Contributing Writers

Despite decades of warnings against the practice, police departments across the country continue to hogtie people during arrests, sometimes with fatal results. On September 8, 2018, Marcus Smith, a 38-year-old homeless Black man in Greensboro, North Carolina, was facing a mental health crisis and asked police officers for help. Instead, eight white officers brutally and fatally hogtied him.

Protests and vigils were held across the U.S. to mark one year since the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Floyd’s death sparked a national uprising and global movement against systemic racism and police brutality.

The Biden administration is granting more than 100,000 Haitians in the United States the chance to gain temporary protected status, or TPS, which includes work permits and protection from deportation while Haiti suffers a political crisis.

As the world marks the anniversary of George Floyd’s murder, attorney Lee Merritt says there is still a long way to go in reforming “the deadliest police culture in the modern world.” Merritt, who has represented the Floyd family and other victims of police brutality, says Republicans and Democrats should come together to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.

George Floyd’s murder on May 25, 2020, sparked a global uprising against systemic racism and police brutality and put the spotlight on decades-long movements dedicated to abolition and criminal justice reform.

In her first TV interview, we speak with Emily Wilder, the young reporter fired by the Associated Press after she was targeted in a Republican smear campaign for her pro-Palestinian activism in college. Wilder is Jewish and was a member of Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace at Stanford University before she graduated in 2020.

The Biden administration is granting more than 100,000 Haitians in the United States the chance to gain temporary protected status, or TPS, which includes work permits and protection from deportation while Haiti suffers a political crisis.

As the world marks the anniversary of George Floyd’s murder, attorney Lee Merritt says there is still a long way to go in reforming “the deadliest police culture in the modern world.” Merritt, who has represented the Floyd family and other victims of police brutality, says Republicans and Democrats should come together to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.

New bodycam footage is raising more questions about the deadly arrest of a Black man, Ronald Greene, in Louisiana during a 2019 traffic stop in the city of Monroe. Family members said police originally told them Greene died in a car accident, but the Associated Press obtained video of Louisiana state troopers electrocuting, beating and dragging Greene. Greene’s family has filed a federal wrongful death lawsuit, and Greene’s death is also being federally investigated.

The United Nations is appealing to the world to address the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza following the 11-day Israeli assault that killed 248 Palestinians, including 66 children, and injured more than 1,700 people. The U.N. is estimating that at least 6,000 residents of Gaza were left homeless after their homes were bombed by Israel, which has maintained a blockade on Gaza for the past 14 years.

Reverend William Barber, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign and president of Repairers of the Breach, says the United States needs a “Third Reconstruction” aimed at lifting 140 million poor and low-income people out of poverty.

We speak with Reverend William Barber, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign and former head of the North Carolina NAACP, who is in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, to call for an expedited independent investigation into the police killing of Andrew Brown Jr., the 42-year-old Black father who was killed there last month by a bullet in the back of his head after seven deputies blocked him in his driveway while serving an arrest warrant.

Israeli forces shot and killed Obaida Jawabra, a 17-year-old boy, earlier this week in the al-Arroub refugee camp located near the occupied West Bank city of Hebron. Obaida was shot in the chest, and witnesses say Israeli soldiers blocked an ambulance from reaching the teenager. He was taken to a local hospital by private car and later pronounced dead.

In Gaza, thousands of people have taken to the streets to celebrate after Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire, ending Israel’s 11-day bombardment of the territory. At least 243 Palestinians, including 66 children, were killed in the airstrikes and bombings. Rockets fired from Gaza also killed 12 people in Israel. Raji Sourani, director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza, welcomes the ceasefire but stresses Palestinians demand more than just the end of bombing.