The Takeaway

WNBA head coach James Wade is coming off an historic coaching stretch, winning a WNBA championship and the WNBA’s 2022 Executive of the Year Award in the past two seasons with the Chicago Sky.

But before his WNBA success, Coach Wade coached the same team in Russia that Brittney Griner- who's serving a cruel, nine-year sentence in Russia- played for before her arrest.

We talk to coach Wade about the experience for American basketball players overseas and about Brittney Griner’s incarceration in Russia.

Scottish-born actor, Alan Cumming has had a long career. He’s been in everything from cult classics like "Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion." To Mainstream blockbusters like "X2: X Men United." Alan is eclectic. Time Magazine once called him one of the three most fun people in show business (the others were Cher and Stanley Tucci).

Alan Cumming’s new book Baggage: Tales from a Fully Packed Life is about how his life, including his work life, has been shaped by his baggage and how he has learned to live it. 

In this interview, Alan speaks about his career, the Spice Girls movie, and why his grandmother was so influential in letting his freak flag fly. 

For the final installment of our SHE-lection! series, we're headed to Kansas’s Third Congressional district where Democratic Representative Sharice Davids is running for her third term against former Kansas Republican Party chair Amanda Adkins, who also challenged Davids for the seat in 2020. Davids is one of the first Native American women and one of the first openly LGBTQ persons elected to the House.

In the run-up to Election Day, Adkins and Davids have been squaring off on the economy, reproductive rights and public safety. A new Sienna College/New York Times poll showed Davids with a 14 point edge over Adkins, but recent redistricting has given the Third district a potentially more conservative constituency than previous years.

We speak with Washington correspondent for The Kansas City Star, Daniel Desrochers, and Emily Hedges Vietti, a gender and politics researcher at the Institute for Leadership Studies at the University of Kansas and the director of Ready to Run Kansas. 

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments this Monday in two cases that challenge the consideration of race in undergraduate admissions. The Court’s decisions in these cases will undoubtedly shape the future of American higher education for millions of students.

In previous challenges to affirmative action, the Court has continued to uphold the principles of affirmative action and the notion that diversity in higher education serves a compelling governmental interest. But the plaintiffs in both cases currently before the Court, a conservative activist group called Students for Fair Admissions, argue that affirmative action itself is discriminatory. 

Dr. Melissa Murray, Frederick I. and Grace Stokes Professor of Law at NYU, joins us to unpack these arguments and consider their ramifications.

Jemele Hill joins us to discuss her new memoir, Uphill, which chronicles the events of her upbringing that shaped her life and career, as well as the story behind the better known moments of her time at ESPN.

New York Times finance reporter Emily Flitter joins us to talk about her new book, The White Wall: How Big Finance Bankrupts Black America, which includes a deeply reported look into systemic racism within the American financial industry and the practices keeping the racial wealth gap in place.

"She also gives a voice to victims, from single mothers to professional athletes to employees themselves: people who were scammed, lied to, and defrauded by the systems they trusted with their money, and silenced when they attempted to speak out and seek reform."

It has been over a month now since the death of 22-year-old Iranian Mahsa Amini who died while in the custody of Iran’s morality police in September. Her death ignited a movement across the country, and protests have continued throughout the country.

The response from Iranian authorities has been brutal, with human rights groups saying at least 253 people have been killed, including 34 children.  On top of the brute force being used to crackdown on dissidents, a new report from The Intercept details the ways in which Iran is employing digital violence by monitoring, and manipulating peoples phone usage and internet.  

We speak with Murtaza Hussain, a reporter for The Intercept, about the situation in Iran. 

With 11 days until the 2022 Midterms we check in on Wisconsin and Florida.

We speak with Ari Berman, senior reporter for Mother Jones.  We check in on the hotly contested races in Wisconsin and Georgia. Plus, we hear how, despite being a true swing state in statewide elections, the GOP has a stranglehold on Wisconsin's state level politics due to extreme gerrymandering.

Nothing says Halloween more like the time-honored tradition of settling in for a scary movie. Kristen Meinzer is a culture critic and host of the podcast "By The Book" and Rafer Guzman is a film critic for Newsday. Together Kristen and Rafer are the co-hosts of the podcast, Movie Therapy, and they joined The Takeaway to give their picks for Halloween movie prescriptions for different occasions.

Founder of Democracy in Color and New York Times Bestselling author Steve Phillips, joins us to discuss his new book "How We Win the Civil War: Securing a Multiracial Democracy and Ending White Supremacy for Good."