Seventeen-year-old Benny is studying hard and working as a busboy, hoping to attend college. Meanwhile, his childhood best friend, Lawson, is on a different path, dealing drugs – and is always in need of a ride. Rex Ogle's When We Ride is a novel-in-verse about their relationship, which becomes strained as differences between the two young men come into focus. In today's episode, Ogle joins NPR's Ayesha Rascoe for a conversation about the book. They discuss friendship breakups, what we owe our oldest relationships and an unlikely high school romance between the author's own best friends.
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
OIRA — the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs — is an obscure, but powerful federal office around the corner from the White House. President Trump has decided that it should get even more powerful.
For the last 45 years, OIRA has overseen most federal agencies by reviewing proposed regulations to make sure they agree with the President's policies and don't conflict with the work of other agencies. But one set of federal agencies has always been exempt from this review process — independent federal agencies like the SEC, FTC, FCC, and Federal Reserve. Until now.
According to a new executive order, those independent agencies are about to get a lot less independent. We take a look at what this change could mean for financial markets...and the future of American democracy.
This episode was produced by James Sneed and Willa Rubin. It was edited by Jess Jiang and engineered by Jimmy Keeley. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.
On this episode, Jessica Carges chats with Karol Boudreaux on female land and resource rights in Sub-Saharan Africa and their impact on economic development. Karol discusses how even when property rights are granted, formal documentation and cultural backgrounds pose challenges to control over land use, and she shares the success story of Rwanda, how the state undertook a massive land documentation effort to improve formal property rights.
Karol Boudreaux has a JD in International Law from the University of Virginia, and her work over the past two decades has focused on efforts to support improvements to land tenure and property rights for people around the world, particularly those in Sub-Saharan Africa. During her time at the Mercatus Center, she was the lead researcher for the Enterprise Africa project. She focuses on understanding links between property rights systems and development, as well as the evolution of property systems.
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!
The Trump administration scrapped a civil rights agreement 14 years in the making with the Rapid City, S.D. school system. The agreement was aimed at correcting inequities for Native American students. Data show Native students in the district are given harsher punishments than their white counterparts. The students also are less likely to be in higher level classes. The decision comes as President Donald Trump has terminated nearly half of the federal Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights staff.
We’ll also look at a Virginia tribe’s suit against the commonwealth for what the tribe says is withholding Medicaid reimbursements for tribal citizens’ health care.
On the morning of April 9, President Trump posted on Truth Social "THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT." Around four hours later, he announced a pause on some new tariffs, causing a stock market spike. Now, Democrats are demanding an investigation into possible insider trading. But were Trump's posts actually insider trading?
In February, Donald Trump and Maine Governor Janet Mills got into a spat over Trump’s executive order on trans athletes, that ended with both parties tersely agreeing to meet in court. Since then, the Trump administration seems to be trying to make an example of the state—cutting off federal funding where it can.
Want more What Next? Join Slate Plus to unlock full, ad-free access to What Next and all your other favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the What Next show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen.
Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, Ethan Oberman, and Rob Gunther.
What can be done to change United States foreign policy? Zachary and Emma speak to US foreign policy experts and co-hosts of the American Prestige podcast, journalist Daniel Bessner and historian Derek Davison. Daniel is the author of Democracy in Exile and Derek runs the Foreign Exchanges newsletter. They discuss the American public’s engagement with foreign policy, the impacts of US global dominance, potential for a reformed policy that considers global interests, and why we shouldn’t call Donald Trump a fascist.
What Could Go Right? is produced by The Progress Network and The Podglomerate.
For transcripts, to join the newsletter, and for more information, visit: theprogressnetwork.org
Deportations, the administration’s preferred tactic du jour, appear to many as extreme, inadvisable, and often cruel. Are they unconstitutional? What framework can we use to determine the rights of citizens versus aliens, even if legal, even if permanent resident? What kind of process is “due” for the various groups? Where can we locate the origins in our history, and how do they interact with some of the great themes of the Constitution, including the guarantees of the Bill of Rights, and the rights of “persons” as expressed in the 14th Amendment? The case of Mahmoud Khalil offers a set of facts that shed light on these questions, as do other deportations; we start with this one.
Gare and James discuss a meeting between Trump and El Salvador President Nayib Bukele on expanding CECOT style prisons to hold US citizens and immigrants.