The Intelligence from The Economist - The Intelligence: 2024 is a big year for democracy

Citizens across more than 70 countries will be heading to the polls over the next twelve months. It’s a record year for voting, but how democratic will the processes be? One of the year’s most significant elections will take place in Mexico, where the incumbent president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, will loom large. (10:35). And, how ambient music can help you block out the noise. (17:44).


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The Daily Detail - The Daily Detail for 1.1.23

Alabama

  • Stories #2 and #1 of the "Top Ten Countdown" for most read articles in 2023 on 1819 News website

National

  • Another National Narrative turned on its head in 2023 : That there is no such thing as a "deep state" aiding the globalist agenda and that only kooks and conspiracy theorists believe there are  forces working against the will and constitutional rights of the American people

NBN Book of the Day - Adam Mestyan, “Modern Arab Kingship: Remaking the Ottoman Political Order in the Interwar Middle East” (Princeton UP, 2023)

In Modern Arab Kingship: Remaking the Ottoman Political Order in the Interwar Middle East (Princeton University Press, 2023), Adam Mestyan (Duke University) argues that post-Ottoman Arab political orders were not, as many historians believe, products of European colonialism. Rather, they spurred from the process of “recycling empire.” Mestyan shows that in the post–WWI Middle East, Allied Powers officials and ex-Ottoman patricians collaborated to remake imperial institutions, recycling earlier Ottoman uses of genealogy and religion in the creation of new polities, with the exception of colonized Palestine. The polities, he contends, should be understood not in terms of colonies and nation states but as subordinated sovereign local states—localized regimes of religious, ethnic, and dynastic sources of imperial authority. 

Meanwhile, governance without sovereignty became the new form of Western domination. Drawing on hitherto unused Ottoman, French, Syrian, and Saudi archival sources, Mestyan explores ideas and practices of creating composite polities in the interwar Middle East and sheds light on local agency in the making of the forgotten Kingdom of the Hijaz, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Syria, the first Muslim republic. Mestyan also considers the adjustment of imperial Islam to a world without a Muslim empire, discussing the post-Ottoman Egyptian monarchy and the intertwined making of Saudi Arabia and the State of Syria in the 1920s and 1930s. Modern Arab Kingship's innovative analysis underscores how an empire-based theory of the modern political order can help refine our understanding of political dynamics throughout the twentieth century and down to the turbulent present day.

Vladislav Lilic is a doctoral candidate in Modern European History at Vanderbilt University.

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Everything Everywhere Daily - Spirits and Liqueurs

Thousands of years ago, the first humans accidentally created the first beer and wine. This occurred naturally when yeast in the air converted sugars into alcohol. 

However, it wasn’t until thousands of years later that new techniques were developed to process those beverages, but even then, the products they created weren’t designed for consumption. 

Eventually, these techniques were perfected to a point where they could be consumed, and they resulted in entirely new categories of beverages. 

Learn more about Spirits and Liqueurs, what the difference is, and the various types on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.


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Short Wave - Asian Glow Might Have A Major Upside

Ever gotten a scarlet, hot face after drinking? Or know someone who has? Many people felt it as they ring in the New Year with champagne toasts. That's because this condition, commonly called "Asian flush" or "Asian glow," affects an estimated half a BILLION people, who can't break down aldehyde toxins that build up in their bodies. But what if there's a benefit to having Asian glow?

Katie Wu, a staff writer for The Atlantic, has looked into the research a theory as to why the condition might have been a powerful tool for some of our ancestors to survive disease.

Read Katie's article to learn more.

Questions about other potential tradeoffs for our genetics? Email us at shortwave@npr.org. We've love to hear from you and we might cover it in a future episode!

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What Next | Daily News and Analysis - The Renewable Energy Shell Game

Buying “renewable energy certificates” is a way for companies to claim to reach their renewable energy goals—instead of, say, putting solar panels on their roof. One of the most enthusiastic consumers of RECs is the federal government. But is this ostensibly environmentally-friendly system actually standing in the way of true sustainability? 


Guest: Najib Aminy, producer for Reveal.


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Strict Scrutiny - New Year, Same Court

To start the new year off right, Jonathan Van Ness joins Kate, Leah, and Melissa to suggest some resolutions for the justices of the Supreme Court.

Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE – The Bad Decisions Tour 2025! 

  • 6/12 – NYC
  • 10/4 – Chicago

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NPR's Book of the Day - In ‘The Fraud,’ Zadie Smith takes on historical fiction and the Tichborne case

In the 19th century, a butcher living in Australia claimed to be the long-lost heir of a British fortune. The Tichborne trial, which sparked much controversy and even more attention in Victorian England, is at the center of Zadie Smith's new novel, The Fraud. In today's episode, the author tells NPR's Mary Louise Kelly how she became captivated by the outrageous lies the man told in court, and how the way his believers still dug their heels and supported him echoes the state of politics in the 21st century.

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