The ceasefire in Gaza has entered its second day. On Sunday, Hamas released three Israeli women who had been held captive for 471 days, since October 7, 2023. All three were reported to be in stable condition as they reunited with their families. Israel released 90 Palestinian prisoners — all women and children, the youngest being 15 years old. Under the terms of the ceasefire deal, Hamas will release 30 more Israeli captives, and Israel will release 1,890 Palestinians over the next six weeks.

This comes as thousands of displaced Palestinians in Gaza have begun trying to return home now that Israel’s 15-month bombing campaign has ended. Amal Abu Eita returned to her home in the Jabaliya refugee camp to find nothing but rubble.

Amal Abu Eita: “We will try to close this door and stay here. Where should we go? Where should we go? Our home is gone. Our situation is destroyed. Where can we go? Ten children, where should I go with them in the tents? Where should I go with them on the streets? We are trying to find a piece to shelter in. What is our situation? The same as all Arabs. This is what eases our pain a little, knowing that our situation is like that of the rest of the Arabs.”

The ceasefire went into effect on Sunday after Israel’s Cabinet approved the deal. Israel’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, resigned from Netanyahu’s Cabinet in protest.

On Saturday, Netanyahu said Israel reserves the right to resume attacks on Gaza.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: “Both President Trump and President Biden gave full backing to Israel’s right to return to fighting if Israel reaches the conclusion that negotiations of the second stage is fruitless. I appreciate it very much. … If we need to resume fighting, we will do that in new ways, and we will do it with great force.”

Israel killed about 200 Palestinians after the ceasefire was first agreed to on Wednesday. We will have more on the Gaza ceasefire after headlines.

President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance are being sworn in today inside the Capitol Rotunda. The inaugural ceremony was moved inside for the first time since 1985 due to cold weather. Attendees at the inauguration include tech billionaires Elon Musk, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google’s Sundar Pichai.

On Sunday, Trump held a rally at the Capital One Arena, where he vowed to spend his first day back in the White House issuing a blitz of executive orders.

President-elect Donald Trump: “We’re going to stop the invasion of our borders. We’re going to reclaim our wealth. We’re going to unlock the liquid gold that’s right under our feet. Liquid gold. We’re going to bring back law and order to our cities. We’re going to restore patriotism to our schools, get radical left woke ideologies the hell out of our military and out of our government. And we are going to make America great again.”

It’s expected Trump will issue about 50 executive orders today after he’s inaugurated. On Saturday, thousands of people gathered in Washington for a “People’s March” to protest Trump’s inauguration. Three hundred other marches were held across the country. We will air excerpts from the D.C. protest later in the show.

Immigrant communities across the United States are fearing the coming days as Trump has threatened to begin carrying out mass deportations. Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, had said Chicago would be “ground zero” for the initial raids, but he has since walked back his comment. Jose Muñoz is co-chair of the Illinois Latino Agenda.

Jose Muñoz: “Individuals and families are worried about what potentially could happen, and they’re worried about deportation. But the biggest blow to our community is living in fear. You know, when communities are living in fear, they don’t go to work. They don’t go to school. Long term, that has an impact not just on the immigrant communities, but it has an impact on our entire city and entire country as a whole, because we rely on immigrant labor. We have our growth, our population. Our consumers, a very large portion of them are immigrants that are coming into the U.S. And so, when they’re in fear, it impacts all of us.”

On Friday, Donald Trump launched his own cryptocurrency, which quickly soared to nearly $12 billion in value. Ethics experts questioned the legality of the move, which has already dramatically increased Trump’s wealth by billions of dollars — at least on paper. Adav Noti of the Campaign Legal Center told The New York Times, “It is literally cashing in on the presidency … It is beyond unprecedented.” On Sunday, Trump’s wife Melania also launched her own cryptocurrency. This comes as Donald Trump has vowed to deregulate the cryptocurrency sector.

The popular social media app TikTok is accessible again in the United States after Trump vowed to issue an executive order to delay a ban on the app, which is used by 170 million people in the United States. The app became briefly inaccessible in the U.S. over the weekend after the Supreme Court unanimously upheld a federal law to ban TikTok starting January 19 unless its Chinese parent company ByteDance sold it to a U.S. buyer. Trump has proposed that the U.S. government or a U.S. firm take a 50% stake in the company. TikTok chief executive Shou Zi Chew is scheduled to attend Trump’s inauguration today.

Earlier today, on his last day in office, President Biden issued preemptive pardons for Dr. Anthony Fauci, retired General Mark Milley and members and staff of the January 6 House committee, including Liz Cheney, to protect them from possible investigations by the incoming administration. In a statement, Biden said, “The issuance of these pardons should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment that any individual engaged in any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offense. Our nation owes these public servants a debt of gratitude for their tireless commitment to our country.”

On Sunday, Biden issued five other pardons, including one for the late Pan-Africanist and Black nationalist leader Marcus Garvey, who was convicted of mail fraud in the 1920s. Biden also pardoned the New York-based immigrant rights leader Ravi Ragbir, who spoke to Democracy Now! on Sunday night.

Ravi Ragbir: “This has meant a lot for my family and myself, because it stops the continued punishment that I have faced throughout the last two decades, where I every day was uncertain because I faced the possibility of deportation. In fact, in 2018, ICE made a concerted effort to kidnap me and with the intention to deport me. And it’s only because of community support that I’m still standing.”

Click here to see our last interview with Ravi Ragbir.
Biden also pardoned gun violence prevention advocate Darryl Chambers, Virginia House Speaker Don Scott and criminal justice reform advocate Kemba Smith Pradia.

President Biden on Friday declared the Equal Rights Amendment is now “the law of the land.”

President Joe Biden: “Today, I affirm the Equal Rights Amendment to have cleared all the necessary hurdles to be added to the U.S. Constitution now. The Equal Rights Amendment is the law of the land now. It’s the 28th Amendment to the Constitution now!”

The announcement drew celebration — and confusion. A White House official clarified Biden’s statements represented his opinion that the ERA was ratified, though never codified in the Constitution, but that he was not issuing any sort of accompanying executive action. Advocates say Biden could have taken a further step and ordered the National Archives to publish the amendment and enter it officially in the Constitution, a move which would have triggered a legal battle with Republicans.

The Biden administration has declassified details on how the United States secretly helped develop Ukraine’s drone program. The New York Times reports the U.S. funded the effort and sent intelligence officers to Ukraine to help build the drones, which have been used to attack and spy on Russia.

In Iran, a gunman assassinated two high-profile judges who served on Iran’s Supreme Court. The attack took place at the Palace of Justice in Tehran on Saturday. Both of the judges were clerics who had faced threats before for their role in the mass execution of Iranian dissidents in 1988.

Colombian authorities estimate more than 80 people were killed over three days in northeast Colombia as fighting broke out between the National Liberation Army, known as the ELN, and former members of FARC amid failed peace talks. Thousands of people have fled Colombia’s Catatumbo region as a result. FARC disarmed under a 2016 peace deal, but a number of its former members remain active or have joined other armed groups. The government of President Gustavo Petro, who has vowed to end such violence in Colombia, has suspended talks with the ELN, which it accused of “war crimes.”

The U.S. Justice Department has filed a lawsuit against Walgreens for its role in fueling the deadly opioid epidemic. The lawsuit accuses Walgreens of knowingly rushing to fill millions of unlawful prescriptions, including “dangerous and excessive quantities” of opioids starting in 2012.

Atlanta residents are demanding accountability after city workers killed Cornelius Taylor, an unhoused man, by bulldozing over him as they cleared an encampment near the Ebenezer Baptist Church ahead of MLK Day celebrations. Witnesses say the workers did not check the tents beforehand to make sure they were empty. The group Housing Justice League said the sweep was part of an effort to present a “false, sanitized vision of Atlanta,” adding, “Everyone deserves to live in dignity.”

The leadership of the American Historical Association has vetoed a “resolution to oppose scholasticide in Gaza” that was overwhelmingly backed by members of the AHA earlier this month. The group Historians for Palestine accused AHA leadership of “pandering to the political class,” adding, “The AHA is our organization. We urge historians to recognize this anti-democratic silencing as complicity in scholasticide.” To learn more about the resolution, click here to see our interview with two AHA members.