Contributing Writers

We speak with Harvard journalism analyst Laura Hazard Owen, who says reporters will have to abandon “conventional journalism wisdom” to cover abortion stories following the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

A scorching heat wave continues to fuel wildfires across southern Europe and parts of North Africa, resulting in hundreds of heat-related deaths and forcing thousands to evacuate their homes. The record-breaking temperatures come as Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia has effectively killed President Biden’s Build Back Better climate legislation after stringing Biden along for 18 months. “It’s appalling, but it’s not unexpected.

We speak with climate author and activist Bill McKibben, who is pushing for the climate movement to demand the release of Egyptian prisoner and human rights activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah ahead of the next U.N. climate conference, which will be hosted in Egypt. McKibben says releasing El-Fattah to the U.K., which has agreed to house him, would be “the easiest of gestures” by Egypt, whose authoritarian leader met Saturday with President Biden.

President Biden met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Friday, as the Saudis agreed to increase oil production as well as open their airspace to Israeli commercial flights. Biden says he told the crown prince he held him responsible for the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was a U.S. resident, though Biden’s claims were later contradicted by a top Saudi official.

The release of the first images from NASA’s new flagship James Webb Space Telescope brought renewed attention to the controversy over naming the telescope after James Webb, who led NASA ahead of the Apollo moon landings in the 1960s. He also played a key role in purging LGBTQ+ people from NASA in what was known as the “lavender scare,” and before that at the State Department under President Truman.

NASA released revolutionary new images of the cosmos this week that were taken by the James Webb Space Telescope, the largest and most powerful space observatory to date. Launched in 2021, the JWST was designed to study star and planet formation with exponentially more accuracy and detail than its predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope. “We can actually essentially watch the formation of stars,” says astrophysicist Katie Mack.

COVID-19 cases are rising as the BA.5 Omicron variant puts more people in the hospital amid high rates of reinfection, which is the focus of a new piece by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ed Yong in The Atlantic that is headlined “Is BA.5 the ‘Reinfection Wave’?” Yong warns the premature rollback of protective policies, like mask mandates and public health funding, has left people more vulnerable to reinfection.

President Biden is set to meet with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Friday as part of a four-day visit to restore key relationships and build security cooperation in the Middle East. Human rights activists are outraged that the U.S. is willing to support a leader responsible for human rights violations including in the brutal war in Yemen, the state-sanctioned killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi and more.

The release of the first images from NASA’s new flagship James Webb Space Telescope brought renewed attention to the controversy over naming the telescope after James Webb, who led NASA ahead of the Apollo moon landings in the 1960s. He also played a key role in purging LGBTQ+ people from NASA in what was known as the “lavender scare,” and before that at the State Department under President Truman.

NASA released revolutionary new images of the cosmos this week that were taken by the James Webb Space Telescope, the largest and most powerful space observatory to date. Launched in 2021, the JWST was designed to study star and planet formation with exponentially more accuracy and detail than its predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope. “We can actually essentially watch the formation of stars,” says astrophysicist Katie Mack.

COVID-19 cases are rising as the BA.5 Omicron variant puts more people in the hospital amid high rates of reinfection, which is the focus of a new piece by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ed Yong in The Atlantic that is headlined “Is BA.5 the ‘Reinfection Wave’?” Yong warns the premature rollback of protective policies, like mask mandates and public health funding, has left people more vulnerable to reinfection.

President Biden is set to meet with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Friday as part of a four-day visit to restore key relationships and build security cooperation in the Middle East. Human rights activists are outraged that the U.S. is willing to support a leader responsible for human rights violations including in the brutal war in Yemen, the state-sanctioned killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi and more.

COVID-19 cases are rising as the BA.5 Omicron variant puts more people in the hospital amid high rates of reinfection, which is the focus of a new piece by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ed Yong in The Atlantic that is headlined “Is BA.5 the ‘Reinfection Wave’?” Yong warns the premature rollback of protective policies, like mask mandates and public health funding, has left people more vulnerable to reinfection.

President Biden is set to meet with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Friday as part of a four-day visit to restore key relationships and build security cooperation in the Middle East. Human rights activists are outraged that the U.S. is willing to support a leader responsible for human rights violations including in the brutal war in Yemen, the state-sanctioned killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi and more.