This post was originally published on Democracy Now!.

This post was originally published on Democracy Now!.

This post was originally published on Democracy Now!.

This post was originally published on Democracy Now!.

This post was originally published on Democracy Now!.

The Trump administration’s mass deportation machine continues to shatter families and communities with violent, indiscriminate raids on schools, homes and workplaces. Farms are a particular target of its brutal, racist crackdown; around two-thirds of U.S. farmworkers are immigrants, largely from Mexico. Earlier this month, a raid on a farm in California turned fatal when 57-year-old Jaime Alanís died after falling from the roof of a greenhouse. Dozens of his fellow workers were rounded up and loaded onto buses destined for a detention center. Many of the targeted farmworkers are members of the United Farm Workers, the nation’s oldest farmworkers’ union. Its president, Teresa Romero, a longtime labor leader who is the first Latina and first immigrant to head the organization, says “farmworkers are terrified.” She says that “replacing people who are experienced, who are professional, who have been in agriculture, working sometimes for decades, [is] not how we should repay them for the sacrifice and hard work,” and adds that “sooner or later, the agriculture industry is going to suffer.”

This post was originally published on Democracy Now!.

On July 16, 1945, the United States carried out the Trinity test, the world’s first nuclear detonation. Today, 80 years later, the University of Chicago — the site of the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction — is host to the Nobel Laureate Assembly for the Prevention of Nuclear War, an event that brings Nobel laureates and nuclear experts together to confront the growing global risk of nuclear war. The event features a performance by the award-winning string ensemble Kronos Quartet, who have spearheaded two new renditions of Bob Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” featuring nearly 50 more artists from around the world. Titled “Hard Rain” and “Hard Rain (Drone),” the new pieces aim to raise awareness of the ongoing threat of nuclear war.

As the global political situation becomes increasingly unstable, says professor Daniel Holz, chair of the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and one of the organizers of the assembly, “the likelihood that we’ll sort of stumble into a nuclear war and the end of civilization … has gone way up.” Holz joins Democracy Now! alongside violinist, artistic director and founder of the Kronos Quartet, David Harrington, to share what inspired them to commission and create “Hard Rain,” which debuts today. “We need everyone in the world to know how dangerous and how awful this is for all of us. And if music and musicians can step up and project those kinds of concerns about all of our futures, then music is doing its job,” says Harrington.

This post was originally published on Democracy Now!.

In a major new New York Times exposé on health insurance behemoth UnitedHealth, deputy investigations editor David Enrich reveals how the largest insurer in the country works to intimidate and silence critics of its often predatory and exploitative treatment of patients. While “companies do this kind of stuff all the time,” Enrich says, UnitedHealth’s lawyers “were really going after some fairly obscure stuff, and that suggested to me that this was a campaign of desperation.” Enrich’s investigation found instances of this “very aggressive campaign to shut down criticism and scrutiny” from even before the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December. UnitedHealthcare is one of two main subsidiaries, alongside Optum, of UnitedHealth. Enrich discusses the experiences of some of these critics, from doctors on TikTok to newspaper reporters like himself.

This post was originally published on Democracy Now!.

Democracy Now! Wednesday, July 16, 2025

This post was originally published on Democracy Now! Video.

Democracy Now! Wednesday, July 16, 2025

This post was originally published on Democracy Now! Audio.

• 21 Killed as Guards at Gaza "Humanitarian" Site Fire Tear Gas, Triggering Stampede
• Huckabee Calls on Israel to Probe Killing of U.S. Citizen as Settlers Continue Attacks on Palestinians
• Israel Bombs Syrian Army HQ in Damascus, Steps Up Attacks on Suwayda
• U.N. Rapporteur Urges Nations to Cut Ties to Israel to Stop "Genocide" in Gaza
• Senate Advances Bill to Claw Back $9 Billion in Funds for Foreign Aid and Public Broadcasting
• Pentagon to Withdraw Half of 4,000 National Guard Troops Deployed to Los Angeles
• 22-Year-Old Palestinian Released After 9-Day Immigration Detention at Houston Airport
• Farm Labor Organizer Alfredo Juarez Zeferino Ends Deportation Fight After 4 Months in ICE Jail
• Federal Agents Arrest 9 over Spokane ICE Protests, Including Former City Council President
• Trump's Nominee for U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Grilled over "Signalgate" Scandal
• AG Bondi Deflects Questions About Convicted Sex Trafficker Jeffrey Epstein
• Wired: Nearly 3 Minutes Were Cut from FBI's "Raw" Surveillance Video of Epstein's Cell
• Adelita Grijalva Wins Democratic Primary in Arizona to Replace Her Late Father in Congress

This post was originally published on Democracy Now!.

This post was originally published on Democracy Now!.

This post was originally published on Democracy Now!.

This post was originally published on Democracy Now!.

This post was originally published on Democracy Now!.

This post was originally published on Democracy Now!.

This post was originally published on Democracy Now!.

This post was originally published on Democracy Now!.

Protesters across the United States targeted Palantir Monday in a day of action focused on the technology company’s work with ICE, facilitating President Trump’s expanding immigration crackdown, and work with the Israeli military. New York police arrested at least four people Monday after demonstrators blocked the entrance to the company’s Manhattan offices. Democracy Now! spoke to protesters, including some who work in the technology sector, about the “Purge Palantir” campaign and how Palantir’s data mining, surveillance and automation tools are being weaponized against vulnerable communities. We speak with Wired senior writer Makena Kelly, who has been covering Palantir and says many Silicon Valley firms are “trying to find opportunity in this chaos” as the Trump administration slashes government services and pursues mass deportations.

This post was originally published on Democracy Now!.

Florida Democratic Congressmember Maxwell Frost joins us to discuss how he observed horrific conditions in Florida’s new immigration detention jail in the Everglades, known as “Alligator Alcatraz,” when he joined other lawmakers in a visit. “I saw myself in those cages. It was a lot of people my age that looked like me,” says Frost. “The administration is essentially trying to ethnically cleanse the country.” We also speak with a reporter at the Miami Herald, which reports hundreds of detainees at the Everglades immigration prison have no criminal records or charges, contradicting claims by the Trump administration. The newspaper recently published a list of people detained or believed to be detained at the facility, helping families locate their loved ones.

This post was originally published on Democracy Now!.

We go to the occupied West Bank for an update on how the family of a 20-year-old Palestinian American from Florida, Sayfollah “Saif” Musallet, is demanding justice after he was beaten to death by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank. Musallet and another Palestinian, 23-year-old Mohammad al-Shalabi, were attacked by a group of Israeli settlers on Friday in the town of Sinjil, northeast of Ramallah, where their families own farmland. Eyewitnesses say the settlers brutally beat Musallet and fatally shot al-Shalabi, then prevented ambulances from reaching their victims for hours. Musallet was pronounced dead before he could reach a hospital.

“The settlers and the military don’t only work hand in hand,” says anti-Zionist activist Jonathan Pollak, who was injured in the same protest. “They are part and parcel of implementing the same policy … of ethnic cleansing in the West Bank.”

“Palestinians here have zero rights,” adds Nizar Milbes, a distant relative and close friend of the Musallet family, who says settlers have been encroaching on Palestinian lands even more aggressively since October 7, 2023.

This post was originally published on Democracy Now!.

Democracy Now! Tuesday, July 15, 2025

This post was originally published on Democracy Now! Audio.

Democracy Now! Tuesday, July 15, 2025

This post was originally published on Democracy Now! Video.

• SCOTUS Greenlights Dismantling of Education Department, "Unleashing Untold Harm"
• 24 States and D.C. Sue Trump Admin over $7 Billion in Frozen Education Funds
• WaPo: Trump Admin Denies Bond Hearings to Immigrants Who Entered Without Approval
• Trump Admin to Ramp Up Transfer of Immigrants to Third Countries Without Due Process
• Court Delays Termination of TPS for 12,000 Afghan as Both Sides Asked to Submit Arguments
• U.N. Warns "Lifelines Will Vanish" for Entire Gaza Population Without Immediate Access to Fuel
• "Like a Video Game": Israeli Forces Targeting Forcibly Evacuated Palestinians with Drones
• Israel Strikes Syria as Ceasefire Is Announced in Suwayda Province
• Israel Bombs Lebanon's Beqaa Valley in Ongoing Ceasefire Violation
• Trump Announces Plan to Send Arms to Ukraine via NATO Amid Growing Ire with Putin
• Sudan's RSF Accused of Killing 300 People, Burning Villages Amid Ongoing Civil War
• Pam Bondi Fires DOJ's Top Ethics Lawyer and 20 Staffers in Political Purge
• Elon Musk's xAI Gets $200M Contract with Pentagon
• Activists in NY, CA, CO and WA Protest Palantir's Role in Fueling ICE, Gaza Genocide
• "Largest Transfer of Wealth Since Slavery": Faith Leaders, Community Members Protest Trump Budget
• NYT: UnitedHealth Systematically Silencing Critics After CEO Killing
• Cuomo Announces Third-Party Run for NYC Mayor After Crushing Primary Defeat by Zohran Mamdani

This post was originally published on Democracy Now!.

This post was originally published on Democracy Now!.

This post was originally published on Democracy Now!.