The Takeaway
1,032 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 1 year ago - ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsA fresh alternative in daily news featuring critical conversations, live reports from the field, and listener participation. The Takeaway provides a breadth and depth of world, national, and regional news coverage that is unprecedented in public media.
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Episodes
Debunking Gender Roles in the Animal Kingdom
June 14, 2022 13:00 - 21 minutes - 19.4 MBAccording to zoologist Lucy Cooke, scientists have traditionally defined females in the animal kingdom with Victorian, sexist stereotypes. In her new book, “Bitch: On the Female of the Species,” Cooke debunks these outdated notions using examples throughout the animal kingdom of females breaking out of their passive roles and displaying aggression, competitiveness, and promiscuity. We spoke with Lucy Cooke about looking at female animals with a new lens, one that shows that males and femal...
"Red Flag" Gun Laws
June 13, 2022 16:00 - 23 minutes - 21.2 MBSunday, a bi-partisan group of Senators announced they had reached a deal on gun control. Their proposed legislation falls short of many of the actions endorsed by President Biden, including passing federal “red flag” gun laws, also commonly known as extreme risk protection laws. These laws typically prevent the possession or purchase of guns from individuals who are deemed a threat to themselves or to others. 19 states and Washington D.C. currently have some version of red flag gun laws on...
Redistricting and Primaries in California
June 13, 2022 16:00 - 11 minutes - 10.9 MBCalifornia held primary elections at all levels of government on June 7, 2022. We talk with Marisa Lagos, KQED’s California Politics and Government correspondent and co-host of the podcast Political Breakdown, about the results and ramifications.
January 6th Hearings Go Prime Time
June 10, 2022 16:00 - 17 minutes - 16.4 MBThursday marked the first of six proposed public hearings of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. It occurred during prime time from 8pm-10pm. What did we learn from this first round? Did the committee make its case? And will the mounting evidence result in charges against administration officials? We break all of this down with Adam Serwer, staff writer for The Atlantic Ideas. Live Stream the Select Committee Hearing below.
The Highs and Lows of the Latest Broadway Season
June 10, 2022 16:00 - 15 minutes - 14.1 MBThe 75th Tony Awards will be taking place this coming Sunday. Frontrunners include the musical “A Strange Loop” and the play “The Lehman Trilogy.” The Takeaway speaks with New York Times critic-at-large Maya Phillips about some of the highlights of the past year and whether it looks like the support Black theater artists received this season will be sustained going forward.
Understanding An Intersectional Framework of Economic Justice for People Living With Disabilities
June 10, 2022 03:00 - 25 minutes - 23.3 MBAs many as 23 million people in the United States are struggling with long Covid. The sometimes debilitating symptoms include brain fog, fatigue, difficulty breathing, and depression or anxiety. But almost a year after the Biden administration released guidance stating that people with long Covid can be included under the Americans with Disabilities Act, receiving benefits has been a struggle. Even before the pandemic, roughly one in four Americans were living with a disability. And while...
Raising the Barre for Ballet Workers
June 09, 2022 13:00 - 19 minutes - 18 MBMany dancers are independent contractors with virtually no labor protections. While there are some unionized dance companies, the nature of the work is inherently precarious, with grueling training and policing of dancers’ bodies that seems intentionally designed to break them—physically and emotionally. In the past few months, more stories have come to light about serious abuses in dance companies: sexual harassment, revenge porn, etc. In all these stories, the abuse and corruption go strai...
A Real-Life Top Gun Maverick
June 08, 2022 17:22 - 15 minutes - 14 MBTop Gun: Maverick is flying high at the box office. This newest installment in the Top Gun franchise features Phoenix, the franchise’s first female pilot. We wanted to find out how real the portrayal of her experience was: so we turned to Commander Becky Dowling Calder, the first female pilot ever to graduate from the Naval Fighter Weapons School—a.k.a. Top Gun.
The Impact of Tennessee's 51 Year Mandatory Minimum Law
June 08, 2022 16:00 - 20 minutes - 19.1 MBIn 1996, 16-year-old Almeer Nance was an accomplice in an armed robbery in Knoxville, Tennessee during which 20-year-old Robert Manning shot and killed a worker. Despite the fact that Nance didn’t commit the murder, he was convicted of felony murder and sentenced to a minimum of 51 years in prison under Tennessee’s strict mandatory minimum laws. The other accomplice in the case, a white woman, only spent one year in prison for her involvement in the robbery. For "51 Years Behind Bars," a n...
Make Way for the MCU's Ms. Marvel
June 08, 2022 13:00 - 12.1 MBOn June 8, Disney Plus’ "Ms. Marvel" will premiere. It brings New Jersey-based Pakistani-American teenager Kamala Khan’s story to Marvel viewers for the first time and represents a major moment for Asian American and Muslim representation in Hollywood. Filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy directed multiple episodes of the show, marking a major transition in her career. "Ms. Marvel" is the first fictional live action work Obaid-Chinoy has directed, after a successful career making documentaries an...
The Bible from an Indigenous Perspective
June 07, 2022 16:00 - 14.2 MBThe First Nations Version of the New Testament is a "translation" of the Christian text by Indigenous peoples that embraces tribes’ traditions, storytelling and language patterns in English. We speak with Terry Wildman, the lead translator of the text, about how language choices impact religious beliefs and how the historic relationships between Christian institutions and Indigenous people gave rise to this translation.
The Land Back Movement to Reclaim Indigenous Lands
June 07, 2022 16:00 - 15.2 MBThe Land Back movement to return ancestral lands back to Indigenous tribes has gained momentum lately. However, the efforts of tribal native reclamation are not new. For decades, Indigenous peoples and allies have been working to restore land to Indigenous tribes through the courts, through protest, and through policy. Some tribes, such as the Kaw Nation in 2002, have even purchased parts of their ancestral lands back. First, we hear from Nick Tilsen, president and CEO of NDN Collective...
Are LGBTQ Families Okay in OK?
June 07, 2022 13:00 - 12.3 MBLGBTQ activists Kris Williams and Rebekah Wilson got married in 2019. In August of that year, Kris and Rebekah welcomed a baby boy into their family, and both women were recorded as mother and mother on the birth certificate. After two years, however, the couple divorced, and Rebekah petitioned the court to remove Kris from their son’s birth certificate. Oklahoma County Judge Lynne McGuire ruled in favor of removing Kris’s name from the birth certificate stating that Kris should have adopted...
What Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization Could Signal For Civil Rights
June 06, 2022 16:00 - 24.1 MBJust over one month ago, Politico published a leaked draft opinion penned by Justice Samuel Alito, a nearly unprecedented breach of the high Court’s norms of non-disclosure until the moment an opinion is officially released. Now that it is June the Court is likely to release its official decision in the Mississippi case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The decision in this case could overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade precedent which established that abortion rights were an ext...
Coosa High School Lawsuit Reveals Double Standards Around Race in Schools
June 06, 2022 16:00 - 10.5 MBAt Coosa High School in Rome, GA, five Black students and their parents are suing the Floyd County School District in a civil lawsuit in which they allege that the school district has continually shown indifference to racial discrimination. The school garnered national attention after a group of white students carried Confederate Flag memorabilia and shouted racial slurs at students of color. In response, a multiracial coalition of students moved to organize a Black Lives Matter demonstrat...
A Kentucky Representative's Fight for the Father of an Uvalde Victim
June 06, 2022 16:00 - 8.39 MBThe aftermath of a mass shooting for families includes the unimaginable tasks of saying goodbye and grieving over their loved ones. But what if you couldn’t say goodbye? That is the case for Eli Torres, the father of 10-year-old Uvalde shooting victim Eliahna Cruz Torres. He is currently serving time in Kentucky at the McCreary United States Penitentiary due to a drug trafficking and conspiracy conviction. He was denied a compassionate release to attend his daughter’s memorial this past Thur...
Dogs Who Serve
June 06, 2022 16:00 - 6.74 MBService dogs can help veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder by providing calming support with everyday tasks. A law signed in August 2021 allowed the Department of Veteran Affairs to launch a new program in which veterans with PTSD help train service dogs for other veterans. We speak with Rick Yount, the Executive Director of Warrior Canine Connection, a nonprofit that teaches veterans how to train service dogs for other veterans, about how involving veterans in dog training can help ...
How Birders are Crowdsourcing Climate Research
June 03, 2022 22:06 - 7.23 MBResearchers at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology have developed a popular app for birders called eBird. The app allows birders to track and and follow bird sightings, with some birders then traveling to locations of a recent sighting to hopefully catch a glimpse for themself. But the app also eBird also serves an important function for researchers. As eBird recently logged its 1 billionth bird sighting, it is crowdsourcing massive amounts of data which provides valuable information for resear...
Working at the Penguin Post Office
June 03, 2022 13:00 - 7.14 MBIf you ever dreamed of exploring Antarctica, you might consider applying for the highly sought after role of postmaster for the southernmost post office in the world. From November through March, post office employees live without running water or flushing toilets and are also expected to observe, count, and clean up after a colony of Gentoo penguins in Port Lockroy, Antarctica. We learn more about the challenges and rewards of living amongst penguins in Antarctica with Vicky Inglis, former ...
Parents Are Still Struggling To Find Infant Formula To Feed Their Babies
June 02, 2022 22:19 - 18.7 MBThe United States is entering its fourth month of an infant formula shortage, and disturbing new numbers released Friday show the situation hasn’t gotten any better. According to Datasembly, more than 70 percent of infant formula is out-of-stock across the country, affecting millions of families. That’s up from 43 percent just a few weeks ago—and in many states, the percentage is even higher. In February, Abbott Nutrition, the largest manufacturer of infant formula in the country, shut down...
Celebrating Black Music Month
June 02, 2022 16:00 - 23.1 MBJune is the annual celebration of Black Music Month. We spoke with Ebro Darden, Apple Music’s global editorial head of Hip-Hop and R&B and host of The Ebro Show on Apple Music 1, about their efforts to highlight Black Music and Black music’s lasting and continuing impact on our collective, cultural landscape.
Cheers for Queers in Rom-Coms
June 02, 2022 13:00 - 11.6 MBOn June 3, 'Fire Island' will be released on Hulu. The film is a queer rom-com that's loosely based on 'Pride and Prejudice' directed by Andrew Ahn, and written by and starring Joel Kim Booster, and also co-starring Bowen Yang. We speak with Andrew Ahn about bringing this love story to the screen.
Remembering NYC's "Forgotten" Women's Prison
June 01, 2022 20:51 - 14.2 MBThe Women’s House of Detention was a prison that housed primarily poor, or Black, or queer people, and people living at multiple intersections of those identities. It stood in Greenwich Village, New York City from 1932 to 1974 and had an indelible impact on the modern and intersecting movements for queer liberation, Black liberation and abolition. We speak with Hugh Ryan, author of “The Women’s House of Detention: A Queer History of a Forgotten Prison,” a new book about the prison and its pl...
Do Armed Officers in Schools Make Them Safer?
June 01, 2022 20:50 - 18.9 MBIn light of the mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, the role and effectiveness of armed police officers—sometimes referred to as SROs (or school resource officers)—on school campuses has again entered the national conversation. But research shows that having armed police officers in schools do not make schools safer, and in fact, can have deleterious effects. The presence of SROs in schools correlates with increased criminalization of school discipline incidents, and disp...
Buffalo Soldiers On
June 01, 2022 13:00 - 7.95 MBThe day after the horrific mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, in which a white supremacist targeted Black residents in a majority-Black neighborhood, Kelly Diane Galloway decided to organize a vigil to bring her grieving community together. We speak with Kelly about how the residents of Buffalo are supporting each other and why creating joy is a form of resistance.
Community as Rebellion
May 31, 2022 16:00 - 15.1 MBLorgia Garcia-Pena was a respected and beloved professor at Harvard University. There, she says, she and her predominantly Latinx students faced consistent scrutiny and surveillance from the Harvard campus police. We talk with Lorgia Garcia-Pena, author of Community As Rebellion: A Syllabus for Surviving Academia as a Woman of Color and Mellon Associate Professor of Race, Colonialism and Diaspora Studies at Tufts University, about her experiences at Harvard with campus police and later b...
The Kids in the Hall Are Back
May 31, 2022 16:00 - 11.9 MBTwenty-seven years may seem like a long time between seasons of a television show, but for the Kids in the Hall, it’s like the five members of the legendary Canadian sketch comedy troupe never split up. This month, they are back with the series available on on Amazon Prime after nearly three decades off the air, and no surprise here, they’re still pretty weird. Bruce McCulloch, Canadian actor, writer and comedian, and one of the founding members of the group, tells us what's new with the Ki...
Uncovering the Facts Behind Unretirement
May 31, 2022 13:00 - 19.2 MBAccording to an economist at Indeed, more than a million people have come out of retirement to reenter the workforce. We speak with Dr. Beth Truesdale, an expert on the aging workforce at the Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, to understand this trend. Dr. Truesdale speaks to the reasons behind unretirement and why retirement works for some and not for others in this country.
Disparities Faced By Black Veterans
May 30, 2022 13:00 - 18.3 MBFor Memorial Day, we speak with Richard Brookshire, co-founder of the Black Veterans Project, an organization dedicated to advocating for the needs of Black veterans. Brookshire can speak about the disparities in how Black veterans are treated compared to their white counterparts, and is also very open about his own mental health struggles following the end of his active duty service.
How TAPS Provides for Families of the Fallen
May 30, 2022 13:00 - 22.2 MBThis weekend, hundreds of military families gathered in Arlington, VA, for a unique program designed to provide support for relatives of the fallen. Bonnie Carroll founded Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS) after the death of her husband, Brig. Gen. Tom Carroll. Since its founding, they have helped more than 100,000 surviving relatives of military service members with comprehensive assistance, including financial support, counseling services, helping navigate government agencies...
The Refugee Orchestra Will Perform This Memorial Day Weekend
May 27, 2022 16:45 - 15.9 MBLidiya Yankovskaya is the conductor and artistic director of the Chicago Opera; one of the few women to hold that title at a major arts organization. She's also a former refugee. Raised in Russia, with summers in Ukraine, her family fled St. Petersburg in the post-Soviet Reconstruction era due to anti-semitism there and came to the United States. She founded the Refugee Orchestra in the wake of the Syrian conflict to raise awareness about the contributions refugees make. This Memorial Day ...
The Refugee Orchestra Project Will Perform This Memorial Day Weekend
May 27, 2022 16:00 - 15.9 MBLidiya Yankovskaya is the conductor and artistic director of the Chicago Opera Theatre; one of the few women to hold that title at a major arts organization. She's also a former refugee. Raised in Russia, with summers in Ukraine, her family fled St. Petersburg in the post-Soviet Reconstruction era due to anti-semitism there and came to the United States. She founded the Refugee Orchestra Project in the wake of the Syrian conflict to raise awareness about the contributions refugees make. Th...
Why is the U.S. Sending Troops Back Into Somalia?
May 27, 2022 16:00 - 9.9 MBThe United States has a long history of military presence in Somalia dating back to the early 90s. More recently, as his time in office was ending, President Trump withdrew troops from the country. But last week, President Biden reversed that decision and announced that the U.S. would be sending 500 troops into the country in a security effort against Al-Shabab, an islamic insurgent group active in the country. Meanwhile, the country's struggles with unrest have been compounded by natural di...
Voting, Primaries and Redistricting in the South
May 27, 2022 16:00 - 19.4 MBWe take a look at the latest primary election results from this past week. We’re joined by Maya King, politics reporter for The New York Times, and Stephen Fowler, state and local politics reporter for Georgia Public Radio.
Remembering Those We Lost in Uvalde
May 26, 2022 22:31 - 10.5 MB19 children and two teachers were killed at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas on Tuesday. Though their lives were all tragically cut short, all of them were loved by their families and friends in unique ways. We take a moment to remember the victims.
The Importance of Culturally Competent Mental Health Care
May 26, 2022 20:45 - 9.75 MBIn the wake of the tragedies in Uvalde and Buffalo’s East Side, there is a need for mental health care for families, for survivors, and for the community as a whole. Yet tragedies like these also highlight inequities in mental health care access for communities of color, where the data shows that people of color are less likely to access mental health treatment than white folks. To explore the importance of culturally competent mental healthcare and the need for expanded mental health ca...
Gun Violence is a Public Health Crisis
May 26, 2022 18:03 - 19.3 MBIn 2016, the American Medical Association declared that gun violence in the U.S. is a public health crisis. Not just the mass shootings which make national headlines, but the daily violence that constitute the overwhelming majority of gun deaths- suicide, intimate partner violence, murder, police killings and even accidental shootings. The ripple effects impacts all of us, even if we are not directly experiencing the violence ourselves. It's compounding another national crisis, that of adol...
Adolescents Seeking Mental Healthcare Become Emergency Room "Boarders"
May 26, 2022 17:20 - 9.75 MBYouth who are struggling with self-harm are increasingly forced to visit hospital emergency rooms. The CDC estimated that in 2020, the proportion of emergency room visits by adolescents seeking mental health care increased by 31 percent. Because there are so few spots available in residential psychiatric programs, young patients are left to become “boarders” in emergency departments—kept in small, bare rooms or even in hospital hallways while they wait for an opening. We speak with Dr. Megan...
Texas State Senator Roland Gutierrez on the Uvalde School Shooting
May 25, 2022 19:53 - 7.61 MBWe learn more about Uvalde and the people who live there. We spoke with Texas state senator Roland Gutierrez, who represents Uvalde, about the devastating school shooting that took place at Robb Elementary on Tuesday, May 24.
Young Shooter Takes 21 Lives in Uvalde School Shooting
May 25, 2022 16:39 - 11.9 MBOn Tuesday, an 18 year old gunman shot and killed at least 21 people, including 19 children and 2 adults, at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. Uvalde is a majority Latino-town slightly over an hour outside of San Antonio. The shooting is the deadliest to occur at an elementary school since the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012. We spoke to professor of sociology and psychiatry Jonathan Metzl to discuss the toll that school shootings take on the mental health of children nationwide.
Looking at the Youth Mental Health Crisis
May 25, 2022 16:00 - 21.4 MBOn Tuesday a gunman killed at least 19 children, 1 teacher, and at least 1 other adult in an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. These precious children were killed while simply attending school are now among the thousands of young people injured or killed by guns during the past year. In fact, analysis of CDC data recently published by the New England Journal of Medicine reveals that in 2020 firearms became the leading cause of death for young Americans. In December, the U.S. Surgeon Gene...
Michael R. Jackson on the Groundbreaking Musical, A Strange Loop
May 24, 2022 16:00 - 15.2 MBA Strange Loop already won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2020 following its off-Broadway run; now, the Broadway show is up for 11 Tony Awards–the most-nominated production of the year. We speak with playwright and composer Michael R. Jackson about his groundbreaking musical, which poignantly tackles themes of queerness, race, religion and AIDS with humor and heart. The original Broadway cast recording comes out June 10.
Loneliness and Social Isolation Among Older Adults
May 24, 2022 16:00 - 25.3 MBLoneliness and social isolation are growing public health concerns among older Americans. Loneliness is not only detrimental to mental health, but also contributes to physical health risks including strokes, worsened diabetes and frailty. We spoke with Dr. Carla Perissinotto about the causes of loneliness for older adults, what we get wrong about it, and what interventions can address the crisis of loneliness. We also hear from Wanda Dobson, a 69-year old woman in New York City and employe...
Love on the Spectrum
May 23, 2022 16:00 - 14.3 MBThe critically acclaimed show Love on the Spectrum premiered on Netflix this month with its first U.S.-based season. The docu-reality series takes us inside the lives of autistic adults as they date and look for love. Director and showrunner Cian O’Clery and show participant Dani join us to talk about making the show and trying to find love in front of the camera.
Gen-Z and the "New" College Hookup Culture
May 23, 2022 16:00 - 16.8 MBSocial media and dating apps have fundamentally changed the culture of sex, and this impacts how young adults are shaping their personal relationships today. In her new book, The Current Collegiate Hookup Culture, online dating researcher Aditi Paul talks about the “new” culture of sex on college campuses.
Can Our Apps Betray Us in Court?
May 23, 2022 13:00 - 12.3 MBWith the recent leaked draft opinion from the Supreme Court suggesting the court may overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that legalized abortion, privacy experts are concerned about digital surveillance and digital privacy in a post-Roe world. Smartphone apps and internet search engines can track data and locations leaving a data footprint if someone is searching for reproductive healthcare or abortion care. We speak with Cynthia Conti-Cook, civil rights attorney and current Technology F...
Generation Z
May 20, 2022 16:00 - 47.2 MBAs another class of Gen-Z graduates, they are taking one more step into adulthood. But still, our nation is divided by racial violence, economic inequality and disappearing reproductive rights. For this reason, The Takeaway takes a Deep Dive into Gen-Z: Who are they and what do they want? To give us a better idea we talked to Cathy Cohen, the David and Mary Winton Green Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago and Philip N. Cohen, Professor and Direc...
Canada's Residential School System
May 19, 2022 23:46 - 18.4 MBFrom the 1870s into the 1990s, the Canadian government and Catholic churches ran a vast network of boarding schools called "Indian residential schools," where Indigenous children were taken and forced to assimilate into white Canadian culture. Countless children suffered sexual, physical and psychological abuse in these institutions, and survivors and their families are wrestling with the repercussions to this day. Connie Walker, the host of the podcast Stolen: Surviving St. Michael’s, speak...
Rapper and Poet Omar Offendum Brings "Little Syria" to the Stage
May 19, 2022 23:44 - 11 MBThis weekend, rapper and poet Omar Offendum will be performing a show he wrote called “Little Syria” at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). In it, Offendum uses music to tell the story of the Little Syria neighborhood of Manhattan, which flourished in the late 19th and early 20th century, before many of its residents were displaced by construction and left for Brooklyn. The Takeaway speaks with Offendum about how he approached telling this history on stage.
When Violent Hate Emerges
May 19, 2022 23:44 - 8.44 MBValarie Kaur is a civil rights activist, author of "See No Stranger" and leader of the Revolutionary Love Project. She joined us to reflect on her work that addresses hate crimes against Muslim and Sikh Americans, and how it connects to the racist attacks from this past weekend in Buffalo.