An ABC News investigation reveals years of discussions by Texas officials about flood warnings systems that were never purchased. The Transportation Security Administration announces the end of shoe checks in security lines. And the State Department claims someone has been contacting foreign governments on Signal, while impersonating Marco Rubio.
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Tim Harford investigates some of the numbers in the news and in life. This week:
Is the secret to halving obesity rates really just a matter of cutting back on one fizzy drink a day?
How many new babies in the City of London have a foreign-born parent? And since fewer than one baby a week is actually born in the City of London, how much should we care?
Electricity in the UK is more expensive than almost anywhere else. Why? And is it anything to do with wind turbines?
And we help out rival Radio 4 programme Start the Week with a claim about churches.
If you’ve seen a number in the news you think we should take a look at, email the team: moreorless@bbc.co.uk
More or Less is produced in partnership with the Open University.
Presenter: Tim Harford
Reporter: Lizzy McNeill
Producer: Nicholas Barrett and Nathan Gower
Series producer: Tom Colls
Production co-ordinator: Brenda Brown
Sound Mix: James Beard
Editor: Richard Vadon
Even casual observers of the military will notice the unique ways that service members use language. With all of the acronyms and jargon, some even argue that membership in the military requires learning a whole language. But rather than treat military-specific language as a cultural difference of the institution or a technical requirement for the job, Dr. Janet McIntosh examines how military language works to enable its members to both kill and imagine themselves as killable. In her book Kill Talk: Language and Military Necropolitics (Oxford UP, 2025), Dr. McIntosh explores how language is used first in military training to "toughen up" recruits; during combat overseas as a way to cope with death and killing; and then how this language is unlearned and repackaged by antiwar veterans as part of their own personal demilitarization.
Janet McIntosh is a linguistic and sociocultural anthropologist and Professor of Anthropology at Brandeis University. She has received numerous awards of her previous work, including the Clifford Geertz Prize in the anthropology of religion, Honorable Mention in the Victor Turner Prize in Ethnographic Writing, and an Honorable Mention in the American Ethnological Society Book Prize. Her current work has been supported through grants from the American Council of Learned Societies and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
In just a few short months on the job, Health And Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has managed to upend the American public health system, successfully inserting his decades of vaccine skepticism into national policy. Late last month, he fired every member of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory panel, replacing them mostly with people who’ve voiced skepticism about vaccines. In May, he announced the CDC would stop recommending COVID vaccines for pregnant people and babies. The American Academy of Pediatrics and other health groups are now suing him and HHS over the latter decision. Dr. Fiona Havers, a former senior advisor on vaccine policy at the CDC, resigned from the agency over Kennedy’s changes to federal vaccine policy. She joins us to talk about what everyday people should do to keep themselves and their family safe.
And in headlines: President Donald Trump abruptly reversed course on sending defense weapons to Ukraine, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins doubles down on “no amnesty” for undocumented farmworkers, and someone out there is using AI to impersonate Secretary of State/National Security Advisor/Acting Archivist Marco Rubio.
We’ll update you on President Trump’s efforts to reshape the federal government as another Supreme Court ruling gives him the go-ahead.
Also, we're following new severe flooding in New Mexico and the search effort that continues in Texas.
Plus, how A.I. was used to impersonate a key U.S. government official, why top tech companies are partnering with teachers’ unions, and who is now represented by the latest Barbie doll.
Those stories and even more news to know in about 10 minutes!
Join us every Mon-Fri for more daily news roundups!
In this episode of The BlueHat Podcast, host Nic Fillingham is joined by George Hughey from Microsoft who returns to discuss his Blue Hat India talk on variant hunting, explaining how MSRC uses submission data from hacking competitions like Pwn2Own and Tianfu Cup to uncover additional security vulnerabilities in Windows. George shares how incentives in competitions differ from bug bounty programs, how tools like CodeQL assist variant hunting, and why collaborating with the security research community is key to improving Windows security.
In This Episode You Will Learn:
How hacking competitions help find real-world Windows vulnerabilities
The role of MSRC in hunting variants beyond submitted vulnerabilities
Why fuzzing is not always effective for modern edge cases
Some Questions We Ask:
How do you decide which cases to pursue for variant hunting?
What advice do you have for researchers submitting variants?
How does the CodeQL team collaborate with your team?