Contributing Writers

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is in Brussels today to address the European Union Parliament. The visit comes after he made surprise trips to Paris and London where he urged European nations to begin providing Ukraine with fighter jets and long-range weapons. Meanwhile, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres has repeated his call for the war to end.

As the death toll tops 17,000 in Turkey and Syria from Monday’s twin earthquakes, we look at the situation in Syria, where 12 years of brutal war have left the country’s institutions in tatters, further complicating aid efforts. Syrian writer, dissident and former political prisoner Yassin al-Haj Saleh describes how the war has killed about 2% of Syrians and displaced 7 million more, or about a third of the population.

The death toll in Turkey and Syria has passed 19,300 and continues to rise following Monday’s devastating earthquakes. Many survivors are without shelter, heat, food, water or medical care, and the first United Nations aid only reached northwest Syria three days after the quakes. Rescue efforts in Syria have been further complicated by damage and displacement from 12 years of war and harsh sanctions. Prior to the earthquake, the U.N.

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.