Many Ukrainians are fleeing as Russian forces advance. More than 2 million people have crossed the border into neighboring countries. To discuss, we FEATURE Ambassador Sarah E. Mendelson, Distinguished Service Professor of Public Policy and Head of Heinz College in Washington, DC. Mendelson served as the US Representative to the Economic and Social Council at the United Nations until January 20, 2017. Confirmed by the Senate in October 2015, she was the USUN lead on international development, human rights, and humanitarian affairs. There she oversaw campaigns to get country-specific resolutions passed in the General Assembly and to get NGOs, including the Committee to Protect Journalists, accredited to the UN. She led efforts to elevate the issue of combating human trafficking and was senior lead for the President's Summit on Refugees. Media includes: The Washington Post, BBC, CNN, ABC, NPR.

President Joe Biden has announced a ban on Russian oil, natural gas and coal. Environmentalists are concerned that this will open the door to fracking and other practices that contribute to climate change. To discuss, we FEATURE Farhana Yamin. Yamin is a leading international environmental lawyer and climate change and development policy expert. She has provided legal and policy advice to many different countries and constituencies over the last 30 years working as an adviser to developing countries especially the Alliance of Small Island States and least developed countries. As CEO of Track 0, she is widely credited with getting the goal of net zero emissions by mid-century into the Paris Agreement. Yamin is the Deputy Chair of the Climate Vulnerable Forum Expert Advisory Group. Media includes: Christian Science Monitor, Huffington Post, Carbon Brief.

For the third day, a convoy of truckers and other vehicles circled the Washington Beltway to protest government coronavirus policies, such as mask and vaccine mandates. The protest was inspired by the truckers in Canada's capital, Ottawa. To discuss, we FEATURE Carole R. Myers. Myers, a Professor at the University of Tennessee College of Nursing, is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Health Policy and Media Engagement at the George Washington University and past American Association of Colleges of Nursing Policy Fellow (2017-2018). Myers current work centers on access to health care, primary care, rural health and health care, public health and prevention, health disparities, Affordable Care Act (ACA), nurses, Medicaid, health policy and policymaking, and health reform and transformation. Media includes: The Hill, Knoxville News Sentinel, Health Connections Radio.

Vice President Kamala Harris, civil rights activists and thousands of others marched in Selma, Alabama, on Sunday to commemorate the anniversary of "Bloody Sunday" and the fight for equal voting rights. Voting rights legislation has been a hot button issue for Congress this year as elections approach. To discuss, we FEATURE Lisa Danetz. Danetz has worked in the voting rights, money in politics, and democracy field as a policy expert, advocate, and lawyer for 20 years. Her work has focused on increasing election- and campaign-based political participation in society through public policy research, litigation, executive and legislative advocacy, and public education, and she has developed a particular expertise on voter registration through government agencies. Media includes: The New York Times, The Washington Post, Bloomberg.

The Supreme Court has announced that it will not take up the sexual assault case against Bill Cosby, effectively allowing Cosby to be a free man after a Pennsylvania court tossed out his conviction. To discuss, we FEATURE Lisalyn R. Jacobs. Jacobs is the CEO of Just Solutions: Bringing in justice to counteract injustice, and the former V.P. of Government Relations for Legal Momentum (formerly NOW Legal Defense & Education Fund). She has testified before congressional committees at both the state and federal levels. She has also fought for and secured needed protections for poor women and survivors of violence in a number of key federal laws including two reauthorizations of the Violence Against Women Act (2005 and 2013), the 2006 reauthorization of Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, and the 2009 amendments to the Stimulus law. Media includes: The New York Times, Huffington Post, NPR, MSNBC, CNN, Fox.

The South Korean presidential election is March 9. To discuss, we FEATURE Duyeon Kim. Kim is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security and a Columnist with The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. She is also a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Korean Peninsula Future Forum founded by former National Security Advisor Chung Yung-woo. Kim specializes in both functional and regional issues: nuclear nonproliferation, the two Koreas, East Asian relations and geopolitics, U.S. nuclear policy, arms control, and security. Kim was an Associate in the Nuclear Policy and Asia programs at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and previously a Senior Fellow and Deputy Director of Non-Proliferation at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation in Washington, DC. Media includes: The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Donga Ilbo, Japan Times, CNN, BBC, KBS, CCTV.

The Florida state senate is considering a bill that would ban teachers from discussing sexual orientation and gender identity in classrooms. To discuss, we FEATURE Emily Greytak. Greytak is a national expert on LGBTQ youth and education issues. Currently, she is the Research Director at the ACLU. Formerly, she was the Research Director at GLSEN, the leading organization addressing LGBTQ issues in education. She led all research efforts including the biennial National School Climate Survey, the only regular survey of LGBTQ students’ experiences. As author of the first national study of transgender youth’s school experiences, Greytak is one of the leading experts on transgender and gender nonconforming students. Media includes: The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Mother Jones, Mashable.

The U.S. Senate has passed a bill, named the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act, that criminalizes lynching and makes it punishable by up to 30 years in prison. To discuss, we FEATURE Koritha Mitchell. Mitchell is author of the award-winning book Living with Lynching: African American Lynching Plays, Performance, and Citizenship, 1890 - 1930 and From Slave Cabins to the White House: Homemade Citizenship in African American Culture. She is a professor of English at Ohio State University. Her research centers on African American literature, racial violence in United States history and contemporary culture, and black drama and performance. She examines how texts, both written and performed, help communities to survive and thrive. Media includes: Good Morning America, The Huffington Post, CNN, NBC, NPR.

The COVID-19 worldwide death toll has surpassed 6 million as the pandemic enters its third year. To discuss, we FEATURE Sarah (Meg) Davis. Davis is a leading expert on global health and human rights, with a specific expertise on digital health and human rights. She was the first senior advisor on human rights at the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria; founder of Asia Catalyst, a US-based human rights group; and a researcher on China for Human Rights Watch. Davis is author of two books: The Uncounted: Politics of Data in Global Health (Cambridge, 2020) and Song and Silence: Ethnic Revival on China's Southwest Borders (Columbia, 2005). Media includes: The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Reuters, The Guardian, BBC, NPR.

Satellite images from a study published by the journal Nature Climate Change show that the Amazon rainforest is hurtling towards irreversible change as vegetation is drying up and not being regenerated. To discuss, we FEATURE Paula DiPerna. DiPerna is a strategic environmental and philanthropic policy advisor, and writer. Currently, she is a Strategic Advisor for North America for the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), and also serves on the Advisory Board of the NTR Foundation, an environmental and leadership development foundation with headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, as well as Global Kids, based in New York City. DiPerna also wrote and co- produced a dozen documentary films and travelled extensively around the world, including having lived for a year in the Amazon regions of Brazil, Colombia and Peru. Media includes: The New York Times, CNN, CNBC, NPR.

Today is International Women's Day and to commemorate, we FEATURE Yasmeen Hassan. Hassan is the Global Executive Director of Equality Now, an international human rights organization focused on women and girls’ rights. She is a native of Pakistan and has been involved in women’s rights since very early in her career, authoring the first study of domestic violence in Pakistan, which ultimately became the country’s submission to the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995. Hassan served as editor of Equality Now’s first report on sex discriminatory laws in 1999 and has appeared in numerous media outlets to address the global situation of women, including Al Jazeera, CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post.