Thousands of delegates and elected officials have descended on Chicago as the Democratic National Convention kicks off today. The four-day convention comes one month after President Biden ended his bid for reelection. Vice President Kamala Harris secured the Democratic presidential nomination in a virtual roll call earlier this month and is expected to again formally accept the party’s nomination when she addresses the convention on Thursday.

Dozens of delegates with the “uncommitted” movement are also in Chicago as they continue to pressure Harris to halt U.S. military support for Israel’s war on Gaza. The delegates represent states where some 700,000 people cast uncommitted votes during primaries to protest Democrats’ pro-Israel policies. For the first time ever, the DNC is hosting a panel on Palestinian human rights. The uncommitted delegation welcomed the move and is continuing to request that Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan, who has volunteered in Gaza, be permitted to address the convention from the stage.

On Sunday, hundreds of protesters took to the streets of Chicago saying they will disrupt the DNC until Democrats listen to their demands. This is Kshama Sawant, co-founder of Workers Strike Back and former socialist Seattle city councilmember.

Kshama Sawant: “The possibility of Trump 2.0 is only a reality because of the many betrayals by the Biden-Harris administration. Biden and Harris, both as president and as vice president, and the Democratic Party as a whole, they broke their promise for a $15-an-hour minimum wage. They blocked the railroad workers’ strike, which is possibly one of the most anti-worker, anti-union actions that can be taken by politicians. And so, in other words, both the Democratic and Republican parties are anti-worker, and they are both pro-war.”

Meanwhile, Chicago’s Democratic Mayor Brandon Johnson in a recent interview called Israel’s war a genocide, saying, “What’s happening right now is not only egregious, it is genocidal. We have to acknowledge and name it for what it is and have the moral courage to exercise our authority.” We’ll have more from the DNC after headlines.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Israel, where he warned ongoing ceasefire talks may be the “last chance” to free Hamas hostages as he spoke from Tel Aviv earlier today. Blinken added, “It’s also time to make sure that no one takes any steps that could derail this process.” Inside Gaza, displaced Palestinians in Khan Younis responded to Blinken’s latest visit.

Mahmoud Abu Daoud: “Today in the Gaza Strip, we are suffering from the Americans and international community ganging up on us, without mercy on us. As I said, this visit is, as usual, to check on Israel and provide it with arms and logistic matters, to continue the war of extermination on the Gaza Strip. There will be no changes. We are very pessimistic about this visit.”

Israel’s slaughter continues throughout the Gaza Strip. The Israeli military is pushing further into central Deir al-Balah, as Gazans are now being crowded into just 10% of the besieged territory. On Saturday, an Israeli airstrike in Deir al-Balah killed at least 18 members of the same family, including 11 siblings aged between 2 and 22. On Sunday, another attack in the same region killed more Palestinian children. Mohammed Awad Khattab said six of his grandchildren were killed as they slept, along with their mother — his daughter — who worked for the United Nations.

Mohammed Awad Khattab: “My daughter had been struggling to have children for years. She had them through IVF. Four of the children were quadruplets. The eldest son and the youngest daughter, who was only a year-and-a-half old, were also killed. What wrong did these innocent children do? Were they posing any danger to Israel? Were they carrying arms?”

UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, is marking World Humanitarian Day today by honoring its 207 staff members who have been killed by Israel since October 7.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres is calling for a “polio pause” to conduct an urgent vaccination campaign inside Gaza after health authorities confirmed a 10-month-old infant had contracted the highly contagious disease.

Secretary-General António Guterres: “Let’s be clear: The ultimate vaccine for polio is peace and an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. But in any case, a polio pause is a must. It is impossible to conduct a polio vaccination campaign with war raging all over.”

The 10-month-old baby is Gaza’s first known case of polio in a quarter of a century. Overwhelmed parents expressed fear over yet another threat to their families’ lives.

Elham Nassar: “We’re tired of this life we are living — no food, no drink, no medicines. What are we supposed to do in this life? At the least, we need medicines for our children, to protect them from being infected with the polio virus that’s now spreading across Gaza. You must find a solution to our situation. We need vaccines. We need medicine. We need proper sanitation. We want you to save us before it’s too late. Or how long are we supposed to wait? Should we wait until we watch our children die and become paralyzed, and then become helpless to do anything for them?”

In Israel, relatives of hostages held in Gaza rallied in Tel Aviv this weekend ahead of Blinken’s visit. This is Lee Siegel, whose brother is one of the remaining hostages.

Lee Siegel: “We are broken. We are sad. We are tired. We wake up in the morning thinking about the hostages. Maybe this will be the day when they come home. We go to sleep every night thinking tomorrow morning we will wake up to a better day. This morning was not a better day. True, negotiations are ongoing. Until the hostages are home, negotiations mean nothing.”

Meanwhile, Hamas and the Islamic Jihad say they are responsible for an explosion on a truck in Tel Aviv Sunday evening. The blast killed one person, believed to be the detonator of the explosive.

Regional tensions remain high amid ongoing attacks around the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanese state media reported an Israeli strike in the south of the country killed at least 10 Syrian nationals Saturday, including two children. This is a witness of that attack.

Yaser Jaber: “Honestly, a number of workers were martyred on the site, including the janitor, along with his wife and two children. With them were a number of workers who also lived in the same building. They are all Syrians. This is a civil establishment that works in metal trades for hangars, false ceilings and homes, and has nothing to do with military things at all.”

Meanwhile, Israeli forces earlier today raided the town of Houla in southern Lebanon, according to local reports.

In Sudan, a cholera outbreak has killed over 300 people, according to the World Health Organization. The highly contagious infection, transmitted through contaminated food or water, can cause severe diarrhea and dehydration. Sudan is facing a catastrophic humanitarian situation, with famine declared in a camp in North Darfur and over 10 million displaced since the civil war erupted last April. This is Leni Kinzli of the World Food Programme.

Leni Kinzli: “It is the world’s largest hunger crisis: 25.6 million people are in acute hunger, are facing acute hunger. That’s 54% of the population. So, basically, that means one in two Sudanese is not able to put a basic meal on their plate every day, are struggling every day just to eat. Of those, around 755,000 people are in the highest stage of food insecurity — catastrophic hunger — which basically means they’ve run out of all options and are surviving in whatever way they can, eating leaves off trees, eating grass.”

The Sudanese government is sending a delegation to Cairo for talks with U.S. and Egyptian officials, after failing to attend peace talks in Geneva last week. The talks in Egypt will reportedly be restricted to discussing the implementation of last year’s Jeddah Agreement, which is supposed to uphold humanitarian protections during the bloody conflict.

Back in the U.S., Kamala Harris unveiled her economic policy agenda during a campaign speech in Raleigh, North Carolina, Friday.

Vice President Kamala Harris: “As president, I will be laser-focused on creating opportunities for the middle class that advance their economic security, stability and dignity. Together, we will build what I call an opportunity economy.”

Harris’s plan includes bringing down the cost of housing, child care and healthcare. The Democratic nominee said she will restore and expand child tax credits, cancel medical debt, cap the cost of drugs, ban price gouging on groceries and go after predatory corporate landlords, among other things.

Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein announced historian and professor Butch Ware as her running mate. Jill Stein, who also ran on the Green Party ticket in 2012 and 2016, has made a Gaza ceasefire one of the main pillars of her platform.

In a post announcing her VP pick, Stein wrote, “This is truly a historic ticket bringing together a Jewish woman and Black Muslim man against genocide, endless war, climate collapse, and rampant injustice, and for an economy that works for working people, a livable future for our children, and an America and a world that works for all of us.” Stein and Butch Ware held a virtual press conference on Saturday.

Butch Ware: ”AIPAC and the arms manufacturers have bought and paid for both of these parties, so of course they cannot agree to an arms embargo, because those checks have already been cashed, right? They have their projections of all of the future income off of the endless future war.”

In health news, the Philippines is the latest country to report a new case of mpox. Authorities say the 33-year-old Filipino patient from Manila had no history of foreign travel. Last week, the World Health Organization declared mpox a global public health emergency after an outbreak spread from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to a dozen neighboring countries. Sweden and Pakistan have since reported cases, as well.

On Sunday, protesters took to the streets in dozens of cities across the United States on the eve of the DNC to demand “Not Another Bomb” on Gaza. Demonstrations also took place in cities across the globe, including in Amsterdam, where massive crowds rallied to condemn the Dutch government over its failure to hold Israel accountable.

Marleen: “Since October, I’ve been going to all the demonstrations with my kids, because that’s all we can do. I can’t believe what I’m seeing with my eyes. And I hope this, inshallah, will end soon, because this is not normal. Almost a year, we’ve been watching blown-up children, blown-up mothers, fathers. I don’t have words. It breaks me. It breaks us all. This just has to stop now.”

In Colombia, President Gustavo Petro has banned coal exports to Israel. Explaining his move, Gustavo Petro posted on X, “Colombian coal is used to make bombs to kill Palestinian children.” Colombia had been the largest supplier of coal to Israel.

As Ukrainian forces expand their incursion inside Russia, Moscow says Kyiv has struck a third bridge in the Kursk region. Russia also said its troops had captured a group of at least 19 Ukrainian soldiers in the region. Meanwhile, Belarusian president and staunch Putin ally Alexander Lukashenko has threatened Ukraine with military action as he accused Kyiv of deploying 120,000 troops along Ukraine’s border with Belarus.

In the Dominican Republic, President Luis Abinader has been sworn in for a second term, vowing economic reforms and to carry on a ban on asylum seekers from neighboring Haiti. Abinader’s government has increased raids and deportations of Haitians and also began construction of a 100-mile concrete wall along the border with Haiti, which is experiencing a worsening humanitarian crisis. Haitian leaders skipped Abinader’s inauguration Friday. Abinader spoke from the capital Santo Domingo.

President Luis Abinader: “We know the problems of Haiti need to be solved there through dialogue and the participation of the whole society. With the same strength with which we demanded the intervention of the international community in Haiti, we ask that Haiti is not forgotten again. You can’t ask more of the Dominican Republic, because we have already done enough.”

The social media platform X, formerly Twitter, announced over the weekend it will be shutting down its operations in Brazil. The move by owner Elon Musk comes after X faced legal challenges in Brazil over its refusal to fight the spread of misinformation online. Earlier this year, a Brazilian judge ordered X to block certain accounts accused of spreading fake news and hate messages, including some belonging to supporters of far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro.

In Bangladesh, interim leader Muhammad Yunus vowed to support the more than 1 million Rohingya refugees living in his country, as he gave his first major policy address. Yunus, who has been charged with leading Bangladesh’s transition after the ouster of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, said, “We need the sustained efforts of the international community for Rohingya humanitarian operations and their eventual repatriation to their homeland, Myanmar, with safety, dignity and full rights.” Rohingya refugees continue to face persecution in Burma and deadly attacks as they make the treacherous journey to Bangladesh.

Mohammed Saber: “The Arakan Army raided our village and killed many people. Some 60 people in my village were killed. Some people took refuge under the water in the canal nearby. Some of them died, as well. We couldn’t count the bodies. … A trafficker asked for money to ferry us to Bangladesh. I assured him that my brother-in-law lives abroad and will make the transfer, so he took us on board his boat. Many of us embarked the boat. The Myanmar army fired when we were in the middle of the sea. Around 45 people died. Some were wounded and passed away later. … I will do whatever it takes to keep my family alive. I don’t have a penny left.”

The U.S. Supreme Court denied an emergency request from the Biden administration to allow its expanded Title IX rules to take effect. Earlier this year, the Biden administration updated the federal policy protecting against sex-based discrimination in schools to include LGBTQ+ and transgender students, as well as pregnant people and survivors of sexual assault. The expanded civil rights policy was supposed to go into effect on August 1, before Republican-led states moved to block it.