Contributing Writers

One year ago, on May 11, 2022, an Israeli soldier fatally shot the Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in the head as she was reporting on an Israeli military raid just outside the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. She was shot while wearing a blue helmet and blue flak jacket clearly emblazoned with the word “press.” Abu Akleh was one of the most prominent TV journalists in the Arab world and had worked for Al Jazeera for a quarter of a century.

Scandal-plagued New York Republican Congressmember George Santos pleaded not guilty to 13 federal charges at a courthouse on Long Island Wednesday. He is charged with wire fraud, money laundering, lying on federal disclosure forms, and fraudulently collecting unemployment benefits while earning a $120,000 salary.

Under a law passed last year in New York that allows sexual abuse survivors to sue their abusers in civil court even after the criminal statute of limitations has passed, a jury has found former President Donald Trump to be liable for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll at a department store in the 1990s. After just three hours of deliberations, the jury ordered Trump to pay Carroll $5 million. Following the ruling, Trump appeared in a televised town hall on CNN, where he mocked E.

Eleven people were arrested at a protest in New York on Monday demanding justice for Jordan Neely, a 30-year-old unhoused Black man who was choked to death on a subway car last week by another passenger. Neely was well known as a dancer and Michael Jackson impersonator. He was crying out that he was hungry, when he was fatally attacked on the train by a 24-year-old former marine named Daniel Penny, who was questioned by police but released without charges.

As President Biden ends Title 42, the Trump-era policy blocking asylum seekers, and plans stronger enforcement measures on the border, we speak with Salvadoran poet and writer Javier Zamora, whose best-selling memoir, Solito, details his odyssey as a 9-year-old child traveling unaccompanied through Guatemala, Mexico and eventually through the Sonoran Desert, before he makes it to Arizona and reunites with his parents with the aid of other migrants.

A jury on Tuesday found Donald Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation against E. Jean Carroll, the writer who accused him of raping her in a department store dressing room in the 1990s. We speak with one of the people who testified at trial: Jessica Leeds, a retired businesswoman who says Trump sexually assaulted her on an airplane in the 1980s — one of dozens of women who has accused him of sexual misconduct over the years.

A Manhattan jury on Tuesday sided with the writer E. Jean Carroll in her civil case against former President Donald Trump, finding him liable for sexually abusing and defaming Carroll, and awarding her $5 million in damages. The jury did not find that Trump had raped her, as she has claimed. Trump says he will appeal. The closely watched trial stemmed from an incident in the 1990s, when Carroll says Trump sexually assaulted her in a department store dressing room in New York.

Eleven people were arrested at a protest in New York on Monday demanding justice for Jordan Neely, a 30-year-old unhoused Black man who was choked to death on a subway car last week by another passenger. Neely was well known as a dancer and Michael Jackson impersonator. He was crying out that he was hungry, when he was fatally attacked on the train by a 24-year-old former marine named Daniel Penny, who was questioned by police but released without charges.

Conflict in Sudan between two rival military factions is entering its fourth week. Despite international calls for a humanitarian ceasefire, both combatant groups have repeatedly breached truce agreements. More than 700 people have died. As thousands of Sudanese civilians flee both the capital Khartoum and the country entirely, the fighting is expected to continue, with no end in sight.

Israel launched surprise airstrikes in Gaza overnight, targeting three commanders of the Islamic Jihad militant group, who were assassinated in their homes. The attacks killed a total of 13 people, including the wives and children of the men. The Israeli attack broke a ceasefire that had been reached last week after a spike in violence following the death of Palestinian prisoner Khader Adnan in Israeli custody.