Children in Gaza continue to die of hunger. On Thursday, the World Health Organization confirmed there have been 32 deaths from malnutrition — most of whom were children under 5. The findings came as UNICEF said nearly 3,000 children have been cut off from treatment for moderate and severe acute malnutrition in southern Gaza, putting them at risk of death.

Meanwhile, the U.N. reports violence against children caught in armed conflict last year reached “extreme levels” with a 21% increase in extreme violations. The surge in violence came amid Israel’s withering assault on the Gaza Strip — now in its ninth month.

Overnight, Israeli forces pushed deeper into the Shaboura refugee camp in southern Gaza. Elsewhere, one person was killed and three children wounded after Israel bombed their home in the Bureij refugee camp. Israeli airstrikes in northern Gaza City killed at least 14 people. Meanwhile, Israeli forces killed at least three Palestinians in overnight raids in the West Bank.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday ruled unanimously to maintain access to the abortion pill mifepristone, which is used in nearly two-thirds of all U.S. abortions. The decision comes as a relief to providers and patients across the nation, but advocates warn the far-right-dominated court’s ruling on the FDA’s authority to regulate the pill was purely on procedural grounds, and could even offer a “roadmap” for future challenges. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in the court’s decision, “The plaintiffs have sincere legal, moral, ideological, and policy objections,” suggesting the proper venue for their case could be with the president, lawmakers or federal regulators. We’ll have more on this ruling after headlines with professor Michele Goodwin.

In other Supreme Court news, justices ruled 8-1 in favor of Starbucks, which was accused of unlawfully firing seven workers at a Memphis store after they led a campaign to organize a union. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the sole, albeit partial, dissenter. Lynne Fox, president of Workers United, said the decision “underscores how the economy is rigged against working people all the way up to the Supreme Court.”

In Italy, G7 leaders have agreed on a plan to loan Ukraine $50 billion. G7 host and far-right Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said Russian assets frozen after its 2022 invasion of Ukraine would be used to finance the deal. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky joined the talks, where he met with President Biden and signed a 10-year bilateral security agreement with the U.S. Biden announced the agreement at a joint news conference.

President Joe Biden: “A lasting peace for Ukraine must be underwritten by Ukraine’s own ability to defend itself now and to deter future aggression anytime in the future. The United States is going to help ensure that Ukraine can do both, not by sending American troops to fight in Ukraine, but by providing weapons and ammunition, expanding intelligence sharing, continuing to train brave Ukrainian troops at bases in Europe and the United States.”

On Thursday, at least six people were killed and 11 others wounded when a Russian missile struck the city of Kryvyi Rih in southern Ukraine. Much of Ukraine is experiencing extended blackouts as Russia’s military increases attacks on the energy grid.

As G7 leaders gathered for a lavish banquet on Thursday evening, protesters gathered to host what they called a “poor dinner.”

Bobo Aprile: “A world with people who are getting richer and richer, and a world, a planet that is getting poorer and poorer, crossed by wars, death, destruction, climate change, so a planet that is going toward death, and they don’t seem to care. We are on the eve of the Third World War.”

Russian authorities say Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich will stand trial on espionage charges in Yekaterinburg, where he was arrested in March of last year. The Wall Street Journal’s CEO and publisher slammed the “sham trial,” adding, “Journalism is not a crime.” If convicted, Gershkovich faces up to 20 years in prison.

Christophe Deloire, the head of Reporters Without Borders for the last 12 years, has died at the age of 53 from complications of brain cancer. Deloire fought tirelessly to defend press freedom and persecuted journalists. A year ago, he appeared on Democracy Now!, where we asked him about Evan Gershkovich.

Christophe Deloire: “Evan is clearly a Russian state hostage, a sort of institutional hostage. … We know how Putin succeeded in the past decade — he finalized it right after the beginning of the war — how he succeeded to extinguish, to resuppress pluralism, independent journalism, to provoke an extinction in his own country.”

Click here to see our full interview with Christophe Deloire.

Here in New York, climate protests continued for a fourth day outside of Citigroup headquarters Thursday, where police arrested 56 people, many of them elders. Thursday’s protest, led by the group Third Act, came under the banner of the “Rocking Chair Rebellion,” which is part of the “Summer of Heat” series of actions. Senior citizens blocked Citigroup’s entrance with more than 50 rocking chairs, demanding climate justice for future generations.

Palestinian rights activists have also been protesting Citigroup this week, calling on the bank to stop funding Israel. The group Al-Awda says Citibank provided a $2.5 billion loan for Israel to purchase F-35 fighter planes in 2021 that the U.S. is now repaying.

In Germany, climate experts say the high-level U.N. talks in Bonn have failed to make any progress on a global response to the climate catastrophe. This is Tasneem Essop of Climate Action Network International.

Tasneem Essop: “The climate talks in Bonn this year ended up with no results. And this is caused by a breakdown in the negotiations once again on finance. Rich nations, as they’ve done before, are not willing to make progress on their financial obligations to developing countries.”

This comes as record-breaking extreme weather is being reported around the world. Authorities in Athens shut down the Acropolis and other major sites during peak hours as Greece records its earliest-ever seasonal heat wave.

In Puerto Rico, the mayor of San Juan declared a state of emergency as the island reported widespread power outages, leaving some 350,000 customers without electricity Wednesday night amid soaring temperatures. Puerto Rico’s power grid was taken over by the Canadian-American company LUMA Energy in 2021 despite widespread public opposition. Puerto Ricans have continued to suffer persistent blackouts, yet pay some of the highest electricity rates in the U.S.

French President Emmanuel Macron has suspended voting reform in New Caledonia to allow “a return to order.” On a visit to the Pacific archipelago last month, Macron vowed to go ahead with the reform, which would grant voting rights to French residents of the colonized territory. But after Macron called a snap election on Sunday, such a procedure could not go ahead until a new legislature is elected. At least eight people have been killed in the recent unrest. Much of New Caledonia’s Indigenous Kanak community is seeking full independence from France.

Oklahoma’s Supreme Court has dismissed a lawsuit from the last two survivors of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre. An estimated 300 Black people were killed when a white mob burned down what was known as “Black Wall Street,” the thriving African American neighborhood of Greenwood. Viola Fletcher and Lessie Benningfield Randle are 110 and 109 years old. Their lawyers say they will request a rehearing by the Oklahoma Supreme Court and called on the Justice Department to open an investigation into the massacre under the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act of 2007.

Former President Donald Trump returned to the U.S. Capitol on Thursday for the first time since the January 6, 2021, insurrection. Trump met with Republican lawmakers. Among other things, he reportedly said, “Milwaukee, where we are having our convention, is a horrible city.” Trump narrowly lost Wisconsin to Biden in 2020 and has since falsely claimed election fraud in the state. This comes as Politico reports Trump called House Speaker Mike Johnson after he was convicted of 34 felonies in New York, and asked the GOP leader to help overturn the verdict and to help punish the Justice Department.

In Brazil, protesters took the streets on Thursday after lawmakers advanced a bill this week that would equate all abortions with homicide if performed after the 22nd week of gestation, with punishments of up to 20 years in prison. This is Rio Councilmember Mônica Benício.

Mônica Benício: “We will not accept a setback. We will not accept a conservative government negotiating spurious policies over our lives. We will continue to advance until legal abortion is a guaranteed right in Brazil.”

Abortion is only legal in Brazil in cases of rape, anencephaly or a life-threatening risk to the patient.