Contributing Writers

After widespread bipartisan outcry, the Justice Department says it is permanently abandoning plans for a $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” fund. Widely branded as a “slush fund,” it was expected to reward President Donald Trump’s supporters, including those who attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021. The fund was announced in May as part of a settlement in Trump’s personal lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his tax data.

A federal jury last week convicted three people on felony conspiracy charges over their involvement in an anti-ICE protest in Spokane, Washington, last June. The “Spokane Three” are awaiting sentencing and face up to six years in prison for conspiracy to impede or injure ICE officers. They had attempted to block the transfer of a group of detained immigrants by sitting in front of a bus.

We speak with journalist, academic and author Steven Thrasher about his new book, The Overseer Class, in which he explores how members of historically marginalized groups rise to positions of power within institutions in lieu of structural change. He identifies Black police officers as a prominent example of this phenomenon.

More than 200 people have now been killed in U.S. military strikes on boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. Since September, the Pentagon has struck more than 60 vessels, claiming, without evidence, that the boats were engaged in “narco-trafficking” operations. Human rights groups have roundly condemned the attacks as extrajudicial killings.
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Israeli drones have killed at least eight people in Lebanon despite an announcement Monday by U.S. President Donald Trump that both Israel and Hezbollah had agreed to stop fighting. Trump’s intervention came as Israel threatened new strikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut, leading Iran to suspend indirect negotiations with the U.S. to protest Israel’s expanding military offensive in Lebanon.

A federal jury last week convicted three people on felony conspiracy charges over their involvement in an anti-ICE protest in Spokane, Washington, last June. The “Spokane Three” are awaiting sentencing and face up to six years in prison for conspiracy to impede or injure ICE officers. They had attempted to block the transfer of a group of detained immigrants by sitting in front of a bus.

President Donald Trump has tapped David Venturella, a former ICE official and executive at the private prison company GEO Group, to replace Todd Lyons as head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. GEO Group saw its profits jump from $32 million in 2024 to more than $254 million in 2025 as the Trump administration expanded government contracts with ICE jails nationwide.

We look at a growing boycott against Citizens Bank amid a campaign to pressure the corporation to divest from financing CoreCivic and GEO Group, two of the nation’s largest private operators of ICE jails.

An estimated 300 immigrants detained at the Delaney Hall ICE jail in Newark, New Jersey, are continuing a hunger and labor strike to demand their freedom. Amid ongoing protests, New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill has deployed state police, who erected a barricade around the facility and have reportedly brutalized activists. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka has also imposed a nightly curfew around Delaney Hall until further notice.

Protests in Bolivia are demanding the resignation of Rodrigo Paz, the country’s first right-wing president in decades. Since Paz took office in November 2025, the country has been placed under austerity measures that have led to a surge in poverty rates for much of Bolivia’s rural and working-class population. We speak to Kathryn Ledebur, director of the Andean Information Network in Cochabamba, Bolivia, about the monthlong protests.

A jury in Chicago has ordered Boeing to pay nearly $50 million to the family of Samya Stumo, a 24-year-old who was one of a total of 346 people killed in a pair of Boeing 737 MAX jet crashes less than a decade ago. Stumo died aboard Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 in March 2019, just months after another 737 MAX jet, a recently introduced model at the time, crashed in Indonesia. “They knew that there was a malfunction with the plane.

We get an update on protests at Newark, New Jersey’s Delaney Hall, an ICE facility owned and operated by the private prison company GEO Group, where hundreds of immigrant detainees have been on a hunger and labor strike for the past week demanding their immediate release.

The Justice Department has reportedly launched a criminal investigation into the writer E. Jean Carroll, who successfully sued Donald Trump twice, for sexual abuse and defamation. According to CNN, The New York Times and other outlets, the investigation is focused on whether Carroll committed perjury in a deposition, even though a federal appeals court upheld the rulings in 2024.

Protests in Bolivia are demanding the resignation of Rodrigo Paz, the country’s first right-wing president in decades. Since Paz took office in November 2025, the country has been placed under austerity measures that have led to a surge in poverty rates for much of Bolivia’s rural and working-class population. We speak to Kathryn Ledebur, director of the Andean Information Network in Cochabamba, Bolivia, about the monthlong protests.

A jury in Chicago has ordered Boeing to pay nearly $50 million to the family of Samya Stumo, a 24-year-old who was one of a total of 346 people killed in a pair of Boeing 737 MAX jet crashes less than a decade ago. Stumo died aboard Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 in March 2019, just months after another 737 MAX jet, a recently introduced model at the time, crashed in Indonesia. “They knew that there was a malfunction with the plane.

We get an update on protests at Newark, New Jersey’s Delaney Hall, an ICE facility owned and operated by the private prison company GEO Group, where hundreds of immigrant detainees have been on a hunger and labor strike for the past week demanding their immediate release.

The Justice Department has reportedly launched a criminal investigation into the writer E. Jean Carroll, who successfully sued Donald Trump twice, for sexual abuse and defamation. According to CNN, The New York Times and other outlets, the investigation is focused on whether Carroll committed perjury in a deposition, even though a federal appeals court upheld the rulings in 2024.

The Justice Department has reportedly launched a criminal investigation into the writer E. Jean Carroll, who successfully sued Donald Trump twice, for sexual abuse and defamation. According to CNN, The New York Times and other outlets, the investigation is focused on whether Carroll committed perjury in a deposition, even though a federal appeals court upheld the rulings in 2024.

Protests in Bolivia are demanding the resignation of Rodrigo Paz, the country’s first right-wing president in decades. Since Paz took office in November 2025, the country has been placed under austerity measures that have led to a surge in poverty rates for much of Bolivia’s rural and working-class population. We speak to Kathryn Ledebur, director of the Andean Information Network in Cochabamba, Bolivia, about the monthlong protests.

A jury in Chicago has ordered Boeing to pay nearly $50 million to the family of Samya Stumo, a 24-year-old who was one of a total of 346 people killed in a pair of Boeing 737 MAX jet crashes less than a decade ago. Stumo died aboard Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 in March 2019, just months after another 737 MAX jet, a recently introduced model at the time, crashed in Indonesia. “They knew that there was a malfunction with the plane.

We get an update on protests at Newark, New Jersey’s Delaney Hall, an ICE facility owned and operated by the private prison company GEO Group, where hundreds of immigrant detainees have been on a hunger and labor strike for the past week demanding their immediate release.

The Justice Department has reportedly launched a criminal investigation into the writer E. Jean Carroll, who successfully sued Donald Trump twice, for sexual abuse and defamation. According to CNN, The New York Times and other outlets, the investigation is focused on whether Carroll committed perjury in a deposition, even though a federal appeals court upheld the rulings in 2024.

Colombian mercenaries accused of committing war crimes in Sudan were trained on military bases in the United Arab Emirates, according to a new report from Human Rights Watch. The group’s investigation outlines how, since 2024, the Abu Dhabi-based security company Global Security Services Group hired hundreds of Colombian private military contractors, who were then deployed to Sudan to fight alongside the Rapid Support Forces.

Nearly two months after the United States and Iran agreed to a ceasefire, are the two sides any closer to a lasting peace deal?
We speak with Robert Malley, the Middle East program director at the International Crisis Group, who worked in multiple Democratic administrations and helped negotiate the Obama-era Iran nuclear deal with Iran. He says Trump’s decision to pull the U.S.

Amid stalled U.S.-Iran peace talks, Israel has intensified its attacks across Lebanon and on Wednesday issued an evacuation order for all areas south of the Zahrani River — about 14% of the country. That includes Tyre, one of Lebanon’s largest cities.
“It’s hard to see an end in sight,” says Ramzi Kaiss, researcher at Human Rights Watch, who notes that nearly 1,000 people have been killed in Lebanon since the April 16 U.S.-brokered ceasefire.

Tennessee death row prisoner Tony Carruthers was issued a one-year stay of execution last Thursday after prison officials were unable to find a backup injection vein in a botched execution attempt that left Carruthers suffering and in pain for over an hour. Nashville reporter Steven Hale attended the execution and describes his and fellow witnesses’ confusion as they heard the sounds of what Carruthers’s attorneys are calling “torture.

We speak with political scientist Jeffrey Winters about his new book, The Blind Spot: How Oligarchs Dominate Our Democracies. Winters argues that democracy’s failure to address wealth inequality is by design. While voters have a say on some issues, oligarchs, who succeed in maintaining economic inequality by fighting against wealth redistribution, have more power.

Two officers who defended the Capitol on January 6, 2021, have filed a lawsuit in federal court to block the creation of a $1.8 billion so-called anti-weaponization fund. Former Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn and Metropolitan Police Department officer Daniel Hodges are bringing the lawsuit because the fund could be used to compensate the Capitol rioters who attacked them and their colleagues. Both officers say they have faced continuous credible threats since that day.

Around 300 immigrants detained at the Delaney Hall ICE jail in Newark, New Jersey, have been on a hunger and work strike since Friday to protest inhumane conditions and due process violations. Delaney Hall is operated by the private prison company GEO Group. Since the hunger strike was launched, immigration advocates have been staging a solidarity protest outside Delaney Hall to promote the detainees’ demands for freedom.