Contributing Writers

Amazon has fired two workers who helped organize the first successful U.S. union at Amazon’s Staten Island JFK8 warehouse. This comes as the National Labor Relations Board on Monday upheld a complaint that Amazon violated labor law in the Staten Island union vote by holding mandatory worker meetings to dissuade employees from voting to unionize.

In a major development, the National Labor Relations Board announced Tuesday night it is suing Starbucks to immediately rehire seven Memphis Starbucks workers who were illegally fired in retaliation for their union efforts.

We go to Manila to speak with Filipina Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa about Monday’s presidential election in the Philippines, where Ferdinand Marcos Jr. — the only son of the late Filipino dictator Ferdinand Marcos — appears to have won in a landslide alongside his running mate, the daughter of current President Rodrigo Duterte.

Israeli forces have shot and killed Shireen Abu Akleh, a veteran Palestinian American journalist working for Al Jazeera, as she covered an Israeli army raid on the Jenin refugee camp early Wednesday morning. Video released by Al Jazeera shows Abu Akleh was wearing a press uniform when she was shot in the head by what the network says was a single round fired by an Israeli sniper.

In a historic victory, the Irish nationalist Sinn Féin party has won the most seats in Northern Ireland’s parliament for the first time ever. Sinn Féin is the former political wing of the IRA — the Irish Republican Army — and favors reunification with the Republic of Ireland.

We speak with historian Kelly Lytle Hernández, whose new book “Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire, and Revolution in the Borderlands” tells the story of the often-overlooked men and women who incited the Mexican Revolution and how it relates to the rise of U.S. imperialism. The movement included intellectuals, workers and others who opposed Mexico’s dictatorial President Porfirio Díaz, who ruled for decades with support from the U.S. government and U.S.

The Pulitzer Prizes were announced Monday, and among the winners was the Futuro Media and PRX team behind the seven-part podcast series “Suave” that follows acclaimed journalist Maria Hinojosa’s decades-long friendship with David Luis “Suave” Gonzalez, who received a life sentence without parole at the age of 17 for first-degree homicide.

Sri Lanka’s prime minister stepped down Monday following weeks of street protests over the country’s worst economic crisis in its history, which has seen skyrocketing food and fuel prices in the island nation. Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa’s resignation came after supporters of the ruling party stormed a major protest site in the capital Colombo, attacking protesters and prompting clashes with police.

In a historic victory, the Irish nationalist Sinn Féin party has won the most seats in Northern Ireland’s parliament for the first time ever. Sinn Féin is the former political wing of the IRA — the Irish Republican Army — and favors reunification with the Republic of Ireland.

After the leaked draft Supreme Court opinion that may overturn Roe v. Wade, Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida introduced a bill Friday to prohibit employers from deducting expenses related to their employees’ travel costs when seeking gender-affirming care for their children out of state, as well as for those seeking an abortion.

Alabama has become the first U.S. state to make it a felony to provide gender-affirming medical care to trans youth. A law went into effect Sunday that bans the use of puberty blockers and hormones, which can be lifesaving for trans children and teens. Doctors and others who are found in violation of the law could face up to 10 years in prison. The Alabama law is the latest in a series of escalating conservative attacks on LGBTQ people in the United States.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has defended his invasion of Ukraine, saying it was a necessary blow against NATO. His remarks came during Russia’s annual Victory Day celebrations on May 9 marking the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II. U.S. lawmakers, meanwhile, are increasingly describing the fighting in Ukraine as a proxy war between the U.S. and Russia.

As the Supreme Court is poised to strike down Roe v. Wade, we speak with law professor Michele Goodwin, who has written extensively about how the criminalization of abortion polices motherhood. She discusses how on the eve of the court’s oral arguments in the Dobbs case in November, she wrote about how an abortion saved her life. She describes how the U.S.

Governments around the world are eagerly returning back to pre-pandemic conditions by relaxing preventative restrictions, lifting mask mandates and pulling back public funding. Dr. Abraar Karan, infectious disease fellow at Stanford University School of Medicine, says these moves are overly optimistic and that the U.S. is not prepared for new variants spreading around the country. “We’re trying to say it’s over. It’s not true,” he says.

The World Health Organization says the coronavirus pandemic has now caused an excess of 15 million deaths globally. We look at how staggering death counts reveal broader political failures to protect public health and close the international vaccine gap.

We speak to Yale University historian Timothy Snyder about his latest article for The New Yorker, “The War in Ukraine Is a Colonial War.” Snyder writes about the colonial history that laid the foundations for the Russian war in Ukraine, such as Russia’s imperial vision and how leaders including Hitler and Stalin have aimed to conquer Ukrainian soil on different premises. “The whole history of colonialism … involves denying that another people is real.