Start the Week - Nature notes, from farming to fungi

The first episode of the new season. Andrew Marr and guests stop to consider the natural world and the changing seasons.

When James Rebanks first learnt to work the land, at his grandfather's side, the family’s Lake District farm was a key part of the ancient landscape and was teeming with wildlife. By the time he inherited the farm, that landscape had profoundly changed. In English Pastoral, his follow-up to best-seller The Shepherd’s Life, Rebanks assesses the revolutionary post-war farming methods - and the unintended destruction they caused. He looks at what can be done to restore rich soil and flourishing fields.

Since the start of the pandemic, novelist and nature writer Melissa Harrison has been documenting the wonder of the natural world, bringing the sights and sounds of her Suffolk countryside to homes all around the country. In her podcast The Stubborn Light of Things she plays close attention to what’s happening on her doorstep, from the arrival and departure of the swifts, to the bloom of the hawthorn, to the hunt in the undergrowth for glow-worms. A collection of Harrison’s monthly nature notes from The Times are due to be published this November.

A much underrated and unnoticed part of the natural world are fungi, according to the biologist Merlin Sheldrake. In Entangled Life he celebrates the ingenuity, extravagance and strangeness of fungal networks. Neither plant nor animal, fungi are found throughout the earth, in the air and in our bodies. They can live on a speck of dust or spread over miles of underground mazes. While fungi gives us bread and life-saving medicines, they have also transformed our understanding of the way plants communicate with each other via the ‘Wood Wide Web’.

Producer: Katy Hickman

Strict Scrutiny - What Would Chief Justice Roberts Do?

Leah, Kate, and Melissa are joined by Dale Ho, director of the Voting Rights Project at the ACLU and low-key star of The Fight.

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The Intelligence from The Economist - Ill be going: Abe Shinzo’s legacy

Japan’s longest-serving prime minister leaves behind a mixed bag of policy successes and shortcomings. We examine his legacy and ask what his successor faces. The annual meeting of central bankers in Jackson Hole—online, of course—revealed research suggesting today’s economic woes will ring down for decades to come. And the curious appeal of in-flight meals eaten on terra firma.

For full access to print, digital and audio editions of The Economist, subscribe here www.economist.com/intelligenceoffer

The Best One Yet - “Happy TeslApple Day” — Tesla & Apple split their stocks. The Gap’s 1 hope. Abbott’s $5-15 minute Covid test.

In the rarest of moments in the universe, Tesla and Apple both decided to split their stocks today. The Gap basically became a fashionable facemask company last quarter, but its future depends on Athleta. And Abbott Labs stock jumped 8% last week not because of a vaccine, but because of “the $5 COVID credit card 15-minute” test. $TSLA $AAPL $GPS $ABT Want a shoutout on the pod? We got the form for Snackers to fill out right here: https://forms.gle/KhUAo31xmkSdeynD9 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What Next | Daily News and Analysis - Seven Days of Unrest in Kenosha

One week ago, a police officer in Kenosha, Wisconsin shot Jacob Blake in the back seven times, paralyzing him from the waist down. In the immediate aftermath, citizens of Kenosha took to the streets in protest. Those protests later turned into more tragedy when 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse shot three protestors, killing two. How is the city of Kenosha handling the turmoil?


Guest: Gina Barton, investigative reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and host of the Unsolved podcast


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The NewsWorthy - Portland Clashes, ‘Black Panther’ Star Remembered & U.S. Open Begins- Monday, August 31st, 2020

The news to know for Monday, August 31st, 2020!

What to know about:

  • a deadly shooting during a protest in Portland: why the city's mayor and President Trump are blaming each other for the violence
  • what experts say is really behind COVID-19 outbreaks on college campuses
  • tributes to the 'Black Panther' star gone too soon
  • negotiations for TikTok getting more complicated
  • the first box office roundup in months

Those stories and more in just 10 minutes!

Head to www.theNewsWorthy.com or see sources below to read more about any of the stories mentioned today.

This episode is brought to you by CastleGrade.com. Use code NEWS

Become a NewsWorthy INSIDER! Learn more at  www.TheNewsWorthy.com/insider

 

 

 

 

Sources:

Deadly Clash at Portland Protest: The Oregonian, NY Times, WaPo, AP, Axios

Kenosha, WA Protests: AP, AP 2, Kenosha News, Minneapolis Star-Tribune

Trump to Visit Kenosha Tuesday: CBS News, Reuters, AP, Axios, FOX News

Midwest COVID Hotspots: Johns Hopkins,Reuters, CNBC

More University Outbreaks: AP, Axios, USA Today, Chicago Tribune

Hurricane Laura Aftermath: NPR, WSJ, CBS News, Poweroutage.us

TikTok Talks Slowed Over New Rules: The Hill, CNBC, WSJ, Axios

Brain Chip Implant Unveiled: ABC News, The Verge, TechCrunch, Neuralink

Chadwick Boseman Death: AP, NPR, AP

Other Celebrities Post Tributes: CNN, Twitter, Harpers Bazaar, ET, Deadline, TMZ, FOX News

Box Office Roundup: Variety, Forbes, USA Today

U.S. Open Begins: ESPN, NY Times, CBS Sports, CBS Sports 2, AP, US Open

Monday Monday: Shift to E-Commerce Accelerated: TechCrunch, IBM Industries

NBN Book of the Day - Rafael Medoff, “The Jews Should Keep Quiet: Franklin D. Roosevelt, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, and the Holocaust” (JPS, 2019)

Like so many Americans, American Jews supported President Roosevelt. They adored him. They believed in him. They idolized him.

Perhaps they shouldn’t have.

Based on recently discovered documents, The Jews Should Keep Quiet: Franklin D. Roosevelt, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, and the Holocaust (Jewish Publication Society) reassesses the hows and whys behind the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration’s fateful policies during the Holocaust.

Rafael Medoff delves into difficult truths: With FDR’s consent, the administration deliberately suppressed European immigration far below the limits set by U.S. law. His administration also refused to admit Jewish refugees to the U.S. Virgin Islands, dismissed proposals to use empty Liberty ships returning from Europe to carry refugees, and rejected pleas to drop bombs on the railways leading to Auschwitz, even while American planes were bombing targets only a few miles away—actions that would not have conflicted with the larger goal of winning the war.

What motivated FDR? Medoff explores the sensitive question of the president’s private sentiments toward Jews. Unmasking strong parallels between Roosevelt’s statements regarding Jews and Asians, he connects the administration’s policies of excluding Jewish refugees and interning Japanese Americans.

The Jews Should Keep Quiet further reveals how FDR’s personal relationship with Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, American Jewry’s foremost leader in the 1930s and 1940s, swayed the U.S. response to the Holocaust. Documenting how Roosevelt and others pressured Rabbi Wise to stifle American Jewish criticism of FDR’s policies, Medoff chronicles how and why the American Jewish community largely fell in line with Wise. Ultimately Medoff weighs the administration’s realistic options for rescue action, which, if taken, would have saved many lives.

Rafael Medoff is founding director of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies and coeditor of the institute’s online Encyclopedia of America’s Response to the Holocaust.

Renee Garfinkel, Ph.D. is a Jerusalem-based psychologist, Middle East television commentator, and host of the Van Leer Jerusalem Series on Ideas with Renee Garfinkel 

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What A Day - Critical Mass

One man is now dead after a weekend of violence in Portland, Oregon, in which pro-Trump demonstrators drove through the city’s downtown taunting Black Lives Matter protestors. Jay Bishop was a member of a group called Patriot Prayer, a far-right group with ties to white supremacists.

Massachusetts holds its primaries on Tuesday. Alex Morse is a 31-year-old, Justice Democrats-supported mayor of Holyoke, whose campaign against the incumbent Representative was hit with a false, homophobic smear.

And in headlines: Shinzo Abe steps down as Japan’s prime minister, Novak Djokovic starts an all-male tennis player’s union, and Bella Thorne says sorry for her OnlyFans.

Short Wave - SPACE WEEK: The Mystery Of Dark Energy

It's Space Week on Short Wave! Today, an encore of our episode on dark energy. This mysterious energy makes up almost 70% of our universe and is believed to be the reason the universe is expanding. Yet very little is known about it. To figure out what we do know — and what it could tell us about the fate of the universe — we talk to astrophysicist Sarafina Nance.

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The Daily Signal - Media Largely Ignores Trump’s Historic Middle East Peace Deal

The left largely has ignored the Trump administration's role in negotiating the recent peace agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. 


The Abraham Accord, announced Aug. 13, normalizes relations between the Jewish state and the UAE. Helen Raleigh, policy fellow at the Centennial Institute and a senior contributor at The Federalist, calls the agreement a historic achievement. 


Raleigh joins the podcast to explain how the Israel-UAE accord could affect diplomatic relations in the Middle East for years to come, and why the mainstream media has chosen to ignore its significance. She also discusses how the Chinese Communist Party strategically spreads propaganda on American college campuses. 


Plus, we read your letters to the editor and share a good news story about a nonprofit that converted its parking lot into an outdoor learning center and tutoring hub for children who are distance learning this fall. 


Enjoy the show.


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