Tim Harford looks at some of the numbers in the news and in life. This week:
Is church-going making a comeback in the UK?
Is it true that every day, 1000 people begin claiming personal independence payments, or PIP?
When the government talks about how it “returns” illegal immigrants, what does it mean?
Can a new telescope really see golf balls on the moon?
If you’ve seen a number you think looks suspicious, email the More or Less team: moreorless@bbc.co.uk
More or Less is produced in partnership with the Open University.
Presenter: Tim Harford
Producers: Lizzy McNeill, Nicholas Barrett, David Verry
Series producer: Tom Colls
Production co-ordinator: Brenda Brown
Sound mix: Gareth Jones
Editor: Richard Vadon
This book describes and explains the major events, personalities, conflicts, and convergences that have shaped the history of the Muslim world. The body of the book takes readers from the origins of Islam to the eve of the nineteenth century, and an epilogue continues the story to the present day. Michael Cook thus provides a broad history of a civilization remarkable for both its unity and diversity. After setting the scene in the Middle East of late antiquity, the book depicts the rise of Islam as one of the great black swan events of history. It continues with the spectacular rise of the Caliphate, an empire that by the time it broke up had nurtured the formation of a new civilization. It then goes on to cover the diverse histories of all the major regions of the Muslim world, providing a wide-ranging account of the key military, political, and cultural developments that accompanied the eastward and westward spread of Islam from the Middle East to the shores of the Atlantic and the Pacific. At the same time, A History of the Muslim World contains numerous primary-source quotations that expose the reader to a variety of acutely insightful voices from the Muslim past.
Michael Cook is the Class of 1943 University Professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. His books include Ancient Religions, Modern Politics: The Islamic Case in Comparative Perspective (Princeton), A Brief History of the Human Race, and The Koran: A Very Short Introduction.
Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature.
We’ll tell you how the Senate secured exactly enough votes to pass as many of President Trump’s priorities as possible—all at once—and what still needs to happen before the mega-bill becomes law.
Also, what to know about what’s being called “Alligator Alcatraz,” and the White House’s latest warning for undocumented immigrants.
Plus: why federal education funding didn’t go out yesterday as it was supposed to, how one tech company is protecting its clients from AI bots, and what one of the biggest music groups in the world told fans this week.
Those stories and even more news to know in about 10 minutes!
Join us every Mon-Fri for more daily news roundups!
The Senate passed President Donald Trump's spending bill on Tuesday after Vice President JD Vance arrived to break a 50-50 tie. The bill is now headed back to the House where Republican Speaker Mike Johnson can only afford to lose three members and still pass the bill by a party line vote. To learn more about what this means for Republicans' big beautiful bill and the looming July Fourth deadline, we spoke with Nicholas Wu, a congressional reporter for Politico.
And in headlines: President Trump tours "Alligator Alcatraz," Florida's new migrant detention center, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell says Trump's tariff wars pretty much stopped it from cutting interest rates, and the Trump-Musk feud is reignited.
Luckin Coffee’s 1st US location opened in NYC… and it’s got an anti-Starbucks strategy #ZeroPlace.
Elon Musk is fighting to block Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill… because clean energy gets runover.
Stetson invented the cowboy hat, now it’s living its best life… Being founded in 1865 is its competitive advantage.
Plus, we’re sharing our Mid-Year’s Resolutions (like New Years… but midway through)
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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… Hamilton The Musical 🎭
About Us: The daily pop-biz news show making today’s top stories your business. Formerly known as Robinhood Snacks, TBOY Lite is hosted by Jack Crivici-Kramer & Nick Martell.
Wounded by the pandemic, Bhutan turned to the unlikely industry of bitcoin mining to expand its economy. The WSJ’s Shan Li takes us through how the plan is working. Plus: Tech leaders want their AI chatbots to offer more personality in the race to encourage usage. WSJ columnist Tim Higgins discusses how Elon Musk is rethinking xAI chatbot Grok. Katie Deighton hosts.
The Andromeda galaxy lies just beyond (...OK, about 2.5 million light-years beyond) our galaxy, the Milky Way. For the past hundred years or so, scientists thought these galaxies existed in a long-term dance of doom — destined to crash into one another and combine into one big galactic soup. But today on the show, Regina and computational astrophysicist Arpit Arora explain why a recent paper out in the journal Nature Astronomy suggests this cosmic game of bumper cars may never come to a head at all.
Interested in more space episodes? Email us your question at shortwave@npr.org.
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.
Bonnie Garmus' novel Lessons in Chemistry got a lot of buzz when it was first released in 2022. Elizabeth Zott is a talented chemist but because it's the 1960s, she faces sexism in her quest to work as a scientist. So instead, she has a cooking show that is wildly popular. In this encore episode, Garmus told NPR's Scott Simon that the character of Elizabeth lived in her head for many years before she started writing this novel.
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
We are back with another edition of listener questions! In this round, we tackle recession pop, why the job market feels so crummy for IT grads, and whether President Trump saying that Walmart "eat the tariffs" is a form of price control.
Let’s light up your life and butt. World-renowned firefly expert Dr. Sara Lewis of Tufts University gives us some updates to her 2021 episode, sharing her love of a bug that many think is merely mythological. Learn how these tiny animals illuminate the night, the dos and don’ts of firefly observation, how to take good firefly photos, femme fatales, pink glowworms, secret languages, artificial lights, what’s up with their population numbers, why Western states can chill out with their lightning bug envy, and how you can ensure the world stays aglow with these beloved bugs. Also: nuptial gifts, both human and lampyridological.
Visit Dr. Sara Lewis’s website and follow her on Threads
