Hurricane Maria's True Toll on Puerto Rico, Housing Assistance Reform, Rethinking How to Teach the Holocaust

Guest: Alexis R. Santos-Lozada, PhD, Director of Graduate Studies in Applied Demography, Department of Sociology and Criminology, and Research Affiliate in the Population Research Institute (PRI), Penn State University When the Category 4 Hurricane Maria touched down on September 20th of last year, it caused extensive damage. Many on the island were without electricity for months. And yet, miraculously, the Puerto Rican government said only 64 people lost their lives in the storm. Then, in December, demographer Alexis Santos, of Penn State University, published a study estimating at least a thousand people died because of the storm. This week, a new estimate published in the New England Journal of Medicine by a team at Harvard places the death toll around 4,500. That would make Hurricane Maria the deadliest in US history, outpacing even Katrina, which killed 1,833 in 2005.

Guest: Alex Schwartz, PhD, Professor at Milano School of International Affairs, Management, and Urban Policy at the New School, and Author of “Housing Policy in the United States” Housing in America is expensive and the national system to subsidize rent for low-income Americans doesn’t come close to filling the need. Only one in four families who qualify to receive housing assistance actual gets it, the rest are stuck on waiting lists that are years long. A new proposal from the Trump Administration aims to put the housing assistance system on a more financially sustainable path. But the suggested changes will mean tripling the rent currently paid by the poorest families. That’s attracted a lot of criticism from housing advocates and experts.

Guest: Alan Marcus, PhD, Associate Professor of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Connecticut, and Faculty Fellow at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Earlier this month, Connecticut passed a law requiring public schools to teach students about the Holocaust and other genocides that have taken place. Legislators in more than a dozen other states are looking to sponsor similar legislation. Schools may soon need to rethink how they teach Holocaust history as the remaining survivors pass away.

(Originally Aired 1/29/2018) Guest: Michael Fox, MD, PhD, Professor of Neurology, Harvard Medical School and Co-Director of the Deep Brain Stimulation Program, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center In 1966, a lone gunman named Charles Whitman perpetrated what’s often considered the first public mass shooting in modern America. He climbed a 300-foot tower at the University of Texas and shot 36 people, killing 14 of them before he was fatally shot by police. An autopsy found a tumor in Whitman’s brain, which some scientists believe may have contributed to his murderous behavior. We know that brain injuries and lesions can change someone’s personality, but can it make someone a violent criminal?

(Originally aired 3/6/2018) Guest: Tony Leonard, Captain, Georgia Tech Police Department Texting while driving is terrible. We all know that. Texting while walking isn’t as bad, is it? Well it’s problematic enough that if you do it while crossing the street in Honolulu you could get a ticket. Quite a few other US cities are thinking about outlawing texting while walking – especially when you’re walking across a street. At Georgia Tech, campus police have started a campaign to get students to look up from their phones while walking.

(Originally aired 12/14/2017) Guest: Chris Harris, Comedy Writer, TV Producer, Author of “I’m Just No Good at Rhyming: And Other Nonsense for Mischievous Kids and Immature Grown-Ups” Chris Harris’ book “I’m Just No Good at Rhyming: And Other Nonsense for Mischievous Kids and Immature Grown-Ups” is sure to make you laugh. It’s illustrated and, ostensibly for kids, but also immature grown-ups, as the book’s subtitle indicates. Chris Harris is a comedy writer and TV producer who worked on The Late Show with David Letterman, among other shows. This is his first foray into children’s poetry.