The Political Junkie
The special election in Western New York is less than two weeks away, and there is no clear leader. Third party candidate Jack Davis is running under the Tea Party mantle and could siphon votes from GOP candidate Jane Corwin. That opens the door for Democrat Kathy Hochul to win a reliably GOP seat. Buffalo News reporter Phil Fairbanks joins host Neal Conan and political junkie Ken Rudin to look at the special election for New York's 26th Congressional District. Ken and Neal will also recap the week in politics, from the GOP primary debate to Speaker John Boehner demanding trillions of dollars in cuts in exchange for a vote on raising the debt ceiling.
Pakistani-Americans React To Bin Laden Death
While many people in the United States have felt relief since last week's killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, some Pakistani Americans felt conflicted. Some were elated, while others fear how this event will affect U.S.-Pakistan relations. In a piece for The Huffington Post, Wajahat Ali, a South Asia Research Fellow at the New American Foundation, realized that Pakistani Americans "still have a long way to go in battling extremism and ignorance." Neal Conan talks with Ali about what has changed for Pakistani Americans since the killing of Osama bin Laden.
Colorblind Adoption
Roughly 40 percent of adoptions in America are transracial adoptions, according to research from the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute. In these cases, issues of identity that can traditionally come with adoption are compounded by differences in culture and appearance. Parents must make a decision: Raise the children colorblind? Or acknowledge differences? University of Chicago associate professor Gina Samuels, a multiracial woman who was adopted by white parents, argues that colorblindness can actually create discordance. Host Neal Conan talks with Samuels about her research paper, Being Raised by White People, and with Adam Pertman, the executive director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, about the challenges of navigating difference in transracial adoption.
Arctic Council SummitToday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar head to Greenland to attend the Arctic Council Summit. There, they'll represent the U.S. and meet with representatives from the other seven member countries of the Arctic Council — Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia and Sweden. It's a forum to discuss global warming in a place where they're already seeing melting ice caps and disappearing permafrost.
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