Defending the GOP’s Healthcare Bill, Escaping Syria, A Radical Heretic

Coming up on today’s show:

• Senators like Rand Paul and Ted Cruz claim that the Senate healthcare bill doesn’t go far enough to repeal Obamacare, and others are raising concerns about the number of people who will be left uninsured by the legislation. But Avik Roy, president of the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, sees a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity in the Senate’s sweeping proposal. Takeaway Washington Correspondent Todd Zwillich looks at the political fight over the bill on Capitol Hill. 

• Green card holders are allowed to join the U.S. military, and some veterans are not citizens. But non-citizen soldiers and veterans who get in trouble with the law can face deportation. Now, Tijuana, Mexico has become a haven for some deported vets. Dorian Merina, a reporter for station KPCC in Los Angeles and is a contributor to The American Homefront Project, explains. 

• The contempt-of-court trial for former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio begins this week, after the former sheriff was charged with defying a federal judge’s orders to stop traffic patrols targeting immigrants. Jimmy Jenkins, senior field correspondent for public radio station KJZZ in Phoenix, Arizona, has the details. 

• On Monday, the Trump Administration said that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad may be planning to carry out another chemical weapons attack in the country, adding that the regime will “pay a heavy price” if it follows through. But recent U.S.-led strikes in Syria have killed nearly 500 civilians in the last month, according to one monitor, but others say the number is much higher. Murtaza Hussain, a journalist with The Intercept, explains why so many civilians have been killed in the uptick, and the U.S. strategy in the country.

• In 2012, Dalya Hassan fled Aleppo, Syria with her mother to live in the United States. She’s been in California since age 13, and has worked to maintain her cultural identity while adjusting to American life. Julia Meltzer, director of the documentary “Dalya’s Other Country,” and Dalya’s brother Mustafa Zeno, discuss the refugee experience in the Trump era. 

• Sir Isaac Newton is best known for his contributions to science, but Newton was also a radical religious thinker. A new biography reveals Newton’s extensive theological writings that have only become accessible to the public in recent years. Robert Iliffe, a professor of the history of science at the University of Oxford and author of “Priest of Nature – The Religious Worlds of Isaac Newton,” weighs in.