Before we dive into our new sources, here’s a topical source for your current coverage. The historic confirmation hearings of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson have been mired in political turmoil during days of questioning. Several of our sources are versed in the politics of the Supreme Court. 

Margaret Russell is an associate professor of constitutional law at California’s Santa Clara University. She specializes in constitutional law, civil rights and civil liberties, as well as freedom of speech, racial equality, sexual orientation equality, and the Supreme Court.
 
Now on to our sources of the week.

Our two sources this week offer new depths of knowledge. Today, we’re looking at the ocean and the history it holds, and the movement of tectonic plates.

Tara Roberts is a National Geographic Storytelling Fellow and former fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Open Documentary Lab. Roberts’ goal is to reimagine and reframe the origin story of Africans in the Americas and to tell stories that humanize and bring empathy, nuance and complexity to their journey. With the support of MIT and National Geographic, she followed a group of Black scuba divers, historians and archaeologists as they searched for and documented slave trade shipwrecks around the world, which became the long-form narrative podcast Into The Depths.

Vashan Wright is an assistant professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and a guest investigator at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. He is a geophysicist who studies plate tectonics and paleoclimate (the study of geologic and biological evidence to construct a history of past climates). His recent research addresses the difference between artificial and natural beach sands; anti-racism action in the geosciences; and infrasound signals from North Korean underground nuclear explosions in 2016.

Sources of the Week on the news

Read:

• Chanda Prescod-Weinstein wrote in the New Scientist about the dangers of allowing billionaires to run the space industry.
• Politico interviewed Lawrence Yun about the rising costs of real estate that are pushing inflation.
• Aziz Abu Sarah was interviewed by The New York Times about the power of tourism for peace. 
• Credit companies are planning to remove paid medical debts from credit reports. Chi Chi Wu spoke to The New York Times about the potential impact on the most financially vulnerable Americans.
• Aletha Maybank was featured in an NBC News story on doctors who face harassment as they work toward health equity.
• In USA Today, Walter Kimbrough shared about the pandemic funding that helped HBCUs stay open.
• Matt Barreto shared the significance of Latino voters in L.A.’s upcoming mayoral election with The Los Angeles Times.
• Schuyler Bailar spoke with The Washington Post about Lia Thomas’ struggles and successes as a trans athlete swimming in the NCAA.
• Biden’s new infrastructure plan struggles to meet all its promises, raising skepticism amongst climate change activists and scholars like Robert Bullard.
• Fatima Goss Graves contributed an opinion to CNN on the nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court.
• Congrats to Sean Sherman who was recently announced as a 2022 finalist for a James Beard Award.

Listen:

• Amy Liu talked about the importance of city infrastructure on The Brookings Cafeteria podcast.
• Anthony Brickhouse spoke to All Things Considered about the investigation of the Chinese Eastern jet crash.
• Cecillia Wang spoke to WYNC’s The Takeaway about Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s nomination.
• On The Indicator, Dorothy Brown spoke about the connection between race and tax law. 
• Federal funding for uninsured patients receiving COVID testing and treatment has ended. Kavita Patel spoke to Marketplace on how that’s impacting her primary care practice.