Contributing Writers

We speak with international affairs scholar Kim Lane Scheppele on the rise and fall of Hungary’s constitutional democracy and how Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has gained popularity among the American right ahead of his speech today at the Conservative Political Action Conference. “Orbán presents, especially for the American right, a kind of irresistible combination of culture war issues,” says Scheppele.

The U.N. warned this week that humanity is “one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation” as tensions escalate globally. We speak with Ira Helfand, former president of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, who says the U.N. Security Council permanent members, comprising Russia, China, the U.S., the U.K. and France, are pursuing nuclear policies that are “going to lead to the end of the world that we know.

Safety conditions at Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant are “completely out of control,” according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. This comes as the Russian military has deployed heavy artillery batteries and laid anti-personnel landmines at the site in recent weeks.

As New York City declares monkeypox a public health emergency, and California and Illinois have also declared states of emergency over the rapid spread of monkeypox, we speak with LGBTQ+ scholar Steven Thrasher, author of the new book, “The Viral Underclass: The Human Toll When Inequality and Disease Collide,” which explores how social determinants impact the health outcomes of different communities.

Nearly 60% of Kansas voters struck down a ballot measure Tuesday night that would have removed the state’s right to abortion and cleared the way for Republican state lawmakers to ban the procedure. It was the first vote on abortion rights since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

The U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly Tuesday night to expand healthcare and disability benefits to some 3.5 million former U.S. service members poisoned by toxic substances from waste burning pits on U.S. military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan.

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has left Taiwan after a series of high-profile meetings with Taiwan’s pro-democracy president and other lawmakers. Pelosi’s visit made her the most senior U.S. official to visit Taiwan in 25 year and stoked tensions with China, prompting the nation to announce it would carry out new air and naval drills and long-range live-fire exercises in six areas around Taiwan beginning Thursday.

We spend the hour with an activist who replaced Angela Davis on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted List: Bernardine Dohrn, a leader in the radical 1960s organization called the Weather Underground. When Dohrn and her activist husband Bill Ayers literally went underground to avoid arrest, they then raised a family as they continued to fight for revolution. Now a new podcast that was created, written and hosted by their son, Zayd Ayers Dohrn, explores their family history.

As New York City declares monkeypox a public health emergency, and California and Illinois have also declared states of emergency over the rapid spread of monkeypox, we speak with LGBTQ+ scholar Steven Thrasher, author of the new book, “The Viral Underclass: The Human Toll When Inequality and Disease Collide,” which explores how social determinants impact the health outcomes of different communities.

We go to Kansas, where voters today are deciding whether to pass a constitutional amendment that would override a 2019 state Supreme Court ruling establishing a constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy. If the amendment passes, it will clear the way for Republican state lawmakers to ban the procedure, which they have vowed to do.

President Biden claimed Monday a CIA drone strike killed al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Kabul, Afghanistan. Trained as a surgeon in Egypt, where he was born into a prominent family, al-Zawahiri was a key figure in the jihadist movement since the 1980s. The U.S. has long accused al-Zawahiri of being a key 9/11 plotter along with Osama bin Laden, who was killed in a U.S. raid in Pakistan in 2011.

The first case of monkeypox behind bars was reported in Chicago this week, and health experts are warning that jails could accelerate the spread as they are dangerously unprepared to combat against a virus that spreads through close physical contact. We speak with Dr. Homer Venters, the former chief medical officer for New York City’s Correctional Health Services, whose new op-ed for The Hill is headlined ”CDC must act to prevent monkeypox explosion in prisons.

As tens of millions of people in the United States live under heat alerts this summer, we look at conditions faced by those in prisons and jails with poor cooling systems and lack of access to running water. “Although heat has been an ongoing issue in Texas, this year it’s exacerbated by a staffing crisis that’s been years in the making,” says Keri Blakinger, the first formerly incarcerated reporter for The Marshall Project.

Before a deal emerged this week on a bill to address the climate emergency, six congressional staffers were arrested Monday on Capitol Hill as they held a nonviolent civil disobedience protest inside the office of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, urging him to reopen negotiations on the bill. We speak with Saul Levin, one of the staffers who was arrested, and discuss the role the action had in pushing the bill forward.