Contributing Writers

As activists across the U.S. are mobilizing to defend reproductive rights, we speak to the Dutch physician Dr. Rebecca Gomperts, who has dedicated her life to circumventing anti-abortion laws, including providing abortions on ships in international waters and sending abortions pills around the world. She also discusses navigating censorship on social media platforms, telemedicine, the future of contraception and more.

We go to San Antonio, where 53 migrants seeking refuge in the U.S. died earlier this week after being confined to a sweltering tractor-trailer. Human rights advocates blamed the tragedy on restrictive immigration policies like the Migrant Protection Protocols, also known as MPP or the “Remain in Mexico” program.

In a blow to climate activism, the Supreme Court on Thursday severely limited the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to place emission caps on power plants. In the case, West Virginia v. EPA, several states led by West Virginia and fossil fuel companies fought against the regulations imposed by the Obama administration under the Clean Air Act.

Former aide to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Cassidy Hutchinson, revealed Tuesday to the House January 6 committee that Meadows and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani both sought pardons after the insurrection. Meanwhile, in a video deposition with Trump’s former national security adviser Mike Flynn, who supported Trump’s efforts to overturn the election, Flynn repeatedly refused to answer questions from committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney.

Eight years after the deadly Flint water crisis began, the state’s Supreme Court has thrown out charges against former Governor Rick Snyder and eight other former officials for their complicity in the public health emergency.

As the Supreme Court ends its term, Justice Stephen Breyer is officially retiring, and Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson takes his place as the country’s first Black woman justice, joining a court dominated by conservatives. We speak to ACLU national legal director David Cole about what can be done in the face of lifetime judicial appointments to the nation’s highest court who often rule counter to majority opinion in the country.

The United States announced at a NATO summit in Madrid plans to build a permanent military base in Poland, as it formally invited Sweden and Finland to join the military alliance after they applied for membership in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. We look at the impact of prolonged U.S. military presence in Europe and the overemphasis on Russia or China as enemies to the West at a time when threats to Western liberal democracy seem to be primarily internal.

Former aide to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Cassidy Hutchinson, revealed Tuesday to the House January 6 committee that Meadows and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani both sought pardons after the insurrection. Meanwhile, in a video deposition with Trump’s former national security adviser Mike Flynn, who supported Trump’s efforts to overturn the election, Flynn repeatedly refused to answer questions from committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney.

Minutes after rioters stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows seemed unperturbed and reluctant to act, according to live testimony from his former aide, Cassidy Hutchinson, at the public hearing on Tuesday. Then-President Donald Trump, rather than calling off his supporters, defended their chants to hang Vice President Mike Pence for validating the election results.

In one of the most dramatic revelations at Tuesday’s hearing of the House committee investigating the January 6 attack, star witness Cassidy Hutchinson described how then-President Trump intended to join his supporters in the march to the Capitol and lunged at his Secret Service agent, who tried to prevent him from doing so, and grabbed the steering wheel of the presidential limousine, before he was driven back to the White House.

In explosive testimony Tuesday, Cassidy Hutchinson, former aide to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, revealed new details to the January 6 select committee about the events leading up to the “Stop the Steal” rally. She indicated then-President Donald Trump and his inner circle, that included personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, expected the event to grow violent and did little to stop it.

Reproductive health advocates are urging Congress to pass the My Body, My Data Act, which will prevent consumer data that is related to reproductive health from being used as criminal evidence. Protecting how sensitive personal information is collected and stored online is critical to combating anti-abortion laws, says Daly Barnett, staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

We look at the fight for privacy rights in a post-Roe America amid concerns that anti-abortion activists could use identifying data from online platforms like Facebook to target abortion seekers. Investigative reporter Grace Oldham describes how this data is already being used by medically unlicensed “crisis pregnancy centers” that actively lure patients to discourage them from seeking abortions.

Is raising money to send pregnant people to another state to get an abortion aiding and abetting? We speak to Kamyon Conner, executive director of the Texas Equal Access Fund, the first Black woman to head the organization, about how Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has threatened to prosecute anyone violating a statewide abortion ban that was passed in the 1920s and never repealed. Lawmakers are also introducing bills to restrict FDA-approved abortion pills delivered through the mail.