’s rights, and survivors’ rights to self-defense.

Last week, at the Spanish-immersion daycare center Rayito del Sol in Chicago, employee Diana Santillana was violently abducted and detained by immigration agents in front of parents and young children. “My son was completely shut down emotionally after this happened,” says Tara Goodarzi, the parent of a three-year-old who attends Rayito del Sol and witnessed the aftermath of the arrest. “He was just so shocked by the state that his school and his safe place had transformed into.

We speak to The American Prospect’s David Dayen about what could be the end to the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, after seven Democratic Senators and one independent struck a deal with Republicans to pass a short-term government funding bill. “Why would you end this?” asks Dayen, echoing many in the Democratic coalition who believe the deal was a poor strategic move for the anti-Trump opposition. Calls are now growing for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to step down.

The trailblazing human rights attorney Peter Weiss died November 3 at the age of 99. Weiss served on the board of the Center for Constitutional Rights for nearly five decades, where he worked to end South African apartheid and the Vietnam War, fought for nuclear disarmament and sought justice for victims of the U.S.-backed Contras in 1980s Nicaragua. He pioneered using the 1789 Alien Tort Statute in human rights cases. He also represented the family of U.S.

Jelani Cobb, the acclaimed journalist and dean of the Columbia Journalism School, has just published a new collection of essays, “Three or More Is a Riot: Notes on How We Got Here.” The book collects essays beginning in 2012 with the killing of Travyon Martin in Florida. It traces the rise of Donald Trump and the right’s growing embrace of white nationalism as well as the historic racial justice protests after the police killing of George Floyd in 2020.

Over 5000 fossil fuel lobbyists were given access to U.N. climate summits over the past four years, a period marked by a rise in catastrophic extreme weather, inadequate climate action and record oil and gas expansion. “This is climate obstruction at work,” says Nina Lakhani, senior climate justice reporter for The Guardian US.

The 30th U.N. climate change conference begins today in the Brazilian rainforest city of Belem, located at the mouth of the Amazon River. The summit opens as a major typhoon hit the Philippines killing at least eight people and displacing more than 1.4 million others. Typhoon Fung-wong hit as the Philippines is still recovering from Typhoon Kalmaegi which killed at least 224 people last week.

The trailblazing human rights attorney Peter Weiss died November 3 at the age of 99. Weiss served on the board of the Center for Constitutional Rights for nearly five decades, where he worked to end South African apartheid and the Vietnam War, fought for nuclear disarmament and sought justice for victims of the U.S.-backed Contras in 1980s Nicaragua. He pioneered using the 1789 Alien Tort Statute in human rights cases. He also represented the family of U.S.

The U.S. is continuing to blow up boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific despite growing international condemnation, while the Trump administration reportedly considers launching airstrikes on Venezuela or even assassinating President Nicolás Maduro.

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments this week in a case challenging President Donald Trump’s tariffs, with plaintiffs arguing that his unilateral levies on imported goods violate the Constitution, which grants Congress the power to impose taxes and regulate foreign commerce.

In an unsigned order on Thursday, the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to require U.S. passports to list travelers’ sex assigned at birth, another blow to the rights of transgender, nonbinary and intersex people, who had been able to select sex markers aligning with their gender identity or to use a gender-neutral X. Thursday’s order is an interim ruling while the passport case makes its way through lower courts.

The trailblazing human rights attorney Peter Weiss died November 3 at the age of 99. Weiss served on the board of the Center for Constitutional Rights for nearly five decades, where he worked to end South African apartheid and the Vietnam War, fought for nuclear disarmament and sought justice for victims of the U.S.-backed Contras in 1980s Nicaragua. He pioneered using the 1789 Alien Tort Statute in human rights cases. He also represented the family of U.S.

The U.S. is continuing to blow up boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific despite growing international condemnation, while the Trump administration reportedly considers launching airstrikes on Venezuela or even assassinating President Nicolás Maduro.

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments this week in a case challenging President Donald Trump’s tariffs, with plaintiffs arguing that his unilateral levies on imported goods violate the Constitution, which grants Congress the power to impose taxes and regulate foreign commerce.

In an unsigned order on Thursday, the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to require U.S. passports to list travelers’ sex assigned at birth, another blow to the rights of transgender, nonbinary and intersex people, who had been able to select sex markers aligning with their gender identity or to use a gender-neutral X. Thursday’s order is an interim ruling while the passport case makes its way through lower courts.

The trailblazing human rights attorney Peter Weiss died November 3 at the age of 99. Weiss served on the board of the Center for Constitutional Rights for nearly five decades, where he worked to end South African apartheid and the Vietnam War, fought for nuclear disarmament and sought justice for victims of the U.S.-backed Contras in 1980s Nicaragua. He pioneered using the 1789 Alien Tort Statute in human rights cases. He also represented the family of U.S.