Iran

Voting has begun in India in what’s being called the largest election in recorded history. Nearly 1 billion people are eligible to vote in the election, which will happen over the next six weeks. Also, US and Iranian officials confirm an Israeli attack on the Iranian city of Isfahan, which is home to several key […]

Against the background of impeachment, heightened tensions with Iran, and the Iowa Caucuses, Astead Herndon of The New York Times and Clare Malone of FiveThirtyEight join Politics with Amy Walter to provide an update on the state of the Democratic Primary.

Plus, Thanassis Cambanis of the Century Foundation analyzes the future of the US-Iran relationship in light of the assassination of Qasem Soleimani and Andrew Clevenger of CQ Roll Call provides context about the War Powers Resolution.

Last night it looked like we were headed for war. Iran fired more than a dozen missiles at two military bases in Iraq in response to US escalation in the region.

How worried should we be? And, now that we know that President Trump is willing to take the most extreme option offered (ie: killing Iranian Gen. Soleimani with a drone) should we be even more concerned about his authority to launch nukes?

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Things That Go Boom is a production of PRX and Inkstick Media. This episode was produced by Ruth Morris and written by Laicie Heeley. Darien Schulman composed our music.

A special thanks to the Carnegie Corporation of New York for their support.

For more information, visit us at https://inkstickmedia.com/.

When we left off with our second season, there were… a few things happening with Iran…

And Amb. William Burns has a unique perspective — he’s been down this road with Iran before, as one of the architects of the 2015 nuclear deal.

We ask Burns for a gut check on the current situation, from Iran’s threats to ramp up uranium enrichment, to the fallout from President Trump’s ‘exchange of love letters’ with North Korea. He also shares some of the lessons from “the most depressing brainstorming session” of his career.

William Burns served five presidents and retired as the State Department’s No. 2 official. Today he’s the head of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, in Washington, DC. His book is “The Back Channel: A Memoir of American Diplomacy and the Case for Its Renewal.”

The first clue something was wrong came in the form of an alert on Yegi Rezaian’s phone. Where I grew up,” she says, “these things don’t happen by accident.”

Within hours, Yegi and her husband, Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian, found themselves in Iran’s notorious Evin prison. And interrogations quickly turned surreal. Jason’s captors seemed convinced his Kickstarter campaign to bring avocados to Iran was some kind of spycraft. So… it took some time before they came to realize that, one of the reasons they were arrested… and, one of the reasons that Jason would spend the next 544 days in prison…

Was the Iran deal.

In our final episode of the season, we look at collateral damage. Because when the US entered the Iran deal, and when President Trump pulled out, it kicked off a whole series of international events with consequences we’re still feeling today.

Tensions Between U.S. and Iran Heighten

A lead architect for the Iran nuclear deal discusses what went wrong, and the current state of tensions between the U.S. and Iran. 

Supreme Court to Take Up Case on Race and Television

Byron Allen, who is black, says Comcast’s refusal to carry his channels was racially motivated.

Can Hollywood Reverse a Slow Summer Movie Season?

Hollywood’s reliance on sequels and reboots has not succeeded with audiences this summer. The Takeaway looks at whether the film industry can turn things around in the coming months.

Gerrymandering in 2010 Set the Stage for This Year’s Anti-Abortion Laws

How are abortion clinics in anti-abortion states faring under the legislative burdens? How are providers doing with their neighbors? And how did we get here?

A Chinese Insurance Company is Using Facial Recognition on Customers. Will We See This in the U.S.?

A Chinese insurance company is using facial recognition technology to assess whether their customers will be “financial risks.”

The U.S. Label Iran’s IRGC a Foreign Terrorist Organization

On Monday, the United States government made an unprecedented move against Iran.

The IRS Audits the Working Poor at a Higher Rate than Wealthier People

The audit process itself also has immediate and long-term effects for working class people.

Author Kwame Alexander Wants to Help Young People Imagine a Better World

Kwame Alexander’s new book, “The Undefeated,” celebrates black Americans throughout history. The Takeaway spoke with Alexander about his unique approach to engaging young readers.

Guests: 

Robin Wright

Farnaz Fassihi

Paul Kiel

Kwame Alexander

President Trump’s pick to serve as the director of the Central Intelligence Agency Gina Haspel faces a challenging confirmation hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee today. Haspel has worked at the C.I.A. for 33 years, almost all of those years entirely undercover. Opponents of Haspel’s nomination are concerned about her role in the C.I.A.’s use of controversial interrogation techniques of terrorism suspects that are widely considered to be torture. The Takeaway profiles Haspel alongside her Senate confirmation hearing. Plus, we do a deep dive into the nature of wealth in order to understand what it means to be ‘elite’ in America; and we examine the implications of withdrawing from the Iran deal.

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

Most Americans have heard about Iran’s repressive government, human rights abuses, and burgeoning nuclear program, but this week in Studio 360, Kurt Andersen and guests Reza Aslan and Roya Hakakian explore Iran’s rich cultural heritage and the ways in which Iranian artists struggle to express themselves in the face of government censorship and risk to […]

Studio 360 looks at the other Iran — not the “rogue state,” but the nation with a 4,000-year-old cultural history and flourishing contemporary film, literature, and music. Kurt Andersen talks to graphic novelist Marjane Satrapi about her youth as an Iranian punk; her new animated film is an adaptation of her illustrated memoir “Persepolis.” Writers […]