Israel’s expanded military offensive in the Gaza Strip has claimed at least 135 lives over the past 24 hours. Among the dead are 87 starving Palestinians killed while seeking aid. Survivors of one of the attacks were taken to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.

Amal al-Mughir: “The guys who were there were waiting for the aid. They told people to go there. They hit young men and women there. They threw bombs on them, live bullets, and most of the injuries here are due to bombs. I came with my friend who was injured, and this man was also injured. We moved him with us here. They should deliver the aid in a proper way to reach us. For example, this torment we saw, we saw the death in all forms.”

In central Gaza, 25 people were crushed to death when a humanitarian aid truck overturned onto a crowd hoping to receive a meal. Gaza officials say Israeli forces have forced drivers to take unsafe routes on delivery runs. Meanwhile, only 85 aid trucks reportedly crossed into Gaza on Tuesday, once again falling far short of the 600 trucks aid organizations say are needed each day to supply Gaza’s basic needs. Gaza’s Health Ministry reports another five people died due to “famine and malnutrition” over the past day, bringing the starvation-related death toll to 193. 

Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott on Tuesday asked the Texas Supreme Court to remove Democratic Caucus Chair Gene Wu from office, after Wu and more than 50 Democratic legislators fled the state to block Republicans from redrawing Texas’s congressional district map. This is Democratic Caucus Chair Wu.

Rep. Gene Wu: “This isn’t my seat. This seat belongs to the people of the state of Texas. Until the people of the state of Texas tell me to go away, I will stay here and fight with everything that I have. This is not about me. This is not about Democrats. This is not about political power. This is about protecting what we believe and love about America.”

This comes as Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn sent a letter to FBI Director Kash Patel to track down and arrest the Democratic state legislators. President Trump was asked about the FBI intervening and said they “may have to.”

Meanwhile, California legislators are pushing through their own redistricting efforts. They’re expected to vote on a new congressional map in the coming days, after which California Governor Gavin Newsom plans to put the proposal to a vote on November 4. 

Rwanda has reached an agreement with the Trump administration to take in immigrants deported from the United States. Rwanda is the third African nation to agree to a similar deal, saying it will receive up to 250 deportees from the U.S., according to Reuters. The U.S. has already deported over a dozen immigrants to South Sudan and Eswatini, formerly known as Swaziland. Advocates have repeatedly warned of human rights and due process violations as Trump intensifies his mass deportation campaign. 

In Florida, a Cuban immigrant has been on hunger strike for over 14 days to protest his detention and inhumane conditions at ICE jails. Pedro Lorenzo Concepción was first jailed at the new detention camp dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” and later transferred to another ICE facility in retaliation for his peaceful action. The 44-year-old was first detained in early July after appearing at a routine ICE appointment. He spoke to the Spanish newspaper El País.

Pedro Lorenzo Concepción: “Since I felt like my life no longer belonged to me, it’s now up to them to decide whether I live or die, because I’m not doing anything by going out onto the streets and continuing to live in this uncertainty, wondering if they’ll come and lock me up for days. They’re not considering the consequences of taking away a person’s freedom.”

As detained people speak out against abusive conditions in federal immigration custody, a monthslong investigation has compiled reports of hundreds of human rights violations at immigration jails nationwide, including physical and sexual abuse, as well as violence against detained children and pregnant people. The probe was led by the office of Georgia Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff. 

Here in New York, new data show ICE has arrested over 2,300 people at federal immigration courthouses and offices since January — a nearly 200% increase from the months before Trump returned to office. That’s according to The New York Times, which detailed how immigrants are summoned to court hearings or appointments with federal agents, only to be ambushed and taken into custody. Advocates have denounced the secrecy surrounding the arrests, and today they launched a protest camp in a public park in Manhattan next to ICE’s office and immigration courthouses at 26 Federal Plaza to demand an end to the crackdown. Democracy Now! was there early this morning.

Ella Weber: “My Name is Ella Weber. We are here at Liberty City setting up for a space for collective mutual aid and community resistance against ICE’s abduction program inside the courts and as they continue to wreak havoc across New York City. We are here located in Foley Square. We’ll be here sunrise to sunset offering mutual aid, art and various resources for immigrant communities that are going inside the courts and looking for resources and support, and also for community members across New York who are interested in getting involved and plugging in and being part of anti-ICE resistance in New York City.”

The Trump administration has launched a pilot program to require some visa applicants to pay bonds of up to $15,000. First to be affected are tourists and business travelers from Zambia and Malawi, who will forfeit the payments if they overstay their visas after a maximum of six months. The Trump administration says it may amend the program to include other countries. 

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Tuesday he’s canceling contracts and funding for 22 vaccines developed using mRNA technology, including the COVID-19 shots that saved millions of lives after their rapid development in 2020. The funding cuts could also impact research into using mRNA to treat other diseases, including cancer. This comes just a week after Senate Democrats launched an investigation into RFK Jr.’s firing of a CDC vaccine advisory panel, replacing them with unqualified appointees, many with anti-vaccine views.

A federal judge has barred the Trump administration from diverting $4.5 billion in disaster relief funds from a landmark program designed to help states protect communities against natural disasters. On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns ordered a preliminary injunction preventing the Trump administration from spending the congressionally appropriated funds meant for the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program, which Trump-appointed FEMA officials dismissed as “wasteful, ineffective and politicized.” 

The Environmental Protection Agency is set to terminate $7 billion in federal grants for low- and moderate-income families seeking to install solar panels on their homes. In response, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders wrote, “I introduced the Solar for All program to slash electric bills for working families by up to 80% — putting money back in the pockets of ordinary Americans, not fossil fuel billionaires. Now, Donald Trump wants to illegally kill this program to protect the obscene profits of his friends in the oil and gas industry. That is outrageous.”

Top Trump officials will gather today at Vice President JD Vance’s house to discuss whether to publish a recording and transcript of Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche’s recent conversation with Jeffrey Epstein’s co-conspirator and convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. 

A lawyer for Annie Farmer, an Epstein survivor, sent a letter to judges in New York saying that Farmer supports the release of grand jury transcripts and that “Transparency is critical to justice, and the public has a legitimate interest in understanding the full scope of Epstein’s and Maxwell’s crimes, particularly where those actions caused lasting harm to others.”

Meanwhile, Maxwell is asking a federal judge in Manhattan to deny the government’s request to unseal grand jury transcripts, and she has also appealed to the Supreme Court to overturn her sex trafficking conviction. 

This comes as the House Oversight Committee has subpoenaed the Justice Department for the Epstein files and has requested depositions from 10 former top officials, including Bill and Hillary Clinton and former FBI Director James Comey. 

And The Daily Beast is reporting that convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was a member of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club, more than a year after he was indicted. According to documents, Epstein was still a member of Trump’s luxury club seven years after he poached Virginia Giuffre from Trump’s spa, which casts doubt on Trump’s version of events, claiming that he cut ties with Epstein after he “stole” female workers from Mar-a-Lago. 

Tennessee has put to death a 68-year-old prisoner who suffered from dementia, brain damage and kidney and heart failure. Witnesses to Tuesday’s execution say Byron Black complained he was “hurting so bad” after prison officials strapped him to a gurney and began injecting him with a lethal dose of pentobarbital. The execution proceeded despite Black’s protests that an implanted device that regulated his heartbeat could deliver painful shocks to revive him during the execution. 

The Trump administration says it will restore a statue of a Confederate general near the U.S. Capitol that was toppled by Black Lives Matter protesters in 2020. The bronze statue of Albert Pike was first erected in 1901. In a statement, Washington, D.C.’s nonvoting congressional delegate, Eleanor Holmes Norton, wrote, “The decision to honor Albert Pike by reinstalling the Pike statue is as odd and indefensible as it is morally objectionable. Pike served dishonorably. He took up arms against the United States, misappropriated funds, and was ultimately captured and imprisoned by his own troops.”

Separately, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Monday he’ll restore another Confederate memorial at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. 

U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff has arrived in Moscow for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin. His visit comes ahead of President Trump’s August 8 deadline for Russia to agree to a ceasefire with Ukraine — or face additional sanctions. The White House says it’s considering imposing new tariffs on countries that purchase Russian oil, including China, Brazil and India. 

On Tuesday, Lithuania’s foreign minister warned of an “alarming spillover of Russia’s aggression” into NATO territory, after a Russian drone packed with explosives violated Lithuanian airspace. Meanwhile, Russian officials warned Monday of the growing risk of nuclear war, after Trump said he’d ordered two nuclear submarines to be redeployed to “the appropriate regions.” A Kremlin spokesperson said, “we believe that everyone should be very, very careful with nuclear rhetoric.”

NASA is planning to put a nuclear reactor on the moon by 2030. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, the former reality TV star who’s currently the acting director of NASA, issued the directive to designate a leader for the program and get input from private industry in 60 days. A senior NASA official told Politico, “This is about winning the space race.”

Japan is marking 80 years since the United States dropped the first nuclear weapon ever used in war on the city of Hiroshima. Bells rang out at a sunrise ceremony at Hiroshima’s Peace Park, honoring the 140,000 people killed by the U.S. bombing on August 6, 1945. Three days later, at least 70,000 people died when the U.S. dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki. We’ll have more on the 80th anniversary of the U.S. nuclear attacks later in the broadcast.