Contributing Writers

We continue our look at the tragic deaths of two Black men who were killed while experiencing mental health crises. Award-winning piano virtuoso Herman Whitfield III died in 2022 after he was repeatedly tasered, handcuffed and pinned to the ground by Indianapolis police officers.

We speak with the uncle of Jordan Neely after a New York jury on Monday acquitted veteran Daniel Penny in the death of the beloved New York street performer on a Manhattan subway train last year. Penny was found not guilty of criminally negligent homicide. The judge dismissed a more serious manslaughter charge. Penny will not face any prison time for the killing.

Nearly 200 Haitians in Port-au-Prince were killed over the weekend on the orders of a powerful gang leader who reportedly targeted elderly practitioners of voodoo because he blamed them for sickening his son. The massacre is the latest chapter in Haiti’s ongoing political crisis, with gangs now controlling much of the capital despite a Kenyan-led security mission to stabilize the country and support the U.S.-backed Transitional Presidential Council.

President-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to abolish birthright citizenship, which he cannot do unilaterally because it is enshrined in the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. But his rhetoric has still alarmed immigrant rights advocates who are concerned about Trump’s mass deportation plans and how they would impact mixed-status families. Trump and his “border czar” Tom Homan have both suggested deporting the U.S. citizen children of parents who are undocumented.

“Whatever’s coming next, I don’t believe at all that [it] would be worse than what we’ve been through, what we lived through,” says Syrian activist and filmmaker Waad Al-Kateab as she celebrates the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorship to Syrian opposition groups. Al-Kateab, who was forced to flee her hometown of Aleppo with her family in 2016 and now resides in the United Kingdom, says the end of Assad’s rule has reignited the “dream of a free Syria.

New York prosecutors have charged a suspect with murder for the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, who was gunned down in Midtown Manhattan on December 4. The suspect has been identified as 26-year-old Luigi Mangione, who was captured in Pennsylvania on Monday after a five-day nationwide search. Police say Mangione was found with a handwritten manifesto, which they have not released.

A new report by the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem documents a shocking rise in harassment, detention and abuse of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron. The report includes testimony from 20 Palestinians who were attacked by soldiers in the city center of Hebron between May and August 2024, apparently chosen at random and detained for spurious or arbitrary reasons.

As Syrians celebrate the fall of the Assad regime after more than five decades of iron rule, many are grappling with the enormity of what has happened to their country, with nearly 14 years of war leaving much of the country in ruins, killing over 350,000 people and displacing 14 million more. Meanwhile, foreign powers, including Israel, Turkey and the United States, have carried out strikes across parts of the country, and Israel has invaded and occupied additional land in the Golan Heights.

France has been plunged into political chaos after lawmakers from across the political spectrum voted to oust Prime Minister Michel Barnier in a no-confidence vote Wednesday, a major blow to President Emmanuel Macron, who had hand-picked the conservative lawmaker to lead the National Assembly.

“Whatever’s coming next, I don’t believe at all that [it] would be worse than what we’ve been through, what we lived through,” says Syrian activist and filmmaker Waad Al-Kateab as she celebrates the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorship to Syrian opposition groups. Al-Kateab, who was forced to flee her hometown of Aleppo with her family in 2016 and now resides in the United Kingdom, says the end of Assad’s rule has reignited the “dream of a free Syria.

The fall of the Assad family’s 50-year regime in Syria brings with it “many more questions than answers,” says the executive director of the Arab Studies Institute, Bassam Haddad. While the regional and global implications are “not good,” as Israel in particular is celebrating the loss of Assad’s material support for Palestinian and Lebanese armed resistance, Haddad says the immediate relief of those suffering under Assad’s totalitarian regime should not be ignored or invisibilized.

“We needed to turn this page. … We’ve been under this inhuman condition for 54 years.” Following a lightning 12-day offensive, armed opposition groups have overthrown President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and his family’s five-decade rule in Syria. Assad has fled to Russia, where he has been granted asylum, while tens of thousands of political prisoners have been freed.

France has been plunged into political chaos after lawmakers from across the political spectrum voted to oust Prime Minister Michel Barnier in a no-confidence vote Wednesday, a major blow to President Emmanuel Macron, who had hand-picked the conservative lawmaker to lead the National Assembly.

Israel’s genocidal war on the Palestinian territory since October of last year has killed tens of thousands of people and wounded over 100,000 more, leaving many with life-altering injuries. The United Nations said this week that Gaza now has the highest per-capita rate of child amputees in the world, with many children forced to endure surgery without anesthesia.

Amnesty International has released a landmark report that concludes Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, making it the first major human rights group to do so. The nearly 300-page report examines the first nine months of the Israeli war on Gaza and finds that Israel’s actions have caused death, injury and mental harm on a vast scale, as well as conditions intended to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza.

We discuss the new HBO Original film Surveilled and explore the film’s investigation of high-tech spyware firms with journalist Ronan Farrow and director Matthew O’Neill. We focus on the influence of the Israeli military in the development of some of the most widely used versions of these surveillance technologies, which in many cases are first tested on Palestinians and used to enforce Israel’s occupation of Palestine, and on the potential expansion of domestic U.S.

France has been plunged into political chaos after lawmakers from across the political spectrum voted to oust Prime Minister Michel Barnier in a no-confidence vote Wednesday, a major blow to President Emmanuel Macron, who had hand-picked the conservative lawmaker to lead the National Assembly.

Israel’s genocidal war on the Palestinian territory since October of last year has killed tens of thousands of people and wounded over 100,000 more, leaving many with life-altering injuries. The United Nations said this week that Gaza now has the highest per-capita rate of child amputees in the world, with many children forced to endure surgery without anesthesia.

Amnesty International has released a landmark report that concludes Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, making it the first major human rights group to do so. The nearly 300-page report examines the first nine months of the Israeli war on Gaza and finds that Israel’s actions have caused death, injury and mental harm on a vast scale, as well as conditions intended to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza.

We discuss the new HBO Original film Surveilled and explore the film’s investigation of high-tech spyware firms with journalist Ronan Farrow and director Matthew O’Neill. We focus on the influence of the Israeli military in the development of some of the most widely used versions of these surveillance technologies, which in many cases are first tested on Palestinians and used to enforce Israel’s occupation of Palestine, and on the potential expansion of domestic U.S.