The Biden administration set a January 4th deadline for companies with 100 or more employees to have their workforce fully vaccinated, or start weekly testing. And this past week, the CDC signed off on Pfizer’s COVID vaccine for children ages 5-11. That means an estimated 28 million kids are eligible. Epidemiologist and host of “America Dissected,” Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, joins us to unpack the latest news. And in headlines: a nearly all-white jury has been selected for the trial over Ahmaud Arbery’...
Nov 05, 2021•22 min
We discuss more election results and analyze where Democrats and progressives stand now. Some highlights include Michelle Wu becoming the first woman and first person of color as Boston’s mayor. Some lowlights include Republican businessman Glenn Youngkin defeating Democrat Terry McAuliffe for Virginia’s next governor. Voters in Minneapolis also rejected a proposal that would have replaced the city's police department with a Department of Public Safety. Minister JaNaé Bates from the Yes 4 Minnea...
Nov 04, 2021•17 min
Election day has come and gone with several important contests on the line. In New York, Eric Adams triumphed to become the city’s next mayor. And in Minneapolis, voters struck down a ballot measure that would’ve transformed the city’s police department. We also explain that there are a number of elected positions that have an enormous impact on your local community. We focus on three of them, in particular, and how they influence the criminal justice system. And in headlines: the CDC approved P...
Nov 03, 2021•16 min
It’s election day, again! We are following major gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey, mayoral contests in Cleveland, Buffalo, Atlanta and Boston, as well as ballot measures, city council, and more. Amanda Litman, co-founder and co-executive director of Run for Something, joins us to break everything down. And in headlines: the COP26 UN Climate Conference began in Glasgow, Scotland, the Supreme Court heard challenges to the Texas abortion law, and COVID-19 has now killed more than five...
Nov 02, 2021•19 min
President Biden and other leaders formally endorsed a new global corporate minimum tax at the G20 Summit in Rome. Under this agreement, corporations trying to avoid taxes by moving their profits to low-tax countries will now be forced to pay the difference. The world leaders also made several pledges on the environment ahead of a UN Climate Summit that began in Scotland. Employees at several Starbucks stores in the Buffalo area of New York have been looking to unionize, and the National Labor Re...
Nov 01, 2021•16 min
After weeks of negotiations, President Biden announced his revamped Build Back Better plan, which includes approximately $1.85 trillion of investments to fight climate change, expand health care, create jobs and more. This plan was originally much much bigger but two Democratic senators, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, are the reasons Dems had to abandon some of the bigger provisions. And in headlines: big oil CEOs testified before Congress, the DOJ will pay $88 million to the victims’ families ...
Oct 29, 2021•21 min
Sudan is in the grips of a coup after the military seized control of the country, and in the past several days, thousands of protesters have taken to the streets. Nima Elbagir, CNN’s senior international correspondent, joins us to discuss the news. And in headlines: investigators are still piecing together why a prop gun killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the movie “Rust,” America issued its first-ever passport with a nonbinary gender marker, and a U.S. military official said C...
Oct 28, 2021•17 min
Facebook is in the crosshairs after a drumbeat of stories over the last few weeks all stemming from a set of documents called the Facebook Papers. Some of those documents detailed how the company prioritized engagement over user safety, and described its failure to moderate hate speech and misinformation across the world. We spoke to Mike Isaac, a tech correspondent at the New York Times who has been wading through all of this. And in headlines: cyclones drenched the East and West Coasts, Congre...
Oct 27, 2021•18 min
Minneapolis residents are voting on a ballot measure, Question 2. If it passes, the city’s police department would be replaced with a Department of Public Safety. But despite what some fear-mongers say, this would not actually replace the police and the police are not being defunded. An FDA advisory committee is expected to meet today to discuss Pfizer/BioNTech’s authorization request for a lower dose of its vaccine designed for children 5-11. Children in a trial got two doses of the vaccine, ea...
Oct 26, 2021•15 min
Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was killed in an incident last week involving a prop gun fired on the set of the film, “Rust.” It is unclear at the moment whether there will be any criminal charges stemming from this incident, but given reports of negligence, cutting corners, and lax safety standards, there will certainly be civil suits. Organizers at an Amazon facility in Staten Island plan to file for a union election today. Christian Smalls was fired after he organized a protest about safety ...
Oct 25, 2021•17 min
If you’re looking for hype, fake outrage, and groupthink, kindly keep moving. Our mission at What a Day is simple: to be your guide to what truly matters each morning (and the fun stuff you might have missed) in just 20 minutes. Host Jane Coaston brings you in-depth reporting and substantive analysis on the big stories shaping today and the creeping trends shaping tomorrow—and when she doesn’t know the answers, she asks someone even smarter to fill us all in. Radical, right? New episodes at 5:00...
Oct 23, 2021•2 min
The CDC recommended boosters for certain people who got the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines. That means as soon as today, almost 100 millions of people can sign up for a booster in the U.S. Dr. Abdul el-Sayed, epidemiologist and host of Crooked’s “America Dissected” joins us to answer all of our questions. And in headlines: kidnappers in Haiti threatened to kill the 17 missionaries they’re holding hostage, Moscow announced a 10-day lockdown to curb COVID cases, and federal officials r...
Oct 22, 2021•20 min
People gathered in solidarity with trans Netflix employees and their allies who held a walkout, yesterday, in protest of the streaming service’s endorsing and platforming of Dave Chappelle’s transphobia. We hear from B. Pagels-Minor, a now-former Netflix employee who was fired for allegedly leaking confidential information to the press, which they deny doing. And in headlines: the man responsible for the 2018 high school shooting in Parkland, Florida, pleaded guilty, the Biden administration lai...
Oct 21, 2021•17 min
Thousands of John Deere workers are on strike after the company and the United Automobile Workers union failed to negotiate a new contract. Jonah Furman, a staff writer and organizer with Labor Notes, joins us to discuss what led to the Deere strike and the national movement by workers demonstrating for better pay and rights. And in headlines: the Haitian gang that abducted 17 people has asked for $1 million per person in ransom, Brazil’s Senate calls for homicide charges against President Jair ...
Oct 20, 2021•21 min
The Supreme Court ruled in favor of police officers in two cases dealing with qualified immunity. Both decisions were unsigned, and none of the justices dissented – a possible indication that they are sadly not planning on overturning qualified immunity entirely any time soon. Boston is poised to elect its first woman of color as mayor, and the election is just two weeks away. We talked with candidate Michelle Wu. And in headlines: former Secretary of State Colin Powell passed away yesterday, th...
Oct 19, 2021•20 min
The leadership of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees announced a tentative agreement for a new contract between the TV and film crew members it represents, and Hollywood producers. In the short term, this deal prevents a strike that would have begun today. In February 2020, Ahmaud Arbery, an unarmed Black man, was on a run in Brunswick, GA, when three white men chased him down in pickup trucks and fired a shotgun at him three times, killing him. The trial for the men accuse...
Oct 18, 2021•17 min
The January 6th commission plans to hold Steve Bannon in criminal contempt for refusing to comply with the committee. Meanwhile, Trump’s lawyers are advising all administration officials who have been subpoenaed to not comply while Trump, himself, fights with the Biden White House over the release of documents related to the event. The midterms aren’t until next year, but there is still a big race to watch – the fight to be Virginia’s next Governor. Crooked Media’s political director Shaniqua Mc...
Oct 15, 2021•18 min
President Biden addressed the ongoing supply chain problems that are jacking up prices for consumers and slowing economic recovery, and said that the Port of Los Angeles will begin operating 24/7. Shippers including FedEx and UPS also said that they would commit to shipping more packages during off-peak hours. It’s a big week for booster shots. Today, the FDA authorization committee will discuss a potential third dose of Moderna’s vaccine, and on Friday, it will look at a possible booster J&...
Oct 14, 2021•13 min
For more than a decade, officials in Rutherford County, Tennessee, were arresting kids en masse and placing them in juvenile detention. In this county, children were going to jail over tiny – or even non-existent – infractions. ProPublica and Nashville Public Radio reported this story and Meribah Knight, the lead author, joins us to unpack who allowed this to go on for so long. And in headlines: Las Vegas Raiders head coach Jon Gruden resigned, Texas Governor Greg Abbott banned any entity in the...
Oct 13, 2021•24 min
In July of 2014, Iranian-American journalist Jason Rezaian and his wife were accused of being spies by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and were arrested. Jason was held captive for 544 days, and he’s the host of Crooked Media’s podcast, “544 Days.” He joins us to discuss his experience in captivity. And in headlines: Merck asked the FDA for emergency use authorization of its experimental COVID-19 pill, Southwest Airlines cancelled thousands of flights since last weekend, and DC Comics announced that ...
Oct 12, 2021•18 min
Guns were involved in three out of every four homicides in 2020, and 2021 is shaping up to be deadly, too. According to the Gun Violence Archive, from January 1st to September 15th of this year, more than 14,000 people died from gun violence in the U.S. Moms Demand Action founder, Shannon Watts, joined us to discuss Demand a Seat. It's a program that recruits gun violence survivors and activists to run for elected office and become more engaged in our politics. And in headlines: Texas’s restrict...
Oct 11, 2021•16 min
Players across the National Women’s Soccer League have recently gone public with stories of verbal, emotional, and sexual abuse and harassment. Following these reports of abuse, the league cancelled all five games scheduled for last weekend. And when games resumed on Wednesday, the saga culminated with dramatic moments of silent protests at all league matches. Meg Linehan, who covers the world of women’s soccer for The Athletic, joins us to discuss the developing story. And in headlines: the Sen...
Oct 08, 2021•21 min
The Biden administration announced it will overhaul the student loan forgiveness program for public service employees. It was supposed to forgive certain federal loans of people who worked in the public sector or at non-profit jobs for at least 10 years, but about 98 percent of those who applied were denied. The change will help over a half-million borrowers. Work at all of the Kellogg Company’s U.S. cereal plants came to a halt. As of Tuesday, 1,400 workers across the country went on strike. Wo...
Oct 07, 2021•17 min
Ernest Johnson was executed in Missouri, yesterday. Johnson had been on death row for over 25 years after being convicted of the 1994 murder of three people. However, pleas for clemency from his supporters, including Pope Francis, intensified recently, saying Johnson’s intellectual disabilities made the execution unconstitutional and immoral. The FDA’s advisory committee will be considering more booster shots, next week, as well as Pfizer vaccines for young children. Also, the drug company Merck...
Oct 06, 2021•24 min
Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram were offline for six hours yesterday in what’s been called the most sustained and the largest outage for the company in recent memory. It came a day after CBS aired an interview with a Facebook whistleblower, and on the same day the company filed a dismissal in an anti-trust lawsuit by the federal government. The latest Supreme Court term began, yesterday, and there is a lot to keep our eyes on with the current 6-3 conservative majority. The court is going to hea...
Oct 05, 2021•19 min
Wisconsin's 34-year-old Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes is one of the many Democrats running to beat Republican U.S. Senator Ron Johnson. Johnson's seat has been seen as one of the most likely to flip to Democratic hands next year. We interviewed Barnes about entering the primary with statewide name recognition and his overt effort to be the staunch progressive in next year's race. And in headlines: a 126,000 gallon oil spill hits the Southern California shores, a historically Black beach in ...
Oct 04, 2021•17 min
Congress approved a short-term spending bill to keep the government open until early December, but Democrats are still scrambling to strike deals on social policies and infrastructure. The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), the union representing thousands of workers in the entertainment industry, has been at a months-long impasse in contract negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers over issues like more time for rest and better wages. ...
Oct 01, 2021•19 min
Britney Spears' father has been suspended as conservator of her estate. Her lawyer requested that a separate hearing be set in 30 to 45 days, and #FreeBritney activists hope Spears will be free by her 40th birthday. Members of International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, the union that represents all kinds of people behind the scenes on TV and movie sets, will begin voting on a strike authorization tomorrow. The union and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers have been...
Sep 30, 2021•17 min
After Senate Republicans blocked a bill that would have funded the government and raised the debt ceiling, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told Congress it would be catastrophic if lawmakers didn’t raise that ceiling. Additionally, the House is supposed to vote on the infrastructure package tomorrow. Crooked Media’s Editor-in-Chief Brian Beutler joins us to break down all of the Congressional news. And in headlines: U.S. defense officials testified before the Senate, Alabama state lawmakers plan...
Sep 29, 2021•21 min
After decades of allegations and investigations, a jury convicted R. Kelly, marking the end of a six-week federal trial. He was found guilty of all nine counts that he faced, including charges of sex trafficking and racketeering. Republicans who claim the 2020 presidential election was stolen suffered a humiliating defeat in Arizona. But instead of admitting they were wrong, the Stop the Steal movement is leaning even more into its false, outrageous, completely-made-up claims that Trump actually...
Sep 28, 2021•20 min
