Democracy Now!

We speak to Cuban American historian Ada Ferrer about the effects of U.S. and Cuban economic policy on the Cuban people. "The situation there is dire. It has been for quite some time, and it's gotten worse and worse over the last five months."

Nancy Gertner is one of dozens of former federal judges demanding that Trump's settlement with his own IRS be reviewed for possible collusion. "What happened in this case was essentially Trump was suing himself," she says. "There was no question that Trump was on both sides."

As Americans have become more critical of policing, the prominence of Black and other marginalized people in law enforcement has increased. "Black cops are kind of rehabilitating police departments," says Steven Thrasher (@thrasherxy.bsky.social), author of a new book "The Overseer Class.”

Israel continues to attack Lebanon despite Trump claiming Monday that Israel and Hezbollah had agreed to stop fighting. “What happened yesterday was in no means a ceasefire,” says Beirut-based journalist @chehayebk.bsky.social.

"I didn’t assault anybody," says Bajun Mavalwalla, a veteran who was recently convicted of "conspiracy to impede or injure" federal agents after attending an anti-ICE protest in Spokane, Washington. The unprecedented conviction could lead to six years of prison time.

"They're not upholding the law." Activists are boycotting Citizens Bank in protest of its financing of private prison companies GEO Group and CoreCivic, which own and operate ICE jails across the country, including New Jersey's Delaney Hall and Texas's Dilley Center.

An estimated 300 immigrants detained at the Delaney Hall ICE jail in Newark, New Jersey, are continuing a hunger and labor strike to demand their freedom. Watch our report ⬇️

Colombian mercenaries accused of committing war crimes in Sudan were trained in military bases in the United Arab Emirates, according to a new report from Human Rights Watch. We speak with Joey Shea, author of the report.

Amid U.S.-Iran negotiations, Trump is demanding Gulf countries normalize relations with Israel by accepting the Abraham Accords. “There is not a chance at all that Qatar, Saudi Arabia … are going to normalize relations with Israel,” says Robbert Malley of @crisisgroup.org.

Tennessee death row prisoner Tony Carruthers was issued a one-year stay of execution last week after prison officials botched his execution. "We could hear him groaning in pain," says @nashvillebanner.bsky.social journalist Steven Hale, who attended as a media witness.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has wanted a war against Iran "for decades" and is likely to sabotage current peace talks, says journalist Negar Mortazavi. "He wants the war to continue to expand."

“In 2025, these data center protests successfully stalled over $100 billion worth of these facilities,” says journalist @karenhao.bsky.social. Hao adds that so many communities are able to mobilize because the issue “really does cut across political lines.”

@davidsirota.com of @levernews.com says FCC Chair Brendan Carr’s willingness to relax rules on foreign ownership of U.S. news media “conflicts with the whole notion of America first.”

“The Trump administration is weaponizing its power over mergers to try to get what it wants in the media space,” says @davidsirota.com of @levernews.com.

Comedian Stephen Colbert signs off Thursday on the final broadcast of “The Late Show,” following his 11-year run on CBS. The show's cancellation comes amid speculation that the billionaire Ellisons — owners of CBS parent company Paramount — are currying favor with the Trump administration.

"This will be the third graduation and commencement ceremony in a row where we do not have a student speaker, where we do not have a faculty speaker and we do not have a live-streamed commencement. ... [T]hey took [all] that away specifically because of Palestine repression."

This graduation season, schools across the U.S. have continued their attempts to silence pro-Palestine speech. Rutgers professor Noura Erakat says repression of Palestine protest only spreads outwards. "We are the Trojan horse to bring in these policies that will affect everyone."

"There is no white genocide in South Africa. There is, however, a global machinery that continues to normalize imperial wars, occupation, and the suffering of Black and Brown people."

The U.S. resettled just over 6,000 refugees between October and April. All except three were from South Africa. President Trump has repeated debunked claims about "white genocide" and is now planning to resettle an additional 10,000 white South Africans as refugees.

"It's harrowing to see the immiseration of the entire population." Independent journalist Ed Augustin reports from Havana and describes the "unfolding humanitarian crisis" gripping Cuba due to the intensified U.S. blockade.

"Dictatorship in action." Journalist @davidcayjohnston.bsky.social reacts to the shocking deal Donald Trump's lawyers negotiated with his own administration that establishes a $1.8 billion "slush fund" to reward the president's allies.

Prosecutors in Minnesota filed charges Monday against an ICE officer who allegedly shot Julio Sosa-Celis, a Venezuelan immigrant, during a Minneapolis immigration raid in January. Emilia González Avalos of Unidos MN says it was bystanders’ footage that led to the charges.

“This is an incredible opportunity for audiences to see what really goes on when a woman brings a case like this,” says Ivy Meeropol, director of “Ask E. Jean,” a documentary about E. Jean Carroll, the famous advice columnist who successfully sued Trump for sexual abuse and defamation.

Linda Sarsour of MPower Change responds to the Monday shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego in which two teenage attackers fatally shot three people before dying from apparent self-inflicted gunshots. Sarsour knows the mosque’s imam and Amin Abdullah, a security guard who was killed.

The WHO is declaring a global health emergency due to the sudden spread of Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda. Dr. Craig Spencer, a public health expert and an Ebola survivor himself explains what we know so far.

A top Pentagon official claimed on Thursday there is "no indication" the U.S. has bombed multiple schools, hospitals and other civilian sites in Iran. Admiral Brad Cooper said the attack on a school in Minab on February 28 — which killed 175 people — was still under investigation.

Hear from @mollycrabapple.bsky.social about her new book "Here Where We Live Is Our Country: The Story of the Jewish Bund," chronicling the 20th-century socialist revolutionary party that fought antisemitism in Europe and opposed the formation of a Jewish ethnostate in Palestine.

Salah Sarsour, a Palestinian immigrant, green card holder and the president of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee, has been locked up in an ICE jail since late March. His lawyer says the charges against him are "just a pretext for silencing folks for their pro-Palestinian advocacy."

Artificial intelligence is "incredibly unpopular technology" that is essentially being forced on people, says writer @astra.bsky.social. New data centers are now facing stiff resistance, providing "local chokepoints where people can come together and push back on the billionaire Big Tech agenda."

Dr. Marty Makary has quit as FDA chief under pressure from Trump and others. Experts say the regulatory agency is too important for the "pure chaos" unfolding there, part of a larger unraveling of public health under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

"We were hearing, every day, the screams of other Palestinians who were being tortured inside this investigation center." Global Sumud Flotilla activist Saif Abukeshek describes the ten days he spent in Israeli detention after he was violently arrested at sea.

Guido Reichstadter is a former U.S. Marine who left the service after refusing to deploy to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. Here's why he scaled the 168-foot Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge in Washington, D.C. to protest the war on Iran.

Activist Guido Reichstadter scaled the Frederick Douglass Bridge in Washington, D.C. earlier this month to protest the Iran war. "What I did was follow the call of my heart. I couldn't stay silent in the face of these ongoing acts of mass murder by the U.S. government in my name."

More than 20,000 seafarers are stranded on commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz. "The seafarers, men and women, have not provoked this war, are not a part of it, and cannot stop it," says Mohamed Arrachedi of the International Transport Workers' Federation.

Construction crews working on President Trump's expanded border wall with Mexico have destroyed a portion of 1000-year-old Native American archeological site in the Sonoran Desert. Lorraine Marquez Eiler, an elder of the Hia Ched O'odham community, details what we know.

The U.S. government has reinstated deportation proceedings against Mohsen Mahdawi, a graduate student at Columbia University who was detained last April for his outspoken support for Palestinian rights. Mahdawi is a green card holder who grew up in a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.

States across the South are redrawing congressional maps after the Supreme Court's effective gutting of the Voting Rights Act, says @ariberman.bsky.social of Mother Jones. “This could lead to the largest drop in Black representation since the Jim Crow era, and it is happening with alarming speed."

Recent state-level elections in India have further consolidated the power of the ruling Hindu nationalist BJP led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “The general public does not think the elections are free and fair in India,” says Arfa Arfa Khanum Sherwani, an Indian journalist.

“We are speaking about systematic transformation of life into something unlivable,” says Eyad Amawi, a representative of the Gaza Relief Committee. According to Amawi, there are widespread rodent infestations in tent encampments, water is scarce, and food is often spoiled.

Legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw discusses her new memoir "Backtalker" and the gutting of the Voting Rights Act.

Reporters Without Borders (@rsf.org) says global press freedom has fallen to its lowest level in 25 years. "We're seeing deterioration pretty much across the board, both in authoritarian countries and in democracies," says Clayton Weimers.

After President Trump called for ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel to be fired, the FCC has announced a review of ABC's television licenses. Anna Gomez, the sole Democratic commissioner on the FCC, slams what she says is an "unprecedented" attack on the First Amendment.

Trump is “increasingly using desperate language and even considering desperate moves,” says @tparsi.bsky.social, because “according to the plan of those who sold this blockade idea to the Trump administration, Iran should have crumbled about 10 days ago, and it clearly has not happened."

“It is a favorite tactic of the Israeli regime to try to bully people into silence and submission,” says @raniabatrice.bsky.social of the Global Sumud Flotilla’s communications team. Flotilla members Saif Abukeshek and Thiago Ávila were abducted from their ships and taken to Israel last week.

“We see Palestine and Gaza as a front line in the global fight against oppression and injustice,” says Hannah Smith, representative of the Global Sumud Flotilla’s public affairs team.

The Nation’s abortion access correspondent @amylittlefield.bsky.social says the abortion rights movement is more prepared to fight Friday’s federal appeals court decision to limit access to the abortion pill mifepristone than it was when Roe v. Wade was overturned four years ago.

“Sunlight has to travel 93 million miles to reach the Earth, but none of those miles go through the Strait of Hormuz,” says @billmckibben.bsky.social, co-founder of @350.org and founder of @thirdactorg.bsky.social.

“[Trump] believed that the pragmatists in the Iranian regime would take over after his military action,” says @gilbert-achcar.bsky.social, emeritus professor at SOAS, University of London. “The result has been exactly the contrary. Very clearly, it just enhanced the militarization of the regime.”

Journalist @jeremyscahill.com from @dropsitenews.com says the Trump administration is in "a state of total chaos" as it tries to end the Middle East war it launched. Iran, meanwhile, is confident in its position because of "the three M's on their side: munitions, markets and the midterms."

50+ countries are meeting in Colombia to launch an alternative to the U.N.'s stalled efforts to confront climate change. "We have to take the process of the most ambitious countries who accept the science, to actually come together and provide leadership," says @kuminaidoo.bsky.social

The Justice Department recently ruled that DACA status is not enough to spare someone from deportation. @ramirez.house.gov, whose husband is a former DACA recipient, says the decision is yet another instance of Trump's weaponization of the courts.

“It epitomizes trying to solve social problems — all social problems — by designating an enemy and killing the enemy,” says activist Sister Helen Prejean as the Justice Department seeks to expedite and expand the federal death penalty.

Journalist and author @jeffsharlet.bsky.social explains the religious aspects of the manifesto believed to have been written by Cole Allen, the alleged gunman who opened fire at the White House Correspondents Association dinner on Saturday.

“Dr. King said that militarism overseas leads to the corrosion of a society and violence at home,” says @rokhanna.bsky.social. “That does not in any way justify the assassination attempt, but what it does suggest is that we have a culture that has embraced violence inconsistent with our ideals.”

New York City Councilmember @chiosse.bsky.social was arrested this week during an eviction protest in Brooklyn, where many residents are targeted for "deed theft." "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," he says.

Academic @quinnslobodian.com, co-author of the new book "Muskism," says major firms firms increasingly see a need to "fuse with the state," a far cry from the supposed cyber-libertarian ethos of an earlier time.

Outrage is growing over Israel's killing of Al-Akhbar correspondent Amal Khalil on Wednesday. Sara Qudah with @pressfreedom.bsky.social says Israel's attack and subsequent blocking of rescue teams is a clear war crime requiring an independent investigation.

Prominent Democrats have spent years villainizing Iran, long before Trump helped launch the joint U.S.-Israeli war against the country. While Democrats now oppose Trump's military actions, they have done so largely on "procedural grounds," says @szunes.bsky.social.

Companies building data centers are "targeting" Indigenous communities where there is often less legal infrastructure to hold them accountable, says Krystal Two Bulls from @honortheearth.bsky.social. "Right now, we're looking at about 103 to 160 proposed hyperscale data centers on Native lands."

Organizers in Memphis are fighting Elon Musk's AI data centers in the city that rely on polluting methane gas turbines. "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 @keshaunpearson.bsky.social.

Maine lawmakers recently approved the first statewide moratorium on new AI data centers, though it's unclear if Governor Janet Mills will veto the bill. State Representative Melanie Sachs explains what motivated the legislation.

"ICE is determined to expand its capacity to detain people to more than 100,000 people at any given time, which is really a shocking number and parallel to the number of Japanese Americans that were incarcerated during World War II."

At least 17 people have died in ICE custody so far this year, part of President Trump's dramatic increase of immigration detention. "I have never seen anything like this, where I'm seeing ICE reporting out at least one death per week," says Setareh Ghandehari with @detentionwatchnetwork.org.

Aliya Rahman, a disabled Minneapolis resident who was violently arrested and detained by ICE officers in January, explains why she's filing a federal tort claim against the Department of Homeland Security.

A 10-day ceasefire has begun in Lebanon, but major questions remain over what happens next. Israel says it will not withdraw its troops from southern Lebanon.

Despite the U.S.' claims that it has fully blocked the Iranian oil trade since Monday, @lalehkhalili.bsky.social says over a dozen ships have sailed through the Strait of Hormuz — a drop in the bucket compared to before the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, when the strait handled over 100 crossings daily.

Fatima Goss Graves of @nwlc.org says the resignations of Eric Swalwell and Tony Gonzales from Congress are "the beginning" of a new reckoning, as calls grow for an independent investigation into what may be a systemic pattern of abuse on Capitol Hill.

Israeli peace activist @maozinon.bsky.social's parents were killed in the October 7 attacks. Palestinian peace activist @azizabusarah.bsky.social's brother died after being tortured in an Israeli prison. Their new book together is "The Future Is Peace: A Shared Journey Across the Holy Land."

“Catholics from the progressive side to the traditional side were appalled by the president's attacks on the Pope, because they were … very personal, very mean-spirited, and also, as I said, unhinged,” says James Martin, Jesuit priest and editor-at-large of America Magazine.