Our planet is in serious trouble. There are a million species of plants and animals in danger of extinction, and the biggest cause is companies destroying their habitats to farm food, mine minerals, and otherwise get the raw materials to turn into th

The Smoot Hawley Tariffs were a debacle that helped plunge America into the Great Depression. What can we learn from them?Today on the show, we tell the nearly 100-year-old story of Smoot and Hawley, that explains why Congress decided to delegate tar

Windell Curole spent decades working to protect his community in southern Louisiana from the destructive flooding caused by hurricanes. His local office in South Lafourche partnered with the federal government's Army Corps of Engineers to build a mas

The dreaded data breach notification... It tells you your personal data's been compromised and suggests steps you can take to minimize the potential harm. On today's episode, Kenny Malone pulls out a data breach letter he received and goes over what

Today, the first of a two-part investigation from NPR's Embedded.Sgt. Joshua Abate's career in the Marine Corps seemed to be taking off. He was about to start a top-clearance internship at the NSA. But first, he had to take a standard polygraph test.

Every ten years, a group of German farmers gather in the communal farm fields of the Osing for the Osingverlosung, a ritual dating back centuries. Osing refers to the area. And verlosung means "lottery," as in a land lottery. All of the land in this

This is the story behind one of the most valuable — and perhaps, most improbable — technologies humanity has ever created. It's a breakthrough called extreme ultraviolet lithography, and it's how the most advanced microchips in the world are made. Th

On the day after the election, Wall Street responded in a dramatic way. Some stocks went way up, others went way down. By reading those signals — by breaking down what people were buying and what they were selling — you can learn a lot about where th

Ray and Becky Queen live in rural Oklahoma with their kids (and chickens). The Queens were able to buy that home with a VA loan because of Ray's service in the Army. During COVID, the Queens – like millions of other Americans – needed help from emerg

On today's show, we have two stories from The Indicator, Planet Money's daily podcast. They just launched Love Week, a weeklong series exploring the business and economic side of romance.First, hosts Wailin Wong and Adrian Ma fire up the gas logs and

Over the past two decades, there's been a sort of tectonic economic shift happening under our feet. More and more companies have switched from selling goods one by one to selling services, available as a subscription. These days everything from razor

The lawyer commercial is almost an art form unto itself. Learned practitioners of the law doing whatever it takes to get your attention, from impressive dirt bike stunts to running around half naked. All so when you land in trouble, you don't have to

(Note: A version of this episode originally ran in 2016.)Back in 2016, things were pretty bad in Venezuela. Grocery stores didn't have enough food. Hospitals didn't have basic supplies, like gauze. Child mortality was spiking. Businesses were shutter

Hey, Short Wavers! Today we're sharing an excerpt of the new NPR podcast How To Do Everything. How To Do Everything is half advice show, half survival guide, and half absurdity-fest — and it's not made by anyone who understands math. In fact, it come