Kavanaugh Confirmation Turmoil, Endangered Languages, Organ Donation Ethics

Guest: Kimberly Robinson, Supreme Court Reporter, Bloomberg Law Today the Senate Judiciary Committee was to vote on moving Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination forward for final confirmation by the full Senate, hoping to have him seated on the in time for the October start of the Supreme Court term. That process is on hold while the Senate grapples with an allegation from Christine Blasey Ford, who says Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were in high school.

Guest: Keren Ladin, Assistant Professor, Department of Occupational Therapy, Tufts University Every day, an average of 20 people die in the US waiting for an organ transplant. That’s according to figures the government tracks. But those numbers don’t include all the people that never even made it on the waiting list, because they didn’t meet basic criteria. For example, a patient has to show evidence of a strong social support group in order to qualify for an organ donation. Some experts in medical ethics believe that unfairly keeps people from a life-saving transplant.

Guest: Tyler Peterson, PhD, assistant professor of English at Arizona State University There are thousands of languages spoken around the world, but linguists fear that half of them will be extinct by the end of the century. So researchers are scrambling to document these languages and cultures before they’re gone.

Guest: Evgeny Afineevsky, Documentary Filmmaker, “Cries from Syria” The Syrian Civil War – now in its seventh year – is entering the final stages. One last rebel-stronghold in the north of Syria is under assault from Syria government forces. But just a few days ago, Turkey and Russia appear to have brokered a surprise truce that will forestall Russian involvement in the government assault for one month and set up a buffer zone to shield three million civilians living the region. At least half of them are refugees from fighting elsewhere in Syria. Many, many of the Syrians affected by the long-running war are children. The HBO documentary “Cries from Syria” captures the war through the eyes of Syria’s children.

Guest: Daphne de Marneffe, PhD, Psychologist and Author, “The Rough Patch: Marriage and the Art of Living Together.” A quarter of divorcing couples cite money issues as a source of their conflict. When couples argue about money, there’s really so much more going on, according to Daphne de Marneffe \[de MARN-eff], a psychologist and author of “The Rough Patch: Marriage and the Art of Living Together.”