Contributing Writers

We look at the history of clinical vaccine trials and exploitation of vulnerable people in the U.S. and India, which recently surpassed Brazil as the country with the second most infections worldwide. Kaushik Sunder Rajan, an anthropologist at the University of Chicago, says there is a documented history of “ethical lapses” and lack of accountability in vaccine studies in India.

As President Trump pushes to release a coronavirus vaccine before the November election, a National Institutes of Health report details how the process could be slowed by a lack of participation in vaccine studies by African American and Latinx people, many of whom mistrust the U.S. healthcare system due the history of racist medical exploitation.

The skies of the Bay Area and Northern California turned a dark orange as 90 major fires burn in the western United States, from San Diego to the Canadian border. At least seven people have died as a result of the fires, which have already burned 2.5 million acres in California alone. Despite heavy coverage in the mainstream media, however, few outlets are highlighting the link between the blazes and the accelerating climate crisis.

Iván Velásquez is a Colombian prosecutor who headed the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala from 2013 to 2019, a powerful U.N.-backed commission formed to investigate corruption in the country and supported by the Obama administration.

Filmmaker Yoruba Richen, director of The New York Times documentary “The Killing of Breonna Taylor,” says the 26-year-old EMT’s killing was not just a devastating blow to her friends and family, but a “loss of the entire community.” Police officers in Louisville, Kentucky, fatally shot Taylor during a raid on her home in March, part of a botched drug investigation.

We look at how decades of U.S. military intervention in Central America have led to the ongoing migrant crisis, with Salvadoran American journalist Roberto Lovato, author of the new book “Unforgetting: A Memoir of Family, Migration, Gangs, and Revolution in the Americas.” Lovato recounts his own family’s migration from El Salvador to the United States, his return to the country as a young man to fight against the U.S.

As the long-awaited extradition hearing for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange gets underway in London, his legal adviser, Jennifer Robinson, says the case could set a chilling precedent for press freedoms around the world. “He faces 175 years in prison for doing his job as a journalist and a publisher. That’s why this case is so dangerous,” says Robinson. Assange faces numerous charges, including under the U.S.

In a Democracy Now! special, we revisit our June 2020 interview with the legendary activist and scholar Angela Davis about the uprising against police brutality and racism launched in May after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The protests have helped dramatically shift public opinion on policing and systemic racism, as “defund the police” becomes a rallying cry of the movement. Davis is professor emerita at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Iván Velásquez is a Colombian prosecutor who headed the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala from 2013 to 2019, a powerful U.N.-backed commission formed to investigate corruption in the country and supported by the Obama administration.

Filmmaker Yoruba Richen, director of The New York Times documentary “The Killing of Breonna Taylor,” says the 26-year-old EMT’s killing was not just a devastating blow to her friends and family, but a “loss of the entire community.” Police officers in Louisville, Kentucky, fatally shot Taylor during a raid on her home in March, part of a botched drug investigation.

Months after the police killing of Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky, new details have emerged about the final moments of the 26-year-old EMT’s life and the police raid that brought it to a violent end, as detailed in a New York Times documentary that includes dozens of interviews and a review of more than 1,200 new photos of the crime scene.

Upon the death of acclaimed anthropologist and anarchist David Graeber, we feature his 2011 interview on Democracy Now!, two days after the Occupy encampment began. Graeber helped organize the initial Occupy Wall Street protest and was credited with helping to develop the slogan, “We are the 99%.” “The idea is the system is not going to save us; we’re going to have to save ourselves,” says Graeber.

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the election of socialist President Salvador Allende in Chile, a significant moment in the history of political revolutions. We speak with Chilean American author, human rights defender and poet Ariel Dorfman, who was cultural and press adviser to Allende’s chief of staff in the last months of his presidency, about how the revolution used peaceful means to bring about radical change in Chile and beyond.

As President Trump openly embraces the far-right conspiracy theory QAnon and promotes “law and order” while refusing to condemn armed followers of his who target antiracist protesters, we speak with Jason Stanley, Yale philosopher and scholar of propaganda, author of “How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them.