Podcasts about Human rights

A priest shows up. Antony doesn't confess, James doesn't convert, but they all talk about human dignity.Checkout Fr. James Martin, SJ 's book, 'Work in Progress.'https://www.amazon.com/dp/00626944800:00 Introduction and Overview0:29 The Ultimate Quiet Quitting Story4:32 Scott Bessent's $950 Billion Bond Buyback Plan8:05 Is the Treasury Conducting Its Own Monetary Policy?12:14 Foolishness of the Week: American Airlines Does It Again16:57 Father James Martin on Pope Leo, AI, and Human Dignity20:50 What Happens When AI Meets Humanlike Robots?22:48 AI, Loneliness, and Replacing Human Relationships24:57 Can Free Markets Serve the Common Good?29:22 Property Rights, Poverty, and the Role of the Church34:53 Who Gets to Define the “Common Good”?36:17 Subsidiarity, Data Centers, and Local Decision-Making41:18 Human Rights vs. Human Flourishing43:38 Wealth, Profit, and the Morality of Capitalism48:00 What Did Jesus Mean by “The Poor Will Always Be With You”?51:22 Individual Charity vs. Community Responsibility55:15 Social Media, Human Dignity, and the Loss of Community1:00:09 Father James Martin's Work in Progress

Podcasting in Time is brought to you by the Afterheads and Producers on Patreon in collaboration with my unemployment. If you enjoy it, SUBSCRIBE to get episodes early and enable me to do more things like this. You'll also get all the other bonus episodes of TIYA After Dark:https://www.patreon.com/thisisyourafterlifeWelcome back to Podcasting in Time, a This Is Your Afterlife bonus miniseries exploring the filmography of Soviet director Andrei Tarkovsky.Stalker is the only movie I'd seen before embarking on this project, and it's in the conversation for most people's favorite Tarkovsky. But for me, the real treat of this episode is my guest. Philip Metres is a poet, scholar, and TRANSLATOR OF ARSENY TARKOVSKY'S POETRY. That's right, the father of Andrei whose poems feature prominently in several of his films, especially including Stalker. Phil and his co-translator Dimitri Psurtsev published I Burned at the Feast: Selected Poems of Arseny Tarkovsky, an approachable volume that shows the father as an artistic force, a fact the son clearly knew. Beyond his translation work, Phil has amassed a heap of impressive accomplishments. Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Arts fellowships! A Pushcart Prize! He's the director of the Peace, Justice, and Human Rights program at John Carroll University! And I just happen to know him socially as a fellow Clevelander and 80s punk rock fan. Who better to talk to about Andrei Tarkovsky's status as "the poet of cinema"? What a treat.Follow Philip and read his work:https://philipmetres.substack.com/https://instagram.com/philipmetres/https://twitter.com/PhilipMetreshttps://linktr.ee/philipmetreshttps://philipmetres.com/Follow TIYA, share your thoughts:https://thisisyourafterlife.com/https://www.instagram.com/thisisyourafterlife/thisisdavemaher@gmail.comMusic by TIYA house band Lake Mary:https://lakemary.bandcamp.com/https://www.instagram.com/chaz.prymek/

We are in the fight of our lives against a neofascist transnational crime syndicate obsessed with gutting your voting rights and turning the DOJ into a petty MAGA HOA. But if you think it's time to curl up and surrender in despair, here to wake you up is Maya Wiley, President and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, and the daughter of relentless Civil Rights organizers, to break down exactly how we defeat this authoritarian coup.  The MAGA mob is breaking laws and shredding democratic norms for one simple reason: they are absolutely terrified of our collective power. Maya's parents faced down the exact same terror during the Civil Rights Era, landing on Nixon's enemies list while fighting off a corrupt government, and they won. Maya carries their legacy, reminding us that despair is the oppressor's weapon. Her message is a powerful call-to-action: organized joy, relentless community building, and "fighting forward" are how we create the next era of civil rights.  They want you exhausted and apathetic, but we will rebuild our democracy. Gen Z, you especially have the sheer numbers to help stop the coup if you show up for the kind of world you want to live in and flex your power.  The Gaslit Nation bonus show is now included in our Tuesday episodes. Support our independent journalism, hear the continuation of our conversation, and join our resilience community by subscribing on Patreon or Substack today. Want a plan to launch a dream project and help us build a better world? Order Andrea's new book A Reasonable Guide for Unreasonable Women: 20 Steps to Find Your Purpose and Power in a World on Fire: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/807202/a-reasonable-guide-for-unreasonable-women-by-andrea-chalupa/ EVENTS AT GASLIT NATION: Gaslit Nation Salons take place Mondays 4pm ET over Zoom and are recorded and shared on Patreon.com/Gaslit and GaslitNation.Substack.com for our community New! There's now a California Signal Group for Gaslit Nation listeners to find each other and connect in that state. Join on Patreon or Substack! The Gaslit Nation Outreach Committee discusses how to talk to the MAGA cult: Join on Patreon or Substack! Minnesota Signal group for Gaslit Nation listeners in the state to find each other: Join on Patreon or Substack! Vermont Signal group for Gaslit Nation listeners in the state to find each other: Join on Patreon or Substack! Arizona-based listeners launched a Signal group for others in the state to connect. Join on Patreon or Substack! Indiana-based listeners launched a Signal group for others in the state to join. Join on Patreon or Substack! Florida-based listeners are going strong meeting in person. Be sure to join their Signal group. Join on Patreon or Substack! As always, keep it kind in our chat groups, extend grace and assume good faith. A culture of care is how we build a better world.   

Former National Security Adviser John Bolton talks with Martin Smith about U.S.-Saudi relations and balancing national security interests with human rights. The interview was originally filmed for Smith's 2026 documentary The Crown Prince & the President and has been edited for length and clarity.

Minnesotans will get a chance to hear stories collected for the Governor's Truth Council starting this week.The council was created in March to document the impacts of Operation Metro Surge and Operation PARRIS on Minnesotans. The first of four public presentations sharing the council's findings will take place Wednesday.Jennifer Prestholdt is vice chair of the council and deputy executive director of The Advocates for Human Rights. She joined MPR News host Nina Moini to discuss the council's work.

Kelsey Norman is a Fellow for the Middle East and Director of the Women's Rights, Human Rights, and Refugees Program at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy. Her new book, Aiding Autocrats: Migration Management, Governance and Repression in Africa, examines how wealthy countries increasingly use foreign aid to persuade other governments to stop migrants before they reach Europe or the United States—and the unintended political consequences of those policies. In this episode, Kelsey explains what she calls "migration management aid" and how it has shaped relationships with countries including Turkey, Libya, and Rwanda. We also discuss whether more recent policies, including the Trump administration's deportation agreements with countries such as Eswatini, fit into this broader pattern. The conversation then turns to one of the book's central arguments: that outsourcing migration control can undermine democracy and good governance by strengthening authoritarian governments and giving them new resources and leverage. We conclude by discussing whether there is a better way for wealthy countries to cooperate with governments on migration without reinforcing repression or sacrificing human rights.

What should AI actually do for us, rather than simply what can it do?In this episode of Ethics and Innovation by Oxford+ brought to you by Equinox, host Susannah de Jager speaks with Dr Caroline Green, Director of Research at Oxford's Institute for Ethics in AI, about care as one of the defining ethical questions of the AI age. Caroline explains what care means inside a regulated social care system, why OpenAI and Anthropic have started borrowing the language of caregiving, and where she thinks that borrowing should worry us.The conversation moves between the very specific and the very broad: carebots collecting data while they chat to residents, the Oxford framework that helps providers question technology suppliers properly, a week in Dharamsala learning how Tibetan communities use AI to preserve their language, and the civic AI work she is developing with Ambassador Audrey Tang. New Stanford research published this month found that people with smaller social networks who turn to AI companions for emotional support report lower well-being, which makes Caroline's warning about caring-sounding systems timely. Two phrases anchor the episode: serving, not harming, and connection, not convenience.(00:00) - Welcome to Oxford+ (01:42) - What Care Actually Means (03:55) - Why Big Tech Has Adopted the Language of Care (05:53) - Job Displacement and the Doom Narrative (08:15) - Dharamsala, Monasteries and Tibetan Language AI (11:59) - What Makes Us Distinct as Humans (14:26) - The Oxford Framework for Responsible AI in Care (17:13) - Carebots and the Line between Task and Relationship (23:26) - Ageing Societies and the Rights of Older People (26:54) - Young People, Trust and Over-Reliance on AI (33:16) - Civic AI and the Ethics of Care (37:36) - Hope, Harm and the Civic Space Dr. Caroline Green: Dr Caroline Emmer De Albuquerque Green is Director of Research and Head of Public Engagement at the Institute for Ethics in AI, University of Oxford, where she leads the Accelerator Fellowship Programme. She is one of the UK's leading voices on the responsible use of AI in health and social care. Caroline co-led the Oxford Project on the Responsible Use of Generative AI in Social Care and wrote its April 2025 white paper setting out a value-led approach, work that led to the AI in Care Alliance whose vision and priorities were agreed at the second AI in Social Care Summit in March 2026. She also leads Truth and Trust: AI and Young People, a research collaboration with the BBC announced in February 2026. Caroline holds an LLB from the University of Edinburgh, an MSc in Human Rights from the LSE, an MA in Investigative Journalism from City University and a PhD in Gerontology from King's College London.Connect with Caroline on LinkedInSusannah de Jager: Susannah is a seasoned professional with over 15 years of experience in UK asset management. She has worked closely with industry experts, entrepreneurs, and government officials to shape the conversation around domestic scale-up capital.Connect with Susannah on LinkedIn and Subscribe to the Oxford+ Newsletter for Exclusive ContentOxford+ is hosted by Susannah de Jager and supported by Equinox.Produced and Edited by Story Ninety-Four in Oxford.

Greg Barns career has taken him from running Malcolm Turnbull’s 1999 Republican referendum campaign to becoming a long-time adviser to Julian Assange and a prominent voice on criminal justice and human rights. Greg joins us to talk about his career, his work on some of Australia’s biggest legal and political issues, and his new podcast with former Supreme Court Judge Lex Lasry, Law the Podcast. You can listen to Law The Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. ATC Plus subscribers can listen to this episode ad free here. You can watch our episodes by visiting our Youtube Channel here. Join our Facebook Group here. Do you have information regarding any of the cases discussed on this podcast? Please report it on the Crime Stoppers website or by calling 1800 333 000. Wanting to hear about certain kinds of crime? Check out our Spotify playlists for a curated list of our episodes. For Support: Lifeline on 13 11 1413 YARN on 13 92 76 (24/7 crisis support phone line for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples)1800RESPECT: 1800 737 732Blue Knot Helpline: 1300 657 380CREDITS:Host: Meshel Laurie Guest: Greg Barns SC Executive Producer/Editor: Matthew Tankard GET IN TOUCH:Email the show at AusTrueCrimePodcast@gmail.comFollow the show on Instagram @australiantruecrimepodcast and Facebook Got a question or comment you want played on the show? Get involved by sending us a voice message on our True Crime Hotline here

This is a "Shortcut" episode. It’s a shortened version of this week’s more detailed full episode, which is also available on our feed. Greg Barns career has taken him from running Malcolm Turnbull’s 1999 Republican referendum campaign to becoming a long-time adviser to Julian Assange and a prominent voice on criminal justice and human rights. Greg joins us to talk about his career, his work on some of Australia’s biggest legal and political issues, and his new podcast with former Supreme Court Judge Lex Lasry, Law the Podcast. You can listen to Law The Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. ATC Plus subscribers can listen to this episode ad free here. You can watch our episodes by visiting our Youtube Channel here. Join our Facebook Group here. Do you have information regarding any of the cases discussed on this podcast? Please report it on the Crime Stoppers website or by calling 1800 333 000. Wanting to hear about certain kinds of crime? Check out our Spotify playlists for a curated list of our episodes. For Support: Lifeline on 13 11 1413 YARN on 13 92 76 (24/7 crisis support phone line for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples)1800RESPECT: 1800 737 732Blue Knot Helpline: 1300 657 380CREDITS:Host: Meshel Laurie Guest: Greg Barns SC Executive Producer/Editor: Matthew Tankard GET IN TOUCH:Email the show at AusTrueCrimePodcast@gmail.comFollow the show on Instagram @australiantruecrimepodcast and Facebook Got a question or comment you want played on the show? Get involved by sending us a voice message on our True Crime Hotline here

H&M, Inditex, Adidas, Gap... Some of the world's most famous apparel brands source from Cambodia, where 1 million people are employed by the garment, footwear and travel goods industry. Low-paid work, work in the informal economy, even work without pay is sadly widespread. By some estimates, half of all fashion workers are indebted to micro-finance because they need to take out loans to make ends meet. And, warns Clean Clothes Campaign, while Cambodian law theoretically protects the right of workers to form unions and bargain collectively, many independent labour organisations face severe legal and practical restrictions.What can, and should, multinational brands be doing about this? Why don't they step up and pay more than survival wages? How does politics come into play here? Plus the curious case of the instant noodle unions - can we really expect trade unions run by management to put workers first?In the latest from our series on workers rights, Clare meets Tola Mouen, executive director of the Center for Alliance of Labor and Human Rights, Cambodia.Find links and further reading at thewardrobecrisis.comSupport the show on Substack - wardrobecrisis.substack.comTell us what you think. Find Clare on Instagram @mrspress Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Greg Scarlatoiu, President and CEO of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, analyzes the multifaceted security threats posed by Pyongyang. Scarlatoiu describes North Korea as a post-communist, dynastic kleptocracy and a crime family masquerading as a nation-state. Under Kim Jong-un, the regime has consolidated its intelligence and police agencies while streamlining its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. Scarlatoiu explains that North Korea's war economy exploits its people's human rights and security to fund weapons, which it now exports globally to Russia and Iran. The discussion, co-hosted by Gordon Chang, highlights active military provocations along the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), including recent boundary crossings. Finally, Scarlatoiu and Chang evaluate how controversial remarks by the Trump administration praising Kim Jong-un have strained trust in extended deterrence and undermined relationships within the vital US-South Korea alliance. (3)

TABLE OF CONTENTS THE JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW, 8-19-2026Rebecca Grant, Vice President of the Lexington Institute, discusses technological advancements on the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford. She details the transition from traditional steam-powered catapults to modern electromagnetic aircraft launch systems (EMALS), which offer superior, adjustable torque to launch both lightweight drones and heavily armed fighter jets. Additionally, Grant highlights the ship's new electromagnetic advanced weapons elevators, which double the capacity of older Nimitz-class systems and move much faster to significantly improve sortie generation rates. However, a White House executive order directing a study to reconsider steam systems threatens to disrupt these advancements. Grant warns that backtracking to older technology on carriers currently in construction, like the CVN-81, could delay delivery by up to seven years, creating dangerous operational gaps as Chinese naval threats rise in the Pacific. (1)Rick Fisher of the International Assessment and Strategy Center analyzes China's advancement in space and its competition with the United States. Fisher discusses China's Gandai constellation, a space debris monitoring satellite system controlled by the People's Liberation Army (PLA), which tracked a SpaceX Falcon 9 booster crashing near the moon's Einstein crater from over 380,000 kilometers away. He warns that this constellation can perform dual-use military targeting for space combat and missile defense. Fisher criticizes China's lack of transparency, noting its refusal to give advance notice for earthbound ICBM tests and its intention to let expendable propulsion stages crash into the lunar surface. Finally, he highlights the rapid progress of China's LandSpace with its liquid-fueled, methane-oxygen-powered reusable Zhuque-3 rocket, predicting that ten Chinese companies will offer cheap reusable launch services within five years and directly undercut Western competitors. (2)Greg Scarlatoiu, President and CEO of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, analyzes the multifaceted security threats posed by Pyongyang. Scarlatoiu describes North Korea as a post-communist, dynastic kleptocracy and a crime family masquerading as a nation-state. Under Kim Jong-un, the regime has consolidated its intelligence and police agencies while streamlining its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. Scarlatoiu explains that North Korea's war economy exploits its people's human rights and security to fund weapons, which it now exports globally to Russia and Iran. The discussion, co-hosted by Gordon Chang, highlights active military provocations along the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), including recent boundary crossings. Finally, Scarlatoiu and Chang evaluate how controversial remarks by the Trump administration praising Kim Jong-un have strained trust in extended deterrence and undermined relationships within the vital US-South Korea alliance. (3)Craig Unger, investigative reporter and author, explores President Donald Trump's unstable foreign policy toward Russia and Ukraine. Unger contends that Trump behaves as a Russian appeaser whose real estate-linked advisers take marching orders from Vladimir Putin. The discussion highlights how Ukrainian-manufactured drones have successfully targeted Russian oil refineries, causing severe fuel shortages and long gas lines across Russia. While these military successes initially impressed Trump, leading him to publicly promise Patriot missiles and production technology to President Zelenskyy, Unger reveals that Trump subsequently withheld this critical support. Unger cautions that as Putin faces an existential crisis and potential military defeat, he may launch a limited incursion into Baltic states like Estonia or Poland. This would trigger NATO's Article 5, which Unger warns Trump would likely refuse to honor, thereby destroying the Western alliance. (4)Caleb Weiss of the Bridgeway Foundation and the Foundation for Defense of Democracies examines the evolution of African jihadist movements. Weiss details the case of Jamal Chima, a Ugandan Guantanamo Bay alumnus who transitioned from Al-Qaeda to recruiting for the Islamic State Central African Province (ISCAP) in Kampala. Weiss explains that East African court systems frequently experience "catch and release" cycles due to strict evidentiary demands for terrorism cases. The segment also addresses the kidnapping of missionary Kevin Rideout by the Islamic State Sahel Province. Weiss describes how these groups raise funds through lucrative ransoms, utilizing regional coordination hubs like the Al-Furqan and Al-Karrar offices to move capital globally to active cells in regions like Afghanistan. Finally, he notes that eastern Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar has leveraged anti-jihadist operations to secure Western backing. (5)Michael Bernstam of the Hoover Institution warns of a severe global crisis in refined petroleum products, especially diesel, gasoline, and jet fuel. Bernstam explains that the "crack spread"—the cost differential between crude oil and refined diesel—has reached an unprecedented historical peak of over $102 per barrel. This crisis stems from a fifty-year systemic failure, during which no major new refineries were built in the United States or Europe. Compounding this, sophisticated Ukrainian drone strikes have successfully knocked out 40% of Russia's refining capacity, forcing the major oil exporter to ban refined product exports and become an importer. Additionally, China has halted refined exports to meet its domestic demand. Bernstam warns that the resulting global diesel shortage directly threatens agricultural planting, harvesting, and regional food security, particularly for developing nations as winter approaches. (6)Peter Huessy of the Gold Institute for International Strategy critiques the Hollywood film House of Dynamite for its inaccurate depiction of US nuclear command and control. Huessy argues that the movie relies on flawed premises, such as the sudden, unexplained failure of Defense Support Program (DSP) tracking satellites and the total failure of US missile defense interceptors, to fabricate a helpless crisis scenario. He highlights that actual US missile defenses achieve 75% to 85% success in tests and up to 98% in combat scenarios like Israel's missile defense systems. Huessy strongly refutes the film's negative portrayal of military leadership as reckless warmongers and its central message that nuclear deterrence is ineffective. He asserts that the nuclear triad has successfully and perfectly preserved global peace for eighty years, keeping the country safe. (7)Simon Constable, writer for the Wall Street Journal, discusses European climate anomalies and their severe impact on global commodities. Speaking from the south of France, Constable reports temperatures reaching 35 degrees Celsius, contributing to low water levels in the Danube, Rhine, and Po rivers. These climate constraints, alongside maritime blockades of Ukrainian ports, have driven up prices for energy, wheat, and coffee. Turning to UK politics, Constable criticizes Prime Minister Keir Starmer for failing to spur house-building and notes that regional politicians like Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham lack an international profile. Finally, he reviews a longevity quiz from the Wall Street Journal, which highlights that the wealthiest Americans live fourteen years longer than the poorest. He notes that Japan leads the world in centenarians, emphasizing that geographic location and financial wealth are pivotal factors in determining an individual's healthy lifespan. (8)Andrea Stricker of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies examines Middle Eastern nuclear proliferation and the mystery surrounding legacy materials. Stricker details a positive, US-brokered development in which the post-AssadSyrian government agreed to cooperate and turn over legacy yellowcake uranium stored at a covert facility known as Site 99. This material was intended for a North Korean-built plutonium-producing reactor at Al-Kibar, which was destroyed by Israel in 2007. Despite long-standing Syrian secrecy and the site changing hands among various factions, environmental sampling by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed undeclared, man-made uranium particles at multiple locations. Stricker also raises concerns regarding Turkey's nuclear ambitions, highlighting its civilian programs' potential military purposes and Turkey's recent attempt to secure raw uranium contracts with the military regime in Niger. (9)Joel Kotkin, senior research fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas at Austin, examines California's economic and demographic challenges. Kotkin notes that California is on the verge of losing its population lead as middle-class families vote with their feet and move to states like Texas. He attributes this out-migration to exorbitant housing costs, a severe shortage of upwardly mobile middle-class jobs, and high electricity prices that hamper manufacturing and modern technology sectors like artificial intelligence. Furthermore, Kotkin highlights systemic social issues, including high teen unemployment, rising store break-ins, and a deteriorating public education system. These factors have depleted the state's middle class, leaving the tax base heavily dependent on a wealthy top one percent who can easily relocate to lower-tax states like Florida. Kotkin warns that this loss of middle-class families threatens California's future tax base and demographic vitality. (10)Corrections applied, several pending your confirmation: Bridgeway Foundation (transcribed as "Ridgeway," segment 5 — Weiss's actual affiliation), Al-Furqan and Al-Karrar offices (transcribed as "Al-Furkan and Al-Karr" — the standard renderings of the ISIS regional offices), LandSpace and Zhuque-3 (transcribed as "Land Space Corporation" and "Juk 3" — the Chinese firm and its rocket), Zelenskyy per house style, and "yellow cake" → yellowcake. One flag: "Gandaiconstellation" (segment 2) — I couldn't verify that name; the audio may be rendering a Chinese program name roughly, worth checking with the transcript or Fisher's notes. In segment 8, note the source describes Keir Starmer as PM and Andy Burnham as Manchester Mayor — this contradicts the recent batches where Burnham is PM. I've left it as the source has it since it's Constable's segment, but flag it if the summary tool garbled the timeline.R

Sudan war: 200,000 newly displaced as fighting and floods intensifyZambia elections: UN human rights chief's concern over opposition arrestsChad: mass vaccination boost to confront cholera outbreak –UNICEF

Leanne McCallum Desselle joins Dr. Sandie Morgan as they explore what happens when a hurricane knocks out the very systems built to catch trafficking — from a child abuse hotline down for three weeks after Hurricane Ida to the disaster recovery jobs where exploitation quietly takes hold.Chapters(00:00) - Introduction (01:39) - An International Lens on a Uniquely American Blind Spot (04:17) - The Signal International Case After Katrina (07:36) - From the Ground in Louisiana to a Researcher's Path (11:13) - Why Research Doesn't Reach the People Who Need It (14:50) - Who Disasters Make Vulnerable to Trafficking (20:18) - Responding in the First Days — and How to Prepare Before the Storm (25:22) - Creative Partnerships That Kept Services Running (28:27) - Turning Research Into Policy and Practice (34:32) - Advice for Researchers Entering This Space About Leanne McCallum DesselleLeanne McCallum Desselle is a Research Analyst and Training & Technical Assistance Provider at RTI International, a role she has held since August 2022. She spent nearly a decade in frontline anti-trafficking work in Louisiana, coordinating the Greater New Orleans Human Trafficking Task Force for more than three years and later managing a statewide child and youth trafficking initiative for the Louisiana Alliance of Children's Advocacy Centers. In 2018 she was appointed Chair of the Labor Trafficking Committee for the Louisiana Governor's Human Trafficking Prevention Commission and Advisory Board. At RTI, she leads technical assistance for a U.S. Office for Victims of Crime initiative on child and youth trafficking outcomes and contributes to research on labor trafficking prosecutions and the effects of disasters on trafficking vulnerability. She holds a Master of Arts in International Studies, concentrating in Human Rights and Human Trafficking, from the University of Denver's Josef Korbel School of Global and Public Affairs, and a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations from Linfield University.Key Points• Hurricane Katrina's Signal International case, in which hundreds of Indian guest workers were defrauded and trafficked into labor repairing Gulf oil rigs, became one of the largest labor trafficking settlements at the time and helped drive Louisiana's first designated federal anti-trafficking funding in 2007-2008.• Housing instability is one of the biggest drivers of post-disaster trafficking risk — when people lose their community, school, and church, they become far more vulnerable to someone who says, "Don't worry, I'll take care of everything. I'll get you a job."• Disasters disproportionately hit communities already made vulnerable by redlining, the historical practice of confining people of color and poor families to lower-lying land that's more exposed to flooding and severe weather.• In interviews with 46 disaster and trafficking responders, foreign national day laborers doing disaster recovery work and isolated children in disrupted households emerged as two of the populations most vulnerable to exploitation after a storm.• After Hurricane Ida, Louisiana's child abuse hotline — the mandated channel for reporting child trafficking — was down for at least three weeks, leaving responders with no way to report what they saw.• Preparation has to happen before a disaster, not during one: without a plan already tested and rehearsed, coordinating a trafficking response becomes nearly impossible once phones, power, and staff are all unreachable at once.• Louisiana responders found creative workarounds under pressure, from standing up a mobile forensic interview unit in a neighboring parish within 24 hours to running child trafficking response operations out of a partner's building after their own offices were destroyed.• Leanne and her RTI colleagues sent their findings directly to the Louisiana Human Trafficking Prevention Commission and Advisory Board, which is now recommending changes to state labor procurement practices to help prevent forced labor.Resources• RTI International• Human Trafficking in the Wake of Natural Disasters (RTI research project page)• Human Trafficking in the Wake of Natural Disasters: A Case Study of Preparedness and Response in Louisiana (Violence and Victims, 2026)• The Intersection of Human Trafficking and Natural Disasters: A Scoping Review (Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 2024)• Advancing the Field: Human Trafficking and Natural Disasters — Recommendations for the Louisiana Human Trafficking Prevention Commission and Advisory Board• Labor Trafficking in Construction During the Recovery and Reconstruction from a Natural Disaster (OPRE Report, Barrick & Pfeffer)• Louisiana Human Trafficking Prevention Commission and Advisory Board• David, et al. v. Signal International, LLC, et al. (ACLU case page)

Ralph speaks to Baroness Beeban Kidron, a member of the UK House of Lords and a leading voice on children's rights in the digital environment, whose book is “Users: How Big Tech Took Control and How to Fight Back.” Then we welcome back whistleblower Becky McClain a biotech scientist injured in an unsafe lab and author of “Exposed: A Pfizer Scientist Battles Corruption, Lies, and Betrayal, and Becomes a Biohazard Whistleblower.”Baroness Beeban Kidron is a member of the UK's House of Lords and a former film director. She is a leading voice on children's rights in the digital environment and a global authority on digital regulation. She has played a central role in establishing standards for online safety and privacy across the world. She is the author of Users: How Big Tech Took Control and How to Fight Back.The things that children experience online are deliberately designed to distract them. Now, they are there to distract them because those companies want the attention so they can advertise. They want their data so that they can perfect their commercial terms,their product. And they even want their attention to compete against the other people who are competing for their attention. So here we have an absolute arms race for a child's attention.Baroness Beeban KidronI do want to say very clearly to anyone listening: This is a battle you shouldn't be fighting on your own. And there is a responsibility for politicians—for both local politicians and federal politicians (national in our case, here in the UK) —to actually put these companies under the same sort of strictures that all other corporate companies do… One of the things I'm looking at is whether we can recategorize apps as products. And then they'll have all the product liability, the product safety, consumer rights—all the things that we expect of everything else in our life from our food to our cars to our toys. That they would actually have to think before they roll them out: Are they safe? And when they've proven unsafe, we would have a very clear set of legal approaches to address that.Baroness Beeban KidronBecky McClain is a retired biotech worker and research scientist. She is known as the first successful biotech whistleblower who spoke and reported on biolab safety issues of public concern. On April 1, 2010, Ms. McClain won a federal court whistleblower trial against Pfizer, Inc., which centered on free speech rights concerning biosafety and public health. She is the author of Exposed: A Pfizer Scientist Battles Corruption, Lies, and Betrayal, and Becomes a Biohazard Whistleblower.The public wants transparency to ensure that biolabs are run ethically, safely, responsibly, and with accountability. Transparency into these matters builds public trust with science and with government. But without free-speech protections for scientists and also medical physicians, transparency fails, accountability is dismissed, and the public trust hits rock bottom.Becky McClainNews 8/14/26* This week, a new round of primaries was held in the upper midwest and New England. The biggest shock of the night was the defeat of Francesca Hong in the Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial primary. Hong, a Wisconsin State Assemblywoman and member of Madison DSA, went into election night leading in the polls and while she won an astonishing 311,000 votes, her opponent – Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, with the endorsement of sitting Democratic Governor Tony Evers – maintained a lead of approximately one-half of one percentage point throughout the night. As the final margin will be under 1 percent, Hong is entitled to request a recount, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, but WKOW reports she has conceded the race. Hong was seen as the best chance for the insurgent, DSA-aligned left to capture a gubernatorial nomination this cycle, particularly in a crucial swing state, but her campaign was dogged by electability concerns and unpopular past statements made by the candidate. Crowley will face Republican Congressman Tom Tiffany, who cruised to an easy victory in the GOP gubernatorial primary, in November.* The Minnesota primaries delivered more encouraging results for the left. In the high-profile Senate primary to replace retiring Senator Tina Smith, Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan emerged victorious over her opponent, Congresswoman Angie Craig. Flanagan was backed by a broad, progressive coalition – including Senators Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Ed Markey, and outgoing Senator Tina Smith herself – while Craig was backed by more centrist Democrats like House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and ultrazionist Democratic Congressman Josh Gottheimer. If elected, Flanagan, a citizen of the White Earth Nation, would be the first Native American woman to serve in the U.S. Senate, per the Minnesota Reformer. Flanagan has also gone on record saying that Chuck Schumer, who would be poised to lead the Senate Democrats as Majority Leader if the party retakes that chamber, needs to be replaced with a “progressive champion” though she has not gone as far as Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan who explicitly called for Schumer to be replaced by Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen, as reported by Semafor.* In more Minnesota news, Congresswoman Craig's decision to vacate her old seat in the state's second congressional district “created a crowded primary for her seat,” according to the Minnesota Star Tribune. On Tuesday, progressive candidate Matt Little triumphed. Little is a strong proponent of Medicare for All and does not blanch at describing Israel's campaign in Gaza as a genocide. Little overwhelmingly won the endorsement of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and of congressional progressives like Reps. Pramila Jayapal and Greg Casar, as well as the Progressive Caucus PAC. If Little wins in what the Star Tribune describes as a swing district historically, it will send a strong signal that progressives can win even in tough districts.* In New England, the results tell a somewhat different story. Specifically, in Connecticut's first congressional district, 14-term incumbent Congressman John Larson lost his primary to former Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin, over 30 years Larson's junior, by over 20 points. However, Bronin is far from a progressive challenger. Whereas Larson enjoyed the backing of the Working Families Party and Congressman Jamie Raskin – though he also had the backing of AIPAC – Bronin's only major national endorsement was from former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. In short, this would best be described as a non-ideological, but rather age-based primary challenge. This will surely set off major alarm bells for another aged incumbent in New England facing a much younger primary challenger: Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts. Additionally, as Ryan Grim notes, “John Larson was/is the champion of the bill to expand Social Security, which was up to…200+ cosponsors but [former Speaker Nancy] Pelosi would never allow it to get to the floor. There's now an extremely popular bill that could actually pass that needs a lead sponsor.”* Another recent primary loss is worth examining: that of Kshama Sawant in Seattle. Sawant, a former Seattle City Councilmember aligned with the Trotskyist Socialist Alternative party, resigned her council seat and sought to unseat her local Democratic Congressman Adam Smith, running as an independent in Washington's ninth congressional district. The state of Washington has a top two primary system, so Sawant would have only had to get the second most votes to secure a head-to-head matchup against Smith in November. Yet, instead Sawant finished a distant third behind Smith and the Republican candidate Doug Basler. Perhaps that doesn't seem surprising – independent and third party candidates are often outspent by huge margins. Yet, the facts belie that explanation. In fact, a new piece on the Joe Wrote substack finds that “Sawant's campaign wasn't the rag-tag, bootstrapped operation that we typically see from insurgent socialists. Sawant reported $607,493 in campaign spending, meaning she outspent Republican Doug Basler by over six-to-one and still lost to him.” Wrote goes on to state that “The Sawant campaign spent $25.33 per vote, the highest for any candidate in the race…The only registered PAC that spent on the race was Sawant's Revolutionary Change PAC, which raised $5,600 through ActBlue and spent it on billboards.” If nothing else, this test case demonstrates that money is not enough for the left to break through the two-party duopoly. A candidate also needs institutional, organizational support – like that of DSA – and, perhaps most importantly, broadbase solidarity with the other component parts of the movement. Going it alone simply will not get the job done.* In more independent and third party news, we have an update to a previous story about the race for Congress in Pennsylvania's seventh congressional district. Last week, we discussed Andrew Tupone, a candidate running in this race on the Green Party ballot line, despite the GP of Pennsylvania distancing themselves from him – and spokesman Chris Robinson even calling him a “a nice Republican.” According to Lehigh Valley Public Media, the Green Party is now going a step further, formally requesting the Pennsylvania courts “either kick Tupone off the ballot or require him to identify himself as a member of another party.” In their petition to the court, the Green Party argues that “Candidate Tupone and his agents or affiliates who circulated his nomination papers misled voters into signing the nomination papers on the mistaken belief that they were helping to place a candidate supported by the Green Party onto the ballot.” This piece also notes that three Lehigh Valley residents are challenging the petitions Tupone presented to get on the ballot, arguing that technical errors would disqualify thousands of these signatures. For his part, Tupone “has denied having any ulterior motive to enter the race or accepting financial assistance from any outside groups.”* At the same time, in Nebraska, it seems there are two, dueling faux third parties seeking to siphon off votes from the other side. The Nebraska Examiner reports that both the “Nebraska Democratic Party and the national Working Families Party have sued Nebraska's Working People Party to block it from the fall ballot.” The Democrats and WFP are seeking to block Nebraska Secretary of State Bob Evnen from officially recognizing the party, and to “declare that the party's name is breaking state law because it is meant to confuse voters.” Apparently, Nebraska election law includes a provision allowing the secretary of state to “reject a candidate's filing if…that someone is not a ‘good-faith candidate' or is trying to cause confusion for voters,” and that “objections to party names can be considered.” The kicker is that last week, the Nebraska Republican Party filed a lawsuit alleging that the “America First Party” is a similarly bad-faith attempt to confuse and deceive voters and thereby undercut the fortunes of Nebraska Republicans. A Nebraska judge has issued an emergency injunction stopping certification of both the Nebraska Working People Party and America First Party through August 20th.* Turning to local news, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass appears to be moving against Councilmember Nithya Raman, her Democratic rival for the mayoralty in the general election. LAist reports that while Raman has chaired the Council's powerful Housing and Homeless Committee since 2023, Bass' close ally, Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson is “planning to announce…that the city will split the committee into two parts — one on housing, the other on homelessness — neither of which will be led by Raman.” In a campaign video, Raman alleged that the move constituted political retaliation, saying “I called for an audit of our homelessness programs…and now I've been removed…I might be getting punished for running against Mayor Bass, but Angelenos are the ones paying the price for these political games.” Mayor Bass and Councilmember Raman finished first and second respectively in the June primary, meaning they will face off in November with no Republican on the ballot.* In New York, Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced this week that he will throw his weight behind a new bill in the city council seeking to curb Amazon's practice of utilizing subcontractors instead of directly employing delivery workers. The Wall Street Journal explains that although these subcontractors “aren't direct employees of…Amazon [or other companies], they often wear branded uniforms or vests and drive corporate-branded vans or trucks,” but are not entitled to the same workplace protections and are excluded from collective bargaining. In a statement, Mamdani highlighted how “Corporations like Amazon build billion-dollar business models by insulating themselves from accountability through a system of exploitative subcontracting.” The Journal reports the bill would also “require warehouse operators to obtain licenses from the city,” and in order to get a license, ”operators would have to adhere to new safety, training and employment requirements, including hiring thousands of the city's contract couriers.” In response, Amazon is, as usual, threatening to move its business out of the city, but also deploying its secret, New York-specific weapon: their chief lobbyist, Jessica Schumer, daughter of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, according to the American Prospect. This sets up a major clash between an array of titanic forces in New York politics and whether or not Mayor Mamdani emerges triumphant will be a huge test of his political clout.* Finally, AP reports the parliament of Lebanon voted this week to abolish the death penalty, making it the first nation in the Arab world to do so. This piece notes that the country has maintained an unofficial moratorium on capital punishment for over 20 years; while death sentences have been issued since then, they have all been suspended or commuted. The official sentence of capital punishment will be replaced with “life imprisonment with aggravated hard labor,” a somewhat vague legal concept that will have to be defined and refined as time goes on. AP adds that this vote comes amidst the Lebanese parliamentary debate over a proposed general amnesty law, that could “reduce sentences or even release convicted militants,” from the country's various civil wars, as well as others convicted of drug-related crimes. The parliamentary bloc of Hezbollah voted against the law. Lebanon banning capital punishment stands in stark contrast to the Israeli Knesset, which voted in May to adopt a new death penalty statute described by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights as perpetuating “racial discrimination against Palestinians” and amounting to “a grave erosion of human rights.”This has been Francesco DeSantis, with In case You Haven't Heard. Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History episodes focussing on Kenya.We hear about Muthoni Kirima, one of the last Mau Mau fighters to come out of hiding and lay down her arms.Caroline Elkins, Professor of History at Harvard University, discusses the brutality of the conflict between Kenya's Land and Freedom Army, the British and Kenyan loyalists.Next, when Princess Elizabeth became queen while staying at the Treetops Hotel, a lodge in the Aberdare National Park.In 1997, scientists travelled to Kenya, in search of a cave believed to have been the den of the man-eating lions that terrorised railway workers in 1898.Plus, we hear how Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki and his rival Raila Odinga signed an unprecedented power-sharing deal to end a wave of violence that left more than 1,200 people dead. And the heartwarming story of the friendship between a baby hippo and a 130-year-old giant tortoise. Finally for our Sporting Witness story, we head to the first Ultimate Frisbee World Championship in Gothenburg, Sweden in 1983. Contributors: Caroline Elkins - Professor of History at Harvard University, and author of Britain's Gulag: The Brutal End of Empire in Kenya. Muthoni Kirima - Field Marshall in the Kenya Land and Freedom Army. Frank Gillard - BBC correspondent. Thomas Gnoske - Scientist. Alan Patterson - British Lieutenant Colonel John Henry Patterson's grandson. Maina Kiai - Chair of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights in 2008. Maini Schildt - Swedish Ultimate Frisbee player.(Photo: Mau Mau suspects are rounded up by police outside the camp in Manyani, Kenya, 1955. Credit: Getty Images/Authenticated News)

A leading historian's revelatory exploration of antisemitism in the United States—from 1940s anti-Jewish riots until today—showing that it has long served as a frontline in our wars over freedom of speech and the nature of American liberalism Few issues are as vexed today as antisemitism and free speech. There is scarcely an arena—college campuses, congressional hearings, immigration courtrooms, social media platforms—where we are not polarized over what counts as antisemitism, which speech is protected by the First Amendment, and what the law should do about hatred. At a time of political crisis, antisemitism has become a point of ideological obsession. None of this is new. In a sweeping history of ideas and law, James Loeffler recovers the forgotten roots of our contemporary turmoil. From two antisemitic riots in postwar Chicago to a neo-Nazi march in 1970s Skokie, Illinois, and the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally in our own time, Loeffler explores the ways in which America's courts have grappled with hatred, freedom, and the tensions at the heart of liberal democracy: Are some hatreds more dangerous than others? Is tolerating hate speech the price we must pay for free speech? And can liberalism ever make good on its promise to end hatred through law? Confronting these questions, Exceptional Hatred: Antisemitism and the Fight over Free Speech in Modern America (Metropolitan Books, 2026) restores a missing history of hate speech, antisemitism, and the law, one that points to how we might protect difference without surrendering our principles of equality and freedom. James Loeffler is an award-winning historian, and Felix Posen Professor of Modern Jewish History at Johns Hopkins University and the author of Rooted Cosmopolitans: Jews and Human Rights in the Twentieth Century. Previously he taught at the University of Virginia and served as Dean's Visiting Scholar at Georgetown University Law Center. Currently a Kogod Senior Research Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, his writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The New Republic. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Any donation is greatly appreciated! 47e6GvjL4in5Zy5vVHMb9PQtGXQAcFvWSCQn2fuwDYZoZRk3oFjefr51WBNDGG9EjF1YDavg7pwGDFSAVWC5K42CBcLLv5U OR DONATE HERE: https://www.monerotalk.live/donate TODAY'S SHOW: This episdoe of MoneroTalk examines the ongoing legal case against Joseph “The Parrot” in Brazil and what it could mean for privacy advocates and Monero users around the world. Guests rsmith, who worked on documentation for Joseph's projects, and Low Point Goat, a close friend and supporter, explain the allegations, the international involvement in the investigation, and the financial and legal challenges facing Joseph's family. The conversation expands into the relationship between Monero, cash, privacy, decentralization, and individual self-determination, including how Monero's growing regulatory isolation could affect adoption. TIMESTAMPS: (00:02:36) Guest Introductions (00:07:11) The Charges Against Joseph (00:09:40) Why the Brazilian Case Is Controversial (00:12:41) Monero's Legal Status in Brazil (00:18:39) How the Monero Community Can Help (00:20:45) The Case's International Implications (00:24:36) 3D-Printed Guns & U.S. Law (00:27:31) AI, 3D Printing & Decentralization (00:33:00) Monero, Cash & Self-Defense (00:41:50) Monero's Legal & Political Landscape (00:50:06) MoneroKon 5 & Connecting Communities (00:53:57) DIY Projects & The Future (00:58:49) Joseph's Case, Monero & Human Rights (01:01:00) Final Thoughts & How to Follow the Case GUEST LINKS: https://x.com/lopointgoat Purchase Cafe & tip the farmers w/ XMR! https://gratuitas.org/ SPONSORS: Cakewallet.com, the first open-source Monero wallet for iOS. You can even exchange between XMR, BTC, LTC & more in the app! Monero.com by Cake Wallet - ONLY Monero wallet (https://monero.com/) StealthEX, an instant exchange. Go to (https://stealthex.io) to instantly exchange between Monero and 450 plus assets, w/o having to create an account or register & with no limits. WEBSITE: https://www.monerotopia.com CONTACT: monerotalk@protonmail.com ODYSEE: https://odysee.com/@MoneroTalk:8 TWITTER: https://twitter.com/monerotalk FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/MoneroTalk HOST: https://twitter.com/douglastuman INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/monerotalk TELEGRAM: https://t.me/monerotopia MATRIX: https://matrix.to/#/%23monerotopia%3Amonero.social MASTODON: @Monerotalk@mastodon.social MONERO.TOWN: https://monero.town/u/monerotalkAny donation is greatly appreciated!Any donation is greatly appreciated!

A leading historian's revelatory exploration of antisemitism in the United States—from 1940s anti-Jewish riots until today—showing that it has long served as a frontline in our wars over freedom of speech and the nature of American liberalism Few issues are as vexed today as antisemitism and free speech. There is scarcely an arena—college campuses, congressional hearings, immigration courtrooms, social media platforms—where we are not polarized over what counts as antisemitism, which speech is protected by the First Amendment, and what the law should do about hatred. At a time of political crisis, antisemitism has become a point of ideological obsession. None of this is new. In a sweeping history of ideas and law, James Loeffler recovers the forgotten roots of our contemporary turmoil. From two antisemitic riots in postwar Chicago to a neo-Nazi march in 1970s Skokie, Illinois, and the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally in our own time, Loeffler explores the ways in which America's courts have grappled with hatred, freedom, and the tensions at the heart of liberal democracy: Are some hatreds more dangerous than others? Is tolerating hate speech the price we must pay for free speech? And can liberalism ever make good on its promise to end hatred through law? Confronting these questions, Exceptional Hatred: Antisemitism and the Fight over Free Speech in Modern America (Metropolitan Books, 2026) restores a missing history of hate speech, antisemitism, and the law, one that points to how we might protect difference without surrendering our principles of equality and freedom. James Loeffler is an award-winning historian, and Felix Posen Professor of Modern Jewish History at Johns Hopkins University and the author of Rooted Cosmopolitans: Jews and Human Rights in the Twentieth Century. Previously he taught at the University of Virginia and served as Dean's Visiting Scholar at Georgetown University Law Center. Currently a Kogod Senior Research Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, his writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The New Republic. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

A leading historian's revelatory exploration of antisemitism in the United States—from 1940s anti-Jewish riots until today—showing that it has long served as a frontline in our wars over freedom of speech and the nature of American liberalism Few issues are as vexed today as antisemitism and free speech. There is scarcely an arena—college campuses, congressional hearings, immigration courtrooms, social media platforms—where we are not polarized over what counts as antisemitism, which speech is protected by the First Amendment, and what the law should do about hatred. At a time of political crisis, antisemitism has become a point of ideological obsession. None of this is new. In a sweeping history of ideas and law, James Loeffler recovers the forgotten roots of our contemporary turmoil. From two antisemitic riots in postwar Chicago to a neo-Nazi march in 1970s Skokie, Illinois, and the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally in our own time, Loeffler explores the ways in which America's courts have grappled with hatred, freedom, and the tensions at the heart of liberal democracy: Are some hatreds more dangerous than others? Is tolerating hate speech the price we must pay for free speech? And can liberalism ever make good on its promise to end hatred through law? Confronting these questions, Exceptional Hatred: Antisemitism and the Fight over Free Speech in Modern America (Metropolitan Books, 2026) restores a missing history of hate speech, antisemitism, and the law, one that points to how we might protect difference without surrendering our principles of equality and freedom. James Loeffler is an award-winning historian, and Felix Posen Professor of Modern Jewish History at Johns Hopkins University and the author of Rooted Cosmopolitans: Jews and Human Rights in the Twentieth Century. Previously he taught at the University of Virginia and served as Dean's Visiting Scholar at Georgetown University Law Center. Currently a Kogod Senior Research Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, his writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The New Republic. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history

A leading historian's revelatory exploration of antisemitism in the United States—from 1940s anti-Jewish riots until today—showing that it has long served as a frontline in our wars over freedom of speech and the nature of American liberalism Few issues are as vexed today as antisemitism and free speech. There is scarcely an arena—college campuses, congressional hearings, immigration courtrooms, social media platforms—where we are not polarized over what counts as antisemitism, which speech is protected by the First Amendment, and what the law should do about hatred. At a time of political crisis, antisemitism has become a point of ideological obsession. None of this is new. In a sweeping history of ideas and law, James Loeffler recovers the forgotten roots of our contemporary turmoil. From two antisemitic riots in postwar Chicago to a neo-Nazi march in 1970s Skokie, Illinois, and the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally in our own time, Loeffler explores the ways in which America's courts have grappled with hatred, freedom, and the tensions at the heart of liberal democracy: Are some hatreds more dangerous than others? Is tolerating hate speech the price we must pay for free speech? And can liberalism ever make good on its promise to end hatred through law? Confronting these questions, Exceptional Hatred: Antisemitism and the Fight over Free Speech in Modern America (Metropolitan Books, 2026) restores a missing history of hate speech, antisemitism, and the law, one that points to how we might protect difference without surrendering our principles of equality and freedom. James Loeffler is an award-winning historian, and Felix Posen Professor of Modern Jewish History at Johns Hopkins University and the author of Rooted Cosmopolitans: Jews and Human Rights in the Twentieth Century. Previously he taught at the University of Virginia and served as Dean's Visiting Scholar at Georgetown University Law Center. Currently a Kogod Senior Research Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, his writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The New Republic. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

A leading historian's revelatory exploration of antisemitism in the United States—from 1940s anti-Jewish riots until today—showing that it has long served as a frontline in our wars over freedom of speech and the nature of American liberalism Few issues are as vexed today as antisemitism and free speech. There is scarcely an arena—college campuses, congressional hearings, immigration courtrooms, social media platforms—where we are not polarized over what counts as antisemitism, which speech is protected by the First Amendment, and what the law should do about hatred. At a time of political crisis, antisemitism has become a point of ideological obsession. None of this is new. In a sweeping history of ideas and law, James Loeffler recovers the forgotten roots of our contemporary turmoil. From two antisemitic riots in postwar Chicago to a neo-Nazi march in 1970s Skokie, Illinois, and the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally in our own time, Loeffler explores the ways in which America's courts have grappled with hatred, freedom, and the tensions at the heart of liberal democracy: Are some hatreds more dangerous than others? Is tolerating hate speech the price we must pay for free speech? And can liberalism ever make good on its promise to end hatred through law? Confronting these questions, Exceptional Hatred: Antisemitism and the Fight over Free Speech in Modern America (Metropolitan Books, 2026) restores a missing history of hate speech, antisemitism, and the law, one that points to how we might protect difference without surrendering our principles of equality and freedom. James Loeffler is an award-winning historian, and Felix Posen Professor of Modern Jewish History at Johns Hopkins University and the author of Rooted Cosmopolitans: Jews and Human Rights in the Twentieth Century. Previously he taught at the University of Virginia and served as Dean's Visiting Scholar at Georgetown University Law Center. Currently a Kogod Senior Research Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, his writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The New Republic. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/law

Send us Fan MailIt's been a busy summer, and we're filling you in on all of the Bitch Talk shenanigans of the last month. We explain pigeongate (with a guest appearance from "white ass"), why Ange is afraid people might think she's in love, how drama in the WNBA has left the trans community under attack, and our favorite comedians of the moment.For Bay Area LGBTQ+ Support, contact the SF LGBT CenterSupport the showThanks for listening and for your support! We couldn't have won Best of the Bay Best Podcast in 2022 , 2023 , and 2024 without you!--Fight fascism. Shop small. Use cash. Fuck ice.--Support Bitch Talk here!Subscribe to our channel on YouTube for behind the scenes footage!Rate and review us wherever you listen to podcasts!Visit our website! www.bitchtalkpodcast.comFollow us on Instagram, Threads, and SubstackListen every Monday at 7 am on BFF.FM

In 2008, Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki and his rival Raila Odinga signed an unprecedented power-sharing deal to end a wave of violence that had left more than 1,200 people dead.Kibaki would remain president, while Odinga would become prime minister, a role created as part of the settlement. They hoped the accord would end the bloodshed that had engulfed Kenya after the disputed election two months earlier.Maina Kiai was Chair of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights at the time. He spoke to Stefania Gozzer about the uncertainty of those weeks and the push for a political settlement.Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by and curious about the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more. Recent episodes explore everything from how the Excel spreadsheet was developed, the creation of cartoon rabbit Miffy and how the sound barrier was broken.We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: the moment Reagan and Gorbachev met in Geneva, Haitian singer Emerante de Pradines' life and Omar Sharif's legendary movie entrance in Lawrence of Arabia.You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, like the invention of a stent which has saved lives around the world; the birth of the G7; and the meeting of Maldives' ministers underwater. We cover everything from World War Two and Cold War stories to Black History Month and our journeys into space.(Photo: Kenya's opposition leader Raila Odinga shakes hands with Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki as former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and former Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa stand beside them. Credit: Uriel Sinai/Getty Images)

This Day in Legal History: Britain's Last ExecutionsOn August 13, 1964, two men—Peter Anthony Allen and Gwynne Owen Evans—were hanged simultaneously in two different English prisons for the murder of a man during a robbery. They were the last people ever executed in the United Kingdom. Evans died at Strangeways Prison in Manchester and Allen at Walton Prison in Liverpool, both at eight in the morning, and with them, centuries of capital punishment in Britain came quietly to an end.Neither man knew he was making history; the abolition of the death penalty wasn't yet law. But the machinery of change was already turning. The very next year, in 1965, Parliament passed the Murder Act, which suspended the death penalty for murder for a trial period of five years. In 1969, Parliament made that suspension permanent for England, Scotland, and Wales. The death penalty lingered on the books for a handful of exotic offenses—treason, piracy with violence, certain military crimes—until it was finally abolished completely in 1998, bringing British law into line with the European Convention on Human Rights.The significance of August 13, 1964 is sharpened by contrast. Britain reached the end of capital punishment through ordinary legislation, and much of Europe followed a similar path, treating abolition as a basic human-rights commitment. The United States took the opposite fork: the Supreme Court briefly halted the death penalty in 1972 in Furman v. Georgia, only to allow it back four years later in Gregg v. Georgia, and capital punishment remains part of American law today, administered by the federal government and a number of states. So this anniversary is a useful mirror—a reminder that two closely related legal systems, working from a shared common-law inheritance, reached opposite conclusions on one of the deepest questions a legal system can face: whether the state should ever have the power to take a life. That's the question our opening quote, from Bryan Stevenson, puts squarely on the table.The law firm Motley Rice is in line for a payday of more than $67 million—its fee for winning New Mexico's sprawling case against Meta. We covered the underlying result: a judge ordered Meta to pay $567 million into a teen mental-health fund, on top of $375 million in civil penalties a jury imposed in March, bringing New Mexico's potential recovery to more than $942 million. Motley Rice represented the state on contingency, and under its contract it can seek a sliding-scale cut—20% of the first $50 million recovered, scaling down to 5% on amounts over $250 million—which works out to roughly 7% of the total, or about $67 million. Here's the practice-of-law angle worth understanding. States increasingly hire private plaintiffs' firms to bring these massive cases because they don't have the in-house firepower to go toe-to-toe with a company like Meta and its armies of lawyers. The firm fronts the enormous cost and risk of years of litigation in exchange for a percentage if it wins—the same model that produced the giant tobacco settlements of the 1990s, in which Motley Rice was a central player. Supporters say it lets under-resourced states take on deep-pocketed defendants they otherwise couldn't touch; critics say it hands public law-enforcement power to private firms with a profit motive. The significance is that this is the economic engine behind the whole wave of state social-media litigation we've been tracking. The fee comes out of New Mexico's recovery, and it only gets paid after appeals conclude—and Meta has said it will appeal—so the number, like the verdict, isn't final. But it's a rare, concrete look at the money that makes this kind of public-interest litigation actually happen. Law firm Motley Rice's fee for Meta case in New Mexico could top $67 million | ReuterAlbuquerque Journal · JD JournalTwo press-freedom organizations—The Intercept and the Freedom of the Press Foundation—have sued in Manhattan federal court to shut down a Trump Media service that sells wealthy subscribers early access to President Trump's social media posts. The service, called Truth API, launched August 1 and charges up to $100,000 a month for a faster feed of ten high-profile Truth Social accounts, including the president's own. The legal concern at the heart of the suit is a specific and serious one: Trump's posts routinely move financial markets—an announcement about tariffs or a company can send stocks lurching—and a paid feed that delivers those posts to deep-pocketed subscribers before the general public gives those subscribers a head start to trade on market-moving information. In other words, it potentially creates a two-tiered market in the president's words, where those who can pay six figures a month get to act on presidential statements seconds or minutes before everyone else. That's the kind of information asymmetry securities law generally frowns on. The service drew scrutiny fast—Senators Elizabeth Warren and Adam Schiff had already called for a government investigation days before this suit. It's also legally novel: the plaintiffs are press-freedom groups, framing public access to a president's official-ish communications as a matter of public interest, which raises interesting questions about their theory and standing. The significance is that this sits at a genuinely new intersection—of a president who governs partly through market-moving social media posts, the business incentive to monetize that, and a securities and public-information framework that never contemplated selling early access to the president's feed. However the case comes out, it's a preview of the strange legal questions created when official speech becomes a paid product. Trump sued over service that offers paid early access to Truth Social posts | ReutersWashington Post · NPRA group of current and former Palestinian students and staff have sued Columbia University, alleging that the school discriminated against its Palestinian community over the past two years. According to the complaint filed in New York, the plaintiffs say Columbia failed to protect Palestinian members from harassment, subjected them to what they call “unfair and biased disciplinary hearings,” and “actively participated in and amplified” what they describe as racially, ethnically, and politically motivated targeting of Palestinians on campus. The legal vehicle here is worth understanding, because it's the same one being wielded on multiple sides of the campus fights. Civil-rights law—principally Title VI of the Civil Rights Act—bars institutions that receive federal funding from discriminating on the basis of race, color, or national origin. We've seen Title VI invoked against universities over allegations of antisemitism, and we've seen the Justice Department use it to pressure schools like Harvard. Here, Palestinian and Arab plaintiffs are invoking that same framework to allege discrimination against them. The context matters: Columbia suspended more than 65 students last year over a pro-Palestinian protest that shut down its main library, and it agreed to pay the federal government over $200 million to resolve federal probes and restore funding. Columbia has denied discriminating and says it condemns hate, and it declined to comment on the pending litigation. To be clear, these are allegations in a complaint, not proven facts, and I'm not weighing in on the underlying political conflict. The significance is legal and institutional: universities are now being sued from opposite directions under the very same civil-rights statute, and Columbia in particular finds itself squeezed between federal enforcers, one set of students, and another—each claiming the protection of Title VI. It's a vivid illustration of how anti-discrimination law becomes the battleground when a campus fractures. Palestinian students and staff sue Columbia University alleging discrimination | ReutersUS News · Middle East Eye This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.minimumcomp.com/subscribe

Last month a series of attacks on transgender women in Bogor, sent a chill through a community for whom this kind of violence is increasingly normal. The recent attacks have coincided the release of the full text of Presidential Regulation No. 111 of 2025 concerning the 2025-2029 General Policy for National Defense, classifying the spread of LGBTQI+ culture as a ‘non-military' threat to the state, placing it within the same category as terrorism, separatism and radicalism. A recent Human Rights Watch report quoted the chairperson of LGBTQI+ advocacy organisation, Arus Pelangi, Nono Sugiono, as saying, “Patterns of hate based on gender identity and sexual orientation are building year on year.” So, what forms does this ‘pattern of hatred' take, how is the LGBTQI+ community coping and ultimately, why do morality issues have such social currency in Indonesia? In this week's episode, Jemma chats with Dania Joedo, a musician and human rights activist based in Jakarta, Indonesia. Dania works with a variety of NGOs such as Jakarta Legal Aid, Omah Munir, New Naratif, ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights, YAPPIKA ActionAid, and Indonesia Legal Aid Foundation. With her band, Tashoora, Dania makes music that aims to raise awareness about issues that are underrepresented today. In 2026, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from the Australia-Indonesia Centre, Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales, Tito Ambyo from RMIT and Dr Clara Siagian from University College, London. Image: Indonesian LGBT activists protests in Jakarta 2018/ Bayu Fuller Wikimedia CC

The brilliant Wajahat Ali, author of Go Back to Where You Came From, and playwright of The Domestic Crusaders, had me on The LeftHook to share my new book A Reasonable Guide for Unreasonable Women: 20 Steps to Find Your Purpose and Power in a World on Fire. Watch or listen to the full discussion on how to overcome the very real and urgent threat of fascism. (Side note: In France, Marine Le Pen is campaigning for president wearing an ankle monitor, following in the footsteps of her fellow Russian asset, the convicted felon/Epstein wing-man). Trump is doing to our country what he did to the East Wing of our White House. How do we rebuild from the wreckage? That's what A Reasonable Guide for Unreasonable Women is about. It's for anyone tired of Steve Bannon trying to demoralize us and flood the zone with sh*t. It's about concrete steps to stay grounded and focused in a world of chaos, to align your deepest needs and dreams with a higher purpose, creating world domination for the collective good. My own journey begins with being raised on stories of the government trying to kill you, and blame you for the crime, helped by Western corruption to cover-up the torture and murder. I am of course speaking of my Ukrainian heritage and the Holodomor, Stalin's genocide famine in Ukraine. In all my years of studying my family's history and the two monsters, Hitler and Stalin, who drove that history, I look back on America's own, and see the authoritarianism that established this country. The white supremacy blood lust terrorizing Black Americans, Native Americans, mass discrimination and violence against immigrants, and the list goes on. Trump, Stephen Miller, Peter Thiel, and too many others carry on that violent legacy. That's why they're aligned with the Kremlin, which sees Ukrainians as inferior.  In Ukrainian culture, we're taught to fight for our very lives, our voice, our art, our culture, our language, because no one else will. They want to erase us, so we must do the opposite and shine, shine, shine. In Ukrainian culture, art is literally survival. The coded language of poetry preserves historical truth, our shared humanity, our courage and defiance.  Life is incredibly stubborn. Creativity is how we fortify our resilience. A Reasonable Guide for Unreasonable Women provides 20 concrete steps for women–who are the favorite target of fascists, because they fear the fight in us–and their allies–to dream big for themselves and the kind of world we want to live in. That is how we reset the culture, overcome their darkness with our light, and gather our people to create a better world. We are the alternative to their dystopian vision for our future, a future that belongs to us.  To better get to new my new and most personal book, I put together this Q&A:  Empowerment can be a privilege. Many nonwhite women, especially immigrants, are juggling several jobs just to survive. How does this book make space for different lived experiences A Reasonable Guide for Unreasonable Women is based on my own lived experience of being raised in a Ukrainian immigrant family. My grandmothers both worked as maids to survive. So I take nothing for granted when it comes to the diversity of demands on women today. Throughout the book, I share wisdom and insights from women across history. There's also a recommended reading guide in the book, featuring an incredible list of women authors, like Mikki Kendall and trans activist Raquel Willis. I also share a troubling story about a Black mentor telling me to get a white man to join me for my pitch meetings and just sit there. I'm sad to say it did make a difference.  Planting seeds of hope and change – whether that's through launching a dream project like a film, book, business, non-profit, or some other ambitious goal – can be a grind. Does this book highlight organizations on the frontlines doing that unglamorous work in the shadows, helping us build that collective power?  Yes, absolutely! And I made sure that the blurbs (endorsements) featured at the front of the book included voices from grassroots groups, to promote their efforts to a wider audience. Julie Delaurier of Rise and Resist began as an organizer in ACT UP and helped organize Tesla Takedown and No Kings. She also organizes to track and resist ICE raids in NYC. She read the book and provided a heartfelt endorsement. So did civil rights leader Maya Wiley, President of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, and Holley Atkinson of the grassroots group the Media and Democracy Project bringing legal challenges to the existence of Fox News. Isn't self-help ego-driven?  A Reasonable Guide is all about collective action. Individual choices produce collective action. Think of A Reasonable Guide for Unreasonable Women as Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way meets Timothy Snyder's On Tyranny. Self-knowledge isn't the end goal here; it's the foundation for knowing where you can make an impact. It cites women across movements and their advice on how to stay creative and build power in a time of mass destruction.  But isn't this focus on the self just new age nonsense which is a slippery slope to fascism, given reports of new age online movements being breeding grounds for fascist cult recruitment? This book follows an ancient tradition of taking on an empire with the power of ideas. Ideas cannot be killed. And you cannot stop an idea whose time has come.  Know thyself was popularized by the ancient Greeks, most famously by Socrates who was a champion of women for that time. The Greeks were conquered by the sadistic and corrupt Roman Empire. A couple hundred years later, the Greeks conquered them right back through the power of self-knowledge and ideas. Greek became the dominant language of the Roman Empire. Self-knowledge is not ego. The book walks you through steps to think creatively and conquer doubt in order to build meaningful collective action.  I had to produce my film Mr. Jones myself because no one wanted it. Mr. Jones was a film to bring historical justice and truth to a massive genocide by the Kremlin, covered up for generations, including with the help of Western corruption. A former Ambassador to Ukraine called Mr. Jones Ukraine's Schindler's List. A screening was shut down in Moscow, and Memorial, Russia's once largest NGO that dared to screen it, was liquidated. There were death threats and harassment during the making of the film, but still the team and I fought on, holding on to the power of our creativity and voices. That is what A Reasonable Guide for Unreasonable Women is about: remembering the power of your voice in a world that wants to silence you and kill you. It's also a damn good time.  I hope you will consider checking it out and pre-ordering A Reasonable Guide for Unreasonable Women, which helps build buzz in the industry and gets the word out. Thank you to everyone who has supported my work over the years. It means so much.   

“Each one of these is individually a crime scene, and the United States is the responsible actor.” — John Walsh With America preoccupied (as always) with war in the Middle East, another kind of killing is taking place at its back door. Since early September of last year, the United States military has bombed 67 small boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific and assassinated 221 supposed “narco-terrorists.” The first full account of this deadly war is the Washington Office on Latin America's (WOLA) Killing Spree: Extrajudicial Executions in the U.S. Boat Strike Campaign, a 27,000-word report by Adam Isacson, WOLA's director for defense oversight, and John Walsh, its director for drug policy. Under U.S. and international law, this is murder, Isacson and Walsh conclude about a policy they see as premeditated killing of civilians who pose no immediate threat to the United States. Its official name is Operation Southern Spear, designed as a war on terror by an inner circle of Stephen Miller, Pete Hegseth, and Marco Rubio. So the Donroe Doctrine is really a broader MAGA embrace of extra-judicial killings. Trump might be able to point to Latin America on a map, but this official US policy is about far more than geography. And it even fails as drug policy. The boat strikes target Andean cocaine while fentanyl (produced in Mexico from Chinese synthetics) drives the American epidemic. As Isacson puts it, bombing these boats is like murdering a street-corner dealer and declaring the entire drug problem solved. The WOLA report's darkest implication is domestic. The Justice Department memo underpinning the campaign amounts, Walsh argues, to an open license to kill. For an administration that talks obsessively about the enemy within, the boat strikes might be a dress rehearsal. Graham Greene's quiet Americans have metastasized into the deadly Americans. Only this time they're filming their own atrocities and boasting about them on social media. The assassination of that street-corner dealer in Peru might be a dress rehearsal for an anti-ICE activist in Minnesota. America's southern back porch threatens to become its northern front door. Five Takeaways •       63 Crime Scenes. The numbers, from WOLA's strike-by-strike tracker: 63 attacks on 67 boats since September 2, 2025; 221 people killed; three known survivors. The legal analysis is not complicated: Title 18, Section 1111 of the U.S. Code prohibits murder, applies on the high seas, and premeditated killing of civilians with no self-defense justification is precisely what it forbids — no due process, no evidence offered, and in many cases no idea who was aboard. Each announcement is a near-identical Southern Command tweet, which is exactly what makes the campaign insidious: with no news handle, coverage shrinks to 150 words in the AP, and a democracy grows numb to what Walsh insists on calling 63 individual crime scenes with the United States as the responsible actor.•       Narcoterrorism: Two Wars Welded Together. Operation Southern Spear fuses the post-9/11 war on terror with the sixty-year war on drugs: organized-crime groups redefined as the equivalent of al-Qaeda and ISIS, a secret list of two dozen designated organizations, and Stephen Miller declaring that only the military can fight drug trafficking. The policy's continuity is real — supply control has been an American staple since Reagan — but its rupture is stark: Marco Rubio's own justification admitted that decades of interdiction never worked, so the administration would skip the intermediary steps and simply kill. The December 2025 National Security Strategy makes Latin America a first-tier priority for the first time in decades — the Donroe Doctrine, which Andrew reads as a broader MAGA embrace of extra-judicial killings — with Venezuela as proof of concept and “joint operations” as the export: Mexico refused, Ecuador agreed, and newly elected far-right governments in Colombia and Peru may soon invite American special forces to kick in doors.•       The Wrong War on the Wrong Economy. Both authors concede the underlying problem is real: organized crime kills, displaces, extorts everyone from street peddlers to five-star restaurants, and buys governments wholesale. But the strikes fail on their own terms. They target Andean cocaine while fentanyl — compact, potent, made in Mexico from Chinese precursors — drives American overdose deaths. Drugs are one income stream among many: at $4,000-an-ounce gold, illegal mining that poisons the Amazon may pay better, alongside extortion, kidnapping, and migrant smuggling. And the military is the wrong tool: America's supermax already holds the drug lords, the Medellín and Cali cartels were obliterated decades ago, and there is more coca than ever — because organized crime, unlike an insurgency, doesn't want to fight the state. It wants to corrupt it. Killing suspects also destroys the evidence a real case would need — ludicrous, as Walsh puts it, as drug policy.•       Who Were the 221? Nobody knows how many were innocent — which is itself the scandal. From the few dozen cases WOLA could document, the dead include fishermen, migrants, human-trafficking victims, and kids paid a couple hundred dollars to run drugs or fuel one time — the lowest links in the chain, in coastal regions where boats are the only roads and the same vessel carries passengers one day and a small cargo the next. (Isacson has ridden boats exactly like the ones in the videos.) One victim was a genuinely dirty local drug boss; most were nothing of the kind. The reckoning has begun at the edges: two Trinidadian families are suing the United States in Boston federal court, a Colombian fisherman's family has gone to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and an Ecuadorian prosecutor who investigated the strikes has been assassinated.•       Colombia or Chicago. The report's most chilling section reads the Justice Department's legal memo as an open license to kill: a secret list, membership decided by the president, no limiting factor — so that, as Walsh warns, “it doesn't matter if you're in Colombia or Chicago.” For an administration that speaks constantly of the enemy from within — and drummed the theme into the assembled brass at Quantico — the high seas look like a rehearsal space. Accountability remains possible: Tim Kaine is reading every after-action report, boat-flag states could take Trump officials to the International Criminal Court, and travel could get complicated for the inner circle. WOLA's fear isn't retribution but lawfare — never, as Isacson says, a reason to be silent. Graham Greene's quiet Americans have metastasized into the deadly Americans, filming their own atrocities and boasting on social media. The assassination of a street-corner dealer in Peru might be a dress rehearsal for an anti-ICE activist in Minnesota: America's southern back porch threatens to become its northern front door. The report is free online. Read it. About the Guests 

The hosts interview Human Rights advocate, lawyer, and grandson of Reinhold Niebuhr.  

To unpack the history of political intervention in the taxi industry, the purpose and effectiveness of task teams, and what the latest evidence at the Madlanga Commission could mean for our understanding of taxi violence and organised crime, Africa Melane speaks to Dr Siyabulela Fobosi, Senior Researcher and Acting Head at the UNESCO 'Oliver Tambo' Chair of Human Rights in the Faculty of Law at the University of Fort Hare. Presenter John Maytham is an actor and author-turned-talk radio veteran and seasoned journalist. His show serves a round-up of local and international news coupled with the latest in business, sport, traffic and weather. The host’s eclectic interests mean the program often surprises the audience with intriguing book reviews and inspiring interviews profiling artists. A daily highlight is Rapid Fire, just after 5:30pm. CapeTalk fans call in, to stump the presenter with their general knowledge questions. Another firm favourite is the humorous Thursday crossing with award-winning journalist Rebecca Davis, called “Plan B”. Thank you for listening to a podcast from Afternoon Drive with John Maytham Listen live on Primedia+ weekdays from 15:00 and 18:00 (SA Time) to Afternoon Drive with John Maytham broadcast on CapeTalk https://buff.ly/NnFM3Nk For more from the show go to https://buff.ly/BSFy4Cn or find all the catch-up podcasts here https://buff.ly/n8nWt4x Subscribe to the CapeTalk Daily and Weekly Newsletters https://buff.ly/sbvVZD5 Follow us on social media: CapeTalk on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CapeTalk CapeTalk on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@capetalk CapeTalk on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ CapeTalk on X: https://x.com/CapeTalk CapeTalk on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@CapeTalk567 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Yascha Mounk and Adam Bodnar examine why Poland's celebrated victory over illiberalism is now very much in doubt. Adam Bodnar is a Professor of Law at SWPS University in Warsaw, heading the Department for Rule of Law and Human Rights. He is also a Senator of the Republic of Poland, elected in October 2023, and a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. He previously served as Minister of Justice (December 2023–July 2025) and as Ombudsman of Poland (2015–2021). In this week's conversation, Yascha Mounk and Adam Bodnar discuss the post-populist dilemma, how Poland's pro-democratic coalition defeated an illiberal government in 2023 as well as the challenges it has faced since, and what lessons Poland's experience has for the United States. This conversation was recorded at the ⁠Liberalism for the 21st Century⁠ conference in Washington, D.C., which is organized by the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism. If you have not yet signed up for our podcast, please do so now by following this link on your phone. Email: leonora.barclay@persuasion.community Podcast production by Mickey Freeland and Leonora Barclay. Connect with us! Spotify | Apple X: @Yascha_Mounk & @JoinPersuasion YouTube: Yascha Mounk, Persuasion LinkedIn: Persuasion Community Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Safeguarding Health in Conflict coalition recently published a report that documented 232 health workers killed, more than 700 incidents where health facilities were damaged and almost 300 health personnel kidnapped in 2022. This episode dives into the circumstances and risks health workers face in conflict settings. Host Garry Aslanyan speaks to a health worker who has been on the frontline of recent conflict in Sudan. Their testimony is discussed with Susannah Sirkin, former Director of Policy at Physicians for Human Rights, and Samer Jabbour, a cardiologist who has worked in the area of conflict in health since war broke out in his home country of Syria.Related episode documents, transcripts and other information can be found on our website.Subscribe to the Global Health Matters podcast newsletter.  Follow us for updates:@TDRnews on XTDR on LinkedIn@ghm_podcast on Instagram@ghm-podcast.bsky.social on Bluesky Disclaimer: The views, information, or opinions expressed during the Global Health Matters podcast series are solely those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of TDR or the World Health Organization.  All content © 2026 Global Health Matters.  

I interviewed Kenji Ishimaru about If You See a Cat on Tuesday, September 2, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for If You See a Cat: "The boy's only friend was a hallucination of his beloved cat. Concerned for his mental health, his mother admitted him to a psychiatric hospital. After three months of medication-based treatment, the hallucinations fade, and he is discharged — but he has lost his emotional anchor and appears even more lifeless than before. Withdrawing into himself, he shuts his mind to the world and isolates in his room. One day, from his window, he sees a girl playing with a stray cat in the parking lot. This quiet moment becomes the catalyst for his recovering." Here are the contextual domains that are explored: Mental Health in Japan [6] & within various professional medical contexts with doctors [6]. Overall feelings of exile [12] Main scenes take place at home [4], within the context of a local Japense neighborhoods [3], as well as the hospital [6]. Episode triggered by the death [8] of his cat [6]. You watch the experience through the eyes of these cats [6], often low-level to the ground looking up. Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity of Emotional Presence: Narrative-driven, immersive animation.2nd Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: Into these different worlds, and often from the perspective of the cat - to get some distance over the dehumanization depicted by the Japanese medical establishment.. Some spatial metaphors of illusions3rd Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: Dialogue amongst the characters - English and no subtitles4th Center of Gravity of Fire Element / Active Presence: No narrative agency or any embodied Interactions Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: The Fragility of Mental Health. The oppression from insitutionalization + transgression of boundaries of Human Rights & violations of dignity. Also withdrawling from society and feelings of exile and grieving death and then starting to see Hallucinations. Empathizing with the types of taboos against mental health within the context of Japan - TITLE: If you see a cat, trying to connect to mundane realities of pets we all have. Universal experiences of the death and loss of pets, but also how mental health issues may also ripple out and impact you or people close to you Artist Statement: "Fortunately, I have never experienced mental illness. In depicting the boy who is at the mercy of his surroundings — including being labelled as mentally ill — I portrayed him as a kind of outsider. But I was always aware that I myself could be in the same position tomorrow." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkUwnPSzxHk This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

‘The populists, nationalists, stupid nationalists, they are in love with their own countries', declared Jean-Claude Juncker, the former president of the European Commission, in May 2019. This familiar retort of a leading figure in the globalised elite exemplifies the recent fashion for regarding any manifestation of national pride with contempt. But what was intended as a snide insult about love of country then, now seems to have been embraced with pride by millions throughout the West. Whether it's the seeming unstoppable rise of national populist parties throughout Europe or the popular MAGA support for Donald Trump's pursuit of national interest, it seems that unapologetic nationalism is in the ascendant. In Britain, one very visual grassroots campaign, Operation Raise the Colours, illustrates this shift. Local people have been inspired to hang thousands of Saint George's Cross and Union flags on lampposts all over the country. And as quickly as local councils rip them down, flags are defiantly raised again, a symbolic gesture of an unashamed nationalist pride. This is a momentous shift in the West because, until recently, many felt inhibited about voicing their patriotic sentiments in the wake of an implicit but dogged, top-down cultural crusade against nationalism. Its negative associations with national rivalries, war and fascism continue to resonate.  Many commentators are perhaps understandably queasy. Is this an emboldened demonstration of xenophobia and bigotry? However, others point out that the growth of supranational institutions, as a counter to these alleged negatives, has undermined the legitimacy of the nation-state per se. This has led to official scepticism of borders, an embrace of mass migration and an associated disregard for the specific privileges of national citizenship. Meanwhile, the gradual detachment of the governing elites from the institutions of the nation has contributed to their alienation from their own nation's culture and popular sentiment. In many places, this has included increasing institutional hostility to the country's historic legacy, presented as a national story of shame, slavery, colonialism, oppression. But perhaps the governing classes' loss of ability to inspire loyalty and pride in the nation has fomented a backlash. Now a people's rebellion seems determined to take back control of the national narrative. Meanwhile, the ideology of globalisation is rapidly unravelling. Postwar international legal agreements and institutions, such as the European Convention on Human Rights, are now exposed as barriers to pursuing national interest in global affairs. Is the national sovereignty now emerging a key to the conduct of global affairs once more? At a time when many feel an increasing sense of isolation, of being disconnected from any larger shared project, is a return to national identity an inevitable, even welcome trend? Or does it reflect an absence of alternatives, a feeling that ordinary people have little else to hold on to? Does nationalism still retain its worrying, discredited associations with everything from racism to warmongering? Or is nationalism a return to our democratic roots, a force capable of forging national solidarity that can overcome the divisive fragmentation of demographic, cultural, ethnic, identitarian and political changes that have left citizens feeling like strangers in their own land? Can political elites learn to love their country again, and allow national interest to guide policies in the best interest of their nation state? SPEAKERS Ada Akpala writer and commentator Dr Rakib Ehsan author, Beyond Grievance: what the Left gets wrong about ethnic minorities Eric Kaufmann professor of politics, University of Buckingham; advisory council member, Free Speech Union; author, Taboo: How Making Race Sacred Led to a Cultural Revolution Professor Robert Tombs emeritus professor of French history, Cambridge University; co-editor, History Reclaimed Bruno Waterfield Brussels correspondent, The Times CHAIR Claire Fox director, Academy of Ideas; independent peer, House of Lords; author, I STILL Find That Offensive!

Food prices edged up in July amid heatwaves and energy price hikes - FAO  Hormuz crisis: UN maritime agency stresses 'day after' needs for trapped seafarers  UN rights chief Türk stands up for transitional justice amid attacks on international law 

World Day Against Witch Hunts: Sister Lorena Jenal and Jörg Nowak on Rescuing Survivors in Papua New GuineaHosts Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack mark August 10, World Day Against Witch Hunts, with its creators, Sister Lorena Jenal and journalist Jörg Nowak of the German Catholic aid organization Missio. Sr. Lorena, a Swiss Franciscan who has served 47 years in Papua New Guinea, has rescued more than 420 women accused of sorcery since 2012 and shelters survivors at the House of Hope, built using her International Weimar Award for Human Rights. Nowak describes how Missio recognized sorcery accusation-related violence as a current human rights violation, expanded support to projects in countries including Liberia, Tanzania, Ghana, Benin, and documented abuses through reporting and museum exhibitions. They discuss the scale in PNG (109 cases last year), an estimate of 3,000 killings over 20 years, patterns of scapegoating and misogyny, severe sexual violence and public humiliation, police corruption and inaction, and advocacy efforts to elevate August 10 to a United Nations-recognized day.00:00 World Day Against Witch Hunts01:37 Meet Lorena and Jörg03:10 Missio Campaign Origins05:38 Papua New Guinea Crisis11:40 Who Gets Accused20:21 Sexual Violence Research29:06 Police Corruption and Justice35:15 Creating August 1043:48 House of Hope Sanctuary46:20 UN Recognition Push52:20 How You Can Help53:57 Final Thanks and Share LinksHexenverfolgung heute | missio: https://www.missio-hilft.de/informieren/wofuer-wir-uns-einsetzen/gegen-hexenverfolgung/  World Day Against Witch Hunts:  https://endwitchhunts.org/day The Thing About Witch Hunts: https://aboutwitchhunts.comSalem Witch Trials History YouTube: https://youtube.com/@aboutwitchhuntsThe Thing About the Salem Witch Trials: https://aboutsalem.comSalem Witch Trials Daily: https://aboutsalem.com/salem-witch-trials-daily/

Content note: This episode discusses self-harm, online harassment and mental-health struggles. If you or someone you know needs help please reach out to the services globally setup to assist. This Gay Week: Apple Censors Gay Apps, Pride Flag Creator Flees | This Gay Week Apple has removed gay dating apps in China—but what does that say about the company's claim to be an LGBTQ+ ally? This week, Karel examines the growing pressure facing LGBTQ+ people and their allies online. Perez Hilton's disturbing livestream raises urgent questions about cyberbullying, hateful comments and mental health. Ariana Grande is also stepping back from public life amid online negativity, while Karel turns more than 100 hateful comments into a music video for “You Have to Be Proud.” Is the LGBTQ+ community being disproportionately targeted, or has online abuse become universal? Also in this episode: LGBTQ+ refugees describe feeling like “prisoners in paradise” in Cape Verde as anti-LGBTQ+ laws spread across West Africa. Gay farmers speak candidly about homophobia in rural communities. Brighton Pride brings together JOY, Diana Ross and RAYE—but why does this celebration thrive while other Pride events struggle? Apple faces criticism over the removal of gay dating apps in China. A Pride flag creator is forced to flee. Support The Karel Cast at patreon.com/reallykarel. Watch, like and subscribe at youtube.com/reallykarel. The Karel Cast streams live Monday through Thursday at 10:30 a.m. Pacific and is available on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Spotify, Spreaker and other major platforms. Karel is a history-making broadcaster and entertainer based in Las Vegas with his service dog, Ember. #ThisGayWeek, #LGBTQ, #LGBTQNews, #GayNews, #QueerNews, #Apple, #China, #GayDatingApps, #DigitalCensorship, #PerezHilton, #MentalHealth, #OnlineHate, #Cyberbullying, #ArianaGrande, #CapeVerde, #WestAfrica, #LGBTQRights, #HumanRights, #GayFarmers, #RuralLGBTQ, #BrightonPride, #DianaRoss, #RAYE, #Pride, #PrideNews, #TheKarelCast, #Karel, #QueerCulture, #SocialMedia, #LGBTQCommunity https://youtube.com/live/37Y9QFuWw4o

Ep. 217 - Kimberly welcomes siblings and old friends Rouz and Mehrnoush Yazdanyar to discuss their journey transforming Rouz's 20-year-old restaurant, Zen Bistro, into their new family-owned concept: Yar on the Lake in Westlake Village, California. The siblings share their family's story of immigrating from Iran in 1983 and losing their father shortly after. They discuss how their mother, uncle, and Persian heritage shaped their commitment to community, generosity, and hospitality. They also discuss the full transformation of their 20 year old restaurant. Over a 3.5-month renovation, the team revamped the entire space, introduced an elevated menu, and hired a brand-new staff under General Manager Tracy and an Executive Chef. Yar Menu & Drink Favorites: Drinks: Rouz highlights fresh-ingredient cocktails like the YAR Margarita and Saffron 75, while Mehrnoush praises their classic kettle martini and a refreshing gin-based cocktail (Mediterranean Muse). Food: Standout dishes include 14-day dry-aged branzino, in-house baked breads and pastries, "Yar chips" (zucchini and eggplant over tzatziki), fresh-made calamari, and a unique hen-of-the-woods mushroom dish. Chapter Timestamps: 1:03 – The Transition from Zen Bistro to a New Partnership 2:20 – How "YAR on the Lake" Got Its Name & Meaning 3:02 – The Emotional Story Behind Choosing the Space 4:46 – Navigating the COVID-19 Pandemic & Outdoor Patio 9:40 – Immigrating from Iran to Westlake Village 10:37 – Persian Hospitality & Rebranding the Restaurant 12:08 – Family Roots & Leaving Iran in the 1980s 14:20 – Overcoming Business Challenges & Building Team Culture 16:42 – Rouz's 20-Year Journey & The Renovation Process 18:24 – Hiring a Top-Tier Staff & Hands-on Training 22:43 – Building the Outdoor Community Bar & Dining Area 25:34 – Honoring Their Late Father & Mother's Generosity 28:18 – Personal Loss, Grief, and Keeping Memories Alive 32:53 – Reflecting on Human Rights, Freedom, and Iranian Culture  37:37 – Rapid Fire: Favorite Specialty Drinks & Cocktails 40:17 – Rapid Fire: Must-Try Menu Dishes (Dry-Aged Branzino, Breads, Dips)  43:41 – Closing Remarks & Where to Find YAR on the Lake Visit Yar on the Lake: https://yaronthelake.com/ See Yar on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yaronthelake/ Follow Kimberly on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kimberlylovi/

Reproductive rights, LGBTQI+ rights, and democracy cannot be discussed in isolation; fundamentally, they are all about who has the freedom to make choices for themselves, and each one affects the other. Cristina Uribe, Chief of Programs at the Collaborative for Gender + Reproductive Equity (CGRE) and Director of the Gender Equity Action Fund (GEAF), sits down with us to explain how these topics are deeply interconnected.Attacks on women and LGBTQ+ communities weaken our democracy by pitting Americans against Americans and creating enemies out of neighbors. Opponents of these communities—and democracy at large—understand these connections and use strategies like ballot measures and wedge issues to divide coalitions and erode rights. Responding to these coordinated attacks requires coalition-building, commitment to civic engagement, and a recognition that attacks to one group's rights ultimately threaten everyone's freedoms.For more information, check out That Aged Well: https://pod.link/1446333312Support the showFollow Us on Social: Twitter: @rePROsFightBack Instagram: @reprosfbFacebook: rePROs Fight Back Bluesky: @reprosfightback.bsky.socialBuy rePROs Merch: Bonfire store Email us: jennie@reprosfightback.comRate and Review on Apple PodcastThanks for listening & keep fighting back!

The real crisis isn't the Declaration—it's what we've stopped teaching. Peter Berkowitz, Tad and Dianne Taube Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, contends that universities have failed at liberal education—the cultivation of citizens prepared to exercise freedom and responsibility. He attributes the breakdown to politicized classrooms, overreliance on narrow “scientistic” approaches in the social sciences, and a professional culture that trains future scholars instead of educating future citizens—leaving graduates with little serious exposure to the Declaration, the Constitution, and the moral logic of self-government. Stephen Haber, Stanford Professor of Political Science, History, and Economics, presses the discussion toward causes and incentives, setting up a debate about who is responsible for the drift and what reforms could realistically restore civic learning. Connect: Episode Transcripts >>> Stanford Legal Podcast Website Stanford Legal Podcast >>> LinkedIn Page Stanford Constitutional Law Center >> Website Stanford Law School >>> Twitter/X Stanford Lawyer Magazine >>> Twitter/X Chapters:[00:00:26 – 00:04:11] Chapter 1: Setting the stakes—The Declaration at 250 and today's critiques Michael McConnell frames the episode around renewed skepticism of the Declaration's natural-rights claims—from progressive critiques focused on slavery and domination to post-liberal arguments against “abstract” rights.[00:04:11 – 00:06:54] Chapter 2: Berkowitz's opening—What the Declaration claims and why critics converge Peter Berkowitz restates the Declaration's core logic (equality, unalienable rights, consent, and the right to alter/abolish destructive government) and argues that left/right critiques increasingly overlap in their indictment of universal rights.[00:06:54 – 00:17:47] Chapter 3: Universities and the erosion of liberal education Berkowitz contends civic understanding is collapsing because colleges no longer ensure a shared, rigorous education in founding principles, constitutional traditions, and the broader intellectual inheritance needed for citizenship.[00:17:47 – 00:31:00] Chapter 4: From “critical” to “generous” thinking—Mapping the modern critiques Berkowitz argues that criticism without charitable interpretation becomes a “rage to criticize,” then traces postmodern progressive and post-liberal arguments (including Deneen and Vermeule) that reject the Declaration's rights framework and flirt with radical alternatives.[00:31:00 – 01:04:12] Chapter 5: Human rights, diplomacy, and reform—The Commission and a debate about university governance Berkowitz ties the Declaration to U.S. foreign policy via the UDHR and the Commission on Unalienable Rights, including its aims and controversies; Stephen Haber responds that boards, presidents, and provosts shape campus ideology and that governance-level changes could enable a revival of civic education. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Siobhán Mullally is Professor of Law and Director of the Irish Centre of Human Rights at the University of Galway & former UN Special Rapporteur on Human Trafficking. In these roles, she has been extremely concerned about the Government's lack of action on trafficking in Ireland.Five years ago, the UN wrote a letter to the Irish Government on their concern about this issue…She joins Seán to discuss.

FARAGE'S WAR ON SMALL BOATS: Navy in the Channel NOW?  #JonGaunt #JonGauntTV #NigelFarage #ReformUK #SmallBoats #IllegalImmigration #RoyalNavy #RoyalMarines  Is FARAGE right? Put the ROYAL NAVY in the Channel to STOP the Small Boats INVASION?  If you've watched Jon Gaunt TV over the past few months, you'll know today's debate won't come as any surprise. I've repeatedly argued that Britain has to stop talking tough and start acting tough. I've said for months that if we are serious about ending the small boats crisis, we should use the Royal Navy to defend our borders, return illegal migrants to France, and destroy the business model of the people smugglers.  Today, Nigel Farage and Reform UK have put forward proposals that take the debate firmly in that direction. Following Reform's press conference, we're asking whether Britain should adopt a far tougher approach to illegal Channel crossings. Has Spain shown that determined border enforcement can work? Should Britain follow suit? And if the European Convention on Human Rights stands in the way of the policies some people want, should we leave the ECHR?  For years we've been promised that the boats would stop. Instead, they've kept coming. Successive governments have promised to "smash the gangs," but many people believe the crossings continue because Britain remains an attractive destination and the deterrent simply isn't there.  So is Farage right? Should the Royal Navy and Royal Marines be deployed in the Channel? Should illegal migrants be returned to France ? Has Spain shown Britain what decisive border enforcement looks like? Or would these proposals create more problems than they solve?  This isn't just another political row. It's about sovereignty, national security, the rule of law and whether Britain still has the determination to control its own borders. Join Jon Gaunt  This is going to be a lively debate.

Elaine Ellinger returns to the show to discuss her new book, which reviews grade 1–12 Islamic school curricula and supplementary texts used in English-speaking countries, including the US, UK, Canada, and Australia. Ellinger, who has spent years researching this material, argues that the textbooks present a version of Islamic teaching and history that differs significantly from how it's commonly described to non-Muslim audiences, and walks through specific passages and translations she says support that claim. Bryce and Elaine also discuss her broader argument, laid out in her previous book, that Islamic law is incompatible with the U.S. Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and what she believes policymakers should do about it.

Wear your Sunday best and hang out at the U.S. Capitol building for your chance to chat with a member of Congress. It's a realistic way to meet the people who owe their jobs to our tax dollars, as Andrea explains–based on her own experience–in this week's bonus show. But beware of the sociopathically ambitious, dead-inside Congressional staffers enabling Mitch McConnell, and, before him, Dianne Feinstein, to cling to power long after it was time to step down.  The rest of this week's bonus show, available in full to our Patreon, Substack, and YouTube members who power Gaslit Nation, is the recording of Monday's salon. The discussion includes Andrea meeting up with Tori Amos after her show on her tour for her new powerful album In Times of Dragons, with songs like "Shush" about MeToo thanking Courtney Love for being early warning the world about Harvey Weinstein; why the DNC may be running out of money and going into debt–even though blue wave elections have ripped through the country since Trump returned to power. And we also discuss how to tell fact from fiction in the disinformation war driven by Russia in its war on Ukraine and all democracies.  We look forward to bringing you important discussions in the coming weeks, including Casey Michel, a kleptocracy expert sanctioned by Russia and author of the new book the United States of Oligarchy: How America's Wealthiest Ally with Dictators, Weaken the U.S., and Destroy Democracy and Maya Wiley, President of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the largest civil rights coalition in America, on how we expand the power of the vote–before it's too late.  Thank you to everyone who supports Gaslit Nation–we could not make this show without you. To join our community of listeners, get bonus shows, invites to exclusive events like our Monday salons, and more, sign up at Patreon.com/Gaslit or GaslitNation.Substack.com–discounted annual memberships are available and you can give the gift of membership. See you at Monday's salon over zoom at 4pm ET.  Show Notes: Want a plan to build a dream project from scratch in a world of chaos? Get Andrea's new book A Reasonable Guide for Unreasonable Women: 20 Steps to Find Your Purpose and Power in a World on Fire https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/807202/a-reasonable-guide-for-unreasonable-women-by-andrea-chalupa/ Watch this clip of Mr. Jones featuring two journalists in Stalin's Moscow debating–what is truth? https://www.instagram.com/p/DbdQlUrSvZ-/

The UN's Human Rights office has warned that Israeli settler violence in the West Bank is at an “all-time high.” Also, the US now controls much of Venezuela's oil revenue, estimated at $13 billion in the first half of this year, but neither Washington nor Caracas have provided a full account of where the money has gone. And, Asia's soccer federation joined its European and North American counterparts in opposing FIFA's proposed privatization of the World Cup. Plus, a look at how AI is hijacking the identities of real musicians. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The City of London Corporation is developing a new internal procedure that could allow it to revoke Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor's Freedom of the City of London. Officials concluded that no existing legal mechanism permitted them to simply remove the status, which Andrew obtained through patrimony in 2012 because his father, Prince Philip, was a Freeman. The Corporation had previously asked Andrew to surrender the distinction voluntarily, but he refused, prompting members to pursue a formal process for taking it away.The effort represents another blow for Andrew after King Charles stripped him of his royal titles, dukedom and major honours in 2025 amid continuing scrutiny of his association with Jeffrey Epstein. The legal difficulty is that the Freedom is considered a property right rather than merely a ceremonial honour, giving it protections under British law and the European Convention on Human Rights. Once the new procedure is approved, the Court of Common Council would still need to hold a separate vote specifically determining whether Andrew's Freedom should be revoked.to contact me:bobbycapucci@protonmail.comsource:Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor suffers fresh blow as legal officials creating mechanism to remove honour from him

State legislators from across the country are vowing to introduce legislation that makes it possible for residents to directly sue federal agents who violate their constitutional rights. State lawmakers also plan to introduce similar legislation in Illinois, Colorado and other states.Parts of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area are reopening to overnight camping today. With firefighters making good progress containing several wildfires in the region, the Forest Service is opening about 40 percent of the Boundary Waters to overnight visitors.The Forest Service says it's monitoring conditions daily for opportunities to open more of the wilderness. Many of the most popular entry points, including those at the end of the Gunflint Trail, remain closed. This summer, blood donations have hit a four-year low, worsening the ongoing emergency blood shortage. The American Red Cross declared a national "blood crisis" in early July as the number of donations have not kept pace with hospital demand. Extreme heat, poor air quality and widespread foodborne illnesses have led to lower donor turnout this season. The Red Cross for Minnesota and the Dakotas is asking individuals to donate all blood types, but there is an urgent need for O negative and O positive blood.St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her is under investigation for alleged sexual harassment. According to reporting by the Star Tribune, Police Chief Axel Henry has filed a complaint against Her for allegedly sending sexually suggestive text messages to a city employee.A new report finds that federal immigration agents misused force more than 400 times since last summer. Physicians for Human Rights and the Human Rights Center at the UC Berkeley School of Law went through hours of video, legal filings and news accounts in their investigation. According to the report, Minneapolis accounted for a quarter of all cases where federal agents misused force on protesters. Minnesota, other states, will push for ICE protectionsBack into the BWCA: Canoeing campers return to the wilderness after wildfire closureThe American Red Cross for Minnesota and the Dakotas declares blood crisis due to shortageSt. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her under investigation for sexual harassment allegations

UK Arms Police to Protect Pride as Anti-LGBTQ+ Violence Surges Worldwide As the UK considers arming police officers assigned to protect LGBTQ+ communities and Pride events, Karel asks a difficult question: Have we become dangerously numb to violence, war, and injustice? Gay Week contributor Scott Jacobsen is currently experiencing an active bombing situation in Ukraine—a stark reminder that millions of people have lived under the threat of ballistic missiles for years while much of the world looks away. Karel also addresses the devastation in Gaza, the killing of a person by a van in Berlin, Romania's restrictions on Pride festivals, and the relentless stream of anti-LGBTQ+ violence worldwide. These stories make headlines, provoke momentary outrage, and are quickly replaced by the next crisis. But when cruelty becomes routine and complacency takes hold, what will it take to make us act? Today's Karel Cast is an honest—and emotionally exhausted—conversation about Ukraine, Gaza, LGBTQ+ rights, global apathy, and the human cost of accepting injustice as normal. Support The Karel Cast at patreon.com/reallykarel. Watch, like, comment, and subscribe at youtube.com/reallykarel. The Karel Cast streams live Monday through Thursday at 10:30 a.m. Pacific and is available on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Spotify, Spreaker, TikTok, Instagram, and other major platforms. Karel is a history-making broadcaster and entertainer based in Las Vegas with his service dog, Ember. #LGBTQ, #LGBTQRights, #Pride, #PrideSafety, #UKPolice, #ArmedPolice, #AntiLGBTQViolence, #HateCrime, #HumanRights, #GayRights, #QueerRights, #Ukraine, #UkraineWar, #Gaza, #Palestine, #IsraelGazaWar, #WorldNews, #BreakingNews, #CurrentEvents, #PoliticalCommentary, #NewsCommentary, #GlobalConflict, #SocialJustice, #StopHate, #Equality, #CivilRights, #MediaApathy, #TheKarelCast, #ReallyKarel, #KarelCast https://youtube.com/live/VeQPK05db7s

The City of London Corporation is developing a new internal procedure that could allow it to revoke Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor's Freedom of the City of London. Officials concluded that no existing legal mechanism permitted them to simply remove the status, which Andrew obtained through patrimony in 2012 because his father, Prince Philip, was a Freeman. The Corporation had previously asked Andrew to surrender the distinction voluntarily, but he refused, prompting members to pursue a formal process for taking it away.The effort represents another blow for Andrew after King Charles stripped him of his royal titles, dukedom and major honours in 2025 amid continuing scrutiny of his association with Jeffrey Epstein. The legal difficulty is that the Freedom is considered a property right rather than merely a ceremonial honour, giving it protections under British law and the European Convention on Human Rights. Once the new procedure is approved, the Court of Common Council would still need to hold a separate vote specifically determining whether Andrew's Freedom should be revoked.to contact me:bobbycapucci@protonmail.comsource:Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor suffers fresh blow as legal officials creating mechanism to remove honour from himBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-epstein-chronicles--5003294/support.

All of this week's episodes of It Could Happen Here put together in one large file. Palestine in the World Cup What's Wrong with Human Rights What's Wrong with Human Rights, Pt. 2 A Report from the Great American State Fair Executive Disorder: Platner Allegations, Return of the Tariffs, ICE Shootings You can now listen to all Cool Zone Media shows, 100% ad-free through the Cooler Zone Media subscription, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. So, open your Apple Podcasts app, search for “Cooler Zone Media” and subscribe today! http://apple.co/coolerzone Sources/Links: Palestine in the World Cup https://jewishcurrents.org/de-normalizing-israeli-normalization-at-the-world-cup https://agsi.org/analysis/palestine-activism-in-the-world-cup/ https://www.aljazeera.com/video/newsfeed/2026/6/12/activists-form-human-palestine-flag-at-world-cup-opener-in-mexico-city https://www.nbcnewyork.com/world-cup/palestinian-head-soccer-says-denied-us-visa-attend-world-cup/6512472/ https://www.middleeasteye.net/trending/bosnia-advances-world-cup-free-palestine-chants-fans-go-viral-once-again https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2026/6/22/football-war-and-solidarity-why-gaza-fans-turned-to-spain-this-world-cup https://www.aljazeera.com/sports/2026/6/12/palestine-football-chief-says-he-wasnt-granted-us-visa-to-attend-world-cup What's Wrong with Human Rights Human Rights as Moral Progress? A Critique by Jarett ZigonCULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Vol. 28, Issue 4, pp. 716–736. ISSN 0886-7356, online ISSN 1548-1360. C 2013 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved. DOI: 10.1111/cuan.12034 Agamben, Arendt and Human Rights: Bearing Witness to the Human. 2012John Lechte & Saul NewmanState of Exception. 2005Giorgio Agamben, translated by Kevin Attell The Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Duties Towards Mankind Simone Weil. Routledge Classics 2002 Philosophize This! - Episode #191: The Modern Day Concentration Camp and the Failure of Human Rights by Stephen West Executive Disorder: Platner’s Allegations, Return of the Tariffs, ICE Shootings https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2026/7/3/iran-war-live-tehran-slams-us-ahead-of-huge-funeral-for-ali-khamenei?update=4731595 https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5955865-mitch-mcconnell-senate-health-status/ https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/06/us/graham-platner-racicot-allegation-maine-invs https://www.politico.com/news/2026/07/06/graham-platner-sexual-assault-allegation-00987737 https://x.com/akela_lacy/status/2074604814810415293?s=20 https://x.com/grace_panetta/status/2074266651244073227?s=20 https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/06/us/politics/who-would-replace-graham-platner-maine.html https://x.com/sahilkapur/status/2074678417006420067 https://www.bangordailynews.com/2026/07/08/politics/elections/maine-democrats-want-convention-replace-graham-platner/ https://ustr.gov/about/policy-offices/press-office/press-releases/2026/june/ustr-makes-findings-and-proposes-action-60-section-301-investigations-relating-failures-take-action https://thediplomat.com/2026/06/asean-and-trumps-section-301-tariffs/ https://www.reuters.com/business/latin-american-countries-some-steelmakers-argue-us-tariff-exemptions-2026-07-07/ https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/IF/PDF/IF11346/IF11346.31.pdf https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/democratic-attorneys-general-oppose-latest-172500930.html https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/other/fresh-trump-tariff-threat-looms-what-is-india-s-strong-stand-on-us-section-301-probe-that-proposes-12-5-duties-explained/ar-AA27rLMq https://www.msn.com/en-ca/money/general/canada-says-there-s-no-basis-for-trump-s-forced-labour-tariffs/ar-AA27sMJy https://www.reuters.com/world/french-lawmakers-back-police-shootings-law-dubbed-licence-kill-by-critics-2026-07-08/ https://www.citizen.org/wp-content/uploads/Complaint-in-IALDF-v.-Rubio.pdf https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/07/us/houston-ice-shooting-death https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/fatal-ice-shooting-houston-sparks-demands-transparency-independent-investigation-2026-07-08/ https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/08/us/houston-ice-shooting.html https://www.wgal.com/article/pa-harrisburg-ice-agent-shoots-video/71807714 https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/04/us/live-news/july-4-trump-speech-america-250?post-id=cmr792ght00053b6r6tl4lvzn https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/04/us/live-news/july-4-trump-speech-america-250?post-id=cmr78t2tf000e3b6rxm0jppbj https://www.npr.org/2026/07/04/g-s1-132025/mount-rushmore-speech-trump-july-4-250See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.