Consider This from NPR - After devastating floods a Central Texas community comes together

It's been nearly a week since devastating flooding tore through Kerr County, Texas killing more than a hundred people.

Now, after unimaginable tragedy, residents are coming together to help each other move forward.

NPR's Juana Summers and producers Erika Ryan and Tyler Bartlam visited the City West Church, which has transformed from a house of worship into a pop up food distribution site serving thousands of meals to the community and first responders.

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The Commentary Magazine Podcast - Is AI…Demonic?

In an unusually late-night dorm-room like podcast, we begin by describing our general good moods before plunging into despair about the threat of AI as represented by Elon Musk's Grok and the anti-Semitic spree it went on yesterday. What's happening here? Is there something metaphysical going on? Can AI be consciously evil? In theory, no. But what if theory doesn't help here? Give a listen.


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Audio Mises Wire - The Bid-Ask Spread in Housing and “Pulte’s Law”

As the latest housing bubble pops, home sellers are asking for unreal prices for their homes, while buyers are waiting for the prices to fall. Bill Pulte, Trump's Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, is demanding the Fed force down interest rates to restart the unsustainable boom.

Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/bid-ask-spread-housing-and-pultes-law

Audio Mises Wire - The Fallacy of “Measuring” Inflation

While we often speak of measurements of inflation (such as "inflation went up by three percent"), in reality, one cannot accurately measure it, given official measurements consist of arbitrary weighted averages. It is better to see inflation as qualitative, not quantitative.

Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/fallacy-measuring-inflation

More or Less: Behind the Stats - Can drinking one less bottle of coke a day halve obesity?

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

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The Indicator from Planet Money - Can you afford to evacuate ahead of a disaster?

We are just at the start of hurricane season, and we're already seeing the danger and tragedy brought on by storms. There's another cost that gets much less attention, but it's a gamble everyone in the path of a storm has to make.

Today on the show, we examine the decision on whether or not to evacuate from an oncoming disaster.

Based on the digital story: 1 reason people don't evacuate for hurricanes? Rising costs, and they're getting pricier

Related episodes:
Hazard maps: The curse of knowledge
Unintended Consequences, Hidden Deaths
The brewing recovery in Western North Carolina

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Audio Mises Wire - The Texas Floods: Another Disaster, Another False Narrative

The floodwaters in Texas were just subsiding when Democrats claimed that the death toll was due to staffing cuts at the National Weather Service. Of course, the truth is much different, but this was just one more incident of how natural disasters have become politicized in this country.

Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/texas-floods-another-disaster-another-false-narrative

Consider This from NPR - The U.S. birth rate is falling fast. Why? It’s complicated

The total fertility rate is a small number with big consequences.

It measures how many babies, on average, each woman will have over her lifetime. And for a population to remain stable - flat, no growth, no decline - women, on average, have to have 2.1 kids.

In the U.S., that number is 1.6, and dropping. It's driving a new political debate about what – if anything – can be done about it.

The thing is, beneath that demographic data point are millions of families making intimate decisions about kids. NPR's Sarah McCammon and Brian Mann dug into the politics and personal stories behind America's shrinking birthrate.

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