Contributing Writers

The United Nations Security Council has approved an international armed force to address spiraling gang violence in Haiti, where street battles have paralyzed the capital Port-au-Prince since the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in 2021. The U.N. mission, which came at the repeated request of Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry, is being led by Kenya, marking the first deployment of international security forces to Haiti in nearly 20 years. The U.S.

Laphonza Butler was sworn in Tuesday to fill the California Senate seat of the late Senator Dianne Feinstein, who died last week at age 90. This makes Butler the only Black woman currently in the Senate and the first out Black lesbian in Congress — but the appointment also frustrated many progressives who had been pushing for Congressmember Barbara Lee to get the nod.

Democrats united Tuesday to join a revolt by far-right Republicans to oust House Speaker Kevin McCarthy after just nine months on the job. No other speaker in U.S. history has ever been voted out, and the unprecedented development has thrown the House into deeper chaos and ground legislation to a halt. Republican Patrick McHenry of North Carolina has taken up the speaker’s gavel temporarily, but who can unite the party’s fractious caucus remains a mystery.

October is National Domestic Violence Awareness and Prevention Month, and we look at how Black and Brown survivors of domestic abuse are further criminalized by police and prisons — and how activists have been organizing to win their freedom. In her first broadcast interview, we speak with Tracy McCarter, a nurse and grandmother who was jailed after her abusive husband, a white man, died of a stab wound when she defended herself during an altercation.

The newly released Raza Database Project reveals the number of Brown and Black people killed by police in the United States may be more than double the amount that is widely reported. Statistician and demographer Jesus Garcia explains how the team merged data sets from independent research projects on police violence to more accurately determine the ethnicities of victims. These are “terrible numbers to look at,” says Garcia. “The results are stark and bare.

In New Mexico, a 23-year-old gunman wearing a red MAGA hat opened fire last week on Jacob Johns and other Indigenous activists opposing plans to reinstall a statue honoring the 16th century conquistador Juan de Oñate, New Mexico’s first colonial governor. Johns, the prominent climate activist, was airlifted from Española to an Albuquerque hospital and required emergency surgery.

Over 50 years since the United States forced them out in order to build a military base on the island of Diego Garcia, exiled residents of the Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean continue to pressure Britain and the U.S. to pay reparations and apologize for expelling residents. We speak with prominent Chagossian activist Olivier Bancoult, who is visiting the United States to meet with lawmakers and State Department officials. The U.S.

Cuba has released footage showing an individual throwing two Molotov cocktails inside the Cuban Embassy compound in Washington, D.C., last Sunday, condemning it as a terrorist attack. An investigation is underway, but no arrests have been made. Cuba’s Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío says the country is demanding a speedy investigation, adding that it is the latest in a series of attacks against Cuban diplomatic missions in recent years.

October is National Domestic Violence Awareness and Prevention Month, and we look at how Black and Brown survivors of domestic abuse are further criminalized by police and prisons — and how activists have been organizing to win their freedom. In her first broadcast interview, we speak with Tracy McCarter, a nurse and grandmother who was jailed after her abusive husband, a white man, died of a stab wound when she defended herself during an altercation.

California Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, the longest-serving woman to ever serve in the Senate, has died at the age of 90. Feinstein had previously announced plans to retire at the end of this term, sparking an ongoing race to replace her open seat that’s been led by California Congressmembers Barbara Lee, Katie Porter and Adam Schiff.