Your Call

On this week's One Planet series, we'll discuss the connections between the ongoing heat waves and climate change. In recent weeks, 80 million Americans have been placed under heat warnings, and the extreme heat in the US and across the world has claimed dozens of lives.

  On this edition of Your Call’s media roundtable, we’ll have a conversation with journalist Thomas Frank about his new book Rendezvous with Oblivion: Reports from a Sinking Society.

How far have we come in reforming criminal justice, and what will it take to change the system? With 2.2 million people behind bars, the US has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Still, that number is at a two-decade low, according to a recent Bureau of Justice Statistics report.

Journalist Alissa Quart has a message for the struggling middle class: You’re not alone and it’s not your fault. In her new book, Squeezed: Why Our Families Can’t Afford America, she tells the story of the predicament facing the middle class – people who’ve “done everything right,” but can’t get ahead.

On this edition of Your Call, we speak with Steve Almond about his new book Bad Stories: What the Hell Just Happened to Our Country.

After months of scandals and ethics investigations, EPA administrator Scott Pruitt has resigned — to be replaced by the veteran coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler. On the next Your Call’s One Planet Series, we’ll discuss the ongoing changes at the EPA.

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The media that Donald Trump demonizes -- CNN, MSNBC, and the New York Times -- are in a different sphere than thousands of local outlets that cover local issues, like schools, government corruption, and profiling local community heroes.

On today’s edition of Your Call, listen to our conversation with labor organizer and writer Jane McAlevey.

On this edition of Your Call, we revisit our conversation with whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg.

On this edition of Your Call, we discuss Still I Rise, a new documentary short series that pays homage to Maya Angelou’s poem by the same name by celebrating people who persevere in spite of their struggles.

On this edition of Your Call’s One Planet Series, we’ll discuss how the Trump administration’s EPA is dismantling chemical safety regulations that impact the health of millions of Americans.

 On the next Your Call’s media roundtable, we’ll discuss coverage of the upcoming presidential election in Mexico. The escalation of violence, corruption, and poverty are key issues for voters. In 2017, nearly 30,000 people were killed in Mexico, and 53 million people live in poverty.

On this edition of Your Call, we ask: What changes when a nonprofit serving the homeless is led by people who used to be clients?

On this edition of Your Call, historian and activist Martin Duberman discusses his new book Has the Gay Movement Failed? He argues that the left has sidelined radical goals to achieve more normative inclusion.

On this special edition of Your Call, we get an update from a nonprofit working with immigrant families at the US-Mexico border. What do we know, and what information is missing, about separated immigrant families?

Guest:

Jennifer K. Falcon, communications director for RAICES Texas, the largest immigration legal services provider in Texas. 

Web Resources:

On this edition of Your Call, we’ll speak with Dr. Randi Hutter Epstein about her book, Aroused: The History of Hormones and How They Control Just About Everything.

On this edition of Your Call's One Planet Series, we'll discuss climate science education for K-12 students. Last Spring, teachers across the country received a package from the libertarian Heartland Institute called 'Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming.'

From Italy to the US, right-wing governments are waging a war on refugees and immigrants. On this week's media roundtable, we'll discuss Italy’s new government refusal to rescue boats carrying hundreds of migrants, and threatening mass deportation. We'll also discuss the country's racist policies toward Gypsies/Roma.

 On this edition of Your Call, we speak with activists about the Poor People’s Campaign.

On this edition of Your Call, we speak with a member of the Patriotic Millionaires about their battle against the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the few.

On this edition of Your Call, we're talking about how families are affected when their loved ones go to prison. When Issac Bailey was just nine, he saw his oldest brother taken away in handcuffs. Moochie Bailey was imprisoned for murder for 32 years. Half of the ten boys in Bailey's family eneded up in the criminal justice system.

On this edition of Your Call’s One Planet Series, we’ll have a conversation with Chris Feliciano Arnold about his new book, The Third Bank of the River: Power and Survival in the Twenty-First Century Amazon.

On this week's media roundtable, we'll discuss the North Korea-US summit. Journalist Tim Shorrock reports that the media response portrays a cynical disregard for South Korea.

London Breed made history Wednesday as the first African American woman to be elected mayor of San Francisco. She is currently ahead of Mark Leno by 2,177 votes. Breed is expected to take office next month.

On this edition of Your Call, we discuss why sex workers oppose a federal law that promised to crack down on human trafficking.

On this edition of Your Call, we speak with writer and Black Lives Matter activist Darnell Moore about his memoir, No Ashes in the Fire: Coming of Age Black and Free in America.

If you are struggling with suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 1-800-273-8255. You can also talk to someone online by following this link.

On this edition of Your Call, we discuss the rising rate of suicides in the US. The recent deaths of chef Anthony Bourdain and designer Kate Spade have shone a spotlight on suicide, but a new study from the Centers for Disease Control shows that rates have been rising for the last two decades – nearly 30 percent since 1999.

On this edition of Your Call’s One Planet Series, Jason Mark, editor of SIERRA, the magazine of the Sierra Club, will discuss his cover story about the mounting price tag of climate change disasters.

  On this edition of Your Call's media roundtable, we'll discuss what happens when hedge funds and private equity firms buy newspapers. In many cases, they lay off dozens or hundreds of journalists, leaving the public with a shadow of the local news coverage they once had.

Some journalists are organizing and fighting back. They are calling for local buyers to step up, and want the public service mission of newspapers to be fulfilled.

Guests:

Jason Blevins, former Denver Post writer