Syrian Civil War, Fighting College Poverty, Cookbook for Leftovers

Guest: John Macfarlane, Adjunct Professor of Political Science, Utah Valley University What could be the last major battle of Syria’s long-running civil war will begin soon. Syrian government forces are poised for a massive assault that UN officials fear may include chemical weapons, on Idlib province. It’s in the north of Syria and is the last stronghold of rebel fighters opposing the Assad regime. Some 3 million civilians also live there, about half of them refugees from other regions of Syria retaken by government forces. Russia and Iran are backing the government’s preparations to attack Idlib. Turkey tried desperately over the weekend to negotiate a truce. Those talks failed. Now a top UN official warns the coming onslaught could become the worst humanitarian catastrophe and biggest loss of life in the 21st Century.

Guest: Russell Lowery-Hart, PhD, President, Amarillo College Getting a college degree is a proven pathway out of poverty, but poverty itself is a major barrier to actually getting that degree. A national survey of university students found a third of them had been without a reliable source of food in the last month. And nearly 10 percent had been homelessness in the last year. Among community college students, those numbers are higher. There’s a community college in Amarillo, Texas with an unusually, aggressive approach to making sure poverty doesn’t derail students from their studies.

Guest: Martha Truslow Smith, Founder of the Instagram Account, @grombre Women have been told for decades that a good beauty regimen includes hair dye.So if you’re not coloring your hair and covering your grays, you’re telling the world that you’re not worth it? You’re basically letting yourself go? Martha Truslow Smith started an Instagram account several years ago to counter this message. It’s called Grombre, featuring pictures of women celebrating the gray in their locks. The account has tens of thousands of followers who chime in with “you go girl” positivity on every picture.

Guest: Nancy Lough, PhD, Professor of Educational Psychology, University of Nevada, Las Vegas Tennis stars Naomi Osaka and Novak Djokovic each got $3.8 million for winning the US Open over the weekend. Wimbledon also awards equal prize money to male and female winners. But tennis is unusual in professional sports. The winner’s prize for women in major golf tournaments like the British Open or US Open is less than half what the men win. The US Women’s Soccer Team has won far more World Cup titles and Olympic gold medals than their male counterparts – and the women even bring in more profits for US Soccer - yet the women get paid less than the men. Over on the basketball court, the minimum salary for an NBA player is $838,000. That’s eight times what the very highest WNBA player earns.

Guest: Julia Turshen, Best-Selling Author of the Cookbooks "Small Victories", "Feed the Resistance", and "Now & Again". Cooking enough food to have leftovers the next day makes for an easy meal the next day. But much beyond that, it can be hard to get excited about eating the same thing again. Is there a better way to do leftovers?

Guest: Jake Williams, Founder of Rendition Infosec At the big annual hacking conference called DEF CON, there are lectures, games, hacking competitions and robotics. But a new event has popped up at the convention in recent years called - the Voting Machine Village. They bring in a bunch of voting machines currently in use around the country and let hackers have at it. You’ve probably seen some of the headlines and viral videos. They’re worrisome.