Alicia Garza, principal at the Black Futures Lab and Co-Founder of the Black Lives Matter Global Network joins us as part of the series Black.Queer.Rising.

Over the past year, book bans have nearly tripled. School boards and parents unwilling to teach or even understand the importance of Critical Race Theory have expanded their censorship to include books that they consider inappropriate for their children.

In Tennessee, a school board voted to ban ‘Maus,’ Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel about the Holocaust, due to 'profanity' and 'nudity'. Shawntee Burns-Simpson, Associate Director of School Support and Outreach at the New York Public Library joins us to discuss the harm in banning books and how it deprives children by depriving their access to all kinds of books from diverse authors. 

We also spoke with award-winning author and National Ambassador of Young People’s Literature Jason Reynolds about how to navigate books with complicated or difficult subject matters for young people.

Behavioral Scientist Michelle Drouin joins us to discuss her new book Out of Touch: How to Survive an Intimacy Famine.

At the end of last week, President Biden announced that U.S. special forces had conducted a raid in the countryside near the Syrian-Turkish border that resulted in the death of the current leader of ISIS, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, also known as Hajji Abdullah.

To avoid civilian casualties, Biden said the Administration opted to dispatch U.S. Special Operations Forces rather than use missiles or drones. U.S. officials say that there were no American casualties in the attack, but the ISIS leader detonated an explosive that killed both his family and himself  before special forces could reach him. According to The White Helmets, a Syrian civil defense group, rescuers who were on the ground after U.S. forces left said they found the bodies of at least 13 people, including 6 children and 4 women.

Biden is simultaneously dealing with tensions between Russia and Ukraine, a contentious relationship with China, among other foreign policy issues. A year into Biden’s presidency, The Takeaway looks at his strategy for foreign policy — or Biden’s doctrine — with Robin Wright, a columnist at The New Yorker and a Wilson Center Distinguished Fellow.

On January 31, 2022, Mexican journalist Roberto Toledo was shot and killed in the town of Zitácuaro. Toledo is the fourth Mexican journalist murdered in 2022 alone.

While investigative work is being done to determine if Toledo and the other slain journalists were killed in retaliation for their reporting, Mexico has been one of the most dangerous countries for journalists in the Western Hemisphere in recent years, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

The Takeaway spoke with reporter Andalusia Soloff about the risks faced by reporters in Mexico and what can be done to protect them.

In 2017,  Andrea Jenkins became the first black openly-transgender woman elected to office in the United States. This year, she became the first openly transgender city council president in Minneapolis.

In late January 2020, former Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar  declared a federal public health emergency as a result of  COVID-19: "The actions we have taken and continue to make complement, complement the work of China and the World Health Organization to contain the outbreak within China."

Since then, it has been renewed eight times, but eventually the declaration will expire. When it does, it may initiate another kind of public health crisis. According to some estimates, 15 million people — including 6 million children — are at risk of losing Medicaid coverage when the public health emergency expires. That is because that's when state officials will sift through their Medicaid rolls and eliminate people who are no longer eligible for coverage under the expanded social safety net.  

For more on this, The Takeaway spoke to Megan Messerly, health care reporter for POLITICO. 

Data released in 2022 about the previous year’s economy is giving a clearer picture of what the Covid-era has meant for workers and businesses. Hourly wages increased but not enough for the average worker to keep up with the spike in inflation. And even though workers are not earning enough on average, some economists continue to argue that higher wages will further drive inflation, putting more blame on workers than the overall financial system.

We break down what’s truly driving inflation and how to make the economy work best for lower-wage employees with Anne Price, President of the Insight Center for Community Economic Development and Heather McGhee, author of “The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together.'' 

Tensions between Russia and Ukraine seem to be persisting as White House officials on Wednesday said they will send 3,000 troops to NATO allies in Eastern Europe, though the troops will not be deployed to Ukraine. We get the latest from Nahal Toosi, Senior Correspondent for Foreign Affairs at Politico. This announcement comes as Russia continues to build up its military near Ukraine.

Nahal Toosi, Senior Correspondent for Foreign Affairs at Politico, gives us the latest

Last week, actor Peter Dinklage—best known for his role on Game of Thrones—appeared on the podcast WTF with Marc Maron. 

Dinklage talked about a lot: the evolution of his career, mainstream success, and his new film Cyrano. But there was one particular moment that got people’s attention:

They’re very proud to cast a Latina actress as Snow White but you’re still telling a story of Snow White and Seven Dwarfs. Take a step back and look at what you’re doing there. It makes no sense to me. You’re progressive in one way but still making ****ing backward story of seven dwarves living in a cave. What the **** ya doing man?

Dinklage, who has dwarfism, was calling out Disney’s decision to make a live action adaptation of Snow White. Since his criticism, Disney has said it would be reimagining the dwarf characters in the fairytale. Now, this is not the first time Hollywood has misfired when it comes to its portrayal of the dwarfism community. For decades, the entertainment industry has perpetuated harmful stereotypes about people with dwarfism. 

For more on this, The Takeaway spoke to Rebecca Coakley, the program officer for the Ford Foundation's U.S. Disability Rights program.