For the first time in 40 years, the Polar Star sails north
When you can’t socially distance in the Antarctic research facility, what’s a Coast Guard icebreaker to do? Why the Count von Count’s census dreams might be dashed. And what happens when we look into the face of a wild animal, and it looks back.
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Coast Guard vessel the Polar Star has its plans scrambled by COVID
This week, a Coast Guard icebreaker called the Polar Star is heading out to sea. Normally they would head to Antarctica, stopping to see penguins in southern New Zealand along the way. But the pandemic has upended that plan, so rather than midnight sun they’ll be heading to the dark northern ice of the Arctic. Captain Bill Woityra explained to Bill Radke how that eternal night might be the opportunity of a lifetime.
The dangers threatening the 2020 Census count
Once in a decade, America comes together to count every person in every home on every block in every neighborhood, coast to coast. In theory. The census has always been an imperfect thing, and everything from financial lifelines to political power depends on it. But politics and a pandemic have made this year extra fraught, says Sara Curran, director of the University of Washington’s Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology.
Richard Louv, Our Wild Calling
Almost everyone has a story of a moment when an encounter with an animal – wild or domestic – stopped them in their tracks. There is a connection between us and the rest of the animal kingdom that can be spiritual in nature, says nature writer Richard Louv. Last year, he spoke with Bill about his book Our Wild Calling: How Connecting with Animals Can Transform Our Lives – and Save Theirs.
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Bill Radke
Host
Bill hosts Week In Review and Words in Review. After starting with KUOW as a University of Washington student in 1985, Bill was KUOW's morning host in the '90s and the creator of past show, Rewind, a news-satire show heard on KUOW and nationwide on NPR. Bill moved away to Southern California to host American Public Media's Weekend America and Marketplace Morning Report and returned to KUOW in 2012.
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