In the NBA, the US professional basketball league, the average player is a shade over 6ft 6 inches tall. So just how much does being very tall increase a man?s chances of becoming a professional player?
Tim Harford talks to data scientist Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, author of Who Makes the NBA?: Data-Driven Answers to Basketball?s Biggest Questions.
Presenter: Tim Harford
Producer: Debbie Richford
Production Co-ordinator: Katie Morrison
Series Producer: Tom Colls
Sound Mix: David Crackles
Editor: Richard Vadon
(Image: Charlotte Hornets v New York Knicks. Credit: Focus on Sport/Getty Images)
Indicators of the week is back! This time, we explore why oil and gas companies are pulling in record profits, whether bad commercial property debt is likely to spark a financial crisis and how much a lost tooth goes for in this economy.
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The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has a role to play in managing the multistate movement of energy, but it's not clear the agency will be able to do the job in the near term. Cato’s Travis Fisher explains.
In this episode, Christine Rosen joins Mark Bauerlein to discuss her Commentary Magazine articles “All the President’s Press Men” and “Enola Gay, or, How the Media Imploded When It Came to Harvard’s President.”
Music by Jack Bauerlein.
Today's podcast points out that, as we move into the third year of Russia's effort to swallow up Ukraine whole, the great dysfunction seems not to be taking place in Ukraine, or Russia, or on the battlefield, but inside the American political process—with majorities supporting aid to Ukraine but the House unwilling to allow a vote. Can this stand? What is going on? And what is going on with AI? Give a listen.
The American Civil War wasn’t just a military conflict. There was also a major political and legal struggle that took place alongside the military campaigns.
In the last months of the war, President Abraham Lincoln knew that if the war was to truly be the end of the conflict, it was necessary to ban slavery once and for all.
That would require changing the constitution.
Learn more about the 13th Amendment and the battle for its ratification on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Economist, public policy analyst, and Columbia professor Jeffrey Sachs returns to Bad Faithto weigh in on the prospect of a ceasefire, Biden’s decision to distance himself rhetorically from Netanyahu, and the shocking settler's conference in Jerusalem last weekend that’s making it difficult for Biden to sell the story that America and Israel have a shared two-state agenda.
Today's episode focuses on two books about legendary journalists, the business of reporting and the state of the industry today. First, NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Jennet Conant about Fierce Ambition, a biography of war correspondent Maggie Higgins – the first woman to win a Pulitzer for foreign correspondence, who also resented being defined by her gender. Then, NPR's Scott Simon asks The New Yorker's Calvin Trillin about The Lede, an introspection into the realities of being a reporter, the careers of Edna Buchanan and R.W. "Johnny" Apple, and so much more.
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
Trump and his allies make it clear that a second term would be much more extreme than the first, from Christian nationalists running the White House to military raids and internment camps. The Alabama Supreme Court's ruling that stopped IVF in the state could be a sign of things to come. Nikki Haley says she plans to stay in the race no matter what happens in Saturday’s South Carolina primary and Joe Biden provides student debt relief to another 150,000 Americans. Finally, Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler joins to talk about the new legislative maps that have finally ended one of the worst gerrymanders in the country.
For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email transcripts@crooked.com and include the name of the podcast.
Next week, the US Supreme Court will hear a case that pits the Attorneys General of Texas and Florida against a trade group representing some of the biggest social media companies in the world. Today, how we got here, and now the case could upend our online experience.
