This edition of The Neil Haley Show opens with a Love Is podcast simulcast, co-hosted by Kim Sorrelle, welcoming actor Scott Valentine, remembered as Nick Moore on Family Ties. Valentine spoke about resilience, recounting how being run over by a truck left him paralyzed and told he would never walk again, and how he refused to accept that verdict. He framed setbacks as manure to clean off before climbing back on the horse, insisting that when someone treats you like dirt it defines them, not you. He credited his good fortune working with Michael J. Fox, Michael Gross, Meredith Baxter, Justine Bateman, and creator Gary David Goldberg, then centered the conversation on Red Coral Universe, the ad-supported streaming platform he built with partner Larry Meistrich to give independent creators a real voice and a fair share of the profits, splitting revenue from dollar one and opening the door to makers the big platforms overlook. Find it at redcoraluniverse.com.

Neil then joined a Criminally Good with Sherrie and Jen simulcast, presented by Storehouse Media Group, welcoming Matthew B. Cox, a former licensed mortgage broker who became a notorious white-collar offender and once landed on the U.S. Secret Service's most-wanted list before serving time in federal prison. Cox recounted how, since his release, he has reinvented himself as a true-crime author and the host of the popular YouTube show Inside True Crime, where he interviews law enforcement and former criminals, occasionally joking that a guest turns out to be less former than advertised, for an audience of more than a million subscribers. He explained that he began writing behind bars, penning memoirs of fellow inmates, among them Efraim Diveroli, whom he was incarcerated alongside, and clarified a common mix-up: he did not write War Dogs, the film that drew from a Rolling Stone article by Guy Lawson, with Jonah Hill playing Diveroli. His own book, Shark in the Housing Pool, has been optioned for the screen several times over roughly seven years without yet becoming a movie, a grind Cox takes in stride, noting that only a handful of optioned projects ever get made and that he is happy with where things stand. He offered a candid critique of the true-crime convention circuit for sidelining actual reformed offenders while welcoming him only as a journalist, and, drawing on the long odds he has watched other authors face, cautioned anyone banking on a single Hollywood deal to build something else in the meantime. Now channeling that same hustle into growing his shows across new platforms, he encouraged listeners to check out Inside True Crime.

The hour closes with a Jesus and Ugly Jody simulcast, hosted with Sherrie, where recurring guest Jody Corbett led a reflection on blessings. Corbett walked through several kinds, material provision, relationships, and health, and pointed especially to what he called unrealized blessings, the disappointments that only reveal themselves as gifts in hindsight, a point Neil and Sherrie echoed with their own stories of doors that closed before better ones opened. He opened by asking simply what a blessing is, and pressed on where blessings come from. Anchoring the talk in Jeremiah 29:11, he noted that God's plans are meant not only to prosper but to protect, and reminded listeners that even everyday gifts like a healthy body, rest, and the breath of each morning are easy to overlook. He then turned to the temptation of Jesus in Matthew 4 to argue that not everything that looks like a blessing is one, since some are distractions meant to pull us off course, and that our free will shapes which doors we let God open. Find Scott Valentine at redcoraluniverse.com and Matthew B. Cox on Inside True Crime.

This edition of The Neil Haley Show opens with a conversation with actor Mika Abdalla about her role in the coming-of-age film Snack Shack, streaming on Paramount. Abdalla, whose breakout came on the Netflix series Project MC2 after an early start in commercials and an American Girl movie, described Snack Shack, directed by Adam Rehmeier and loosely based on his own childhood, as a warm throwback to the coming-of-age movies of the 1980s and 1990s. Centered on two young best friends running a poolside snack stand over one eventful summer, the film casts Abdalla as the girl who moves to town and shakes things up. To prepare, the director flew the cast in early to live their characters' lives around town, soaking up the era's cars, fashion, and music, and she reflected on the bittersweet, temporary closeness of friendships formed on location and on set. With the industry ramping back up after a slow stretch, she said she is excited to find her next project. Find her on Instagram at Mika Abdalla.

Neil's team then aired a Storehouse Media Group simulcast, with Neil away, featuring mortgage expert Phil Gantz, the driving force behind Next Wave Mortgage, on helping first-time buyers, especially younger people daunted by home prices. Gantz's guidance was to get your financial house in order first, steering clear of late payments and building savings, then to explore the down payment assistance programs that can bridge the gap, some carrying credit-score minimums around 640. He explained that lenders run applications through automated underwriting from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and that the depth and history of one's credit can matter as much as the raw score, so an established borrower with a modest number may fare better than a newcomer with a higher one. His bottom line, offered as professional perspective rather than personalized advice, was that there is no perfect moment and real value in starting sooner.

The hour closes with a Criminally Good with Sherrie and Jen simulcast, presented by Storehouse Media Group, welcoming retired Washington State Trooper Carlos Rodriguez, author of The Ugly Underneath. Rodriguez spent roughly eight years on the state's Missing and Exploited Children Task Force before retiring in 2020, and his book confronts the emotional toll of investigating crimes against children rather than the cases themselves. He spoke about compartmentalization as a survival skill for first responders, from officers to ER staff, and about its hidden cost when those mental boxes are never reopened and processed, quietly straining health and family life. After relocating to San Diego, where he now works for a school district, he lost his old support structure, sought therapy, and, at his counselor's encouragement, began writing to help others. He framed the book as a lifeline for those doing this difficult protective work and their families, a way to tell spouses and children that a loved one's distance was never their fault, and to help fellow first responders know they are not alone. He made the case for accurate language, explaining why he favors the term child sexual abuse material over one he believes minimizes the reality, and acknowledged how easily people shut down when the subject comes up, arguing that the topic has to be discussed, in a measured way, if society is going to confront it and support both the investigators and the survivors who need help to heal. Writing about two hours a day for roughly a year, he shaped those sessions into the book, and he closed by honoring the many people who step away from their own families to protect other people's children, urging listeners to support that mission. He also noted his former task force accepts public donations through the Washington State Patrol website. The Ugly Underneath is available online, and you can find Mika Abdalla's Snack Shack on Paramount.

Bestselling Novelist Don Winslow, Reset Medical's Corey, Filmmaker Michael Tove, and GildaGram with Dr. Gilda Carle

This edition of The Neil Haley Show opens with New York Times bestselling crime novelist Don Winslow, joined by co-host Lefty, about his 26th book, City in Ruins. Winslow traced his lifelong pull toward writing to a book-loving home, a career-Navy father and a librarian mother, and a sister who is herself a novelist many times over. He spoke about the strange intimacy of spending more time with people who do not exist than those who do, the thrill and feedback of meeting readers on tour, and his gratitude that everything he owns he owes to them. He was candid that for years agents and editors insisted he would never make the list and simply would not print enough copies, until his breakout about the Mexican drug cartels arrived the day before El Chapo escaped from prison and everything changed. City in Ruins completes the Danny Ryan trilogy, following its longshoreman-turned-fugitive protagonist to a new life as a Las Vegas casino magnate. Winslow, a self-described overnight success in his fifties, treats writing as a five-day-a-week job and urged aspiring authors to never give up and to take ownership of marketing themselves rather than leaning on a publisher. City in Ruins is at Amazon and independent bookstores.

Neil then hosted a Reset Medical and Wellness Center podcast simulcast with Corey, a nurse who has been with the Strongsville clinic almost since it opened. She described a practice that treats patients like family, many of the staff having gone through treatment themselves, and walked through the clinic's neurosympathetic reset, a procedure Dr. Lauer's team uses to calm an overactive fight-or-flight response tied to stress, anxiety, and trauma. Corey shared that she was initially the skeptic, then watched patients arrive flat and withdrawn and return the next day transformed, and eventually underwent the reset herself after years of insomnia and pandemic-era stress on the job. She reported sleeping better and, more meaningfully, shifting from merely powering through tasks to being present with her family, recounting that others noticed her old self returning. She framed the results as her own and her patients' lived experience.

The hour continued with a Celebrity Interviews simulcast from the grotto welcoming North Carolina filmmaker Michael Tove about his award-winning short Yard Sale-ing. Tove traced a storyteller's path from O. Henry, Rod Serling, and Hitchcock-style twist endings, through a cattle-call role on the feature film The Handmaid's Tale that hooked him, to fifteen years of screenwriting training and friendships with industry veterans, among them director Tom Logan, who directed the short. He described Yard Sale-ing, an idea he first sketched decades ago, as a Hitchcockian tale of opposites, an effervescent optimist certain she will strike treasure at a yard sale and her reluctant, dryly sarcastic husband, whose outing takes an unexpected turn. Logan's casting drew Eric and Eliza Roberts along with leads Georgia Van Cuylenburg and Liam Bradford, and Tove praised the on-set chemistry and collaboration. Watch it free at emeraldoakproductions.com.

The program closes with a GildaGram simulcast where Dr. Gilda Carle weighed in on biohacker Bryan Johnson, who has poured a fortune into defying aging and now concedes he may have gone too far, linking an autoimmune condition to his own regimen. Carle's takeaway was blunt: there is no fountain of youth and no quick fix, and the wiser aim is to grow wiser as we age. Find Don Winslow's City in Ruins in bookstores and Michael Tove's Yard Sale-ing at emeraldoakproductions.com.

Snack Shack's Mika Abdalla, Author Robert Wolf on The Mike Vilardi Show, and Former Congressman Jason Altmire

This edition of The Neil Haley Show opens with a conversation with actor Mika Abdalla about her role in the coming-of-age film Snack Shack, streaming on Paramount. Abdalla traced a career that began almost by accident, with an open casting call for a parenting magazine at her dentist's office when she was five or six, an only child whose mother wanted to draw her out of her shyness. That led to commercials, an American Girl movie at eleven, and her breakout on Project MC². She described Snack Shack, directed by Adam Rehmeier and loosely based on his own childhood, as a warm throwback to 1980s and 1990s coming-of-age movies, centered on two young best friends running a poolside snack stand over the summer, with Abdalla playing the girl who moves to town and shakes things up. To prepare, the director flew the cast in early to live their characters' lives around town, swimming at the pool and soaking up the era's cars, fashion, and music. She reflected on the bittersweet, temporary closeness of people met on location and on set, and said she is excited to find her next project now that the industry is ramping back up. Find her on Instagram at Mika Abdalla.

Neil then joined a Mike Vilardi Show simulcast welcoming author Robert Wolf, whose book Not a Real Enemy tells the true story of his family's survival through Nazi Germany and the communism that followed, drawn from his father's fight for freedom. Wolf spoke about his parents having endured totalitarianism at its most extreme and about his own belief in engaging across cultures, communities, and faiths rather than dividing into us and them, recalling friendships that cross religious lines. The wide-ranging conversation also moved into current events and a debate over socialism, communism, immigration, and public safety, with the hosts and guest offering their own strong political opinions. Not a Real Enemy is available from booksellers.

The hour closes with a segment co-hosted by author and publisher Paul Hollis featuring former Pennsylvania Congressman Jason Altmire, now a national association CEO, adjunct professor, and author. Altmire reflected on life after Congress, having left office at 44 determined not to let his career peak in his 40s, and on how the public's perception of the institution has soured in the years since. He discussed his book Dead Center, which examines the causes of political polarization, draws on academic research into how partisans think, and weaves in his own experience as a centrist in a divided Congress. Altmire argued that most Americans sit closer to the center than the political class does, citing Pew research that roughly a third identify at the extremes, evenly split left and right, and warning that because those voters dominate primaries and campaign giving, closed primary systems reward candidates who speak to the edges. He said he regrets that his 2017 forecast of worsening division has proven right. Find Jason Altmire's Dead Center wherever books are sold.

Family Ties' Scott Valentine, the FMCSA's Cicely Waters, Tam R. Luc, Joel Berg of Hunger Free America, plus Wounded Sisters and GildaGram

This edition of The Neil Haley Show opens with a Love Is podcast simulcast, co-hosted by Kim Sorrelle, welcoming actor Scott Valentine, remembered as Nick Moore on Family Ties. Valentine spoke candidly about resilience, recounting how being run over by a truck left him paralyzed and told he would never walk again, and how he refused to accept that verdict. He framed life's setbacks as manure you clean off before climbing back on the horse, insisting that when someone treats you like dirt it defines them, not you. He credited his good fortune on Family Ties working with Michael J. Fox, Michael Gross, Meredith Baxter, Justine Bateman, and creator Gary David Goldberg, and traced his path from Hollywood through banking to entrepreneurship. Most of the conversation centered on Red Coral Universe, the ad-supported streaming platform he built with partner Larry Meistrich to give independent content makers a real voice and a fair share of the profits, splitting revenue from dollar one with no ingestion, onboarding, or carriage fees. With roughly 10,000 licensed titles and an open-door policy for creators, the goal, he said, is a universe that serves both viewer and maker. Find it at redcoraluniverse.com.

Neil then welcomed Cicely Waters, FMCSA Director of Communications and a ten-year Air Force veteran, to spotlight the Freedom Haulers initiative connecting veterans to trucking careers. She explained that military service instills the safety, professionalism, leadership, and comfort with complex equipment the industry prizes, and that the mission need not end when the uniform comes off. She detailed the Even Exchange program, now active in 27 states with nine more committed, which lets qualifying service members waive the CDL knowledge and skills tests, and the CMVOST grant, which funds scholarships covering CDL training for veterans and their families. With driving jobs often reaching six figures and GI Bill benefits applicable, she urged transitioning members to explore the options at freedomhaulers.dot.gov.

The hour continued with a Storehouse Media Group simulcast featuring Tam R. Luc, founder of Women Who Bossed Up. A longtime entrepreneur with a commercial real estate and marketing background, Luc built her company to help women who have hustled their way into a bind, where every function runs through them, redesign and systematize their businesses to grow past that choke hold. She traced the arc from her book A Woman's Side Hustle and her Women Who Boss Up author collections to hands-on work with service, real estate, and medical business owners, and shared that she designed her own life to be location-independent, now running a high-revenue business from Malaysia. Find her at WomenWhoBossUp.com.

Neil next spoke with Joel Berg, founder and CEO of the nonpartisan Hunger Free America, which connects people to SNAP, school meals, and WIC, runs the USDA National Hunger Hotline, and advocates on policy. Berg argued that hunger persists because of low wages and a thin safety net, noting that before the government stopped collecting the data, USDA counted 48 million Americans who could not always afford enough food, most of them working people rather than the homeless. The segment became a frank exchange on solutions, with Berg contending that stronger safety-net policy and higher wages are the answer and Neil making the case for a viable third party. Learn more at hungerfreeamerica.org.

The program closes with two simulcasts. On Wounded Sisters, bestselling author Mary Shearer Eckert, marking her 30th wedding anniversary, discussed her novel about a retreat where broken pastors' wives find healing, forgiveness, and faith. On GildaGram, Dr. Gilda Carle examined online cruelty, using Ariana Grande's decision to step back to argue that anonymous

Billy Baldwin of Hit the Floor, Dr. Pam Mullarkey Robbins, The Walking Dead's David Morrissey, and Xzibit

This edition of The Neil Haley Show opens with a Total Celebrity conversation with actor Billy Baldwin about his guest-starring turn on VH1's Hit the Floor. Baldwin, reflecting on the rowdy, rambunctious upbringing that shaped the famous Baldwin brothers, described the series as a scripted soap opera set inside a professional basketball franchise, the fictional Los Angeles Devils, full of behind-the-scenes drama among players, wives, cheerleaders, and a front office locked in a power struggle. He plays Everett, a billionaire pulling strings behind the scenes, and likened the dynamic to the real-life Lakers tug-of-war between Jeanie Buss and Phil Jackson. Baldwin praised showrunner James LaRosa and co-star Dean Cain, marveled at the caliber of the dancers, and joked that playing a master of the universe required no research given the billionaires strolling his Montecito neighborhood. He noted he is producing and starring in his third Hallmark Channel film and had just wrapped a movie in Italy with Michael Madsen. Hit the Floor airs at 10 p.m. Eastern.

Neil then welcomed Dr. Pam Mullarkey Robbins, author of What's So Funny About Dementia?, a counselor and psychologist and four-time caregiver who explained how humor became her survival tool during her mother's Alzheimer's journey, always laughing with the person and never at them. She walked through prevention, the protein BDNF and the habits that support it, diet, exercise, rest, lower stress, and socialization, and named early warning signs like repeated questions and unexplained car damage. Because a caregiver who collapses cannot care for anyone, her counseling starts with the caregiver. Her second book, The Brighter Side of Dementia, collects a hundred reader-submitted stories.

Neil then spoke with acclaimed British actor David Morrissey, unforgettable as the Governor on The Walking Dead, about the Starz and BBC thriller The Missing. Morrissey said he treasures the friendships and the visceral response to a character audiences love to hate, then turned to the new season's story of a soldier whose daughter, abducted as a child, walks back into the family's life eleven years later. Told across two timelines, the series follows not the search for a missing child but the harder aftermath of her return, as a delighted father and a suspicious mother are driven apart and a tenacious French detective, Julien Baptiste, played by Tchéky Karyo, reopens the case. Morrissey, who stars opposite Keeley Hawes, reflected on the guilt and grief such a homecoming stirs and the truth that you must be careful what you wish for. He also invited listeners to his Boogaloo Radio music show.

The hour closes with a Total Education segment featuring recording artist, television host, and entrepreneur Xzibit. A recording artist since his 1996 debut who went on to work with Dr. Dre, Eminem, and Snoop Dogg and to host Pimp My Ride, Xzibit explained why, as the first millionaire in his family, he chose ownership over mere endorsement, becoming a partner in the Bonita Platinum tequila brand rather than simply lending his name. He detailed a market-by-market rollout built on events and local brand ambassadors, his goal of taking the brand everywhere, and a charitable streak that spans a breast-cancer campaign and homes he has helped build for wounded warriors near San Antonio. He also previewed continued touring behind his album Napalm. Find Billy Baldwin's work on VH1, David Morrissey in The Missing on Starz, and Xzibit's Bonita Platinum tequila as it expands.

Grammy Winner Jermaine Dupri, Actor Chris Mulkey, and Entrepreneur Robin Sims-Allen

This edition of The Neil Haley Show opens with a Total Celebrity conversation with Grammy-winning producer Jermaine Dupri about Lifetime's The Rap Game, returning for a third season with Queen Latifah. Dupri, the So So Def founder behind decades of hits and discoveries from Kris Kross to Bow Wow and Da Brat, explained that finding talent comes down to genuine interest and really listening, and that the rare misses happen only when an artist is not as gifted as they believe. He described The Rap Game as unlike American Idol or The Voice, a hip-hop show built to educate kids roughly twelve to sixteen while their parents watch alongside them, teaching craft, competitiveness, and the culture itself. Looking ahead, Dupri said this season raises the talent bar and brings in more of his celebrity friends, and he shared his deeper hope for the genre: a return to artists with distinct, individual styles. He pointed out that Tupac and Biggie never sounded alike, and that Jay-Z and Nas each carved their own lane, arguing that today's artists sound too similar to become iconic. The season premieres Friday at 10 p.m. Eastern.

Neil then welcomed veteran character actor Chris Mulkey for a Celebrity Interviews simulcast from the grotto of co-host Greg Hanna. Mulkey, a self-described lover of playing the bad guy, traced his craft from boyhood in Minnesota, where the AWA wrestling circuit and stars like Verne Gagne first awakened his love of drama, through classical theater training to a screen career of memorable heels. He shared the origins of Hank Jennings on Twin Peaks, drawn from a dangerous, charming ex-convict he once knew, and a harrowing on-set moment during Captain Phillips, filmed off Malta, when he instinctively grabbed a stunt performer back from going over a railing fifty feet above the water. He recalled advice from Clint Eastwood that sent him back to Minnesota to write and star in his own films, Loose Ends and Patty Rocks, both Sundance winners, the latter with his late wife Karen Landry. He reflected on Whiplash, whose family scene was the first shot of a film that won three Academy Awards, and named the Robert Duvall western Broken Trail as his favorite villain role. Mulkey previewed a run of new movies, including the 1990s hair-band comedy Rock Bottom with Jake Bongiovi, plus Far Haven, Deadland, and Long Shadows, and said the most important things in life are family and loyalty to friends. Find his music at chrismulkeymusic.com.

The hour closes with a Storehouse Media Group simulcast, hosted by Sherrie, featuring Robin Sims-Allen, founder and CEO of Phoenix Marcus LLC. A tech professional and entrepreneur with 22 years of experience who launched her first company in 2007, Sims-Allen built Phoenix Marcus as an umbrella brand so she would never have to pick a single lane, spanning an organic beauty and franchise venture, a consulting practice, and TotalHER, a women-only platform. She described consulting on process improvement and strategy across industries, from past defense and Amtrak-related work to embedding AI into nearly every current project, and framed her minority- and women-owned firm, based outside Atlanta, around finding problems to solve and working backward from the end goal. TotalHER, she explained, is evolving from a social platform into a future-of-work space for women, letting professionals from fitness and finance to beauty and law build brands and income in one trusted place. Her advice to entrepreneurs was to embrace failure as a lesson, to keep pivoting rather than niching into a corner, to try the exact opposite of your safe bet, and to treat skill-building as ongoing research and development, living by the creed of each one, teach one. TotalHER is live now at totalher.co. Find Jermaine Dupri on The Rap Game and Chris Mulkey's films on Amazon Prime.

This edition of The Neil Haley Show opens with a Total Celebrity conversation with actress Kim Fields, beloved for The Facts of Life and Living Single, about her book and career. Fields, a Steelers fan who competed on Dancing with the Stars alongside Antonio Brown, reflected on nine years, from age nine to eighteen, growing up on The Facts of Life, and on the mentors who shaped her, from co-star Nancy McKeon to Norman Lear, Dick Clark, and Ruby Dee. She credited her longevity to learning her craft, doing theater, and deliberately building backup skills in directing, writing, and producing so that if one hat wasn't working she could put on another, rather than fade into a has-been at eighteen. She also named contemporaries like Nicole Ari Parker and Blair Underwood as peers who sharpen one another, iron sharpening iron. Fields lit up about Living Single finally streaming on Hulu and the flood of fan response, saying she loves how much the fans love the show. Reflecting on a journey from a single-parent home in Harlem to a lasting career, she framed the book less as a look-at-me than a look at all God has done, and encouraged listeners that rock bottom is never the end. Find her book and coffee line, including the Blessed Blend and a binge-watching Binge Blend, at KimFields.com.

Neil then welcomed retired DC homicide detective turned author and filmmaker Mitch Credle for a Criminally Good with Jen and Sherrie simulcast, presented by Storehouse Media Group. Credle spent 29 years with DC's Metropolitan Police, some 23 of them in homicide, and traced his path to the veteran detectives he idolized, part Miami Vice, part real-life heroes, before turning to writing and film. His novels Stranger in the Streets and Damaged Roots blend real cases and characters into fiction, and his five films, including the documentaries A Detective Story and 12 Years in Hell on Tubi and Informant on Prime, grew from a passion to tell DC's disappearing history through the people who lived it. He described how the leadership of running a homicide scene, where the detective is effectively in charge of everyone present, translated to directing, and recounted difficult cases including the Banita Jacks tragedy and the Colonel Brooks Tavern killing, where a childhood friend was among the victims and he refused to face the family until arrests were made nine months later. He explained why he casts real families and community members and flags graphic content on screen rather than sugarcoat it, wanting to honor victims and preserve a version of DC that is rapidly vanishing, and praised up-and-coming actors like Mark Scheiss and Michael Anderson from Informant. He previewed a serial-killer script and a new film, Brooklyn, promising untold details of the Colonel Brooks investigation. Find him as Mitch Credle across social media.

The hour closes with an AI Office Hours simulcast, where Neil and co-host Pat Riley debated where artificial intelligence is really headed. Neil shared an epiphany that he had been pouring too much time into automation loops that produced data he never used, and both argued that AI's true value is as a productivity multiplier and tool that makes a person sharper, not an autonomous replacement for human judgment. Neil described using AI conversationally as a kind of financial assistant to organize revenue, invoices, and time tracking, while stressing that it still needs a human driving it on a tight leash. They voiced skepticism about the hype around fully automated one-person AI businesses, warned against quitting a job to chase it, and predicted a reckoning for those who over-automate at the expense of their own skills, while agreeing the smart move is to use AI to become better than anyone not using it. Find Kim Fields at KimFields.com and Mitch Credle's films on Tubi and Prime.

This edition of The Neil Haley Show opens with a Caregiver Dave segment, co-hosted by caregiver advocate Dave Nassaney, welcoming astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium, about his book Cosmic Queries: StarTalk's Guide to Who We Are, How We Got Here, and Where We're Going. Tyson explained that his lifelong goal was simply the PhD in astrophysics, and that he sees his public role as serving the public's cosmic curiosity, even fantasizing about slipping quietly back to the lab someday. He argued that a free, pluralistic democracy depends on shared, objectively established scientific truths, that people are free to believe as they wish but that laws should rest on what is demonstrably true, and he warned that tribalism and science denial threaten the country's standing. Asked whether God and science can coexist, Tyson drew a careful distinction between a hands-off creator, a view he tied to the deism of the Founding Fathers, and literal readings that collide with the natural world. He offered the example of the mysteries God lays before Job in the Old Testament, tides, migrations, and more, noting that science has since explained nearly all of them, and cautioned that placing God only in the shrinking gaps of scientific ignorance leaves an ever-receding faith. He described StarTalk as a blend of science, humor, and pop culture, using shared references as a scaffold to make science relevant, and Cosmic Queries as a collection of the deepest questions readers have asked, from why we are here to how it all began and will end. When Nassaney raised caregiving, Tyson reflected on his mother the gerontologist, on caring for aging relatives, and on how longer lifespans have left society, and undervalued caregivers, unprepared. Cosmic Queries is available at booksellers and on Amazon.

Neil then welcomed author Paul Shemella, a retired Navy SEAL captain, lecturer, and caregiver whose memoir Into the Mist: An Alzheimer's Journey chronicles his wife Lena's decline and his devotion to her. Shemella explained that dementia is an umbrella term covering roughly a hundred conditions, of which Alzheimer's is the most common, and spoke candidly about learning as he went, eventually placing Lena in memory care and coming to peace with a decision that helped them both. He stressed that up to forty-five percent of dementia cases may be preventable through lifestyle, pointing to diet, exercise, sleep, social connection, and staying intellectually engaged, and urged early attention to warning signs like repeatedly losing things, the value of ruling out reversible mimics before seeing a neurologist, and the promise of newer blood tests and treatments that work best when caught early. His recent Newsweek essay warns the American healthcare system is unprepared for a coming wave, and he shared his mantra of living from one smile to the next. Readers can find him on Substack and on Amazon, where his memoir and earlier novels appear.

The program closes with a back-to-school conversation with Vanessa Vakharia, the Toronto-based Math Guru, on setting students up for a distraction-free year. She urged parents to choose tools that do one thing well, noted many states are moving to limit phones in schools, and recommended studying at the kitchen table and starting school-year routines two weeks early. In a segment tied to Texas Instruments, she praised the new TI-84 Evo graphing calculator for its familiar, icon-based screen and, above all, for having no AI and no internet, so students stay on task. Vakharia stressed that math anxiety is not a life sentence, that confidence grows through consistency, and that math, like life, is a step-by-step journey rather than a race to the answer. Find Neil deGrasse Tyson's Cosmic Queries and Paul Shemella's Into the Mist on Amazon, and Vanessa Vakharia's back-to-school picks at education.ti.com/evo.

This edition of The Neil Haley Show opens with a Total Celebrity conversation with WWE Hall of Famer Mick Foley about his book Saint Mick: My Journey from Hardcore Legend to Santa's Jolly Elf. Neil, a former pro wrestler himself, thanked Foley for once steering him toward promoter Bert Prentice and the independent circuit early in his own career. Foley reflected on a run that exceeded even his own expectations, from grinding out a 58-minute match in front of just 25 people in Jonesboro, Arkansas, to stardom in WCW and the WWF, and shared the lesson that it is not the size of the crowd but the impact you have on the people in the room. That same conviction, he said, drives his six years portraying Santa Claus, and he told a moving story about a Christmas Eve visit to a young cancer patient on Long Island, whose transformation he ranked among the finest moments of his career. Foley explained that he wrote the book himself, partly for his children, and credited Stephanie McMahon with convincing him the offbeat, touching Christmas tale could reach beyond wrestling fans. He previewed his 20 Years of Hell tour, built around bringing that infamous match back to life. Find him at realmickfoley.com.

Neil then turned to a J Len Sciuto Show simulcast, where the retired Coast Guard officer and thriller author offered his own geopolitical analysis, opening, as he noted, with a disclaimer that it is opinion and discussion drawn from public reporting rather than settled fact. He walked through his reading of tensions around Iran's nuclear program and a fortified mountain site near the Natanz facility, the risk of the Houthis widening the conflict, and the military scenarios he fears could follow, while also touching the Abraham Accords, the long U.S. history of regime-change operations, and rising oil prices. Drawing on 36 years in the Coast Guard, he tied the themes to his bestselling submarine thriller Hades Crypt and a coming sequel, Desperate Countermeasures, noting that a large share of his book royalties supports junior enlisted service members. Reach him at jlenscuto.com.

Neil then welcomed the legendary Suzanne Somers, author of Two's Company: A 50-Year Romance with Lessons Learned in Love, Life, and Business. Somers shared the story of meeting her husband, Canadian television star Alan Hamel, on a San Francisco game-show set, and of a partnership so close the two have not spent a night apart in decades while also running a business together. She recounted her rise on Three's Company, being fired after seeking pay equal to the men on the number-one show, and the smear campaign that followed, then how she and Hamel refused to dwell on what she had lost and instead branded Suzanne Somers, from the ThighMaster to headlining Las Vegas. Her throughline was simple: problems do not define you, how you respond to them does, and the goal is to turn setbacks into opportunities. Find her at SuzanneSomers.com.

The hour closes with actor and director Mario Van Peebles on Syfy's Superstition, in which he writes, directs, produces, and stars alongside his daughter Morgana. Van Peebles described growing up in the Van Peebles independent-film family as an apprenticeship in every job on a set, from cables and lighting to directing, so that wearing many hats now feels natural. He pitched Superstition as the story of a loving Southern family in the funeral business, running the Hastings Funeral Home, who battle demons rising as humanity does more damage to the planet, each episode built around a different piece of Gothic Americana. He shared bits of his father Melvin's wisdom, that luck is preparation meeting opportunity, and that it is not what you face but how you face it that reveals you. Find Mick Foley's Saint Mick and Suzanne Somers' Two's Company in bookstores, Jay Len Sciuto at jlenscuto.com, and Mario Van Peebles on Superstition.