As many as one in five people who became ill with COVID-19 have reportedly developed long-term symptoms that last well after they’ve recovered from the initial infection. Informally called “Long COVID,” the condition is associated with chronic fatigue, brain fogginess, headaches, and more. We interview Dr. Ashish Jha from the Brown School of Public Health, who’s launched a new study to look at Long COVID’s effects on people, health care, workplaces and more. And in headlines: Germany holds a par...
Sep 27, 2021•19 min
A CDC advisory board unanimously said that people 65 and older should be allowed to receive a booster shot of the Pfizer-BiONTech COVID vaccine. It also agreed that younger people who might be at high-risk could get a booster as well, but NOT those who are at high risk of being exposed to COVID at their jobs. Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, epidemiologist and the host of America Dissected, joins us to breakdown vaccine news. And in headlines: the U.S. special envoy to Haiti resigns, New York City lawmakers ...
Sep 24, 2021•20 min
In addition to Gabrielle Petito’s tragic murder, we discuss the horrific rates of people of color who’ve gone missing in America. For example in Wyoming, where Petito’s body was found, 710 Indigenous people went missing between 2011 and 2020, and over half of them were women. In COVID news, President Biden pledged to donate 500 million vaccine doses to lower income countries. The FDA also authorized a Pfizer-BioNTech booster vaccine for people 65 and older and for those at risk of severe disease...
Sep 23, 2021•20 min
In defiance of Texas’ new abortion law, one doctor in the state claimed he performed an abortion. On Monday, two men, neither of whom are in Texas, filed the first lawsuits under the law against that doctor. More than 1,000 Nabisco employees across five states will begin to return to work following a weeks-long strike. It was the first strike at the company in something like 52 years. And in headlines: President Biden delivered his first address to the UN, the Biden administration continues to f...
Sep 22, 2021•19 min
The Senate’s parliamentarian said that Democrats could not use the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill to create a pathway to citizenship for the millions of undocumented people in the U.S. At the same time, over 14,000 Haitian migrants began to arrive at the Texas-Mexico border in recent days in order to seek asylum. Several hundreds of them have been deported back to Haiti, using a pandemic-related policy adopted by the Trump administration. Denea Joseph, an undocumented DACA recipient and natio...
Sep 21, 2021•18 min
An FDA panel, last week, unanimously approved a booster shot of the Pfizer-BioNTech covid vaccine for people 65 and older, and anyone at risk of severe illness. The full FDA will likely make a formal decision on boosters based on that advisory panel’s recommendations in the coming days, followed by a CDC meeting to decide who should be getting them. Rikers is the main jail in New York City and the second biggest jail in America. It has always been known as an especially brutal place, but since t...
Sep 20, 2021•23 min
Former Minneapolis police officer and convicted murderer Derek Chauvin pleaded not guilty to not one but TWO federal indictments this week in two separate instances of extreme police brutality. He’s currently serving a 22.5 year sentence at a maximum security prison outside of Minneapolis. And starting today, Minneapolis voters will decide on a measure that could reform the make-up and mission of the local police department. Today, U.S. officials take a shot at maybe approving a booster of one o...
Sep 17, 2021•19 min
Voters in California appeared to send the message to Governor Gavin Newsom that his coronavirus policies were the right way to go after saving him from a recall. The vote also sends a pretty strong political message to Democrats around the country about the pressures they might face for their own pandemic measures. Additionally, President Biden met with top executives of companies that supported his administration’s vaccination mandate plan. For the past three years, Facebook has been conducting...
Sep 16, 2021•18 min
India Walton, the Democratic nominee for mayor of Buffalo, New York, is poised to win this November. Walton would be the first woman to ever lead the second largest city in the state, and the first self-identified socialist to lead a major American city in over 50 years. She joins us to kick off a new series of conversations that highlight candidates running in local and state elections and primaries across the country. And in headlines: Hurricane Nicholas made landfall near Houston, the Census ...
Sep 15, 2021•20 min
The California recall election of Governor Gavin Newsom wraps up today. Newsom campaigned with President Biden, yesterday, and if he is booted from the Governor’s mansion, polls show he is most likely to be replaced with conservative talk show host Larry Elder. KQED’s political correspondent Marisa Lagos joins us to get a status report on where things stand. And in headlines: one million Afghan children are at risk of starvation and death, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken testified before Cong...
Sep 14, 2021•21 min
This past weekend marked the 20th anniversary of 9/11, and beyond the typical yearly commemoration, the FBI released a newly declassified document detailing contacts that two hijackers had with Saudi associates in the U.S. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Spencer Ackerman, joins us to discuss the history of 9/11, the war on terror, and the latest developments in Afghanistan. And in headlines: Iran reached an agreement with the UN’s nuclear watchdog, people who are not fully vaccinated are elev...
Sep 13, 2021•22 min
Tomorrow marks 20 years since 9/11. The terrorist attack caused a ripple effect that has influenced many parts of American history and culture, but it also fueled a rise in Islamophobia. We hear from Shahana Hanif how two decades of anti-Muslim bias has hurt and transformed the lives of American Muslims. When the attack happened, Hanif was a 10-year-old growing up in Brooklyn. Today, she lives in Brooklyn and is running for New York City Council, where she is likely to become the first Muslim wo...
Sep 10, 2021•18 min
Yesterday marked the beginning of the federal criminal trial of Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of the blood-testing startup Theranos. She and her former boyfriend Sunny Balwani were charged with about a dozen counts that include wire fraud for lying to investors as well as patients about what Theranos technology could actually do. The weekly pediatric coronavirus cases in the U.S. surpassed 250,000 this week for the first time since the pandemic began. The uptick in young people testing positive ...
Sep 09, 2021•19 min
A law that effectively banned abortions in Texas after the sixth week of pregnancy with no exceptions for rape or incest took effect last Wednesday after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to block it. We spoke to Leah Litman, an assistant professor of law at the University of Michigan and cohost of the podcast “Strict Scrutiny,” to get a better understanding of how the law was designed. Also in Texas, Governor Greg Abbott signed a voting restriction bill, yesterday, that bans 24-hour voting and dri...
Sep 08, 2021•19 min
The FAA had to investigate more than 600 incidents involving unruly passengers in the first half of 2021, which is already double the number from the previous two years combined. Sara Nelson, international president of the Association of Flight Attendants, joins us to discuss how flight attendants, as front-line workers, are dealing with these people. And in headlines: over one million people still don’t have power in Louisiana following Hurricane Ida, Texas Republicans passed their restrictive ...
Sep 01, 2021•22 min
After 20 years, the U.S. has pulled out the last of its troops from Afghanistan. We spoke with Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee, who was the only member of Congress to vote against the authorization of use of force that led to U.S. troops being in Afghanistan, to discuss the latest developments. And in headlines: officials are still assessing the damage of Hurricane Ida, a new Texas law bans abortions as early as six weeks into a pregnancy, the Dept. of Education is investigating five states with ban...
Aug 31, 2021•23 min
A U.S. military drone blew up a vehicle in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Sunday that was filled with explosives and was believed to be a threat to the international airport. This came after a suicide bombing outside of the airport last Thursday killed at least 170 civilians and 13 American military members, and ISIS-K claimed responsibility. This past year has been defined by unionizing and organizing efforts across many industries, and the pandemic put a spotlight on worker conditions. Mary Kay Henry,...
Aug 30, 2021•17 min
California Governor Gavin Newsom is facing a recall election, which could result in getting replaced by a right-wing candidate even if he defeats them by a landslide in vote totals. We spoke with Dan Pfeiffer, a co-host of Pod Save America, about the state of the election, and what voters in California need to know. The fallout from the shameful last act of former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has extended to Time’s Up, the organization founded by some of Hollywood’s most powerful women with th...
Aug 26, 2021•20 min
The first U.S. troops started leaving Afghanistan, yesterday, as President Biden decided not to extend the timeline for U.S. withdrawal past the original August 31st deadline. The Taliban said yesterday that they would no longer allow Afghans to evacuate, which is a major departure from their previous position. Full vaccine approval for children younger than 12 might not come until the end of the year, according to some experts, but emergency use authorization could happen faster. We discuss wha...
Aug 25, 2021•17 min
The FDA granted full approval for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, making it the first vaccine in the country to move beyond the "emergency use authorization" that's been in place for months now. The announcement was followed by a slew of new vaccine mandates for educators, service members, and more. Republican attacks on voting rights are continuing every day in Texas, North Carolina, and Georgia. We discuss the latest updates in the conservative push to make voting harder, and the racist history o...
Aug 24, 2021•19 min
In the new season of “This Land,” journalist Rebecca Nagle investigates who is attempting to take down a federal law that aims to keep Native American foster and adoptive children with Native American communities, and why. Nagle joins WAD to explain how all is not what it seems in a court case where a white couple claims that they cannot adopt their foster child, who is of Navajo and Cherokee descent, because of that law. And in headlines: California’s Prop 22 is ruled unconstitutional, powerful...
Aug 23, 2021•21 min
On the same day Facebook announced the launch of “Horizon Workrooms,” a virtual reality app for remote work meetings, the Federal Trade Commission filed an updated antitrust suit against the company. The FTC argues that Facebook tried to maintain a monopoly in the social media sphere through acquisitions of Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014, and lessened the ability of contending apps like Vine to compete. Previously, a federal judge said the FTC failed to prove its contention that Facebook...
Aug 20, 2021•19 min
CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky announced that a vaccine booster plan can begin September 20, but only if the FDA determines that a third shot for those who got Pfizer and Moderna is deemed safe and effective. Federal health officials estimate that vaccine protection against COVID-19 decreases over time, but their effectiveness against severe disease, hospitalization and death remains high. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization criticized the plan, saying it was, “handing out extra life ja...
Aug 19, 2021•19 min
The Biden Administration is expected to announce as soon as today that boosters should be in order for most fully vaccinated people who got either the Pfizer or Moderna shots. The recommended third dose should come approximately eight months after the last shot. But those who received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine will have to wait on a possible booster shot until results from a study are released in a few weeks. The Taliban has started to speak publicly about its plans for Afghanistan, and ...
Aug 18, 2021•19 min
After Taliban fighters took control over Afghanistan this weekend, UN Secretary General António Guterres urged all countries to open their doors to Afghan refugees and refrain from deportations. Panicked civilians flooded the airport in Kabul on Monday, some even clinging to a departing U.S. plane, hoping to escape an uncertain future under Taliban rule. President Biden defended the U.S. withdrawal saying it was the right decision to avoid a third decade of war, and blamed Afghanistan’s military...
Aug 17, 2021•19 min
The Taliban seized Afghanistan with a takeover of its capital Kabul this past weekend, leading the country’s President Ashraf Ghani and U.S. personnel to flee. Afghan civilians also attempted to leave the country, which led to chaos at the airport in Kabul. We talked about what led to the swift takeover of Afghanistan by Taliban forces with Laurel Miller, director of the International Crisis Group’s Asia Program. Between 2013 and 2017, Miller was the deputy and then-acting Special Representative...
Aug 16, 2021•21 min
The Taliban has taken over twelve provincial cities in Afghanistan, and U.S. intelligence officials estimate the country's capital Kabul could also fall within a few months. The takeovers have not affected the timeline of withdrawing U.S. troops from the country. New Census data shows that diversity has grown quickly in the past decade with the greatest gains seen among people identifying as Hispanic, Asian, or multiracial. We spoke with Yurij Rudensky, redistricting counsel in the Brennan Cente...
Aug 13, 2021•21 min
Senators Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema say they might not support a budget bill with a $3.5 trillion price tag, but Democrats in the House won't support the bipartisan $1.2 trillion infrastructure package unless the larger bill passes, too. We spoke with Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal about how House progressives are thinking about these two crucial bills. America is facing two major heat waves in the Pacific Northwest and in the eastern and central U.S. Abroad, there are wildfires burning in Ca...
Aug 12, 2021•18 min
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced his resignation yesterday, one week after New York Attorney General Leticia James’ office released a damning report detailing allegations of sexual misconduct leveled against the governor by 11 women who worked for him. Cuomo's resignation will take effect on August 24th, at which point Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul will take over. The International Panel on Climate Change released a report on Monday presenting clear and unequivocal evidence of the hum...
Aug 11, 2021•19 min
The U.S. is currently seeing over 100,000 new COVID cases each day on average. It’s the highest number since this February, with hospitalizations and deaths up as well. We spoke to epidemiologist and former Detroit health commissioner Dr. Abdul El-Sayed about the state of the pandemic, and whether we should feel like we're moving backwards. We asked him about the return to in-person classes, what we can learn about the Delta variant from its course in other countries, vaccine verification in pub...
Aug 10, 2021•22 min
