Contributing Writers

President Joe Biden delivered his second State of the Union address Tuesday, touting his administration’s achievements and laying out his plans for the next two years under a divided Congress, including on immigration, the economy, the climate crisis and more.

Democratic Congressmember Delia Ramirez of Illinois praises President Biden for proposing a path to citizenship in his State of the Union address on Tuesday for the millions of undocumented immigrants in the country. “My problem is the militarizing of the border,” she adds. Ramirez, who delivered a response to the State of the Union speech on behalf of the Working Families Party, says compassion should be at the center of the debate on immigration.

President Biden delivered his second State of the Union speech Tuesday and discussed his administration’s support for Ukraine, growing tensions with China and other international challenges. Foreign policy scholar and former Bernie Sanders adviser Matt Duss says one major missing theme was the “global war on terror.” “We need to acknowledge that this war is still very much ongoing,” says Duss, noting that thousands of U.S. troops are deployed around the world.

President Joe Biden delivered his second State of the Union address Tuesday, his first before a divided Congress where Republicans now hold a slim majority in the House of Representatives. Biden, who is widely believed to be gearing up for reelection in 2024, repeatedly asked lawmakers to work with him to “finish the job.

We speak with renowned legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw about right-wing efforts to curtail the teaching of African American history, queer studies and other subjects that focus on marginalized communities. The College Board, the nonprofit group that designs AP courses for high school seniors, recently revised a curriculum for a course in African American studies after criticism from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and others who maligned it as “woke indoctrination.

As the war in Ukraine nears the one-year mark, we speak with veteran war crimes prosecutor Reed Brody about a growing movement to hold Russian President Vladimir Putin and his closest allies criminally responsible for the invasion. The Ukrainian government has called for a special tribunal to prosecute Russian leaders, modeled on the Nuremberg trials of Nazi officials after World War II.

A new podcast out today called “Alphabet Boys” documents how the FBI disrupted racial justice organizing after the police killing of George Floyd in 2020, including paying an informant at least $20,000 to infiltrate and spy on activist groups in Denver, Colorado. The informant also encouraged activists to purchase guns and commit violence, echoing the FBI’s use of the COINTELPRO program to sabotage left-wing activist groups in the 1960s.

Magnitude 7.8 and 7.5 earthquakes struck Turkey near the Syrian border Monday, causing mass devastation in both countries. At least 5,000 casualties have been reported as of Tuesday morning, and rescue efforts are still underway. The WHO predicts that the final death toll could reach 25,000. The 7.8 earthquake, the largest recorded in Turkey since 1939, struck a region that has already been wracked by the Syrian civil war, compounding the existing humanitarian crisis in the region.

This week, New York City police evicted an encampment of asylum seekers outside the Watson Hotel who were protesting plans to house them in a remote, crowded and cold facility. Mayor Eric Adams suggested the protesters were “agitators,” not migrants themselves.

We speak with renowned legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw about right-wing efforts to curtail the teaching of African American history, queer studies and other subjects that focus on marginalized communities. The College Board, the nonprofit group that designs AP courses for high school seniors, recently revised a curriculum for a course in African American studies after criticism from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and others who maligned it as “woke indoctrination.

As the war in Ukraine nears the one-year mark, we speak with veteran war crimes prosecutor Reed Brody about a growing movement to hold Russian President Vladimir Putin and his closest allies criminally responsible for the invasion. The Ukrainian government has called for a special tribunal to prosecute Russian leaders, modeled on the Nuremberg trials of Nazi officials after World War II.

China has accused the United States of overreacting after President Joe Biden ordered a suspected spy balloon shot down off the coast of South Carolina on Sunday. China maintains the balloon, first spotted over U.S. airspace last week, was a civilian aircraft blown off course. The U.S. and China have been conducting surveillance on each other for years using spy satellites, hacking and other means.

This week, New York City police evicted an encampment of asylum seekers outside the Watson Hotel who were protesting plans to house them in a remote, crowded and cold facility. Mayor Eric Adams suggested the protesters were “agitators,” not migrants themselves.

We host a roundtable with three leading Black scholars about the College Board’s decision to revise its curriculum for an Advanced Placement course in African American studies after criticism from Republicans like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. The revised curriculum removes Black Lives Matter, slavery reparations and queer theory as required topics, while it adds a section on Black conservatism.

We speak with filmmaker Shaunak Sen about his Oscar-nominated documentary, “All That Breathes,” which follows two self-taught brothers who rescue black kite birds suffering from air pollution in New Delhi. The brothers, Nadeem and Saud, have saved about 25,000 black kites from the dirty air in India’s capital over the last 15 years.