A little while back, our friends over at On the Media released a gripping and immersive reporting series about FEMA, the agency that is supposed to be there for all of us in the wake of disaster. In American Emergency (https://zpr.io/MtrUmJU3yEMW), OTM investigates how the agency tasked with saving America became distrusted, despised… and defunded.
Today we talk to On the Media co-host Micah Loewinger about how this project came out, what reporting went into making it happen, and play a couple of fun and truly surprising bits of the story that the OTM team uncovered. And it’s a story that highlights the ideal and promise of good government, right alongside the frustration with bureaucracy and mismanagement, and of course the undercurrent of profound mistrust in governmental power.
As natural disasters are getting more extreme and less predictable, this series makes sense of that tangle, and provides a prescient peek into FEMA’s future.
Special thanks to On the Media. To hear Micah in person, talking more about the complex history of FEMA, join him on June 24th at WNYC's The Greene Space (https://wnyc.org/events/otm-fema).
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It brings strangers together. It teaches probability, strategy, and emotional control. It has even helped N.F.L. teams win the Super Bowl. Stephen Dubner explores why this ancient game is having a renaissance. (Part two of a series, “We Are All Gamers Now.”)
SOURCES:
Remington Davenport, founder of NYC Backgammon Club.
Frank Frigo, game strategy expert & two-time world backgammon champion.
Masayuki "Mochy" Mochizuki, professional backgammon player.
Marc Olsen, C.E.O. of Backgammon Galaxy.
Robert Wachtel, author and professional backgammon player.
RESOURCES:
The Backgammon Chronicles: A Pro's Adventures on Tour Volume 1, by Robert Wachtel (2019).
In the Game Until the End, by Robert Wachtel (1993)
"Tric Trac, Clic Clac," (The New Yorker, 1930).
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First up on the podcast, producer Kevin McLean talks with Staff Writer Paul Voosen about the latest on the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC. Researchers have long been concerned that global warming could cause a collapse in the AMOC, which would trigger dramatic cooling in Northern Europe. But recent data and models suggest the AMOC may be more resilient than previously thought.
Next on the show, Scott Marek, assistant professor in the Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology at Washington University School of Medicine, talks with host Sarah Crespi about brainwide association studies (BWAS) for childhood brain development. BWAS measure structure and function across many brains and look for correlations between these measures and behavior, disease, and environment. In this work, Marek and colleagues focus on how socioeconomic factors—captured by zip code—are strongly correlated with certain brain differences in more than 4000 children ages 9.5 to 11. The work also suggests lack of sleep and excess screen time could mediate the influence of socioeconomic conditions on differences in brain structure and function.
This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy.
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As the Trump administration rolls back environmental regulations, we revisit a 2022 episode that explored the hidden cost of an invisible threat: air pollution.
SOURCES:
Angela Duckworth, psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania.
Michael Greenstone, economist at the University of Chicago, director of the Energy Policy Institute, co-director of the Climate Impact Lab.
Stephan Heblich, economist at the University of Toronto.
Andrea La Nauze, economist at Deakin University.
Steve Levitt, professor emeritus of economics at the University of Chicago.
Edson Severnini, economist at Boston College.
RESOURCES:
"Most Polluted Cities," (American Lung Association, 2026).
"Air Pollution and Adult Cognition: Evidence from Brain Training," by Andrea La Nauze and Edson Severnini (Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, 2025).
"Air Pollution and Student Performance in the U.S.," by Michael Gilraine and Angela Zheng (NBER Working Papers, 2022).
"Billions of people still breathe unhealthy air: new WHO data," (World Health Organization, 2022).
"Evolution of the Clean Air Act," by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (2020).
"The Death of U.K. Coal in Five Charts," by Hannah Ritchie (Our World in Data, 2019).
"The Colour of Pollution," (The Economist, 2014).
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You’re not the same person with your friends as you are with your co-workers or your kids. So...who are you, really? This week, political scientist Eric Oliver explores why we often feel divided within ourselves, and how we can learn to live more peacefully with those contradictions. Then, psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman answers your questions on the science of intelligence.
Should you worry about your memory? For many of us, forgetting a name or losing your keys feels like a small failure. But what if forgetting is actually one of the most important things your brain does? Check out our new video on the surprising (and reassuring!) science of forgetting to learn more.
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This is the abbreviated version of Checkup's call-in about the challenges young people are facing finding jobs and housing. We hear perspectives from Canada about how young people's financial future, and how they're families are figuring out how to support them. Career advisor Devon Turcotte and Family Counselor Alyson Schafer share their insights on how young people and their parents can navigate the road ahead.
