America’s Toxic Tap

Coming up on today’s show:

• Some members of Congress are hopeful that there is still an opportunity to fix the Affordable Care Act. We look at what’s on the table and what lawmakers may be able to realistically achieve with Jeffrey Young, a senior reporter at HuffPost.

• Today, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders will introduce a “Medicare-for-all” bill, and at number of Democratic senators have announced their intent to co-sponsor the legislation, including Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon. He discusses the bill today on The Takeaway. 

• Yesterday, the Republican mayor of Miami told The Takeaway that the country needs to wake up to the realities of climate change. We examine the historical relationship between Republicans and climate change with Bob Inglis, a former congressman from South Carolina and founder of RepublicEN.

• A new study shows that microscopic plastic fibers are more prevalent in drinking water than anyone previously imagined. The United States is most at risk — of 33 tap water samples examined from across America, 94 percent tested positive for the presence of plastic fibers. Kartik Chandran, a professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Engineering at Columbia University, has the details. 

• Over the past year, the military has cut their band budgets by around 40 percent. The 323rd Army Band in San Antonio, Texas is one of five bands slated to be shut down by 2019. Carson Frame, Texas Public Radio’s military and veterans’ issues reporter, has the story.

• Photojournalist Finbarr O’Reilly and retired Marine Corps sergeant Thomas “TJ” Brennan met in Afghanistan in 2010. Their new book,“Shooting Ghosts: A U.S. Marine, a Combat Photographer, and Their Journey Back from War,” depicts the complex relationship between military members and journalists. This week, they sat down with The Takeaway to discuss how the dangers of war brought them together.

• When it comes to dealing with the catastrophic effects of natural disasters, why do we continually fail to learn from the lessons of past events? Scott Knowles, a disaster historian and professor of history at Drexel University, argues that historians must be part of the public debate regarding disasters and extreme weather events. 

This episode is hosted by Todd Zwillich.