Contributing Writers

Calls are growing for Texas to stop the approaching execution of Melissa Lucio, who says she was wrongfully convicted of killing her toddler Mariah in 2007. We speak to one of Lucio’s attorneys, Vanessa Potkin of the Innocence Project, who says Lucio was coerced into making a false confession within hours of her daughter’s death and deserves a new trial based on new evidence and misleading expert testimony.

The U.S. has hit a record number of apprehensions at the border shared with Mexico, arresting over 1 million asylum seekers in the past six months alone. We speak with immigration attorney Erika Pinheiro about the Biden administration’s unequal treatment of different nationalities, as refugees from countries like Haiti, Cuba and Cameroon face harsh restrictions on asylum, but Ukrainian refugees seem to be receiving special treatment and even exemption from Title 42.

A pair of bomb blasts at a boys’ school in Kabul left at least six people dead on Tuesday, the latest in a series of attacks on the minority Shiite Hazara community in Afghanistan. While no group has claimed responsibility, it follows a pattern of aggression by ISIS-K, the Islamic State affiliate, against Shiites in Afghanistan, as well as Pakistan.

In a win for immigrant rights, the Biden administration has granted temporary protected status, or TPS, to Cameroonians living in the United States. The move allows around 40,000 Cameroonians to become eligible for the relief, which would protect them from deportation back to a politically unstable state and grant them permission to work in the U.S. for at least 18 months ​​amid escalating violence in Cameroon between government forces and armed rebels.

Republican-led states are enacting a wave of new abortion restrictions, including Tennessee, Florida, Kentucky and Oklahoma just last week. Reproductive rights are under attack as the Supreme Court appears poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, says Caroline Kitchener, who covers reproductive rights for The Washington Post. We also speak with Kitchener about Lizelle Herrera, the Texas woman arrested for disclosing an attempted abortion with her doctors.

Calls are growing for the release of imprisoned Egyptian activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah, who launched a hunger strike on April 2 to protest the harsh conditions he is held under at Cairo’s Tora prison. Abd El-Fattah, who became a leading voice of the Arab Spring revolution, has been in and out of prison for nearly a decade for his human rights activism. His family recently obtained U.K.

Ukraine’s president says Russia has started a major offensive to seize the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine while launching missiles at targets across the country. We go outside of Kyiv to get an update from Peter Zalmayev, director of the Eurasia Democracy Initiative. Facing a stronger resistance from Ukrainian defenses than anticipated, Russian President Vladimir Putin is practicing “scorched-earth tactics” and “venting his anger on Ukraine,” says Zalmayev.

As the United States reels from an epidemic of mass shootings in schools, trains and other public places, we speak with Mark Follman, national affairs editor at Mother Jones, where he covers gun violence. Follman says mass shootings are typically planned over a period of time and follow a “robust trail of behavioral warning signs” that offer opportunities in community-based violence prevention to stop the crime before it happens.

In a win for immigrant rights, the Biden administration has granted temporary protected status, or TPS, to Cameroonians living in the United States. The move allows around 40,000 Cameroonians to become eligible for the relief, which would protect them from deportation back to a politically unstable state and grant them permission to work in the U.S. for at least 18 months ​​amid escalating violence in Cameroon between government forces and armed rebels.

Republican-led states are enacting a wave of new abortion restrictions, including Tennessee, Florida, Kentucky and Oklahoma just last week. Reproductive rights are under attack as the Supreme Court appears poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, says Caroline Kitchener, who covers reproductive rights for The Washington Post. We also speak with Kitchener about Lizelle Herrera, the Texas woman arrested for disclosing an attempted abortion with her doctors.

At least 19 were injured around occupied Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque on Sunday after a violent crackdown by Israeli police cleared out worshipers from the compound. It was the second raid since Friday, when Israeli police used rubber bullets, stun grenades and tear gas on unarmed Palestinians, resulting in the arrest of more than 300 and at least 158 injuries. This latest violence in Jerusalem comes as the holy days of Ramadan and Passover overlap.

As the United States reels from an epidemic of mass shootings in schools, trains and other public places, we speak with Mark Follman, national affairs editor at Mother Jones, where he covers gun violence. Follman says mass shootings are typically planned over a period of time and follow a “robust trail of behavioral warning signs” that offer opportunities in community-based violence prevention to stop the crime before it happens.

As the Russian invasion in Ukraine enters its 50th day, we look at the war’s impact around the world with Vijay Prashad, author and director of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. “When food prices go up, the political crisis is almost immediate,” says Prashad, who calls the U.S. pressure on Global South countries to cut off essential imports from Russia after a 30-year globalization campaign a double standard. He says if the U.S.

This week the Pentagon met with leading U.S. weapons manufacturers as Russia warned the Biden administration to stop arming Ukraine, claiming it was “adding fuel” to the conflict. This comes as a Russian warship sank in the Black Sea hours after Ukraine claimed to have attacked it with cruise missiles, and as Sweden and Finland say they may join NATO, which would require more weapons spending.

We speak with Lyiv-based professor Volodymyr Dubovyk about the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, where Russian attacks have displaced more than 11 million people, including two-thirds of Ukraine’s children. Russian forces “want to inflict the maximum pain on Ukraine,” says Dubovyk.