Author: Slate Podcasts

After a long stretch of travel back in March, Matthew Long-Middle fell suddenly ill. He started to suspect he’d contracted COVID-19. Now, in June, Matthew is still feeling symptoms and has yet to get any clear answers from a physician. 

Guest: Matthew Long Middleton, Media Training Manager for KCUR 

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Texas is dealing with a surge of COVID-19 cases, just weeks after it had begun reopening its businesses and considering plans to bring school back in the fall. The state’s governor defanged his own orders and invited Texans to reach their own conclusions about the necessity of masks and social distancing. 

Guest: Ross Ramsey, executive editor of the Texas Tribune. 

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Responding to protests around the country, the New York City Council passed the POST Act: Public Oversight of Surveillance Technology last week. The bill will require the NYPD to reveal the extent of their surveillance technology deployed within the city. For the first time, New Yorkers will get a clear picture of the technology being employed to watch and trace them. Experts say to expect the worst.

Guest: Ángel S. Díaz, counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice.

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It was Halloween night when Eric Umansky’s wife asked him to go see what was happening around the corner from their home. She had just seen an unmarked NYPD patrol car strike a black teenager and officers had pinned another group of black kids against the wall of the local theatre. Eric arrived on the scene just as three of those kids were being arrested – ages 15, 14, and 12.

Eric didn’t intend to step out of his home and into a months long reporting project, but that’s precisely what happened as he began to investigate what happened that Halloween night in Brooklyn. The story he surfaced puts in stark display the system that protestors all over the country are rallying to fix.

Guest: Eric Umansky, Deputy Managing Editor at ProPublica.

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Last week, comedian Laurie Kilmartin took to Twitter to talk jokingly about something that wasn’t funny –– her mom was dying. JoAnn Kilmartin, Laurie’s mother, had contracted the coronavirus in her nursing home and was on her deathbed only a few miles from Laurie’s home in southern California. The experience put in striking display her grief and anger, but also her wits and charm.

With the death toll in the United States passing 120,000 people this week, Laurie’s experience is resonating with those who have lost loved ones to the virus.

Guest: Laurie Kilmartin, comedian and author of Dead People Suck: A Guide for Survivors of the Newly Departed.

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This past weekend, Geoffrey Berman was suddenly removed from his office as the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. The removal itself began with Barr announcing on Friday night that Berman was resigning. That was a lie. Berman issued his own statement saying as much. This whole confusing two-day episode ultimately came to a close with Berman stepping down after ensuring his successor. So what do the events of this weekend tell us about Bill Barr’s justice department? And what could this mean for cases the SDNY was investigating that reached into Trump’s inner circle?

Guest: Jeremy Stahl, senior editor at Slate.

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In March, when schools across the country shut down, few people could have guessed that students wouldn’t return until the fall. Schools weren’t equipped to deploy remote-learning curricula, technology was in short supply, and most parents weren’t free to guide their children through lessons during the day.

Three months later, little has changed. And all that time out of the classroom has taken a toll on students. Can they recover in time for the fall?

Guest: Dana Goldstein, national correspondent at the New York Times

 

Host

Lizzie O’Leary

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Companies from Nike to the New York Times have announced that Juneteenth will be a paid day off this year. What does wider observance of the holiday say about the progress we’re making as a country? 

Guest: Adam Serwer, staff writer for The Atlantic

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Police reform is not a new cause in New York. The same proposals have been discussed for years. But when people took to the streets in late May, they handed politicians a mandate. This is the story of how the protesters got their first big win. 

Guest: Zellnor Myrie, New York state senator serving in Brooklyn. 

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