Politics and Morals, Kids in Prison, A Mission to Mars

Coming up on today’s show:

• After decades of being the party of “family values,” has the GOP ceded their moral high ground to the Democrats in this election? Jeet Heer, senior editor of The New Republic, weighs in along with Gabe Lyons, founder of Q, a learning community to mobilize Christians. 

• After Hurricane Matthew, the situation in Haiti remains dire. The U.N. is seeking $120 million to halt the cholera crisis, which began when U.N. peacekeepers brought the disease to the island nation after the 2010 earthquake, and access to food and clean water is difficult to find. John Hasse, national director of World Vision Haiti, brings us the latest. 

• As Election Day approaches, we’re checking in on key Senate races across the country. We begin in Pennsylvania, where Democratic challenger Katie McGinty is up against Republican incumbent Pat Toomey. Katie Meyer, capital bureau chief for WITF in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, has the details on this race. 

• Researchers at Texas State University in San Marcos found that police departments in California and Texas had failed to report hundreds of officer-involved shooting deaths as required by laws in both states. Howard Williams, a retired San Marcos police chief and lecturer in the criminal justice division of the College of Applied Arts at Texas State University, explains. 

• Sarah Gonzalez, a reporter at Takeaway co-producer WNYC Radio, takes you behind the bars of prisons in New Jersey and Germany to examine how minors are treated in correctional facilities around the world. 

• On Tuesday, in an opinion piece for CNN, President Obama endorsed efforts for humans to reach Mars and return safely to Earth by 2030. Mars and other endeavors will all be discussed tomorrow in Pittsburgh, where the president will host the first-ever White House Frontiers Conference. Jason Kendall, an adjunct professor of astronomy at William Paterson University, explains what life on Mars would really be like.