Contributing Writers

Thursday’s CNN debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump was “a really, really rough night for those who are fighting for immigrant rights,” says Silky Shah, executive director of Detention Watch Network. “Trump repeatedly was stoking a moral panic on immigration, and Biden had very little in response.” Both candidates boasted about restricting immigration and militarizing the border, while casting immigrants as dangerous and violent.

Abortion rights were a key focus of Thursday’s CNN debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, the first to be held since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. Trump took credit for nominating the conservative justices who helped overturn the law, and falsely claimed that Democrats support abortions “even after birth.

We speak with two leading economists about Thursday’s CNN debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, where the candidates sparred over tariffs, taxes, inflation and more. Trump repeatedly claimed that immigrants coming to the United States are stealing “Black jobs,” which is a “fascist notion,” says Darrick Hamilton, founding director of the Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy at The New School.

The first 2024 presidential debate between President Biden and former President Trump was held on Thursday night. It marked the first time a sitting president debated a former one. It also marked the two oldest candidates ever to run for president, with a combined age of 159. The 90-minute discussion hosted by CNN was more of an incoherent debacle than any substantive debate. Biden was halting and disjointed.

Joe Biden and Donald Trump’s exchange on foreign policy in Thursday’s presidential debate revealed that “the two candidates are extreme militarists, and one of them, Donald Trump, is a proponent and expresser of fascistic politics,” says activist Norman Solomon. In the brief section on Gaza, Biden boasted of his support for Israel as it pummels the Gaza Strip, while Trump criticized Biden, saying Israel should be allowed to “finish the job,” and said Biden is “like a Palestinian.

Thursday’s CNN debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump was “a really, really rough night for those who are fighting for immigrant rights,” says Silky Shah, executive director of Detention Watch Network. “Trump repeatedly was stoking a moral panic on immigration, and Biden had very little in response.” Both candidates boasted about restricting immigration and militarizing the border, while casting immigrants as dangerous and violent.

Abortion rights were a key focus of Thursday’s CNN debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, the first to be held since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. Trump took credit for nominating the conservative justices who helped overturn the law, and falsely claimed that Democrats support abortions “even after birth.

We speak with two leading economists about Thursday’s CNN debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, where the candidates sparred over tariffs, taxes, inflation and more. Trump repeatedly claimed that immigrants coming to the United States are stealing “Black jobs,” which is a “fascist notion,” says Darrick Hamilton, founding director of the Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy at The New School.

The first 2024 presidential debate between President Biden and former President Trump was held on Thursday night. It marked the first time a sitting president debated a former one. It also marked the two oldest candidates ever to run for president, with a combined age of 159. The 90-minute discussion hosted by CNN was more of an incoherent debacle than any substantive debate. Biden was halting and disjointed.

Political unrest in Kenya erupted into violence Tuesday as authorities opened fire on protesters in Nairobi who oppose President William Ruto’s controversial tax bill. Hundreds of people stormed the legislature and burned part of the building. Meanwhile, inside, lawmakers voted to pass the tax measure, which will raise the cost of many everyday items to pay down government debt.

We look at the targeting of journalists in Gaza with journalist Shrouq Aila, who joins us from Deir al-Balah in central Gaza. Aila’s husband Roshdi Sarraj, a fellow journalist and co-founder of the production company Ain Media, was killed in an Israeli airstrike on their home in October. Aila recounts how Sarraj’s shielding of her and her 1-year-old daughter saved their lives. “Everything went into dust, in just a second,” she says.

Gaza is the deadliest place on Earth for journalists ever recorded. As many as 140 journalists and media workers have been killed there since October, a figure that the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate says represents 10% of the journalists in Gaza.

Anti-government protests in Kenya are continuing after President William Ruto made a dramatic reversal Wednesday, announcing he would not sign the finance bill that sparked a nationwide uprising, and would instead send the bill back to Parliament. At least 23 people were killed and dozens more injured when police fired live rounds, rubber bullets and tear gas at protesters who stormed Kenya’s Parliament building.

Political unrest in Kenya erupted into violence Tuesday as authorities opened fire on protesters in Nairobi who oppose President William Ruto’s controversial tax bill. Hundreds of people stormed the legislature and burned part of the building. Meanwhile, inside, lawmakers voted to pass the tax measure, which will raise the cost of many everyday items to pay down government debt.

As Julian Assange returns to his native Australia, press rights advocates warn that his case could cast a long shadow over journalists’ work to investigate and expose government secrets. The WikiLeaks founder has pleaded guilty to one charge of violating the U.S. Espionage Act as part of a deal with the Justice Department that lets him avoid further prison time following five years behind bars in the U.K. awaiting possible extradition to the U.S. He had been facing a possible 175 years in U.

We speak with Australian Senator Peter Whish-Wilson, a prominent supporter of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who says the publisher’s case is “a big deal” in the country that cut across political divisions. “It’s taken a really big campaign, a really big grassroots campaign by thousands of people in Australia — indeed, millions of people around the world — to bring this to the attention of politicians.

Julian Assange has landed in Australia a free man, reuniting with his family Wednesday after pleading guilty to one charge of violating the U.S. Espionage Act as part of a deal with the Justice Department. The WikiLeaks publisher entered his plea on the Pacific island of Saipan, part of the U.S. territory of the Northern Mariana Islands, which lets him avoid further prison time following five years behind bars in the U.K. awaiting possible extradition to the U.S.

Democratic New York Governor Kathy Hochul has shocked constituents this month with a surprise decision to cancel New York City’s congestion program plan just weeks before it was set to start. Hochul had previously supported the plan, which would have charged drivers $15 to enter parts of Manhattan in order to fund the city’s public transportation budget.

We discuss the plea deal and release of Julian Assange with Australian journalist Antony Loewenstein, and the reaction in Assange’s home country of Australia to his release and WikiLeaks’s legacy, which he says helped open the door to whistleblowers and leakers in the era of digital journalism. Loewenstein, the author of The Palestine Laboratory, also discusses the state of press freedom in Israel’s war on Gaza.

We discuss the plea deal and release of Julian Assange with press freedom advocate Trevor Timm. “Thankfully, Julian Assange is finally going free today, but the press freedom implications remain to be seen,” says Timm, who explains the U.S. espionage case against Assange, which was opened under the Trump administration and continued under Biden. Timm expresses disappointment that Biden chose to continue prosecuting Assange rather than demonstrating his stated support of press freedom.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been freed from Belmarsh Prison in London, where he has been incarcerated for the past five years, after accepting a plea deal with U.S. prosecutors. After a decade-plus of legal challenges, Assange will plead guilty to a single felony count of illegally obtaining and disclosing national security material for publishing classified documents detailing U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan on WikiLeaks.

We go to Gaza to speak with Palestinian journalist Maha Hussaini after the International Women’s Media Foundation came under fire for rescinding its Courage in Journalism Award to her following a smear campaign. Hussaini is an award-winning journalist and human rights advocate who has extensively documented Israel’s war on Gaza since October, including reporting on the mass displacement of Palestinians while being repeatedly displaced herself.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced that the Israeli military plans to shift its focus to Lebanon, from where attacks on Israel by Hezbollah have escalated in recent months. “The Lebanon-Israel border is more dangerous than ever because of the capabilities that Hezbollah has,” says Palestinian American journalist Rami Khouri. He explains how the balance of power has shifted in the region, but warns of the potentially “devastating” effects of a full-scale war in Lebanon.

Democratic Congressmember Ayanna Pressley is a founding member of a congressional task force aiming to stop the right-wing Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025,” the moniker given to a Donald Trump-associated political plan to reduce the power of the federal government and push forward socially conservative policies. Pressley calls Project 2025 an “extreme manifesto” and explains why she has made preventing its coming into fruition a top priority during the 2024 election.

Tuesday is the culmination of the most expensive primary race in U.S. history in New York’s 16th Congressional District. Democratic Congressmember Jamaal Bowman, a former Bronx middle school principal and one of the first to call for a ceasefire in Gaza in October, is being challenged by a former corporate executive, George Latimer, who was encouraged to run by the Democratic Majority for Israel PAC.

The new film Green Border, from acclaimed Polish director Agnieszka Holland, dramatizes the humanitarian crisis facing millions of migrants seeking refuge in Europe. It tells the true story of how refugees from the Middle East and Africa became trapped in 2021 at the so-called green border between Poland and Belarus, through the perspectives of refugees, border guards and refugee rights activists.

The Night Won’t End, a new documentary from Al Jazeera English, takes an in-depth look at attacks on civilians by the Israeli military in Gaza and the United States’ role in the war.

Democratic Congressmember Delia Ramirez of Illinois says “big money in politics” is a threat to U.S. democracy, pointing to Jamaal Bowman’s primary race as an example of how deep-pocketed interest groups can impact election contests.

President Joe Biden’s latest executive order on immigration gives legal protections to about half a million undocumented immigrants who are married to American citizens, preventing their deportation and providing a streamlined pathway to citizenship for them and their children. The announcement is being welcomed by immigrant rights groups, but comes just weeks after Biden signed another order giving himself far-reaching power to shut down the U.S. border with Mexico to limit asylum requests.