Iraq

The long-awaited torch of the Olympic Games arrives by ship in the southern French port city of Marseille. Also, pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca says its ceasing sales of its COVID-19 vaccines. The company says its vaccine saved millions of lives globally but demand is now low. And, a look at what a pause in shipment of […]

This Memorial Day, The Takeaway brings you five stories that deal with trauma, survival, psychedelics, music and convalescence. The memories of three mass-shooting survivors exemplify the somber legacy of surviving an American tragedy and demonstrate how it reorients your worldview; When the brain survives a traumatic experience the toll taken has traditionally been seen as an emotional scar, but new research is helping to overturn this narrative; outside the more mainstream therapies for PTSD, there’s another class of drugs currently being tested: psychedelics; soldiers returning from Iraq faced insurmountable obstacles as they reintroduced themselves to society. Some injuries, such as burns and amputations, bore palpable signs, alerting the public to the pains rendered in the line of duty. Others scars were borne invisibly; and Singer-songwriter Mary Gauthier tries to illustrate the experience of returning to civilian life in her new album, “Rifles and Rosary Beads.”

You can connect with The Takeaway on Twitter, Facebook, or on our show page at TheTakeaway.org.

Millions of college students are heading to the stage this month to collect their diploma, or to move from community college to a full time university. But for many, that transition comes with a significant financial burden. The Takeaway examines the impact debt and other financial obligations have on a person’s ability to accumulate wealth. Plus, we cover the unfolding protests in Gaza as the U.S. inaugurates its embassy in Jerusalem; and the parliamentary elections in Iraq that may catapult to victory a cleric who twice led uprisings against U.S. forces in the country.

You can connect with The Takeaway on Twitter, Facebook, or on our show page at TheTakeaway.org.

February 21, 2017:

1. Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster Tapped For National Security Adviser (7 min)

2. Iraqi Forces Lead Offensive to Retake Western Mosul (5 min)

3. Reps Feel Public Outrage at Town Hall Meetings (6 min)

4. Black Artist Tries to Bridge Racial Divides With KKK Members (8 min)

5. SCOTUS to Decide: Can a Facebook Post Be Illegal? (7 min)

6. Citizens Take a Stand in Broadband Access Debate (4 min)

7. SCOTUS to Decide: Can a Facebook Post Be Illegal? (7 min)

On today’s show:

Veterans and their family members have branded the delay of the Chilcot Report “morally reprehensible.” Kristofer Goldsmith, who served as a sergeant with the Army’s third infantry division from 2004-07, says a civilian inquiry would be an appropriate thing for the U.S. to do.
Police in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, were captured by cell phone footage shooting Alton Sterling, a 37-year-old black man who was selling CDs outside a convenience store. The Department of Justice will be investigating the shooting, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards announced on Wednesday. Meanwhile, protests have grown outside the convenience store where Sterling was shot. Maya Lau, reporter for the Advocate, discusses the incident and the aftermath.  
The World Health Organization has launched an emergency yellow fever vaccination campaign in Angola and Democratic Republic of Congo after an outbreak of the disease has sickened thousands killed upwards of 400 so far this year. Dr. William Ross, a professor of epidemiology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the head of epidemiology at the International Vaccine Access Center, tells us about the challenges of vaccinating these communities.
Should 911 calls be made via text? During the Orlando shooting, some people who were held hostage in the club were afraid that calling 911 would draw the attention of the attacker, but Orlando does not have 911 texting. Only one-tenth of the nation’s 6,000 911 dispatch centers can accept text messages, while another 150 are upgrading this year to accept texts. Joseph Giacalone, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a retired New York City police sargent, discusses the benefits and the downfalls of 911 texting.
Rikers Island holds 10,000 inmates, and around 800 of them are 21 years old and younger. In 2013, Literacy for Incarcerated Teens came to the prison complex. It was through this program that Robert Galinsky, who now leads LIT’s personal development programs, met Marla Riera, who was incarcerated at Rikers Island for 8 months.
Protest music has come a long way since the days of Woody Guthrie. Kraig R. Moss is a country singer and a Trump supporter, and he says “music has changed the world.

Today on The Takeaway:

Abel al-Jaf has been identified as one of 165 dead in the ISIS bombing in Baghdad on July 3rd. Jonathan Hollander, President and Artistic Director, Battery Dance Company and Dancing to Connect, knew Adel well. He shares his memories of al-Jaf, how they became communicating–and the importance of the connection outside of Iraq.

There were 44 people killed at the Ataturk Airport in Istanbul last week, followed by a brutal attack in a restaurant in Bangladesh. Rukmini Callimachi, foreign correspondent for our partner The New York Times is here to set the three attacks into context.

It’s taken Juno 5 years to get to Jupiter. What will it discover? Jason Kendall, adjunct professor of astronomy at William Patterson University, tells us some of the things they are expecting to find.

FBI director James Comey announced Tuesday that while Hillary Clinton was “extremely careless” in handling classified information, they are recommending no charges be filed. Washington correspondent Todd Zwillich explains what this means.

Thanks to the pioneering work of scientists, computers and other devices have become increasingly clever about reading and understanding human emotions. In the future, the information that our digital devices will be able to glean about our inner selves will no doubt be valuable to many, but could it also make us vulnerable because of privacy concerns? Rana el Kaliouby, a pioneer in the emerging world of emotional technology and the co-founder and CEO of the emotional recognition company, Affectiva, tells us that Affectiva has collected over 4 million videos of faces from 75 countries around the world.

Our everyday rituals are the results of thousand of years of human behavior, but it’s harder to study them than you’d think. Greg Jenner, historian and author of “A Million Years in a Day: A Curious History of Everyday Life from the Stone Age to the Phone Age,” talks about the quirky connetions between hair care and tooth care and warfare and manners.

Coming up on today’s show:

Iraqi forces — backed by U.S. military aircraft — launched an all-out assault to retake Fallujah, the first Iraqi city to fall to ISIS. Michael Pregent, an adjunct fellow at the Hudson Institute and former U.S. Army intelligence officer in Iraq, says America and Iraq are repeating the same old mistakes.
Iraqi security forces retook the city of Ramadi from ISIS in January. This marked the second time 10 years the city has had to be re-taken from extremist forces. Retired Colonel Tony Deane, the author of “Ramadi Declassified: A Roadmap to Peace in the Most Dangerous City in Iraq,” talks about the 2006 Battle of Ramadi.
Nearly two years after the city of Ferguson erupted in riots over the death of Michael Brown, the police department has agreed to undertake a number of reforms and court system. These changes start with the city’s first black police chief, Delrish Moss, who was sworn in in May.
Comedian and actor Paul Scheer has been closely following the election — for the good material alone. Scheer talks about this insane political circus.
Protests have grown after the death of Harmabe, a gorilla at the Cincinnati Zoo who was shot after a 4 year-old fell into his enclosure. A change.org petition calling for the parents of the 4-year-old boy to be held responsible already had 165,000 signatures by Tuesday morning. Tim Zimmermann of Outside Magazine says bad things happens to animals in zoo’s and none of this should come as a surprise.
President Obama is the first sitting U.S. president to ever visit Hiroshima. Seventy years ago, many feared the Nazis would create the first nuclear weapon. A courageous small band of Norwegian commandos embarked on a harrowing middle of the night mission to sabotage Hitler’s atomic bomb in German-occupied Norway. In his recent book “The Winter Fortress”, journalist and author Neal Bascomb details their epic mission.

November 03, 2015: 1. Protect and Serve? Investigation Finds 1,000 Predator Police Officers | 2. Using Crowdsourcing to Track the Next Viral Outbreak | 3. The Man Who Sold a War to the White House | 4. Community Leaders Criticize FBI Tool to Identify Extremists | 5. Has the Republican Party Lost Control of The GOP?

October 23, 2015: 1. U.S. Soldier Killed Freeing ISIS Captives in Iraq | 2. Canada to Withdraw From U.S. Fight Against ISIS | 3. Actress Leem Lubany on Rocking the Kasbah with Bill Murray | 4. Movie Date: Films to Catch and Skip This Weekend | 5. Want to Increase Student Success? Redesign Community Colleges