Donald Trump’s war against Venezuela is truly a racket, as it looks to be little more than an attempt to loot the nation of Venezuela’s natural resources in the name of “liberation.”
What kind of state does the UK find itself in as we start 2026? That’s the question Tim Harford and the More or Less team is trying to answer in a series of five special programmes.
In the third episode, we’re searching for answers to these questions:
Are there really 700,000 empty homes that could be used to solve the housing crisis?
Does the NHS pay less for drugs than health services in other countries?
Is violent crime going up or down?
Is the UK in the midst of a fertility crisis?
Get in touch if you’ve seen a number in the news you think we should take a look at: moreorless@bbc.co.uk
Contributors:
Dr Huseyin Naci, Associate Professor and Director the Pharmaceutical Policy Lab at the London School of Economics
Professor Jennifer Dowd, deputy director of the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science at the University of Oxford
Credits:
Presenter: Tim Harford
Reporters: Lizzy McNeill and Nathan Gower
Producers: Katie Solleveld and Charlotte McDonald
Series producer: Tom Colls
Production co-ordinator: Maria Ogundele
Sound mix: Sarah Hockley and James Beard
Editor: Richard Vadon
Hester Kaplan, the daughter of Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Justin Kaplan, knew her father was an esteemed writer and researcher, but she didn’t quite know him personally. After the elder Kaplan died in 2014, Hester began to discover her father, unexpectedly, through his famous biographical account of Mark Twain. In today’s episode, Kaplan speaks with Here and Now’s Tiziana Dearing about the power of biography, and how her memoir Twice Born recounts the stories of a man – and a family – still alive in the margins.
To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-free and support NPR's book coverage, sign up for Book of the Day+ at plus.npr.org/bookoftheday
When you're in a grocery store nowadays, chances are your data is being collected. From a swipe of the loyalty card to the purchase of an ice cream pint, your data tells stores what you like, how much they should stock, and more.
But what if that data meant a grocer could charge you a different price than another shopper?
Sensing the dangers of tyranny by the majority, John C. Calhoun developed the doctrine of the concurrent majority which served to limit the powers of government.
Palantir is one of the world’s most valuable companies, analyzing data for businesses, but also for U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies. The Philosopher in the Valley, a new book by Michael Steinberger, is a portrait of the company’s CEO, Alex Karp. In today’s episode, Steinberger speaks with NPR’s Steve Inskeep about Palantir’s operations at the nexus of technology and national security, Karp’s liberal arts background, and the CEO’s unusual lifestyle.
To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-free and support NPR's book coverage, sign up for Book of the Day+ at plus.npr.org/bookoftheday
We note that the airwaves yesterday were filled with desperate efforts to distract from the Venezuela story by focusing instead on Greenland or the Epstein files. What's happening here? Could it be that this is the way the media are trying to protect their friends in politics? Give a listen.
The US's bombing of Caracas reiterates three key foundations of American foreign policy: the Constitution is dead, democracy is irrelevant, and the "rule of law" doesn't matter.