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Mass demonstrations in Turkey in response to Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu's arrest show the "wall of fear" has broken, says Turkish political scientist Ezgi Başaran. She says there is no doubt the corruption charges are politically motivated and intended to help authoritarian President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan remove a rival.

As Washington obsesses over the group chat in which senior officials planned an attack on Yemen, there is almost no scrutiny of the deadly bombing campaign at the heart of the scandal.

Support our work: https://democracynow.org/donate/sm-desc-yt Mass demonstrations are continuing in Turkey, where Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu has been arrested on corruption charges. Since protests broke out last week, Turkish authorities have detained more than 1,400 people, including students and journalists. İmamoğlu is the main rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the 2028 presidential election and was recently nominated for president by the Republican People’s Party. Erdoğan has led the country since 2003, but his popularity has dropped in recent years amid increasingly authoritarian policies cracking down on dissent. “Everyone knows that this is politically motivated and that Erdoğan is scared that he’s not going to win against Ekrem İmamoğlu,” says Turkish political scientist Ezgi Başaran. Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour that airs on over 1,500 TV and radio stations Monday through Friday. Watch our livestream at democracynow.org Mondays to Fridays 8-9 a.m. ET. Subscribe to our Daily Email Digest: https://democracynow.org/subscribe

Support our work: https://democracynow.org/donate/sm-desc-yt Democratic lawmakers are calling for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and national security adviser Michael Waltz to resign, after they discussed bombing Yemen in a group chat that also included journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic. Waltz had set up the chat on the messaging app Signal and appeared to accidentally add Goldberg, who then got a front-row seat as top officials, including Vice President JD Vance, discussed classified information. The attacks ultimately killed dozens of people in Yemen, including children. Journalist Safa Al Ahmad, who has been reporting on Yemen since 2010, says that while Washington is obsessing over the U.S. national security implications of the group chat, there is almost no criticism of the bombing campaign at the heart of the scandal. “They are killing Yemenis with no recourse for Yemenis themselves,” says Al Ahmad, who notes that U.S. involvement in attacks on Yemen started almost exactly 10 years ago, when a Saudi-led coalition began bombing the country with support from the Obama administration. “There was actually no legal rationale under the Constitution for doing these strikes,” adds Branko Marcetic, staff writer for Jacobin. “Only Congress is actually able to declare war.” Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour that airs on over 1,500 TV and radio stations Monday through Friday. Watch our livestream at democracynow.org Mondays to Fridays 8-9 a.m. ET. Subscribe to our Daily Email Digest: https://democracynow.org/subscribe

Support our work: https://democracynow.org/donate/sm-desc-yt The Social Security benefits of millions of people in the United States are at risk as the Trump administration institutes drastic changes billed as “anti-fraud” measures, but which critics say are aimed at weakening the popular program and potentially laying the groundwork to privatize it. The Social Security Administration has already shuttered dozens of offices across the country and is laying off thousands of workers. At the same time, the agency is demanding people make more in-office visits for routine business. The changes are part of government-wide efforts led by billionaire Elon Musk and DOGE, the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. “They are destabilizing the program,” says Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works and chair of the Strengthen Social Security Coalition. “It’s really hard to imagine what they have in mind, what their endgame is, other than destroying our Social Security system.” We also speak with Jacobin staff writer Branko Marcetic, who says Trump’s nominee to head the Social Security Administration, financial services executive Frank Bisignano, has a reputation for slashing costs and pushing out staff. “All of that is a pretty grim portent” of his plans for the Social Security Administration, if Bisignano is confirmed, says Marcetic. “The people that are going to be hurt by it are the actual Social Security beneficiaries.” Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour that airs on over 1,500 TV and radio stations Monday through Friday. Watch our livestream at democracynow.org Mondays to Fridays 8-9 a.m. ET. Subscribe to our Daily Email Digest: https://democracynow.org/subscribe

Support our work: https://democracynow.org/donate/sm-desc-yt Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour that airs on over 1,500 TV and radio stations Monday through Friday. Watch our livestream at democracynow.org Mondays to Fridays 8-9 a.m. ET. Subscribe to our Daily Email Digest: https://democracynow.org/subscribe

Support our work: https://democracynow.org/donate/sm-desc-yt We go to Gaza for a report on the brutal conditions of Israel's genocide of Palestinians from Abubaker Abed, a 22-year-old journalist who has recently been diagnosed with malnutrition as a result of Israel's total siege of the Gaza Strip. "It's unending misery," says Abed. "We're here stranded. We're seeing the systematic killing of everyone, as Israel is targeting every single one here in Gaza." In the week since Israel's abrupt desertion of its ceasefire agreement, says Abed, the total suffering in Gaza "is much worse than ever before." He pleads for international intervention and accountability. "As long as the world allows Israel to do so, this will not stop." Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour that airs on over 1,500 TV and radio stations Monday through Friday. Watch our livestream at democracynow.org Mondays to Fridays 8-9 a.m. ET. Subscribe to our Daily Email Digest: https://democracynow.org/subscribe

Support our work: https://democracynow.org/donate/sm-desc-yt On Monday, Israeli strikes killed two Palestinian journalists: Al Jazeera's Hossam Shabat, who was 23 years old, and Palestine Today's Mohammed Mansour, who was killed in his apartment alongside his wife. This brings the total number of journalists that Israel has killed in Gaza over the past year and a half to 206. Just before his death, Shabat had shared news of Mansour's killing on social media and filed an article with _Drop Site News_ describing Israel's scorched-earth campaign in his hometown of Beit Hanoun. His editor Sharif Abdel Kouddous remembers Shabat as a "warm and funny person," dedicated to his job and his community. In recent months, he had been under increasing surveillance by the Israeli military, which labeled him a terrorist and placed him on a "hit list." Despite being "targeted and openly hunted," Shabat "continued nevertheless to cover the genocide of his people." Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour that airs on over 1,500 TV and radio stations Monday through Friday. Watch our livestream at democracynow.org Mondays to Fridays 8-9 a.m. ET. Subscribe to our Daily Email Digest: https://democracynow.org/subscribe