Contributing Writers

A new Biden administration plan announced Wednesday aims to make rent more affordable and protect tenants’ rights. This comes as rental costs in the United States rose nearly 25% between 2019 and 2022. It also comes as investors bought nearly a quarter of all single-family homes sold in 2021, making home ownership increasingly impossible for people forced to spend much of their money on ever-increasing rent.

Ukrainian Associated Press journalist Mstyslav Chernov joins us for an in-depth interview about how he and others risked their lives to document the Russian invasion. He is the director of the new documentary, “20 Days in Mariupol,” which has just premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.

A day after prosecutors charged five former Memphis police officers with murder over the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols, we speak with his parents, RowVaughn and Rodney Wells, about their drive to seek justice for their son. “He had a beautiful soul, and he touched everyone,” RowVaughn Wells says of her son.

Amid nationwide protests, prosecutors have charged five former Memphis police officers with murder in the death of Tyre Nichols, who died January 10 of kidney failure and cardiac arrest after a vicious beating three days earlier during a traffic stop. Memphis and other cities across the U.S. are expecting mass protests against police violence over the weekend, with body-camera footage of the deadly traffic stop set to be released Friday evening.

Civil right advocates, educators and lawyers, like Ben Crump, are fighting Florida education officials who rejected a new advanced placement course for high school students on African American studies. Officials say the course “lacks educational value,” and Republican Governor Ron DeSantis claims the course violates state law.

On Tuesday, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists reset the Doomsday Clock for 2023 to 90 seconds to midnight, warning the world is closer to global annihilation than ever before, in part due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Since 1947, the Bulletin has maintained a Doomsday Clock to illustrate how close humanity is to the end of the world due to existential threats including nuclear war and the climate emergency.

A new Biden administration plan announced Wednesday aims to make rent more affordable and protect tenants’ rights. This comes as rental costs in the United States rose nearly 25% between 2019 and 2022. It also comes as investors bought nearly a quarter of all single-family homes sold in 2021, making home ownership increasingly impossible for people forced to spend much of their money on ever-increasing rent.

Ukrainian Associated Press journalist Mstyslav Chernov joins us for an in-depth interview about how he and others risked their lives to document the Russian invasion. He is the director of the new documentary, “20 Days in Mariupol,” which has just premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.

We speak with The Intercept’s Jeremy Scahill about the brewing scandals over the handling of classified documents by President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, and how they “point to deeper systemic problems with Washington’s obsession with secrecy.

Civil right advocates, educators and lawyers, like Ben Crump, are fighting Florida education officials who rejected a new advanced placement course for high school students on African American studies. Officials say the course “lacks educational value,” and Republican Governor Ron DeSantis claims the course violates state law.

On Tuesday, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists reset the Doomsday Clock for 2023 to 90 seconds to midnight, warning the world is closer to global annihilation than ever before, in part due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Since 1947, the Bulletin has maintained a Doomsday Clock to illustrate how close humanity is to the end of the world due to existential threats including nuclear war and the climate emergency.

After weeks of pressure from international allies, Germany has announced it will send 14 German-made Leopard 2 battle tanks to Ukraine and allow other NATO countries to send more German tanks to help Kyiv in its fight against Russia. The announcement came after the United States agreed to also send a shipment of M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine.

Former British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, famed linguist and dissident Noam Chomsky and others gave testimony Friday at the Belmarsh Tribunal in Washington, D.C., calling on President Biden to drop charges against Julian Assange. The WikiLeaks founder has been languishing for close to four years in the harsh Belmarsh prison in London while appealing extradition to the United States.