Up First from NPR - Hunter Biden Pardon, Trump’s FBI Pick, Syrian Offensive

President Biden has issued a full and unconditional pardon of his son, Hunter Biden. President-elect Donald Trump says he'll nominate ally Kash Patel to serve as the next Director of the FBI. And, rebel militias made territorial gains in Syria as the country's 13-year civil war continues.

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Today's episode of Up First was edited by Dana Farringdon, James Hider, Lisa Thomson and Alice Woelfle. It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Nia Dumas and Kaity Kline. We get engineering support from Arthur Laurent. And our technical director is Carleigh Strange.


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The Intelligence from The Economist - Shock and thaw: Syria’s frozen war resumes

The country’s civil war never ended—it became a fragile stalemate that fell out of the news. A surprise rebel advance reveals how the war’s international players are busy facing their own challenges. Our correspondent found it so difficult to disappear from the internet that she gave up (10:30). And who were the stockmarket winners as “Trump trades” fired up again (16:54)?


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Start the Week - The story of British art – from cave paintings to landscapes

While the great Italian renaissance painters and the Dutch masters are world famous, why are there so few British artists from this period leading the way? It’s one of the questions the art historian Bendor Grosvenor examines in his new history, The Invention of British Art. From prehistoric bone carvings to the landscapes of John Constable, Grosvenor reassesses the contribution British artists have made at home and abroad.

The writer and former curator at the V&A Susan Owens wants to turn our attention to drawing. It is a simpler, more democratic form of art-making, she argues in The Story of Drawing: An Alternative History of Art. And one that is a fundamental part of the creative process. She reveals what can be learnt by looking again at the sketches made by Gainsborough, William Blake and Tacita Dean.

The artist Lucinda Rogers specialises in urban landscapes. She immerses herself in her environment and records straight from eye to paper. Her intimate street views explore the changing nature of cities, from London to New York. During the US Presidential election she travelled to different locations as a reportage illustrator. A reproduction of her first sketchbook, New York Winter 1988, has just been re-released.

Producer: Katy Hickman

The Daily Detail - The Daily Detail for 12.2.24

Alabama

  • 3 AL congressmen denounce recent threats to Trump Transition Team
  • AL Redistricting case will go to trial on February 10th of 2025
  • Biden admin. wants SCOTUS to review AL's ban on transgenderism for minors
  • AL judge calls articles about his leniency on crime as "disinformation"
  • Locust Fork man builds 2 bridges in NC and calls out FEMA for neglect

National

  • Joe Biden pardons his son for decades of crime, despite promise not to
  • Trump nominates Kash Patel to become next FBI director, ousting Wray
  • Trump plans to dismantle Biden's student loan forgiveness programs
  • Rudy Guiliani of NYC continues with law fare cases against him for his association with Trump and revelation of Hunter Biden laptop contents

NBN Book of the Day - Adrian Tinniswood, “The Power and the Glory: Life in the English Country House Before the Great War” (Basic Books, 2024)

In the decades before the First World War, the owners of the nation’s stately homes revelled in a golden age of glory and glamour. Nothing lay beyond their reach in a world where privilege and hedonism went hand-in-hand with duty and honour.

This was a time when the ancestral seats of ancient nobility stood side-by-side with the fabulous palaces of Jewish bankers and Indian princes, when dukes and duchesses mixed with aristocratic society hostesses who had learned to dance in the chorus line and self-made millionaires who had been raised in the slums of Manchester and Birmingham.

The Power and the Glory: the Country House Before the Great War (Basic Books, 2024) Dr. Adrian Tinniswood explores the country house during this golden age, when Britain ruled over a quarter of the world’s population, when its stately homes were at their most opulent and when, for the privileged few, life in the country house was the best life of all.


This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars.

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Everything Everywhere Daily - The History of Tea (Encore)

Sometimes over 3000 years ago, somewhere in Southwestern China, a leaf from the Camellia sinensis plant may have accidentally found its way into a pot of boiling water. 

Noticing that the leaf had turned the water a different color, some person unknown to history drank the concoction and found that it was good. 

That was the start of something that is today a globe-spanning multi-billion dollar industry that millions of people indulge in every day.

Learn more about tea, its origins, and how it spread around the world on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.


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