Contributing Writers

In Texas, the Starr County district attorney said he will drop murder charges against Lizelle Herrera, a 26-year-old Latina woman who was arrested Thursday and accused of causing the “death of an individual through a self-induced abortion.” Herrera was detained on a $500,000 bond and released from jail Saturday evening, hours after activists with the Rio Grande Valley-based La Frontera Fund held a protest outside the Starr County Jail.

French President Emmanuel Macron and far-right candidate Marine Le Pen are headed to a runoff on April 24 after winning the most votes in France’s first round of presidential elections on Sunday.

We speak with historian Tariq Ali about the ongoing war in Ukraine, where more than 4.5 million people have fled since the start of Russia’s invasion. Ali says the only peace settlement he sees working would be if Ukraine’s Donbas region “becomes some federated republic with Russia” while allowing the rest of Ukraine independence and neutrality.

Shahbaz Sharif was chosen as Pakistan’s new prime minister on Monday after Imran Khan was removed in a no-confidence vote in Parliament on Sunday. Khan’s ouster came after the nation’s Supreme Court ruled Khan’s attempt to dissolve Parliament earlier this month was illegal. Khan blamed his removal on a “U.S.-backed regime change” plot backed by his opposition, and lawmakers of his party have resigned en masse.

Will the U.S. and Iran revive the 2015 nuclear deal abandoned by the Trump administration? President Biden is facing heat from lawmakers in both parties who oppose the deal, which would relax U.S. sanctions on Iran in exchange for limits on its nuclear program. At the crux of the debate is the Iranian request for Biden to lift the designation of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization, which would have a high political cost for the administration.

The United Nations General Assembly voted to suspend Russia from the U.N. Human Rights Council on Thursday, a resolution that accused Russia of committing human rights abuses in Ukraine. We speak with human rights lawyer Wolfgang Kaleck about the apparent double standards and weaknesses in the current international criminal justice system in light of the U.S. committing similar crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nations like the U.S.

Anti-abortion legislation is sweeping the U.S., including in Texas, Oklahoma and Missouri. We speak with Michele Goodwin, author of “Policing the Womb: Invisible Women and the Criminalization of Motherhood,” about the links between current conflicts between state and federal law and their historic precedents, such as Brown v. Board of Education and the Fugitive Slave Acts.

The U.S. Senate voted 53-47 on Thursday to confirm Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court. She will be the first Black woman and first former public defender to serve on the country’s top court. While Jackson’s confirmation was a “monumental moment in United States history,” it was undercut by the “shameful spectacle” of Republican senators behaving disrespectfully toward Jackson, says law professor Michele Goodwin.

Will the U.S. and Iran revive the 2015 nuclear deal abandoned by the Trump administration? President Biden is facing heat from lawmakers in both parties who oppose the deal, which would relax U.S. sanctions on Iran in exchange for limits on its nuclear program. At the crux of the debate is the Iranian request for Biden to lift the designation of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization, which would have a high political cost for the administration.

The United Nations General Assembly voted to suspend Russia from the U.N. Human Rights Council on Thursday, a resolution that accused Russia of committing human rights abuses in Ukraine. We speak with human rights lawyer Wolfgang Kaleck about the apparent double standards and weaknesses in the current international criminal justice system in light of the U.S. committing similar crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nations like the U.S.

Anti-abortion legislation is sweeping the U.S., including in Texas, Oklahoma and Missouri. We speak with Michele Goodwin, author of “Policing the Womb: Invisible Women and the Criminalization of Motherhood,” about the links between current conflicts between state and federal law and their historic precedents, such as Brown v. Board of Education and the Fugitive Slave Acts.

The U.S. Senate voted 53-47 on Thursday to confirm Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court. She will be the first Black woman and first former public defender to serve on the country’s top court. While Jackson’s confirmation was a “monumental moment in United States history,” it was undercut by the “shameful spectacle” of Republican senators behaving disrespectfully toward Jackson, says law professor Michele Goodwin.