Obama's Foreign Policy, Later School Start Times

Assessing Obama’s Foreign Policy Legacy Guest: David Milne, PhD, Historian of US Foreign Policy, Senior Lecturer at the University of East Anglia, Author of “Worldmaking: The Art and Science of American Diplomacy” How will Barack Obama’s foreign policy efforts be remembered? Will he be the President who killed Osama Bin Laden? The President who opted not to get involved in Syria’s civil war, only to see it drag on for years and spark a refugee crisis? Will he be the President who quietly revolutionized warfare with his extensive use of drones? President Obama has made clear he’d like to be remembered for his work building an international commitment to combat climate change.  When Kids Miss Too Much School Guest: Hedy Chang, Executive Director of the Advocacy Group Attendance Works A little more than ten percent of school kids in the US are chronically absent, missing at least three weeks of class in a year. But only recently have states and school districts begun a concerted effort to look at attendance data and better understand what’s behind the absenteeism. The US Department of Education began collecting nationwide data on chronic absence in 2013. New analysis of those numbers by the advocacy group Attendance Works sheds light on where the problem is biggest.  Schools Need to Start Later Guest: Kyla Wahlstrom, PhD, Senior Research Fellow at the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Minnesota There’s growing evidence that teenagers just aren’t built to wake up early. Kyla Wahlstrom claims that if we’d just let teens sleep in a bit longer and push the school start time back to 9, we could reduce teen car crashes, raise student grades, and cut down on teenage angst all at the same time.  How the UN Can Address Human Trafficking Guest: James Cockayne, PhD, Head of Office at the UN for the United Nations University International human rights lawyer Amal Clooney took the United Nations to task last week for failing to prevent or punish the genocide ISIS is perpetrating against minority groups including the Yazidis. She spoke at a ceremony honoring a Yazidi woman named Nadia Murad Basee Taha who was kept for three months as an ISIS sex slave before she escaped. Both women say UN nations can do more to stop the international slave market in which an estimated 45 million people remain trapped.  ISIS and Boko Haram have become so brazen, they publish instructions on how to trade slaves, and use social media platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp to sell women to bidders.  Parent Previews Guest: Rod Gustafson, Film Reviewer at ParentPreviews.com Denzel Washington leads a crew of killers and misfits in a Hollywood remake of the 1960 hit western, The Magnificent Seven. Rod Gustafson of Parent Previews says the original was not high on the list of movies in need of a remake. But really, when has that stopped Hollywood? Treating Restless Leg Syndrome Guests: Ulrike Mitchell, PhD, Professor of Exercise Sciences at BYU; Shane Wolcott, President of InfraMed; Mike Alder, Director of BYU’s Technology Transfer Office A lot of us have trouble turning off our brains when we lay down to sleep. But there are some very unlucky people who also have trouble turning off their legs. Lying down and trying to relax activate the symptoms of a mysterious disorder called Restless Leg Syndrome. People feel their legs throbbing, pulling, creeping or other sensations and an uncontrollable urge to move the legs, which makes them feel better, but wreaks havoc on their ability to sleep.  As many as 10 percent of Americans may have Restless Leg Syndrome, according to the National Institutes of Health. Treating it is a process of trial and error and often includes drugs that have unpleasant side effects. But BYU exercise scientist Ulrike Mitchell has developed a treatment that appears to work better using light.