GOP Healthcare, Unopposed Elections, Harry Potter's 20th

Guest: Danielle Ofri, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine, New York University, Editor-in-Chief of the Bellevue Literary Review and the Author of “What Patients Say, What Doctors Hear” The US Senate is expected to vote on its own version of a plan to replace Obamacare this week. The plan crafted by Senate Republicans bears a lot of similarity to what House Republicans passed several weeks ago. Major physician groups including the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics have expressed concern that the Republican proposals will make healthcare in the US worse.  Dr. Danielle Ofri recently published an Op-Ed in the New York Times encouraging health professionals to take a side in the healthcare debate and call their members of Congress.

Guest: Melissa Marschall, PhD, Professor of Political Science, Rice University, Director of the Center for Local Elections in American Politics (LEAP) of Rice University’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research The city of Provo, Utah is having a mayoral election this year. The two-term mayor is not running for re-election, so the field is wide open and eight candidates are running in the nonpartisan race. Based on some new research, that’s fairly unusual. The study looked at six different states over the last 15 years and found that half the time, the mayoral elections went uncontested, with only one candidate. It seems that unopposed mayoral elections are becoming more and more frequent.

Guest: Jon Ostenson, PhD, Associate Professor of English, BYU It’s the 20th anniversary of Harry Potter’s debut. Two whole decades have already passed. The series that has sold over 450 million copies also has movies, interactive websites like Pottermore, fictional textbooks, theme-parks, even a theatrical play created in its name. But, maybe the greatest significance of the Harry Potter legacy is how JK Rowling made reading magical again for a generation of adolescents.

Guest: Kristin Matthews, PhD, Associate Professor of English, BYU For this month’s segment of “From the Vaults,” we’re going to dive into the BYU Special Collections to celebrate one of America’s greatest poets: Langston Hughes. This year marks the 50th anniversary of his death. The “king” of the Harlem Renaissance was known for writing jazz-influenced poetry that reflected the daily lives of African-Americans at the time and was accessible to everyone, not just scholars. BYU Special Collections has a signed copy of his book of poetry, "The Dream Keeper." Professor Matthews argues that his dreams are still unrealized today.

Guest: Shawn O’Neill, Producer and Movie Reviewer for BYUradio It is time for our weekly look at new movies in theaters. We are joined in studio by Shawn O’Neill to discuss the new movies, "The Book of Henry" and "47 Meters Down."

Guest: George Donohue, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Systems Engineering and Operations Research and Founding Director of the Center for Air Transportation Systems Research, George Mason University