The Spark

James Holmes shot and killed 12 people and wounded 70 others in an Aurora, Colorado movie theater in 2012. The photographs of Holmes the world saw afterwards with dyed bright red hair and eyes wide open left many people judging Holmes fairly or not to be mentally unstable or even seriously mentally ill. In fact at trial, Holmes’ lawyers tried to prove an insanity defense. Dr. Lynne Fenton is a psychiatrist who treated Holmes, was identified publicly and then was vilified for not stopping Holmes and faced death threats of her own. Ten years later, Dr. Fenton has written about Holmes and the aftermath of the murders with true crime writer Kerrie Droban in the new book Aurora. We’re joined on today’s program by Dr. Lynne Fenton and Kerrie Droban.

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When thinking about homeless women most don’t think about their physical health but a new exploratory study by a Harrisburg University delves into that and finds that increased physical activity caused a significant decrease in the number of mentally unhealthy days.

According to the Mental Health Foundation, being active releases chemicals in your brain that make you feel good - boosting your self-esteem and helping you concentrate as well as sleep well and feel better.

Tonya Miller, associate professor of physical therapy at Harrisburg University, who conducted the study, joins us to discuss the study and its impact.

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Pennsylvania is one of nine states that have closed primary elections. Only Democrats and Republicans can vote for candidates to move on to the Fall election.

More voters have registered as independents in Pennsylvania than Democrats or Republicans since 2016. There are about 1.3 million registered independents right now.

There are two proposals in the legislature that would open the state’s primaries to independent voters.

We’re joined on today’s program by David Thornburgh, Chair of Ballot PA, a project of the good government organization Committee of 70.

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It's been known that when you leave the lot of a car dealership with a new car, the value of the car depreciates immediately. However, in today's car market the tables have turned in the favor of used car owners.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor statistics, used car prices are up nearly 40% from last year. New cars are only up by 12%.

Ivan Drury, Edmunds' senior manager of insights, said we have got to this place because of a depletion of inventory and microchips, and COVID-19 protocols on assembly lines.

"We are seeing that virtually every single used car and we're talking about one year old, three year old, nine year old cars are up in value," Drury said. "We're just at this point where people can't get what they want and even if you do order a new car today, you're going to have to wait and it might not even be fully equipped in the manner in which your accustomed to because it might be missing a chip or two for certain options."

Drury also said in today's car market, it's better to buy a car than to lease one, as lease payments are expensive currently and comparable to the cost of buying a car.

Here are some tips that he gave on negotiating:

Drury said it's important to find out what the deals are available at dealerships, the published and unpublished ones.

"Ask the dealer what are the incentive programs available or go to the automakers website because they publish these incentives," Drury said. "...They adjust these incentive programs every single for sales day of the month. So, be aware. And if you're looking at holidays, this is the one where people think you actually have to buy on that holiday, that's really not the case it's the same incentives throughout the entire month."

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The nation’s attention has been focused on the COVID-19 pandemic for the past two and a half years. Covid disrupted our lives in so many ways, including isolating us for long periods of time and shutting down much of what we counted on for essentials like food or health.

At the same time, a drug overdose crisis raged. More than 107,000 Americans died of overdoses last year – 15,000 more than the record set in 2020.

Best-selling author Beth Macy’s latest book is Raising Lazarus – Hope, Justice, and the Future of America’s Overdose Crisis. The book is WITF and Midtown Scholar’s Pick of the Month in August. Her best-selling book Dopesick was adapted into an Emmy nominated TV series on Hulu.

On Thursday's Smart Talk, Macy described the scope of the drug crisis, "It's massive. It's almost hard to get your arms around. And yet if you just sort of peek behind the surface, if you literally peek under the bridges, you probably drive over. It's right there. It's all around us. It's hovering there, but just barely below ground. And because it's such a hard issue, people don't want to look at it. So what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to make the unseen seen. I'm trying to make it a little more visible. So that will begin, particularly as this opioid litigation settlement moneys is beginning to come down to communities that will know the best ways to to spend it, because we don't want another tobacco settlement where all the money got like waylaid for building potholes and other budget holes that the state budgets were experiencing. We want the money to go to the programs that says best deliver treatment, prevention and harm reduction. We know those things can work if we follow the science.

In writing the book, Macy was right with the people who providing help to drug users in the streets, back roads and homeless encampments of Appalchia. Who are the people she followed? "They're angels that walk on the earth. These are largely harm reductionist and the idea of harm reduction. Most people have heard of needle exchanges. It's this idea of we're going to go to you and we're going to bathe you in nonjudgmental care and we're going to meet you where you are, whether that's in a McDonald's parking lot where the book begins or or under a bridge or in a tent. And because we know that the largest number of people with opioid use disorder are people who say they don't want to stop using drugs. And it's this idea that if we meet them where they are and give them clean needles and test strips, safe use cards, that then we're making a connection because right now the large majority are are totally divorced from all connections with health care. And and the idea is, if you're helping them use more safely, they begin to trust you and then they turn to you for treatment for their hep C or when they're ready to stop using drugs.

"I'm writing about these innovators who are figuring out ways with all these bureaucratic restraints. They're showing creativity and innovation and figuring out ways for people to get out of their silos. Because where people die is this huge gap between treating people as human beings with a treatable medical condition and treating them as moral failures and criminals.

Beth Macy will be appearing at Midtown Scholar Bookstore in Harrisburg August 24th at 7 p.m.

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Small businesses that don't have many employees have struggled to offer retirement plans -- often because starting a retirement package from scratch can be expensive.

The SECURE Act (Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act of 2019) that became law last year, created a new type of 401(k) called pooled employer plans that allows multiple employers to join one single retirement plan.

Conrad Siegel Investment Advisors and the Harrisburg Regional Chamber have partnered for the first pooled plan in the region called Central PA 401(k).

Conrad Siegel Partner and Consulting Actuary Trevor Bare and Harrisburg Regional Chamber President and CEO Ryan Unger

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In honor of National Thrift Shop Day, which is celebrated today, many plan to support their local thrift shops and raise money and awareness for charitable organizations.

During the eighteenth century, before thrift stores existed, old clothes given to younger siblings, would be recycled as furniture stuffing, or sold for money.

The Salvation Army and Goodwill were launched in the late 1800s and early 1900s to provide immigrants with clothing and give people an opportunity to give used clothes to receive food and lodging.

According to National Today, thrift stores were formally known as “junk shops” but that changed in the 1900s, as they became were useful during times of need like the Great Depression and World War II.

Rebecca Gramuglia, Top Cash Back Consumer Expert,

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With so many streaming service options, cable, movie theatres, and conventional ways of consuming content is becoming less popular.

According to Grand View Research, since the start of the COVID-19, subscriptions and viewership has increased across all major services, like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, YouTube, and Disney+.

The streaming industry is expected to be worth $330 billion by 2030, according to Cloud Wards.

On the contrary,  according to Cloud Wards, in 2021,  67% of U.S. households had a paid TV subscription compared to a staggering 85% that had a video streaming service.

According to Forbes, movie ticket sales in the US were down 80% in 2020.

With so many new streaming options, cord-cutting has more become popular and the future of movie theatres has become uncertain.

Joey Randazzo, Audio/Visual Technical Manager at Franklin and Marshall College, said although streaming services are taking the world by storm, movie theatres and cable infrastructure will always have it's place.

"We're all connected to the cable company and that infrastructure that's in place now is really necessary if we're going to provide each of our homes access to high speed internet," Randazzo said. "Without it there wouldn't be streaming, not the way we know it."

Randazzo said he decided to back out of his plan to buy the Marietta Theatre because there are more fun ways to throw away his money. However, he still believes movie theatres will continue to be successful and necessary.

"Maybe you don't have to pay $100 to take your family out to see Downton Abbey the movie, wait a few weeks and see it at home," Randazzo said. "But the next big Marvel free for all or Top Gun 2, it's a treat and you definitely should experience some of that spectacle on the big screen."

Randazzo said with so many options to consume content, we are getting disconnected from the world and the answer isn't inside the box but it's in the real world.

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When Jake Miller quit teaching last March, he was teaching eighth grade history in the Cumberland Valley School District. Over his 15-year career, Miller taught several subjects in 6th to 12th grade classrooms. But it wasn’t just the 50 percent increase in salary he got when he left teaching, there were several other reasons. And these are issues teachers are facing everyday.

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The last time schools were what can be described as normal was in March 2020. That’s when the COVID-19 pandemic struck and disrupted education like never we’ve ever seen before. Online classes, to mask or not to mask students, and politics have had roles. Two-and-a-half years later, a new school year is about to begin in Pennsylvania. Schools probably will never return to that early 2020 normal but what will they look like this year? We’re joined by Mark DiRocco, Executive Director and Sherri Smith, Director of Professional Development, Pennsylvania Association of School Administrators

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