October 1st, 2021

On this episode, when it comes to kids back in the classroom, the coronavirus is one problem. Wildfire smoke is another. Much of the west is gripped in a historic drought. There are a lot of ideas for how to relieve it, some more feasible than others. In Teton County, crab apples are attracting bears... a team of entrepreneurs came up with an idea. Those stories and more.

Hamid Khan is a Judicial Education Attorney at the Federal Judicial Center. He's also an expert on a wide range of Islamic issues and teaches courses on them at the University of Michigan Law School. Mr. Khan is also a graduate of Worland High School and the University of Wyoming. He joins Bob Beck to talk about the situation in Afghanistan and what the future holds.

Much of the region is gripped in a historic drought. And there are a lot of ideas for how to relieve it and ease its impacts—some more feasible than others. In the first of a two-part series, Wyoming Public Radio's Ivy Engel looked into some of these ideas and their merits.

Concerns about sending kids back to school have revolved around the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. But as the wildfire season has become longer, smoke finding its way into the classroom is also a problem. The Mountain West News Bureau's Maggie Mullen reports on the battle to keep children safe.

Wyoming has roughly a 39 percent vaccination rate against COVID-19 and is seeing its hospitals fill up. State health officials say that approximately 96 percent of those in the hospital have not been vaccinated. Another fact is that by the time many reach the hospital they have serious cases of COVID-19 because they didn't seek treatment when symptoms first arrived. Dr. Donald Lloyd Jones is the President of the American Heart Association and the Director of Preventive Medicine at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. He tells Wyoming Public Radio's Bob Beck why Wyoming's numbers concern him.

Back in 2016, Teton County was struggling with bears eating crab apples. The solution...make cider out of those apples. With that Wyoming's one cidery was born. Wyoming Public Radio's Kamila Kudelska has this story.

Last year was a tough one for musicians of all sorts and that includes the University of Wyoming Symphony Orchestra. Not getting audience feedback is difficult. This year it'll be different. The in-person symphony season kicks off on October 7 at 7:30 p.m. Longtime Symphony Director and Conductor Michael Griffith joined Bob Beck to preview the season and discuss how they plan on having a safe performance.