The Takeaway

A new investigation by Insider reveals flaws and failures of Facebook’s "Trusted Partner" program, which it heavily relies on in "Rest of World" regions which account for just 10% of Facebook's revenue. Trusted Partners are local NGOs contracted to provide local expertise and context to inform Facebook’s content moderation policies and practices. But Trusted Partners in Ethiopia told Insider that Facebook routinely ignored their recommendations and allowed hate speech that inflamed real life violence.

We speak with Tekendra Parmar, Tech Features Editor at Insider, who led the investigation. Later we hear from Abrham Amare, whose father, Professor Meareg Amare, was murdered after Facebook posts calling for violence against him went viral. Amare and others filed a landmark lawsuit against Facebook last year.

During the past month, the new Republican majority controlling North Carolina’s state Supreme Court issued reversals of previous rulings on voting rights and overturned a trial court decision.

These moves will have meaningful effects on the ability to cast a vote in the state and will have critical implications for local, state, and national election outcomes. 

We speak with Ari Berman, National Voting Rights Correspondent for Mother Jones. 

The new investigative podcast series “Head Down'' explores labor trafficking happening within the U.S. government sponsored H2A visa program. It is sold as a “mutually beneficial” immigration program that allows migrant workers to come to the U.S. as temporary agricultural workers, but a close look into the program reveals a great disparity between how the program is described and what actually happens. 

A recent investigation by Prism, LatinoUSA, and Futuro Investigates found that this program is rife with exploitation and abuse. The two part podcast follows the journey of Mexican farmworkers who soon after arriving in North Carolina with H-2A visas found themselves in a nightmare they were forced to escape.

We speak with one of the podcast cohosts, editor-at-large of Prism News, Tina Vasquez. And while we’re on the topic of North Carolina, we also speak with Tina about the state’s recent move to ban abortion after 12 weeks.

Listen to "Head Down":

Head Down: Part I; Head Down: Part II

Original Air Date: March 3, 2023

As Americans faced soaring food prices, a proposed $24.6 billion dollar megamerger between Kroger and Albertsons was announced on October 14, 2022.

These are two of the largest grocery chains in the country, accounting for more than 5,000 locations and employing over 700,000 people across its banner. 

The United Food and Commercial Workers and Rocky Mountain Farm Workers Union- two of the nation's largest and oldest unions- are opposed to the merger citing its potentially monopolizing effects on the grocery industry and America's food system. 

Back in 2015, Carol McMillian, a King Soopers groceryworker and a member of UFCW 7, remembers when Albertson’s acquisition of Safeway impacted her personally. Today, she joins us along with Dan Waldvogle, Director of Rocky Mountain Farmers Union, to talk about why they are a part of a broad coalition to ‘stop the merger.’

They spoke with The Takeaway about how this potential megamerger impacts some of America’s most vulnerable workers and consumers.

Editor's Note: We reached out to a Kroger's Spokesperson for comment. If interested, read below.

“Our proposed merger with Albertsons is about growing jobs and careers, and we expect the merger to create meaningful and measurable benefits for our associates. We will invest an additional $1 billion to increase wages and expand our industry-leading benefits starting on Day one following close, and we expect to provide new and exciting career growth opportunities for many associates. This commitment builds on our track record of supporting associates, including the incremental $1.9 billion we have invested in wages and comprehensive benefits since 2018. The Kroger Family of Companies is one of America’s largest unionized workforces and this merger also secures the long-term future of union jobs by establishing a more competitive alternative to large, non-union retailers. Kroger is a customer-focused organization, and our ability to deliver value to customers is rooted in providing lower prices and more choices. This is of critical importance to us, and we have a long track-record of investing in prices to lower costs, including investing more than $5 billion in lowering prices since 2003. As we have in past mergers, we will hold ourselves accountable to our customer commitments. This includes investing $500 million to lower prices starting on day one post close. With Albertsons, we will also offer customers a broader selection of fresh products and expand Our Brands portfolio to deliver more value without compromise.” 

Original Air Date: May 02, 2023

On Monday, another multi-billion dollar banking institution collapsed — First Republic Bank. Wealthy investors had been pulling out billions of dollars in deposits over the past few weeks, in a 21st-century digital run on the bank. Federal regulators seized its assets, covered $13 billion in losses, and sold it off to JPMorgan Chase. This is now the second-largest bank failure in American history, and the third significant bank failure of the past two months after Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank.

We discuss how this happened and what it means for the U.S. economy with Aaron Klein, Miriam K. Carliner Chair and senior fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution.

A new study from the Brookings Institution reveals that Americans in four major cities — Chicago, New York, Philadelphia and Seattle — believe that crime is out of control in downtowns. But the data shows that that’s not the whole story. While cities post-pandemic have seen an increase in particularly violent and property crimes, those increases haven’t happened in the downtowns, but in the areas that have been historically disadvantaged and disinvested in. So what accounts for this mismatch between what people are seeing downtown and what’s really happening?

We speak with Hanna Love, Senior Research Associate at the Brookings Institution, to find out. Love is co-author of the study, "The geography of crime in four U.S. cities: Perceptions and reality."

Jim Kenney was elected to the Philadelphia City Council in 1992 at just 32 years old.  After decades of service, he was elected mayor in 2016 then reelected in 2020.  As a term limited city leader, Mayor Kenney is in his final months of leading Philadelphia.

We hear him reflect on his time as mayor, his efforts to address crime, and hear about some of the reasons why he is a proud Philadelphian.

In March, the actions of a local church in Winston-Salem, North Carolina received national attention for all the right reasons. The congregation at Trinity Moravian Church partnered with an organization called R-I-P Medical Debt to cancel 3,000 local residents’ medical debt, to the tune of $3.3 million dollars. They bought that debt for just a little over $15,000 dollars. 

Rev. John Jackman, the pastor of Trinity Moravian Church held a symbolic “debt burning” ceremony to mark the occasion, with confetti and hymns. 

In 2016, John Oliver, a comedian and host of the HBO series Last Week Tonight, purchased $15 million dollars in medical debt from 9,000 people, that he bought for “less than half a cent on a dollar.”

And some state officials, like Governor Ned Lamont of Connecticut, are currently proposing using federal pandemic aid to cancel billions of dollars in medical debt.

Yes, these are happy stories of people working together to help their community members, neighbors, and even strangers. 

But this is also a crisis. Millions of Americans carry the burden of outstanding medical debt – An investigation in 2022 by Kaiser Health News and the Kaiser Family Foundation, found that 100 million people across the nation have some type of health care debt. Kaiser estimated that in 2019 –  the total medical debt in the country was around $195 BILLION dollars.

For more on this we spoke with Emily Stewart, Executive Director at Community Catalyst, a national nonprofit focused on health justice.

Last month violence took over Sudan's capital, Khartoum… it has now spread through the entire country and thousands of civilians have fled from the chaos seeking refuge in Chad, Egypt, and other neighboring countries. Despite a second 72-hour ceasefire, violence has continued. Nations, including the US, have evacuated diplomats and citizens from the country.

The violence stems from a long rivalry between two generals.

The fighting between the two rivals has resulted in attacks on healthcare facilities and the destruction of the Airport… Civilians trapped in the capital are facing shortages of medicine, fuel, and food and are unable to leave their homes without the threat of being killed. 

To get a closer look at what is happening in Sudan, on Tuesday Morning we talked with  Lynsey Chutel, New York Times reporter from the Johannesburg bureau.

As if winning the 2021 Scripps National Spelling Bee and holding three Guinness World Records weren’t already huge accomplishments, now Zaila Avant-Garde is adding the title of author to her name.

She stops by and chats with Melissa about “It’s Not Bragging If It’s True: How to Be Awesome At Life” which is out now, and the upcoming Children’s Book, “Words of Wonder: From Z to A,” which is out June 27th.