The Takeaway

More than 10,000 nurses at five hospital facilities across New York City are on strike today. They're protesting staffing shortages and demanding wage increases and better working conditions as they head into the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic. In response, hospitals have scaled back services, canceled some elective surgeries, and are diverting the majority of ambulances to other hospitals. We speak with Nancy Hagans, President of the New York State Nurses Association and a frontline nurse at Maimonides Medical Center, about the strike and working conditions.

411, the number that embedded itself into our vocabulary as a synonym for “information” is going the way of the dinosaur. AT&T announced the end of the service this month for their landline customers. It’s a move that impacts three million subscribers. We’re talking about the history of 411, what it means to say goodbye to the service and who’s impacted by its end. We get the 411 from Associate Professor of Communication at the University of New Hampshire, Josh Lauer.  To read the full transcript, see above. 

It’s been more than six months since The Supreme Court’s opinion in Dobbs overturned Roe v. Wade in June. Since then, anti-abortion activists have continued to try and restrict access to abortion care, even in states where abortion is legal. And The Food and Drug Administration and its oversight of the abortion medication, Mifepristone, has been one of their targets.  Medication abortions account for half of abortions in the United States, and Mifepristone is the first of two pills used in the method, for use in up to 10 weeks of pregnancy.Last week, the FDA issued new rules on Mifepristone, making it easier for people to access from retail pharmacies, with a prescription from a specially certified health provider. Previous to these new rules, patients could only receive the medication in-person at a specially-certified clinic, or through a telemedicine appointment and have the medication mailed to them through a certified mail-order pharmacy. This latest move by the FDA could expand access to abortion care, at least in states that don’t already restrict abortions or the drugs for medical abortions. We speak with Andrea Miller, President of the National Institute for Reproductive Health who says this is a step forward, but there is still a lot of bureaucratic hoops that pharmacies have to jump through to provide the medication, and she says this is yet another case of “abortion exceptionalism.”

Last summer, Janeé Kassanavoid made history as the first Native American woman to medal at the World Athletics Track & Field Championship in Oregon.  Kassanavoid is a professional track & field athlete, member of Comanche Nation, and a Women’s hammer throwing for Team USA and we spoke to her about what this feat meant to her, her identity as an indigenous woman in sports, and about her side passion: the culinary arts.     

Many women who encounter domestic abuse and are caught up in our criminal legal system are punished both for fighting back and when they don't. “Criminalized survival” refers to this highly gendered and racialized phenomenon, and we see it in stories of self-defense, like Tracy McCarter and Pieper Lewis. Criminalized survival is also, in many states, essentially codified into law with “failure to protect” laws that punish parents who allegedly did not protect their children from abuse they were aware was occuring. In Oklahoma, where this practice is especially prevalent, 90 percent of people charged with the crime are women. We speak with one of them, who was sentenced to serve 30 years in prison while her abuser got a lesser sentence.  We’re also joined by Dr. Alisa Bierria, Assistant Professor in the Department of Gender Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles and a co-founder of Survived & Punished, to unpack the larger cultural mindset of misogyny and misogynoir that makes women responsible for other people’s actions, but also punishes them if they are not deemed “good victims.”

The new federally mandated mental health assistance and suicide prevention hotline, 9-8-8, launched in July. Since July, according to data from SAMHSA, calls and texts to the lifeline have risen significantly before the adoption of 9-8-8. But questions still remain whether state and local authorities have the infrastructure to provide services for this great demand. We hear from Dan Gorenstein, executive producer and host of the podcast Tradeoffs, who provides updates on how things are going with 9-8-8 thus far.

Emmy nominated actor and Grammy award winning poet and musician Malcolm-Jamal Warner has spent over 40 years sharing parts of himself with the public. His latest album Hiding in Plain View is also nominated for a Grammy and it’s some of his most vulnerable work to date. In it, he shares reflections on his journey to radical self-acceptance and explores his hopes and dreams surrounding Black masculinity and Black futures. 

It’s been more than 3 weeks since the Taliban government in Afghanistan announced that women were banned from attending colleges and universities. It’s yet another gut-wrenching — but not unexpected — reversal of the regime’s initial promises to respect women’s rights. The college ban effectively means that the highest level of education most Afghan girls will now be able to receive is 6th grade. We speak with Shabana Basij-Rasikh, co-founder and president of the School of Leadership, Afghanistan (SOLA), a girls’ boarding school, about Afghan women and girls' determination to continue their educations. SOLA is now based in Rwanda, having moved after the Taliban's rise to power in Afghanistan in 2021.

When Derek Lowen was 14, he was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer and underwent surgery to remove a tumor the size of a baseball from his brain. He soon discovered that he was one of many Tartan High School students in Oakdale, Minnesota, to be suffering from cancer. In the 18 years since, Derek and the rest of the Twin Cities East Metro community have been left to wonder how much a local manufacturing plant has to do with it.  Manufacturing giant 3M dumped industrial waste in the area surrounding its Cottage Grove, MN plant for decades — some of which contained PFAs, so-called "forever chemicals" that have been linked to adverse health effects including decreased fertility, decreased immunity, and certain cancers. The state settled a lawsuit against 3M in 2018 without establishing a definitive link between stories like Derek's and the plant. But recently, more states have followed MN's lead, suing companies alleged to be responsible for PFAs contamination. In December 2022, 3M announced it would end the production and use of PFAs by the end of 2025. We speak with Chloe Johnson, environmental reporter at the Star Tribune, about the scope of PFAs pollution and the lingering impacts on Minnesota residents. For more accounts from residents, read the Minnesota Reformer's story, "There Must Be Something in the Water." 3M responded to The Takeaway's request for comments with the following statement: "Information about 3M’s decision to end PFAS manufacturing is available in our Dec. 20 news release and can be found here. As noted in the release: “We plan to put our innovation to work toward a future less reliant upon PFAS. We said we would stop PFAS production and work to remove PFAS from our products by the end of 2025. Our decision is based on careful consideration and a thorough evaluation of the evolving external landscape, including multiple factors such as accelerating regulatory trends focused on reducing or eliminating the presence of PFAS in the environment and changing stakeholder expectations. This is a moment that demands the kind of innovation 3M is known for. While PFAS can be safely made and used, we also see an opportunity to lead in a rapidly evolving external regulatory and business landscape to make the greatest impact for those we serve.” It is incorrect to characterize our work solely “as a result of publicity and/or lawsuits”. 3M announced our proactive investment in technologies to achieve our corporate environmental goals in February 2021, which includes efforts to reduce the amount of water used overall in our operations. We have installed state of the art technology at all of our PFAS manufacturing sites and are committed to remediating PFAS where we are responsible. On remediation and litigation: 3M will continue to remediate PFAS and address litigation by defending ourselves in court or through negotiated resolutions, all as appropriate. 3M acted responsibly in connection with products containing PFAS and will vigorously defend its record of environmental stewardship. On health science: 3M is committed to sharing our knowledge about health science to help people better understand this important topic. For more information on research and clinical studies related to fluorochemistries, especially PFOS and PFOA, please click here."

Margaret Cho began her comedy career 40 years ago. Now, after groundbreaking TV shows, Off-Broadway debuts, sold-out shows at Carnegie Hall, Grammy nominations, Films, and Reality TV shows– just to name a few– the outspoken Comedian is celebrating 40 years with a comedy tour: Margaret Cho is Live & Livid.

On Sunday, thousands of supporters of Brazil’s far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro attacked the nation’s highest seats of power in the capital Brasília, just a week after President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was inaugurated on Jan. 1. They were protesting what they falsely claim was a stolen election. Pro-Bolsonaro protesters stormed Brazil’s Congress, the Supreme Court and presidential palace in striking similarities to the U.S.'s Jan 6. Insurrection. We speak to Mac Margolis, contributing columnist focusing on Brazilian and Latin American politics for The Washington Post Global Opinions, and author of Last New World: The Conquest of the Amazon Frontier, and Yascha Mounk, professor of international affairs at Johns Hopkins University, and author of The Great Experiment: Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart and How They Can Endure.

"Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freleng" is a podcast that features intimate conversations with men and women who have spent years in prison for crimes they did not commit. Some have been fully exonerated and reunited with family and friends while others continue to languish in prison with some even facing execution on death row. MHP talks with Maggie about wrongful convictions.   

Last week, marked the 100-year anniversary of the race riots of 1923 in Rosewood, FL. After a white woman accused a Black man of assaulting her, a white mob destroyed the town and displaced hundreds of Black middle- and working-class families. This rural town was one of several Black communities in the US that suffered racial violence and destruction, and the violence resulted in the loss of economic opportunity and inequality for generations of people of color.  The massacre was dramatized in the 1997 film “Rosewood” by director John Singleton. Direct descendants of the families who once lived in Rosewood led the fight for reparations in the 1990s and are continuing to fight to reclaim their families' legacies. In St. Paul, Minnesota (the same state where George Floyd was killed by police) the fight for reparations to address systemic racism is happening as well.  The state of Minnesota has the third largest racial wealth gap in the nation, and the state’s income gap is the 5th largest. When it comes to health disparities, Black and Indigenous babies in Minnesota die at a rate twice that of White babies. According to the 2021 State of Black Minnesota Report, Black residents lived 7 years less than white residents. In response, the city of St. Paul moved forward with its plan to address systemic inequities and racism against Black residents through the formation of a permanent 11-member reparations commission. The group will work to advise the city council on measures to address systemic racism faced by Black residents in the city. Trahern Crews, a social justice advocate who was a Co-Convenor of the St. Paul Recovery Act Legislative Advisory Committee, and Councilmember Jane Prince, St. Paul City Council member for Ward 7, join us to discuss this new commission and why reparations are still necessary today. 

The race for Kentucky governor is one of the most closely watched contests in the nation. The popular incumbent, Democrat Andy Beshear, hopes to repeat his upset victory of 2019 against a crowded primary field of twelve Republican hopefuls.  Running to secure the Republican nomination is Kentucky State Attorney General Daniel Cameron whose platform includes his support of the state’s near-total abortion ban. If Governor Beshear is reelected, his strategy could provide insights to other Democrats running in highly Republican and conservative states. We speak with Divya Karthikeyen, Capitol Reporter at Kentucky Public Radio. To read the full transcript, see above. 

Earlier this week, Republicans in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives backed Democratic State Representative Mark Rozzi as their candidate of choice for Pennsylvania House Speaker. The move shocked many analysts across the state, given that Pennsylvania Republicans had a slight numeric advantage going into this deliberation. Gillian McGoldrick, Harrisburg Reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer, joins us to discuss this surprising bi-partisan collaboration.