The public radio program and podcast Our Body Politic is pausing production.
The program is “at a crossroads with its current level of production and service to stations and listeners,” Katie Kemple, the show’s national program representative, wrote in an email to stations Friday. “They are implementing a six-month production hiatus. For radio, this means an end to the weekly Content Depot distribution.”
Stations that air the program can continue broadcasting previous episodes through February, Kemple wrote. The final episode will be released Feb. 23.
“As of January 26, 2024, Our Body Politic made the tough decision to pause production, putting the show on temporary hiatus,” co-EP Shanta Covington said in an automated email response.
Farai Chideya, the show’s founder, host and co-EP, did not respond to a request for comment.
The weekly show launched in 2020 with startup support from KQED in San Francisco, KCRW in Santa Monica, Calif., and KPCC in Los Angeles. The show was airing in 93 markets as of October 2022.
The show centered women of color in the political landscape, with episodes focusing on topics such as the economy, health, education and the environment. The most recent episode focused on Black maternal health. Earlier this month, the program released an audio documentary interviewing investigators of color on the congressional January 6th Committee.
“While we are proud of our success, the reality is radio and podcast production work is grueling,” a post on the show’s website said. “… We appreciate your patience and grace as we regroup and recast the vision for the next chapter in Our Body Politic’s journey.”
LONDON (AP) — Northern Ireland’s largest British unionist party agreed Tuesday to end a boycott that left the region’s people without a power-sharing administration for two years and rattled the foundations of the 25-year-old peace. The breakthrough could see the shuttered Belfast government restored within days — with Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein holding the post of first minister for the first time.
After a marathon late-night meeting, Democratic Unionist Party leader Jeffrey Donaldson said the party’s executive had backed proposals to return to the government. He said agreements reached with the U.K. government in London “provide a basis for our party to nominate members to the Northern Ireland Executive, thus seeing the restoration of the locally elected institutions.”
The breakthrough after months of inconclusive negotiations came after the U.K. government last week gave Northern Ireland politicians until Feb. 8 to restore the Northern Ireland Assembly and the local government or face new elections.
“All the conditions are in place for the Assembly to return,” Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris said. He said he would publish details of the U.K. government’s new proposals on Wednesday, after briefing Northern Ireland’s main political parties.
The DUP walked out in February 2022 in a dispute over post-Brexit trade rules. Ever since, it has refused to return to the government with the Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein. Under power-sharing rules established as part of Northern Ireland’s peace process, the administration must include both British unionists and Irish nationalists.
The walkout left Northern Ireland’s 1.9 million people without a functioning administration to make key decisions as the cost of living soared and backlogs strained the creaking public health system. Amid mounting public frustration, teachers, nurses and other public sector workers staged a 24-hour strike this month calling on politicians to return to the government and give them a long-delayed pay raise.
The British government has agreed to give Northern Ireland more than 3 billion pounds ($3.8 billion) for its public services, but only if the executive in Belfast gets back up and running.
Katy Hayward, professor of political sociology at Queen’s University Belfast, said the DUP leader had concluded the party’s boycott had reached “the end of the road.”
“Jeffrey Donaldson thought that the time was running out,” she said. “This was his opportunity, he had to jump.”
Northern Ireland’s political deadlock stems from the United Kingdom’s decision to leave the European Union and its borderless trading bloc after decades of membership. The DUP quit the government in opposition to new trade rules put in place after the U.K. left the EU in 2020 that imposed customs checks and other hurdles on goods moving to Northern Ireland from the rest of the U.K.
The checks were established to maintain an open border between the north and its EU neighbor, the Republic of Ireland — a key pillar of the peace process that ended decades of violence in Northern Ireland. The DUP, though, says the new east-west customs border undermines Northern Ireland’s place in the U.K.
In February 2023, the U.K. and the EU agreed on a deal to ease customs checks and other hurdles for goods moving to Northern Ireland from the rest of the U.K. But it was not enough for the DUP, which continued its government boycott.
Donaldson said further measures agreed by the British government will mean “zero checks, zero customs paperwork” on Northern Ireland-bound goods.
The DUP’s change of heart faces opposition from some hard-line unionists, who fiercely guard Northern Ireland’s place in the U.K. and say even light-touch post-Brexit checks create a de facto internal trade barrier. Dozens of protesters gathered outside the DUP meeting venue outside Belfast late Monday, waving placards saying, “Stop DUP sellout.”
Details of the supposedly private five-hour DUP meeting were live-tweeted by Jamie Bryson, editor of the Unionist Voice newsletter, who is opposed to Donaldson’s attempts at compromise.
Donaldson said last week that he had received threats over his attempts to negotiate a return to the government.
“I think my party has displayed far more courage than those who threaten or try to bully or try to misrepresent us,” he said Tuesday. “We are determined to take our place in taking Northern Ireland forward.”
The situation has been complicated by Northern Ireland’s changing political landscape. Unionists were the largest force in the Northern Ireland Assembly from its establishment in 1998 until 2022, when Sinn Fein won the most seats in an election.
That gives the nationalist party, which aims to take Northern Ireland out of the U.K. and unite it with the republic, the right to hold the post of first minister in the restored government. The DUP will fill the post of deputy — a bitter pill for many unionists to swallow.
Sinn Fein President Mary Lou McDonald said the appointment of Northern Ireland’s first nationalist leader would be “a moment of great significance” that will bring a united Ireland closer.
Hayward agreed it was “hugely significant in symbolic terms, if not in practical terms, because it’s a joint position” with the deputy role.
“International headlines about that — the first time you have a Sinn Fein first minister — are the kind of headlines that that the DUP have been dreading,” she said.
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Northern Ireland's largest political party ends 2-year boycott that left people with dysfunctional government - PBS NewsHour
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House Speaker Mike Johnson is overseeing one of the smallest House majorities in history as Congress confronts upcoming battles over government funding and contentious fights over immigration and impeachment.
Republicans currently control just 219 seats while Democrats control 213 after Ohio GOP Rep. Bill Johnson resigned from Congress earlier this month to take a job as president of Youngstown State University.
The razor-thin majority presents an enormous challenge for the speaker, leaving him with almost no room for error as he navigates demands from competing wings of his party.
There are currently three vacancies in the House following Johnson’s departure, former Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s resignation from Congress at the end of last year and the expulsion of former GOP Rep. George Santos of New York.
Democratic Rep. Brian Higgins of New York has also announced plans to leave Congress, and will be stepping down on February 2, his office told CNN.
A special election to fill the seat previously held by Santos will take place on February 13. The race is expected to be competitive and is a potential pickup opportunity for Democrats.
In addition to the tight margin, there is always the possibility that absences can further impact the vote math.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise’s office has said that he will work remotely until returning to Washington in February as he recovers from a stem cell transplant.
Republican Rep. Hal Rogers of Kentucky was hospitalized following a car accident earlier this month. His office subsequently announced that he had progressed to physical rehabilitation to assist in his recovery.
The tight vote margin means that any individual member has the potential to exert outsized influence and Johnson has frequently felt pressure from his right flank.
Hardline conservatives have already shown that they can hold major sway in the chamber with such a narrow majority – most notably when a group of hardliners moved to oust McCarthy from the speakership in a historic and unprecedented vote last year.
The exact size and scope of the far right of the House Republican Conference can vary from issue to issue. A contingent of roughly a dozen hardliners staged a rebellion on the House floor earlier this month, taking down a procedural vote to show opposition to a spending deal Johnson had reached with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
The ever-shrinking margin has forced Johnson to put bills directly onto the floor under a procedural move known as suspension of the rules in certain instances as his right flank has increasingly taken to tanking rule votes on the floor in a show of protest, a dynamic that will likely continue and may intensify.
But that strategy compels the need for a two-thirds majority to pass bills, requiring significant Democratic support, and further alienating Johnson and the right wing of his conference.
In one recent example, the House passed a short-term funding extension to avert a shutdown under suspension of the rules earlier this month. House Republicans were nearly evenly divided in the vote, a sign of the deep rift within the conference. One hundred and seven Republicans voted for the bill, while 106 voted against it. Far more Democrats than Republicans voted for the measure with 207 Democrats in favor and just two opposed.
In addition to facing pressure from conservatives, Johnson must also balance the interests of more moderate members from battleground districts who are on the frontlines of the majority and who will be under intense scrutiny during the 2024 election year.
There were 18 Republicans in House districts that President Joe Biden won in 2020 – a number that is now down to 17 after the expulsion of Santos. The fate of these politically vulnerable members will be key to whether the GOP can hold onto its majority.
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January 29, 2024 at 07:00PM
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Speaker Mike Johnson’s historically narrow majority has shrunk even further - CNN
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More than previous generations, they are concerned about their mental health and educational prospects, new surveys show.
Although it has never been easy to be a teenager, the current generation of young Americans feels particularly apprehensive, new polling shows — anxious about their lives, disillusioned about the direction of the country and pessimistic about their futures.
Just one-third of respondents ages 12 to 17 said things were going well for children and teenagers today, in a survey published Monday by Common Sense Media, a children’s advocacy group. Less than half said they thought they would be better off than their parents when they grew up — a downbeat view shared among teenagers in many rich countries, other data shows.
It’s not just about teenage angst. A different survey, by Gallup and the Walton Family Foundation, the latest installment of which was also released Monday, has asked questions of young people over time and looked at how their answers have changed. Members of Gen Z, ages 12 to 27, are significantly less likely to rate their current and future lives highly than millennials were when they were the same age, it found.
Among those 18 to 26, just 15 percent said their mental health was excellent. That is a large decline from both 2013 and 2003, when just over half said so.
Together, the surveys offer an unusually detailed look at the perspectives of teenagers, who are rarely surveyed in high-quality polls.
“The data is pretty stark: Our kids are not all right,” said James P. Steyer, founder and chief executive of Common Sense Media.
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Today's Teenagers: Anxious About Their Futures and Disillusioned by Politicians - The New York Times
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