Axios Re:Cap

On our latest installment of our Hard Truths series, we look at how faulty technology is making its way into the U.S. immigration system. Guests: Chaz Arnett, law professor at the University of Maryland and Miguel. Credits: "Axios Today" is brought to you by Axios and Pushkin Industries. This episode was produced by Nuria Marquez Martinez and edited by Alexandra Botti. Jeanne Montalvo is our sound engineer. Dan Bobkoff is our executive producer. Special thanks to editor-in-chief Sara Kehaulani Goo, executive editor Aja Whitacker-Moore and managing editor for technology Scott Rosenberg.

The global energy crisis is becoming a bigger problem for the economy. The Consumer Price Index -- the best way to measure inflation in the U.S. -- jumped 5.4 percent in September compared to last year -- that’s according to new data released this week. How is the Federal Reserve and the Biden administration reacting to this latest data? Axios Re:Cap talks with Axios’ chief financial correspondent Felix Salmon who’s been reporting on the latest consumer price index data.

Last week Snapchat launched a new module -- called Run for Office Mini -- that helps young people run for local offices. And so far -- more than 2 million Snapchat users have engaged with the platform. Could this inspire the next generation of politicians? Axios Re:Cap talks with Axios’ political reporter Alexi McCammond about why Snapchat is entering this realm.

In 2020, the U.S. poverty rate declined as a result of stimulus checks and unemployment aid. What also helped in the decline? There was also an increase in cash programs from charities. Could “cash-in-hand” be a long-term solution to end poverty? Axios Re:Cap talks with Axios’ future correspondent Bryan Walsh on how philanthropic organizations are using cash assistance and what cash can’t fix.

Senators at the Facebook hearing last week used an analogy we’ve all heard before -- Big Tech is having a Big Tobacco moment. Are the harmful effects of social media sites like Facebook and Instagram that clear cut? Axios Re:Cap talks with Axios’ chief technology correspondent Ina Fried about how Big Tech compares to Big Tobacco.

Here’s a shocking statistic: Within five years of a heart attack, nearly half of women will die compared to 36% of men, that’s according to the American Heart Association. And now, researchers are discovering a strong link between psychological stress and heart disease, concerning cardiologists who see an increase in stress amongst women during the pandemic. Axios Re:Cap talks with Axios’ health care reporter Marisa Fernandez on how heart disease disproportionately impacts women AND how the pandemic has made things even worse.

At least half a million people are known to be homeless in the U.S. -- and the pandemic complicated efforts around the country to keep people housed. But - cities are still trying to fix this. Washington D.C is doing something different -- a pilot program offering one-year leases to unhoused residents in the city. Axios Re:Cap talks with Axios’ D.C. reporter Chelsea Cirruzzo who’s been reporting on how the pilot program has gone this week.

South Dakota has become a haven for an estimated $360 billion for the wealthy, according to the leaked financial documents in the Pandora Papers. Even though it’s one of the least populated states in the U.S., it now ranks as one of the top tax haven jurisdictions. Axios Re:Cap talks with Axios’ chief financial correspondent Felix Salmon, who’s been reporting on what the Pandora Papers revealed about South Dakota.

Energy prices are are going up around the world, as extreme weather becomes the norm and more people are on the move after long stretches of pandemic lockdown.China and India are facing an electricity crisis, while prices for oil and natural gas roughly doubled over the past year. In the U.S. gas prices are going up by 50%. Axios Re:Cap talks with Axios’ business editor Kate Marino who’s been reporting on the energy prices.

Facebook shares are down 15% from an all-time high on September 7th. That’s the biggest drop since the beginning of the pandemic. And yesterday, Facebook’s global outage may have prevented 54 billion Facebook messages from being sent and 3.75 billion fewer calling minutes on WhatsApp, according to marketing firm ABCD Agency. Axios Re:Cap talks with Axios’ media reporter Sara Fischer who’s been reporting on this, and how Facebook got to this moment.

Adela Raz was only in her role as Ambassador to the U.S. for one month before the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan. And now she grapples with her role as an Ambassador essentially without a state and no real relationship with the Biden administration.Axios Re:Cap digs into Axios’ Jonathan Swan’s exclusive interview with Ambassador Raz.

On our latest installment of our Hard Truths series, we look at how the process to get tenure at many universities in the U.S. is shutting out academics of color. Guests: Paul Harris, associate professor of education at Pennsylvania State University, and Patricia Matthew, associate professor of English at Montclair State University and editor of Written/Unwritten: Diversity and the Hidden Truths of Tenure Credits: “Axios Today” is brought to you by Axios and Pushkin Industries. This episode was produced by Nuria Marquez Martinez and edited by Alexandra Botti. Jeanne Montalvo is our sound engineer. Dan Bobkoff is our executive producer. Special thanks to executive editor Sara Kehaulani Goo, Hard Truths editor Michele Salcedo and managing editor for business Aja Whitacker-Moore.

With the pandemic, the way we think about work has changed. There is a newfound power of the employee, and with that has come more union organizing. Axios Re:Cap digs into what Bessemer means for unions, the history of unions in the U.S., and the dignity of a worker with author and historian Ibram X. Kendi.

Spotify is one of the biggest players in podcasts, and has been spending big on shows like The Joe Rogan Experience and Call Her Daddy. But the industry still very small compared to music and other types of media content. Axios Re:Cap digs into the past, present and future of the podcasting business with Spotify founder and CEO Daniel Ek, who also shares what he's been listening to revently.

From the military coup in Myanmar, to U.S. sanctions on Belarus, to violence in Venezuela. Axios Re:Cap talks with Axios' World Editor, Dave Lawler, and catches us up quick with what's going on around the globe.

The way we make and maintain friendships has changed during the pandemic, and post-pandemic is a great time to let some go. Axios Re:Cap talks with author of Friends Forever, Suzanne Degges White, about why our friendships are changing and how to move forward.

The world is suffering from a shortage of silicon chips, making it harder to make and buy everything from cars to home appliances. Axios Re:Cap talks with U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo about U.S. efforts to improve domestic manufacturing, why it’s taking so long to pass the CHIPS Act and what can be done to help in the short-term. Plus, an important message from Dan.

Space travel once unified Americans with the excitement of scientific discovery and wonderment. But the recent suborbital trips headlined by Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos have been much more divisive, with critics accusing the billionaires of taking pricey joyrides while the Earth below them literally burns. Dan goes deeper with engineer and Virgin Galactic executive Sirisha Bandla, who flew alongside Branson, to better understand what space tourism could also mean for the future of science.

Tom Barrack, the billionaire real estate investor and close friend to former President Trump, was arrested yesterday on federal charges of acting as an unregistered foreign agent for the United Arab Emirates. It's a case that touches the highest levels of American finance and power.Dan goes deeper with Vicky Ward, an investigative journalist who's reported Tom Barrack through her books on New York real estate, the Kushner family and her new podcast series on Jeffrey Epstein.

Bitcoin is not environmentally friendly. It takes enormous amounts of electricity to mine and exchange cryptocurrencies..Dan digs into this conflict between climate and cryptocurrencies with Axios energy reporter Ben Geman and crypto investor Anthony Pompliano, to better understand the problem and what might be done to resolve it

A federal judge in Texas last week blocked DACA, the Obama-era program that provides legal protections to undocumented immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as children. The ruling puts more than 600,000 Dreamers in a new state of legal limbo, and stops new applicants from being approved. Dan talks with Axios politics reporter Stef Kight about what comes next, both in the courts and in Congress.

On our latest installment of our Hard Truths series, we go inside the fight to build a $2.4 billion telescope on the highest mountaintop in Hawai'i. For astronomers it would mean the chance to answer deep questions about the universe. But for indigenous Hawai'ians, it would mean the desecration of sacred land. Guests: Aurora Kagawa-Viviani, post-doctoral researcher and scientist at UH-Hilo Hawaii Cooperative studies unit at the University of Hawai'i Hilo and Axios' Miriam Kramer. Credits: "Axios Today" is brought to you by Axios and Pushkin Industries. This episode was produced by Nuria Marquez Martinez and edited by Alexandra Botti. Alex Sugiura is our sound engineer. Dan Bobkoff is our executive producer. Special thanks to Axios space editor Miriam Kramer, Executive Editor Sara Kehaulani Goo, and Hard Truths Editor Michele Salcedo.

Two weeks ago today, the Champlain Towers South condo building in Surfside, Florida collapsed. 54 people are confirmed to have died, while 86 remain missing. The collapse has begun to spark a broader conversation about aging condo buildings, which house around one out of every five Americans. Dan talks to Peter Coy of Bloomberg Businessweek about the fundamental flaws of condo management and the conflict surrounding owners and maintenance.

The Chinese government is going after its own Big Tech companies, with new rules around cybersecurity and listing shares on foreign exchanges. It’s also banned many of them from app stores, including ride-hail giant DiDi, which last week went public in New York. Dan talks with Rui Ma of China Tech Buzz about what’s changed in just the past few days, what it means for companies like DiDi and parallels to last year's fight between Trump and TikTok.

Richard Branson is scheduled to blast off this Sunday on a suborbital space flight with his company Virgin Galactic, just days before Jeff Bezos plans to ride aboard a Blue Origin spaceship. But a lot more is riding on these rockets than ambitious billionaires. Axios Re:Cap speaks with Axios Space editor Miriam Kramer about what Branson and Bezos are actually doing, how it’s different from what SpaceX is doing, and the risks these missions could pose for the future of space travel.

Americans spend billions of dollars on July 4th food, but what we eat is changing as health and sustainability become bigger factors in our diet decisions. Axios Re:Cap goes deeper with Ethan Brown, founder and CEO of Beyond Meat, to learn more about changing consumer tastes and what it means for the future of meat.

It’s almost certain that America won’t meet President Biden’s goal of having 70% of all American adults at least partially vaccinated by the Fourth of July. To understand why, it’s crucial to understand who hasn’t gotten vaccinated, where they are, and why. Dan digs into these questions with Otis Rolley III of the Rockefeller Foundation, which recently released research with Dalberg that breaks down which groups and places in the U.S. have fallen furthest behind on vaccinations.

Most small business stories from the pandemic are about about pivoting or perishing, but there's also been an unexpected surge in new small business creation. One example is Agua Bonita, a canned beverage company that launched last year after both of its co-founders were laid off. Dan talks with Agua Bonita co-founder Kayla Castañeda and Techstars founder David Cohen about what it was like for startups over the past 14 months and what recovery means for businesses that didn't even exist before COVID-19. Plus, a conversation with Wall Drug proprietor Rick Hustead. Note: This episode first aired 5/28/21. Due to platform issues that blocked it from some listeners' feeds, we are rerunning it for all listeners.

The Pacific Northwest is experiencing record-high temperatures due to a “heat dome” that should be a once every-few-thousand-year event — but which could occur more often and with more severity due to climate change. Dan digs in with Axios climate reporter Andrew Freedman, to better understand this weather event's science, the dangers posed to human health and infrastructure, and how the definition of a "normal climate" is changing.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that there were 4% fewer U.S. births in 2020 than in 2019, an acceleration of a long, slow decline. The report keeps getting picked up in the news, in part because conventional wisdom has generally been that it’s important for generations to replenish themselves. Dan discusses this report, how we think about birth rates and the economy, and whether a country can sustain its economy without sustaining its birth rate with Axios business reporter Hope King and with report coauthor and CDC statistician and demographer Brady Hamilton.

This week was the first time Britney Spears ever personally addressed the court — and in doing so, the public — about wanting to terminate the conservatorship, controlled by her father, that she has been under since 2008. But the New York Times recently reported that her lawyer first told a court seven years ago that Britney wanted to explore having her father removed. Dan is joined by Vox.com’s Constance Grady to discuss how public concern about her conservatorship went mainstream, what we know about her situation, what this says about how our culture thinks about celebrity and mental illness, and what could come next in this case.

Editorial staff of Washingtonian magazine chose to unionize today, the latest in a spate of media unionizations that is just part of a broader trend of post-pandemic tensions between employers and employees. Dan goes deeper with Jessica Sidman, a food editor at Washingtonian, about the situation at her workplace, at the restaurants she covers and if work will ever be the same.

The White House today acknowledged the U.S. is unlikely to reach President Biden’s goal of vaccinating 70% of Americans by July 4. But meeting this goal is particularly urgent in the face of the Delta variant of COVID-19, which is highly contagious and expected to become the dominant strain in the U.S. in a matter of weeks. Dan is joined by Former CDC director Tom Frieden to discuss who is most vulnerable to this variant, what it means for vaccine makers, and what it tells us about our future living alongside this virus both short- and long-term.

Iran this past weekend elected a new president, Ebrahim Raisi, a hard-liner whose political rivals weren’t even allowed on the ballot — and who has been sanctioned by the U.S. for human rights abuses. Dan talks with Axios World editor David Lawler about what Raisi’s election means for Iran’s people, who are facing economic hardship and a raging pandemic, and what it means for the nuclear deal signed by President Obama and scrapped by President Trump.

The latest episode of our Hard Truths series examining systemic racism in America takes a look at the multi-billion dollar marijuana industry. Today: the obstacles that two Black Latinas had to overcome when they chose to start their own businesses in the overwhelmingly white marijuana industry. Guest: Chanda Macias, CEO of Ilera Holistic Healthcare, and Women Grow and Gia Morón, CEO of GVM Communications and president of Women Grow. Credits: "Axios Today" is produced in partnership with Pushkin Industries. This episode was produced by Nuria Marquez Martinez and edited by Alexandra Botti. Alex Sugiura is our sound engineer. Special thanks to Axios Denver reporter John Frank, Axios Executive Editor Sara Kehaulani Goo, Hard Truths Editor Michele Salcedo, and Executive Producer Dan Bobkoff.

Ahead of Juneteenth, now a federal holiday, we examine how America's economy remains marred by the legacies of slavery and racial discrimination. Dan is joined by McKinsey & Co.’s Shelley Stewart III and Michael Chui to discuss a new report from the McKinsey Global Institute and McKinsey’s Institute for Black Economy Mobility, digging into the economic inequities between Black and white Americans, including massive wage and wealth gaps, and what can be done to address them.

Last week, House lawmakers introduced a series of five bipartisan bills designed to curb the power of big tech, which seemed to target Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google in all but name. Dan speaks with Rep. David Cicilline, chair of the House antitrust committee and a sponsor on most of the bills, to learn how Congress plans to get these bills over the finish line amidst a full slate of Congressional priorities and in the wake of a bipartisan bill meant to bolster the U.S. tech sector’s ability to compete with China.

America didn't have enough affordable housing before the pandemic, and the problem has only gotten worse due to a frenzied housing market and a looming end to foreclosure and eviction moratoriums. Dan digs into what can be done to increase the country's affordable housing stock, both on a policy level and in the private sector. Our guest is Colleen Briggs of J.P. Morgan Chase, which this morning issued a set of policy recommendations to bolster affordable home buying and renting.

The COVID-19 pandemic shed light on and exacerbated the structural problems in the U.S. mental health care system — which often requires patients to seek out care and pay out of pocket for it. Demand for mental health services has skyrocketed, and therapists have repeatedly reported difficulty meeting demand. Axios Re:Cap is joined by Chris Molaro, CEO of NeuroFlow, to discuss gaps in the mental health care system and how mental health technology has evolved in the midst of the pandemic. Note: This episode mentions depression and suicide. If you or someone you know needs help today, you can find help at the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. It’s free and available 24/7: 1-800-273-8255.

Sotheby’s last week auctioned off the first fine art NFT ever created, a landmark moment in the transformation of art from the physical to the digital. The winning bid was nearly $1.5 million. Axios Re:Cap goes deeper, to understand how the fine art and cryptocurrency worlds are colliding, including a conversation with Kevin McCoy, the artist whose work was just auctioned off.

Vice President Kamala Harris this week went on her first foreign trip since taking office, visiting Guatemala and Mexico to address what she refers to as the root causes of mass migration, after the U.S. saw the largest number of border apprehensions in 20 years. Axios Re:Cap speaks with Juan Gonzalez, special assistant to President Biden and National Security Council Senior Director for the Western Hemisphere, about what Harris accomplished, criticisms of her trip and what happens next on U.S. immigration policy.

Federal authorities this week announced that they successfully traced and recovered most of the Bitcoin that had been paid by Colonial Pipeline to a ransomware gang called DarkSide, following last month’s hack that had shut off gasoline supplies to much of the East Coast. Axios Re:Cap digs into the battle between law enforcement and crypto hackers, including what it means for future ransomware attacks and how ransomware has become a global industry of its own, with Gurvais Grigg, a 23-year FBI veteran who now serves as public sector CTO at crypto firm Chainlysis.

This Saturday, Democrats in America’s largest city will be asked to begin picking their nominee for mayor, a person whose influence is certain to extend beyond the five boroughs. But the voting system is different than anything New York City has used before, and there still isn’t a frontrunner. Dan digs in with Dana Rubinstein, a metro desk reporter with the New York Times, to learn more about the candidates, why crime and policing have become the top issue and what to watch heading into Saturday.

Senate Democrats and Republicans today are expected to overwhelmingly pass a $247 billion spending package focused on competing with China on technology. Dan is joined by California Democrat Rep. Ro Khanna, who cosponsored this bill and who has been concerned about this issue and the ramifications for the U.S. of falling behind since he first campaigned for office.

West Virginia’s two Senators, Democrat Joe Manchin and Republican Shelley Moore Capito, each have disproportionate power to determine America's legislative future, including on voting rights and infrastructure. Dan digs into West Virginia’s moment at the center of America’s political world with Axios congressional reporter Alayna Treene. Plus, Axios space reporter Miriam Kramer joins to discuss Jeff Bezos’s announcement that he’ll go to suborbital space on a Blue Origin rocket.

Today’s jobs report showed that the U.S. economy added 577,000 jobs in May, which was a very strong number but below what many had been expecting. Dan unpacks the report with Axios business reporters Courtenay Brown and Felix Salmon, who go below the headline numbers and explain what it all means for President Biden’s big spending plans. Plus, we discuss Facebook's decision to ban former President Trump for another two years.

U.S. housing prices are soaring, due to a combination of ultra-low interest rates, sky-high lumber prices and a supply-and-demand imbalance brought on by the pandemic. But with the federal foreclosure moratorium just lifted, things could soon change. Dan speaks with Jeremy Wacksman, COO of real estate tech company Zillow, to better understand what the boom means for consumers and the country, and how long it might last.

For the second time in as many months, a major part of America’s infrastructure has been held for ransom by cybercriminals. This time is was a hack of JBS, the nation’s largest beef producer, which was forced to take its largest processing facilities offline. Dan speaks with Laura Reiley, The Washington Post’s business of food reporter, about why the country’s meat supply chain is vulnerable, domino effects from the hack and what it all means for consumer prices.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on Friday announced that U.S. employers are allowed under federal law to require that workers get coronavirus vaccinations. Dan goes deeper with Carol Miaskoff, the EEOC's acting legal counsel, to learn more about the new guidance, how it interacts with state laws against such requirements and whether further guidance could be coming.

America’s small business community is recovering from the pandemic, but large swathes of it haven’t yet recovered. That was the message yesterday from U.S. Small Business Administrator Isabel Guzman, testifying in front of a House Financial Services subcommittee. Dan speaks with Guzman for the final of our six part America's Business Comeback series, about which small businesses still need help and what the SBA plans to do about it. Plus, the recovery view from Reckless Records' Matt Jencik in Chicago.