Where We Live

Last week, President Biden announced a new program for Ukrainian refugees. United States citizens can now apply to sponsor Ukrainian refugees seeking asylum.

Today, we learn more and talk to immigration lawyer Dana Bucin about her work aiding Ukrainian refugees.

Later, we hear from, Gaye Hyre, a resident of West Haven who is currently hosting a Ukrainian family.

Will we soon see more Ukrainian refugees coming to Connecticut?

GUESTS:

• Dana Bucin - Immigration Attorney and Honorary Consul of Romania to Connecticut
• Gaye Hyre - resident of West Haven
• Volodymyr Gupan - PhD Candidate at University of Connecticut

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As Connecticut’s short legislative session winds down, the "budget battle" is heating up. We’ll get the latest from CT News Junkie editor-in-chief Christine Stuart, along with House Majority Leader Jason Rojas, and House Minority Leader Vincent Candelora.

Plus, we learn more about the recently-approved SEBAC agreement, promising pay increases for some 46,000 state employees.

What can we expect in the final eight days of session? How has the upcoming election affected policymaking priorities?

GUESTS:

• Christine Stuart: Editor-in-Chief, CT News Junkie
• Jason Rojas: Democratic State Representative; House Majority Leader
• Vincent Candelora: Republican State Representative; House Minority Leader

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There are many ways to shrink your carbon footprint, but it’s not always accessible to everyone. Green and eco-friendly products are more expensive.

Today, we talk about sustainability, privilege and environmental justice.

We hear from Leticia Colon de Mejias, President of Connecticut nonprofit Green Eco Warriors.

Later, we learn how “green gentrification” has changed neighborhoods and who gets access to green amenities.

How can we make going green accessible and affordable to all that want to be more environmentally conscious?

GUESTS:

• Leticia Colon de Mejias - President of Green Eco Warriors and federal National Environmental Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC) Appointed Board Member
• Lynn Stoddard - Executive Director of Sustainable CT
• Dr. Tammy Lewis - Professor of Sociology and Earth and Environmental Sciences at CUNY Graduate School and Brooklyn College

For more Earth Day news and stories, check out the New England News Collaborative's 'Covering Climate Now' page.

Where We Live is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and never miss an episode.

Our programming is made possible thanks to listeners like you. Please consider supporting this show and Connecticut Public with a donation today by visiting ctpublic.org/donate. 

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"Maintaining and bolstering trust in science has never been more critical," writes Connecticut College chemistry professor Marc Zimmer.

His latest book, Science and the Skeptic: Discerning Fact from Fiction, explores the impact and "origins of fake science." Written to help young readers "distinguish between science and fake science," Zimmer offers tips and tricks to help "detect science misrepresented for political gain and quackery." Read Marc Zimmer's "Twenty Rules" here:

Plus, Mark Ruede is Curriculum Supervisor of Science for Tolland Public Schools and Tolland County Director with the Connecticut Science Teachers Association. He discusses how the tricky and the topical are still tackled in the classroom.

GUESTS:

• Marc Zimmer: Chemistry Professor, Connecticut College; Author, Science and the Skeptic
• Mark Ruede: Curriculum Supervisor of Science, Tolland Public Schools; Tolland County Director, Connecticut Science Teachers Association

Connecticut Public intern Michayla Savitt helped to produce this episode.

Where We Live is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and never miss an episode.

Our programming is made possible thanks to listeners like you. Please consider supporting this show and Connecticut Public with a donation today by visiting ctpublic.org/donate.

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Indian immigrant Indra Nooyi led PepsiCo as chairman and CEO for more than a decade, making her one of the most powerful women in corporate America.

Nooyi is also on the board of Amazon, a Dean's Advisory Council member at MIT's School of Engineering, and advisor on economic development to Gov. Ned Lamont. When the pandemic hit, she led the reopening committee with Dr. Albert Ko, who is the Raj and Indra Nooyi Professor of Public Health at the Yale School of Public Health.

This hour on Where We Live, Nooyi joins us to talk about her new book My Life in Full: Work, Family, and Our Future.

We learn how paid leave impacted her early career after the birth of her children, and after a horrific car crash. Paid leave also allowed her to care for both her parents – her father had cancer, and her mother became paralyzed from the neck down. It’s one of the reasons she now urges companies to provide the benefit of paid leave for workers today.

GUEST:

Indra Nooyi: Former Chairman and CEO, PepsiCo. Author of My Life in Full: Work, Family, and Our Future

Our programming is made possible thanks to listeners like you. Please consider supporting this show and Connecticut Public with a donation today by visiting ctpublic.org/donate. 

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Most of the advocacy around autism has been centered around parents of autistic children, but now there’s more advocacy and involvement by individuals who are autistic. Autism Acceptance Month brings an extended sense of awareness that the autistic community doesn’t need to be cured, but accepted and included.

Today, we hear from Carol Greenburg, who was diagnosed with autism later in life. She’s also the mother of an autistic teen.

And Dr. Mary Doherty, the founder of Autistic Doctors International joins us to talk about the challenges of living in a society designed for the non-autistic majority.

Are you or someone you know part of the autism community?

GUESTS:

• Dr. Mary Doherty - founder of Autistic Doctors International
• Carol Greenburg - autistic mother of an autistic teen and Editor of Thinking Person's Guide to Autism
• Steven Hernandez - Executive Director of Connecticut's Commission on Women, Children, Seniors and Equity and Opportunity

Our programming is made possible thanks to listeners like you. Please consider supporting this show and Connecticut Public with a donation today by visiting ctpublic.org/donate. 

Our programming is made possible thanks to listeners like you. Please consider supporting this show and Connecticut Public with a donation today by visiting ctpublic.org/donate.

Support the show: http://wnpr.org/donate

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Numerous reports have said obesity in adults rose in the pandemic.

Childhood obesity has risen starkly too, but for different reasons than you may think.

Today, we explore how stress impacts childhood obesity.

We hear from Julia A. Snethen, co author of article, “When Pandemics Collide: The Impact of COVID-19 on Childhood Obesity.” And later, we’ll learn how to have sensitive conversations about health and weight.

What questions do you have about improving your family’s health?

GUESTS:

• Julia A. Snethen: Professor and Director of the PhD program at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee College of Nursing
• Dr. Melissa Santos: Chief of Pediatric Psychology and Clinical Director for Pediatric Obesity at Connecticut Children's Medical Center

Cat Pastor contributed to this show which originally aired January 13, 2022.

Our programming is made possible thanks to listeners like you. Please consider supporting this show and Connecticut Public with a donation today by visiting ctpublic.org/donate. 

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Here in Connecticut, twice as many tenants faced evictions during the pandemic – not for falling behind on rent, but because their lease was up. They’re called no-fault evictions. And some believe the uptick is due to a loophole in an executive order.

Today on Where We Live, we’ll explore what these no-fault evictions could mean to renters and how lawmakers are responding to it.

We hear from Sonsharae Owens. She was threatened with a no-fault eviction.

Later, State Representative Quintin Williams joins us.

This episode was guest hosted by Walter Smith Randolph, the Investigative Editor and Lead Reporter for The Accountability Project at Connecticut Public.

GUESTS:

• Jacqui Rabe Thomas - Connecticut Public Investigative Reporter
• Sonsharae Owens - Victim of No Fault Eviction
• Camila Vallejo - Connecticut Public Housing Reporter 
• State Representative Quentin Williams - chairman of the housing committee

Where We Live is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and never miss an episode!

Our programming is made possible thanks to listeners like you. Please consider supporting this show and Connecticut Public with a donation today by visiting ctpublic.org/donate.

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The history of flooding along the 400-mile Connecticut River runs deep, and disaster management expert Josh Shanley says one flood should be instructive.

In his new book, Connecticut River Valley Flood of 1936, Shanley examines that devastating event, and warns that “past is prologue," calling for "a coordinated effort by many agencies on all fronts" to prepare for future flooding.

According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, there are 284 high-hazard dams in Connecticut, and 21 miles of levees that protect $3.4 billion in property. Much of this infrastructure was installed nearly 90 years ago in the wake of the 1936 flood, Shanley explains, and "needs to be maintained, and in many cases upgraded."

Shanley is "concerned," noting that these systems were built to withstand "certain climate patterns, certain precipitation patterns." He says "the big question is whether they... even on a good day would have survived the different changing precipitation patterns and in-between droughts that we're anticipating."

Plus, we hear about the nature-based flood resiliency plans being discussed in the coastal City of Groton. Economic Development Specialist Cierra Patrick gives an update on the city's Community Resilience Plan. For some low-lying neighborhoods, flooding could mean an existential threat.

Our programming is made possible thanks to listeners like you. Please consider supporting this show and Connecticut Public with a donation today by visiting ctpublic.org/donate. 

GUESTS:

• Joshua Shanley: Author, Connecticut River Valley Flood of 1936; Retired Firefighter-Paramedic in Emergency Management; Blogger, NewEnglandFloods.org
• Cierra Patrick: Economic Development Specialist, City of Groton

Our programming is made possible thanks to listeners like you. Please consider supporting this show and Connecticut Public with a donation today by visiting ctpublic.org/donate.

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What better way to get to know a country and its people than through literature?

Today, we talk about Ukrainian writers and what we can learn about this country through its poetry and prose.

University of Massachusetts professor, novelist and poet Askold Melnyczuk joins us. His parents were Ukrainian refugees.

He also works as a Ukrainian translator and he’ll talk to us about making Ukrainian literature available to the English-speaking world.

Have you read any works by Ukrainian writers?

GUEST:

Askold Melnyczuk - writer and professor at University of Massachusetts, Boston. He is the founder of Arrowsmith Press.

If you're interested in reading Ukrainian literature here are Askold Menyczuk's recommendations.

POETRY

• Eccentric Days of Hope and Sorrow by Natalka Bilotserkivets
• Persephone Blues by Oksana Lutsyshyna
• Apricots of Donbas by Lyuba Yakimchuk
• Selected Poems by Oksana Zabuzhko
• Selected Poems by Serhiy Zhadan

FICTION

• Grey Bees by Andrey Kurkov
• Sweet Darusya: A Tale of Two Villages by Maria Matios
• Your Ad Could Go Here by Oksana Zabuzhko
• The Museum of Abandoned Secrets by Oksana Zabuzhko
• The Orphanage by Serhiy Zhadan

ESSAYS
In Isolation: Dispatches from Occupied Donbas by Stanislav Aseyev

Our programming is made possible thanks to listeners like you. Please consider supporting this show and Connecticut Public with a donation today by visiting ctpublic.org/donate. 

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