Contributing Writers

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.

The city of White Plains, New York, has settled a lawsuit by the family of a man who was shot in his home by police after accidentally pressing his medical alert badge in 2011. Kenneth Chamberlain repeatedly told police he was fine and asked them to leave, but they refused, called him racial slurs and broke into his home before killing him.

After thousands gathered Saturday in Washington, D.C., to mark the 60th anniversary of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s historic “I Have a Dream” speech at the 1963 March on Washington, we speak with Gary Younge, author of The Speech: The Story Behind Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Dream.

On Saturday, a white supremacist gunman killed three Black people at a store in Jacksonville, Florida, in a racially motivated attack. Authorities say the 21-year-old white gunman initially tried to enter the historically Black college Edward Waters University, but he was turned away by a security guard before driving to a nearby Dollar General and opening fire with a legally purchased attack-style rifle.

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.

While being booked for attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election, Donald Trump made history as the first former president to have his mugshot taken and released to the public. Shortly after the image of Trump scowling at a police camera started to circulate, the embattled real estate mogul and politician began using it to raise money for his 2024 presidential campaign.

Former President Donald Trump was booked Thursday at Atlanta’s Fulton County Jail on 13 felony charges for attempting to overturn the 2020 election. He paid $20,000, or 10% of his $200,000 bond, through a local bail bondsman, allowing him to be released after about 20 minutes at the jail. He is expected to face trial as early as October.

The first Republican presidential primary debate highlighted “deep divisions within the Republican Party about foreign policy,” says The Nation’s national affairs correspondent John Nichols. He says the nationalist “America First” ideology championed by former President Donald Trump is now being pushed even further by Vivek Ramaswamy and Ron DeSantis, who are critical of U.S.