What A Day

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 breakdo...

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 authori...

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 head...

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-relate...

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 th...

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...

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 h...

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 primar...

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 ch...

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: Ir...

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...

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 250,00...

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...

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 stil...

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...

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 e...

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 h...

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...

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...

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 desc...

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 Vi...

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. Mea...

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 rele...

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. withdrawa...

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...