Just after Bradley Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison on Wednesday — and before Manning’s announcement of a gender transition earlier today — independent journalist Alexa O’Brien sat down with Manning’s attorney, David Coombs,

Richard Engel, NBC News chief foreign correspondent, talks with Rachel Maddow about the evidence presented by Syrian rebels that the government there has used chemical weapons against them and the arguments being made over what the evidence shows.

At least 525 people were killed in Egypt on Wednesday when security forces cracked down on two protest camps filled with supporters of ousted President Mohamed Morsi. The Muslim Brotherhood says the actual death toll tops 2,000, and has called new rallies for today.

“Collective trauma” happens to large groups of people — attempted genocide, war, disease, a terrorist attack — and can be transmitted down generations and throughout communities. Its effects are specific: fear, rage, depression, survivor guilt, and physical responses in the brain and body that can lead to illness and a sense of disconnection or detachment...

During the occupation of Iraq, the city of Fallujah bore witness to some of the most intense US combat operations since Vietnam, with 2004’s Operation Phantom Fury widely condemned for its ferocity and disregard for international law. Paediatrician Dr Samira Al’aani has worked in the city since 1997. In 2006 she began to notice an increase in the number of babies being born with congenital birth defects (CBD).

The Obama administration has announced it will keep 19 diplomatic posts in North Africa and the Middle East closed for up to a week, due to fears of a possible militant threat. On Sunday, Senator Saxby Chambliss, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the decision to close the embassies was based on information collected by the National Security Agency.

The US government is openly and actively engaged in a reincarnation of the Cold War. Physical assets such as spies and informants have been replaced with zero-day software exploits and network security analysts. Old-school intelligence gathering, while effective to some degree, pales in comparison with the scope of big-data firms such as Endgame and Palantir.

In a major national security speech this spring, President Obama said again and again that the U.S. is at war with “Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and their associated forces.” So who exactly are those associated forces? It’s a secret.

Humanity has come to a defining moment in its two hundred thousand year evolution: we are at a place where we either have to give up or we have to stand up.Last night, amidst a backdrop of fear-creation by the security state, where you either shut up or face the consequences, my wife and I were talking about standing up to empire and what it might mean.

A leaked Pakistani government report has bolstered claims that civilian casualties from U.S. drone strikes are far higher than the Obama administration has been willing to admit.

A secret document obtained by the Bureau reveals for the first time the Pakistan government’s internal assessment of dozens of drone strikes, and shows scores of civilian casualties.

Whatever your take on the recent revelations about government spying on our phone calls and Internet activity, there’s no denying that Big Brother is bigger and less brotherly than we thought.

About 70 percent of the national intelligence budget is now spent on the private sector. Former NSA Director Michael V. Hayden has described these firms as a quote "digital Blackwater."

Investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill and author Noam Chomsky recently sat down together at Harvard University to discuss Scahill’s groundbreaking new book, "Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield." Amy Goodman hosted the discussion, which was sponsored by the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Harvard Kennedy School and the ACLU of Massachusetts.

A shocking new report by the Pentagon has found that 70 sexual assaults may be taking place within the U.S. military every day.

The United States was dominant in a previously unimaginable way. What could possibly go wrong? What could stand in the way of the greatest power history had ever seen? Rearranging The Deck Chairs On Planet Titanic?

The US President and Congress have involved themselves in one of the most cowardly public displays in US history.

For our national security, the American people must recover control of our runaway, unilateral presidency that has torn itself away from constitutional accountabilities and continues to be hijacked by ideologues who ignore our Founding Fathers’ wisdom regarding the separation of powers...

Because there is no longer a trusted arbiter of the "truth" people are free to believe whatever they believe and hunker into their "silos" and receive only the information that reinforces their preconceptions.

Six days after the U.S. bombed his village, Yemeni activist Farea al-Muslimi testified on Capitol Hill about the terror of the U.S. drone wars. He spoke during the Senate’s first-ever public hearing on the Obama administration’s targeted killing program...

As new details shed light on the lives of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects' lives leading up to the attack, Chris Hayes talks with Maya Berry of the Arab American Institute and former federal prosecutor Ken Ballen about what we should know about the process of violent radicalization.

Chris Hayes and Amy Goodman talk to Jeremy Scahill about his new book "Dirty Wars" and the impact of the administration’s decision on the war on terror at large.

The more we learn about the Boston Marathon bombing, the more reason there is to doubt the wisdom of Obama's drone-heavy approach to fighting terrorism.