The Mango Tree kicks off with a phone call: Journalist Annabelle Tometich is informed her mom has been arrested for shooting a man, with a BB gun, who was trying to take mangoes from her yard. What follows is a memoir about a rich but turbulent upbringing in a half-white, half-Filipino family in Fort Myers, Florida. In today's episode, NPR's Scott Simon asks Tometich about the moment she realized the violence in her household wasn't normal, and what that mango tree represented for her immigrant mother. 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
In the 19th century, several American universities began to compete with each other in several sporting events in friendly intercollegiate competitions.
Fast forward over a hundred years, and college sports in the United States is a multibillion-dollar business.
How did institutes of higher education become some of the biggest sports organizations in the world? And how did this situation come to be, and why does it only exist in the United States?
Learn more about college sports and how it became to be such a big business on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Today's jobs report shows a slight rise in unemployment to 4%. And some frustrated job seekers are growing tired of applying for job after job with no replies, sometimes asking whether the listings are even real. And this isn't just vexing for applicants. It's also haunting economists when trying to figure out how much slack there is in the labor market, and whether interest rates should be raised or lowered. Today on the show: the rise of ghost jobs. Where they're happening and why.
Depending on how you define it, there were approximately 70 Roman Emperors.
They were a mixed bag ranging from philosophers to the insane, from generals to children.
Some were truly horrible, but some were actually pretty good at their job. In particular, there were five consecutive emperors who reigned during the peak of Pax Romana.
Learn more about the Five Good Emperors on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón recently edited and introduced You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World, a collection of poems by writers like Joy Harjo and Jericho Brown that pays homage to landscapes across the United States. In today's episode, Limón joins NPR's Rachel Martin to play a game for the new podcast Wild Card. They discuss some pivotal moments in Limón's life marked by natural scenery, like a creek she played in growing up and a big realization she had about her fertility while swimming in the Chesapeake Bay — and go beyond that into conversations about grandparents, memory and mortality.
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
99.5 percent of megaprojects are either over time, over budget or have lower benefits than expected. What's going wrong? Today, we look at case studies from California's high speed rail project to the Sydney Opera House to consider the do's and don'ts of ambitious projects.
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It's difficult to find records of Underground Railroad activity in Chicago because the work was inherently dangerous. But some historical documents offer a glimpse.
Bay Curious listener Justin Hartung grew up here, and remembers the waters of the bay being more blue than they are today. He wonders: Is the bay getting greener? Bay Curious producer Amanda Font gives us the answer, and takes us into the science behind it.
This story was reported by Amanda Font. Bay Curious is made by Olivia Allen-Price, Katrina Schwartz, and Christopher Beale. Additional support from César Saldaña, Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Maha Sanad, Jasmine Garnett, Carly Severn, Joshua Ling, Holly Kernan and the whole KQED family.
On June 6, 1944, the largest amphibious landing in world history took place on the shore of Normandy, France. The allied forces called it D-Day.
The landing marked the commencement of Operation Overlord, a strategic move that heralded the long-awaited opening of the second front in the European war.
D-Day was the start of the most meticulously planned events in history and one of the greatest logistical operations of all time.
It was also the day that saw some of the war's most horrific and heroic actions.
Learn more about D-Day and the start of the liberation of Western Europe on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.