This week on WURD: $5 million URL Media grant, tensions in Venezuela, Black farmers and the government shutdown

Dr. Nola Haynes is a national security and foreign policy expert. She joined Wake Up with WURD with Solomon Jones to discuss the lack of information surrounding the shooting of two National Guard soldiers, the implications of potentially illegal Venezuelan boat strikes, and the failure of peace negotiations in Ukraine.

Author Dante King joined The Midday Break Room with Tiffany Bacon to break down his latest book, “Diagnosing Whiteness & Anti-Blackness: White Psychopathology, Collective Psychosis and Trauma in America.” In the book, he asserts that race is not real but a legal and psychological construct designed to perpetuate anti-Blackness, leading to the internalization of systemic racism within the Black community.

URL Media co-founders Sara Lomax and S. Mitra Kalita joined Evening WURDs with Dr. James Peterson to discuss URL’s $5 million grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to boost infrastructure for community media. This funding positions URL Media as one of the few national platforms intentionally built to ensure that trusted outlets serving Black and Brown audiences can grow, compete, and build long-term economic strength.

Intuitive crystal healer Fiona McCoy is the creator of “Sis Walks and Talks,” an event series that creates spaces for women to connect and grow together. McCoy joined Soulful Sunrise with Karen Taylor Bass to discuss the power of nature, community, and intentional self-care as modalities for deep personal healing.

Aallyah Wright is a rural issues reporter for Capital B, a nonprofit news organization focusing on Black issues. Wright joined ecoWURD Magazine with P.O.C. to discuss the impact of the 43-day federal government shutdown on SNAP benefits, the mutual aid efforts of Black farmers, and systemic policy barriers that hurt Black farmers, like discrimination in the state’s county committee system.