The Source

Your plan for your last days is the most difficult and likely the most important conversation you haven't had yet. Waiting till it is too late has happened to too many people argues Dr. Angelo Volandes in his book "The Conversation: A Revolutionary Plan for End-of-Life Care." 

More than one billion people live on a single U.S. dollar a day and almost three times as many live under $2 each day. While the number has dropped significantly in the past 20 years, the daily struggles of those living it are likely unimaginable to those living in the developed world. 

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The Open Carry movement in Texas, the movement that endorses people be allowed to openly carry guns—be they handgun or rifle— unrestricted, is having its moment.

*This episode of The Source features host David Martin Davies being connected to a #tDCS device. It was administered by a trained professional. TPR doesn't endorse building homemade #tDCS devices.

Where do you send your kids to school? Trying to clarify that proposal? Sifting through a morass of data and need to concentrate? 

The American Dialect Society's 2014 word of the year was #blacklivesmatter. The social media hashtag references the tragic deaths of several unarmed African American at the hands of police. Eric Garner, Michael Brown and John Crawford's tests set off protests across the country. For many 2014 crystallized racial inequality in the American consciousness. 

Guest:

• Sonja Laneheart, Brackenridge Endowed Chair in Literature and the Humanities

On Friday, the remains of Sgt. 1st Class Gilberto Sanchez were lowered into his native Texas soil more than 64 years after the 19 year-old combat medic disappeared in the middle of the Korean War. Sanchez was just one of an estimated 83,000 G.I.s whose remains were lost on the many battlefields of U.S. history.

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The Texas Indigent Defense Commission issued new guidelines for the case-loads of public defenders last week. It was the first time the Commission has offered any such guidelines. Before this, many public defender's offices relied on the National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice, which was proposed in 1973.

The differences between the two are dramatic, and if a county adopts the new guidelines, it may need to add staff and raise the amount they pay to private attorneys that do public defense work.

Over the course of the past two months, accusations of scandal, mismanagement and calls for resignations have embroiled the state's Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC), all stemming from a no-bid contract being awarded to a company called 21st Century Technologies, or 21CT.