Laura explains how an HSA helps you reduce taxes, build wealth, and cut the cost of just about any healthcare expense, even if your insurer doesn't cover it.
Smell and culture. Scent descriptions in novels. Fragrances and class. Stink and stigmas. We cover it all. Scholar, author, and Literary Olfactologist Dr. Ally Louks burst into the zeitgeist in 2024 with her PhD thesis “Olfactory Ethics, The Politics Of Smell In Modern And Contemporary Prose” and we finally got to sit down and talk about the intersection of art and smell and culture. Breathe in the fouls, the fragrant, the peppermint, the tobacco, why motel rooms smell the way they do, the forgotten organ that could control your love life, spices at the root of xenophobia, perfume ads that cruised a movement, obscenity trials, explosions, following your first love and getting the last laugh.
At the turn of the twentieth century, the Black press provided a blueprint to help Black Americans transition from slavery and find opportunities to advance and define African American citizenship. Among the vanguard of the Black press was Jefferson Lewis Edmonds, founder and editor of The Liberator newspaper. His Los Angeles-based newspaper championed for women's rights, land and business ownership, education, and civic engagement, while condemning lynchings and other violent acts against African Americans. It encouraged readers to move westward and build new communities, and it printed stories about weddings and graduations as a testament to the lives and moments not chronicled in the White-owned press.
Edmonds took this fierce perspective in his career as a journalist, for he himself was born into slavery and dedicated his life to creating pathways of liberation for those who came after him. Across the pages of his newspaper, Edmonds painted a different perspective on Black life in America and championed for his community--from highlighting the important work of his contemporaries, including Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois, to helping local readers find love in the personal ads section. The Liberator, along with a chorus of Black newspapers at the turn of the century, educated an entire generation on how to guard their rights and take claim of their new American citizenship.
Written by Jefferson Lewis Edmonds' great-great granddaughter, We Now Belong to Ourselves: J. L. Edmonds, the Black Press, and Black Citizenship in America(Oxford University Press, 2025) chronicles how Edmonds and other pioneering Black publishers documented the shifting tides in the advancement of Black liberation. Arianne Edmonds argues that the Black press was central in transforming Black Americans' communication patterns, constructing national resistance networks, and defining Black citizenship after Reconstruction--a vision, mission, and spirit that persists today through Black online social movements. Weaving together poetry, personal narrative, newspaper clips, and documents from the Edmonds family archive, We Now Belong to Ourselves illustrates how Edmonds used his platform to center Black joy, Black triumph, and radical Black acceptance.
Arianne Edmonds is a 5th generation Angeleno, archivist, civic leader, and founder of the J.L. Edmonds Project, an initiative dedicated to preserving the history and culture of the Black American West. She is currently a Senior Civic Media Fellow at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism funded by the MacArthur Foundation and a Commissioner for the Los Angeles Public Library.
We'll tell you what we're learning about the motive in the deadliest mass shooting in New York City in 25 years and President Trump's new explanation for his falling out with Jeffrey Epstein.
Also, we're talking about where Americans are on alert for a potential tsunami, the new CDC director, a massive new railroad merger, and the meteor showers lighting up the sky.
Those stories and even more news to know in about 10 minutes!
Join us every Mon-Fri for more daily news roundups!
Friday is President Donald Trump’s alleged tariff deadline, the day when dozens of countries either have to reach a new trade deal with the U.S. or face the possibility of sky-high duties on their imported goods. Even an island mostly inhabited by penguins won’t be spared from the president’s economic demands. And while Trump has announced deals with major trading partners like the European Union and Japan, there are still a ton of unanswered questions about what comes next — hell, even what’s happening now! To help us understand what’s going on, and what we can expect come August 1st, we spoke with Alex Jacquez, chief of policy and advocacy at the progressive think tank Groundwork Collaborative. He also served as an economic policy advisor for former President Joe Biden and Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
And in headlines, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the United Kingdom would recognize a Palestinian state in September if Israel doesn’t reach a ceasefire agreement with Hamas, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency announced plans to gut the agency’s own ability to regulate greenhouse gases, and a group of states sued the Trump administration over it’s demands for state data on food stamp recipients.
About Us: The daily pop-biz news show making today’s top stories your business. Formerly known as Robinhood Snacks, TBOY Lite is hosted by Jack Crivici-Kramer & Nick Martell.
A grayscale ballerina who appears to be moving. A human who can fit in a doll box. A black-and-white prism that appears to change shape when viewed from three different directions. Those are the top winners of the 2024 Best Illusion of the Year Contest, open to illusion makers around the world and co-created by neuroscientist Susana Martinez-Conde. Today on the show, we get lost in the magic and science of visual illusions.
Heart Lamp, this year's International Booker Prize winner, is the first short story collection to receive the award. It is also the first time the prize has been awarded to an author writing in Kannada and a translator from India. The collection tells the stories of women living in southern India against a backdrop of poverty and patriarchal systems. In today's episode, author Banu Mushtaq and translator Deepa Bhasthi join Here & Now's Asma Khalid to discuss the collection and the impact of the prize.
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
There are occasional incentives in business that make it very profitable to do bad things; maybe cheat at the game and steal other people's ideas, or cut some corners on safety. In theory, the government as referee steps in to make the rules and enforce them, and manage competition in a way that hopefully makes things better for us all.
But you have to ask... When is the government protecting you and when is it protecting the already rich and powerful?
We'll meet a man trying to corner the market for frozen meat, with the help of patents. And then we'll head to the salon, and ask — Should the government really require dozens of hours of training for a license to braid hair?
Get tickets to our August 18th live show and graduation ceremony at The Bell House, in Brooklyn. (Planet Money+ supporters get a 10 percent discount off their tickets. Listen to the July 8th bonus episode to get the code!)
The series is hosted by Robert Smith and produced by Eric Mennel. Our project manager is Devin Mellor. This episode was edited by Planet Money Executive Producer Alex Goldmark and fact-checked by Sofia Shchukina.
