Contributing Writers

As Democracy Now! prepares to mark 25 years on air, we celebrate Nermeen Shaikh’s 10th anniversary as a Democracy Now! co-host and feature a report she filed from protests at New York’s JFK Airport against the Trump administration’s Muslim ban, one of the many highlights from her time on the program.

Students, campaigners and top Democrats have been pushing President Joe Biden to use executive authority to cancel at least $50,000 in student loan debt per person. Student loan debt in the U.S. stands at $1.7 trillion, with some 45 million people owing money. Filmmaker and organizer Astra Taylor, an author, documentary director and organizer with the Debt Collective, says Biden has clear legal authority to cancel student debt. “Not doing this is a choice,” she says.

While COVID-19 infection rates and hospitalizations appear to be waning, the United States has a long way to go before people can safely return to everyday life without masks. Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease physician and professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, says it’s vital to stay vigilant even as vaccinations ramp up. “If we can get our transmission down as low as possible, that is actually going to make the vaccines more effective.

Millions of people in Texas were plunged into freezing cold and darkness as a major winter storm overwhelmed the state’s power grid. More than 12 million Texans face water disruptions and have been ordered to boil tap water for safe consumption, and some parts of the state have no running water at all. The state is also running out of food as the storms disrupt key supply chains.

Ecuador’s presidential front-runner says the country is facing a “double crisis” of COVID-19 and austerity. “We need a renewal in our politics,” Andrés Arauz tells Democracy Now! The left-wing economist secured nearly 33% of the vote in the first round of Ecuador’s presidential election on February 7 but fell short of the 40% needed to win outright.

Amid the economic crisis and precarious working conditions for millions of people during the pandemic, we look at a new book by Sarah Jaffe, an independent journalist and author who covers labor and economic justice. “Work Won’t Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone” looks at the unsustainable expectations of fulfillment around work and how the “labor of love” myth has contributed to the rise of toxic workplaces.

Amazon workers in Bessemer, Alabama, are continuing to vote on whether to become the first unionized Amazon warehouse in the United States. Their demands include stronger COVID-19 safety measures and relief from impossibly high productivity standards that leave many unable to take bathroom breaks. “We want to be heard.

As school districts across the U.S. debate how to safely bring children into the classroom, we speak with two leaders of the teachers’ union movement on what’s at stake as schools reopen. Stacy Davis Gates, executive vice president of the Chicago Teachers Union, says years of underfunding and privatization have left many school districts ill-equipped to meet the needs of students, as well as educators. “It’s not just the context of opening schools.

As the U.S. death toll from COVID-19 approaches half a million, a new report says nearly 40% of the deaths were avoidable. By comparing the pandemic in the U.S. to other high-income nations, the medical journal The Lancet found significant gaps in former President Donald Trump’s “inept and insufficient” response to COVID-19, as well as decades of destructive public policy decisions.

As the Senate votes to acquit former President Donald Trump for inciting the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, we speak with constitutional lawyer and former Reagan administration official Bruce Fein, who says the insurrection was not just an attack on the U.S. Capitol, but “an effort, basically, to destroy the rule of law and the Constitution itself.” Fein says failure to convict Trump will give license to future presidents to break the law.

Ecuador’s presidential front-runner says the country is facing a “double crisis” of COVID-19 and austerity. “We need a renewal in our politics,” Andrés Arauz tells Democracy Now! The left-wing economist secured nearly 33% of the vote in the first round of Ecuador’s presidential election on February 7 but fell short of the 40% needed to win outright.

Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she has authorized a 9/11-style commission to further investigate the January 6 insurrection and the actions that led up to it, as calls grow for the criminal prosecution of former President Donald Trump after his acquittal in his second Senate impeachment trial.

Amid a global rise in domestic violence during the pandemic, we speak with the founder of V-Day, a day of action to fight violence against women. V, the award-winning playwright of “The Vagina Monologues,” formerly known as Eve Ensler, says organizers around the globe are finding ways to fight back.