Syria, Planetary Defense, Tiger Conflict, National Parks

Guest: Matthew Brodsky, Middle East analyst, Senior Fellow, Security Studies Group The Department of Defense says it’s begun the process of withdrawing all 2,000 US troops currently stationed in Syria to fight ISIS. You’ll remember President Trump declared victory against ISIS and announced the withdrawal rather abruptly a month ago, which precipitated the resignation of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. Since then, the President’s top advisors have been trying to convince America’s allies the withdrawal is a good thing –and they’ve been hedging a bit, saying the pull-out may take longer than the month President Trump initially promised and may only happen if certain conditions are met.

Guest: Andy Rivkin, DART Investigation Team Lead Planetary Astronomer, Johns Hopkins University One of the leading explanations for why dinosaurs went extinct is that a giant asteroid smashed into Earth 65 million years ago. We’re lucky another one hasn’t hit us since –otherwise we might have to send Bruce Willis to space with a nuclear bomb on his back to blow up the asteroid while the world cheers him on -like he did in the movie Armageddon. That’s Hollywood, but an asteroid collision really is a threat to Earth –enough so that NASA has a special mission to prepare for it. It’s called, “DART” and it’s entering a crucial phase.

Guest: Nilanga Jayasinghe, Senior Program Officer for Asian Species at the World Wildlife Fund Tigers may be endangered, but they’re finally making a comeback. There are nearly 4,000 worldwide now, but they still face threats from poaching and deforestation. And a rising tiger population brings its own challenges: more tigers means more chances for human-tiger confrontations that can lead to conflict and death.

Guest: Kurt Repanshek, Founder and Editor of NationalParksTraveler.com - Leading Online Resource for National Parks-related News The ongoing government shutdown includes the National Park Service, technically. But for the last three weeks, many of the nation’s most popular parks have attempted to stay open with a skeleton crew of park police, first responders and –in some cases –volunteers. Their efforts are being stretched. There are reports of vandalism in parks, as well as overflowing trash cans and toilets –which you’d expect if no-one’s around to collect the garbage or pump out the porta-potties.

Guest: Andrew Novakovi?, The E.V. Baker Professor of Agricultural Economics, Cornell University Back in the days, there was a huge glut of cheese in America. Dairy farmers couldn’t sell the cheese they were making –the US Government was even buying up a lot of it to keep the bottom from falling out of the dairy industry. And guess what? We’ve got another cheese surplus on our hands –the biggest one yet, in fact.

Guest: Kirsten Hawkes, ParentPreviews.com A dramedy about a quadriplegic billionaire and the ex-con he hires as his caregiver somehow managed to beat out the superhero film “Aquaman” in theaters over the weekend. In the movie, Kevin Hart plays a released felon having a hard time finding a job. Bryan Cranston plays the man he goes to work for.  The film is an opportunity for us to talk about how disability is portrayed on the big screen with Kirsten Hawkes of Parent Previews.com.