Democracy Now!

• Headlines for May 19, 2026
• 3 Killed in Devastating San Diego Mosque Shooting: Linda Sarsour on Rising Anti-Muslim Hate & More
• "Ask E. Jean" Film Profiles the Woman Who Twice Sued Trump & Won, for Sexual Assault & Defamation
• Minnesota Officials Charge ICE Agent Who Shot Venezuelan Immigrant & Falsely Reported What Happened

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• Headlines for May 18, 2026
• As WHO Declares Ebola Outbreak a Global Health Emergency, Did USAID Cuts Worsen the Crisis?
• Trump's Christian Nationalist Agenda & Taxpayer-Funded D.C. Prayer Rally: Bishop Barber & Sarah Posner
• "Staggering Corruption": Rep. Raskin on Trump's $10B IRS Lawsuit, Stock Trades & Family Business

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• Headlines for May 15, 2026
• Nakba Day: Muhammad Shehada on Israel's Ethnic Cleansing in Gaza & Ongoing Palestinian Resilience
• "Israel: What Went Wrong?": Holocaust Scholar Omer Bartov & Haaretz's Gideon Levy Debate Zionism

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• Headlines for May 14, 2026
• Xi Warns Trump of Potential "Conflict" over Taiwan in Beijing Summit on Iran, Trade, Tech & More
• "Here Where We Live Is Our Country”: Molly Crabapple on Resurfacing the Jewish History of Anti-Zionism

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• Headlines for May 13, 2026
• FDA Chief Pushed Out in Latest Sign of Public Health Chaos Under RFK Jr.
• Astra Taylor on AI Data Center Resistance & Fighting "Billionaire Big Tech Agenda"
• Free Salah Sarsour: Muslim & Jewish Communities Demand ICE Release Milwaukee Mosque Leader

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• Headlines for May 12, 2026
• A Return to Jim Crow? Ex-DOJ Civil Rights Chief Kristen Clarke Denounces Gutting of Voting Rights Act
• I Was Kidnapped by Israel in Int'l Waters, Jailed for 10 Days: Gaza Flotilla Activist Saif Abukeshek

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• Headlines for May 11, 2026
• Far-Right Anti-Immigrant Party Surges in U.K. Elections; Calls Grow for Labour PM Starmer to Resign
• Meet Guido Reichstadter, the Marine Veteran Who Scaled D.C. Bridge to Protest Iran War & AI
• Canceled over Palestine: Biotech CEO Rami Elghandour on Rutgers Disinviting Him as Graduation Speaker

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• Headlines for May 08, 2026
• Trump Pushes to Take Over Elections, Punish His Enemies: Pulitzer Prize-Winning Reporter Ned Parker
• Amid Growing Abuse at ICE Jails, Rep. Adelita Grijalva Calls to Shut Down Trump's Detention Network
• "They Don't Care": Trump's Border Wall Construction Damages 1,000-Year-Old Sacred Indigenous Site
• "Absolutely Vulnerable": Over 20,000 Global South Ship Workers Stranded at Sea Due to Iran War

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• Headlines for May 07, 2026
• Gaza Faces Public Health Collapse Amid Rat Infestation & Disease as Israel Blocks Reconstruction
• India's Modi Gov't Purged Millions of Voters Before Elections in "Direct Attack" on Democracy
• "Gerrymandering Arms Race": GOP Rushes to Erase Black Representation After SCOTUS Guts Voting Rights

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• Headlines for May 06, 2026
• Global Press Freedom Hits Record Low, U.S. Drops to 64th in the World: Reporters Without Borders
• Israel's Destruction of Southern Lebanon Turns Villages into "Moonscapes": Reporter Lylla Younes
• "Backtalker": Kimberlé Crenshaw on New Memoir, Voting Rights, Critical Race Theory & Clarence Thomas

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• Headlines for May 05, 2026
• Trump's War on Iran & Strait of Hormuz Crisis Reveal "Limits of American Imperial Power"
• "Assault on the First Amendment": Dem. FCC Commissioner on Megamergers & Trump Targeting Kimmel, ABC
• Public Access TV at Risk: Cable Giants Threaten to Cut Funds for Local Stations Across U.S.

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• Headlines for May 04, 2026
• Abortion Rights Movement Shifts to "Plan C" as Court Restricts Mifepristone by Mail
• Gaza Flotilla Participant Details "Cruelty" of Israeli Abduction at Sea; Two Activists Still Detained
• Trita Parsi on Iran War: Trump Still "Looking for a Silver Bullet" Instead of Negotiating Seriously

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• Headlines for May 01, 2026
• From Springfield, Ohio, to the Supreme Court: A Pastor's Fight to Protect TPS for Haitians
• "No School, No Work, No Shopping": Workers, Immigrants to Lead Thousands of May Day Protests
• "A People's History of Invisible India": Journalist Neha Dixit on Dire State of Worker Rights

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• Headlines for April 30, 2026
• Supreme Court Guts Voting Rights Act in "Devastating Blow" to Democracy & Civil Rights: Maya Wiley
• Maya Wiley: Southern Poverty Law Center Indictment Is Part of Trump's Broader Attack on Civil Rights
• Scholar Gilbert Achcar on the U.S. War Against Iran & Trump's "Old-New Imperial Doctrine"
• Sunlight Doesn't Go Through the Strait of Hormuz: Bill McKibben on Iran Oil Shock & Green Transition

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• Headlines for April 29, 2026
• "Political Disaster for Donald Trump": Jeremy Scahill on Stalled U.S.-Iran Talks
• UAE Quits OPEC as Many Countries Ramp Up Oil Production Despite Worsening Climate Crisis
• "We Are Bombarding America's Forests with Roundup": Despite Cancer Fear, Trump Admin Pushes Herbicide

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• Headlines for April 28, 2026
• Trump vs. Dreamers: Justice Dept. Moves to Make It Easier to Deport 500K+ DACA Recipients
• Avi Lewis, New Socialist Leader of Canada's NDP: "Life Just Doesn't Have to Be So Grindingly Unfair"
• Colombia Hosts First Global Summit on Transitioning from Fossil Fuels in Attempt to Break U.N. Deadlock

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The Justice Department is bringing back the use of firing squads and lethal injection using pentobarbital as it seeks to expedite and expand federal death penalty convictions and executions. No federal executions have been carried out since 2020, when the first Trump administration broke with over a decade of precedent and executed 13 people on death row. The second Trump administration is now pursuing the death penalty in dozens more cases across the country. Renowned anti-death penalty activist Sister Helen Prejean says Trump’s push to restart federal executions is entirely unsurprising. “His first instinct almost always seems to be demonize someone as an enemy and then kill them and destroy them.”

Writer Jeff Sharlet responds to the shooting event at White House correspondents’ dinner this weekend. We discuss the motivations of Cole Allen, the man accused of breaching security in an attempt to assassinate members of the Trump administration, as well as gun access in the United States and the growing violence across the political spectrum of what Sharlet calls a “slow civil war.”

We speak to Congressmember Ro Khanna about the apparent assassination attempt against President Donald Trump and members of his administration at the White House correspondents’ dinner. “Political violence strikes at the very heart of democracy. We cannot have a democracy if people are saying we’re going to kill you if we disagree with your viewpoint. And that has to be condemned in the most strong, unequivocal terms,” says Khanna. He also gives an update on his work calling for the full public release of the Epstein files and comments on Trump’s attacks on press freedoms.

• White House Correspondents' Dinner Shooting Suspect Set to Be Formally Charged in Court Today
• Trump Cancels Witkoff and Kushner's Trip to Pakistan for Ceasefire Negotiations with Iran
• Israeli Strikes Kill 14 People in Lebanon Despite U.S.-Brokered Ceasefire
• Israeli Forces Kill at Least 12 Palestinians in Gaza
• Justice Department to Allow Firing Squads for Executions
• Justice Department Makes It Easier to Deport People with DACA Status
• ICE Detains Family Less Than Two Days After Court Orders Their Release
• NYT: DHS Seeks to Deny Green Cards to Immigrants Who've Criticized Israel
• Appeals Court Rules Trump Unlawfully Banned Asylum Cases at Southern Border
• Pentagon Claims It Killed Three in Strike on Alleged Drug Boat in Eastern Pacific
• Mexico Says CIA Agents Killed in Car Crash Were on Mexican Soil Without Authorization
• Russian Drone and Missile Attacks Kill 16 Across Ukraine
• Tuareg Separatists Join al-Qaeda Affiliate in Coordinated Attacks Across Mali
• Maine Gov. Janet Mills Vetoes Statewide Moratorium on AI Data Centers

In the new book, Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed, authors Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff look at the worldview that shaped Elon Musk and the ideology that has coalesced around him. They call Muskism “an operating system for the 21st century.”

Musk runs rocket company SpaceX, AI startup xAI, electric car maker Tesla and the social media platform X, formerly Twitter. Musk’s political influence extends from his use of X to advance controversial ideas, to his political donations, to the role he played leading the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. “He’s not just building a rocket company or a satellite company — but what we see is a vertically integrated ideological stack where he can kind of build an echo chamber from low Earth orbit all the way back to Earth and create a kind of closed loop for the ideology that he wants to push out,” says Slobodian, professor of international history at Boston University.

Four people were arrested on Wednesday in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn after gathering in support of Carmella Charrington, a homeowner fighting eviction from her longtime family home. Charrington and local housing advocates say the sale of her property to investors in 2024 was a form of “deed theft,” a criminal practice where predatory speculators use forgery, deceit or fraud to illegally transfer ownership of properties, without the knowledge or full understanding of rightful owners.

“In my soul, I could not let that take place. I could not see a family, a Black family within Bed-Stuy, removed from a home,” says New York City Councilmember Chi Ossé, one of those arrested during the protest. He says his district has seen rapid gentrification and elderly Black homeowners have been repeatedly targeted by deed theft. Ossé is calling for a moratorium on evictions in cases where deed theft is suspected.

Israeli forces killed the prominent Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil on Wednesday despite a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon. Khalil and her colleague, photographer Zeinab Faraj, were reporting from southern Lebanon when an Israeli drone struck a car near them, killing two civilians. Khalil and Faraj sought shelter in a nearby building, but then Israel struck that building, as well. Emergency and medical workers rescued Faraj but came under fire before they could rescue Khalil, and were prevented by the Israeli military from returning for over six hours. Khalil died by the time her body was recovered from under the rubble.

The deliberate obstruction is “a war crime and requires an international investigation,” says Sara Qudah, Middle East and North Africa regional director at the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Amal Khalil is the ninth journalist killed by Israel in Lebanon this year. She told local media in 2024 that she had received a death threat from Israel’s Mossad spy agency warning her to leave southern Lebanon or risk decapitation. “This is what Israel is trying to do. It’s trying to prevent the truth from being reached by a much, much wider audience to see the war crimes that are being carried out [in Lebanon] on a daily basis,” says Steve Sweeney, Lebanon bureau chief for the Russian news channel RT, who survived an Israeli strike last month.

• Israel Continues Strikes on Southern Lebanon as Trump Announces 3-Week Ceasefire Extension
• Trump Says He's Under No Pressure to End War with Iran
• Israel Kills Palestinian Civilians, Including Children, in Latest Gaza Ceasefire Violations
• Senate GOP Advances $70 Billion Funding Plan for ICE, Border Patrol
• Justice Department Seeks to Denaturalize Hundreds of U.S. Citizens
• Trump Administration May Deport Afghan Refugees Who Aided U.S. Forces to Congo
• U.S. Seeks to Deport Iranian Doctoral Student Who Provided Media Commentary on Iran War
• Iranian Asylum Seekers Jailed by ICE Are Not Related to Military Commander, as Trump Admin Claimed
• Prisoners Launch Hunger Strike over Inhumane Conditions at Michigan For-Profit ICE Jail
• Philadelphia City Council Passes "ICE Out" Bills Limiting Cooperation with Federal Agents
• Kuwaiti Court Acquits Journalist Ahmed Shihab-Eldin, Who Shared News of Downed U.S. Fighter
• DOJ Arrests U.S. Army Soldier Who Made Over $400,000 Betting on Capture of Nicolás Maduro
• Eric Trump Touts $24 Million Pentagon Contract Awarded to His Robotics Company
• Palantir Calls on U.S. to Reinstate Draft in 22-Point "Supervillain" Manifesto Slammed by Critics
• Warner Bros. Shareholders Approve Mega-Merger with Paramount Skydance
• ICC Rules Philippines' Ex-President Rodrigo Duterte Must Stand Trial for Crimes Against Humanity
• White House Formally Reclassifies Cannabis as a Less Dangerous Substance

The rise of online prediction markets has allowed people to bet on virtually any news event. For a small group of traders, the war with Iran has been a windfall. A number of lucrative, well-timed bets related to the war totaling over $1 billion have raised alarm over people connected to the Trump administration possibly using inside information to profit.

Amanda Fischer, policy director and chief operating officer for Better Markets, says it’s unclear how closely regulators are watching these online betting markets. The president’s son Donald Trump Jr. is also an adviser to the two leading prediction markets, Polymarket and Kalshi, raising further questions about conflicts of interest.

“There is a strict prohibition on offering gambling related to war, assassination, terrorism, gaming, activities that are illegal under state law or anything that’s contrary to the public interest. But the [Commodity Futures Trading Commission] under President Trump has completely retrenched from any enforcement of what kind of contracts are made available on these platforms,” says Fischer.

The U.S.-Israeli war on Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz have raised fuel costs and caused shortages of key fertilizers around the world, wreaking havoc on the agricultural industry. Adam Hanieh, director of the SOAS Middle East Institute at the University of London, says the effects could be felt for a long time, particularly in the Global South.

“About a third of the world’s basic fertilizers now pass through the Strait of Hormuz,” says Hanieh, who adds that the “coming food crisis” is compounded by the climate and debt crises in much of the developing world. “It’s a perfect storm.”

The Senate on Wednesday rejected another bid to rein in President Donald Trump’s ability to use further military force against Iran, marking the fifth failed attempt by Democrats to curb Trump’s war powers since the start of the conflict in late February. The resolution was defeated in a vote of 46 to 51, with Democrat John Fetterman and Republican Rand Paul the sole dissenters in each caucus. The administration is facing a deadline of May 1 before it must seek explicit authorization from Congress for military force under the War Powers Act.

While Democrats have opposed Trump’s military actions, they have done so largely on “procedural grounds” without making a forceful moral case against war, says Stephen Zunes, professor of politics and director of Middle Eastern studies at the University of San Francisco. “The climate that the Democrats have helped lay in these 20 years of hawkish statements and resolutions and the like really made Trump’s job easier and has enabled him to, thus far, get away with it,” says Zunes.

• Iran Says It's Collecting Tolls for Ships Transiting Strait of Hormuz
• Senate Republicans Defeat Iran War Powers Resolution for Fifth Time
• Pentagon Fires Navy Secretary John Phelan After Clashes with Hegseth
• Despite Ceasefire, Israel Kills 5 in Lebanon, Including Journalist Amal Khalil
• FBI Launched Probe of New York Times Reporter Following Unflattering Coverage of Kash Patel
• Democratic Rep. David Scott of Georgia Dies at 80
• Toxic Gas Release at West Virginia Metal Refining Plant Kills 2, Injures 30 Others
• American Lung Association: Nearly Half of U.S. Children Are Breathing Dangerous Air Pollution
• Houston City Council Votes to Gut an Ordinance Limiting Police Cooperation with ICE
• U.S. Appeals Court Upholds Texas Law Requiring Classrooms to Display Ten Commandments
• Pope Leo Wraps Up Four-Nation Visit to Africa
• NYC Councilmember Chi Ossé Released After Violent Arrest at Anti-Eviction Protest

More than 70 vessels and over 1,000 participants from all over the world have joined a second Global Sumud Flotilla en route to Gaza in order to challenge Israel’s ongoing maritime blockade of aid. We speak to two participants aboard the Greenpeace ship, the Arctic Sunrise, which is providing technical support and accompanying the flotilla for part of the voyage in a show of solidarity. “When the system fails, civil society needs to step in,” says Palestinian activist Saif Abukeshek, citing a history of nonviolent direct action within the Palestinian national struggle. The Arctic Sunrise's project lead, Pujarini Sen, explains the participation of Greenpeace as an extension of their work for the environment and holding companies that profit from climate change and pollution accountable. “Fossil fuel companies also benefit from wars, from genocide,” says Sen. “We don't view these issues as separate.” They also speak about how over a dozen vessels from the flotilla encircled and disrupted the MSC Maya, one of the largest cargo ships in the world, for several hours. They say the cargo ship was delivering raw materials for weapons to Israel. They say the action was inspired by protests by dockworkers.

The artificial intelligence industry’s data center boom is the latest chapter in a long history of environmental racism and resource exploitation in vulnerable Native communities, says Oglala Lakota and Northern Cheyenne activist Krystal Two Bulls, the executive director of Honor the Earth, an Indigenous-led environmental justice organization that is tracking over 100 proposed data center projects on tribal and rural lands. We speak to Two Bulls about the myriad impacts of what she calls a “modern-day iteration” of “settler colonialism,” including noise pollution, cancers and respiratory illnesses, water depletion, energy grid overload and even “ecological collapse.” As tech companies set their sights on Indigenous lands, Two Bulls says, “We’re always the one that ends up having to sacrifice our relationship to land, air, water, our communities and our nonhuman relatives.”

As tech companies scramble to build massive new data centers to power artificial intelligence, marginalized communities are bearing the brunt of the environmental harms. In Memphis, Tennessee, Elon Musk’s xAI operates over two dozen methane gas-burning turbines without legal permits to power its data centers, Colossus 1 and Colossus 2, polluting the nation’s largest majority-Black city with toxic emissions. The NAACP is suing xAI for violating the Clean Air Act. “We are, unfortunately, a cautionary tale about what will and possibly can happen if you don’t have the right rules and guardrails in place,” says KeShaun Pearson, the executive director of Memphis Community Against Pollution. Pearson says pollution from xAI’s energy generation is already “at a level even higher than our Memphis International Airport.” Meanwhile, the company has created far fewer jobs than it initially promised. “This has been terrible for our region, and it’s terrible for our future, because our community is going to continue to suffer. Our children have the highest rate of ER visits for respiratory illnesses and issues in the state of Tennessee, and it’s only going to continue to get worse.”

Communities across the United States are pushing back against resource-draining data centers being built to fuel artificial intelligence and crypto ventures. In Maine, state legislators recently passed a first-in-the-country statewide moratorium on large data centers. “Maine residents are concerned about the impacts of data centers on both their electric rates and other utility rates, as well as on our wonderful environment,” says Democratic state Representative Melanie Sachs, who sponsored the bill designed to give legislators time to develop regulations around new data center construction. Sachs says developers have been operating in “complete secrecy,” refusing to engage with community stakeholders, while their plans appear to provide “limited economic opportunity with very few local jobs.” The bill goes to Maine Governor Janet Mills’s desk next.

• Trump Extends Iran Ceasefire But Maintains Blockade as Iran Seizes Ships in Strait of Hormuz
• Israel-Lebanon Ceasefire Frays as Hezbollah Fires on Israeli Forces
• Israeli Army Reservist Kills Two Palestinians in West Bank Settler Attack
• NYT: Two Senior Hamas Officials Say Group Could Give Up Some Weapons Belonging to Police Force
• Justice Department Indicts Southern Poverty Law Center on Federal Fraud Charges
• CIA Agents Among U.S. Officials Killed in Mexico Car Crash, Prompting Probe into Covert Operations
• Indigenous Communities and Environmental Activists Vow to Fight Mexican President Sheinbaum's Reversal on Fracking Ban
• Department of Homeland Security ​​Warns of Payroll Crisis as Partial Government Shutdown Hits Record 67 Days
• Rep. Cherfilus-McCormick Resigns from Congress Ahead of Ethics Sanctions Hearing
• National Women's Defense League Reveals Dozens of Lawmakers Accused of Sexual Misconduct as Congress Faces Expulsion Votes
• Virginia Voters Approve New Congressional Map Giving Democrats Chance to Pick Up Four More Seats in Congress

Police fired tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets at hundreds of animal rights activists in Wisconsin on Saturday as they attempted to rescue about 2,000 dogs from a facility that breeds beagles for medical experimentation. The crackdown by Dane County sheriff’s deputies left scores of activists injured; 25 people were arrested. Protesters were attempting to enter a property owned by Ridglan Farms, which agreed last fall to surrender its state breeding license and stop selling dogs to other laboratories by July 1 as part of a deal to avoid prosecution on animal mistreatment charges. A state judge found Ridglan Farms likely broke Wisconsin animal cruelty laws by housing beagles in brutal conditions, performing surgeries without anesthesia, and leaving wounds untreated, along with other violations.

The protesters who participated in Saturday’s action were “teachers, veterinarians, students, software engineers,” says Rebekah Robinson, a Wisconsin resident and longtime animal rights activist who was arrested during the action. “These were ordinary citizens who were trying to help these Ridglan dogs, to go in and take them to safety, get them the veterinary care that they needed. And what we were met with was overwhelming police brutality.”

In cities across the country, from Los Angeles to Chicago to Minneapolis, residents have taken to the streets to oppose the militarized immigration sweeps, enforcement tactics and violence of ICE and Border Patrol under President Trump’s second term. A new ProPublica and Frontline investigation looks at law enforcement’s heavy-handed response to these protests, resulting in legally dubious charges that later unravel.

“The Department of Justice was labeling the people who were in the streets as domestic terrorists, as agitators, as extremists. They were rounding them up in large numbers,” says A.C. Thompson, investigative reporter with ProPublica and correspondent for PBS’s Frontline documentary series. “So, we looked at 300 arrests in these various cities and found that more than a third of them had collapsed.”

As the Trump administration continues to rapidly expand its immigration jail system across the United States, we look at the rising death toll of people in ICE custody, the highest in over two decades. The causes of the deaths have varied, but they include at least one homicide. At least 17 people have died in ICE custody since January.

“I have never seen anything like this, where I’m seeing ICE reporting out at least one death per week,” says Setareh Ghandehari, advocacy director at Detention Watch Network. “People are reaching the point of emergency for issues that could easily be dealt with if proper medical care was given.”

Ghandehari notes the rising opposition to the Department of Homeland Security’s conversion of “former industrial warehouses” into ICE jails. “It’s been really inspiring to see people across the country standing up in solidarity with their immigrant neighbors and saying, 'We don't want these types of facilities in our communities,’” says Ghandehari.

• Confusion Reigns Over U.S.-Iran Talks as Trump Says a Ceasefire Extension Is "Highly Unlikely"
• Military Veterans and Family Members Arrested in Capitol Hill Protest Against Iran War
• Lebanese and Israeli Diplomats Prepare for Second Round of Talks as Lebanon Buries Its Dead
• Israel Continues Deadly Attacks in Gaza, Reestablishes Evacuated West Bank Settlement
• Amnesty International Blasts "Predatory World Order" of Netanyahu, Putin and Trump
• Japan Abandons Ban on Weapons Exports in Latest Shift from Postwar Pacifism
• Cuba Confirms Meeting with Senior U.S. Officials for the First Time Since 2016
• ICE Reports 17 Immigrants Have Died in Custody
• Justice Department Demands Wayne County, Michigan, Turn Over 2024 Ballots
• FBI Director Kash Patel Files $250 Million Defamation Lawsuit Against Atlantic Magazine
• Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer Steps Down Amid Misconduct Probe
• Wired: Facial Recognition Technology Used to Monitor Sports Fans at Madison Square Garden
• Delegates Arrive in NYC for United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues
• Six Women Win Goldman Environmental Prize, Widely Known as the "Green Nobel"

The Trump administration in late March announced an extensive reorganization of the Forest Service, the federal agency responsible for managing 193 million acres of public lands across 43 states, the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. As part of the changes, 57 of 77 research stations across the country will be shuttered, with the headquarters relocating from Washington, D.C., to Salt Lake City. While the overhaul is billed as an effort to improve efficiency, conservationist Jim Pattiz says it will effectively destroy the agency.

“This is a critically important agency,” says Pattiz, co-author of the newsletter More Than Just Parks that tracks threats to public lands across the country. “The intent here is obvious. It’s to hollow out this agency and hand it to the resource extraction industry and prepare it for, potentially, the eventual transfer of our public lands to states.”

We speak with artist Shepard Fairey, best known for the Obama “Hope” poster, about the role of art in politics, the rise of fascism in the United States and more. Democracy Now!'s Amy Goodman spoke with Fairey in Los Angeles last week and toured his studio. Some of his recent artworks depict ICE agents with labels like “Domestic Terrorist,” used by Trump administration officials to describe protesters who oppose the administration's immigration crackdown.

Fairey says that while he doesn’t think of his art as propaganda, he also doesn’t shy away from the label. “If you want to call it propaganda, it’s meant to initiate a conversation, a counternarrative that isn’t happening in a robust enough way,” he says.

Fairey created the film poster for Steal This Story, Please!, the new documentary about Amy Goodman and Democracy Now!, which had its theatrical opening earlier in April.

While many Western countries have condemned Iran’s restrictions on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz as a breach of international law, reaction has been relatively muted about the “clearly unlawful” war that the United States and Israel launched against Iran, says law professor Maryam Jamshidi.

“This says a lot about the ways in which international law is being deployed in this moment as a way of restraining and regulating Iranian behavior, while effectively allowing the United States and Israel a free hand to do what they want,” says Jamshidi, a professor at the University of Colorado Law School and a nonresident fellow at the Quincy Institute.

The Strait of Hormuz is closed to shipping traffic after Iran once again shut off access to the key waterway over the weekend in retaliation for the ongoing U.S. blockade on Iranian ports. This comes as the U.S. Navy intercepted and seized an Iranian-flagged cargo ship in the Sea of Oman on Sunday. Iran said the seizure violated the ceasefire reached earlier this month. Despite the escalation, President Trump announced a U.S. delegation is heading to Pakistan for a new round of peace talks. Iran’s Foreign Ministry says Tehran has “no plans” to participate.

There has been a “gradual escalation” in hostilities between the U.S. and Iran since the last round of talks in Islamabad, says Iranian American analyst Vali Nasr, professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Iran’s leadership is “suspicious that President Trump was really using the talks in Pakistan as a cover for renewing war on Iran and that he was not serious about diplomacy.”

• Iran Shuts Access to Strait of Hormuz as U.S. Navy Seizes Iranian-Flagged Cargo Ship
• Israeli Soldier Filmed Destroying a Statue of Jesus in Southern Lebanon
• British Authorities Probe Recent Arson Attacks on Jewish Sites in London
• Oil and Gas Prices Surge After U.S. Navy Seizes Iranian-Flagged Cargo Ship
• United Nations: More Than 38,000 Women and Girls Killed in Gaza from October 2023 to December 2025
• Eight Children Shot and Killed by Louisiana Father, as Five People Injured in Shooting Near University of Iowa
• At Least Six People Killed in Mass Shooting in Ukraine
• U.S. Says It Killed 3 Aboard Alleged Drug Boat, Pushing Death Toll in Such Attacks to Nearly 200
• Mexico Admits Gulf Oil Spill Was Caused by a Leaking Pemex Pipeline
• Joe diGenova, Who Tried to Overturn 2020 Election Results, to Lead Probe of Trump's Critics
• Appeals Court Allows Trump to Resume Construction of $400 Million White House Ballroom
• Federal Judge Blocks $6.2 Billion Merger of Nexstar Media Group and Rival Tegna
• Activists Attempting to Save Dogs from Medical Experimentation Met with Tear Gas in Wisconsin
• Brazil's Lula and Spain's Sánchez Lead Progressive Push to Counter Rise of Far-Right Parties

Aliya Rahman, a Minneapolis resident who was violently detained by ICE officers in January during “Operation Metro Surge,” filed a federal tort claim against the Department of Homeland Security on Thursday, claiming the agency used excessive force and violated her rights. Rahman was never charged with any crime. “They battered Aliya. They assaulted Aliya. They were negligent in their medical care for Aliya,” says Jessica Gingold, one of Rahman’s attorneys. “All of those things are illegal, and this is our tool for making sure that they have to pay for that.”

Aliya Rahman was on her way to a doctor’s appointment when her route was blocked by ICE vehicles. Rahman’s window was smashed, and she was violently pulled out of her car. She told the officers she is disabled and autistic, but says they mocked her. Rahman was brought to an ICE jail, where she was denied medical care. She eventually fell unconscious and woke up at a hospital. “My hope is that Americans can see that we have an option that might someday make mass acts of racial violence seem too expensive for these folks, even if they don’t share our values,” says Rahman.

“We’ve seen now, in the last six weeks, Iran and Hezbollah almost single-handedly checking — not defeating, but checking — the two biggest military powers in the region, which is the U.S. and Israel,” says Rami Khouri. Khouri says the U.S. and Israel have been “forced into” ceasefires in Iran and Lebanon. This is all a sign “of the evolving balance of power across the region” and demonstrates that Iran’s Axis of Resistance “is still effective.” Khouri is a Palestinian American journalist and public policy fellow at the American University of Beirut.

A 10-day ceasefire has begun in Lebanon. The news is being celebrated across the country, but major questions remain over what happens next. President Trump announced the deal between Israel and Lebanon on Thursday. Hezbollah, which is not a party to the agreement, says it will observe the ceasefire. The Israeli military is occupying a large swath of southern Lebanon, about 10% of the country. Early on in the current war, the Israeli military announced the intention to create a “security zone” from the Lebanese-Israeli border all the way to the Litani River, 20 miles north of the border.

Many in the country are questioning whether Israel will abide by the ceasefire, says Beirut-based journalist Kareem Chehayeb. Israel continued airstrikes on Thursday right up until the ceasefire took effect, including blowing up the last bridge over the Litani River. “With this kind of military mobilization and this ground invasion of Lebanon, many in Lebanon do fear this could lead to some sort of long-term or even permanent occupation, similar to that from 1982 until the year 2000,” says Chehayeb.

President Trump on Thursday repeated his claim that a deal to end the war on Iran is “very close” and that direct talks with Iran could resume in Pakistan as soon as this weekend. Despite the claims, the Pentagon is surging thousands of additional troops to the Middle East, including an additional 6,000 sailors and aviators joining the USS George H.W. Bush aircraft carrier battle group. Around 4,200 others with the Navy and Marines are expected to arrive near the end of the month. Ali Vaez, Iran project director at the International Crisis Group, says “we might be, at some point, returning to a hot war” because the Iranians, too, have “preserved a degree of retaliatory capacity.” The main question on the negotiating table is whether the Iranians, who “have been saying for years that they don’t want nuclear weapons,” will curb their nuclear activity, and if so, whether the U.S. would “be willing to provide them with economic incentives and sanctions relief.”

• Israel Agrees to 10-Day Ceasefire in Lebanon After U.S.-Brokered Talks
• Israelis in Tel Aviv Protest Settler Violence After High Court Lifts Wartime Ban on Gatherings
• House Votes 213-214 to Reject War Powers Resolution as Trump Claims Deal with Iran Is "Very Close"
• Ukraine Strikes Black Sea Oil Refinery as Russian Attacks Kill 17
• Progressive Democrat Analilia Mejía Wins Special Election for New Jersey House Seat
• House Temporarily Extends FISA's Mass Surveillance Powers in Late-Night Vote 
• House Votes to Extend Deportation Protections for 330,000 Haitian Immigrants
• Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons, Who Oversaw Mass Deportation Efforts, to Resign in May
• Minnesota Prosecutor Brings Assault Charges Against ICE Agent Who Pointed Gun at Motorists
• Texas Governor Threatens to Cut Millions of Dollars from Cities That Limit Collaboration with ICE
• Man Shot by ICE in California Last Week Arrested on Assault Charges
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A new book tells the inside story of the second Trump administration’s dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID. Its author, Nicholas Enrich, worked at USAID for over a decade before he was pushed out of the agency in early 2025, when the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency summarily cut its staff and funding. An estimated 14 million people are projected to die “unnecessarily” over the next five years due to these cuts, and nearly a million, mostly children, already have, says Enrich. His new memoir, Into the Wood Chipper: A Whistleblower’s Account of How the Trump Administration Shredded USAID, is named after one of Musk’s social media posts from that period, when the South African billionaire wrote, “We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper.” Since its establishment in 1961, USAID has saved the lives of tens of millions around the world by treating and preventing serious health issues such as HIV/AIDS, malnutrition, malaria and more. By slashing the agency, the U.S. “pulled the rug out from under people around the world,” says Enrich. “We broke promises to millions who were relying on USAID services, and left them hanging out to dry. We broke promises to governments and broke partnerships that will have lasting effects for years to come.”