Pop icon Britney Spears broke her silence yesterday, addressing a court in Los Angeles by phone over her conservatorship. She told a judge, “I just want my life back. And it’s been 13 years. And it’s enough.” It was an emotional, desperate plea for freedom -- and a blistering attack on a system she said is “abusive.” Samantha Stark’s documentary "Framing Britney Spears" details the situation.

The first case of AIDS was reported 40 years ago this month. Since then, millions of people all over the world have lost their lives to the virus. The San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus feels the pain of that tragedy particularly acutely, having lost over 300 singers to AIDS since the choir was founded in 1978. Clint Johnson has been a member of the Chorus for over 34 years.

The US State Department is calling for the released of the paper’s jailed executives, as Secretary of State Antony Blinken is overseas again to promote democracy in the face of rising authoritarianism. As number two in the department, Wendy Sherman is tasked with managing America’s relationship with China.

Award-winning British rapper, activist and author Akala is a social commentator for our time. His debut novel "The Dark Lady" is out now,

George Will joins the show.

Brian Lehrer and Christine Quinn join the show to discuss today's NYC mayoral election.

Andrey Kelin joins the show joins the show in an exclusive interview.

Hakeem Oluseyi grew up in some of the roughest American neighborhoods. His father was a drug dealer and his mother, pregnant at 16, dropped out of high school. Oluseyi might have followed their lead. Instead, he became a world-renowned astrophysicist. His new memoir is called "A Quantum Life: My Unlikely Journey from the Street to the Stars." He tells Hari how he beat the odds.

Antwaun Sargent plans to curate exhibitions devoted to Black artists and his first show does just that. "Social Works" looks at what he calls "notions of Black space," works of art that he says are "doing more than just sitting quietly on a wall." He joined Christiane from New York.

One little girl, one big hope: That is the story of "The Walk." It's all about little Amal, a young refugee girl in the form of a giant puppet, who travels from Turkey to the U.K. in search of her mother. Little Amal transcends borders and politics as part of a traveling festival with a powerful humanitarian message: "Don't forget us." "The Walk" is directed by David Lan.

Ebrahim Raisi, an ultraconservative cleric hand-picked by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, will take office in August. At his first press conference, Raisi called on the United States to rejoin the 2015 nuclear agreement from which former President Trump withdrew.

The Justice Department under President Trump is now facing a tidal wave of allegations, among them that the department illegally gained access to private data from journalists, Democratic congressmen, and a former Trump lawyer. It’s just the tip of the iceberg, and legal analyst Elie Honig joins the show to explain.

Homeschooling among Black families increased by 500% last year, reflecting an increasing trend across America -- one that is especially pronounced in communities of color. Numerous parents abandoned the public school system, feeling that it was not meeting their children's needs. Education justice advocates Keri Rodrigues and Bernita Bradley talk with Michel Martin about homeschooling initiatives.

2021 marks 100 years since the Tulsa Massacre, when a white mob killed up to 300 Black Americans and destroyed an area known as Black Wall Street in an explosion of violence that spread far beyond Tulsa. Director Dawn Porter is shining a light on that period in her new film "Rise Again."

We're not past COVID-19 yet, in view of the delayed vaccine rollout in the developing world and the ongoing spread of the Delta variant. Andy Slavitt served as the White House adviser for coronavirus response in the first days of the Biden administration. In his new book "Preventable," Slavitt details the failings of the Trump administration's initial response.

Black Americans have been pushing for Juneteenth to be celebrated as a national holiday, and today, it was officially signed into law. Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed speaks with Walter Isaacson about what the holiday and her own story. @agordonreed

While Russian President Vladimir Putin devoted much of his Q&A to describing U.S. domestic threats, he avoided issues facing his own constituents back home. TV Rain is Russia's only independent news channel. It's news director Ekaterina Kotrikadze joins the show.

“Havana Syndrome,” a mysterious neurological condition has afflicted more than 100 U.S. officials. Marc Polymeropoulos says the U.S. government's response is too late and was forced to retire. He explains this and more in his new book, "Clarity in Crisis."

Sunday is World Refugee Day, an international day to honor refugees around the world. Alexander Betts studies forced migration at Oxford University and in his new book, he says we’re doing migration all wrong. He joins the show to explain.

Salman Rushdie is no stranger to attacks on freedom of speech. In 1989, he was the subject of a fatwā from Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini, who deemed Rushdie's novel "The Satanic Verses" blasphemous against Islam. Over 30 years later, the threat has receded and Rushdie is releasing a new collection of essays. He speaks with Walter Isaacson about the importance of storytelling.