Contributing Writers

We get an update from Sudan, where at least three pro-democracy protesters were killed by security forces on Thursday, bringing the death toll to at least 60 since the military coup on October 25. Thursday’s protest came four days following Abdalla Hamdok’s resignation as Sudan’s prime minister, after he was deposed in the October coup and then shortly restored to power by the military in November.

We look at the skyrocketing number of COVID infections. Coronavirus cases hit record highs this week, with global cases climbing 70% from last week to 9.5 million and the U.S. reporting a single-day record of 1 million new cases on Monday. In the U.S., the extraordinary volume of cases is filling up emergency rooms nationwide and exhausting healthcare workers, says emergency room physician Dr. Craig Spencer, who has been treating coronavirus patients since the pandemic began.

President Joe Biden warned about the looming threat of autocracy during his speech marking the first anniversary of the January 6 Capitol attack on Thursday and denounced his predecessor Donald Trump for inciting the rioters. In a statement responding to Biden’s speech, Trump continued to falsely claim the 2020 election was rigged.

Former Pentagon adviser Ryan Goodman says former President Trump could have used the Insurrection Act to hold onto power during the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by his supporters. “There needs to be reform of the Insurrection Act,” says Goodman, who authored the report “Crisis of Command: The Pentagon, the President, and January 6” for Just Security, where he is co-editor.

One year since Trump supporters staged a violent mob attack on the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s presidency, we discuss exactly what was happening behind the scenes in the intelligence community that day. We are joined by Newsweek national security reporter William Arkin, who appeared on Democracy Now! just hours prior to the Capitol attack and predicted a violent outcome hours later.

Many events marking the first anniversary of the deadly January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol are focusing on voting rights, as false claims about voter fraud have fueled Republican efforts to restrict voting access, especially for Black voters. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer vowed Tuesday to proceed with a vote to change the filibuster rule to prevent Republicans from blocking new voting rights legislation.

On the first anniversary of the deadly insurrection of January 6, when right-wing and white supremacist supporters of Donald Trump attacked the Capitol in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election, we speak with Elie Mystal of The Nation about the Department of Justice investigation, led by U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, who pledged Wednesday to bring everyone involved to “justice.” Mystal says Garland should be more aggressive and also pursue Donald Trump.

The French humanitarian group Utopia 56 has filed a manslaughter lawsuit against British and French officials for failing to help 27 migrants who drowned to death in the English Channel in November. The only two survivors say they were ignored when they made distress calls and told their location to French and English rescue services after their boat capsized and started sinking in the freezing waters off the French port city of Calais.

As the Omicron variant sets record-high COVID-19 infection rates across the United States, we look at the conditions in the sprawling network of jails run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement where the Biden administration is holding more than 22,000 people. “There’s still a lot of people detained. There’s no social distancing.

The January 6 insurrection resulted in criminal charges for over 700 rioters, and the FBI has since called it an act of domestic terrorism. Philadelphia Inquirer national columnist Will Bunch says there is growing evidence that links Trump and his inner circle to the Capitol attack. He argues understanding what was happening behind the scenes at the Pentagon, which has operational control over the National Guard in D.C.

Thursday marks one year since a violent mob of thousands of far-right and white supremacist Trump supporters descended on the U.S. Capitol, disrupting Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election and resulting in five deaths and hundreds of injuries.

A devastating climate change-fueled wildfire destroyed nearly 1,000 homes outside of Boulder and Denver, Colorado, with little notice last Thursday. The fire was fanned by winds that gusted up to 110 miles per hour, and came after a year of drought across the western U.S. and amid an unusually warm December.