Contributing Writers

We get an update on the Donbas region of Ukraine, where Russian forces are now focused. Russia has backed a separatist movement in the Donbas since 2014 and used protecting the Russian-speaking population there as a justification for its invasion in February. We speak with Brian Milakovsky, who lived in the Donbas town of Severodonetsk before he evacuated to Croatia in January and is now fundraising for people trying to flee Russian attacks.

Russians are weathering the fallout of President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine with no sign of a negotiated peace deal soon. Economic sanctions have driven up food prices, and there has been repression of political dissent within the country. We speak with author Tony Wood, a member of the New Left Review editorial board, who says the crushing Western sanctions are unlikely to end Putin’s rule and are only hardening attitudes.

We continue our Earth Day special by looking at how Indigenous peoples are protecting the Earth. We follow the journey of Ivey Camille Manybeads Tso, an award-winning queer Navajo filmmaker whose new film “Powerlands” shows how corporations like Peabody, the world’s largest private coal company, have devastated her homeland. She also connects with Indigenous communities in Colombia, the Philippines, Mexico and Standing Rock facing the same struggle.

On Earth Day, we look at how the war in Ukraine gives the United States a new chance to break free of emissions-heavy steel production. Russia and Ukraine supplied over 60% of the pig iron the U.S. imported last year to make steel, some of it produced at the Azovstal Iron and Steel Works plant in Mariupol where thousands of civilians and soldiers are now blockaded.

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.

We get an update on the Donbas region of Ukraine, where Russian forces are now focused. Russia has backed a separatist movement in the Donbas since 2014 and used protecting the Russian-speaking population there as a justification for its invasion in February. We speak with Brian Milakovsky, who lived in the Donbas town of Severodonetsk before he evacuated to Croatia in January and is now fundraising for people trying to flee Russian attacks.

Russians are weathering the fallout of President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine with no sign of a negotiated peace deal soon. Economic sanctions have driven up food prices, and there has been repression of political dissent within the country. We speak with author Tony Wood, a member of the New Left Review editorial board, who says the crushing Western sanctions are unlikely to end Putin’s rule and are only hardening attitudes.

We go to Ukraine, where Russia continues its assault along a 300-mile frontline in the eastern region. This comes as the U.S. and Western allies promise more weapons for Ukrainian defenses, prompting worry of escalation as Russian President Vladimir Putin abandons negotiations for a ceasefire agreement.

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.

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.