On Second Thought For Wednesday, October 4, 2017

Equifax, DACA, College Inequality, Bald Eagles, Sleep

On Tuesday, the former head of Atlanta-based Equifax apologized many times during a hearing before a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee  about the company’s massive data breach. The hack exposed more than 145 million people to possible ID theft. We check in with Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Tamar Hallerman, who’s been following the Equifax scandal from Washington.

Last month President Donald Trump rescinded the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program, better known as DACA. That’s a pathway for people illegally brought to the United States as children to stay in the country. The changes impact 24,000 people in Georgia. But the action also includes a grace period, as long as people apply by tomorrow, October 5. GPB’s Josephine Bennett explains.

The top American universities admit more students from the top one percent of earners than the bottom 60 percent combined. Those numbers contradict the U.S. News rankings, which seem to reward schools contributing to the rich-poor gap. Georgia State University is a national model for graduating low-income students, even though it dropped 30 spots in the U.S. News rankings. We talk with Tim Renick, Vice President for Student Success Programs at GSU. And Mitchell Stevens, Professor of Sociology at Stanford University.

One of America’s most beloved species is making a comeback. The bald eagle was nearly extinct, before being labeled endangered in the 1960s. But a record number of bald eagle nests have been documented in Georgia this year, according to the state Department of Natural Resources. The Department announced in May that surveys detected over 200 occupied nests in the state. We talk with Bob Sargent, survey leader with the DNR.

This week a group of scientists were awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine for their discoveries related to our circadian rhythms. Emory University professor Ben Reiss joined us in May to talk about his latest exploration of sleep patterns, “Wild Nights: How Taming Sleep Created Our Restless World.” We revisit that conversation, then we’re joined in the studio by Assistant Professor of Neuroscience for Morehouse School of Medicine, Chris Ehlen. His team of scientists just released their own study about how your muscles affect sleep.