50 Years On, Final Documents May Break the Mystery Around JFK’s Assassination

Coming up on today’s show:

• About 80 percent of Puerto Rico’s electric grid was damaged during Hurricane Maria. This week, the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority awarded the contract to rebuild the backbone of the island’s electric grid to a two year old company from Montana, Whitefish Energy, which had just two full time employees on the day Maria made landfall. Maggie Koerth-Baker, senior science writer for FiveThirtyEight, discusses why the contract is raising eyebrows.

• Father Carlos Gonzalez is a priest in San Juan, Puerto Rico who arrived in Orlando this week in order to find sponsors to help his community back home. Father Gonzalez says that the post-Maria recovery just isn’t quick enough for him and many of the people he helps in his community. 

• Two months after Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Texas, many are still putting the pieces of their lives back together. We check in with Courtney Collins, a reporter and producer for public radio station KERA in Dallas, who has been following one family as they resettle in the area.

• The fight over the Republican tax reform plan continues to play out, with 401(k) plans emerging as a key sticking point between members of Congress and the president. Heather Long, an economic correspondent for The Washington Post, explains. 

• Voting is taking place in a contentious repeat presidential election in Kenya today, but there are serious concerns about whether it will be legitimate. Wairimu Gitahi, the founder of Mediatwenty Productions in Nairobi, Kenya, discusses the scene on the ground today and the political tensions in her homeland. 

• After the protests and death of Heather Heyer in Charlottesville in August, the role of Confederate symbols in the public square was thrust into the spotlight once again. In Dallas, Mayor Mike Rawlings created a task force to review Confederate monuments, street names, and parks in the city of Dallas. Frances Cudjoe-Waters, chairperson of the task force, discusses the group’s work so far. 

• Today is the deadline for the release of all the remaining classified government records relating to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Will we learn anything new? Stephen Fagin, curator of The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, and Hugh Aynesworth, a reporter for the Dallas Morning News who was on-site when President Kennedy was assassinated, weigh in. 

This episode is hosted by Todd Zwillich.