More working age people are claiming disability benefits. What's driving the trend?
Is it true that the UK imprisons more people for their social media posts than Russia does?
One of the country?s most important data sources has been falling apart. We find out why.
Tim Harford investigates some of the numbers in the news.
Presenter: Tim Harford
Reporter: Lizzy McNeill
Producer: Nathan Gower
Series producers: Charlotte McDonald and Tom Colls
Production co-ordinator: Brenda Brown
Sound mix: James Beard
Editor: Richard Vadon
Every March, the United States experiences a period known as March Madness. It is the time when college basketball teams compete for a national championship.
The process of crowning a national champion is a months-long process where teams vie for a chance to make the national tournament.
From there, in theory, every team that makes the big dance has a shot at becoming a champion. All you have to do is win five, or maybe six, consecutive games.
Learn more about March Madness and how the NCAA Basketball tournament works on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Today, we’re breaking down the latest on Mahmoud Khalil, a Brown University professor’s visit to Lebanon, and the political dilemma facing Chuck Schumer. Plus, after years of debate, we can finally agree on where COVID really came from. Don’t miss this episode!
From Cape Town to Bristol and Richmond, statues have become sites of resistance and contestation of our imperial past and postcolonial present. The Psychic Lives of Statues by Rahul Rao offers an insightful exploration of these global controversies, demonstrating that beneath their surface lie deeper struggles over race, caste, and the politics of decolonisation.
Rao takes readers on a journey through South Africa, England, the US, Ghana, India, Australia, and Scotland, revealing how statue controversies have dramatically rearranged the canon of anticolonial political thought. By examining these debates through a personal and literary lens, Rao addresses the multifaceted issues of justice, cultural memory, and belonging.
The Psychic Lives of Statues (Pluto Press, 2025) examines both the toppling of colonial statues and the raising of postcolonial ones, demonstrating that the statue form as a medium of representation and a bid for immortality is by no means obsolete. Engaging with artists, scholars, and activists, Rao provides fresh perspectives on how societies grapple with and reinterpret the past and present through iconography.
About the Author:
Rahul Rao is a Reader in International Political Thought in the School of International Relations at the University of St Andrews, and Professorial Research Associate at SOAS University of London. He is the author of two books – Third World Protest: Between Home and the World (2010) and Out of Time: The Queer Politics of Postcoloniality (2020), both published by Oxford University Press. He is a member of the Radical Philosophy editorial collective.
About the Host:
Stuti Roy has recently graduated with an MPhil in Modern South Asian Studies from the University of Oxford.
On this episode, Jessica Carges chats with Catherine Pakaluk on her latest book, Hannah's Children: The Women Quietly Defying the Birth Dearth (2024). Pakaluk describes the economic consequences of dropping fertility rates, explores the reasons for why women choose to have children, explains how we can increase fertility rates, and more.
Catherine Pakaluk is the Director of Political Economy and an Associate Professor at The Catholic University of America. Her primary areas of research include economics of education and religion, family studies and demography, Catholic social thought and political economy.
If you like the show, please subscribe, leave a 5-star review, and tell others about the show! We're available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you get your podcasts.
Virtual Sentiments, a podcast series from the Hayek Program, is streaming. Subscribe today and listen to season three, releasing now!
Tuesday was a big day in foreign policy news. Israel launched a barrage of airstrikes on Gaza Monday night, its first attack since a ceasefire with Hamas took hold in January. Officials in Gaza say more than 400 people were killed. And President Donald Trump held a 90-minute phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin about the war in Ukraine. Putin ostensibly agreed to a 30-day limited ceasefire on energy and infrastructure targets — far short of the unconditional ceasefire proposal Ukraine and the U.S. negotiated earlier this month. Oh, and Trump threatened ‘dire consequences’ for Iran over attacks from Houthi rebels in Yemen. Crooked’s own Tommy Vietor, co-host of ‘Pod Save the World,’ breaks down all the big international headlines and what they say about Trump’s approach to foreign policy.
And in headlines: Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts rebuked Trump over his calls to impeach federal judges, the Pentagon continued its purge of website pages honoring minority groups, and two stranded U.S. astronauts returned to Earth.
We’re talking about the latest rulings that seem to pit the White House against some judges… and what the U.S. Supreme Court’s chief justice has to say about it.
And what progress has—and hasn’t—been made in a deal between Ukraine and Russia.
Also, an epic journey ends with a splashdown as two NASA astronauts finally return home from an extended stay in space.
Plus, new efforts to crack down on baby formulas, a lawsuit pitting tennis players against the associations that pay them, and which dog breed is becoming much more popular here in the U.S.
Those stories and even more news to know in about 10 minutes!
Join us every Mon-Fri for more daily news roundups!
Duke is the #1 pick to win March Madness… but that’s a lesson in dumb investing.
Google is buying Wiz for $33B… And every Wiz employee is getting $588,000.
Corporate Nicknames are actually a curse… Chevy, Mickey D’s, & Bloomies are bad for biz.
Plus, time-poor millennials are paying time-rich gig workers $27/hr to wait in line.
$GOOG $JWN $MCD $GM
Want more business storytelling from us? Check out the latest episode of our new weekly deepdive show: The untold origin story of… MTV 📺 “How Video Killed the Radio Star”
“The Best Idea Yet”: The untold origin stories of the products you’re obsessed with — From the McDonald’s Happy Meal to Birkenstock’s sandal to Nintendo’s Susper Mario Brothers to Sriracha. New 45-minute episodes drop weekly.
Ever scan the ingredient list of your favorite personal care products like shampoos or lotions and think, what are these complicated chemicals? And are any of them bad for me? We definitely have. And our colleagues at NPR's Life Kitdid one step better: They parlayed their anxiety spiral into a helpful guide on the safety of personal care products. So today, Gina talks to Life Kit's Marielle Segarra about some of the top chemicals of concern, including parabens and phthalates.
Click here to hear the full Life Kit guide — including how to audit your go-to products.
Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave.
Walter Schramm did everything right as an investor — at least according to the philosophy of Warren Buffett. So how come he lost a small fortune?
In this episode, we look into an obscure government program that slurps up forgotten money. We hunt for money we might have left vulnerable and we try to figure out how it got there in the first place so we can tell you where to find the money you've misplaced too.