The United Nations says Israel’s war on Gaza has created a “human-made abyss” that will cost more than $70 billion in reconstruction over several decades. According to the U.N. report, from 2023 to 2024, Gaza’s economy contracted by 87%, leaving a gross domestic product per capita at $161, among the lowest in the world. This comes as Israel repeatedly violates the U.S.-brokered ceasefire. At least 342 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the truce on October 10. Meanwhile, a new study from the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Germany says that the death toll in Gaza likely exceeds 100,000 people — that’s higher than the Palestinian Health Ministry’s count of 69,733 people killed by Israel. According to the study, “Life expectancy in Gaza fell by 44 percent in 2023 and by 47 percent in 2024 compared with what it would have been without the war — equivalent to losses of 34.4 and 36.4 years, respectively.”

Meanwhile, Israel says that it has received another set of human remains from Hamas in Gaza. Israel confirmed that they belonged to hostage Dror Or. This comes as aid agencies are warning that the rainy winter months in Gaza are worsening the humanitarian situation, as officials are scrambling to mitigate the flooding. Nearly all of Gaza’s 2 million residents are displaced and forced into tents or shelters with no proper sewage facilities. Palestinians are forced to dig cesspits for toilets near their tents that are now overflowing with heavy rainfall.

Nourah Karirah: “Inside the tent, children are tripping and falling. There are illnesses everywhere. Look. We’re getting sick. Look at the pot. I’m collecting the water so my children won’t get sick. Do you see? I am taking the water out of my tent so my children won’t get sick. All of this causes disease and spreads bacteria. Look at the hole in the ground. See how they fall and sink into the water?”

In the occupied West Bank, human rights groups are calling on Israel to release Palestinian journalist and activist Ayman Ghrayeb, after he was arrested on November 17 and held incommunicado for days. Israel now plans to hold him under administrative detention without charge or trial. He was reportedly hospitalized after he was transferred from Israeli military custody to the prison system, raising fears he was subjected to torture, like many other Palestinian prisoners.

Brazil’s former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro has started serving his 27-year-and-3-month prison sentence for plotting a coup against Brazil’s current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. During his hearing on Sunday, Bolsonaro blamed medicine-induced “paranoia” that led him to tamper with his ankle monitor while he was under house arrest. Back in September, the Brazilian Supreme Court convicted Bolsonaro and his allies of trying to overturn the results of the 2022 election and assassinate President Lula before he took office. A week after President Lula was sworn in, thousands of Bolsonaro supporters stormed government buildings in the capital Brasília; about 1,500 people were arrested.

President Trump has said he’s sending his envoy Steve Witkoff to Moscow next week to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. This comes as Bloomberg published the transcript of an October 14 phone call in which Witkoff appeared to advise Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s foreign policy adviser, on how to appeal to President Trump, saying, “congratulate the president on this achievement” and “that you respect that he is a man of peace.” Witkoff also suggested that Putin call Trump ahead of a White House visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, a conversation that allowed Putin to persuade Trump against giving Kyiv Tomahawk cruise missiles. Trump followed Putin’s advice and revoked the offer of Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine. The leaked call comes just days after the U.S. presented a 28-point peace plan to end the war in Ukraine, largely reflecting Russian positions.

Louisiana Surgeon General Dr. Ralph Abraham — a skeptic of COVID-19 vaccines who halted the state’s mass inoculation campaign — has been tapped to serve as second in command at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dr. Abraham has been a vocal supporter of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and has said he would support investigating the debunked link between vaccines and autism. Soon after he was named Louisiana’s surgeon general in 2024, Dr. Abraham banned all vaccine promotion and events by the state’s health department. Later that year, Louisiana recorded the worst outbreak of whooping cough in the state in 35 years. In the Louisiana state Legislature, Dr. Abraham backed a bill banning fluoride in public water systems and another bill pushing ivermectin to treat COVID, which has been widely discredited. Dr. Nirav Shah, who served in the CDC under the Biden administration, said that Dr. Abraham “gives Secretary Kennedy some scientific and medical cover for their odious and unscientific beliefs.”

The FBI is investigating the six congressional Democrats who filmed a video message urging members of the military to refuse to carry out unlawful orders by the Trump administration. In a joint statement, Democratic Congressmembers Jason Crow of Colorado, Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire, as well as Chris Deluzio and Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania, wrote, “President Trump is using the FBI as a tool to intimidate and harass Members of Congress. Yesterday, the FBI contacted the House and Senate Sergeants at Arms requesting interviews. No amount of intimidation or harassment will ever stop us from doing our jobs and honoring our Constitution.” Separately, the Pentagon announced that it would investigate Democratic Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, who was also featured in the video, for “serious allegations of misconduct.” Senator Kelly, a former Navy pilot, could be recalled to active duty for a possible court-martial. Senator Kelly is a former astronaut who spent 50 days in space and is married to Gabby Giffords, who was shot in the head in a mass shooting in 2011.

An Iranian academic at the University of Oklahoma has been released from an ICE jail three days after he was taken into custody by federal authorities at an airport in Oklahoma City. Vahid Abedini was flying back after attending a Middle East Studies Association conference in Washington, D.C. He is an assistant professor in Iranian studies and has an H-1B visa to work in the United States. It is unclear why he was detained. The Trump administration has been known to target international students and scholars as part of its immigration crackdown.

Thousands of immigrants could be eligible for bond hearings after a federal judge in California ruled U.S. authorities cannot indefinitely detain them. U.S. District Judge Sunshine Sykes said Trump’s denial of bond hearings is illegal. Her ruling will have a nationwide impact for immigrants who were subjected to the mandatory detention policy while they fight their cases in court.

The Justice Department has admitted that it was Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem who made the decision to deport a group of Venezuelan men to the notorious CECOT mega-prison complex in El Salvador, ignoring a judge’s order to keep them in custody in the United States. The disclosure came in response to demands by U.S. District Judge James Boasberg that the Trump administration name the officials involved in the controversial removal operation, as he’s resumed a criminal contempt inquiry into whether Trump officials violated his March order to halt the deportation flights of Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador. Among those who reportedly advised Noem to ignore Boasberg’s orders were Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and then-Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove.
During her visit to CECOT in March, Noem posed in front of an overcrowded cell as detained men, shirtless, lined up behind her. Several of the Venezuelans sent to CECOT by the Trump administration, who have since been released, described being tortured, as well as sexually and physically abused by guards.

David Huerta, head of Service Employees International Union California, the state’s largest union, has pleaded not guilty to a misdemeanor after he was arrested and accused of obstructing an ICE raid in Los Angeles in June. Prosecutors had initially charged him with a felony, which would have carried a maximum sentence of six years in prison if convicted. David Huerta spoke outside court on Tuesday.

David Huerta: “These charges are baseless. They’re an attempt to silence anyone who dares to speak out, organize or demand justice. I will not be silenced. I look forward to presenting my case and being exonerated. I will continue to stand with you until every worker and every family is safe from raids, separation and fear, and our constitutional rights are protected.”

In Thailand, catastrophic flooding in the south of the country has killed 33 people and displaced more than 2 million people in the past week. The Thai military has sent troops, helicopters and boats to rescue stranded people, some of whom are trapped on roofs and clinging to electrical wires to stay above the flooding. Experts say this year’s monsoon season has been heavier than usual in Southeast Asia due to climate change.

In Nigeria, President Bola Tinubu said that all 24 schoolgirls kidnapped last week in northwest Nigeria have been rescued. More than 300 students and staff from a Catholic boarding school were abducted last Friday. Fifty of the kidnapped students managed to escape over the weekend. This is 13-year-old Stephen Samuel, who escaped the gunmen.

Stephen Samuel: “I ran. He did not see me. I made a run. I started going. I don’t know where I should follow. I don’t know the place that I can follow, but I just — I just described the road that we followed before. I’m going. I’m going, when I met — we met one of our neighbors here, one of our neighbors here. And he saw me. I know him. He knows me. And he now carry me to their house and gave me clothes to wear and then bring me to my house.”

President Trump yesterday turned the annual Thanksgiving holiday turkey pardon into a campaign-style rant against his political enemies and fat-shamed Illinois Governor JB Pritzker. President Trump also again vowed to send federal troops to Chicago.

President Donald Trump: “The mayor is incompetent, and the governor is a big, fat slob. He ought to invite us in, say, 'Please, make Chicago safe.' We’re going to lose a great city if we don’t do it quickly.”

President Trump is reportedly considering a proposal to extend health insurance subsidies under the Affordable Care Act. Divisions over extending the healthcare subsidies were at the heart of the 43-day federal government shutdown, the longest in U.S. history, with Democrats insisting on continuing the subsidies. Millions of people in the U.S. face spiking healthcare costs when the tax credits expire at the end of this year. On Monday, Bishop William Barber gave a eulogy in Raleigh, North Carolina, decrying Trump’s cuts to healthcare, public health funding and other essential government programs.

Bishop William Barber II: “Before they ever passed this bill, 87 million people didn’t have healthcare or were uninsured. Before they ever passed this bill, there were 140 million people who are poor and low-wealth. Before they ever passed this bill, 800 people were dying a day from poverty. We were already in crisis before they passed the bill, and this bill adds to the crisis and destroys more lives.”

Bishop William Barber will join us later in the broadcast to talk about healthcare and ICE raids in North Carolina.