Contributing Writers

A major New York Times investigation reveals how the United States’ aquifers are becoming severely depleted due to overuse in part from huge industrial farms and sprawling cities. The Times reports that Kansas corn yields are plummeting due to a lack of water, there is not enough water to support the construction of new homes in parts of Phoenix, Arizona, and rivers across the country are drying up as aquifers are being drained far faster than they are refilling.

As Hurricane Idalia left a wake of destruction Wednesday, President Joe Biden said, “I don’t think anybody can deny the impact of the climate crisis anymore.” Climate activist and scientist Peter Kalmus calls for Biden to declare a climate emergency in order to unleash the government’s ability to transition away from fossil fuels. “The public just doesn’t understand, in my opinion, what a deep emergency we are in,” says Kalmus.

Military leaders in Gabon seized power on Wednesday shortly after reigning President Ali Bongo had been named the winner of last week’s contested election. Bongo and his family have led the country for close to 60 years, during which they have been accused of enriching themselves at the expense of the country.

We go with Democracy Now! correspondent Juan Carlos Dávila to the Dominican Republic, where many Haitian migrants and their descendants work on sugar plantations under conditions amounting to forced labor and live in heavily underresourced communities known as bateyes. Many bateyes do not have electricity or running water.

We continue our discussion with Congressmember Greg Casar of Texas about U.S. policy in Latin America by looking at one of its long-term effects: migration to the U.S. As people flee instability in their home countries brought about by U.S. trade and military policy, U.S. border authorities have implemented increasingly dangerous measures to stop migrants from traveling safely, including a deadly floating barrier of circular saw blades in the Rio Grande.

We speak to Congressmember Greg Casar of Texas, who has just returned from a congressional trip to meet with newly left-leaning governments in Brazil, Colombia and Chile ahead of the 50th anniversary of the U.S.-backed Chilean coup, which overthrew democratically elected President Salvador Allende and installed a 17-year military dictatorship led by Augusto Pinochet.

The Biden administration has taken a major step to rein in price gouging for prescription drugs in the United States. Medicare will now be able to negotiate prices on 10 of the most expensive drugs used to treat diabetes, cancer, heart disease and more. That list is set to expand over the years. In what’s seen as a blow to Big Pharma, the White House says the move, a part of the Inflation Reduction Act, will benefit more than 9 million people in the U.S.

Congressmember Maxwell Frost of Florida says this weekend’s shooting in Jacksonville, carried out by a white supremacist who targeted Black people at a dollar store, did not happen in isolation. He points to Republican efforts to loosen gun laws and racist rhetoric from party leaders as part of the problem of far-right violence.

As the Jacksonville community mourns the loss of three people killed Saturday in a racist shooting, more details are emerging about the white supremacist who went to a Dollar General store looking to target Black people before killing himself. Authorities say he left behind a suicide note and other writings outlining his racist ideology. The 21-year-old gunman had legally bought the two weapons he used in the shooting, including an AR-15-style rifle marked with swastikas.

We continue to look at Donald Trump’s mounting legal battles with constitutional law professor Anthony Michael Kreis. Trump’s federal trial for election interference is set to begin in Washington, D.C., in March, but his legal team argued this week for a two-year delay, citing the case of the Scottsboro Boys, nine young Black men who were falsely accused of raping a white woman and convicted in a rushed trial before the Supreme Court ultimately intervened.

A judge on Monday set Donald Trump’s federal trial for plotting to overturn the 2020 election to begin in Washington, D.C., on March 4 — at the height of the presidential primary season and one day before Super Tuesday. Meanwhile, Trump’s former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows testified before a federal judge in Georgia on Monday as part of an effort to move his trial from state to federal court.

Tennessee’s Republican-dominated state Legislature is still facing public outcry over the state’s permissive gun laws in the wake of Nashville’s Covenant School shooting, which killed three 9-year-old children and three adult staff members in March. Since then, the state House, under the control of Republican House Speaker Cameron Sexton, has censured its own representatives and deployed state troopers to crack down on public participation.