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The massive $2 trillion CARES Act — which sent households one-time payments and boosted unemployment checks with an additional $600 a week through July — helped keep millions afloat, but more than 8 million people have been forced into poverty since the aid ended. "The relief was temporary, and much of it has now expired, so now we're seeing poverty rise again," says Megan Curran, a researcher at the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University. "We know that families can be protected again, but it does require action at the federal level."

Lawmakers grilled the chief executives of Facebook, Google and Twitter just days before Election Day on how they moderate hate speech, extremist content and election disinformation, including tweets from President Trump. Republicans have long accused Big Tech platforms of censoring conservative views, but tech policy expert Ramesh Srinivasan says the argument is shaped around talking points that are aimed at invalidating election results. "What we see coming from the Republicans is this argument that lacks any evidence, frankly, that there are systematic biases in terms of censorship, as well as algorithmic biases that skew against conservative talking points," says Srinivasan, a professor at UCLA, where he also directs the Digital Cultures Lab. "In fact, in reality, the opposite is exactly what is true."

Big Tech CEOs were grilled Wednesday about how they moderate election disinformation and extremist content, and were accused by Republicans of censoring conservatives. Overlooked were reports that Facebook designed changes to its news feed algorithm in 2017 to reduce the visibility of left-leaning news sites like Mother Jones. Mother Jones editors wrote in 2019 that the site had seen a sharp decline in its Facebook audience, which translated to a loss of around $600,000 over 18 months. "The fact that we are trying to do everything we can to get the truth out and Facebook is deliberately sabotaging our readership is so disturbing, at the same time that Facebook is spreading all of this dangerous information by conservatives, by President Trump," responds Ari Berman, senior writer at Mother Jones magazine, who has been reporting extensively on the 2020 election.

Rising Up With Sonali will be broadcasting a live Election 2020 streaming video special show onTuesday November 3rd from 3-5 pm PST (6-8 pm EST). The livestream will be available through our Vimeo Channel and will be posted to our website www.RisingUpWithSonali.com. Confirmed guests include Nation Magazine writer Sasha Abramsky, Zahra Billoo of CAIR, Judith...

Support KPFK, the intrepid public radio station based in Los Angeles that makes this show possible and available on dozens of television and radio stations nationwide. Go to www.kpfk.org/RUWithSonali, click the DONATE button and pledge either $75 for Sonali’s handmade mask, or $50 for a Rising Up With Sonali tote bag. DONE: VIRTUAL EVENT: Election...

FEATURING CHENJERAI KUMANYIKA – The city of Philadelphia is reeling from yet another police shooting as mass protests have sprung up in the wake of the videotaped killing of Walter Wallace Jr. The young Black man was gunned down in broad daylight in the middle of the street by officers who were several feet away...

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Hurricane Zeta slams into Louisiana, its fifth storm in a single season; Logging begins in pristine Tongass National Forest; China vaults ahead of U.S. on international climate pledge; PLUS: The case for court reform to protect climate legislation... All that and more in today's Green News Report! PLEASE CLICK HERE TO HELP [...]

On today's BradCast: It was a very very bad day for Donald J. Trump and for his odds of winning re-election. At least on paper. Don't get too excited just yet. (But please do vote, ASAP, if you have not done so already! And if you're voting by mail-in ballot, do not mail it in! [...]

Not long after we got off air from yesterday's BradCast, Senate Republicans kept their promise of breaking their previous promise that they would never ever ever --- because it would just be plain wrong and an insult to the voters! --- seat a new Supreme Court Justice during a Presidential election year. Their original promise [...]

Kavanaugh's Partisanship Towards Election Vote Count Raises Alarms | The Post Office Can No Longer Deliver Ballots on Time | Grandstanding at Senate Hearing on Section 230 of Communications Decency Act backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

Could a Reactionary Majority on the Supreme Court Take America Back to the Gilded Age? | Amid the Piles of Evidence, Why Has Trump's Criminality and Treachery Not Been Proven? backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

How Dark Money Put Barrett and Her Predecessors on Our Highest Court | As We Intrude on Nature With Ecological Disruption, Expect More Pandemics | Erdogan's Son-in-law's Drones Tip the Balance in the War Over Nagorno-Karabakh backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia facebook.com/ianmastersmedia