This week, people with mental health challenges or substance use disorder often end up in jail. But crisis response teams offer another way. Also, one year after the Mountain Valley Pipeline went into service, people who live directly in the pipeline’s path have received compensation. But not everyone. And, the Sacred Harp songbook gets an update for the first time since the early 1990s.
It’s another Thanksgiving with COVID-19, but this time, vaccinations allow many Americans to gather together and share a hug and a meal.
Us & Them host Trey Kay invites his ‘virtual dinner party’ guests back for an anniversary. It’s a tradition we began last year – bringing together a wide ranging group to talk occasionally about the hot topics of the day. We talk politics and the 2020 election as well as the issues of election reform that continue to reverberate. COVID vaccinations and masks present some honest conversation.
This year we’ll see what kind of common ground there is at the table. It seems the more the dinner party guests talk with each other, the more they learn something that can help them see things more clearly and connect on different levels.
This episode of Us & Them is presented with support from the CRC Foundation and the West Virginia Humanities Council.
Subscribe to Us & Them on Apple Podcasts, NPR One, RadioPublic, Spotify, Stitcher and beyond. You also can listen to Us & Them on WVPB Radio — tune in Thursday, Nov. 25, at 8 p.m., or listen to the encore presentation on Saturday, Nov. 27, at 3 p.m.
Kathy Kay
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Host Trey Kay enjoying a “non-Thanksgiving” Thanksgiving meal at a virtual table with the Us & Them “Dinner Party” crew.
A U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors is fueling efforts by conservative lawmakers to regulate transgender rights. On this episode of Us & Them, host Trey Kay explores the fallout in West Virginia, where trans people, allies and opponents navigate one of today’s most charged cultural battles.
State borders are now all important in determining access to abortion. Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, West Virginia’s only abortion clinic has moved across the border to Maryland to continue providing abortions. This Us & Them episode was recently honored by the Virginias Associated Press Broadcasters as Best Podcast of 2024.
President Trump’s first 100 days were packed with bold moves—mass deportations, federal workforce cuts, and global tariff fights. At an Us & Them Dinner Party, guests from across the political spectrum dig into a potluck and unpack the early days of a presidency already shaking things up.
Us & Them host Trey Kay marks the show’s 10th anniversary in a late-night gathering of members of Marshall University’s Dead Podcasters Society — a student club dedicated to appreciating podcasting and audio storytelling. Kay shares lessons from a decade of audio journalism and is inducted into the society with the tap of a sword and a vow to “seize the sound.”
