The Chip Franklin Show

Chip wonders why society is so divided on the vaccine, and why we need to stop playing defense.

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Bill McCuddy is an Entertainment Reporter for PBS and the NY Post.

He is a voting member of the Critics Choice awards and hosts the podcast The Accutron Show on Spotify. 

Big Tech: It's like a whole other country. Last month, The Atlantic's Adrienne LaFrance made the case that Facebook is "the largest autocracy on Earth." Now, in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs, Ian Bremmer argues we're living in a "technipolar moment" in which companies like Amazon, Google, and Facebook have become so powerful and ubiquitous they function much like independent countries — albeit without the borders that usually mark the limits of nation-states.

"These companies exercise a form of sovereignty over a rapidly expanding realm that extends beyond the reach of regulators: digital space," Bremmer writes. "They bring resources to geopolitical competition but face constraints on their power to act. They maintain foreign relations and answer to constituencies, including shareholders, employees, users, and advertisers."

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Three White men accused of chasing down and killing Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man out for a jog, are set to stand trial for murder in Georgia this week in a case thick with issues of racism, self-defense and cellphone video.

 

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There’s something of an unspoken rule among city residents of many major metropolitan cities, whether it be D.C. or San Francisco or New York City: If you’re standing at an intersection with traffic lights, no cars are approaching and you’re waiting at a red light, you can cross the street.

So, it begs the question: Why did Gov. Gavin Newsom veto a bill that would decriminalize jaywalking?

 

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with ABC's Alex Stone

The FBI confirmed to reporters in Florida Wednesday that investigators found what appear to be human remains, "along with personal items, such as a backpack and notebook belonging to Brian Laundrie," just hours after Laundrie's parents searched the Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park. "These items were found in an area that, up until recently, had been underwater. Our evidence response team is on scene using all available forensic resources to process the area," said Michael McPherson, special agent in charge of the FBI's Tampa division. "It's likely the team will be on scene for several days." He also identified Laundrie specifically as "a person of interest in the murder of Gabby Petito."

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Sydney Park is Miss New York 2021  She's been outspoken in her support of LGBTQ+ youth in sports. She recently wrote an article for Newsweek:

First, they pulled the LGBTQ suicide prevention hotline, now.

"Texas is essentially eliminating trans athletes’ access to sports. Over the course of three legislative sessions in Texas in 2021, 40 bills have been introduced that limit trans kids’ access to sports and healthcare, and in response to these bills, calls to Transgender Lifeline crisis center increased almost 72%," says Sydney. "I know just how life-changing access to sport can be, and that's why it's important to me that every child, including our LGBTQ+ youth, are able to play the sport they love."

The governor of Texas is expected to sign the bill into law this week. What does this mean? Will other states follow Texas' lead?

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Dr. Art Caplan is a Professor of Bioethics at New York University Langone Medical Center and the founding director of the Division of Medical Ethics discusses using pig parts in humans.

Surgeons in New York have successfully attached a kidney grown in a genetically altered pig to a human patient and found that the organ worked normally, a scientific breakthrough that one day may yield a vast new supply of organs for severely ill patients.

Surgeons at N.Y.U. Langone Health took an astonishing step: With the family’s consent, they attached the pig’s kidney to a brain-dead patient who was kept alive on a ventilator, and then followed the body’s response while taking measures of the kidney’s function. It is the first operation of its kind.

The researchers tracked the results for just 54 hours, and many questions remained to be answered about the long-term consequences of such an operation. The procedure will not be available to patients any time soon, as there are significant medical and regulatory hurdles to overcome.

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Bill Burr will be appearing on 5/14/22 at the Oakland Arena.

His animated Netflix series F Is For Family will premiere its fifth and final season later this year starring Bill, Laura Dern, Justin Long, and Sam Rockwell.

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President Biden is in a tough spot. National correspondent for the Nation John Nichols joins Chip to discuss Manchin, Sinema and 2022.

Joe Manchin is hearing a dire pitch from his colleagues: Don’t blow our chance to save the world.

After Manchin rejected a centerpiece of President Joe Biden’s climate plan and rebuffed a separate carbon tax Tuesday, Senate Democrats are urgently pressing their West Virginia colleague for an alternative. Biden and Democrats are trying to clinch a deal on Biden’s larger social spending bill, but the climate plank has become a serious question mark due to Manchin. And some progressives are reiterating they won't support any bill that doesn’t have a strong climate component.

Manchin is reluctant to embrace anything that could significantly disadvantage West Virginia’s gas and coal industry. Though he is endorsing some lower-tier clean energy investments, those fall far short of the two big ideas his colleagues have championed: a program encouraging utilities to cut emissions and a carbon tax. Now, there’s enormous pressure on Democrats to get Manchin on board with what could be Democrats’ only chance in a decade or more to enact consequential climate policies.

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Is it okay? Dr. John Swartzberg - Clinical Professor Emeritus, UC Berkeley - UCSF Joint Medical Program answers this and other questions. 

 

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