Bob Collins
Wednesday Dec. 19, 2018
(Subject to change as events dictate. This page is updated throughout the day.)
9 a.m. – MPR News with Kerri Miller (Marianne Combs hosts)
A good book can be a great gift a child in your life, but what kind of book should you get them? What is popular among kids?
Guests: Lisa Von Drasek, Curator, Children’s Literature Research Collection at the University of Minnesota Libraries; Holly Weinkauf, owner, Red Balloon Bookshop in St. Paul.
10 a.m.- 1A with Joshua Johnson
Thousands of coal miners suffer from black lung disease, a fatal condition caused by breathing toxic dust. A new NPR investigation shows their deaths went unchecked by businesses and regulators who knew the risks and failed to act. Why was this allowed to happen?
Guests: Charles Shortridge, diagnosed with black lung disease, worked in the mines for over 25 years; Howard Berkes, correspondent – investigations, NPR; Davitt McAteer, former Assistant Secretary, Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), 1993-2000, retired attorney; Amy Harder, reporter covering energy and climate, Axios.
11 a.m. – MPR News with Angela Davis
The Hiawatha encampment is being closed down. No one is being forced out, but they’re encouraged to move to the navigation center. Patina Park, executive director of the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center, will join the show to talk about how the move to the navigation center is going.
11:20 a.m. – Cube Critics Stephanie Curtis and Euan Kerr are joining the program to talk about the best movie performances of 2018.
12 p.m. – MPR News Presents
A speech by Jeffrey Rosen, CEO of the National Constitution Center, about the future of the Supreme Court, the Constitution, and our democracy. Are we on the verge of a constitutional crisis? Rosen spoke at the Commonwealth Club of California, and after his speech was interviewed by lawyer Mary Cranston.
1 p.m. – The Takeaway
A precious resource attracts an Ivy League institution. Harvard’s Endowment Fund invests in land in drought-parched California. The appeal? Water rights.
2 p.m. – BBC NewsHour
Is President Trump about to recall all US troops from Syria? We’ll be talking to the UK’s ambassador to the United Nations about the crisis in Yemen. And in the latest of our special reports on climate change, we look at the political challenge of going green in Texas.
3 p.m. – All Things Considered
Examining the effectiveness of a border wall; a political correctness poll; the Senate criminal justice bill; the judge who struck down ACA; and a new Sesame Street character. And when an ancient pipe sacred to the Dakota surfaced at auction last spring, Prairie Island leaders made it their mission to bring it back. But the odds were long, and the quest meant revisiting a horrific chapter of Minnesota’s past.
6 p.m. – Marketplace
A look at the complex world of the cardboard economy and how online retailers are helping it make a comeback.
6:30 p.m. – The Daily
Ever since scientists created the powerful gene-editing technique Crispr, they have braced for the day when it would be used to produce a genetically altered human being. Now, the moment they feared may have come. What’s likely to happen next? We also look at the latest updates on a possible government shutdown.
Guests: Jennifer Senior, an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times; Carl Zimmer, a science columnist for The Times.
7 p.m. – The World
Syria after the U.S. leaves.
The US and Mexico have made an agreement to slow down migration from Central American countries to the US-Mexico border. We ask how that would work, especially with an ambitious new president in Mexico, who has his own ideas.
How will Disney handle some serious pushback over its trademark phrase from the Lion King. Disney owns the rights to the expression, ‘Hakuna Matata,’ which means “no problem” in Swahili. Some Kenyans want to make it a problem for Disney.
A 90-year-old professor is on a secret watch list. But David Mayer’s name has been used by someone else. A member of ISIS was calling himself David Mayer. This David Mayer just wants to be able to use his own name.
8 p.m. – Fresh Air
Iraq’s campaign of revenge, post-ISIS. Dave Davies talk with Ben Taub of the New Yorker about how hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians, including women and children, are being detained, tortured, killed, or cast out of society for suspected association with ISIS. Taub’s new article is titled Shallow Graves.
