In this week’s Beyond the Headlines, Environmental Health News Editor Peter Dykstra joins Host Steve Curwood to discuss how coronavirus may be transmittable from humans to marine mammals through untreated wastewater. They go on to talk about how atrazine, one of the most widely used herbicides, may be harming endangered species and disrupting ecosystems, as well as affecting human health. And they wish a very happy birthday to Ted Turner, founder of CNN and longtime environmental champion.

The pawpaw is the largest edible fruit native to the U.S., and it ripens in the late fall, outlasting many of the better-known local fruits like apples. Landscape designer and former host of PBS' The Victory Garden Michael Weishan gives Living on Earth's Bobby Bascomb a taste of the fruit and some pawpaw trees for her to plant at home.

When the COVID-19 pandemic began, many people found themselves stuck at home, looking for something to do just as spring was getting going. Many turned to gardening as a way to pass the time, and are looking for how to continue this new hobby into the winter. Living on Earth’s Bobby Bascomb chats with landscape designer Michael Weishan, the former host of the PBS series The Victory Garden, about how to keep up with one’s garden and tend to plants inside and out during the colder months of the year.

At a time when the COVID-19 pandemic has led most of the American population to practice physical distancing, gardening can provide comfort and improved health. Landscape designer Michael Weishan, the former host of the PBS series The Victory Garden, joined Living on Earth's Bobby Bascomb to share the joys of tending to a vegetable garden, keeping chickens and enjoying the fruits of a small orchard, and to offer some advice about what to get in the ground now.

President-elect Joe Biden has vowed to put the U.S. on a path to achieving "economy-wide net-zero emissions no later than 2050." Halting or reducing fossil fuel extraction on public lands will be among key steps the new administration will need to take in order to meaningfully move towards that goal. Vermont Law School Professor Pat Parenteau joins Host Steve Curwood to discuss how the Biden-Harris administration can pursue a new agenda on public lands and climate.

Thanksgiving is a time for many US families and friends to gather and be thankful, but for Native Americans it can also be a reminder of the displacement, violence and disease brought by the white colonists. Joe Bruchac, an author and storyteller of the Nulhegan Abenaki tribe, joined Host Steve Curwood to reflect on Thanksgiving’s complicated legacy for Native Americans and the long Native tradition of giving thanks.

Some like ‘em and others don’t but oysters can be eaten in many ways beyond the half-shell, and farmed correctly they nourish shallow waters. From his coastal Maine kitchen celebrity chef Barton Seaver joins Host Steve Curwood to talk about how oyster farming supports local economies and ecosystems, and whips up an oyster-flavored Thanksgiving stuffing.