Contributing Writers

Plans for a luxury resort in an ecologically sensitive area have set off more than a month of protests in Albania, where thousands have taken to the streets to oppose the megaproject backed by Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. The Flamingo Revolution — named for its feared impact on migratory birds — began as an environmental protest but has now turned into anger at the entire political system, threatening to bring down the government of Prime Minister Edi Rama.

The family of Geraldo Lunas Campos is suing over the 55-year-old Cuban immigrant’s death at an ICE detention center in Texas earlier this year, with a local coroner ruling his death a homicide from asphyxia. The Department of Homeland Security said Lunas Campos had attempted suicide, but witnesses said he died after being restrained by multiple guards. The family’s lawsuit names four guards and multiple private companies overseeing the jail.

Immigration and civil rights advocacy groups are demanding an independent investigation into the fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican immigrant and father of three who was killed by ICE agents in Houston on Tuesday morning. Salgado Araujo, who had been living in the United States for nearly 35 years, worked in construction and was starting his day by picking up other workers in Magnolia Park, a historically Latino neighborhood, when ICE agents targeted him.

We speak with political analyst Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, about the latest events in the Middle East. The United States has bombed Iran for multiple days after President Donald Trump declared the ceasefire between the countries to be “over.” Iran says it has retaliated by attacking U.S. military bases and other strategic sites in Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar.

As part of the U.S.-backed “Board of Peace” 20-point plan to end Israel’s military assault on Gaza, Hamas is dissolving its civilian governing body in the Gaza Strip. Hamas’s head of administration, Mohammed al-Farra, resigned from his position on Monday. Hamas, which has controlled the territory for nearly two decades, has said that its ministries and staff will stay in place, and that it will still oversee security and policing in parts of Gaza left under its control.

A new investigation has uncovered how the United Arab Emirates (UAE) supports a secret network of military training camps for the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) that enables them to continue their deadly war in Sudan.
“This war, which is often categorized in international media as a civil war, is really a proxy war,” says award-winning journalist and documentary filmmaker Julia Steers.

Trump announced on Tuesday at the NATO summit in Ankara that he would lift U.S. sanctions on Turkey and is considering selling the country F-35 fighter jets. Trump made the comment following a lavish state dinner hosted by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, whom he praised as a “great leader.” The mayor of Istanbul and other Turkish politicians, civil society figures and journalists remain jailed on politically motivated charges.

Maine’s Democratic Senate nominee Graham Platner has yet to drop out of the race despite losing all major endorsements after a rape allegation by an ex-girlfriend, Jenny Racicot, who says Platner assaulted her in 2021. Platner has denied the claim.
“There’s no way to force Platner off the ballot; he has to make the decision,” says Amy Fried, professor emerita of political science at the University of Maine.

A New York City Council employee who was detained at the Delaney Hall ICE jail in Newark, New Jersey, for more than five months was released from custody in June. Rafael Andres Rubio Bohorquez was taken by federal immigration officers in January during a routine asylum interview. Rubio Bohorquez, who is from Venezuela, was detained despite holding temporary protected status that should have shielded him from deportation.
“People are sad; detainees are sad.

As part of the U.S.-backed “Board of Peace” 20-point plan to end Israel’s military assault on Gaza, Hamas is dissolving its civilian governing body in the Gaza Strip. Hamas’s head of administration, Mohammed al-Farra, resigned from his position on Monday. Hamas, which has controlled the territory for nearly two decades, has said that its ministries and staff will stay in place, and that it will still oversee security and policing in parts of Gaza left under its control.

Israel continues to ignore international calls to free the director of Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, from over 18 months of Israeli detention without charge. After seeing Dr. Abu Safiya on July 2, his attorney Nasser Odeh says the doctor faces “tangible danger to his life” from torture and medical neglect. For more, we speak to Tirza Leibowitz, the deputy director of Physicians for Human Rights Israel, about Abu Safiya’s case and efforts to secure his release.

Millions of people are estimated to be participating in the multiday state funeral of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in Iran this week. After ruling the Islamic Republic of Iran for over three dozen years, Khamenei was killed by a joint Israeli-U.S. airstrike on February 28. Now viewed as a martyr by both his religious base and the wider Iranian public, Khamenei has taken on a “new identity” as “the leader of the resistance movement, the leader in the fight against U.S.

As part of our July Fourth special broadcast, we continue our extended interview with Karen Hao, author of Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI. The book documents the rise of OpenAI and how the AI industry is leading to a new form of colonialism. “One of the things that you really have to understand about AI development today is that there are what I call quasi-religious movements that have developed within Silicon Valley,” says Hao.

A New York City Council employee who was detained at the Delaney Hall ICE jail in Newark, New Jersey, for more than five months was released from custody in June. Rafael Andres Rubio Bohorquez was taken by federal immigration officers in January during a routine asylum interview. Rubio Bohorquez, who is from Venezuela, was detained despite holding temporary protected status that should have shielded him from deportation.
“People are sad; detainees are sad.

A massive heat dome settled above the eastern half of the United States over the Fourth of July weekend, bringing triple-digit temperatures, disrupting travel and prompting emergency measures for millions of people. At least 25 people died in New Jersey due to extreme heat and humidity, and more than 185 million people — over half of U.S. residents — were under heat alerts over the weekend.

A grand jury in Washington, D.C., has indicted former U.S. Olympic canoeist David “Davey” Hearn on a felony charge for allegedly vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on June 19. He is facing a possible maximum sentence of 10 years in prison if convicted.

As part of our July Fourth special broadcast, we continue our extended interview with Karen Hao, author of Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI. The book documents the rise of OpenAI and how the AI industry is leading to a new form of colonialism. “One of the things that you really have to understand about AI development today is that there are what I call quasi-religious movements that have developed within Silicon Valley,” says Hao.

In our July Fourth special broadcast, we revisit our interview with longtime technology reporter Karen Hao, author of Empire of AI, which unveils the accruing political and economic power of artificial intelligence companies — especially Sam Altman’s OpenAI. Her reporting uncovered the exploitation of workers in Kenya, attempts to take massive amounts of freshwater from communities in Chile, along with numerous accounts of the technology’s detrimental impact on the environment.

We begin our July Fourth special broadcast with the words of Frederick Douglass. Born into slavery around 1818, Douglass became a key leader of the abolitionist movement. On July 5, 1852, in Rochester, New York, Douglass gave one of his most famous speeches, “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” He was addressing the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society.

Ahead of the July Fourth holiday and the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, we speak with the acclaimed scholar Robin D. G. Kelley, who examines how Black radicals have interpreted the document throughout U.S. history in a new essay for Hammer & Hope. Although the declaration famously asserts that “all men are created equal,” Kelley says that clearly did not extend to Indigenous or enslaved Black people.

In a 6-3 ruling this week that overturned nine decades of precedent, the Supreme Court granted President Donald Trump the power to fire and replace officials at independent government agencies like the Federal Trade Commission. But in a separate 5-4 decision, the justices ruled that Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook can stay in her job as she challenges Trump’s efforts to fire her.

As part of our July Fourth special broadcast, we continue our extended interview with Karen Hao, author of Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI. The book documents the rise of OpenAI and how the AI industry is leading to a new form of colonialism. “One of the things that you really have to understand about AI development today is that there are what I call quasi-religious movements that have developed within Silicon Valley,” says Hao.

In our July Fourth special broadcast, we revisit our interview with longtime technology reporter Karen Hao, author of Empire of AI, which unveils the accruing political and economic power of artificial intelligence companies — especially Sam Altman’s OpenAI. Her reporting uncovered the exploitation of workers in Kenya, attempts to take massive amounts of freshwater from communities in Chile, along with numerous accounts of the technology’s detrimental impact on the environment.

We begin our July Fourth special broadcast with the words of Frederick Douglass. Born into slavery around 1818, Douglass became a key leader of the abolitionist movement. On July 5, 1852, in Rochester, New York, Douglass gave one of his most famous speeches, “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” He was addressing the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society.

Ahead of the July Fourth holiday and the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, we speak with the acclaimed scholar Robin D. G. Kelley, who examines how Black radicals have interpreted the document throughout U.S. history in a new essay for Hammer & Hope. Although the declaration famously asserts that “all men are created equal,” Kelley says that clearly did not extend to Indigenous or enslaved Black people.

In a 6-3 ruling this week that overturned nine decades of precedent, the Supreme Court granted President Donald Trump the power to fire and replace officials at independent government agencies like the Federal Trade Commission. But in a separate 5-4 decision, the justices ruled that Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook can stay in her job as she challenges Trump’s efforts to fire her.

Ahead of the July Fourth holiday and the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, we speak with the acclaimed scholar Robin D. G. Kelley, who examines how Black radicals have interpreted the document throughout U.S. history in a new essay for Hammer & Hope. Although the declaration famously asserts that “all men are created equal,” Kelley says that clearly did not extend to Indigenous or enslaved Black people.

In a 6-3 ruling this week that overturned nine decades of precedent, the Supreme Court granted President Donald Trump the power to fire and replace officials at independent government agencies like the Federal Trade Commission. But in a separate 5-4 decision, the justices ruled that Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook can stay in her job as she challenges Trump’s efforts to fire her.

As part of our July Fourth special broadcast, we continue our extended interview with Karen Hao, author of Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI. The book documents the rise of OpenAI and how the AI industry is leading to a new form of colonialism. “One of the things that you really have to understand about AI development today is that there are what I call quasi-religious movements that have developed within Silicon Valley,” says Hao.

In our July Fourth special broadcast, we revisit our interview with longtime technology reporter Karen Hao, author of Empire of AI, which unveils the accruing political and economic power of artificial intelligence companies — especially Sam Altman’s OpenAI. Her reporting uncovered the exploitation of workers in Kenya, attempts to take massive amounts of freshwater from communities in Chile, along with numerous accounts of the technology’s detrimental impact on the environment.