Contributing Writers

We speak to a fire scientist about how the climate emergency fueled this week’s historic wildfires on the Hawaiian island of Maui. “This is something that is absolutely unprecedented,” says Clay Trauernicht, a professor in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Management, University of Hawaii at Mānoa, where he focuses on wildland fire management in Hawaii and the Pacific.

In Lahaina, the area in west Maui that is of historical importance to Indigenous people, entire neighborhoods were wiped out by this week’s historic wildfires, including the Na ‘Aikane o Maui Cultural Center, which had a massive archive that was lost to the flames. We are joined by Noelani Ahia, a Kanaka Maoli activist, who describes the community’s reaction to the destruction of Indigenous cultural documents, art and artifacts.

We speak with Kaniela Ing, national director of the Green New Deal Network and seventh-generation Kanaka Maoli, Native Hawaiian, about the impact of this week’s devastating wildfires and their relationship to climate change. The catastrophic fires have destroyed nearly all buildings in the historic section of Lahaina, which once served as the capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom.

From Maui, we hear from a survivor of Hawaii’s historic wildfires, which have taken at least 55 lives to date. Vixay Phonxaylinkham, a resident of California, was on vacation with his wife and five children when they had to jump into the ocean to escape the raging fires and floated on a piece of wood for hours. “We stuck together. We held on. We’re not going to die this way. We’re here. We’re alive,” said Phonxaylinkham.

Porcha Woodruff was eight months pregnant when Detroit police mistakenly arrested her for robbery and carjacking based on a faulty facial recognition match. She was held in jail for 11 hours, where she started having contractions, and had to be taken to the hospital upon her release on a $100,000 bond. “Being under that type of stress could have ultimately led me to lose my child,” says Woodruff.

As the world marks 78 years since the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we speak with two activists arrested while protesting the placement of U.S. nuclear weapons in the Netherlands, Germany and other European countries as a violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty for NATO’s so-called nuclear sharing program.

We speak with Ukrainian peace activist Yurii Sheliazhenko, whom Ukrainian authorities have charged with justifying Russian aggression, days after his Kyiv apartment was raided and searched. Sheliazhenko is executive secretary of the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement and has vocally opposed any escalation of the conflict, calling for a ceasefire and peace talks to end the war.

West African leaders from ECOWAS, backed by the United States and France, met today to consider military action to restore the ousted Niger President Mohamed Bazoum following last month’s military coup. Neighboring Mali and Burkina Faso have threatened that any intervention in Niger would amount to a declaration of war on them, as well. This comes as leaders of the coup in Niger have appointed a 21-member cabinet as they forge ahead with building a new government.

A federal lawsuit brought by Iraqi torture survivors appears finally headed to trial after a federal judge refused to dismiss the case last week. The Iraqis are suing the U.S. military contractor CACI, which provided interrogators at Abu Ghraib, the notorious Iraqi prison where the men were tortured by U.S. guards. The lawsuit, which alleges CACI was complicit in that torture, was first filed in 2008. Since then, CACI has attempted 18 times to have the case dismissed.

Porcha Woodruff was eight months pregnant when Detroit police mistakenly arrested her for robbery and carjacking based on a faulty facial recognition match. She was held in jail for 11 hours, where she started having contractions, and had to be taken to the hospital upon her release on a $100,000 bond. “Being under that type of stress could have ultimately led me to lose my child,” says Woodruff.

Six white former police officers in Mississippi who called themselves the “Goon Squad” have pleaded guilty to raiding a home on false drug charges and torturing two Black men while yelling racist slurs at them, and then trying to cover it up. We speak with Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker about how, on January 24, six deputies in Braxton, Mississippi, raided the home they were staying in and attacked them, and how they are speaking out to demand justice.

Voters in Ohio overwhelmingly rejected a Republican attempt to restrict abortion rights on Tuesday. The supermajority of Republicans in the Ohio Legislature had pushed for a ballot initiative that would have made it harder to amend the state constitution ahead of the November election, when voters will decide if the right to an abortion should be enshrined in the Ohio Constitution. A majority of Ohio voters support the right to abortion.