From Brexit to covid-19, nothing has yet stymied London’s successes. The city has its problems, but it remains a paragon of policymaking. In the last of our series on democracy around the world, we examine what is at stake in India’s coming election (9:16). And a tribute to Gao Yaojie, whose findings about the spread of AIDS shocked and shamed China (16:53).
Sign up for a free trial of Economist Podcasts+. If you’re already a subscriber to The Economist, you’ll have full access to all our shows as part of your subscription. For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.
Happy New Year Hammerheads! On this special episode we’re checking in and seeing how well we are sticking with our resolutions, and playing a little catch up with all of the latest Trump news. Tune in!
A vivid and illuminating new history--separate fact from fiction, myth from legend--exploring the early Vikings settlements in North America.
Vikings are an enduring subject of fascination. The combination of adventure, mythology, violence, and exploration continues to grip our attention. As a result, for more than a millennium the Vikings have traveled far and wide, not least across the turbulent seas of our minds and imaginations.
The geographical reach of the Norse was extraordinary. For centuries medieval sagas, first recorded in Iceland, claimed that Vikings reached North America around the year 1000. This book explores that claim, separating fact from fiction and myth from mischief, to assess the enduring legacy of this claim in America. The search for "American Vikings" connects a vast range of different areas; from the latest archaeological evidence for their actual settlement in North America to the myth-making of nineteenth-century Scandinavian pioneers in the Midwest; and from ancient adventurers to the political ideologies in the twenty-first century. It is a journey from the high seas of a millennium ago to the swirling waters and dark undercurrents of the online world of today.
No doubt, the warlike Vikings would have understood how their image could be "weaponized." In the same way, they would probably have grasped how their dramatic, violent, passionate, and discordant mythologies could appeal to our era and cultural setting. They might, though, have been more surprised at how their image has been commercialized and commodified. A vivid new history by a master of the form, American Vikings(Pegasus Books, 2023) explores how the Norse first sailed into the lands, and then into the imaginations, of America.
Crawford Gribben is a professor of history at Queen’s University Belfast.
We'll tell you what we know so far about a shooting at an Iowa school, how the top presidential candidates are talking about the upcoming anniversary of the Capitol riot, and where Americans are in for a winter storm.
Plus, why a drugmaker is telling some people to skip one of its top sellers, what Microsoft is changing in its biggest keyboard update in 30 years, and how a running club works when running comes second.
ISIS claimed responsibility for the bombings in Iran that killed at least 84 people and injured 284 others on Wednesday. Plus, the United States launched a drone strike in Iraq’s capital of Baghdad on Thursday, killing a senior commander of an Iran-linked militia group and several others.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced Thursday that he filed a lawsuit against 17 charter bus companies used by Texas Governor Greg Abbott to bus people seeking asylum at the border to New York. Adams is asking the companies to pay $708 million to cover the costs of caring for migrants.
And in headlines: Donald Trump’s businesses received more than $7.8 million from at least 20 foreign governments during his time in office, a 17-year-old gunman opened fire at a high school in Iowa on Thursday, and Britney Spears took to social media to shut down rumors of a new comeback album.
The winter is usually when insects die or go into a state of paused development, but for tiny specks on the white snow called snow flies, it's time to run around, find a lover and make baby snow flies. Neuroscientist John Tuthill has been studying these creatures since he first came across them in 2016. He's found that not only can they survive in the cold, but if one of their limbs starts to freeze, they can self-amputate and pop it right off. That buys the snow fly time to find a mate and make sweet, sweet snow fly love.
Interested in other winter biology? Email us at shortwave@npr.org — we'd love to hear from you!
“There are natural climate cycles, which are normal,” research scientist Roy Spencer says, adding that “If you move beyond the temperature to things like storminess, you know, hurricane activity, there have been no demonstrable, long-term changes in anything other than a modest, relatively benign increase in temperature."
When it comes to climate change, Spencer, a meteorologist and research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, says he's “been hearing the rhetoric and the fearmongering since the 1970s.”
Asked if he personally worries about climate change, Spencer says: “No, if I was seriously worried about it, you know, I'd be worried for my children's future and my grandchildren's future. And I'm not.”
“I'm more worried about what our government is doing on a number of fronts, including regulatory mandates, which is going to make life much more expensive for them and therefore reduce their standard of living,” adds Spencer, who has researched climate change for 40 years.
The “natural fluctuations in weather are normal,” argues Spencer, currently a visiting fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Energy, Climate, and Environment. (The Daily Signal is Heritage’s news outlet.)
Spencer joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” for the final episode of a three-part series on climate change. In it, he explains what we know and don't know about the root causes of climate change and the appropriate response to a changing climate. Spencer also provides insight into how the climate may change in coming years.
Comic book films have dominated the box office for a generation, and gave many diverse actors and artists an opportunity to shine. But the genre struggled during 2023, and fans are worried that the golden age has ended for those movies and the culture that inspired them. On today’s episode of A Word, Jason Johnson is joined by journalist David Betancourt, who covered comic book movies and culture for The Washington Post for more than a decade. They talk about why superhero films may be going through a rough patch, and whether they can rebound.
Guest: Journalist David Betancourt, author of The Avengers Assembled: The Origin Story of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes
Podcast production by Kristie Taiwo-Makanjuola
You can skip all the ads in A Word by joining Slate Plus. Sign up now at slate.com/awordplus for $15 for your first three months.
