Boston Public Radio

Nothing says "happy holidays" like a Friday News Quiz. To prove it, we brought two bona fide Santa Clauses—that's right, two!—to face off on this week's…

Last Friday, France held a memorial for the 130 citizens killed during the terrorist attacks of November 13th. This week, the city hosts 50,000 visitors…

This afternoon, President Barack Obama announced there was no "specific, credible threat" on the homeland ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. He…

It has been ten days since Paris was wracked by a terrorist attack that killed 130 and injured hundreds others. But in that time, the City of Light has…

Attorney General Maura Healey says the public records reform bill approved by the House earlier this week, while a step in the right direction, does not…

If you've ever shared food with someone you work with, or passed notes about that one guy in your office who always chews with his mouth open and sneezes…

As some schools and colleges opt for in-person learning this fall, Paul Reville told Boston Public Radio on Thursday that even with concerns about COVID-19 spread in classrooms and dorms, society has to accept some level of risk in order to deliver its mandate to provide an education to people. “We’re not sure what’s going to happen, but we’ve got to be vigilant and we’ve got to be able to react quickly if things start to get out of hand,” he said. “It’s all a matter of risk tolerance. The notion that we’re going to get to zero risk is just totally unrealistic, none of us have zero risk in our day to day lives.” 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.”

Homeland security expert Juliette Kayyem spoke with Boston Public Radio on Wednesday about Hurricane Laura, a Category 4 storm headed toward the Texas and Louisiana coasts. “You have to shelter differently because of COVID, so there’s a mandatory masking policy by all organizations who are running shelters,” she said. “It does not matter what a governor or local official says - no mask, no shelter, and I think that’s exactly right.” Kayyem is an analyst for CNN, former assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security and faculty chair of the homeland security program at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.

Today on Boston Public Radio: We opened lines to hear your impressions from night two of the Republican National Convention. Former Trump Campaign Manager Corey Lewandowski gave his take on nights one and two of the RNC, and defended his stance that President Trump deserves four more years in office. CNN analyst and national security expert Juliette Kayyem discussed the heightened challenges of navigating Hurricane Laura and other storms during the coronavirus pandemic, and the worrying rise in political influence from proponents of the QAnon conspiracy theory. MIT economist and Affordable Care Act architect Jonathan Gruber discussed why public services function better outside of the private sector, and weighed in on the economic and political factors that are creating issues at the U.S.P.S Nancy Koehn talked about the key components of crisis leadership, and reflected on how national and global leaders have handled the COVID-19 crisis. Koehn is a Harvard Business School historian and author of “Forged in Crisis: The Power of Courageous Leadership in Turbulent Times.” Medical ethicist Art Caplan discussed problems with President Trump's Right to Try Act, which was touted at Tuesday night’s RNC, and talked about new research indicating around half of K-12 teachers in the US have definite or possible risk factors for contracting serious cases of COVID-19.

Today on Boston Public Radio: We opened our lines to hear your take on night one of the Republican National Convention. NBC Sports Boston reporter and anchor Trenni Kusnierek discussed institutional racism in New England's collegiate sports, 77 false positive COVID-19 tests in the NFL, and a recent statement from NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, who said he should have “listened earlier” to Colin Kaepernick. Mass. State Senator Becca Rausch talked about the successes and setbacks of mail-in voting in Mass., and responded to questions and comments from listeners. Ali Noorani, Executive Director for the National Immigration Forum, discussed unfair assumptions about foreign-born voters in the U.S., and concerns about the looming furlough of 70% of employees at the U.S Citizenship and Immigration Services. Former New Hampshire GOP chair and Lincoln Party co-founder Jennifer Horn talked about her impressions from night one of the RNC, and her PAC’s latest anti-Trump ad, titled “Evil.” CNN Chief National Correspondent John King reflected on night one of the RNC, and news of White House counselor Kellyanne Conway’s exit from the Trump administration at the end of August. We opened our lines to talk with listeners about your experiences dealing with Monday's widespread Zoom outages.

Ali Noorani spoke with Boston Public Radio on Tuesday about the impact of naturalized immigrants on voting in 2020. “It’s in really important parts of the country where you see the share of eligible voters who are foreign-born really skyrocket,” he said. “48 percent of eligible voters in Miami-Dade, Florida are foreign-born, and 22 percent of eligible voters in Fort Bend, Texas are foreign-born; So Georgia, Texas, and South Florida are communities that are going to see a disproportionate impact of foreign-born voters this November.” Ali Noorani is Executive Director of the National Immigration Forum, his latest book is There Goes the Neighborhood: How Communities Overcome Prejudice and Meet the Challenge of American Immigration.