Vice President Kamala Harris formally accepted the Democratic presidential nomination Thursday night here in Chicago. Harris is the first Black woman and person of South Asian descent to be nominated for president by a major party. Before a thunderous crowd, Harris, who was California’s top prosecutor before becoming a senator, then vice president, laid out her case against Donald Trump.

Vice President Kamala Harris: “Just imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails and how he would use the immense powers of the presidency of the United States not to improve your life, not to strengthen our national security, but to serve the only client he has ever had: himself.”

During her speech, Kamala Harris reiterated her support for Israel while also calling for its
U.S.-backed war on Gaza to end.

Vice President Kamala Harris: “President Biden and I are working to end this war, such that Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom and self-determination.”

Protests continued Thursday with thousands of people taking to Chicago’s streets for the March on the DNC. Protesters rallied into the night as Kamala Harris accepted the Democratic presidential nomination on the DNC stage. Demonstrators had planned to march toward the convention site but were blocked by hundreds of police in riot gear who forced the march to disperse. Democracy Now! was there. We asked protesters what their message is to Vice President Harris.

Beneen Prendiville: “I am asking her to look into her humanity and to look at photos like this and recognize that this is what happens every day, hundreds of times a day, for decades, and in particular the last 10 months.”

The protester held up a photo on her cellphone of a Palestinian child with burn wounds on their face.

Meanwhile, delegates from the “uncommitted” movement locked arms and walked inside the DNC halls wearing Palestinian keffiyehs, one day after the DNC refused to allow a Palestinian American speaker to take the main stage. Uncommitted delegates circled the halls of the United Center arm in arm.

The powerful United Auto Workers union is the latest group to condemn the exclusion of Palestinian voices from the DNC, saying in a statement, “If we want the war in Gaza to end, we can’t put our heads in the sand or ignore the voices of the Palestinian Americans in the Democratic Party.”

In Gaza, the U.N. says it will begin vaccinating children against polio by the end of the month, amid fears of a massive outbreak. This comes as Israeli attacks continue to kill besieged Gazans as soldiers ramp up operations in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza and Khan Younis in the south.

Israeli negotiators have returned for more ceasefire talks in Cairo as Israel continues to rebuff Hamas’s demand for Israel’s complete withdrawal from Gaza. On Thursday, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the U.N. Security Council a ceasefire and hostage deal is “now in sight.” Riyad Mansour, Palestine’s U.N. envoy, also addressed the Security Council Thursday.

Riyad Mansour: “Stop the bleeding in Gaza. Impose an immediate ceasefire. Stop the suffering. Protect our children and all our civilians, as international law and our collective humanity demand. End this genocide. End it now.”

Israel has killed over 40,200 Palestinians in Gaza since October 7 and injured over 93,000, though those official tallies are certainly far lower than the true toll.

In the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces killed three Palestinians during an attack Thursday on the Tulkarm refugee camp, where the Israeli military has been conducting near-daily raids. The repeated Israeli assaults have been described as collective punishment, intended to terrorize and dispossess the local population. This is a homeowner in Tulkarm whose house was destroyed during the raid.

Maha Issa: “We are like other people. They say there is a raid and a military operation, so we flee the house, because they usually attack this neighborhood. We went to my brother’s house. While at my brother’s home, we saw on social media that our house was blown up.”

In other news from the occupied West Bank, the Norwegian Refugee Council is calling on the international community to take meaningful action after noting Israeli settler violence has triggered the largest forcible transfer since the weeks just after October 7. The NRC said the ongoing attacks are “occurring in broad daylight under the watching eyes and the protective force of the Israeli military, [and] highlight the unlawfulness of Israel’s presence in the West Bank, as recently ruled by the International Court of Justice.”

The World Food Programme says a small convoy of humanitarian aid trucks has entered Sudan, offering a slight respite to thousands of displaced people facing famine in western Darfur’s Kereinik region. The U.N. convoy comes after the Sudanese military agreed to reopen portions of Sudan’s border with Chad. The Sudanese army had previously allowed only a trickle of aid into Sudan, claiming the rival Rapid Support Forces were using the routes for smuggling weapons.

Back in the U.S., voters in Arkansas will not be weighing in on a ballot measure that would enshrine abortion rights in the state’s constitution, after Arkansas’s Supreme Court rejected a grassroots ballot initiative over a technicality on how signatures were registered. Abortions are currently banned in Arkansas with limited exceptions for severe medical emergencies. The group that gathered the signatures, Arkansans for Limited Government, vowed to keep fighting, saying, “This effort has generated a wave of fiercely engaged Arkansas women. We are outraged. We will not back down. And we will remember this in November.”

The U.S. Supreme Court sided with Arizona Republicans Thursday as it ordered the partial and temporary reinstatement of an Arizona law requiring proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote. The law was first enacted in 2022, triggering legal challenges by the Biden administration and voting rights groups. But the Supreme Court blocked Arizona from putting into effect another part of that law, which could have prohibited tens of thousands of voters who are already registered from participating in the presidential election without proving their U.S. citizenship.

The National Labor Relations Board ruled Thursday Amazon must recognize and bargain with its unionized delivery workers in Palmdale, California, rejecting Amazon’s claims that it is not their main employer since the workers are subcontracted through another company. Delivery workers with the Teamsters union celebrated the ruling.

Delivery worker: “Amazon cannot dodge any responsibility for these low wages anymore, for the safety. Like, it’s so dangerous to work for this company. They can’t hide that anymore. It’s a lot easier for us now. Why? Because now you have to bargain with us. You have to recognize your drivers as union members if they want to organize. Why? Because it’s time. It’s the worker power that we came up with, that we’re fighting and using to, obviously, get what we need. If you are an Amazon driver, an Amazon worker that’s been sitting on the fence, reach out to us. Send us a DM, fill out a form, because It is that time.”

A new report from the Pacific Institute finds a 50% increase over the past year in global water-related violence as a direct result of Israel’s attacks on Gaza and the occupied West Bank. Attacks by Israeli settlers and the Israeli military on Palestinian water supplies accounted for a quarter of all water-related conflicts last year.

U.N. chief António Guterres is warning low-lying Pacific island nations could be wiped off the map due to the worsening climate catastrophe. Guterres spoke from Samoa, where he met with communities forced to move their homes inland to protect from the threat of rising sea levels and increasingly severe weather events.

Secretary-General António Guterres: “Those that lived in these houses had to move their homes further inland because of sea level rise and the multiplication of storms. Sea level rise is accelerating. It’s now the double of what it was in the ’90s. If we are not able to stop what is happening with climate change, this problem that we see in Samoa will not stay in Samoa. It will be happening more and more everywhere, in all coastal areas, from New York to Shanghai, from Lagos to Bangkok.”

Guterres’s visit comes ahead of the 53rd Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting, which he will attend in Tonga next week. Guterres called on wealthier nations to uphold their financing commitments ahead of November’s U.N. climate summit, COP29, in Azerbaijan.

In Bangladesh, massive flooding has killed at least 13 people and displaced or otherwise affected 4.5 million others, as rescuers rush to evacuate flooded communities to safety. Bangladesh is one of the countries most vulnerable to disasters and climate change, according to the Global Climate Risk Index.

In Brazil, firefighters are working to combat blazes in the Amazon, as an intense drought has turned the once-humid environment into kindling. Over half a million residents of the city of Porto Velho in northern Brazil have been breathing in heavy, smoke-filled air.

In more climate change news, a new study points to global heating as the cause of death for billions of crabs that died in the Bering Sea near Alaska in 2022. The findings track with other scientific evidence the Arctic is warming up at a much higher rate than other regions, wreaking havoc for local ecosystems and livelihoods.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is in Ukraine for talks with President Volodymyr Zelensky, just weeks after Modi met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. Modi has called on both parties to “return to peace” as he attempts to push a diplomatic resolution to Russia’s invasion.

This comes amid reports of intense fighting in the eastern Ukrainian town of New York. Putin has accused Ukraine of trying to attack a nuclear plant in Kursk, where Ukrainian forces have been making major advances following its surprise incursion earlier this month.

President Vladimir Putin: “The enemy tried to strike at the Kursk nuclear power station last night. The International Atomic Energy Agency has been informed. They promise to come themselves, to send specialists to assess the situation. I hope that, in the end, this will be done on their part.”

U.N. nuclear agents will visit Russia’s Kursk plant next week.

In Burma, thousands more Rohingya Muslims are being forced to flee as armed groups continue to target communities after seizing control of Burma’s Rakhine state, shelling villages and rounding up men. Many refugees have been forced to escape on boats to seek safety elsewhere. On Sunday, the Rohingya community will mark the seventh anniversary of the Burmese assault that drove hundreds of thousands of Rohingya from their homes.

In education news, the incoming freshman class at MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has a significantly smaller share of Black students following last year’s Supreme Court decision striking down affirmative action in college admissions. The class of 2028 is just 5% Black, versus 13% in prior years. The percentage of Latino students fell from 15% to 11%. MIT President Sally Kornbluth said, “[W]e expected the ruling to pose a serious challenge to sustaining … the diverse mix of students who make MIT the place it is today. Now that the Class of 2028 has enrolled, the impact is clear, and it is concerning.”

In other education news, the president of the University of California has ordered all 10 UC campuses to ban protest encampments, as well as wearing face masks on campus as the new school year kicks off. The order comes months after students at U.S. college campuses set off a nationwide uprising in solidarity with Gaza. Many schools cracked down on the peaceful protests, violently clearing encampments and suspending students who took part in them.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved updated COVID shots for people 12 and older. The FDA accelerated its approval of the mRNA vaccines, produced by Pfizer and Moderna, as U.S. cases this summer soared to their highest level in at least two years. COVID-19 continues to claim hundreds of lives across the U.S. each week.

In more public health news, Thai officials say they’ve confirmed the presence of the new, deadlier strain of mpox in a European patient who recently traveled to Thailand. Thai authorities are now requiring travelers from 42 different countries to undergo testing on arrival. Sweden also confirmed it identified a case of the more contagious and deadlier variant, known as clade 1. Meanwhile, Congolese authorities recently reported over 1,000 new mpox cases in a week as they appeal to the international community for the urgent delivery of vaccines. The World Health Organization earlier this month declared mpox a global public health emergency.