Tuesday’s Turnout, Trump & The Truth, Understanding Autism

Coming up on today’s show:

• It’s voting day in Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois. In this primary season, voter turnout has been particularly high for the Republican Party. Kristal High Taylor, editor-in-chief and publisher at Politic365, discusses what’s at stake.

• Donald Trump has been labelled a racist & a demagogue. How should political journalists be reporting his invective? Samuel Freedman, former reporter turned professor of journalism says reporters should report and leave the commentators to commentate.

• Russia has now started to withdraw many of its forces from Syria. Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, on what this means for President Bashar al Assad and Russia’s role in a future peace process. 

• A United Nations report on South Sudan finds that President Salva Kiir and the former Vice President Riek Machar have committed serious crimes of violence against the Sudanese people. Eric Reeves, author of “Compromising With Evil: An Archival History of Greater Sudan, 2007 – 2012,” tells us more. 

• As dissatisfaction with deductibles has risen since the passage of the Affordable Care Act, communities of faith are joining together to cover healthcare costs without insurance. Reverend Howard Russell, president and CEO of Christian Healthcare Ministries, explains.

• Researchers are launching a major study into autism in girls. Some fear that by separating autism into male and female categories, researchers risk perpetuating gender stereotypes. Emily Brooks, a journalist who writes about gender, sex, and autism, says traditional thinking about autism is too narrow. 

• In 1721, the development of the smallpox vaccine marked a shift away from a colony of faith to the modern political government we know today. Stephen Coss, author of “The Fever of 1721: The Epidemic that Revolutionized Medicine and American Politics,” on why this event still resonates today.