The Wire with Joel

In breaking news early this morning, President Joe Biden stepped down as the democratic candidate in the election race. It comes following mounting concern around Biden’s age and competence to serve another term as President, as well as a campaign from the party itself for the President to step back. 

Now, only three and half months out from election day the democrats must pick a new candidate, likely to be Vice-President, Kamala Harris. 

Producer Evie spoke to Geopolitical Analyst from the University of Otago, Geoffrey Miller, about what happens next and what effect this will have on the democrats chances of staying in office. We also talk about what impact the result of the election will have here in Aotearoa, as well as on the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and Palestine.

Last week, Associate Health Minister David Seymour released his letter to Pharmac setting out his expectations for the agency. 

Among the instructions, Seymour has received backlash over saying that it is inappropriate for Pharmac to keep considering Te Tiriti o Waitangi in its decisions.

As a result, on Friday a Pharmac director, Dr Anthony Jordan, resigned saying he “could not with good conscience” work for Pharmac following directions to stop considering Te Tiriti o Waitangi in its decisions. 

On Friday, Wire host Sofia Roger Williams spoke to professor of health economics in the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences at the University of Auckland, Paula Lorgelly, about these instructions delivered by Seymour to Pharmac and Dr Anthony Jordan’s resignation.

She began the interview asking her for an outline of what the key points of the instructions were.

The government has decided to leave AI considerations out of its plans to revive the previous government’s Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill, saying the “broad issue of AI” would be considered later. 

However, there is increasing evidence that new generative AI internet search tools provided by OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google can increase the risk of returning misleading, false, or partially correct information. 

Research by senior Lecturer in Screen, Audio and Journalism at AUT, Merja Myllylahti, looks further into this and how search functions and chatbots shape news discovery. 

Wire host Sofia Roger Williams spoke to Merja about the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill and the risks of AI chatbots using news content.

Wire host Caeden speaks to Labour’s Willow-Jean Prime about the beginning of boot camps for youth offenders at the end of this month and funding cuts at Oranga Tamariki. 

They speak to Dr Simone Watkins from the University of Auckland about the importance of equitable approaches for Māori, Pacific, and Indian communities in our health system.

And they speak to the University of Auckland’s Liz Beddoe about the state of reproductive justice in the United States two years on from the overturning of Roe v Wade.

For City Counselling this week, Producer Sofia speaks to Councillor Julie Fairey about flood prevention work in Māngere and Muriwai as well as increasing public safety in Auckland’s CBD. 

Tuesday Wire host Castor spoke to Professor of business at the University of Auckland, Alex Sims, about the history and impact of planned obsolescence.