Boston Public Radio

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Immigration expert Ali Noorani joined Boston Public Radio on Monday, offering a rebuke to President Trump’s attempts to pass blame for caging children at the U.S.-Mexico border onto the Obama administration. “Who built the cages, Joe?” Trump asked former Vice President Joe Biden during the September presidential debate. Noorani said that while it’s true that facilities in question were build under President Obama in 2014, their intended purpose was substantially different from their eventual use by the current president. "They were set up as temporary holding facilities for children; unaccompanied minors at that point,” he explained. “The Trump administration took that infrastructure, and weaponized it.” And while the National Immigration Forum CEO admitted his organization has “many concerns” about the immigration policies of former President Obama, he described the Trump administration’s family separation policy as a “moral tragedy,” that’s left 545 children still without their parents. Ali Noorani is the President and CEO of the National Immigration Forum. His latest book is "There Goes the Neighborhood: How Communities Overcome Prejudice and Meet the Challenge of American Immigration.”

Today on Boston Public Radio: We started off the show by talking with listeners about your impressions of Thursday night’s presidential debate, the last before the November election. NBC Sports Boston anchor and reporter Trenni Kusnierek discussed the growing number of professional athletes taking part in get-out-the-vote campaigns, a recent article by Celtics point guard Marcus Smart titled "This Article is Not About Basketball," and low sports viewership numbers for 2020. Beat the Press host Emily Rooney talked about President Trump’s contentious “60 Minutes” interview, and weighed in on the rising number of coronavirus cases in Mass. Jill Shah spoke about the new stipend program for low-income families in Chelsea, Mass. Shah is president of the Shah Family Foundation, which is coordinating and supporting efforts between Chelsea and philanthropic partners to facilitate one of the largest universal basic income programs in the nation. Emerson Baker talked about the history of the Salem Witch Trials, and the elements at play in 1692 Salem that are relevant to America today. Baker is a professor of history and a General Education Faculty Fellow at Salem State University. He's also the author of multiple books, including “A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience." Food writer Corby Kummer compared the eating habits of former Vice President Joe Biden to those of President Donald Trump. He also discussed various ways restaurants and food brands are pivoting for the election, and reflected on rising food insecurity in the U.S., seven months into the coronavirus pandemic. Closing out the show, we talked to listeners about your strategies for staying outside and virus-free in the winter of coronavirus.

Food writer Corby Kummer spoke to Boston Public Radio on Friday about a new program in Cambridge aiming to help small local businesses during the upcoming winter season of the pandemic. The Patio Heater Reimbursement Program will reimburse restaurants up to $250.00 per portable patio heater. “I hope other cities will take it up, subsidizing these outdoor heaters is great,” he said. “Having the subsidy to give people indoor ventilators with proper MERV 13 filters I think would be a next step.” Kummer is a senior editor at The Atlantic, an award-winning food writer, and a senior lecturer at the Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition and Policy.

Today on Boston Public Radio: NBC “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd discussed former President Barack Obama’s rebuke of President Trump in a Wednesday stump speech for former Vice President Joe Biden. He also talked about the stakes for Thursday’s presidential debate, moderated by his NBC colleague Kristen Welker. We opened our lines to hear your thoughts on former President Obama joining the campaign trail for Joe Biden, and to talk about your feelings heading into the final presidential debate. Former Suffolk County sheriff and secretary of public safety Andrea Cabral discussed voter suppression in the U.S., and why she’s not optimistic about the future of voting rights in the wake of Monday’s Supreme Court decision protecting late-arriving absentee ballots in Penn. She also touched on recent statements from an anonymous juror in the Breonna Taylor case, who said this week that the grand jury did not agree on whether Taylor's shooting was fully justified. Matthew Teitelbaum, the Ann and Graham Gund Director of the Museum of Fine Arts, discussed how the MFA is adapting to the coronavirus pandemic, as well as how they're working to confront issues of race in the art space. He also gave a debrief on the opening of the MFA's long-awaited exhibit showcasing the work of painter Jean-Michel Basquiat. Next, we turned to callers to hear your thoughts on the censorship of art, in a conversation about a series of postponed exhibits of artist Philip Guston. Tech writer Andy Ihnatko weighed in on the Department of Justice’s antitrust lawsuit brought against Google, as well as Apple’s buyout of the Charlie Brown TV specials, and new AI-powered "neural filters” coming on the latest edition of Adobe Photoshop. Ihnatko is a tech writer and blogger, posting at Ihnatko.com. Former Mass. Education Secretary Paul Reville talked about Wednesday's decision by city officials to bring Boston Public Schools back to all-remote learning, and other headlines around the shaky return to classrooms during the coronavirus pandemic.

The Boston School Committee decided unanimously to ditch the exam schools admission test for one year due to the challenges presented by administering an exam during a pandemic. The new plan instead will rely on grades, MCAS scores, and ZIP codes to determine eligibility and acceptance. While the School Committee accepted the new plan 7-0, former Education Secretary Paul Reville told Boston Public Radio Thursday it is an imperfect solution to the problem. “It’s not going to go away as a controversy,” said Reville. “This is a flawed plan, but any plan would be flawed in these times. To get a fair calculation of merit in the absence of a tool that applies to all students … to do that in this environment of coronavirus is impossible to do, so they’re settling for the next best thing.” The newly-approved system reserves the first 20 percent of seats at Boston Latin School, Boston Latin Academy and the O'Bryant School of Mathematics for Boston students with the highest pre-COVID grades in BPS, charter, private and religious schools in the city. The remaining 80 percent would be offered in rounds based on grades in individual zip codes, starting with those zip codes with the lowest median incomes. Paul Reville is former Secretary of Education and a professor at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education where he also runs the Education Redesign Lab. His latest book, co-authored with Elaine Weiss, is “Broader, Bolder, Better: How Schools and Communities Help Students Overcome the Disadvantages of Poverty.”