It's ... Indicators of the Week! We cover the numbers in the news that you should know about. This week, we cover mortgage applications increasing, China's home prices decreasing, and Carrie Bradshaw ... Indices-ing?
If, in the future, humanity were to explore the galaxy and visit other planets around other stars, we might be visiting places where at one time, an advanced civilization once existed.
However, if such a civilization existed, it might have been millions of years in the past. If that was the case, how would we even know that it existed?
Also, what if we ask that same question of Earth rather than of alien worlds?
Learn more about the Silurian Hypothesis on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
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Today's episode highlights two books that revisit the cultural contributions of some pretty big names. First, Here & Now's Deepa Fernandes speaks with Deborah Paredez about American Diva, which reclaims the word 'diva' to celebrate the singularity of women like Serena Williams and Celia Cruz. Then, NPR's Michel Martin speaks with Larry Tye about The Jazzmen, which traces the role that Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and Count Basie played in the civil rights movement.
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
Some bank customers are jumping to high-yield savings accounts to escape the shockingly low interest rates of personal savings accounts at big banks. So why aren't these banks raising their rates to attract more customers? Today on the show, we explore why big banks may not care about your savings account anymore.
In the 1920s, young women working at a radium dial company in Ottawa, Illinois were being poisoned. Surviving "radium girls" would go on to participate in studies at Argonne National Laboratory.
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Music
Swiming by Explosions in the Sky
Walking Song by Kevin Volans and the Netherlands Wind Ensemble
I Walk on Guilded Splinters by Johnny Jenkins
Seduction by the Balanescu Quartet
Lunette by Les Baxter and Dr. Samuel J. Hoffman
Running Around by Buddy Ross
September by Giles Lamb
Notes
This episode was pieced together from a ton of little fragments but I wanted to steer folks to a couple of resources in particular: this excellent article from a few years back in the Toronto Star by Katie Daubs, and this documentary from filmmaker, Amy Nicholson, that primarily uses the Zipper as a way to talk about changes at Coney Island but has some great details from Harold Chance and his sons.
The Hindu holiday Raksha Bandhan is just around the corner – and in a new children's book called Raashi's Rakhis, actor and activist Sheetal Sheth writes about an empowered little girl, Raashi, who asks some pretty big questions about the gender roles prescribed to one of her favorite celebrations. In today's episode, Sheth speaks with Here & Now's Deepa Fernandes about how she questioned her own parents as a first-generation Indian American, why she wanted to write from a place of inclusivity, and how she navigates some of the backlash she's gotten for doing so.
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
Former President Donald Trump recently suggested that if elected in this year's presidential election he would want more say on decisions made by the Federal Reserve. Presidents taking a more active role in monetary policy would mark an extraordinary shift in U.S. economic institutions, and mark the end of central bank independence.
Today on the show, why the Federal Reserve insulates itself from day-to-day politics, and what it looks like when central banks are influenced by politicians.