Contributing Writers

We speak with The Nation’s John Nichols about key outcomes from Tuesday’s election night. In a major blow for Democrats, Republican Glenn Youngkin, who President Biden warned is an extremist in the vein of former President Trump, won the Virginia governor’s race against former Governor Terry McAuliffe.

We look at Monday’s Supreme Court oral arguments on the constitutionality of Texas’s near-total ban on abortions with legendary lawyer Kathryn “Kitty” Kolbert, who argued the 1992 landmark Supreme Court case credited with saving Roe v. Wade. “’Save Roe’ has been our mantra for so many years, and it no longer works because of the ultraconservatie nature of this Supreme Court,” Kolbert says.

A new ad released by the United Nations Development Program shows a computer-generated dinosaur speaking in the U.N. General Assembly hall, warning diplomats that “going extinct is a bad thing” and calling for an end to fossil fuel subsidies. The dinosaur is voiced by Jack Black.

We speak with Brianna Fruean, an activist from Samoa, who implored global leaders at the U.N. climate summit to consider how small islands like Samoa, Tutuila and Tonga might drown without urgent action against rising sea levels. She told the audience, “If you’re looking for inspiration on climate leadership, take a look at young Pacific people.” Many Pacific islands are in danger of vanishing in the next decade if sea levels and global temperatures continue to rise.

Countries attending the U.N. climate summit in Glasgow have made new pledges to cut their emissions, but activists say it’s not enough to avert the worst of the climate crisis. India has vowed to reduce its carbon emissions to net zero by 2070. Over 100 leaders have agreed to end deforestation by 2030. The United States is announcing a new plan to reduce methane emissions, among other measures.

As President Biden addressed the U.N. climate summit in Glasgow on Monday, warning that “climate change is already ravaging the world,” back home his climate agenda was dealt a major setback when Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia criticized the slimmed-down $1.85 trillion Build Back Plan. “The air went out of this conference” when Biden showed up with no major climate legislation passed, says Bill McKibben of 350.org in Glasgow.

In a major development, a Guantánamo Bay detainee described his torture at CIA black sites for the first time in court last week, prompting military jurors to call his treatment a “stain on the moral fiber of America.

As the U.K. government tries to claim the mantle of climate leadership at the U.N. Climate Change Conference, we speak with Mary Church, head of campaigns at Friends of the Earth Scotland. She describes how activists are calling on U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson to block the development of the giant Cambo oil field off the coast of Scotland, which would run counter to the U.N. goals of phasing out fossil fuels.

This year’s U.N. Climate Change Conference in Glasgow may be the whitest and most privileged one ever, with thousands from the Global South unable to attend because of lack of access to COVID-19 vaccines and travel restrictions. The global inequity in vaccine access mirrors the disproportionate impact of the climate crisis that has fallen mostly on poor countries least responsible for emissions, says climate activist Dipti Bhatnagar in Mozambique.

As U.S. President Joe Biden and other world leaders gather amid massive protests in Glasgow for COP26, the U.N. Climate Change Conference, we look at the growing pressure on countries to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius and avert the most damaging effects of the climate crisis.

Virginia’s Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin caused public uproar this week when he released a political ad featuring a white mother who advocated banning Toni Morrison’s novel “Beloved” from schools. The woman, Laura Murphy, describes the book as “some of the most explicit material you can imagine.

We look at the Virginia gubernatorial race, where former Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe is facing Republican Glenn Youngkin, the former CEO of a private equity firm. President Joe Biden, who has campaigned with McAuliffe, warns Youngkin is an extremist in the vein of former President Trump.

A human rights network of 60 organizations working along the U.S.-Mexico border released a letter to Congress on Wednesday urging them to investigate “shadow police units” that have helped cover up beatings and killings by Border Patrol agents for more than three decades.

Democrats in Washington remain divided over two key bills at the center of President Biden’s domestic agenda: a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill and the $1.85 trillion Build Back Better plan, which has been cut down from $3.5 trillion. Even though Biden’s latest framework is almost half the size of the original proposal, conservative Democratic Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona are still refusing to commit to its passage.

Virginia’s Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin caused public uproar this week when he released a political ad featuring a white mother who advocated banning Toni Morrison’s novel “Beloved” from schools. The woman, Laura Murphy, describes the book as “some of the most explicit material you can imagine.