Diane Rehm: On My Mind

Earlier this year, Florida lawmakers outlawed the use of cell phones during class time in schools throughout the state. Some Florida school districts went further, barring phones from campus all day due to concerns over student distraction and risk of cyberbullying.

Natasha Singer is a reporter for The New York Times who focuses on ways tech companies and their tools are reshaping public schools. She recently visited one of the Florida high schools that outlawed phones and talked to school administrators, teachers, parents and students to hear how the year is going.

Singer adds that these new bans are spreading at the same time lawmakers across the country consider the issue of youth and technology more broadly. This past spring Utah adopted strict limitations on social media for minors. Just last week, states across the country sued tech companies, accusing them of making their apps intentionally addictive to adolescents.

Singer joins Diane on this episode of On My Mind to explain the pros, cons, and unintended consequences of this wave of tech regulation.

About 1.3 million, or one in 25 Americans, are over the age of 80.

On My Mind has covered issues regarding our aging population in the past, from the coming crisis in care to whether enough legal protections are in place to prevent elder financial abuse.  

On this episode, Leonard Downie, former executive editor of the Washington Post, joins Diane to talk about the experience of what life feels like in older age.

“I’m determined not to fear the future,” he says. “Of course, sometimes I do.”

As Downie approached his ninth decade, he started keeping a journal about the experience of becoming an octogenarian. For more than a year, he documented the daily changes, challenges, and unique pleasures of older age, and has now released his musings in a new book titled “80: An Octogenarian’s Journal.”

A horrific bombing at a hospital in Gaza this week left hundreds of Palestinians dead and deepened the crisis in the Middle East.

Hamas placed the blame for the devastating loss of life on an Israeli airstrike, but Israel and the United States say they have intelligence suggesting it was misfire by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a militant group in Gaza.

The strike pushed Arab leaders to cancel scheduled meetings with President Biden, who visited Israel Wednesday and voiced continued support for the country.

Washington Post foreign affairs columnist David Ignatius says we are in a period where “people really have to think carefully about long-term interests.”

Ignatius joins Diane to discuss the path forward and warns if leaders in the region act on emotion and think only of immediate goals, we could end up with a widespread, “catastrophic war.”

Over the past several days the Israeli military has continued a devastating bombardment of the Gaza Strip, with airstrikes flattening entire neighborhoods. Forces also cut off supplies to the area as troops gathered for a likely ground invasion.

This is, of course, in retaliation for the attack by Hamas fighters in Israeli territory on Saturday that left 1300 dead and filled social media with images of intense brutality against civilians.

“I think we’re still in this period of grief,” says Daniel Kurtzer, former U.S. Ambassador to both Israel and Egypt. Kurtzer currently teaches Middle East policy at Princeton University and joined Diane to help give context to the tragic events unfolding in the Middle East.

Last month the FDA approved a new Covid vaccine. But many people around the country have had trouble getting it.  

Lena Sun is a national reporter for the Washington Post who has covered Covid since it first emerged in China. She says this bumpy rollout is a result of how the shot is viewed. Under the federal government’s health emergency, vaccination was seen as a public good. Now the shots are seen as a commercial product, subject to terms of insurance companies, the bottom lines of providers, and market demands. 

“What this has done is highlight the completely byzantine, lousy healthcare system in the United States,” Sun says. 

Sun joined Diane to explain why it has been so difficult to get the vaccine, how dangerous Covid is today, and how to keep yourself and your loved ones safe as we move toward winter, when cases of not only Covid, but also RSV and flu are expected to rise.

Earlier this month, the Biden administration proposed new staffing standards for nursing homes to help improve conditions for the 1.3 million Americans living in facilities across the country.

Advocates have pushed for this change for decades, but the pandemic highlighted just how critical the situation has become. More than 200,000 nursing home residents and workers died, or about one-fifth of the country’s overall Covid-19 deaths. And by all accounts, overall care plummeted.

“This could be a game changer,” says David Grabowski, professor of health care policy at Harvard Medical School. His research examines the economics of aging, with a particular interest in the areas of long-term and post-acute care. He joins Diane to talk about what this new proposal might mean for quality of care – and why it might not go far enough.

Donald Trump holds a 47-point lead in the race for the GOP presidential nomination. As the probability of his primary victory sinks in, legal scholars who see the former president as unfit for office have put forth another way to block a second term: disqualification.

Kimberly Wehle is one of those constitutional scholars. She says Trump's actions after the 2020 election ban him from holding future office under a clause of the 14th Amendment.

Wehle first wrote about this issue back in January 2022 for Politico Magazine. The legal theory has now caught on with liberal groups, who have filed legal challenges in Colorado and Minnesota, and sent letters to election officials in several other states.

Wehle joins Diane on the podcast to talk about what the 14th Amendment actually says, whether it could apply to Donald Trump, and what the consequences of blocking the former president might be for the country.

Mezzo soprano Denyce Graves made her name in the 90s with the roles of Carmen and Delilah.

One of only a handful of black opera singers at the time, she toured the most prestigious concert halls around the world. The Grammy winner has also sung at presidential inaugurations, on Sesame Street, and at Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s memorial service.

Though Graves continue to perform, she has turned her attention towards giving back – and recently launched the Denyce Graves foundation to both support the next generation of black vocalists – and honor the history of “hidden voices” who have come before.

School is back in session across the country for the third time since the pandemic began. Though the school day looks much like it did before Covid-19 forced officials to shutter classrooms, the lingering effects of school closures, online learning, and a world turned upside down are becoming clear.  

This includes lagging test scores, continued staffing issues, and, according to a new study, a dramatic jump in absences. 

Bianca Vazquez Toness is an education reporter for the Associated Press. She has been following the continued impact of the pandemic on young people and schools and says that for many students and families there is still a lot of work to be done.

This July was the hottest month in recorded history. The warmest eight years on the planet have all occurred since 2015.

“The rate of warming is fast,” says journalist Jeff Goodell. He has been writing about climate change for more than 20 years, and last month, released a new book titled, “The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet.”

In it, he explores the impact rising temperatures will have on our environment, our lives and our bodies. “Our understanding and awareness of the dangers of heat are just beginning,” he says.  He adds that this summer’s extreme weather events from wildfires to tropical storms to heat domes, gave us a glimpse into just what those dangers are – and how we can better prepare to face them.