Are Third-Party Presidential Candidates Spoilers? Johnny Doc on Trial, A Fish with ‘Feet’

The case against former labor leader John Dougherty — aka “Johnny Doc” — is heating up in front of a federal jury this week, who will decide if he’s guilty of embezzling over $600,000 from the IBEW Local 98 union. From lavish Atlantic City birthday parties to home renovations and even groceries, the list of ways Dougherty allegedly misused funds is long and astonishing. Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Jeremy Roebuck has the latest on what’s unfolding in the courtroom.

The famous 375-million-year-old fossil, Tiktaalik roseae, is starring in a new exhibit at Drexel’s Academy of Natural Sciences. The remarkable Tiktaalik, discovered in 2004 by a team co-lead by Academy paleontologist Ted Daeschler, had both fish-like features and limbs, helping explain how animals transitioned from sea to land. Daeschler joins us to talk about what we’ve learned from the fossil and about life on Earth during the Devonian Period, hundreds of millions of years before dinosaurs roamed.

The 2024 presidential race is already crowded with Republican primary candidates – and now, increasingly with third-party and independent challengers like Robert F. Kennedy, Cornel West, Jill Stein and potentially Sen. Joe Manchin. Do Americans have an appetite for outsider challengers this election? Are they good for democracy, or are they spoilers? We ask Franklin and Marshall political scientist Stephen Medvic and former New Jersey Republican Governor Christine Todd Whitman, who formed, with Andrew Yang, the moderate Forward Party.