The World Health Organization is warning Gaza is suffering from man-made mass starvation caused by Israel’s blockade. The WHO’s Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus spoke on Wednesday.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus: “As you know, mass starvation means starvation of a large proportion of a population. And a large proportion of the population of Gaza is starving. I don’t know what you would call it, other than mass starvation. And it’s man-made, and that’s very clear. And this is because of blockade, and, I have said it in my statement, more than 80 days of blockade straight. And then, of course, there is opening now, but it’s not enough. It’s just a trickle, and people are starving.”

Health officials in Gaza say at least 113 Palestinians have starved to death, including 45 over the past four days. Gaza officials say a half-million bags of flour are needed each week to “avoid a comprehensive humanitarian collapse.” Doctors Without Borders, Save the Children and Oxfam issued a statement saying their staff and the people they serve in Gaza are “wasting away.”

The BBC, Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse have called on Israel to allow journalists in and out of Gaza. In a statement, the news outlets said, “We are desperately concerned for our journalists in Gaza, who are increasingly unable to feed themselves and their families. For many months, these independent journalists have been the world’s eyes and ears on the ground in Gaza. They are now facing the same dire circumstances as those they are covering.”

Doctors and medical staff in Gaza told The Guardian that the lack of food has left them weak and depleted their physical health, making it difficult to provide urgent medical care for their suffering patients.

In Khan Younis, one mother, Najah Barbakh, talked about the plight of her malnourished daughter.

Najah Barbakh: “Since I delivered her, she has been small, and she doesn’t grow up. Her condition gets worse in the hospital. And every time I go home, I find her becoming more and more weak. Her nerves are weak, and she doesn’t sit properly. Babies like her, in her age of 11 months, should sit up straight. She should be 11 or 10 kilograms minimum. My daughter can’t sit straight or play with her siblings. She stays lying on her back, and that’s all.”

Israel’s Knesset has overwhelmingly approved a nonbinding motion to annex the occupied West Bank. The Palestinian Authority condemned the move. This is Ahmed al-Deek, the political adviser of the Palestinian minister for foreign affairs.

Ahmed al-Deek: “The Israeli government is waging a daily war against the possibility of establishing a Palestinian state. For us, this is another face of what is happening in the Gaza Strip, a war of extermination and displacement.”

The vote came as Israeli troops raided multiple areas across the West Bank. Israeli forces killed two Palestinian teenage boys and arrested at least 25 people.

The International Court of Justice ruled Wednesday that states have an obligation to cut greenhouse gas emissions to protect Earth’s climate and that failing to do so may be a violation of international law. The court also found that a healthy and sustainable environment is a precondition for the enjoyment of rights enshrined in human rights treaties, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Climate campaigners welcomed Wednesday’s ruling as an historic victory. This is Vishal Prasad, an organizer with the group Pacific Island Students Fighting Climate Change.

Vishal Prasad: “For small island states, communities in the Pacific and for young people and for future generations, this opinion is a lifeline and an opportunity to protect all that we hold dear and all that we love. This ruling is also a testament to the resolve of people everywhere, those at the frontlines who chose not to allow the decisions of a minority of countries to dictate the future of the global majority. Instead, this advisory opinion today provides us a foundation to build a better, sustainable and more equitable future for all of us.”

We’ll have more on the World Court’s historic ruling later in the broadcast.

The Trump administration has drafted a plan to strip the Environmental Protection Agency of the power to combat the climate crisis. The draft EPA rule change rescinds a 2009 declaration known as the “endangerment finding” that allows the EPA to regulate dangerous greenhouse gas pollution under the Clean Air Act.

The Wall Street Journal has revealed that the Justice Department informed President Trump back in May that his name appeared several times in documents related to Jeffrey Epstein, the dead serial sex trafficker who was a longtime friend of Trump’s.

The news broke as Trump faces mounting pressure from both Republicans and Democrats to disclose more information about Epstein. On Wednesday, a House Oversight Committee panel voted to subpoena the Justice Department for the Epstein files. Three Republicans voted alongside five Democrats.

The committee also voted to subpoena Epstein’s former associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence for conspiring with Epstein to sexually abuse minors. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche is reportedly meeting with Maxwell today.

Meanwhile, a federal judge in Florida denied a Trump administration request to unseal grand jury transcripts from a probe into Epstein.

Columbia has agreed to pay a $200 million settlement to the Trump administration, which accused the university of failing to protect Jewish students during campus protests against Israel’s assault on Gaza. Columbia will also pay $21 million to settle investigations brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, by agreeing to end the consideration of race in admissions and hiring. The settlements will restore hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of canceled or frozen grants from the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Health and Human Services. As part of the deal, Columbia commits to appointing a senior provost to oversee the Middle Eastern studies department, will further crack down on campus protests and will appoint three dozen new security officers with arrest powers. The settlement was announced a day after Columbia informed nearly 80 students that they had been suspended for one to three years — or expelled — for participating in campus antiwar protests.

On Tuesday, one of the suspended students spoke to Democracy Now! They requested to remain anonymous out of fear of doxxing and further retaliation.

Suspended Columbia student: “While the sanctions came suddenly, the results were, frankly, not a surprise. After nearly two years of organizing under a fascist university wholly supporting and funding the genocide of the Palestinian people, we are really under no illusions about Columbia’s intentions or function as a killing machine in Harlem and Palestine. There is no honor in being part of Columbia’s genocidal mission, and I am not and will not ever be ashamed for being suspended for protesting for the liberation of Palestine and the liberation of us all.”

The Trump administration has launched an investigation into five universities for providing scholarships to undocumented immigrants enrolled in the Obama-era DACA program. The probe by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights accuses the universities of granting “exclusionary scholarships referencing foreign-born students.” It targets the University of Louisville, the University of Nebraska Omaha, the University of Miami, the University of Michigan and Western Michigan University.

The announcement came soon after the State Department said it was also investigating Harvard University’s eligibility to sponsor international students and researchers.

A federal appeals court in California has ruled President Trump’s attempts to end birthright citizenship is unconstitutional, bringing the case closer to the U.S. Supreme Court. In the majority opinion, two judges on the 9th Circuit wrote Trump’s executive order “contradicts the plain language of the 14th Amendment’s grant of citizenship to 'all persons born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.'”

Venezuela has announced plans to investigate several Salvadoran officials, including President Nayib Bukele, over the mistreatment of 252 Venezuelans who were jailed in El Salvador’s CECOT prison after being expelled from the United States. The Venezuelan men reported they were beaten, sexually assaulted and tortured. On Wednesday, one of the men, Andry Hernández, a gay makeup artist, spoke out after being reunited with his family in Venezuela.

Andry Hernández Romero: “On May 23rd, 2024, I left my house with a suitcase full of dreams, with dreams of helping my people, of helping my family. Unfortunately, that suitcase of dreams turned into a suitcase of nightmares, a nightmare that I thought would never end. But today I can say that the torture and that the nightmare are over, and I am happy again.”

A federal judge in Tennessee ruled Wednesday that Kilmar Abrego Garcia should be freed from criminal detention while awaiting trial on what advocates say are trumped-up federal human smuggling charges. However, Abrego Garcia will remain behind bars for at least 30 more days, at the request of his lawyers, who fear the Trump administration might seek to quickly remove him from the U.S. once he’s released.

Separately, a federal judge ordered that Abrego García should be returned to his home state of Maryland, where he would be granted at least three days’ advance notice of any attempt to deport him again. The Trump administration has admitted it wrongfully sent Abrego Garcia to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison in March, where his attorneys say he was brutally beaten and tortured.

In other immigration news, the Trump administration is planning to spend over $1.2 billion to build a massive 5,000-bed immigration jail at the Fort Bliss Army base in Texas. The tent facility would be the largest immigration facility in the country.

At least 12 people, including two children, have been killed in clashes along the border separating Thailand from Cambodia. In response, Thailand closed border crossings and relocated 40,000 civilians, while Cambodia downgraded its ties to Thailand. The Thai-Cambodia border has been disputed for nearly a century, resulting from France’s colonization of the region.

The State Department is working up plans to shut down PEPFAR, the federal program to combat HIV in the Global South. The New York Times obtained planning documents showing the State Department wants to transition countries away from U.S. assistance, in some cases within two years. PEPFAR is often cited as one of the most effective public health campaigns in history, saving about 26 million lives over two decades after it was created by Republican President George W. Bush.

President Trump has signed a series of executive orders deregulating the artificial intelligence industry, while also requiring companies to develop models free of “ideological dogmas such as DEI.” Before signing the orders, Trump decried the “woke Marxist lunacy in the AI models.” The ACLU blasted the executive orders, writing, “President Trump’s attempt to restrict state AI regulations is not only harmful, it raises serious legal questions as the president is acting beyond any statute passed by Congress.”

The Supreme Court has given President Trump the green light to fire three Biden-appointed members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission. The independent federal agency establishes safety standards for products such as toys and cribs for children. In a 6-3 vote, the justices granted the Trump administration’s request to block a lower court order which would have allowed the three Democrats to remain on the commission.