Ray Starling grew up on a hog and tobacco farm in rural North Carolina. He recalls working on the property by age five. Abdullah Antepli grew up in poverty in a slum in Turkey - his father left school in the fifth grade, and his mother is illiterate. Today, both men live in North Carolina, and their politics could not be more different. Starling leans right - he is a former principal agriculture advisor to former President Trump. Antepli, a Duke professor and a Muslim leader, leans left.

But the two became friendly through an innovative program designed to get civic, business and political leaders with differing political views to discuss important issues in the state of North Carolina. In this episode, they talk about how the strategies they learned in the program could help others in these divided times.

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Russia has invaded Ukraine. In response, President Biden has promised that the U.S. will impose "severe sanctions" against Russia for its actions.

But what are sanctions exactly? How do they work? Do they have a history of working? Do they work well?

Bruce Jentleson is a former State Department official. He has held numerous senior foreign policy positions in past U.S. administrations. He's a professor at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University, and his new book is called Sanctions: What Everyone Needs to Know.

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COVID-19 has upended lives around the world. Prior to the pandemic, Jennifer Lansford and her colleagues were conducting in-depth. multi-year research on children and families in nine countries. They are now expanding their research to consider COVID-19 and children and parents' mental health.

Jennifer Lansford is a research professor in the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University where she's an affiliate of Duke's Center for Child & Family Policy.

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Duke Sanford School of Public Policy Professor Stephen Buckley argues In some ways, the events of January 6 and related actions by Trump and his allies feel "like a coup that will never end. An almost invisible, drip, drip, drip coup. Or, as one friend recently called it, 'a termite coup.'"

• Read the article in The Atlantic
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Stephen Glass's story is legendary in certain circles – he is one of the most famous liars in journalism. In 1998, as a young writer for the New Republic and other magazines, Glass fabricated more than 40 articles. And not just small details, he made up whole characters and scenes.

His story even became a film called Shattered Glass.

After Glass was caught, he had to somehow put his life back together again. He did find employment (not as a journalist) and he had a longtime partner. He decided he'd live by a simple rule: always tell the truth.

But when Duke Sanford professor Bill Adair invited Glass to speak to his ethics class, he discovered a little-known part of Glass's story. He had vowed not to lie again, but he found he had to break that promise.

• Read the article Loving Lies on Air Mail
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Twelve Duke students had an exciting opportunity recently – they attended the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland. They join us to discuss what stood out to them, what worries them, and what gives them hope.

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Dr. Jim Young Kim is a physician and anthropologist who previously served as the President of the World Bank. As a student at Harvard he co-founded the influential non-profit Partners in Health with Dr. Paul Farmer.

Kim has received the MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship and was named one of TIME magazine's "100 Most Influential People in the World."

Dr. Kim sat for a wide-ranging conversation with the Duke University Sanford School of Public Policy Dean Judith Kelley. The two discuss China, the challenge and the need to vaccinate the world against COVID-19, and how anyone can use their own skills to make real change.

Scholars, practitioners, advocates and students gathered recently at Duke University to examine the topic of redistricting, the process of drawing congressional boundaries.

The conference included judges and mathematicians, investigative reporters, and more. Each contributed insights to try and untangle the complex web that redistricting had become.

This episode includes comments from:

• James Andrew Wynn, judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
• Jonathan Mattingly, James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of Mathematics, Duke University
• Tyler Dukes, Investigative Reporter, Raleigh News & Observer and Adjunct Instructor in the Sanford School of Public Policy
• Art Pope, Chairman, John William Pope Foundation
• Tom Ross, President, The Volcker Alliance and Co-Chair, North Carolinians for Redistricting Reform

Guest: Professor Deondra Rose, Director of Polis, the Center for Politics at Duke University.

There's been tremendous political wrangling in the US recently about raising the debt ceiling (how much money we allow ourselves to borrow). The U.S. is not the first country in history borrow money and we won't be the last. In the late imperial period until the early 1920s, Russia needed cash, and they got it from Britain and France. Owing so much money gave Russia a kind of power; if Russia defaulted, it would have been catastrophic for the countries that lent them money.

Guest: Duke professor Jennifer Siegel. Her book is For Peace and Money: French and British Finance in the Service of Tsars and Commissars.

If you've ever opened the New York Times, it's likely that you've read something by Frank Bruni. He worked at the paper for 25 years as metro reporter, White House correspondent, Rome bureau chief, and even the chief restaurant critic for a time. He was also the first openly gay op-ed columnist at the Times. Bruni is now a faculty member at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University and he joins Dean Judith Kelley to talk about polarization, ambivalence and ambiguity in the media.

Here's the article they discuss.