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Each one of us has a different conception story. For some parents, it’s a romantic night out, maybe over a candlelit dinner. For others, like Bari and Nellie, it involves a trip to a fertility clinic in a mall that doesn’t even validate parking.
And of course, for some it’s a long, challenging, emotional process involving needles, hormones, and many false starts. We know a lot of our listeners can relate to that.
Now, the topic of infertility often seems like the purview of a doctor’s office or a self-help book, or maybe a women’s health column. Where you might not expect to hear about it in painstaking detail is in Andrew Schulz’s new Netflix special. Schulz’s special is vulnerable, obviously funny, and a look into the taboo topic of male infertility. It’s called Life, and if you haven’t already seen it, blow off your plans tonight and watch Life instead.
Now, the last time we had Schulz on this show was three years ago. It was in the thick of the woke culture storm, and Schulz was about to release a comedy special on Amazon. But when the streamer asked him to do what a lot of people at the time were being asked to do in comedy—censor his jokes—Schulz said no. He bet on himself and released the special independently. As he tells Bari today, he ended up making five times what he would have made with Amazon.
We’ve been talking a lot on this show about the vibe shift that’s come for politics and tech. And it’s obviously come for comedy. But actually, we think you could make the argument that comedy created the vibe shift that we’re seeing in so many other parts of the culture. And perhaps that’s because comedians with podcasts have become like the Walter Cronkites of American culture. Theo Von is almost Barbara Walters at this point. And Andrew Schulz has found himself right in the thick of it.
Last October on his podcast, Schulz sat down with then-candidate Donald Trump as he was running for president, for a candid 90-minute conversation. You can imagine the type of response he got for that.
Today on Honestly, Bari asks Schulz about that interview with Trump and whether there are certain people who are beyond the pale. They talk about his difficulty conceiving, what it meant for his masculinity, and she asks about the decision to put his—and his wife’s—vulnerability on camera. And finally, she asks how to resist audience capture.
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.
For as long as humans have been watching the night sky, they noticed that every so often, during a full moon, the moon would briefly go dark, or at least change color.
They often created mythical explanations for the event.
Eventually, this ancient people began to record its occurrences and were able to calculate when it would happen.
As we learned more about the universe, the explanation for the moon changing became less mythical and more scientific, but it was still a sight to behold.
Learn more about lunar eclipses and how they work on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
When a team of Victorian archaeologists dug into a grassy hill in Iraq, they chanced upon one of the oldest and greatest stores of knowledge ever seen: the library of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal, seventh century BCE ruler of a huge swathe of the ancient Middle East known as Mesopotamia. After his death, vengeful rivals burned Ashurbanipal’s library to the ground - yet the texts, carved on clay tablets, were baked and preserved by the heat. Buried for millennia, the tablets were written in cuneiform: the first written language in the world.
More than half of human history is written in cuneiform, but only a few hundred people on earth can read it. In The Library of Ancient Wisdom: Mesopotamia and the Making of History (U Chicago Press, 2025), Assyriologist Dr. Selena Wisnom takes us on an immersive tour of this extraordinary library, bringing ancient Mesopotamia and its people to life. Through it, we encounter a world of astonishing richness, complexity and sophistication. Mesopotamia, she shows, was home to advanced mathematics, astronomy and banking, law and literature. This was a culture absorbed and developed by the ancient Greeks, and whose myths were precursors to Bible stories - in short, a culture without which our lives today would be unrecognizable.
The Library of Ancient Wisdom unearths a civilization at once strange and strangely familiar: a land of capricious gods, exorcisms and professional lamenters, whose citizens wrote of jealous rivalries, profound friendships and petty grievances. Through these pages we come face to face with humanity’s first civilization: their startling achievements, their daily life, and their struggle to understand our place in the universe.
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.
It’s a rough time for people who worry about infectious diseases. A new study shows bird flu is more widespread in U.S. cows than previously thought. Around 250 Americans have been infected with measles, including two people who died. And globally, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is struggling to contain a Mpox outbreak, Uganda is battling Ebola, Tanzania is fighting Marburg, and Lassa fever is spreading in East Africa. In the face of all that, the Trump administration has gutted funding for programs that help protect Americans from these types of diseases. Anne Rimoin, an epidemiology professor at UCLA and director of the Center for Global and Immigrant Health, talks about what’s worrying her.
And in headlines: Senate Democrats said they’ll vote against a House bill to keep the government open past Friday, new government data showed egg prices hit another record last month, and President Donald Trump hosted the Irish Prime at the White House amid a growing trade war with the European Union.
We’re talking about the latest chapter in the trade war… with Canada and Europe now targeting American products like bourbon, bikes, and blue jeans.
Also, the White House’s major turnaround on climate change… and what it means for greenhouse gases in America.
Plus, how to see a rare lunar eclipse tonight, what kind of scam is impacting both iPhone and Android users, and why research shows that what clothes you decide to wear can make a big difference in your day.
Those stories and even more news to know in about 10 minutes!
Join us every Mon-Fri for more daily news roundups!
266-year-old Guinness just hit all-time-high sales… because of one viral drink-tivity.
A secret North Korean hacker team just stole $1.5B of crypto… it’s the biggest heist of all time.
Hollywood is pivoting to serve red meat TV to red states… we call it “RonSwonsification.”
Plus, a big thing you can do for this show (and it just takes 5 seconds)…
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Want more business storytelling from us? Check out the latest episode of our new weekly deepdive show: The untold origin story of… Costco’s Kirkland 🌭. Subscribe to The Best Idea Yet: Wondery.fm/TheBestIdeaYetLinks to listen.
“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.
Uncertainty. That's the word-of-the-moment with tariffs, market swings and lots of economic volatility. It's also showing up in the Federal Reserve's latest Beige Book, featuring anecdotes across the U.S. economy. On our latest edition of the Beigies, what can a farmer from the Mississippi Delta tell us about uncertainty?
Related episodes: How USAID cuts hurt farmers (Apple / Spotify) Why Trump's potential tariffs are making business owners anxious (Apple / Spotify)
For sponsor-free episodes of The Indicator from Planet Money, subscribe to Planet Money+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.
Jennifer Finney Boylan's 2003 memoir She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders was about her new life as a woman. Since then, Boylan has become a prominent transgender voice. Her latest memoir, Cleavage: Men, Women and the Space Between Us, picks up where her last one left off. In today's episode, Boylan speaks with NPR's Robin Young about transgender rights in today's political climate. She also talks about how there is much more to a trans person's life than their transition, and the challenge of connecting "befores" and "afters" in order to live one life.
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
