Contributing Writers

After months of decline in COVID-19 cases in the United States due in part to widely available vaccines, the number of new cases per day is on the rise again. Pfizer representatives met with U.S. regulators and vaccine experts to seek emergency use authorization for a second booster dose of its vaccine, as health experts are continuing to highlight the growing gap in administered vaccinations between rich and low-income countries.

We speak with two of the Texas Democratic lawmakers who fled to Washington, D.C., to block suppressive new voting laws in their home state and who are calling on Congress to quickly pass legislation protecting voting rights.

We go to Havana, Cuba, to look at what is behind protests that brought thousands of people into the streets of Havana and other cities in rare anti-government protests denouncing the island’s economic crisis during the COVID-19 pandemic. Cuba is facing its harshest phase of the pandemic with skyrocketing infections, and people are scrambling to cope amid shortages of medicine, food and other resources due to catastrophic U.S. sanctions.

As the COVID-19 pandemic drags on, less than 0.1% of vaccine doses have been administered in low-income countries, according to data available at the end of March, with more than 86% of shots being administered in high- and upper-middle-income countries. “We are not protecting ourselves from the virus, and we frankly are setting up the virus and COVID for being around for generations,” says New York Congressmember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

The award-winning documentary “Fly So Far” looks at the criminalization of abortion in El Salvador through the incredible story of Teodora Vásquez, a woman who in 2008 was sentenced to 30 years in prison after she had a stillbirth at nine months pregnant. Vásquez was released in 2018 after more than a decade behind bars.

The Supreme Court is set to review a Mississippi law banning abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy that intends to challenge Roe v. Wade, raising concern for advocates about how reproductive rights can be preserved without the landmark ruling.

We speak with one of the Texas Democrats who has fled the state to block the Republican-dominated Legislature from passing new voter restrictions in the battleground state, which already has some of the toughest voting rules in the country. Without the Democratic lawmakers, the Texas House won’t have enough members present to reach a quorum.

As the COVID-19 pandemic drags on, less than 0.1% of vaccine doses have been administered in low-income countries, according to data available at the end of March, with more than 86% of shots being administered in high- and upper-middle-income countries. “We are not protecting ourselves from the virus, and we frankly are setting up the virus and COVID for being around for generations,” says New York Congressmember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

As lawmakers return to Washington, D.C., following a two-week recess, we speak with Democratic Congressmember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez about efforts to pass major infrastructure funding that could address child care, climate change, education and poverty.

The winner of the New York City Democratic primary election for mayor, Eric Adams, focused on what he called his more conservative plans to address an increase in gun violence, and is set to meet with President Biden today at the White House. “The way that we counter these increases in incidents [of crime] is through economic opportunity and community investment in communities where these surges are happening,” responds New York Democratic Congressmember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

After the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse at his home in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s interim government says it has asked the United Nations and the United States to send troops to help secure key infrastructure. The U.S. has so far declined, but has sent an inter-agency team from the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI.

Political turmoil continues in Haiti following the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, with multiple people claiming leadership of the country and gangs unleashing a new wave of violence in the streets. Haitian police say they have arrested a key figure in the assassination, 63-year-old Christian Emmanuel Sanon, a Haitian-born doctor based in Florida who arrived in Haiti in June with “political objectives.

Lebanon is days away from a “social explosion,” according to the country’s prime minister, amid what the World Bank has described as one of the worst economic depressions in modern history. The country’s currency has lost more than 90% of its value, unemployment has skyrocketed, and fuel prices have soared. Most homes and businesses, and even hospitals, only have power for a few hours each day, and pharmacies are running low on medicine. The U.N.

The government of the southern African nation of Eswatini, which was known as Swaziland up until 2018, is brutally cracking down on the largest anti-government protests in the country since it became independent from Britain 53 years ago. Eswatini, bordered by Mozambique and South Africa, is currently facing an economic crisis with a shortage of gas, food and other resources.

As President Joe Biden met with civil rights groups this week to discuss how to fight voter suppression efforts, Texas lawmakers followed other battleground states controlled by Republicans with a new push to overhaul the state’s election laws. New restrictions would include a ban on drive-thru voting and 24-hour or late-night voting options, and election officials could be penalized for sending out unsolicited absentee applications.

We look at growing opposition to the Palestinian Authority after the killing of a prominent activist, Nizar Banat, a vocal critic of the ruling body who died in PA custody after security forces violently arrested him at his home. Banat’s killing has sparked protests calling for President Mahmoud Abbas to step down. “The Palestinian Authority now is acting like a police state without the state,” says Palestinian writer Mariam Barghouti.