The Healthcare Shuffle, Turbulence in Europe, Hunting the Solar System

Coming up on today’s show:

• The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its estimates on the Republican plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Though the bill would reduce the federal deficit by $337 billion, the CBO estimates that the GOP plan to repeal and replace the ACA would raise the number of people without health insurance by 24 million by 2026. Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former director of Congressional Budget Office, discusses what the CBO found, and how Republicans are responding. 

• Jury selection began this week for Derrick Stafford, one of the two African-American deputies charged with second degree murder in the fatal shooting of Jeremy Mardis, a 6-year-old autistic boy who was killed in November 2015. Bodycam footage shows the officers in Marksville, Louisiana shooting a vehicle in a car chase, wounding the driver, and killing the child. Bryn Stole, a criminal justice reporter for The Advocate, has the details on this case. 

• On Monday, an Egyptian prosecutor ordered the release of former president Hosni Mubarak, who has been serving out a prison sentence in a Cairo military hospital for the better part of the last six years. Mona el-Ghobashy, a scholar of Egyptian politics and lecturer at Columbia University, explains how Egyptians are reacting to this news, and the current state of affairs in Egypt years after the Arab Spring.

• Elections are being held in the Netherlands on Wednesday. It seems unlikely that Geert Wilders, the anti-immigrant far-right candidate, will become prime minister, but some say that no matter the outcome, “the Netherlands is headed in a nationalist direction.” Nick Robins-Early, a world news reporter for The Huffington Post, weighs in. 

• It’s not just the Dutch who are feeling turbulence this election season. A wild presidential campaign season is underway in France after current President François Hollande made the unprecedented decision not to run for a second five-year term. The ensuing race to replace him has been mired by numerous political scandals, unusual campaign rhetoric, and a sense of anxiety among voters as election day approaches. Adeline Sire a journalist based in France explains what’s at stake. 

• Asteroid hunter Dr. Carrie Nugent and her colleagues are mapping out where the biggest asteroids in our solar system are so they can then work on preventing collisions with our planet. She’s the author of the book “Asteroid Hunters” and works as a staff scientist at Caltech/IPAC.