The Takeaway

 The CDC reports “25-percent of U-S adults” serve as caregivers to those who need support and assistance. Caregivers need support, too. Without a network of support, they face burnout and high levels of stress.

We talk with Karen Warner Schueler, author of The Sudden Caregiver about what it means to be a caregiver, and how those who support others can find the support they need for themselves.

Two Ethiopians recently filed a lawsuit against Meta, Facebook's parent company, alleging that the company not only allowed hate speech to spread online during the country's recent civil war — it prioritized hate speech. Facebook’s content moderation practices have been under scrutiny for years, particularly after whistleblower Frances Haugen revealed internal documents that showed Facebook was well aware that its practices for finding and removing hate speech in a number of countries — including Ethiopia — were severely lacking. Will the recent peace deal also mean a reckoning for the social media giant? 

We speak with Berhan Taye, a Practitioner Fellow at the Digital Civil Society Lab of Stanford University, researching digital rights and social justice. She's based in Nairobi, Kenya. 

Meta answered The Takeaway's request for comment with the following statement:

"We have strict rules which outline what is and isn’t allowed on Facebook and Instagram. Hate speech and incitement to violence are against these rules and we invest heavily in teams and technology to help us find and remove this content. Our safety and integrity work in Ethiopia is guided by feedback from local civil society organizations and international institutions. We employ staff with local knowledge and expertise and continue to develop our capabilities to catch violating content in the most widely spoken languages in the country, including Amharic, Oromo, Somali and Tigrinya."

To read the full transcript, see above.

As the two-year anniversary of the January 6th insurrection approaches, the new graphic novel 1/6 explores a dystopian alternate history: What if the insurrectionists had been successful and violently overturned the election?

We speak with co-author Alan Jenkins, professor of practice at Harvard Law School and co-author of the graphic novel 1/6, about the premise, inspiration, and characters in this alternative historical fiction graphic novel.

It’s been two years since the January 6th, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of former president Trump who were attempting to stop the election certification process of Joe Biden’s presidency. Since then, over 900 participants in the mob have been charged with various crimes for their actions that day. The majority have received months of jail time or probation, though a number have caught more severe charges and sentences for offenses such as attacking police officers, obstructing Congress, and seditious conspiracy.

The investigation has become the biggest criminal inquiry in the history of the Department of Justice, and federal investigators have signaled they’re in it for the long haul.

We’re joined by Alan Feuer, criminal justice reporter covering far-right extremism and political violence at the New York Times.

As of Thursday morning, there is still no speaker of the House. This is the third day of the House of Representatives’ new two-year session, and so far, it is in a state of limbo. House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy of California failed to secure his bid for House speaker on six separate ballots, which prevents House members from being sworn in or working on any legislative business.

In the 2022 midterms, Republicans’ won such a slim majority in the House, that choosing a speaker requires near consensus among the party’s members. But the nearly unprecedented chaos that has ensued this week suggests that there may not be a single Republican party. Instead, the GOP just might be the big tent gathering spot for several loosely affiliated coalitions. A majority of the 20 conservative defectors who are holding the House hostage are part of the House’s right-wing Freedom Caucus.

For more we spoke with Nicole Hemmer, political historian at Vanderbilt University and author of "Partisans: The Conservative Revolutionaries Who Remade American Politics in the 1990s." 

The documentary Wildcat follows a pair of conservationists attempting to teach an orphaned ocelot how to adapt to the wild and live on its own.

We speak with one of the film's stars, Harry Turner, an ex-British solider who originally went to the Amazon to rehabilitate from combat. We talk about the documentary and Harry’s experience in the Amazon.

Earlier this week, Damar Hamlin, safety for the Buffalo Bills, collapsed following what appeared to be a routine tackle during a high-stakes football game against the Cincinnati Bengals. He received medical treatment on the field for nearly 10 minutes before being rushed to the local hospital. It took the NFL over an hour to suspend the game as coaches and members of both teams refused to play on.

We speak with Nathan Kalman-Lamb, assistant professor of sociology at the University of New Brunswick in Canada, author of Game Misconduct: Injury, Fandom, and the Business of Sport, and co-host of The End of Sport Podcast about the capitalistic underpinnings of violent sports, the role of spectators in the "commodity spectacle" of sports, and the social coercion that pushes athletes to put their bodies, and lives, on the line in the name of entertainment.

The year just started, but there are already so many “most-anticipated” releases across all of popular culture. If you're feeling overwhelmed about what to watch and listen to, don't worry. The Takeaway has you covered. 

We sit down with two pop culture experts to parse through the movies, music, and tv shows that have to be on your radar this year. Hunter Harris, writer of the Hung Up newsletter, and Larisha Paul, staff writer at Rolling Stone, join us to walk you through 2023's most exciting pop culture releases. 

The 118th U.S. Congress convenes today as one of the most diverse and the youngest in recent congressional history. House Minority leader Hakeem Jeffries follows in the footsteps of Nancy Pelosi, and Senator Kevin McCarthy battles for votes to become House Majority leader.

We discuss legislative opportunities for the new Congress and take a closer look at incoming freshmen members with national political reporter Eugene Scott of the Washington Post.

How did the country find itself witnessing the erosion of faith in democracy, and what can be done to reverse course?

We take a moment to look at the state of Democracy here in the United States and abroad, along with steps that can be taken to shore up the democratic system.

We’re joined by Susan Stokes, Tiffany and Margaret Blake Distinguished Service Professor at The University of Chicago and Director of the Chicago Center on Democracy and writer, filmmaker and Black studies scholar Charlene Carruthers.