Sebastian Raffaele grew up in a small, working class family in Australia. He had a crazy life, growing up in social housing, having to find his way. He found inspiration from his family members, who always pushed him to follow his passions. He left high school early, and jumped straight away into the work force. In 2014 he was introduced to crypto, and got hooked. Outside of tech and finance, he has always been into the creative spaces, specifically music. He likes to spend time with his fiancé, likes trying new foods, and tries to surround himself with high quality people.
Sebastian realized that the manual processes for a trader are overwhelming, along with making it difficult to be consistent. And alongside this, he saw the cycle of manual traders returning the money they made to the market - sort of like "the house always wins" in casinos. He wanted to build something close the gap for these traders, and solve this problem.
The relationship between citizens and their criminal justice systems comes down to just that - relationships. And those relations generally start with essentially one-on-one encounters between law enforcement personnel and individuals, whether those individuals are suspects, victims or witnesses.
When those relations get off on the wrong foot - or worse, as in the case of a number of high-profile police killings in the United States attest to - the repercussions can resonate far away from where a traffic stop occurs. This is the field that social psychologist Nick Camp researches. As his website at the University of Michigan explains, Camps studies "the role routine police-citizen encounters play in undermining police-community trust, and how these disparities can be addressed."
As he tells interviewer David Edmonds in this Social Science Bites podcast, "[O]ne of the things that we know from research and procedural justice is that when people don't view policing as legitimate, they're less likely to cooperate with police requests for assistance, for example. Until now, it’s hard to find experimental evidence for this, but one of the things we can use body cameras for is not just to look at disparities in these interactions, but their consequences."
In this episode, Camp cites research on body camera footage, traffic stops, and even first names to describe how anecdotal tropes about often poor police-citizen interactions, especially in the African-American community, are borne out by the reams of data modern recording devices provide. He also offers hopeful signs of improving these relationships with training based on this very same data, and suggests that artificial intelligence might be useful in mining this data for more insights.
For nearly 30 years, the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act has limited how far local governments can take rent control policies. This year, Proposition 33 asks California voters if they'd like to remove those limits. While nothing happens overnight, if Prop 33 passes, it could open the door for cities to control rents on any type of housing – including single-family homes and newer apartments. KQED housing reporter Vanessa Rancaño joins us to explore the issues.
Editor's Note: An earlier version of this podcast episode said nothing would change immediately if Prop 33 passes. In fact, several communities have laws that would immediately go into effect.
This story was reported by Vanessa Rancaño. Bay Curious is made by Olivia Allen-Price, Amanda Font, Christopher Beale, and Ana De Almeida Amaral. The Bay is made by Alan Montecillo, Ericka Cruz Guevarra and Jessica Kariisa. Additional support from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Maha Sanad, Holly Kernan, and the whole KQED family.
This week Kris Kristofferson passed away at 88. In addition to being one of country music's greatest songwriters, he was a movie stars, a political activist, and one of the most badass dudes to ever live. This week we revisit our 2022 episode about Kristofferson, with guest Zach Peterson.
Rest easy, Kris. Thanks for the tunes, the stories, and for John Prine.
Megyn Kelly cut her teeth in the mainstream media and became one of the most influential voices in the political debate. From her meteoric rise at Fox News to her stint at NBC, Megyn Kelly has been a central figure in American journalism for over a decade.
You might recall her contentious exchange with then-candidate Donald Trump during a Republican presidential debate in 2015. Kelly asked him about the names he’d called women—such as “fat pigs” and “dogs.” Trump’s response, in part: “I’ve been very nice to you, although I could probably maybe not be, based on the way you have treated me. But I wouldn’t do that.”He later went on CNN and accused Kelly of having “blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her—wherever.”
Kelly has since abjured the mainstream—she now hosts a podcast on SiriusXM and YouTube that has fast become one of the most popular political shows in the country. Her success captures the broader media shift away from brands like Fox and NBC to more personal, one-on-one relationships between commentator and consumer. (For example, she’s let her audience know she plans to vote for Trump, despite their past quarreling.)
People are hungry for unbiased, unfiltered information. And in the last few years, there has been an explosion of independent media: outlets like ours here at The Free Press, podcasts like this one, Substack newsletters, Twitter feeds, YouTube shows—all promising an alternative to the mainstream.
But is independent media always trustworthy? Does it need some of the guardrails and editorial processes that were once common at legacy outlets? Because if one peers into this independent—and often right-wing—media landscape, one cannot help but notice the frequent descents into conjecture and conspiracy theory, from commentators like Tucker Carlson, Tim Pool, and Bret Weinstein.
While Megyn is normally the one doing the grilling, today it’s her turn in the hot seat. Michael Moynihan and Kelly discuss the role of conspiracy theory in our current discourse, where she stands politically these days, how the legacy press is handling the presidential election, how she says she avoided “Trump Derangement Syndrome” even as some of Trump’s most die-hard supporters showered her with threats, and her guiding principles as a journalist.
If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today.
A question has long hung over the the United States regarding the proper role of religion in public life. Those who long for a Christian America claim that the Founders intended a nation with political values and institutions shaped by Christianity. Secularists argue that those same Founders designed an enlightened republic where church and state should be kept separate.
American Heretics: Religious Adversaries of Liberal Order (Yale UP, 2024), Jerome E. Copulsky examines the Americans who rejected the secularism of American society, predicted the collapse of the nation, and hoped to develop a new and decidedly Christian commonwealth.
By reviewing extreme religious dissent from colonial times through the current age, Copulsky shows how these thinkers opposed the American orthodoxy of pluralist democracy on theological grounds. Their views are diametrically opposed to the idea of America as a place where multiple sects and creeds peacefully coexist. Each chapter explains a different strain of heresy, beginning with loyal Anglicans who opposed the American Revolution and ending with current National Conservatives who embrace illiberal populism in an effort to enact their vision of a Christian America.
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What to know about the dockworkers strike happening now and the impact it could have on consumers in the months ahead.
And, we'll tell you what to expect from tonight’s vice presidential debate, including a new way to fact-check the candidates in real-time.
Also, a major step toward a wider war in the Middle East as Israel sends ground troops into Lebanon.
Plus, the longest-living U.S. president marks his 100th birthday, the deal that could create the largest pay-TV service in America, and why people across the country couldn’t use their cell phones for hours.
Those stories and even more news to know in about 10 minutes!
Join us every Mon-Fri for more daily news roundups!
The death toll from Hurricane Helene topped more than 120 people on Monday across six states in the southeast. Hundreds are still unaccounted for, and the number of casualties is going up. Juliette Kayyem, faculty chair of the homeland security program at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and the author of ‘The Devil Never Sleeps: Learning to Live in an Age of Disasters,’ explains what the next steps in recovery will look like.
And in headlines: Israel launched a ground invasion in southern Lebanon, schools outside of Atlanta closed Monday because of toxic smoke from a chemical plant, and a Superior Court judge in Georgia struck down the state’s six-week abortion ban.