AirTalk

Just in time for NPR’s 50th birthday, a new book spotlights the four so-called ‘mothers’ of NPR: Susan Stamberg, Linda Wertheimer, Nina Totenberg and Cokie Roberts.

“Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie” looks at how these four influential voices helped the organization—celebrating its 50th birthday this year— become the major power player it is today. Journalist Susan Stamberg co-hosted All Things Considered and became the first woman to host a national news broadcast. Linda Wertheimer still reports as a senior national correspondent, as does Nina Totenberg, an award-winning legal affairs correspondent. Cokie Roberts passed away in 2019, and prior to her death she spent decades as a political reporter and analyst for NPR and ABC News.

Today on AirTalk, we discuss the early years of NPR with Lisa Napoli. Questions? Give us a call at 866-893-5722.

With guest host Austin Cross

Guest:

Lisa Napoli, author of many books including her latest, “Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie” (Abrams Press, 2021); former reporter at Marketplace, The New York Times and other outlets; she tweets @lisanapoli

A judge has ruled that the firing of a police officer, who’s black, in 2006 was wrong. Cariole Horne intervened when she saw a fellow officer put a man in a chokehold. Horne was fired soon after the incident, but she didn’t give up the fight. 

According to the New York Times, the court ruling rewrites the ending of Horne’s career in the police force, giving her access to back pay and other benefits. Today on AirTalk, we talk with a reporter who’s been following the latest on Horne’s case and discuss why it’s taken so long to get to this point. Plus, we discuss what it means for the future of reporting excessive force behaviors in the police force, all as eyes are on Minneapolis during the trial of Derek Chauvin for the killing of George Floyd. Do you have thoughts or questions? Call 866-893-5722.

Guests: 

Jonah E. Bromwich, a courts reporter for the New York Times, his latest piece is “Court Vindicates Black Officer Fired for Stopping Colleague’s Chokehold;” he tweets @Jonesieman

Tommy W. Tunson, retired chief of police in California with 30 years experience in law enforcement in cities including Calexico, Coachella, South Gate and Arvin;  he's now a criminal justice professor at Bakersfield College

President Joe Biden said Wednesday he will withdraw remaining U.S. troops from the “forever war” in Afghanistan, declaring that the Sept. 11 attacks cannot justify American forces still being there 20 years after the deadliest terror assault on the United States.

His plan is to pull out all American forces - numbering 2,500 now - by this Sept. 11, the anniversary of the attacks, which were coordinated from Afghanistan. The drawdown would begin rather than conclude by May 1, which has been the deadline for full withdrawal under a peace agreement the Trump administration reached with the Taliban last year. The decision marks perhaps the most significant foreign policy decision for Biden in the early going of his presidency. He’s long been skeptical about the U.S. presence in Afghanistan. As Barack Obama's vice president, Biden was a lonely voice in the administration who advised the 44th president to tilt towards a smaller counterterrorism role in the country while military advisers were urging a troop buildup to counter Taliban gains. Biden has also made clear he wants to recalibrate U.S. foreign policy to face bigger challenges posed by China and Russia.

Withdrawing all U.S. troops comes with clear risks. It could boost the Taliban's effort to claw back power and undo gains toward democracy and women’s rights made over the past two decades. It also opens Biden to criticism, mostly Republicans and some Democrats, even though former President Donald Trump had also wanted a full withdrawal. While Biden’s decision keeps U.S. forces in Afghanistan four months longer than initially planned, it sets a firm end to two decades of war that killed more than 2,200 U.S. troops, wounded 20,000, and cost as much as $1 trillion. 

Today on AirTalk, we’ll talk about what the troop withdrawal means for the future of U.S.-Afghan relations and for the U.S. presence and influence in the Middle East, and look back on what has happened in the two decades since American troops first landed in Afghanistan following 9/11.

We reached out to the State Department to request that someone be made available, but they were not able to provide a representative for us at the time we requested.

With files from the Associated Press

With guest host Austin Cross

Guests:

James Schwemlein, senior director at the Albright Stonebridge Group, a global strategic advisory and commercial diplomacy firm, and a nonresident scholar in the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; he is a former senior advisor to the U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan at the U.S. State Department; he tweets @JamesSchwemlein

Col. (ret.) Arnold V. Strong, retired U.S. Army colonel and public affairs officer, and former chief of Training and Operations Mentor at Kabul Military Training Center in Afghanistan from 2006-2007, where he trained members of the Afghan National Army; he currently serves as a senior partner at the Long Beach office Global Vantage Capital, a venture capital and private equity firm based in New York City; he tweets @arnoldvstrong

Anyone that has spent time around young kids and cell phones probably knows how adept children are at using social media apps.

That’s part of the reason why executives at Instagram announced last month that they are developing a new version of the app for children under the age of 13. They say it will keep children safer from bullying and sexual predation. But a coalition of 35 children’s and consumer groups are pushing back on that idea, saying that 10- to 12- year olds will be unlikely to switch to the kid’s app, and it could hook even younger children into the more toxic aspects of Instagram’s culture. “While collecting valuable family data and cultivating a new generation of Instagram users may be good for Facebook’s bottom line,” the groups, led by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood in Boston, said in the letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, “it will likely increase the use of Instagram by young children who are particularly vulnerable to the platform’s manipulative and exploitative features.”

Today on AirTalk, we’re learning more about the controversy around Instagram’s potential children’s app. Are you the parent of a young child? What are your thoughts? Give us a call at 866-893-5722 or comment below.

Guests:

Ryan Mac, senior technology reporter at Buzzfeed News; he tweets @RMac18

Yalda T. Uhls, adjunct professor of child psychology at UCLA and founder of The Center for Scholars & Storytellers, a think tank dedicated to bridging the gap between academia and the entertainment industry; she is also the author of "Media Moms & Digital Dads: A Fact-Not-Fear Approach to Parenting in the Digital Age" (Routledge, 2015); she tweets @DrYaldaUhls

In our continuing series looking at the latest medical research and news on COVID-19, we speak with UCSF’s Dr. Peter Chin-Hong.

Today’s topics include:

Vaccine appointments open to all over 16 in California

Plus, when will vaccines be determined safe for those under 16?

A CDC committee has extended the pause on the J&J vaccine 

Who’s most affected by the pause? Likely  it’s underserved communities 

Breakthrough cases: The CDC found that a small group of patients got COVID even after vaccination - including 12 people in L.A. County 

A  research project led by the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health determined that neighborhoods with the worst air quality in L.A. County had the highest rate of COVID deaths

How worried should we be about the variants

The Staples Center is reopening at limited capacity today with the Lakers playing the Boston Celtics - so, it’s a good time to review best practices for moving about in the world 

Some are experiencing social anxiety as COVID restrictions ease

With guest host Austin Cross

Guest:

Peter Chin-Hong, M.D., infectious disease specialist and professor of medicine at the UCSF Medical Center; he tweets @PCH_SF

Today on AirTalk, we discuss the latest developments on the Derek Chauvin murder trial and talk about the unrest over the killing of Daunte Wright. Also on the show, we cover the latest COVID-19 news; analyze the TelevisaUnivision merger; and more.

While it might seem like any other year in the city’s history, 1974 was a huge year for Los Angeles, particularly in pop culture.

It was a year in which a handful of pioneering and legendary figures in the fields of film, TV, and music that were all indicators of the changing social, cultural and political demographics of America. Legendary films like “Chinatown” and “The Godfather Part II” were released and the first draft screenplay of a movie called “Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope” was finished. Musical acts like Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell and The Eagles and others broke touring records worldwide. In his new book “Rock Me on the Water: 1974-The Year Los Angeles Transformed Movies, Music, Television, and Politics” veteran journalist and Pulitzer Prize finalist Ron Brownstein looks back at the significance of 1974 to Los Angeles in its illustrious pop culture history and how the music, TV and movies that came out of it spawned a pop culture revolution across the nation.

Guest:

Ron Brownstein, author of “Rock Me on the Water: 1974-The Year Los Angeles Transformed Movies, Music, Television, and Politics” (Harper Collins, March 2021); he is senior editor at The Atlantic, a senior political analyst for CNN, and has served as the national political correspondent and national affairs columnist for The Los Angeles Times and covered the White House and national politics for the National Journal; he tweets @RonBrownstein

Several state lawmakers have signed on to a new bill that would offer California households free financial services— a move that could help families navigate the economic fallout from the pandemic.

If it’s passed, the bill would create BankCal, the first state government program in the nation to offer universal consumer banking. Through the program, participants could receive no-fee debit cards, direct deposits from employers and government agencies, electronic bill payment and ATM access, directly competing with private banks. The California Bankers Association opposes the bill, and argues that the state’s financial institutions already offer lower cost banking options. But the issues of the “underbanked” have become increasingly central during the COVID-19 pandemic, as racial and economic inequities widen. “The bill creates a way for Californians to bank without paying exorbitant fees — money that could be used for food and rent or rebuilding from the economic devastation wreaked by the pandemic,” said Assemblyman Miguel Santiago (D-Los Angeles), a lead author of the measure, Assembly Bill 1177. “If a rich person earns money, that money makes money. When a poor person earns money, that money is gouged from every corner. Financial institutions make enormous profit off the backs of those who … they say they help.”

Today on AirTalk, we’re learning more about the California Public Banking Option Act. Questions? Give us a call at 866-893-5722.

Guests: 

Jyotswaroop Bawa, organizing and campaigns director for the California Reinvestment Coalition, which focuses on financial and banking needs in communities of color and low-income communities and is based in San Francisco; she tweets @JyotswaroopK

Rodney Ramcharan, professor of finance and business economics at USC, he served as the first chief of the Systemic Financial Institutions and Markets Section at the Board Governors of the Federal Reserve System

Jack Humphreville, commentator on local and state budget and politics matters, member of the Neighborhood Council Budget Advocates, a group that gives feedback to city leaders on the budget, and a contributor to CityWatch, an online publication covering issues involving the City of Los Angeles; he tweets @Jack90020

A use-of-force expert testified that former Officer Derek Chauvin was justified in pinning George Floyd to the ground because of his frantic resistance, contradicting a parade of authorities from both inside and outside the Minneapolis Police Department.

Taking the stand at Chauvin’s murder trial for the defense Tuesday, Barry Brodd, a former Santa Rosa, California, police officer, said officers don’t have to wait for something bad to happen; they need only to have a reasonable fear that there’s a threat and then adjust their actions accordingly. Several top Minneapolis police officials — including the police chief — have testified that Chauvin used excessive force and violated his training. And medical experts called by prosecutors have testified that Floyd died from a lack of oxygen because of the way he was restrained. Brodd also appeared to endorse what prosecution witnesses have said is a common misconception: that if someone can talk, he or she can breathe. Chauvin, a 45-year-old white man, is on trial on charges of murder and manslaughter in Floyd’s death last May after his arrest of suspicion of passing a counterfeit $20 at a neighborhood market.

Chauvin attorney Eric Nelson has argued that the 19-year Minneapolis police veteran did what he was trained to do and that Floyd died because of his illegal drug use and underlying health problems, including high blood pressure and heart disease. Fentanyl and methamphetamine were discovered in his system. As the defense began presenting its case on Tuesday after the prosecution rested following 11 days of testimony and a mountain of video evidence, Nelson sought to plant doubt in jurors’ minds. He brought up a 2019 arrest in which Floyd suffered from dangerously high blood pressure and confessed to heavy use of opioids, and he suggested that the Black man may have suffered from “excited delirium” — what a witness described as a potentially lethal state of agitation and even superhuman strength that can be triggered by drug use, heart disease or mental problems. Today on AirTalk, we talk with a reporter who’s been covering the aftermath of the killing of Daunte Wright in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota. Plus, legal experts share their thoughts on what’s expected during Chauvin’s trial over the next several weeks. Do you have thoughts or questions? Call 866-893-5722. 

With files from the Associated Press

Guests:

Matt Sepic, reporter with Minnesota Public Radio News who’s been following the aftermath of the shooting of Daunte Wright in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota; he tweets @msepic

Daniel Herbert, Chicago defense attorney and former police officer and prosecutor; he tweets @DanielQHerbert

Stanley Goldman, professor of criminal law and procedure at Loyola Law School, he previously served as an LA County deputy public defender for eight years

Grupo Televisa, Mexico’s largest television network, announced Tuesday it is joining with U.S. Spanish-language broadcaster Univision to form a third company that will produce content for both that will be the “definitive global leader in Spanish-language media.”

The new company will be known as TelevisaUnivision. Both firms have been struggling to capture a share of the booming over-the-top video services sector.

Televisa said the new company will be in charge of producing shows, distributing and marketing for both Televisa and Univision and also will create a new streaming channel.

With files from the Associated Press.

Guests:

Julio Rumbaut, president of Rumbaut & Company, a media advisory and consulting firm that specializes in Spanish-language media; he tweets @juliorumbaut

Melita Garza, associate professor of journalism at Texas Christian University and author of “They Came to Toil: Newspaper Representations of Mexicans and Immigrants in the Great Depression” (University of Texas Press, February 2018)