Contributing Writers

Legendary filmmaker Stanley Nelson’s new documentary “Attica” has been nominated for the first Oscar in his three-decades-long career documenting the Black American experience. The film tells the story of the deadliest prison uprising in U.S.

The House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security heard testimony Thursday about a wave of bomb threats against historically Black colleges and universities, including more than a dozen this month alone. February is Black History Month. More than 60 educational groups called on Congress this week to take immediate steps to support and protect HBCUs.

U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov have agreed to meet next week as tension remains high over Ukraine. Meanwhile, Russia has announced plans to stage massive drills on Saturday of its nuclear forces, including multiple practice missile launches. We speak with Russian journalist Nadezhda Azhgikhina, one of a group of two dozen independent Russian and American women who released an open letter this week calling for peace.

NATO officials have joined the U.S. and other Western nations in saying they have yet to see evidence that Russia is pulling back some troops near the shared border with Ukraine, as Russia claimed earlier this week. We speak with Yurii Sheliazhenko, executive secretary of the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement, who says, “Both great powers of the West and the East share equal responsibility to avoid escalation of war in Ukraine and beyond Ukraine.

Amnesty International is accusing Tigrayan forces of deliberately killing dozens of unarmed civilians and gang-raping dozens of women and girls in the northern Amhara region of Ethiopia. This comes as the Ethiopian government and Tigrayan rebel forces remain at war, and just last year Amnesty similarly accused the Ethiopian government of subjecting Tigrayan women and girls to rape, gang rape, sexual slavery, sexual mutilation and other forms of torture.

As U.S. health guidelines start to loosen as COVID-19 cases fall from record-high levels of infection, we look at how there there are still millions of immunocompromised people who face acute risk of illness and feel they have received little to no guidance on how to stay safe in a prolonged COVID-19 world.

U.S. officials are accusing Russia of sending more forces to the Ukrainian border just days after Moscow announced it was pulling some troops back. This comes as Ukrainian authorities and Russian-backed separatists are both accusing the other side of violating a ceasefire in the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine. For more on the history behind the present crisis in Ukraine, we speak with one of the last U.S.

Two competitive congressional races are heating up in Texas. Former labor organizer Greg Casar and immigrant human rights lawyer Jessica Cisneros have both gained national endorsements from progressive lawmakers like New York Congressmember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who traveled to the state to campaign for them this past weekend.

NATO officials have joined the U.S. and other Western nations in saying they have yet to see evidence that Russia is pulling back some troops near the shared border with Ukraine, as Russia claimed earlier this week. We speak with Yurii Sheliazhenko, executive secretary of the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement, who says, “Both great powers of the West and the East share equal responsibility to avoid escalation of war in Ukraine and beyond Ukraine.

Survivors and families of the victims of the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland, Florida, have launched a new online tool called the “Shock Market” to track the occurrence of U.S. gun violence. This comes as Manuel Oliver, the father of 17-year-old victim Joaquin “Guac” Oliver, was arrested during a peaceful protest demanding the Biden administration take action to curb gun violence.

Authorities in Honduras have arrested former President Juan Orlando Hernández for allegedly smuggling over 1 million pounds of cocaine into the United States since 2004. Hernández, who now faces extradition to the United States, was a longtime U.S. ally, in power from 2014 until January 27 of this year, when he was succeeded by Xiomara Castro, Honduras’s first female president.