The Minneapolis police officer who shot and killed Amir Locke earlier this year will not face any criminal charges. Locke was a 22-year-old Black man who was killed while members of the Minneapolis Police SWAT team executed a no-knock warrant on his cousin’s apartment. An FDA advisory committee met yesterday to discuss the next phase of COVID vaccines and boosters. Dr. Abdul el-Sayed, an epidemiologist and the host of Crooked’s “America Dissected” joins us to discuss what might come next as we c...
Apr 07, 2022•18 min
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky gave an emotional address to the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday after his visit to Bucha. In his speech, Zelensky accused Russian troops of atrocities, which included violent murder, rape, and a number of horrific acts. There are a number of states fighting over redrawing their maps even as the midterm elections inch closer. Michael Li, senior counsel for the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program, joins us to break down some of the states that are ...
Apr 06, 2022•23 min
Amazon warehouse workers in Staten Island, New York, voted to form the company’s first union in the U.S. last Friday, making a historic win for labor organizers everywhere. The union earned recognition in less than a year into its existence, and it overcame multiple arrests as well as millions that Amazon spent on anti-union consultants. Chris Smalls, founder of the Amazon Labor Union, joins us to discuss how it felt to win and what comes next. And in headlines: Sacramento police arrested a susp...
Apr 05, 2022•17 min
Signs of a massacre in Bucha, a town near Kyiv, have intensified calls for investigations into possible war crimes by Russia. Footage and photographs from Bucha show the corpses of at least twenty men strewn across the streets. The town’s mayor has said the victims included men and women and at least one child, and that they’ve already buried 280 people in mass graves. Today, hundreds of people are assembling at the U.S. Department of Education in D.C. to urge President Biden to cancel all feder...
Apr 04, 2022•17 min
The Biden administration will reportedly end its use of Title 42 by late May. The policy effectively acted as a suspension of the legal asylum process, and has been viewed as inhumane by immigration activists. The BA.2 Omicron subvariant is now the dominant COVID strain in the U.S. This comes as many states begin to close mass vaccination and testing sites that were vital throughout the pandemic. Dr. Céline Gounder, an infectious disease specialist & epidemiologist, joins us to give us her persp...
Mar 31, 2022•25 min
Over 3.9 million people have fled Ukraine and become refugees since the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine war, according to the United Nations. About 2.3 million of those people have gone to neighboring Poland, and another 600,000 people have crossed into neighboring Romania. Julia Pashkovska, a mother who left her home in central Ukraine, joins us to discuss her experience fleeing the country. And in headlines: A Palestinian gunman killed 5 people in Tel Aviv, the FDA approved a second booster do...
Mar 30, 2022•23 min
The House select committee investigating the insurrection is reportedly soon going to seek an interview with Virginia Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. She was found to have lobbied former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to pursue a plan to overturn the 2020 presidential election, sending 29 texts on the subject. Immigration advocates, lawmakers, and health officials are urging President Biden to overturn Title 42, a Trump administration policy used to block migr...
Mar 29, 2022•25 min
On Saturday, President Biden gave a speech from Warsaw, Poland, where he talked about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But at one point, he briefly spoke off the cuff and said about Russian President Vladimir Putin, “This man cannot remain in power.” White House officials quickly walked back Biden’s statement, saying that the U.S. has no strategy of regime change in Russia. Today is the fourth day of Trans Week of Visibility and Action, a 7-day campaign that aims to mobilize the masses in defense o...
Mar 28, 2022•21 min
President Biden spoke in Brussels after meeting with European allies on Thursday, and announced that the U.S. would commit more than $1 billion in humanitarian assistance to Ukraine and welcome 100,000 refugees. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is poised to sign two GOP-backed bills into law: the notorious Don’t Say Gay bill and the Stop WOKE Act. Florida House Representative Michele Rayner joins us to discuss how they plan to fight these measures, even if they get signed into law. And in headlines...
Mar 25, 2022•24 min
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson faced her second day of questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday during her Supreme Court confirmation hearings. Like Tuesday, there were some moments of substance in there, but many Republican senators didn’t let up on a bad faith effort to drum up controversies around Judge Jackson that just don’t exist. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday that the U.S. government formally accused Russia of committing war crimes in Ukraine. Par...
Mar 24, 2022•21 min
Tuesday was the second day of Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation hearings. She faced questions from senators on the Judiciary Committee on a variety of topics, including her religion, abortion rights, critical race theory, war crimes, and child pornography sentencing. The World Health Organization said that as of March 18, at least 62 healthcare facilities had been hit in Ukraine. There are estimates that as many as 10 million people have either left the country or gone t...
Mar 23, 2022•26 min
Ukraine rejected Russia’s demand that soldiers surrender the city of Mariupol, on Monday, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky saying in part, “Ukraine cannot fulfill ultimatums.” And in Kyiv, a Russian missile struck a mall, killing at least 8 people according to officials. Republican-led state legislatures have passed an overwhelming amount of anti-abortion legislation in recent months, particularly after SB8 went into effect in Texas. Rosann Mariappuram, executive director at Jane’s Du...
Mar 22, 2022•21 min
Russia's attacks on the Ukrainian city of Mariupol continued through the weekend, with missiles striking an art school where 400 people had taken shelter. Russia is claiming that a bombing it carried out on a Ukrainian ammunition storage site was done with a hypersonic missile, and if this claim is true, it could mark the first use of this kind of weapon in combat. Confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson begin this week. If confirmed, Brown Jackson would be the firs...
Mar 21, 2022•18 min
Teachers in the Minneapolis Public School district are in the second week of their strike, led by The Minneapolis Federation of Teachers Local 59. Tequila Laramee, an associate educator who has been with Minneapolis Public Schools for ten years, joins us to discuss what she and the union are advocating for. At least 130 survivors have been rescued from the theater in Mariupol that had been serving as a shelter for up to 1,300 people when it was bombed by Russian air forces. A Russian court has e...
Mar 18, 2022•19 min
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed U.S. Congress on Wednesday to ask for a number of things including a no-fly-zone over his country. The Biden administration did not agree to that request, but it did announce $800 million in military aid to Ukraine including anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles, drones, and more. Christopher Miller, a correspondent for BuzzFeed News currently in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, joins us to discuss what things look like on the ground. And in hea...
Mar 17, 2022•22 min
A missile strike on apartment buildings in the Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv on Tuesday killed at least four people and resulted in fires for hours after. The attack prompted a frantic rescue effort, and Kyiv’s mayor announced a 35-hour curfew in the city. Hong Kong is experiencing its worst COVID outbreak since the start of the pandemic. Unlike the U.S., the province is still grappling with the highly transmissible Omicron variant, with scenes reminiscent of much earlier days in the pandemic. Shiba...
Mar 16, 2022•28 min
On Monday, delegations from Russia and Ukraine met again for talks in hopes of reaching a ceasefire, but the negotiations ended without reaching an agreement. Meanwhile, Russia expanded its missile attacks even further, hitting quiet residential neighborhoods in Kyiv and other cities. After 99 days, the Major League baseball lockout ended last Thursday with a full season set to begin on April 7. Hannah Keyser, a baseball writer for Yahoo Sports, joins us to discuss what comes next and what it al...
Mar 15, 2022•22 min
Russia launched 30 missiles at a Ukrainian military base over the weekend, killing at least 35 people and wounding at least 134 more. New COVID cases in the U.S. have dropped from 800,000 cases per day at the pandemic’s peak to about 36,000 cases per day. Last week, the CDC announced that 98 percent of the U.S. population lived in areas where it’s safe to congregate indoors without masks on. Meanwhile, China’s daily cases of symptomatic COVID have more than tripled in recent days to its highest ...
Mar 14, 2022•19 min
Russian forces continued to advance in Ukraine after diplomatic talks between the two countries failed to stop the fighting or even to reach a temporary cease-fire on Thursday. As the violence continued, Vice President Kamala Harris called for an investigation into whether Russia committed war crimes against the civilians of Ukraine. Meanwhile, Russian civilians face economic hardships because of the sanctions leveled against their country. Kristy Ironside, a historian of modern Russia and the S...
Mar 11, 2022•24 min
A Russian airstrike destroyed a maternity hospital in the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol on Wednesday. This is the latest example of Russian forces hitting civilians and civilian infrastructure, with United Nations monitors reporting on Wednesday that over 500 civilians have been killed so far. Washington Post journalist Isabelle Khurshudyan, who is currently in Odessa, Ukraine, joins us to discuss the impossible choices that citizens face about leaving the country. And in headlines: Conser...
Mar 10, 2022•19 min
President Biden banned the import of Russian oil and natural gas into the United States on Tuesday, which is expected to have a serious impact on the Russian economy. Meanwhile on the ground, reports say that 2 million people have fled Ukraine, including one million children. Recent reports from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change say that countries are not doing enough to reduce fossil fuel emissions. Mary Annaïse Heglar and Amy Westervelt, hosts of Crooked Media’s “Hot Take,” jo...
Mar 09, 2022•24 min
Today, workers in Hawai’i are rallying at their State Capitol to raise the state’s minimum wage for the first time since 2018. Christy MacPherson, the Lead Community Developer at the Hawaiʻi Appleseed Center for Law & Economic Justice, joins us to discuss how workers are being affected by low wages in the highest cost-of-living state in the nation. Russia and Ukraine engaged in their third round of talks on Monday, which once again ended without any major progress. The United Nations reported th...
Mar 08, 2022•21 min
Today marks 12 days since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Over the weekend, the violence continued in multiple Ukrainian cities, efforts to rescue civilians came under attack by Russian forces, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called on NATO nations for further military support and humanitarian aid. Ben Rhodes, Former Deputy National Security Adviser and host of Pod Save the World, joins us to discuss what’s happening on the ground in Ukraine, with the rest of the world, and...
Mar 07, 2022•21 min
Russian and Ukrainian delegates agreed to what’s being called “humanitarian corridors” so trapped Ukrainian citizens can leave the country. But after a phone call with Vladimir Putin, French President Emmanuel Macron reportedly believes that the “worst is yet to come” as the invasion heads into its second week. A Texas judge issued a restraining order to halt the state’s investigation of a family that supported their trans kid’s gender-affirming health care. But an appeal by state Attorney Gener...
Mar 04, 2022•21 min
Russian forces captured the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson yesterday, making it the first to fall since the invasion that began last week. Today, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to talk about Russia’s attack with NATO foreign ministers in Belgium, while another round of conversations between Ukraine and Russia are reportedly set to take place soon as well. March For Our Lives, the organization founded by student survivors of the 2018 Parkland shooting, released a statement...
Mar 03, 2022•23 min
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continued into its sixth day, with explosions shaking the cities of Kyiv and Kharkiv, and the death toll rising. According to the United Nations, approximately 660,000 people have fled Ukraine already, and this could become “Europe’s largest refugee crisis this century.” President Biden gave his first State of the Union address last night. In it, he devoted large sections to address Ukraine along with the course of the pandemic, the economy and inflation, a “unity ag...
Mar 02, 2022•22 min
On Monday, Russian forces made progress in their efforts to encircle Ukraine’s capital Kyiv despite being slowed down by continued resistance from Ukrainian forces. Russia and Ukraine also sent delegations to southeastern Belarus for initial talks amid hopes that the two countries could come to some kind of agreement, but did not come to a resolution. Today, Texas holds the very first primary of the midterms. The elections will tell us a little bit about how strong of a hold former President Tru...
Mar 01, 2022•20 min
Ukrainian officials will reportedly talk with Russia as early as today on the border of Ukraine and Belarus. Matt Duss, Senator Bernie Sanders’ foreign policy advisor, joins us to discuss today’s expected talks and what he thinks is on the negotiation table for both sides. President Joe Biden named Ketanji Brown Jackson his nominee for the Supreme Court to replace the retiring Justice Stephen Breyer. If confirmed, she would be the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court. In headlines: Th...
Feb 28, 2022•27 min
Russia invaded Ukraine early Thursday morning, and Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky said that over 130 people died – both soldiers and civilians – and hundreds more were wounded. In a televised statement, Zelensky called for everyone and anyone who is able to join the military to do so, and said Russia is on a “path of evil” in their attack on the country. Foreign policy expert Max Bergmann, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, joins us to discuss his view of the situation....
Feb 25, 2022•27 min
In a televised speech early Thursday Moscow-time, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a “special military operation” to protect Donbas, the Russian-backed separatist-held region in eastern Ukraine. Around the same time, explosions were heard in multiple cities throughout the country including Kyiv, Kramatorsk, which is in the disputed Donetsk region, Kharkiv in the northeast, and more. The Supreme Court said that it will take up a case that could allow businesses to use their religious be...
Feb 24, 2022•18 min
