President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law Tuesday, a sweeping $739 billion bill to address the climate crisis, reduce drug costs and establish a 15% minimum tax for large corporations. Biden has praised the IRA as one of the most significant measures in the history of the United States, though many climate groups and Indigenous land and water defenders have criticized the package for including major handouts to the fossil fuel industry and other corporate entities.

We speak with CodePink co-founder Medea Benjamin on the aftermath of the largest oil fire in Cuba’s history, the sentencing of Saudi women rights activist Salma al-Shehab and the ballooning of the Pentagon budget. Benjamin is calling on the Biden administration to remove Cuba off a state sponsor of terrorism list — which she says is holding up the transfer of humanitarian funds to the country’s people.

The Biden administration has ruled out releasing roughly $7 billion of frozen U.S.-held Afghan assets, a year after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan and occupation, even as the United Nations warns a staggering 95% of Afghans are not getting enough to eat. “This money belongs to the Afghan people. And the U.S.

Renowned Indian British novelist Salman Rushdie is in critical condition and faces a long road to recovery after he survived an assassination attempt Friday morning in western New York. Rushdie is one of the most highly acclaimed writers in the world today and has lived underground for many years after facing systematic threats of assassination for his writing.

Dozens of civil rights groups have joined an urgent push for the compassionate release of longtime political prisoner Mutulu Shakur from prison. The 72-year-old Black liberation activist is said by prison doctors to have less than six months to live, after being diagnosed with stage 3 bone marrow cancer. Shakur was part of the Black nationalist group Republic of New Afrika that worked with the Black Panther Party and others, and is the stepfather of the late rapper icon Tupac Shakur.

Lawyers and journalists sued the CIA and former CIA Director Mike Pompeo Monday for spying on them while they met Julian Assange when he was living in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he had political asylum. The lawsuit is being filed as Britain prepares to extradite the WikiLeaks founder to the United States, where he faces up to 175 years in prison for violating the Espionage Act by publishing classified documents exposing U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Defund the FBI” is the growing call by Republicans after the FBI searched former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. We get response from Alex Vitale, author of “The End of Policing,” who lays out reasons to defund the FBI that have nothing to do with Trump.