PPP Loans, Skin Lightening, Hajj Cancelled

Who Got PPP Loans and What Good It Did (0:33) Guest: Stacy Cowley, Business Reporter, New York Times A return to pandemic shutdown is looming over states including Florida, Texas and California, as COVID-19 cases spike. We’re learning more now about how the first wave of relief loans to small businesses worked out. The Paycheck Protection Program–or PPP–handed out $520 billion in loans, but there’s still more than $130 billion available in the program and the deadline to apply has been extended to August 8. The First Powered Flight on Another Planet (17:35) Guest: Mimi Aung, Project Manager, Mars Helicopter Project, Jet Propulsion Laboratory On July 30, NASA will launch its next Mars Rover, Perserverance. And when it gets there, the red planet is going to hear a new sound. That sound will be the rotating blades of a helicopter specially built for Mars called Ingenuity. And it’s going to take the first powered flight on another planet.  Colorism and Skin Lightening’s Toll on Communities (35:47) Guest: Sarah Webb, Professor, University of Illinois Springfield, Founder, Colorism Healing A handful of the largest skin care and beauty companies in the world are discontinuing products that promise to lighten skin, or changing the names to downplay promises of “lighter skin.” They have names like “Fair & Lovely,” and aren’t typically for sale in the US, but make companies like Johnson & Johnson, Unilever and Loreal a lot of money in Asia, Africa and the Middle East.  Stiffening Our Roads Could Lead to Lower Vehicle Emissions (52:50) Guest: Jeremy Gregory, Civil & Environmental Engineering Researcher, Massachusetts Institute of Technology A hidden problem with America’s roads is draining our gas tanks and causing every mile to emit more CO2 in the atmosphere. The fix, according to MIT scientists, is to make our roads out of stiffer material. The Widespread Problem of Weight Stigma Among Pregnant and Post-Partum Women (1:01:13) Guest: Angela Incollingo Rodriguez, PhD, Professor of Psychology, Worcester Polytec