We meet the woman sending hugs from Texas in the form of a quilt. Connie Kortz set up a network of volunteer quilters, who make them for people who are in need. Called 'Hugs from Texas' -- the group donated quilted blankets to the families affected by the devastating floods earlier this year.
Also, find out about the traditional ceremony that takes place for the first time a baby laughs. We go to the football match between Dulwich Hamlet FC and Altonaer which is celebrating 100 years of friendship.
The Happy Pod is our weekly collection of inspiring, uplifting and happy news from around the world.
We dive into the UAE’s $700 M Bitcoin mine, the US government’s on‑chain data feeds via Chainlink, and Tether’s comeback on RGB, plus nation‑state mining drama.
Colin Charlie joins us to unpack the UAE’s secret $700 million Bitcoin mining operation, the US government’s bold move to publish macro data on-chain through Chainlink, and Tether’s planned launch on the RGB layer‑2. We also explore nation‑state mining strategies and the quirky characters behind RGB.
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Notes:
UAE mine valued at $700 M BTC
Citadel (UAE) operating the mine
US gov posting data on multiple blockchains
Chainlink oracle used for Bitcoin L2 Botanics
Tether targeting RGB (still pre‑v1)
Bhutan holds 12k BTC ($1.3 B)
Timestamps:
00:00 Start
00:21 UAE mining BTC
05:55 US data on-chain
11:03 Tether coming back to BTC
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👋Bitcoin Season 2 is produced Blockspace Media, Bitcoin’s first B2B publication in Bitcoin. Follow us on Twitter and check out our newsletter for the best information in Bitcoin mining, Ordinals and tech!
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Between 1706 and 1718, a group of pirates established a haven in the Bahamas.
Using a code and system of rules that they developed themselves, the pirates created their own forms of self-governance to maintain order within a society that was otherwise lawless.
This community grew into a community of thousands of pirates before the British put an end to it.
Learn more about the Republic of Pirates and how it functioned on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Hope Never to See It: A Graphic History of Guerrilla Violence during the American Civil War(U Georgia Press, 2025) by Dr. Andrew Fialka illustrates two exceptional incidents of occupational and guerrilla violence in Missouri during the American Civil War. The first is a Union spy's two-week-long murder spree targeting civilians, and the second is a pro-Confederate guerrillas' mutilation of almost 150 U.S. troops. The men leading the atrocities (Jacob Terman, alias Harry Truman, and “Bloody" Bill Anderson) weren't so different. Both the Union spy and the infamous Confederate guerrilla claimed to be avenging the deaths of their families, operated under orders from military officials, and were hard drinkers. Their acts outline the terror inflicted on both sides of the struggle. This book's use of sequential art, illustrated by Anderson Carman, displays these grisly realities to mute the war's glorification and to help prompt a modern, meaningful reconciliation with the war. The moral ambiguities contained within this story call into question our understanding of the laws of war and the ways in which wars end.
This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.
From “job hugging” to return-to-office policies and the changing role of artificial intelligence, new trends and expectations are reshaping the modern workplace. In this episode, we explore what it all means for both employers and employees, how they compare to past shifts like the Great Resignation, and what strategies can help organizations adapt to the future of work.
Join us again for our 10-minute daily news roundups every Mon-Fri!
On the "CBS News Weekend Roundup", host Allison Keyes gets the latest on the deadly shooting at Annunciation Church and Catholic School in Minneapolis from CBS's Ash-har Quraishi and CBS's Anna Schecter. A look back 20 years to the devastation from Hurricane Katina from WWL TV's Paul Murphy. In the "Kaleidoscope with Allison Keyes" segment, a look at ways to fight gun violence in the nation.
In this episode of Amicus, Dahlia Lithwick discusses the recent deployment of the National Guard in Washington D.C. and its implications for checks and balances in the U.S. legal system. She is joined by Elizabeth “Liza” Goitein from the non-partisan Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program, a leading expert on all things Posse Comitatus, the Insurrection Act, and the Pandora’s box of domestic military deployment in policing, and the legal frameworks governing it all. Together they explore the dangers of the administration’s current actions in the nation’s capital, and whether the president can act on his threats to expand them to cities that didn’t vote for him around the country.
Want more Amicus? Join Slate Plus to unlock weekly bonus episodes with exclusive legal analysis. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the Amicus show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/amicusplus to get access wherever you listen.
Fully autonomous cars are here. In a handful of cities across the US and China, robotaxis are transporting human passengers around town, but with no human behind the wheel.
Loyal Listener Amberish wrote in to More or Less to ask about a couple of safety statistics he’d seen regarding these self-driving cars on social media. These claimed that Waymo self-driving taxis were five times safer than human drivers in the US, and that Tesla’s self-driving cars are 10 times safer.
But, are these claims true?
We speak to Mark MacCarthy, a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution Center for Technology Innovation, to find out.
If you’ve seen some numbers you think we should look at, email the team: moreorless@bbc.co.uk
Presenter: Lizzy McNeill
Producer: Nicholas Barrett
Series producer: Tom Colls
Production co-ordinator: Brenda Brown
Sound mix: Neil Churchill
Editor: Richard Vadon
