11/09/2025: The Family Farm, Collateral Damage, The Indomitable Margaret Atwood

American farmers have faced months of uncertainty after China stopped buying soybeans in retaliation for the White House reciprocal tariffs strategy. Correspondent Cecilia Vega interviews farmers from Tennessee and Missouri who are struggling with high costs and low prices for their crops, and who fear they could be the generation to lose the family farm.

President Trump has accused elite universities of liberal bias and antisemitism and has been threatening their federal research funding to pressure them to change. At Harvard University, scientists tell correspondent Bill Whitaker that the government’s actions are jeopardizing their research into potentially life-saving advances in medicine and could dismantle America’s lead in scientific innovation.

Correspondent Jon Wertheim profiles literary titan Margaret Atwood, author of the dystopian classic The Handmaid’s Tale. At 85, with 64 books to her name, Canada’s best-known author has been called the “prophet of doom” for her uncanny ability to write about catastrophes in her fiction before they happen in real life. Wertheim talks to Atwood about her new memoir, Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts, why she thinks The Handmaid’s Tale became a cultural touchstone, and how she refuses to be silenced by an increasing number of bans on her books.

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