The life of a 'repo man' is always intense; just imagine the stakes on the high seas. On today’s show, we’ll dive into the murky world of maritime "repo men", hired to recover ships stolen and scrubbed to hide their identity by gun runners, human traffickers, and pirates.
Then, for nearly 50 million U.S. workers, drug tests are a condition of employment. We'll look into the costs and efficacy of random drug testing.
Listen to the full show.
Maritime Repo Men
Ian Urbina is an investigative reporter for The New York Times. He's uncovered stories of slavery, summary executions, stealing and selling organs, all taking place on the high seas...his most recent report is on maritime 'repo men’. “Maritime ‘Repo Men’: A Last Resort for Stolen Ships.”
After a Flood, Solving the Mystery of Water
The worst may be over for flooded St. Louis, but rising waters appear to be heading downstream, and will likely reach Tennessee, Mississippi, and Louisiana in the upcoming days. While the havoc caused by surges in the Mississippi and Meramec rivers made headlines, historic flooding is becoming more and more commonplace in some areas of the country. So, what's being done to prevent destructive flooding? Sometimes, the best preparation comes from examining the scene after the waters have receded. Jenny Chen brings us the story.
You can listen to this story again at PRX.org.
Drug Testing at Work
Daniel Engber is a columnist for Slate who has never had to take a drug test. He looked into the costs, efficacy, and privacy questions raised by random drug testing and found very little evidence of its success. "Workplace Drug Testing is Widespread, but Ineffective."
Mental Illness on TV
Julie Kliegman is a freelance journalist and The Week’s weekend editor. She wrote the article “2015 Was the Year Mental Illness Finally Got Some Respect on T.V.” The article was originally published on Vulture and we found it on Slate.
