Contributing Writers

In Pakistan, Shehbaz Sharif was sworn in Monday as prime minister for a second time, days after newly elected members of Parliament were seated amid protests by lawmakers from the party of ousted and jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan. Sharif will lead a coalition government after none of the major parties won a majority of parliamentary seats in February’s election, when Khan supporters accused the military of election tampering.

While the Biden administration has been publicly voicing reservations over the mounting death toll in Gaza, a Washington Post investigation revealed the administration has quietly approved and delivered more than 100 separate weapons sales to Israel over the last five months, amounting to thousands of precision-guided munitions, small-diameter bombs, bunker busters and other lethal aid.

In his State of the Union address, President Biden addressed Israel’s assault on Gaza, where the humanitarian crisis continues to worsen amid a relentless bombing campaign and siege.

President Biden delivered his State of the Union address Thursday night. In it, he made his case for a second term ahead of this year’s presidential election, criticizing Republican front-runner Donald Trump without mentioning him by name, and highlighting his administration’s policies to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans, reinstate reproductive rights and provide support to Ukraine. Our guest Katrina vanden Heuvel, the publisher of The Nation, describes current U.S.

We speak with Palestinian novelist, poet and activist Susan Abulhawa, who is in Cairo and just returned from two weeks in Gaza. “What’s happening to people isn’t just this death and dismemberment and hunger. It is a total denigration of their personhood, of their whole society,” says Abulhawa. “What I witnessed personally in Rafah and some of the middle areas is incomprehensible, and I will call it a holocaust — and I don’t use that word lightly. But it is absolutely that.

In Pakistan, Shehbaz Sharif was sworn in Monday as prime minister for a second time, days after newly elected members of Parliament were seated amid protests by lawmakers from the party of ousted and jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan. Sharif will lead a coalition government after none of the major parties won a majority of parliamentary seats in February’s election, when Khan supporters accused the military of election tampering.

While the Biden administration has been publicly voicing reservations over the mounting death toll in Gaza, a Washington Post investigation revealed the administration has quietly approved and delivered more than 100 separate weapons sales to Israel over the last five months, amounting to thousands of precision-guided munitions, small-diameter bombs, bunker busters and other lethal aid.

As Israel continues its relentless bombardment and siege of Gaza, where hunger and dehydration have reached deadly levels, Hamas has accused Israel of “thwarting” efforts to reach a ceasefire deal. A Hamas delegation in Cairo said that Israel has insisted on rejecting elements of a deal for a phased process that would culminate in an end to Israel’s assault on Gaza, as well as ensuring the entry of aid and facilitating the return of displaced Palestinians back to their homes in Gaza.

Ahead of the 96th Academy Awards, we’re joined by James Wilson, producer of the Oscar-nominated film The Zone of Interest, who raised Israel’s assault on Gaza in his BAFTA Award acceptance speech last month. The film follows the fictionalized family of real-life Nazi commandant Rudolf Höss as they live idyllically next to the Auschwitz concentration camp.

We speak with Palestinian novelist, poet and activist Susan Abulhawa, who is in Cairo and just returned from two weeks in Gaza. “What’s happening to people isn’t just this death and dismemberment and hunger. It is a total denigration of their personhood, of their whole society,” says Abulhawa. “What I witnessed personally in Rafah and some of the middle areas is incomprehensible, and I will call it a holocaust — and I don’t use that word lightly. But it is absolutely that.

We look at Monday’s unanimous U.S. Supreme Court ruling that states do not have the authority to remove Donald Trump from the ballot under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment with Slate senior writer Mark Joseph Stern, who calls the decision a “disaster” that appears tailor-made to let Trump avoid accountability for the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

On Super Tuesday, millions of voters cast ballots in primaries across the United States, and we look at key contests in California, North Carolina, Arizona and elsewhere with American Prospect executive editor David Dayen.

Reproductive health and medical groups are asking the Alabama Supreme Court to rehear the case in which the justices ruled frozen embryos should be considered children. The decision sent shockwaves through the world of reproductive medicine regarding potential effects on access to in vitro fertilization and other fertility treatments. We speak with Abbey Crain, a journalist and artist who had been undergoing IVF treatments for nearly two years when the court made its ruling.

Ahead of the 96th Academy Awards, we’re joined by James Wilson, producer of the Oscar-nominated film The Zone of Interest, who raised Israel’s assault on Gaza in his BAFTA Award acceptance speech last month. The film follows the fictionalized family of real-life Nazi commandant Rudolf Höss as they live idyllically next to the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Federal prosecutors in New York have rested their case against former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who is accused of turning the Central American country into a narco-state. Hernández is on trial for cocaine trafficking and weapons charges and is the first former head of state to stand trial in the United States since Panamanian dictator and U.S. ally Manuel Noriega was also tried on drug charges after a U.S.-led ouster. Prosecutors accuse Hernández, a longtime U.S.

Haiti is under a state of emergency after the country’s gangs freed thousands of people from the country’s largest prisons and are reportedly uniting to bring down Haiti’s de facto Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who has yet to return to the country since he traveled to Kenya last week to discuss a deal to bring a U.N. force of 1,000 Kenyan police to the island. “It is a desolation that we are feeling.

We speak with Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Grim of The Intercept about their exposé of a major New York Times piece into alleged mass rapes committed by Hamas militants on October 7 that raises serious questions about the accuracy of the story. The Times article was headlined “’Screams Without Words’: How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct.

Reproductive health and medical groups are asking the Alabama Supreme Court to rehear the case in which the justices ruled frozen embryos should be considered children. The decision sent shockwaves through the world of reproductive medicine regarding potential effects on access to in vitro fertilization and other fertility treatments. We speak with Abbey Crain, a journalist and artist who had been undergoing IVF treatments for nearly two years when the court made its ruling.

Thousands gathered Friday in Moscow for the funeral of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in an Arctic penal colony on February 16. The funeral was live-streamed on Navalny’s YouTube channel to millions of his supporters, who suspect President Vladimir Putin is behind the dissident’s death.

The death toll from Israel’s assault on Gaza has surpassed 30,000 as health officials say at least 16 Palestinian children have died in recent days from starvation and dehydration. UNICEF is warning the number of child deaths will likely “rapidly increase” unless the war ends. As Palestinians desperately seek aid being withheld by Israel, officials have accused Israeli forces of attacking crowds gathered to retrieve the little humanitarian supplies entering the besieged territory.

We speak with Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Grim of The Intercept about their exposé of a major New York Times piece into alleged mass rapes committed by Hamas militants on October 7 that raises serious questions about the accuracy of the story. The Times article was headlined “’Screams Without Words’: How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct.

Joe Biden and Donald Trump both visited the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas on Thursday, where the two leading presidential candidates each pitched anti-immigration measures to further militarize the border and restrict asylum. Meanwhile, a federal judge blocked a new Texas law set to go into effect that would give police the power to arrest migrants they suspect of entering the U.S. without authorization.

In Gaza City, at least 104 Palestinian refugees were killed Thursday when Israeli troops opened fire on a crowd waiting for food aid. “This isn’t the first time people have been shot at by Israeli forces while people have been trying to access food,” says the U.N.’s special rapporteur on the right to food, Michael Fakhri, who accuses Israel of the war crime of intentional starvation.

As Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell announces he will step down as the Senate’s Republican leader after 17 years — the longest term in Senate history — we speak with Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley, who says, “McConnell’s legacy has been one of obstruction.” He describes McConnell’s “aggressive” use of the filibuster, the topic of Merkley’s new book, Filibustered!: How to Fix the Broken Senate and Save America, as having “broken the cycle in which government can function.

We speak with Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Grim of The Intercept about their exposé of a major New York Times piece into alleged mass rapes committed by Hamas militants on October 7 that raises serious questions about the accuracy of the story. The Times article was headlined “’Screams Without Words’: How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct.

Joe Biden and Donald Trump both visited the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas on Thursday, where the two leading presidential candidates each pitched anti-immigration measures to further militarize the border and restrict asylum. Meanwhile, a federal judge blocked a new Texas law set to go into effect that would give police the power to arrest migrants they suspect of entering the U.S. without authorization.

In Gaza City, at least 104 Palestinian refugees were killed Thursday when Israeli troops opened fire on a crowd waiting for food aid. “This isn’t the first time people have been shot at by Israeli forces while people have been trying to access food,” says the U.N.’s special rapporteur on the right to food, Michael Fakhri, who accuses Israel of the war crime of intentional starvation.

As Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell announces he will step down as the Senate’s Republican leader after 17 years — the longest term in Senate history — we speak with Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley, who says, “McConnell’s legacy has been one of obstruction.” He describes McConnell’s “aggressive” use of the filibuster, the topic of Merkley’s new book, Filibustered!: How to Fix the Broken Senate and Save America, as having “broken the cycle in which government can function.