Harvey Devastates Houston, Trump’s Controversial Pardon, Race, Identity and Adoption

Coming up on today’s show:

• Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Texas this weekend. At least eight people have died from the storm, and thousands are facing devastation as catastrophic flooding continues to to batter the Houston area. Rachel Osier Lindley, statewide coordinating editor for the Texas Station Collaborative, and Art Acevedo, chief of police in Houston, Texas, join The Takeaway with the latest.

• President Trump pardoned former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio on Friday. Arpaio is infamous for targeting Latinos during undocumented immigration sweeps. January Contreras served as an assistant attorney general in the Obama Administration and is currently running for attorney general in the state of Arizona. She joins The Takeaway to discuss the impact Arpaio’s tenure had on Latinos in her state, and the signal being sent by his pardon. 

• Despite not having a new center to locate homeless persons, the city of Atlanta is closing its last so-called “shelter of last resort” in the city, which take in anyone, with almost no exceptions. Chuck Steffen, chair of the Board of Directors of the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless, joins The Takeaway to explain the real root of the problem when it comes to homeless populations.

• The Takeaway has been presenting conversations about race and identity through our original series “Uncomfortable Truths: Confronting Racism in America.” Today we hear from Lakshmi Iyer and Brandy Stein. Brandy is the birth mother of two white children, who Lakshmi, an Indian-American, adopted. They now have an open adoption, yet they rarely have talked about race. They have that difficult conversation today on The Takeaway.

• The National Weather Service issued a dire warning about Hurricane Harvey this weekend, saying “this event is unprecedented and all impacts are unknown and beyond anything experienced.” Louis Uccellini is leading the agency as Director of the National Weather Service. He explains why this weather event is so unprecedented. 

This episode is hosted by Todd Zwillich.