What does it take to get a wrongful conviction overturned?
Quite a lot, according to investigative reporter Alison Flowers, who says proving innocence is much more difficult than proving guilt. She has investigated the cases of many wrongfully convicted individuals, including that of Chicagoan Robert Johnson.
In our last episode, Invisible Institute reporter Erisa Apantaku explained how Johnson has spent nearly 30 years in prison for a murder almost everyone knows he did not commit.
What’s clear is that a lot must go right to overturn a wrongful conviction (and even more so before the exonerated can try to earn compensation from the state). Flowers explains what a wrongfully convicted person needs — “the three-legged stool of wrongful convictions” — an advocate on the outside, an attorney in your corner and media attention.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers sparks controversy by opting not to require soil testing after the Eaton and Palisades Fires. Meanwhile, economic losses from the wildfires have soared past $250 billion, hitting the entertainment and tourism industries especially hard. Tensions between Canada and the U.S. are on the rise—could Canada really become America’s 51st state?
California is also battling one of its worst flu seasons in years, with hospitalizations surging across the state. And in an unexpected success story, Compton Unified School District is earning praise for its remarkable academic turnaround.
Alabama: Sen. Tuberville wants to dissolve DEI policies completely/ Bill passed AL House that allows the death penalty for convicted child rapist/ The vote on a bill to restructure the AL Dept of Veterans Affairs has been delayed due to new amendments/ AL's school superintendent weighs in on Trump wanting to abolish the Dept. of Education/ ALGOP chairman John Wahl to seek a 3rd term, leadership vote will be on March 1st
National: President Trump initiates talks with Russia and Ukraine to end the war there/ DefSec Hegseth says that Ukraine should not seek to become member of NATO/. Tulsi Gabbard is sworn in as new Director of National Intelligence/US attorney general Pam Bondi now suing state of NY for "green lighting" illegal aliens/ DOGE cutting out wasteful government contracts and saving US taxpayers $1B per day/Federal judge removes injunction on Trump's plan to buyout federal employees/ USAID humanitarian aid now found in possession of Hezbollah terroriss
At the height of World War II, Henry Morgenthau, treasury secretary under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, proposed a plan to deliberately deindustrialization, depopulate, and disarm postwar Germany. The Morgenthau Plan, as it was known, would transition Germany back to an agrarian society, making the prospect of future war unimaginable.
Although Morgenthau’s ideas would never see the light of day, now, more than 80 years later, Europe’s powerhouse is poised to embrace this grim reality.
“Germany represents the powerhouse, traditionally, of the European economy, and even culture, and it’s starting to implode,” warns Victor Davis Hanson in this edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words.”
“They only have about 125 attack aircraft. They have very few armored vehicles. Their active military is only about 180,000 soldiers. They have 84 million people in the country. The fertility rate is getting very close to 1.4. …
“They have had a million to 2 million illegal aliens just prance into Germany, especially during the last years of the Merkel chancellorship. In terms of percentage of foreign-born, Germany has more foreign-born than does the United States, which doesn't have a border in the south, at least until Donald Trump comes in.”
Running The Free Press is Bari’s hobby, but her true passion is being a yenta. And one thing Bari has learned from talking to young singles is that there is a total breakdown of sexual relations these days between men and women.
This Valentine’s Day, Louise is here to explain how we went wrong as a society on dating, sex, porn, and marriage; how it is impacting women and men differently; how and if we can get back on track; how to date effectively in 2025; and how a revival of Christian sex ethics might be the answer.
If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today.
Header 6:The Free Press earns a commission from any purchases made through all book links in this article.
A reconnaissance satellite, otherwise known as a spy satellite, is somewhere above your head right now, collecting images and gathering intelligence on whatever it sees below it.
Ten countries are currently believed to have at least one spy satellite.
While these satellites can gather an enormous amount of data, they do not have the superpowers that they are often depicted as having in films and television.
Learn more about spy satellites, how they work and how they have evolved over time on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Ada Palmer joins Jana Byars to talk about her new book, Inventing the Renaissance (U Chicago Press, 2025) and the ways history is written and used.
From the darkness of a plagued and war-torn Middle Ages, the Renaissance (we’re told) heralds the dawning of a new world—a halcyon age of art, prosperity, and rebirth. Hogwash! or so says award-winning novelist and historian Ada Palmer. In Inventing the Renaissance, Palmer turns her witty and irreverent eye on the fantasies we’ve told ourselves about Europe’s not-so-golden age, myths she sets right with sharp clarity.
Palmer’s Renaissance is altogether desperate. Troubled by centuries of conflict, she argues, Europe looked to a long-lost Roman Empire (even its education practices) to save them from unending war. Later historians met their own political challenges with a similarly nostalgic vision, only now they looked to the Renaissance and told a partial story. To right this wrong, Palmer offers fifteen provocative portraits of Renaissance men and women (some famous, some obscure) whose lives reveal a far more diverse, fragile, and wild Renaissance than its glowing reputation suggests.
An ethnographic exploration of anthropological failures through the Mapuche archetypes of witch, clown, and usurper, Three Ways to Fail: Journeys Through Mapuche Chile(U Pennsylvania Press, 2024) invites readers to consider concepts of failure, knowing, and being in the world within a rural Mapuche community.
How do we learn what failure looks like? During the years anthropologist Magnus Course spent living with Indigenous Mapuche people in southern Chile, he came to understand failure - both his own and those of the discipline of anthropology - through Mapuche narratives of the witch, the clown, and the usurper. In a context of enduring poverty and racism, increasing state repression, and his own disintegration, he began to realize that these figures of failure, and their insatiable appetites for destruction, greed, and property, reflected as much upon his own failings as on anybody else’s, but also showed the way forward to a better way to live.
Set amidst the stunning natural beauty and political tragedies of southern Chile, Three Ways to Fail is the story of what it means to become a part of other people’s lives, of what it means to fail them, and of what it means to live well when everything falls apart. Grounded in three decades of work and collaboration with Mapuche people, Three Ways to Fail sheds new light on Indigenous lifeways in the Americas while grappling with broader questions about the nature of ethnographic writing and the future of anthropology.
Magnus Course is Chair and Professor in social anthropology at the University of Edinburgh. His research is concerned with the relations between kinship, personhood, power, language, and land. His published books include Becoming Mapuche: Person and Ritual in Indigenous Chile (University of Illinois Press, 2011) and the co-authored Fluent Selves: Autobiography, Person, and History in Lowland South America (University of Nebraska Press, 2014).
Yadong Li is a socio-cultural anthropologist-in-training. He is registered as a PhD student at Tulane University. His research interests lie at the intersection of economic anthropology, medical anthropology, hope studies, and the anthropology of borders and frontiers. More details about his scholarship and research interests can be found here.
Inflation rose more than expected in January according to federal data released Wednesday, as the cost of things like groceries, housing and energy ticked up. While we’re still only a few weeks into Donald Trump’s second term, he did campaign on lowering prices for consumers on ‘Day 1,’ a promise he and his team have been backing away from since his election victory. The new inflation data raises big questions about the state of the economy and the potential effects of Trump’s policy plans to cut taxes, impose tariffs and slash the federal workforce. Victoria Guida, economics correspondent for Politico, helps us make sense of what’s actually going on with the economy right now and what it all means for Trump.
Later in the show, Crooked Media’s climate correspondent Anya Zoledziowski talks about what’s happening at the Environmental Protection Agency.
And in headlines: Tulsi Gabbard is confirmed by the Senate and sworn in as the new director of national intelligence, Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed ways to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine over the phone (not on the call: Ukraine), and Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green presided over the first meeting of the House DOGE Subcommittee.
We’re talking about how President Trump says he’s moving toward the end of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
And which one of his controversial nominees just got sworn in.
Also, how do you like the sound of Red, White, and Blueland? A bill in Congress could make that a real place.
Plus, new data shows high prices are getting even higher, the Kennedy Center is getting an overhaul, and this year’s Super Bowl halftime show broke one longstanding record.
Those stories and even more news to know in about 10 minutes!
Join us every Mon-Fri for more daily news roundups!
