According to the Public Works Department, the city is missing about 1,600 miles of sidewalk — a length of concrete that could stretch from here to Winnipeg, Canada.
Curious City takes a look at the growing popularity of car window tinting in Illinois. We find out what the state law says about how dark automobile windows can be, who enforces these laws -- or not -- and why some people have safety concerns about them.
Curious City takes a look at the growing popularity of car window tinting in Illinois. We find out what the state law says about how dark automobile windows can be, who enforces these laws -- or not -- and why some people have safety concerns about them.
You may have noticed that it has rained a LOT so far this year. All that water got us thinking about some of your water-related questions over the years. Where does all the rain water go? Are there really underground rivers in San Francisco? What happens to the ground squirrels when it rains? Do they… drown? This week on the show, it's a three-question lightning round with producer Amanda Font.
These stories were reported by Amanda Font. Bay Curious is made by Olivia Allen-Price, Katrina Schwartz, Amanda Font and Brendan Willard. Additional support from Paul Lancour, Christopher Beale, Cesar Saldana, Jen Chien, Jasmine Garnett, Carly Severn, Jenny Pritchett and Holly Kernan.
The French Revolution wasn’t just a political revolution where one government was replaced with a new one.
The French Revolution was also a social revolution. The largest social institution in France at the time of the revolution was the Catholic Church.
At the start of the revolution, the revolutionaries attempted to create a new state religion which was quite unlike anything else the world had seen before or since.
Learn more about the Cult of Reason and the attempts of Revolutionary France to create a state religion that wasn’t a religion on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
The World And All That It Holds starts off in Sarajevo, in 1914, when shots ring out and World War I begins. It changes the course of protagonist Rafael Pinto's life, as he goes on to travel across time and conflict to find a twin flame in another Bosnian soldier named Osman. In today's episode, author Aleksandar Hemon paints a poetic backdrop for his striking new novel. He tells NPR's Scott Simon about the concept of macaronic language, a bilingual mix of ways to communicate, and how Pinto and his partner build their own unique dialect to express their love for one another.
Early on in today's episode, NPR's Scott Simon asks Dr. Henry Marsh a question – how could a medical professional miss the signs that they themselves are ill? Marsh, the neurosurgeon behind the new book, And Finally, answers quite simply. He tells Simon that it's common for doctors to feel consciously detached from what it's like to be on the other side of the examination table and, on a more subconscious level, to be in denial about their own ailments. That's what happened to him with his advanced prostate cancer diagnosis – and he explains it's not easy to go from surgeon to patient.
In the very long history of China, it has had exactly one female ruler.
She was a woman who managed, against all odds, to inch her way closer to power over a period of years until she reached a point where she could claim power for herself.
By all accounts, she was beautiful, brilliant, cunning, and absolutely ruthless.
Learn more about Wu Zetian, China’s only female emperor, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Won Lee, the protagonist of the novel The Sense of Wonder, is the only Asian American player in the NBA. But as was true for real-life basketball star Jeremy Lin, things can get very ugly – and very racist – very quickly. In today's episode, author Matthew Salesses explains to NPR's Leila Fadel how he tried to balance his main character's "happy to be here" energy with the need to push back and stand up for himself. He also tells Fadel about his deep love for Korean dramas, and how that passion found a home in the novel, too.