In Chicago, night two of the Democratic National Convention centered around Kamala Harris’s sweeping economic proposals, which include addressing the housing crisis, canceling medical debt and banning grocery price gouging. Democrats held a ceremonial roll call to nominate Kamala Harris as president. She accepted the nomination virtually in Milwaukee, where she and her running mate, Governor Tim Walz, addressed a packed arena, the same site where the RNC was held last month.

The second night of the DNC in Chicago was headlined by former first lady Michelle Obama and former President Barack Obama.

Barack Obama: “We do not need four more years a bluster and bumbling and chaos. We have seen that movie before, and we all know that the sequel is usually worse. … America is ready for a new chapter. America is ready for a better story. We are ready for a President Kamala Harris.”

Other speakers at the DNC last night included Senator Bernie Sanders, who called for expanding healthcare access and raising the minimum wage. He also addressed Israel’s war on Gaza.

Sen. Bernie Sanders: “We must end this horrific war in Gaza, bring home the hostages and demand an immediate ceasefire.”

During Obama’s speech, Jodie Evans, co-founder of the antiwar group CodePink, unfurled a pink banner inside the DNC that read “Free Free Palestine.” She was then escorted out.

An array of anti-Trump Republicans also took to the stage last night to plead their case for Harris, including former Trump White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham.

In more news from Chicago, protests continued for a third day inside and outside the DNC. On Tuesday, CodePink and other pro-Palestine groups disrupted Minnesota governor and Democratic VP nominee Tim Walz during a Women’s Caucus meeting.

Medea Benjamin: “We need an arms embargo now! We need to stop killing women and children every day with our weapons. It’s not right! It’s not right!”

Meanwhile, dozens of people were arrested Tuesday night outside the Israeli Consulate in Chicago as police clashed with protesters demanding an end to Israel’s war on Gaza. The Chicago Tribune reported at least two independent journalists were among the arrests. This is Chicago resident Jonathan Bell.

Jonathan Bell: “They are starving the people. They are bombing schools and hospitals. And the people here are protesting to say that that’s not right and the United States should not be aiding and abetting a terrorist like Netanyahu. He is a terrorist. And his Cabinet, who are calling for the starvation and the annihilation of the Palestinian people, it is a terrorist act on the part of Israel.”

Elsewhere, in the U.K., five activists were handed prison sentences of between 12 and 16 months Tuesday after occupying the Thales weapons factory in Glasgow, Scotland. The group Palestine Action says 16 of their activists are in prison as a result of their actions to stop the genocide in Gaza.

In other news from the DNC, American doctors who treated patients in Gaza held a press conference Tuesday to shine a light on the ongoing atrocities inflicted by Israel’s U.S.-backed war. This is pediatrician Dr. Ahmad Yousaf.

Dr. Ahmad Yousaf: “She had burns that covered over 70% of her surface area, which is a death sentence in an environment where you can’t find gauze and there isn’t clean water and there aren’t antibiotics. We all knew what this meant on the ground in the trauma bay the first minutes we met her: She was going to die there, and her baby would die there. And there was nothing we were going to be able to do about it, because the Israeli government, the IDF, had made it impossible to care for people to the extent which they deserve. Every human being deserves the right to medical aid in that situation. She was no fighter. She was a pregnant woman who was sitting in her home when a bomb dropped on her head.”

Scores of Palestinians have been killed over the past day as Israel continues its unrelenting attacks on Gaza. An Israeli strike on another school, this time the Mustafa Hafez School in Gaza City, killed at least 12 people Tuesday.

Umm Mohammed: “We were sitting peacefully, and we did not see the explosion. The people are gone. They’re dead! They are under the rubble, our people! … Our children! We don’t know where our young girls are, my dears! Where are they?”

Hundreds of people had taken shelter at the school. Displaced Palestinians are yet again on the move after Israel issued fresh evacuation orders for the densely packed Deir al-Balah. It’s not clear where they can take refuge since there is no safe place in Gaza.

In the southern city of Khan Younis, a Palestinian man who spent over two months in Israel’s Ofer Prison, was released and reunited with his family. Hubb Al-Deen Maqat recounted the horrors he and other Palestinian prisoners were subjected to.

Hubb Al-Deen Maqat: “We stayed for about 40 to 50 days blindfolded with this cloth. This way for 50 days! We were sitting down with our hands and feet bound. What’s happening in the prison, there is no living person of conscience who can bear it.”

The Palestinian Prisoner’s Society says detainees at Ofer Prison suffer “systematic torture and humiliation.”

This all comes as another ceasefire deal appears to have stalled.

Meanwhile, Gaza’s Health Ministry said Tuesday it’s still waiting to receive polio vaccines amid a growing risk of a major outbreak across the besieged territory.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry said at least five people were killed Tuesday in Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon. At least one other death was reported today. Hezbollah said it launched a barrage of rockets and drones at Israeli troops in response.

A new report by Oil Change International lays out the countries and companies that have transferred the most fossil fuels to Israel since it launched its war on Gaza, and says they could be liable for complicity in war crimes and genocide under international law. Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Gabon are the top three countries supplying crude oil to Israel. Brazil ranks in fourth place, supplying nearly 10% of Israel’s crude, despite President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva speaking out against the war. The U.S. supplies JP-8 jet fuel for Israel’s warplanes, sourced from a Valero refinery in Texas. Corporations including BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, TotalEnergies and Shell are also named as main culprits. The report holds up Colombia as an example for other nations after it halted coal exports to Israel over the war.

In related news, the Scottish government announced it will stop holding meetings with Israeli ambassadors until “real progress” is made toward a Gaza ceasefire.

Russia says its air defenses shot down 11 Ukrainian drones in “one of the largest ever attempts to attack Moscow with drones.” This comes as Ukraine’s surprise offensive in Russia’s Kursk region continues. Kyiv says hundreds of Russian soldiers have surrendered since the incursion started two weeks ago. Meanwhile, Russian missile and drone attacks hit energy infrastructure in northern Ukraine, causing a large fire that released toxic fumes into the air from an industrial facility.

Arizona’s Supreme Court ruled voters will be able to decide whether abortion rights should be enshrined in the state’s constitution in November’s election. The ruling defeats an attempt by the group Arizona Right to Life to block the ballot measure. Also on Tuesday, Montana’s secretary of state confirmed Montana’s ballot will include an initiative on abortion rights. A total of eight states now have abortion rights on the November ballot — a few others are still pending.

In other election news, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s running mate has suggested the pair might end their independent bid for the White House and join forces with Donald Trump. Nicole Shanahan made the comment in an interview on the podcast “Impact Theory.”

Nicole Shanahan: “There’s two options that we’re looking at, and one is staying in, forming that new party, but we run the risk of a Kamala Harris and Walz presidency, because we draw votes from Trump, or we draw somehow more votes from Trump, or we walk away right now and join forces with with Donald Trump.”

Back here in Chicago, just a few miles from the DNC, over a thousand nurses from the University of Illinois Hospital are on a weeklong strike. The Illinois Nurses Association says UI Health has refused to address understaffing, unsafe working conditions and fair pay demands. Democracy Now! spoke to nurses on the picket line Tuesday.

Eileen Fajardo-Furlin: “Eileen Fajardo-Furlin. I’ve been here at UIH since 2004, 20 years, and I also serve as the chair for the Nursing Care Committee. We’re striking because of unfair labor practice. For the first time ever, the management team walked out during negotiation, walked out and wouldn’t come back when we asked them to come back. But we do have other things that is on the table, one of which is our safety. They have a Workplace Violence Prevention Committee. There are 39 management people on the committee, not one single bedside nurse.”

Disgraced New Jersey Democrat Bob Menendez has resigned from the U.S. Senate in the wake of his convictions for bribery, obstruction of justice and acting as a foreign agent of Egypt and Qatar. The once-powerful head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is scheduled to be sentenced on October 29 and faces up to 20 years in prison, though he says he is appealing his conviction. New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy tapped George Samir Helmy to fill Menendez’s seat until the results of November’s election are certified. Helmy is Murphy’s former chief of staff. Democratic Congressmember Andy Kim is facing Republican hotelier Curtis Bashaw on the ballot.

Panama’s government has begun the mass expulsion of undocumented immigrants on U.S.-funded flights. On Tuesday, Panamanian officials deported at least 29 Colombian migrants who had crossed into Panama through the deadly Darién Gap. Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino has made blocking asylum seekers from crossing the Darién jungle a central issue in his government. In July, Panama unveiled a deal with the Biden administration to deport more migrants in the region.

Migrant deaths along the U.S.-Mexico border have continued to surge due to extreme heat and harsher border enforcement policies that have forced asylum seekers to cross through more remote and dangerous regions. In Arizona, officials warn this year is likely to set another dire record of migrant deaths in the Sonoran Desert as humanitarian aid workers are repeatedly targeted by border agents. This is Pima County Medical Examiner Gregory Hess.

Dr. Gregory Hess: “Last year, in 2023, I think we recovered about 190-some total remains. This year, we’re basically on the same pace as we were last year. We always get more remains in the summer. So, I think we’ve recovered about 105 remains so far this year, and probably half of those have been in the last two months.”

In New York City, dozens of migrants who had been sleeping in a makeshift camp on Randalls Island were forcibly removed by police Monday as the city intensifies its crackdown on asylum seekers. Rights groups have slammed New York City Mayor Eric Adams’s policies that have pushed hundreds of asylum seekers out of shelters, forcing them to sleep on the streets.

On Tuesday, state officials approved the eviction of about 30,000 migrant parents and children staying in city facilities. The Legal Aid Society said, “Treating people who have come here seeking asylum and safety like they are threats is incomprehensible in what is supposed to be a sanctuary city.”

A new report by Human Rights Watch has accused the city of Los Angeles of implementing a “cruel, expensive, and ineffective policy” of criminalizing unhoused people. The report says the city’s systematic “sweeps” on the dwellings of unhoused people only serve to remove them from public view and focus on punishment and quick fixes rather than addressing the dire housing and care needs they face. This is Michelle, one of the unhoused people featured in Human Rights Watch’s video accompanying their report.

Michelle: “They woke us up this morning telling us that they’re going to do a clean sweep and that to grab what we can and to get out, because they were taking everything else. They take our food. They took all my underclothes. They took all my shoes. They leave us with no resources. So we’re stuck here until we can manage to get something to eat or clean water or whatever it is, because they don’t care.”

As a result of Los Angeles’s policies, death rates of unhoused people have skyrocketed with an average of more than six unhoused people dying in L.A. County every day. A Black person is six times more likely to be unhoused in L.A. than a white person. The situation is likely to get even worse as California Governor Gavin Newsom recently ordered local authorities to remove encampments following a Supreme Court ruling which criminalized sleeping in public places.

In Bosnia, three educators were killed in the western town of Sanski Most earlier today when a gunman with an assault rifle opened fire on a high school. Firearms have been common across Bosnia since the conflicts of the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s; however, mass shootings are rare.

The United States has imposed sanctions on former Haitian President Michel Martelly for drug trafficking and money laundering. A U.S. official said the sanctions against Martelly underscored the “destabilizing role he and other corrupt political elites have played in perpetuating the ongoing crisis in Haiti.” Martelly was Haiti’s president from 2011 to 2016.

This comes as the U.N.-backed, Kenyan-led police force deployed to Haiti almost two months ago appears to have made little inroads in addressing the spiraling insecurity and gang activity in the country.

In Ohio, a judge denied a request by residents of East Palestine to have more time and information before a deadline tomorrow to accept a $600 million class-action settlement with Norfolk Southern over last year’s train derailment. Residents near the site of the disaster can also claim up to $25,000 per person for personal injuries as part of the deal. But accepting the money means they will give up their right to sue in the future if residents develop cancer or other serious illnesses due to chemical exposure. Earlier this month, the Associated Press revealed clean-up workers in East Palestine became sick with headaches and nausea, but their health conditions were kept hidden from the public.

In other environmental news, students at two Maryland schools in Harford County have been told to avoid drinking school water over concerns about levels of chemicals known as PFAS. The widely used substances are referred to as “forever chemicals” and have been linked to a host of health conditions. PFAS are present in many foods, common household materials and waterways.

The U.S. Air Force has refused to comply with an EPA clean-up order, after the Air Force polluted drinking water sources in Tucson, Arizona, including with PFAS. The Air Force cited the Supreme Court’s ruling overturning the four-decades-old “Chevron doctrine” earlier this year. In May, the court’s far-right majority stripped federal agencies of the authority to enforce its interpretation of a law, leaving judges with broad latitude to determine how environmental laws are enforced.