Supreme Court Wraps Term

Guest: Kimberly Robinson, Supreme Court Reporter, Bloomberg Law

The US Supreme Court has wrapped its term –the first with Justice Brett Kavanaugh sitting on the bench. We take a look at a the major rulings, including a decision against the Trump Administration's efforts to put a citizenship question on the 2020 Census. Chief Justice John Roberts ruled with the liberal wing of the bench in that case. Is he the Court's new swing vote? Plus, a look at what the Supreme Court is planning to consider next term. 

Easter Island Statues Degrading from Weather and Tourists

Guest: Jo Anne Van Tilburg, Director of the Easter Island Statue Project and Director of the Cotsen Rock Art Archive, UCLA

The Night at the Museum movie is what first exposed many people to the large stone-faced statues of Easter Island. The American Museum of Natural History in New York has a plaster cast of one with a deeply-furrowed brow that comes to life in the movie. That movie made the American Museum of Natural History’s Easter Island plaster cast a popular exhibit. The statues themselves –on Easter Island –have also become so popular with tourists over the last few decades they’re in danger. 

Study Says Immigrant Students Improve Everyone’s Performance

Guest: Mikaela Dufur, Professor of Sociology, Brigham Young University

Immigration brings more than one million people to the United States every year. Most come legally. Many come with children who enroll in public schools. People who’d like to limit immigration will often argue that newcomers drain resources from those born in the US –that, they’re bringing down student test scores, for example.

Moon Rush: The New Space Race

Guest: Leonard David, Journalist, Author of “Moon Rush: The New Space Race”

Fifty years ago, the first human set foot on the moon.“ That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” were Neil Armstrong’s famous words. After Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, NASA sent a flurry of astronauts to the moon in the space of three years. Twelve men in total –all Americans. Gene Cernan was the last. It was 1973. Here were his final words before stepping back into the landing capsule. “We leave as we came, and -God-willing-as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind.”

More than a Musical, a Look Behind the Scenes of Alexander Hamilton

Guest: Joanne Freeman, Professor of History and American Studies, Yale University

Four years since it opened on Broadway, Hamilton is still one of the hottest tickets in town –and in cities around the country now seeing a traveling production of the musical. The show is groundbreaking for its musical style and racially diverse casting and also for having its own interactive museum experience, which opened earlier this year in an airplane hangar in Chicago. Lin Manuel Miranda and others from the Hamilton musical team developed –and narrate –the exhibit. They had an actual historian on the team to help get things accurate, too. Her name is Joanne Freeman

The Stress of Home Cooking

Guest: Joslyn Brenton, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Ithaca College, Co-Author of “Pressure Cooker: Why Home Cooking Won't Solve Our Problems and What We Can Do”

Every mother I know frets about the food she feeds her family: that it’s not homemade enough. Or nutritious enough. That it’s not as beautiful as what other moms are serving up on Instagram. And when she does pull together something homemade, fresh and good for her family, they’re not into it and leftovers go to waste. A trio of researchers spent months interviewing mothers, tagging along to the grocery store, sitting in their kitchens during meal prep to understand what they’re going through when it’s time for dinner. The result is a book called “Pressure Cooker: Why Home Cooking Won’t Solve Our Problems and What We Can Do About it.”