This season, The Verge and New York Magazine's The Cut trace the evolution of the multi-billion dollar dating app industry. Through conversations with industry leaders, experts, and users, hosts Sangeeta Singh Kurtz and Lakshmi Rengarajan explore the modern dating landscape forged by companies like Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge, and their impact on our hopes for connection. Looking at the past decade of dating, we're asking the question: are the goals of dating app companies aligned with our romantic aspirations? New episodes begin Wednesday, January 11th.
Republicans made history on Tuesday by failing to select a new House Speaker on the first vote for the first time in 100 years. Rep. Kevin McCarthy couldn’t get enough support from his own party in three rounds of voting, as his colleagues clashed over who should get the speaker’s gavel.
Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin remains in critical condition after he collapsed on the field during his team’s highly-anticipated game against the Cincinnati Bengals Monday night. Lindsay Jones, the senior NFL editor at The Ringer, walks us through what happened, and how it could impact the league.
And in headlines: Ukraine said that Moscow may step up its use of drone attacks, Southwest Airlines said it would give out frequent-flier miles to travelers impacted by last week’s holiday meltdown, and Sam Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty to defrauding FTX investors.
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Lawmakers haven't been able to agree on a House speaker. We'll tell you what happens now.
Also, the FDA may have just made abortion more accessible in parts of the U.S.
And football fans are supporting the NFL player who collapsed during a game.
Plus, where people are bracing for what could be a "brutal" storm today, Southwest's latest attempt to win back customers' trust, and more companies are giving raises to employees: we'll tell you how much the average worker is getting for their loyalty.
Those stories and more news to know in around 10 minutes!
Congress is back in session, and members have their work cut out for them.
“I agree that it is one of—if not the most critical time in our nation's history,” says Ryan Walker, vice president for government relations at Heritage Action for America. (Heritage Action for America is the grassroots partner organization of The Heritage Foundation.)
“We are at the precipice of continuing the Left's march toward socialism, a full and fundamental takeover of our public institutions, not just government, but education, business, university systems, you name it,” he says.
With Republicans controlling the House, Walker says, the House Oversight and Reform Committee has a responsibility to hold the Biden administration accountable and to investigate the crisis at the southern border, COVID-19 spending, and much more.
For decades it felt like society was growing more accepting of the LGBTQ community, but in the past few years, hospitals have faced bomb threats, drag story hours have been beset by armed protestors, and queer spaces have been violently targeted. What happened?
If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Amicus—and you’ll be supporting the work we do here on What Next. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to help support our work.
Two year anniversaries in Washington mean a new Congress, but this year January also brings the echoes and the legacy of January 6. These intertwine most intimately, as the end of the old Congress necessitated the windup of the January 6 Commission, a report, some referrals, and all sorts of constitutional questions. Meanwhile, it also brings a new Speaker election and why should anything be simple in Washington these days? If that wasn’t spicy enough, the usually routine seating of the new House brings Representative-ish Santos to Washington with all of his chameleon-like mendacity. We have to talk a bit about that, too.
In this episode, Here & Now's Robin Young talks with author Andrew Sean Greer about his new novel Less is Lost, the sequel to his Pulitzer Prize-winning Less. This time, Greer's protagonist Arthur Less takes a tour of America in a van, and in the process learns about what it means to be an author today. Less is disappointed by how things are going, but doesn't realize how good things actually are for him. Greer says that he almost didn't write a second book, but by satirizing the literary crowd, he saw the importance of critiquing himself.
Speaking to Short Wave from about 250 miles above the Earth, Josh Cassada outlined his typical day at work: "Today, I actually started out by taking my own blood," he said. The astronauts aboard the International Space Station are themselves research subjects, as well as conductors of all sorts of science experiments: Gardening in microgravity, trapping frigid atoms, examining neutron stars. Then, there's the joy of walks into the yawning void of space. Speaking from orbit, Cassada told fellow physicist and Short Wave Scientist in Residence Regina G. Barber about research aboard the station, what it takes to keep the ISS going and which countries' astronauts make the best food.
Curious about the other goings-on in space? Beam us an email at shortwave@npr.org — we might answer it in a future episode!
WHY do we dream? What do dreams mean? What parts of our brain are working after-hours? We sought out UC Santa Cruz researcher and professor Dr. G. William Domhoff, a world expert on the topic, for this dream-come-true episode. Learn about historical dream research, dream researchers collect dream reports, how neurodivergence affects dreaming, why you should set an alarm to go to bed, how remembering dreams can help solve problems, and more about REM myths! We’ll be back next week to answer all your questions and dig even deeper. Also teeth dreams: WHY.
