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Best podcasts of the week

In this weeks newsletter: Journalist Terri White investigates the case of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and other vulnerable children missing school since the pandemic. Plus: five of the best one-host podcasts

Thu 23 Mar 2023 05.45 EDT

The Story of WomanWidely available, episodes weeklyIts with a deep sigh that host Anna Stoecklein points out that the majority of top podcast hosts are men, but shes here to drive change. With the first-ever joint interview between Hillary Clinton and Cherie Blair, plus contributions from Jess Phillips MP and Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza, shes in good company. Clinton and Blair are open about what its like to be a first lady and how they found their niches. Hannah Verdier

Terri White: Finding Britains Ghost ChildrenBBC Sounds, episodes weeklyJournalist Terri White fights the corner of children who are missing from school in her hard-hitting podcast. As a survivor of childhood abuse, White documents the killing of six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and investigates the cost of locking vulnerable kids out of their safe place school during the pandemic. HV

Tony Robinsons CunningcastWidely available, episodes weekly from todayGiven the lack of preamble to this show from the Time Team and Blackadder star, its raison detre seems to be: Tony Robinson wants to talk about stuff. His first episode is a ramble about Stonehenge, but its the second episode thats the really exciting prospect a look back on Blackadder featuring Miriam Margolyes. Alexi Duggins

Bang On ItBBC Sounds, episodes weeklyCan we talk about being in your 40s? Its actually outrageous. Comedians and good pals Michelle de Swarte and Laura Smyth zip through snappy half-hour chats about everything and anything, from putting up too many boundaries to varicose veins and the constant pressure to book things!. Hollie Richardson

The Trust RaceWidely available, episodes weeklyHave recent events affected your trust in science? The effectiveness of wearing a mask during the pandemic is an interesting and divisive starting point in this series funded by an EU project that investigates public trust in expertise. Hosted by scientist Shane Bergin, it hears from experts from all corners for a thorough examination. HR

This week, Hannah Verdier chooses five of the best podcasts with one host, from Katherine Ryans laugh-out-loud life stories to Nicole Byers solo journey to figure out why shes single

Katherine Ryan: Telling Everybody EverythingRyan is no stranger to the standup scene, but its impressive to hear how she comes up with enough material to pump out an hour of stories about her everyday life. From becoming a pigeon on The Masked Singer to the pain of working through mastitis, nothing is off limits. In one of the early episodes, she addresses her experience of baby loss in a moment thats moving and full of empathy for others in the same situation. Week in, week out, her way of looking at life is as funny and savage as you would expect.

Savage LovecastDan Savage is the daddy of sex and love advice thats beautifully open and inclusive. His long-running podcast started out as a joke, turning the tables on straight advice columnists, but he soon became a force to be reckoned with. Not only does he answer listeners dilemmas, but he stands up for their rights, too. If youre comfortable talking about kinks, squirting and swinging, youll find it an entertaining listen. And if youre not, dive in for a full education from the man who never judges.

Cautionary Tales with Tim HarfordEconomist Tim Harfords tales of human error are compelling and even strangely soothing as a bedtime story, despite their many warnings. His evocative monologues cover subjects as diverse as Sir Clive Sinclair and his early version of the electric car, and how Harold Shipmans crimes went unnoticed for years. Theres also Florence Nightingale, Billy Joel and Galileo. As Harford says: Learning from other peoples mistakes is a lot less painful than learning from your own. Of course nobody does, but that doesnt make hearing about them in Harfords laid-back style any less tempting.

You Must Remember ThisWhat Karina Longworth doesnt know about popular culture and scandal isnt worth thinking about. With a voice thats like a gossip column come to life, Longworth dishes up her painstakingly researched history of Hollywood and beyond. Her early episodes take in the complicated back stories of old-school stars such as Rudolph Valentino, Mae West and Gina Lollobrigida, but her more recent focus on the 1980s is just as complex. Start with 1985, when Rock Hudson was the catalyst for the mainstream media to face up to the Aids epidemic in a climate of fear.

Why Wont You Date Me? With Nicole ByerComedian and Nailed It host Nicole Byer has been trying to figure out why shes still single since 2017 on her consistently great podcast. Her guests a mix of friends and fellow comedians are happy to help. Nopes Keke Palmer gives tips on how to hack into your partners phone, while Law & Orders John Stamos offers a Tinder bio rewrite (Look who its attracting: weirdos.) Byer is warm, hilarious, vulnerable and massively honest about the difficulties of dating, never sugarcoating her situation.

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Best podcasts of the week: Inside the scandal of Britains ghost children slipping through the cracks - The Guardian

The ace Gov. Ron DeSantis brings to the 2024 Republican table is simple: he wont be indicted any day now.

An angry young man, 44, next to angry old Donald Trump, DeSantis is no treat. Hes learned his lessons well about hard Right, mean-spirited politics from Trump himself.

The word woke is his front line of attack, tampering with original Black slang. It means an aware state of knowing the social cards stacked against you.

Armed with a Harvard Law degree, DeSantis is an even more dangerous man.

Democrats should not let down their game if the sullen Florida sourpuss overtakes Trump as the Republican frontrunner for president.

As well he might.

Trump looks his age, 76. Despite his bitter bluster, he knows its deeply humiliating to get arrested on a criminal charge, whether on Tuesday or not.

As a president brimming with hate, dealing in insults, boasts and lies, his animal sense may know the jig is up. Its a first for a former president.

Yet he has the gall to run again, not to go gentle into that garish night, Mar-a-Lago.

Let it not be forgot Trump lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden by 7 million votes in 2020. The Jan. 6 Trump mob storming the Capitol made his stock plunge with all but the most rabid followers.

Pity the Republican party if they back a nominee with the law catching up with him in New York, Georgia and with Justice special counsel for Trump probes, Jack Smith. A porn actress payoff may be just the start of Trumps tangled web of woes.

Actually, dont pity the party. There are only a few good men left. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a super-shallow California Republican, is not of them.

Even Trumps most avid devotees are quietly losing faith. A thousand were arrested for the Capitol breach and its violent crimes. Extremist groups, military veterans, former cops and everyday Americans are now sentenced to prison, one by one.

The message is unmistakable: A personal price is paid for joining a murderous mob against the government.

Another proud first in American history.

Ive seen some defendants weep as they face the judge and beg for mercy, such as the Confederate flag carrier and the bare-chested man with helmet and horns.

Onto DeSantis. If hes an adept candidate with a bit of chemistry, he could turn MAGA sound and fury into a spring wind. Still undeclared, he can present as a safer bet.

First, the Southern governor could brag about his inhumanity, as a Navy lawyer on Guantanamo. He looked up the book on how to force-feed detainees, suspects on hunger strikes. Keep in mind these were men jailed for long years, never brought to a court trial.

(President Barack Obama broke his pledge to close the island jail, a known burn pit for human rights.)

Second, DeSantis singling out gay and transgender young people proves hes good at picking on the most vulnerable among us. Thats his way of the world, a strategic skill in the post-Trump party he clearly hopes to lead.

Meanwhile, public school teachers and librarians in Florida are under a culture siege from a new state law DeSantis has pushed.

All books available to schoolchildren must be vetted and approved. Floridas rows of empty bookshelves are a sad sight for young minds.

That signals fear and dread spreading among people who dedicate their lives to kids learning. Policing minds is contagious.

Also, DeSantis shows a Trumpian lust for revenge. When Disney dared to differ with him on gender and gay issues, down came its own self-governing district. DeSantis will now control the board and government relations of the tourist giant, Disney World.

Like Trumps Supreme Extreme Court, DeSantis marches in goose step against constitutional rights for women (SET ITAL) and girls. (END ITAL) Beyond six weeks, he concurs, is too late to legally end a pregnancy.

Word is, DeSantis is brighter than Trump, so hes capable of doing more harm, pressing levers of law and power against the American people.

Stay woke to DeSantis, my friends. As long as he stays at the table, he may play a trump card.

Jamie Stiehm may be reached at JamieStiehm.com. Follow Jamie on Twitter @JamieStiehm.

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Stiehm: Brash young governor trumps Trump | News, Sports, Jobs - Daily Herald

People gather outside of a Manhattan courthouse while waiting for an indictment against former president Donald Trump by the Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Braggs office. (Spencer Platt / Getty Images)

On Monday night, supposedly Arrestmas Eve (Donald Trump claimed, falsely as usual, that hed be arrested Tuesday), I dreamed about him. I was being held captive by Trump at Mar-a-Lago with a lot of other women. He was more deranged than usual, as he apparently is right now as he awaits arrest. It was terrifying. But somehow I escaped. I didnt know what would happen next.

We all know dreams work on multiple levels, but on one, this felt straightforward: Trump may soon face the first consequences of his many crimes, and many women will feel liberated, and vindicated, even if we dont know whats to come.

Marisa Kabas wrote a piece for Monday that I wish I had, urging people to stop lamenting that its the Stormy Daniels hush money casein which Trump could be prosecuted for falsifying business recordsthat may produce the first Trump indictment. (Notice I said first indictment, because I believe that, though Im not a lawyer and I have no inside information.) I too have felt irritated with the dismissal of the Daniels case as somehow trivial. Sure, its less of a big deal than Trumps trying to overturn the results of a valid election, inciting violence and insurrection, or even stealing classified documents and resisting returning them when asked to by the Department of Justice.

But its not nothing. Crime is crime is crime. Also, as Kabas noted, for many American women, probably millions, there would be something psychically vindicating about seeing Trump brought down, directly or not, by his creepy treatment of a woman. By all accounts, the sex was consensual, which many women, including his late ex-wife Ivana, say wasnt always the case with Trump. You could even argue that the woman most hurt by it all was his wife Melania, who had just given birth to their son, Barron.

When their sexual encounters became public, Trump denied them, insisting Daniels was just a fan who took a photo with him back in 2005. Then he took to calling her Horseface, claiming that this woman clearly blessed with beauty and brains was too ugly to fuck. (He called her Horseface again just last week, when it came out that she had just spoken to the Manhattan district attorneys office.)

This is his modus operandi, of course. He said E. Jean Carroll, who in 2019 accused him of raping her in the mid-1990s, wasnt his type. (Then he mistook her for his ex-wife and former mistress Marla Maples in a series of photos. Oops.) Hes derided his multiple female accusers as too old, too fat, too ugly, or all three to have attracted his unwanted and often brutal sexual attentions.

He bragged on the Access Hollywood video that he could grab women by the pussy because when youre a star, they let you do it. Credibly accused of sexual assault or harassment by at least a dozen women, it seemed impossible that hed defeat Hillary Clinton and become president. But, tragically, he did.

Its no accident that millions of women wearing pink pussy hats stormed Washington and other cities and towns the day after his inauguration, that the #MeToo movement exploded shortly thereafter, that The Handmaids Tale became a hit TV series in the same period, or that Democratic women ran for office in record numbers in 2018. Its also, sadly, no accident that three right-wing Trump-appointed judges took away a constitutional right that women had known for 50 years. That was their plan.

Meanwhile, once the story of former Trump attorney Michael Cohen paying Daniels hush money when Trump learned, just before the 2016 election, that she was getting ready to go public with her story, Daniels faced a wave of abuse from Trump, his allies, and the MAGA faithful. Im tired of being threatened by the then-president and his thugs, Daniels told The View; in April 2018. And intimidating me and trying to say that youll ruin my life and take all of my money and my house or whateverIm sorry, Im done. Im done being bullied.

All women, outside the MAGA cult anyway, hope were done being bullied by Trump. Many of my friends say its too early to celebrate. Were still waiting for the grand jury to indict. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Braggs case may not be strong enough to put Trump in the jail cell he deserves. Other cases, whether by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis or special counsel Jack Smith, might not materialize despite my optimism that theyre coming. Its OK. If Trump is charged, Ill raise a glass to Trumps comeuppanceand to the power of a woman proud of her own sexuality, who couldnt be shamed about it, helping us all get revenge on a sexual predator who continues to try to assault our democracy.

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Women Are Waiting to Cheer the Misogynists Indictment - The Nation

Washington County voters offer varying opinions on the Donald Trump indictment process

Updated: 6:27 PM EDT Mar 21, 2023

Donald Trump enjoyed strong support in Washington County during the 2020 presidential election, winning 60 percent of the vote over President Joe Biden.As he awaits his fate over a grand jury investigation that could lead to an indictment over altered payout documents, some of those same Washington County voters express their opinions about the process.Republican Party chairman for Washington County, Sean Logue, says the process is mishandled."This is unprecedented. This is unheard of," Logue said. At issue is whether Trump altered documents while in the White House to cover up payments to his former attorney, Michael Cohen, who admitted to paying $130,000 to Stormy Daniels as "hush money," on behalf of Trump, following an affair between the two.This is said to have happened in New York, before the 2016 presidential election."They're somehow going to go back seven years and use some kind of state charge against him on a federal election matter? That makes absolutely no sense. I'm a lawyer and I can't understand it," Logue said.Todays top headlines: Police: Woman assaulted and robbed inside Westmoreland County apartment building elevator Woman found dead on Route 119 in Westmoreland County Woman facing homicide charges in Butler County shootingOther voters in Washington County offer varying opinions."It gives you the impression that it might be a witch hunt sort of speak, but no one is above the law," says David Young, a registered Republican."I was always for Trump. He was my choice," said Myrna Adams, another Republican. "I think it's just a political thing like a witch hunt. This was years ago that this happened. When it comes time for the primaries, why is it all of a sudden a big issue? But independent voter Amber Jellots says Trump is rightfully targeted in the investigation."I think it's completely fair. I think he skirted the law the whole four years he was in office, and multiple years before that. this is accountability, the same accountability they wanted for Hillary Clinton," Jellots said.

Donald Trump enjoyed strong support in Washington County during the 2020 presidential election, winning 60 percent of the vote over President Joe Biden.

As he awaits his fate over a grand jury investigation that could lead to an indictment over altered payout documents, some of those same Washington County voters express their opinions about the process.

Republican Party chairman for Washington County, Sean Logue, says the process is mishandled.

"This is unprecedented. This is unheard of," Logue said.

At issue is whether Trump altered documents while in the White House to cover up payments to his former attorney, Michael Cohen, who admitted to paying $130,000 to Stormy Daniels as "hush money," on behalf of Trump, following an affair between the two.

This is said to have happened in New York, before the 2016 presidential election.

"They're somehow going to go back seven years and use some kind of state charge against him on a federal election matter? That makes absolutely no sense. I'm a lawyer and I can't understand it," Logue said.

Todays top headlines:

Other voters in Washington County offer varying opinions.

"It gives you the impression that it might be a witch hunt sort of speak, but no one is above the law," says David Young, a registered Republican.

"I was always for Trump. He was my choice," said Myrna Adams, another Republican. "I think it's just a political thing like a witch hunt. This was years ago that this happened. When it comes time for the primaries, why is it all of a sudden a big issue?

But independent voter Amber Jellots says Trump is rightfully targeted in the investigation.

"I think it's completely fair. I think he skirted the law the whole four years he was in office, and multiple years before that. this is accountability, the same accountability they wanted for Hillary Clinton," Jellots said.

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Washington County voters offer varying opinions on the Donald Trump indictment process - WTAE Pittsburgh

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Mismatches in conceptual definitions of basic thingseven animalshelp explain why people end up talking past each other so often, according to new research.

Is a dog more similar to a chicken or an eagle? Is a penguin noisy? Is a whale friendly?

Psychologists at the University of California, Berkeley say these absurd-sounding questions might help us better understand whats at the heart of some of societys most vexing arguments.

The research in the journal Open Mind shows that our concepts about and associations with even the most basic words vary widely. At the same time, people tend to significantly overestimate how many others hold the same conceptual beliefsthe mental groupings we create as shortcuts for understanding similar objects, words, or events.

Its a mismatch that researchers say gets at the heart of the most heated debates, from the courtroom to the dinner table.

The results offer an explanation for why people talk past each other, says Celeste Kidd, an assistant professor of psychology at UC Berkeley and the studys principal investigator.

Simple questions like, What do you mean? can go a long way in preventing a dispute from going off the rails, Kidd says. In other words, she says, Just hash it out.

Disagreements about word meanings arent new. From interpretations of the Constitution to definitions about what a fact is, semantic disputes have long been at the center of legal, philosophical, and linguistic thinking. Cognitive psychologists have likewise studied these differences in how people perceive and describe the world. The accumulation of our lived experiences affects how we conceptualize the world and helps explain why two people approach problems in different waysor even agree if something is a problem in the first place.

But measuring just how much those concepts vary is a long-standing mystery.

To help understand it a bit better, Kidds team recruited more than 2,700 participants for a two-phase project. Participants in the first phase were divided in half and asked to make similarity judgements about whether one animala finch, for examplewas more similar to one of two other animals, like a whale or a penguin. The other half were asked to make similarity judgments about US politicians, including George W. Bush, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden. The researchers chose those two categories because people are more likely to view common animals similarly; theyd have more shared concepts. Politicians, on the other hand, might generate more variability, since people have distinct political beliefs.

But they found significant variability in how people conceptualized even basic animals.

Take penguins. The probability that two people selected at random will share the same concept about penguins is around 12%, Kidd says. Thats because people are disagreeing about whether penguins are heavy, presumably because they havent lifted a penguin.

If peoples concepts are totally aligned, then all of those similarity judgments should be the same, Kidd says. If theres variability in those judgments, that tells us that theres something compositionally thats different.

The researchers also asked participants to guess what percentage of people would agree with their individual responses. Participants tended to believeoften incorrectlythat roughly two-thirds of the population would agree with them. In some examples, participants believed they were in the majority, even when essentially nobody else agreed with them.

Its a finding befitting of a society of people convinced theyre right, when theyre actually wrong.

Overall, two people picked at random during the study timeframe of 2019-2021 were just as likely to have agreed as disagreed with their answers. And, perhaps unsurprisingly in a polarized society, political words were far less likely to have a single meaningthere was more disagreementthan animal words.

People are not aware of that misalignment, Kidd says. People generally overestimate the degree to which other people will share the same concept as them when theyre speaking.

An exception? People were generally on the same page when it came to the word eagle.

In a second phase of the project, participants listed 10 single-word adjectives to describe the animals and the politicians. Participants then rated the animals and politicians featuresIs a finch smart? was an example of a question they were asked.

Again, researchers found that people differed radically in how they defined basic concepts, like about animals. Most agreed that seals are not feathered, but are slippery. However, they disagreed about whether seals are graceful. And while most people were in agreement that Trump is not humble and is rich, there was significant disagreement about whether he is interesting.

This research is significant, Kidd says, because it further shows how most people we meet will not have the exact same concept of ostensibly clear-cut things, like animals. Their concepts might actually be radically different from each other. The research transcends semantic arguments, too. It could help track how public perceptions of major public policies evolve over time and whether theres more alignment in concepts or less.

When people are disagreeing, it may not always be about what they think it is, Kidd says. It could be stemming from something as simple as their concepts not being aligned.

Source: Jason Pohl for UC Berkeley

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Mismatched definitions of basic stuff may explain disagreements - Futurity: Research News