The Supreme Court heard arguments over President Biden’s plan to cancel more than $400 billion in federal student loans, and whether his administration has the authority to do so. We cover the two cases challenging the loan relief program, and how the court's conservative majority responded.
And in headlines: a 5.6-magnitude earthquake struck southern Turkey, California ended its statewide coronavirus emergency order, and President Biden announced that he will nominate Julie Su to be the next Secretary of Labor.
Crooked Coffee is officially here. Our first blend, What A Morning, is available in medium and dark roasts. Wake up with your own bag at crooked.com/coffee
We'll tell you what a new report says led up to the collapse of the Afghan government, despite the U.S. spending decades and billions of dollars to build it up.
Also, a big step toward getting an RSV vaccine on the market and some concerning new findings about a popular sugar substitute.
Plus, what some major credit card companies are saying about crypto, what a new study found are the highest and lowest-paying college majors, and which new words were added to the dictionary.
Those stories and more news to know in around 10 minutes!
An energy expert is sounding the alarm over the Chinese Communist Party's dominance of African minerals.
"It's such an important topic because President [Joe] Biden and the governor of California, Gov. [Gavin] Newsom have the goal of having all new-vehicle sales in the United States battery-powered electric by 2035, so if we're going to have all electric vehicles with batteries, we need the minerals for those batteries, and the United States used to produce those minerals," says Diana Furchtgott-Roth, director of the Center for Energy, Climate and Environment at The Heritage Foundation. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)
Lithium brine and cobalt and nickel ores are among the minerals needed for electric vehicles with batteries, Furchtgott-Roth says.
"As recently as 1990, the U.S. was the world's No.1 producer of those minerals. Today, we are in seventh place. Even though we have vast mineral reserves worth trillions of dollars, we are now 100% dependent on imports for some 17 key minerals, and China is a significant source for many of those minerals," she says.
Furchtgott-Roth explains how China "can go to Africa and purchase vast tracts of land in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, for example, where it can get out the cobalt," and that Beijing "doesn't have problems with using children to mine for these minerals or using slave labor in Xinjiang to mine for these minerals."
"So, China has all kinds of business advantages that we in the United States do not have," she says.
Furchtgott-Roth joins today's episode of "The Daily Signal Podcast" to discuss what the U.S. can do to have more influence in Africa, why the U.S. should be more active in reducing China's role in regard to African minerals, and the connection between "environmental, social, and governance" policies and China.
It’s a rare bi-partisan point of agreement: the price of insulin is too high—and it’s still rising. With the stakes literally life-or-death for millions of Americans, what can be done?
Guest: Bram Sable-Smith, Midwest correspondent for Kaiser Health News.
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Make an impact this Women’s History Month by helping Macy’s on their mission to fund girls in STEM. Go to macys.com/purpose to learn more.
In January, Florida governor Ron DeSantis announced an end to AP classes in African American history in state schools. Historian David Beito details why that history matters, what's missing in common treatments of African American history, and why choice in education is as important as ever.
Are we actually a "United" States? Has the US lived up to the promise of inclusivity, freedom, equality, and opportunity for everyone? And where can we go from here? Peniel E. Joseph, professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs and the history department in the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin, joins us to ask these questions and point to the successful building of a multiracial democracy.
As a kid, Clarice Phelps dreamed of being an astronaut, or maybe an explorer like the characters on Star Trek. Her path to a career in science turned out to be a bit different than what she expected, including lengthy stints on a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. But that path led her to being a part of something big: the discovery of a new element on the periodic table.
Clarice talks to Short Wave co-host Aaron Scott about her role in creating Tennessine, one of the heaviest elements known to humankind.
Early on in The Darker the Night, the debut thriller from NPR producer Martin Patience, an investigative reporter links a murder in Glasgow to a significant political figure: the first minister of the Scottish government. As Patience tells NPR's Scott Simon, the story that ensues draws larger questions about journalists and their sources – particularly within governments and police departments – and how the erosion of local media outlets has impacted the way they're trusted by the communities they serve.
This week we take your questions; our listeners are engaged and clever, so Professor Amar is challenged again and again. How far do his 4th and 5th amendment views extend - do they reach torture? A fellow law professor asks a deep question about Reconstruction and Women’s suffrage which has deep implications. And we take a trip back in time to Akhil’s most treasured constitutional moments. Meanwhile, there’s more on Moore v. Harper and mootness.
