Contributing Writers

As wildfire smoke fills the skies and record heat waves cook much of North America, Canadian climate activist Tzeporah Berman says governments need to be pushed to phase out fossil fuels more rapidly. “We need people to stand up to this industry. We need activism to protest in the streets, to demand our governments stand up to this industry. And we also need international cooperation,” says Berman.

After the Wagner Group’s aborted mutiny in Russia, the Biden administration has imposed new sanctions on companies accused of profiting from the activities of the Wagner Group in Africa. This comes as Russian military police raided Wagner mercenary bases in Syria.

Veteran national security reporter James Risen joins us for an in-depth look at his new book, The Last Honest Man, about the work of Senator Frank Church to rein in the FBI, CIA and other agencies after the Vietnam War, Watergate and other fiascos had shaken the public’s trust in the U.S. government.

In Honduras, communities are fighting back against privatization and foreign exploitation after Honduran President Xiomara Castro and Congress repealed a law that established so-called Economic Development and Employment Zones, where private companies have “functional and administrative autonomy” from the national government.

Bishop William Barber, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, says it’s “grotesque and immoral” that poverty is the fourth leading cause of death in the United States, higher than homicide and respiratory illness, citing recent findings published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. “Why do we hear so much about crime rates and opioids and gun violence in America, but poverty kills more people than all of those things?” asks Barber.

The Supreme Court’s term is ending this week with rulings on several blockbuster cases. On Tuesday, voting rights advocates welcomed a decision in a major election law case that preserved checks and balances in elections. In a 6-3 decision, the justices dismissed the so-called independent state legislature theory that state lawmakers have nearly unlimited power to make rules for federal elections.

Saturday marked the anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision that saw the conservative majority overturn Roe v. Wade and end the federal right to abortion. Abortion rights activists rallied in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere across the country to demand access to reproductive healthcare.

Veteran national security reporter James Risen joins us for an in-depth look at his new book, The Last Honest Man, about the work of Senator Frank Church to rein in the FBI, CIA and other agencies after the Vietnam War, Watergate and other fiascos had shaken the public’s trust in the U.S. government.

As former President Donald Trump faces Espionage Act charges, newly leaked audio reveals he showed a classified Pentagon document to multiple people in 2021 detailing a plan to attack Iran, contradicting Trump’s recent claim that he did not have classified documents. We speak with veteran national security reporter James Risen, who says Trump is a thief and should not be compared to whistleblower Reality Winner or others, but also notes, “I am no fan of the Espionage Act.

The Kremlin says it has dropped criminal charges against Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin and his mercenaries after he attempted to lead an aborted mutiny against the Russian military. Prigozhin has reportedly arrived in Belarus. We speak with James Risen, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The Intercept, who covered the 1991 attempted coup in Moscow and says Prigozhin may have had a chance to complete his march on Moscow and topple the government, but he lost his nerve.

Saturday marked the anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision that saw the conservative majority overturn Roe v. Wade and end the federal right to abortion. Abortion rights activists rallied in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere across the country to demand access to reproductive healthcare.

As part of our roundtable discussion, we speak with political science professor Kimberly Marten, expert on the Wagner Group, who says this weekend’s mutiny by the mercenary group and its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, is part of a game of “smoke and mirrors” between Russian power players.

As we continue to look at the fallout of this weekend’s mutiny in Russia by Wagner mercenary troops, we go to Kyiv to speak with Ukrainian political scientist and historian Denis Pilash, who notes that despite infighting inside Russia, the military still carried out devastating strikes across Ukraine. He adds that the Wagner revolt still shattered an illusion of consensus inside Russia.

We speak with Nina Khrushcheva in Moscow after an extraordinary weekend that saw the most significant challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s leadership since the beginning of his invasion of Ukraine 16 months ago. On Friday, the head of the powerful Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, accused the Russian military of attacking his forces and began a march on Moscow — but the revolt quickly fizzled out.

We speak with journalist and author Antony Loewenstein about his new book, The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World. Loewenstein explains that Israel’s military-industrial complex has used the Occupied Palestinian Territories for decades as a testing ground for weaponry and surveillance technology that it then exports around the world for profit.