Contributing Writers

The U.S. military said Thursday that it blew up another boat of suspected drug smugglers, this time killing four people in the eastern Pacific. The U.S. has now killed at least 87 people in 22 strikes since September. The U.S. has not provided proof as to the vessels’ activities or the identities of those on board who were targeted, but now the family of a fisherman from Colombia has filed the first legal challenge to the military strikes.

Federal authorities are carrying out intensified operations this week in Minnesota as President Donald Trump escalates his attacks on the Somali community in the state. The administration halted green card and citizenship applications from Somalis and people from 18 other countries after last week’s fatal shooting near the White House.

A major immigration crackdown is underway in New Orleans and the surrounding areas of Louisiana, dubbed “Operation Catahoula Crunch” by the Trump administration. According to planning documents, 250 federal agents will aim to make 5,000 arrests over two months.

The conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court has cleared the way for Texas to use a gerrymandered congressional map in next year’s midterm elections that a lower court found racially discriminatory. The 6-3 ruling is another political win for President Donald Trump and his allies, who have gotten a number of favorable rulings from the justices after being stymied by lower courts.

Amid escalating ICE raids in New York City, Democracy Now!’s Messiah Rhodes spoke to immigrants and advocates supporting newly arrived migrants and asylum seekers from West Africa with hot meals, legal advice and job training. “When I help the people here, the people will help me one day,” Guinean immigrant Abdul Karim, a cook at Cafewal weekday kitchen, told Rhodes.

Immigrant rights advocate Murad Awawdeh joins us to discuss Donald Trump’s nationwide anti-immigrant crackdown and how it’s manifested in Trump’s hometown of New York City, where hundreds of New Yorkers recently blocked a federal immigration raid targeting street vendors from West Africa before it even started. “This has never been about vetting. This has never been about security and safety. It’s about cruelty,” says Awawdeh about the Trump administration’s persecution of immigrants.

Foreign policy analyst Matt Duss discusses the status of Russia-Ukraine ceasefire talks and new data on the extent of casualties from the now nearly four-year Russian invasion of Ukraine. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed. “For what did these people die? For what reason were they sent into this horrible meat grinder?” asks Duss.

“Pete Hegseth, much like the president he serves, sees himself as, essentially, above the law, as unconstrained by legal procedure.” Foreign policy analyst Matt Duss discusses the brewing conflict within the Trump administration over the leadership of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, including his involvement in a leaked announcement of U.S. strikes on Yemen in March and the chain of command behind U.S. strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean.

President Trump has gutted the U.S. government’s support for AIDS healthcare around the world while ordering an end to commemorations of World AIDS Day, observed annually on December 1. Cuts to U.S. foreign aid are having a disproportionate impact on LGBTQ+ communities in many countries, says journalist and scholar Steven Thrasher, speaking from Uganda. “There are people who’ve been harmed very immediately,” he says.

WTO/99 is a new “immersive archival documentary” about the 1999 protests in Seattle against the World Trade Organization that uses 1,000+ hours of footage from the Independent Media Center and other archives. The historic WTO protests against corporate power and economic globalization were met with a militarized police crackdown and National Guard troops. We feature clips from the film and discuss takeaways that have relevance today.

As a “Fight Club” of eight senators led by Bernie Sanders challenges Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s handling of President Trump, we speak with Ralph Nader, who has been taking on the Democratic Party for decades. Sixty years ago this week, he published his landmark book, Unsafe at Any Speed, exposing the safety flaws of GM’s Chevrolet Corvair and leading to major reforms in auto safety laws.

Israel has announced it will reopen the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt in the next few days as part of the U.S.-brokered ceasefire. However, the border will only open in one direction: for Palestinians to exit. Israeli American human rights lawyer Sari Bashi says the move validates fears that Israel’s goal is to “continue the ethnic cleansing of Gaza.

Rahmanullah Lakanwal, the man who authorities say shot two National Guardsmen outside the White House, had previously worked in a CIA-backed “Zero Unit” in Afghanistan, often called “death squads” by human rights groups.

President Trump has gutted the U.S. government’s support for AIDS healthcare around the world while ordering an end to commemorations of World AIDS Day, observed annually on December 1. Cuts to U.S. foreign aid are having a disproportionate impact on LGBTQ+ communities in many countries, says journalist and scholar Steven Thrasher, speaking from Uganda. “There are people who’ve been harmed very immediately,” he says.

New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and Vermont independent Senator Bernie Sanders joined striking Starbucks workers on the picket line Monday to demand the coffee giant reach a fair contract with its unionized workforce after years of delay tactics.
Speaking outside a store in Brooklyn, Mamdani said New York is a “union town,” and vowed to continue joining pickets even after he is sworn in as mayor on January 1.

As bipartisan criticism intensifies over U.S. attacks on alleged “drug boats” in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, the White House is defending a September 2 operation that killed 11 people. The Washington Post reports Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered a second attack to kill two survivors of an initial strike, an order that legal experts say would constitute a war crime.

Rahmanullah Lakanwal, the man who authorities say shot two National Guardsmen outside the White House, had previously worked in a CIA-backed “Zero Unit” in Afghanistan, often called “death squads” by human rights groups.

We look at President Trump’s call to pause all asylum decisions after an Afghan man who once worked for the CIA opened fire near the White House last Wednesday, shooting two National Guard members, killing one. Rahmanullah Lakanwal entered the United States in 2021 through Operation Allies Welcome, a program that saw the U.S. evacuate thousands of Afghans who faced reprisals from the Taliban over their work with the U.S. and the former U.S.-backed government.

Democracy Now! speaks with journalist Spencer Ackerman about the Trump administration’s deadly, ongoing attacks on alleged “drug boats” amid reports President Trump is preparing to attack Venezuela, with all airspace surrounding Venezuela now closed. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and others are “turning the military into a criminal operation,” says Ackerman. “This shows the moral degeneracy that the ‘war on terror’ has left as a legacy in the U.S. military.

President Trump has announced plans to pardon former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who is serving a 45-year sentence for trafficking hundreds of tons of cocaine into the United States. In 2024, Hernández was convicted in New York of drug trafficking and weapons charges. “The evidence from the Southern District of New York was overwhelming,” says Dana Frank, professor of history emerita at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a longtime observer of Honduran politics.

As Zohran Mamdani prepares to become New York’s first Muslim and first South Asian mayor on January 1, we look at the historic rise of the democratic socialist who shocked the political establishment. We spend the hour hearing Mamdani in his own words and look at the grassroots coalition that helped him pull off what’s been described as “one of the great political upsets in modern American history.

Marquetta Shields-Peltier was just a toddler when her father, Leonard Peltier, was jailed in 1976. During our recent trip to Turtle Mountain Reservation in North Dakota, we spoke to Marquetta about the campaign to free her father and what it meant to see him released in February.

In September, Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman sat down with longtime political prisoner and Indigenous activist Leonard Peltier for his first extended television and radio broadcast interview since his release to home confinement in February. Before his commutation by former President Joe Biden, the 81-year-old Peltier spent nearly 50 years behind bars. Peltier has always maintained his innocence for the 1975 killing of two FBI officers.

Protests have erupted in North Carolina after federal agents arrested 370 people in immigration raids. On Monday, Bishop William Barber and other religious leaders gathered in Charlotte to demand an end to ICE raids. “​​What you have is a conglomerate of policy violence, and it’s deadly,” says Barber, who is organizing protests against ICE and Medicaid cuts across the country.

Zohran Mamdani will be taking office as mayor of New York in just five weeks. His transition team continues to make announcements about the new administration, recently unveiling a 400-person advisory group, broken up into 17 committees. Democracy Now! speaks with the incoming first deputy mayor, Dean Fuleihan, on how Mamdani plans to implement his progressive vision.

As Zohran Mamdani prepares to become New York’s first Muslim and first South Asian mayor on January 1, we look at the historic rise of the democratic socialist who shocked the political establishment. We spend the hour hearing Mamdani in his own words and look at the grassroots coalition that helped him pull off what’s been described as “one of the great political upsets in modern American history.

Marquetta Shields-Peltier was just a toddler when her father, Leonard Peltier, was jailed in 1976. During our recent trip to Turtle Mountain Reservation in North Dakota, we spoke to Marquetta about the campaign to free her father and what it meant to see him released in February.

In September, Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman sat down with longtime political prisoner and Indigenous activist Leonard Peltier for his first extended television and radio broadcast interview since his release to home confinement in February. Before his commutation by former President Joe Biden, the 81-year-old Peltier spent nearly 50 years behind bars. Peltier has always maintained his innocence for the 1975 killing of two FBI officers.

Protests have erupted in North Carolina after federal agents arrested 370 people in immigration raids. On Monday, Bishop William Barber and other religious leaders gathered in Charlotte to demand an end to ICE raids. “​​What you have is a conglomerate of policy violence, and it’s deadly,” says Barber, who is organizing protests against ICE and Medicaid cuts across the country.

Zohran Mamdani will be taking office as mayor of New York in just five weeks. His transition team continues to make announcements about the new administration, recently unveiling a 400-person advisory group, broken up into 17 committees. Democracy Now! speaks with the incoming first deputy mayor, Dean Fuleihan, on how Mamdani plans to implement his progressive vision.