|
The president's halt of foreign aid upended two U.S. programs that help the International Atomic Energy Agency find clues about Iran's drive to build atomic bombs.
|
|
The president signed an order that would deny loan forgiveness to workers for groups engaged in "substantial illegal activities," which it indicated included things like diversity initiatives.
|
|
Nicaragua announced last week it is withdrawing from the United Nations Human Rights Council, following a U.N. report that slammed the government's human rights violations and warned the country was becoming an authoritarian state. The report by a panel of independent human rights experts adds to international pressure on the Nicaraguan government led by President Daniel Ortega and first lady Rosario Murillo, who was recently named co-president. "Nicaragua has become a country of enforced silence and surveillance for those who stay in the country, while those who dare to speak out face a life of exile and denationalization," says Reed Brody, a member of the U.N. expert panel, who has spent decades investigating rights abuses in Nicaragua.
He speaks to Democracy Now! 40 years to the day since the release of his landmark 1985 fact-finding report Contra Terror in Nicaragua, which laid out how U.S. policy attempted to destabilize Nicaragua's Sandinista government by funding the Contras and their campaign of torture, rape, kidnapping and murder.
|
|
The Supreme Court has rejected a request by the Trump administration to continue refusing to pay out nearly $2 billion for work completed by USAID, with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joining the court's three liberal justices in the majority. However, the court's decision did not specify when the money must be released, allowing Trump's team to further dispute the issue in lower courts. We speak to two people involved in the lawsuit brought by the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition, or AVAC. The Trump administration's decision to unilaterally slash foreign assistance, including funding critical to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS, "for no good reason and with no clear strategy," was an unlawful "abuse of executive power," says attorney Nicolas Sansone, who serves as counsel for the plaintiff. "People will die," adds Mitchell Warren, the executive director of AVAC. Warren condemns the "willful ignorance" and "disregard of science" being promoted by Trump and his allies, many of whom are former supporters of bipartisan global health initiatives.
|
|
 Phillip Faraone/Getty ImagesIt appears Donald Trump is once again attempting to silence Stormy Daniels, despite his recent convictions in that category.
MSNBC's Rachel Maddow reports that Trump's lawyers tried to "get another hush money deal" with the adult film star, to keep her from making any "public or private statements related to any alleged past interactions" with the former president. In exchange for her written agreement, Trump's team reportedly offered to adjust the debt she owes Trump for the unsuccessful defamation case her lawyer brought against him in 2018.
Daniels still needs to pay "hundreds of thousands of dollars" in legal fees, Maddow explained, and in hammering out the exact amount, Trump's lawyers allegedly offered to "pretend" she owed their client "less than they actually believed" she did. Whereas they first estimated Daniels' debt at $650,000, Maddow reported, they said they would settle her tab for $620,000, if she promised not to make any "defamatory or disparaging statements about him, his business, and/or any affiliates, or his suitability as a candidate for president." They then adjusted the fee, asking $635,000 if she refused to sign a non-disclosure agreement. Daniels reportedly turned them down, pay
|
|
