Israel’s unrelenting slaughter in Gaza has killed at least 55 Palestinians so far today, including children. This comes as Gaza’s doctors are warning of even more imminent deaths as hospitals run out of fuel due to Israel’s illegal blockade. This is Dr. Muhammad Abu Salmiyah, director of Al-Shifa Hospital.

Dr. Muhammad Abu Salmiyah: “We have 13 patients in intensive care, most of them on ventilators, and we have around 100 premature babies in Gaza City hospitals whose lives are in serious risk. … Oxygen stations will stop working. A hospital without oxygen is no longer a hospital. The lab and blood banks will shut down. The blood units in the refrigerators will spoil. … The hospital will cease to be a place of healing and will become a graveyard for those inside.”

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Education Ministry reports at least 18,243 students and school staff have been killed and more than 31,000 others wounded in Gaza and the occupied West Bank since October of 2023.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu left Washington, D.C., Wednesday after two days of meetings with President Trump and congressional leaders. Netanyahu’s departure came without any announcement of a Gaza ceasefire deal. President Trump said after the talks there is a “very good chance” Israel and Hamas would agree to a deal on a 60-day truce in the next two weeks. But Hamas officials say several obstacles remain, including guarantees of a lasting ceasefire, a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces, and the free flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza.

The Trump administration has imposed sanctions on U.N. special rapporteur Francesca Albanese over her report naming dozens of companies she found have been profiting from Israeli occupation and genocide in Gaza. Amnesty International blasted the sanctions against Albanese as a “shameless and transparent attack on the fundamental principles of international justice.” Francesca Albanese will join us later in the broadcast.

Israel says it intercepted a missile strike by Yemen’s Houthi group targeting Ben Gurion Airport earlier today. This comes as Houthi fighters escalate their attacks on Israel over its war on Gaza. A Houthi strike on a Red Sea commercial vessel Tuesday is now believed to have killed four people, with 11 people missing, six of whom are believed to be in Houthi hands.

A new ship from the Freedom Flotilla Coalition is planning to set sail from Italy Sunday in hopes of breaking the siege on Gaza. Chris Smalls, founder of Amazon’s first U.S. labor union, has announced he’ll join the journey aboard an aid ship named the Handala. Meanwhile, a Spanish passenger who traveled on the Madleen last month has filed a war crimes complaint against Israel over its violent raid on June 8 of the Gaza-bound aid ship while in international waters.

President Trump said Wednesday the U.S. would impose a 50% tariff on copper imports beginning August 1, as he threatened a new wave of tariffs on seven more countries. These include tariffs of 20% on the Philippines and 30% for Libya and Iraq, unless they can make a deal with his White House before the end of the month. With the latest threats, Trump has given 22 countries until the end of July to make a deal.

Trump slapped the steepest levy on Brazil, partly in retribution for what Trump called a “witch hunt” against former President Jair Bolsonaro, who’s currently facing trial for attempting a coup after losing the election to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 2022. In response, President Lula rejected any “interference or threats” by the U.S.

Only two countries so far — Vietnam and the U.K. — have struck trade deals with Trump ahead of his August 1 deadline. The EU this week said it hopes to agree on a deal “in the coming days.”

On Wednesday, President Trump met with leaders of five African nations he said were likely to be spared by tariffs: Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mauritania and Senegal. During a working lunch, Trump praised Liberian President Joseph Boakai for speaking “such good English.”

President Donald Trump: “Where did you learn to speak so beautifully? Where were you educated? Where? In Liberia?”

President Joseph Boakai: “Yes, sir.”

President Donald Trump: “Well, that’s very interesting. That’s beautiful English.”

English is the official language of Liberia.

Russia launched a barrage of hundreds of drones and missiles at Ukraine’s capital overnight, killing at least two people and wounding 16 others. The attack sparked fires across Kyiv with damage to residences, vehicles and warehouses. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the bombardment “a clear escalation of terror” by Moscow.

Meanwhile, CNN has revealed that Donald Trump told a private gathering of wealthy donors last year that he once sought to deter Russian President Vladimir Putin from attacking Ukraine by threatening to “bomb the [blank] out of Moscow” — though Trump used an expletive. The revelation came in audiotapes recorded at fundraisers in New York and Florida.

President Donald Trump: “With Putin I said, 'If you go into Ukraine, I'm going to bomb the shit out of Moscow. I’m telling you I have no choice.’”

Trump claimed he made a similar threat to Chinese President Xi Jinping over a potential invasion of Taiwan, saying the U.S. was prepared to bomb Beijing.

In immigration news, the bishop of San Bernardino in Southern California has told his diocese of 1 million Roman Catholic parishioners that they can skip Mass on Sundays over fears of federal immigration raids.

In Arizona, immigration courts have begun distributing flyers warning immigrants to “self-deport.” The documents are written in English and Spanish and produced by the Justice Department. They appear to target immigrants without lawyers and have even been presented to people who’ve won their immigration cases.

Advocates are demanding the release of a Phoenix musician and artist with cancer who’s been jailed by ICE for five months, even though she’s a lawful permanent resident who’s lived in the U.S. for over 25 years. Arbella “Yari” Rodríguez Márquez has languished at the Eloy Detention Center since February, when she was detained by immigration authorities on her way back from Mexico and stripped of her residency by an immigration judge. Her partner says Yari has lost 55 pounds due to inadequate medical care. She said, “I am worried that if she is not released, Yari will be the next death in Eloy Detention Center.”

Community leaders and officials in Chicago have condemned the presence of federal immigration agents at the city’s National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture Tuesday. The museum is scheduled to host an arts festival over the weekend amid mounting fears ICE could target the event, as well as other upcoming cultural events celebrating Chicago’s Latinx communities. We’ll have more on this story after headlines.

The Supreme Court has refused to allow Florida to enforce a state law making it a crime for undocumented immigrants to enter or remain in Florida. Wednesday’s brief, unsigned order leaves in place a U.S. district judge’s ruling blocking Florida from allowing local police officers to arrest people based on their immigration status. The American Civil Liberties Union welcomed the Supreme Court’s order, writing, “This ruling affirms what the Constitution demands — that immigration enforcement is a federal matter and that no one should be stripped of their liberty without due process.”

Another searing heat wave is gripping Europe, the third so far this season. On Tuesday, Greek authorities closed the Acropolis to visitors and barred outdoor work as temperatures soared. Firefighters have been battling wildfires in Greece, Spain and France, as well as in Turkey and Syria. In the southern French city of Marseilles, fires injured at least 100 people and temporarily forced the international airport to shut down. This is a Marseilles resident whose home was damaged.

Pascale Reigner: “We only have one planet. France behaves as if we have two and a half, even though we only have one. So we have to change our way of living. We have to change our mindset. We have to learn wisdom, because we are currently scheduling our end. And there is everything else that we do not see here, the squirrels, all the animals that I saw every day, which are dead, and which will take decades to come back, if they come back at all. This is also an ecocide.”

A report this week found some 2,300 people died of heat-related causes across 12 European cities during the last heat wave that started at the end of June. Scientists attributed 1,500 of those deaths directly to the climate crisis.

In Kenya, the death toll from a major anti-government protest on Monday has risen to at least 31 people. More than 100 others were injured and over 530 arrested amid the police crackdown. Monday’s rally marked the 35th anniversary of a pro-democracy uprising and came as part of ongoing demonstrations over police brutality and corruption, with protesters demanding President William Ruto step down. President Ruto on Wednesday said police are free to shoot protesters in the legs.

Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, has announced an end to the group’s armed struggle against Turkey, and a full transition to “democratic politics.” Öcalan’s message came in a previously recorded video which was released Wednesday.

Abdullah Öcalan: “The PKK movement and its national liberation strategy, which emerged as a reaction to the denial of the existence of the Kurds and thus aimed at setting up a separate state, has been dissolved. The existence of the Kurds has been recognized; therefore, the basic aim has been achieved. … What has been done is a voluntary transition from the phase of armed struggle to the phase of democratic politics and law. This is not a loss, but it has to be regarded as a historical gain.”

This follows Abdullah Öcalan’s historic call in February for the PKK to disarm. The PKK was founded in 1978 and launched an insurgency against Turkey in 1984 but later renounced its separatist goals. The 40-year conflict is estimated to have killed more than 40,000 people.