News

Today’s students face a challenging paradox: the digital tools they need to complete their work are often the source of their biggest distractions. Students can quickly become overwhelmed trying to manage the daily confluence of online interactions with schoolwork, extracurricular activities, and family life. Written by author and educator Ana Homayoun, Social Media Wellness is the first book to successfully decode the new language of social media for parents and educators and provide pragmatic solutions to help students focus and manage distractions. 

Ana Homayoun is a noted teen and millennial expert, author, school consultant, speaker and educator. Her newest book is Social Media Wellness: Helping Tweens and Teens Thrive in an Unbalanced Digital World.

WAMC's Dr. Alan Chartock discusses yesterday's fund drive, the health care debate after Trump's decision to cut subsidies, the Russia investigation, and a judge blocking Trump's travel ban.

Meteorologist Jason Caterina's Morning Forecast:

Today- Sunny, mild, highs in the mid 60s to near 70

Tonight - Mostly clear and cool with lows in the upper 30s to mid 40s.

Thursday - Patchy fog early, otherwise, sunny, with a high in the mid 60s to low 70s and a bit of a breeze.

NBA-SCHEDULE

The NBA season opener was supposed to feature a matchup between LeBron James and former teammate Kyrie Irving. Instead, a gruesome injury overshadowed an otherwise entertaining game as the Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Boston Celtics 102-99.

Gordon Hayward had to be carted off the floor after breaking his ankle in the first quarter of his Celtics debut. He went up for an alley-oop pass and fell awkwardly following a collision with James.

Hayward had his leg wrapped in an air cast as he left the arena.

WAMC's David Guistina talks with Judy Patrick of the Daily Gazette about policing in Schenectady, and an affordable housing renovation project.

Members of an Air National Guard unit based in upstate New York have departed for the 30th season of supporting U.S. scientific missions at the South Pole.

A New York state senator from the Hudson Valley believes there has been little progress regarding an action plan for the closure of the Indian Point nuclear power plant in Westchester County. And the mayor of the village home to Indian Point is hoping for more concrete redevelopment plans.

The fallout continues from President Trump’s decision to end subsidies to health insurance companies to help lower income Americans pay for their health insurance. But it’s still unclear what the exact impact will be in New York.

Massachusetts lawmakers are debating whether to increase the amount utility companies pay of their annual electricity sales from renewable sources to the state. 

The city of Springfield, Massachusetts is using $500,000 in federal funds to renovate a neighborhood park.

Massachusetts Senate leaders have proposed a comprehensive health care reform bill that looks to rein in prescription drug prices and hospital costs.  

The legislation was produced by a group of Senators led by State Senator James Welch of West Springfield.

They spent the last year looking at what other states have tried and talking with stakeholders.  WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief Paul Tuthill spoke with Welch.

With a controversial art auction set for next month, the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield has cut off talks with the Massachusetts Cultural Council.  

A nonprofit preservation group is donating a mountain in the Schoharie Valley to New York state.

Meteorologist Garett Argianas delivers the evening weather forecast for Tuesday, October 17, 2017.

Governor Andrew Cuomo joined other New York Democrats in condemning the federal tax overhaul plan in the wake of Vice President Mike Pence’s visit to Western New York Tuesday.

Sebastian Barry is one of the most prominent Irish writers of his generation. In his latest novel, Days without End, he explores America through the eyes of a young Irish immigrant fighting in the great wars of the mid-19th century.

It’s about war, immigration, and the violent making of America, but also a moving love story between two gay men. 

The Burlington City Council narrowed the number of bidders seeking to buy Burlington Telecom to two on Monday night.  The council faced an auditorium filled with residents supporting the only local bidder – a co-op that councilors and the mayor have expressed some hesitancy over.

Glenville’s police station is need of an upgrade. WAMC’s Southern Adirondack Bureau Chief Lucas Willard reports that the police department in Schenectady County was awarded $1.5 million in state funding to make major upgrades.

      The Baker administration has sent more help from Massachusetts to Puerto Rico to aid in the recovery from Hurricane Maria.

Friday afternoon, Troy Mayor Patrick Madden issued a statement saying the controversial plans to build a Bow Tie Cinema movie theater at One Monument Square were dead. Now, across the Hudson River, Cohoes is hoping to land the theater.

Newschannel 13 meteorologist Paul Caiano delivers the Midday Weather Summary for Tuesday, October 17, 2017.

A wide variety of groups have spent over $1.3 million to urge voters to vote “no” on holding a Constitutional Convention. The opponents have far outspent a smaller number of advocates who urge a “yes” vote on the November ballot. 

Despite her 5-foot-2, 130-pound frame, Jen Welter always excelled in athletics, from tennis to rugby to women’s football.  Welter credits her determination for helping her crack one of American’s most stubborn glass ceilings. In 2015, she became the first female coach in the National Football League, working with the Arizona Cardinals’ linebackers in the preseason. But as Welter writes in her new memoir "Play Big," it took years of adversity in life and sports before Welter found herself on the sidelines. Now, she hopes her story can inspire others.

Everybody knows -- or thinks they know -- Charles Darwin, the father of evolution and the man who altered the way we view our place in the world. But what most people do not know is that Darwin was on board the HMS Beagle as a geologist -- on a mission to examine the land, not flora and fauna.

Retracing Darwin’s footsteps in South America and beyond, geologist Rob Wesson treks across the Andes, cruises waters charted by the Beagle, hunts for fossils in Uruguay and Argentina, and explores sites of long vanished glaciers in Scotland and Wales. As he follows Darwin’s path, Wesson experiences the land as Darwin did, engages with his observations, and tackles the same questions Darwin had about our ever-changing Earth.

Wesson's book is Darwin's First Theory: Exploring Darwin's Quest for a Theory of Earth.

North Korea’s nuclear capabilities are worrisome for the U.S.

In today’s Congressional Corner, Massachusetts Congressman Jim McGovern, a Democrat from the second district, wraps up his discussion with WAMC’s Alan Chartock.

Since the 1970s, Sigmund Freud’s scientific reputation has been in an accelerating tailspin―but nonetheless the idea persists that some of his contributions were visionary discoveries of lasting value. Now, drawing on rarely consulted archives, Frederick Crews has assembled a great volume of evidence that reveals a surprising new Freud: a man who blundered tragicomically in his dealings with patients, who in fact never cured anyone, who promoted cocaine as a miracle drug capable of curing a wide range of diseases, and who advanced his career through falsifying case histories and betraying the mentors who had helped him to rise. The legend has persisted, Crews shows, thanks to Freud’s fictive self-invention as a master detective of the psyche, and later through a campaign of censorship and falsification conducted by his followers.

Frederick Crews is an author who has published a variety of books and criticisms including The Pooh Complex, Follies of the Wise and his newest book Freud: The Making of an Illusion. 

Nelson DeMille's blistering new novel features an exciting new character—U.S. Army combat veteran Daniel “Mac” MacCormick, now a charter boat captain, who is about to set sail on his most dangerous cruise.

Daniel Graham MacCormick—Mac for short—seems to have a pretty good life. At age thirty-five he’s living in Key West, owner of a forty-two-foot charter fishing boat, The Maine. Mac served five years in the Army as an infantry officer with two tours in Afghanistan.

One day, Mac is sitting in the famous Green Parrot Bar in Key West, contemplating his life, and waiting for Carlos, a hotshot Miami lawyer heavily involved with anti-Castro groups. Carlos wants to hire Mac and The Maine for a ten-day fishing tournament to Cuba at the standard rate, but Mac suspects there is more to this and turns it down. The price then goes up to two million dollars, and Mac agrees to hear the deal, and meet Carlos’s clients—a beautiful Cuban-American woman named Sara Ortega, and a mysterious older Cuban exile, Eduardo Valazquez.

What Mac learns is that there is sixty million American dollars hidden in Cuba by Sara’s grandfather when he fled Castro’s revolution. Mac knows if he accepts this job, he’ll walk away rich…or not at all.

DeMille is a New York Times-bestselling author that has 15 best-selling novels, including Plum House and Night Fall. His newest novel is The Cuban Affair. 

The American sports stadium, for all its raucous glory, is an overlooked centerpiece -- a veritable temple -- of our national culture. A hallowed ground for communal worship, this is where history is made on grass, artificial turf, hardwood, and even ice; where nostalgia flows as freely as ten-dollar beers; where everything thrills, from exploding fireworks to grinning cheerleaders.

If you’ve ever wondered how they coordinate those fighter jet flyovers with the national anthem, how many hot dogs they serve in a day at Citi Field, how boozy pregame tailgates are kept in line, or what on earth AstroTurf is made of, look no further.

Rafi Kohan is a freelance writer and editor, and an amateur ivy groomer. Formerly, he served as deputy editor at the New York Observer and has written for GQ, Men’s Journal, Wall Street Journal, Town & Country, ESPN.com, and more. His new book is The Arena.

The Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Music Director has been named Musical America’s 2018 Artist of the Year.