SB 277 narrowed parents' ability to refrain from vaccinating their kids by making exceptions available only to children who are home schooled or have a doctor's note. These notes are on the rise, and we explore reasons why. We also examine how online streaming is paving the way for niche sports; discuss the decline of the middle child; and more.
MGM sues Vegas shooting victims to avoid liability. We discuss the legal grounds and backlash
MGM Resorts International has sued hundreds of victims of the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history in a bid to avoid liability for the gunfire that rained down from its Mandalay Bay casino-resort in Las Vegas.
The company argues in lawsuits filed in Nevada, California, New York and other states this week and last that it has "no liability of any kind" to survivors or families of slain victims under a federal law enacted after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The lawsuits target victims who have sued the company and voluntarily dismissed their claims or have threatened to sue after a gunman shattered the windows of his Mandalay Bay suite and fired on a crowd gathered below for a country music festival.
High-stakes gambler Stephen Paddock killed 58 people and injured hundreds more last year before killing himself. Victims with active lawsuits against MGM don't face the company's legal claim.
AirTalk reached out to MGM Resorts for comment but as of the airing of this segment, they had not responded to us.
With files from the Associated Press.
With guest host Libby Denkmann.
Guests:
John Bacon, reporter for USA Today, who has been covering the lawsuit filed by MGM Resorts International against victims of the Las Vegas shooting
Carl Tobias, professor of constitutional law at the University of Richmond School of Law in Virginia, whose specialties include torts and products liability
After Microsoft calls for regulation on facial recognition technology, we examine Silicon Valley’s protest of controversial government projects
Microsoft is calling on Congress to regulate the use of facial recognition technology to protect people's privacy and freedom of expression.
It's the first big tech company to raise serious alarms about an increasingly sought-after technology for recognizing a person's face from a photo or through a camera. Microsoft President Brad Smith said in a blog post Friday that the government should form a bipartisan expert commission. Smith says Microsoft, which supplies face recognition to some businesses, has already rejected some customers' requests to deploy the technology in situations involving "human rights risks."
A Microsoft spokeswoman declined to provide more details about what opportunities the company has passed over because of ethical concerns. Smith defended the company's contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, saying it doesn't involve face recognition.
Meanwhile, last month, Amazon employees called on CEO Jeff Bezos to take a stand against the sale of its AI technology to law enforcement. Earlier in the month, after pressure from its employees, Google backed off from renewing its contract with the Pentagon to develop artificial intelligence for drone video analysis.
We look at how Silicon Valley workers have been waging protests over the use of their companies’ technology in controversial government contracts.
With files from the Associated Press.
With guest host Libby Denkmann.
Guest:
Dina Bass, tech reporter for Bloomberg News, who has reported on Silicon Valley’s latest efforts to regulate AI technology; she tweets
Is there room for niche sports in an already crowded sports media landscape? Streaming may just be the answer
While it might sound like something you’d find on the fictional channel ESPN 8 “The Ocho” from the 2004 cult classic “Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story,” the World Armwrestling League (WAL) is not only an actual organization, but it recently signed a multi-year deal to air on B/R Live, a new streaming service from Turner and the well-known sports media shop Bleacher Report.
But professional arm wrestling is just one of a handful of niche sports that are looking to take advantage of a fragmented media consumption landscape in the hopes of gaining exposure.
New York Times sports business reporter Kevin Draper explains how this is happening in his latest piece for the Times and uses WAL and Karate Combat, a full-contact karate league that just launched this year. Its goal for getting people to watch its product is not putting rear ends in seats or trying to fight with major networks like CBS or NBC for a slice of their broadcast schedule in exchange for pennies on the dollar, chief exec Michael DePietro tells Draper.
Instead, they’re focusing on media deals, particularly through their live stream at karate.com. And with big players like Amazon and Facebook looking to get involved in streaming live sports, it’s a good time to be shopping one’s product around. However, there are still obvious hurdles. Many people are unaware that professional arm wrestling or Karate Combat even exist, and much of the guessing game that these sports leagues and the streaming services that might broadcast them are playing is what percentage of those people will actually be willing to pay to watch the content.
Today on AirTalk, guest host Libby Denkmann talks with Draper about the little-known sports that could be coming to a smartphone near you and business strategy behind the streaming services going after them.
With guest host Libby Denkmann.
Guests:
Kevin Draper, sports business reporter for The New York Times whose latest piece is “The Era of Streaming Niche Sports Dawns”; he tweets
Mark Floreani, co-founder and chief operating officer of FloSports, a digital sports media company based in Austin, Texas
Taking the President at his word: So what would better US-Russia relations look like?
Repercussions of the summit between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are still being felt in DC and beyond, three days after their historic summit.
In an seemingly uncharacteristic move, President Trump yesterday walked back his rebuke of the findings of US intelligence that squarely pointed to Russia for meddling in the 2016 election. All along, President Trump has maintained that relations between the US and Russia need to improve for both global stability and for the benefits of the US.
AirTalk looks at the President’s assertions and whether better US-Russia relations are realistically possible.
With guest host Libby Denkmann
Guests:
Will Pomerantz, expert on Russia; deputy director of the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies of the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC
Andrew Weiss, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington D.C.; he served as a Russia expert in the Clinton White House (1998-2001)
Two years ago CA passed a strict immunization law – how has it affected vaccination rates?
Two years ago, after a measles outbreak originating at Disneyland, California passed one of the stricted immunization laws in the country which prevented parents from getting vaccination exemptions for their kids based on personal belief.
According to L.A. Times reporting, California now has a record high immunization rate, but still there are communities where vaccination rates are dangerously low. That’s because parents have found a way to circumvent the immunization law: doctor’s notes.
Because of SB 277, the only way for parents to get around vaccinations is to homeschool their kids or have a doctor write a medical exemption. Legitimate exemptions do exist, for example for kids who are undergoing chemotherapy or have an allergy to gelatin. But some doctors provide exemptions to kids who don’t require them, and that’s reflected in data on schools where over 25 percent of kids are unvaccinated.
Are medical exemptions becoming easier to get in California? We check in on the status of immunization in California since the passage of SB 277.
Guests:
Soumya Karlamangla, healthcare reporter for the LA Times; her recent story is “Pushback against immunization laws leaves some California schools vulnerable to outbreaks”; she tweets
Vikram Anand M.D., pediatric infectious disease specialist at the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles; he’s also an assistant professor of clinical pediatrics at the Keck School of Medicine of USC
Forgotten...again: Middle children are on the decline and, as usual, nobody’s noticed
Were you that kid who was somehow missing from all the family Christmas photos? Did you exact peacemaker moves on your older and younger siblings that would put a diplomat to shame? What about winning first place at a spelling bee none of your family attended?
If these situations feel familiar, you’re probably a middle child, and if that’s the case, you’ll most likely refuse to acknowledge that they are a big deal. Either way, it’s fair to say that middle children are a rare breed and, according to New York Magazine’s culture editor Adam Sternbergh, getting rarer.
Sternbergh’s piece outlines how nearly two-thirds of modern American women with children have either two or one, and compared to women in the 1970’s – when forty percent of mothers had four or more kids – that’s a huge decline in the middle child population.
Some might think “Who cares?” (a self-righteous thought most likely coming from an oldest child), but if birth order characteristics are truly a thing, it can be safely stated that the world is soon to be missing out on a lot of natural mediators.
How do you view this decline in middle children? If you are a middle child yourself, how did it shape who you are today? How did you navigate the different dynamics between your older and younger siblings? Call 866.893.5722.
With guest host Libby Denkmann.
Guests:
Adam Sternbergh, New York Magazine’s culture editor who wrote a piece on middle children; he tweets
Catherine Salmon, professor of psychology at the University of Redlands whose primary research interests include birth order and the family