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CTA Looks to Expand Its Collection of Public Art; Seeks Artist Qualifications for Four New Projects

The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) announced today the kickoff of a search for artists and/or artist teams interested in creating new, one-of-a-kind artwork for four locations throughout the system, as part of its continued expansion of public art to all CTA locations.








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Bonus: Janet Jackson's 'Control'

On the 35th anniversary of Janet Jackson's first No. 1 Billboard Hot 100 hit, our friends at It's Been A Minute look back at Control, her career-defining album that changed the trajectory of pop music in the late '80s and '90s.

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Is a Stradivarius just a violin? (Classic)

Many music aficionados will tell you that violins and violas made by legendary craftsman Antonio Stradivari represent the pinnacle of the instruments. But what if it's all just an example of really good branding? | Subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.

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'Soul Train' and the business of Black joy

When Soul Train first launched in 1970, Black audiences weren't understood as a viable target market. Don Cornelius changed that forever with his weekly TV dance show. | Subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.

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Peanuts and Cracker Jack (Classic)

Ballpark vendors share their strategies and other secrets to selling the most hot dogs at baseball games. | Subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.

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Planet Money Records Vol. 1: Earnest Jackson

We try to start a real record label. Just to put one song out there. It's a song about inflation, recorded in 1975... and never released. Until now.

This is part one of the Planet Money Records series. Here's part two and part three.

Update: We now have
merch! We released a line of Inflation song gear — including a limited edition vinyl record; a colorful, neon hoodie; and 70s-inspired stickers. You can find it here: n.pr/shopplanetmoney.

Listen to "Inflation" on
Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube Music, Tidal, Amazon Music & Pandora.

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Jay & Shai's debt ceiling adventure

Every year, the U.S. government spends more money than it takes in. In order to fund all that spending, the country takes on debt. Congress has the power to limit how much debt the U.S. takes on. Right now, the debt limit is $31.4 trillion dollars. Once we reach that limit, Congress has a few options so that the government keeps paying its bills: Raise the debt limit, suspend it, or eliminate it entirely.
That debate and negotiations are back this season. One thing that is in short supply, but very important for these negotiations, is good information. Shai Akabas, of the Bipartisan Policy Center, knows this well. Right now, he and his team are working on figuring out when exactly the U.S. government could run out of money to pay its obligations — what they've dubbed: the "X Date."
Shai is determined to help prevent the U.S. government from blowing past the X Date without a solution. But this year's debt-ceiling negotiations are not going very well. Which is daunting, because if lawmakers don't figure something out, the ramifications for the global economy could be huge.
So, how did Shai become the go-to expert at the go-to think tank for debt ceiling information? It started in 2011, back when he and current Chair of the Federal Reserve Jay Powell, armed with a powerpoint and the pressure of a deadline, helped stave off economic disaster.
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Predictions: Jobs!

It's time for another installment of ... Planet Money Predictions! *air horn*

Last year, we invited two economic forecasters to tell us what they saw coming for jobs, the housing market, and inflation. And now they're back. Which means it's time to find out whose predictions were more on the money, and send the victor to the next round, where they face off against a new forecasting phenom.

Since our last game, housing and inflation have cooled, but the job market keeps going strong. And the possibility of a recession still looms large. Our forecasters tell us what they see in the economy now, and what they expect in the months ahead.

This episode was produced by James Sneed. It was engineered by Katherine Silva. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and edited by Molly Messick. Jess Jiang is our acting executive producer.

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The 60-day job race

People come from all over the world to work in U.S. tech. And during the tech boom years, the industry relied heavily on foreign workers. This is how we built Silicon Valley – with great minds coming from everywhere to work in the U.S.

But when the industry started to shrink, all of these people who moved here for work are finding that linking their jobs to their residency is really complicated. That was the case for Aashka and Nilanjan. Aashka was a product engineer at Amazon, and Nilanjan worked in digital advertising for Google. They both lost their jobs in the layoffs each company announced earlier this year.

When Aashka and Nilanjan got the news, a clock started ticking. Because they are both H-1B recipients, they only have 60 days to find new jobs before they risk being sent home. And they can't get just any job – they need new employers in their field willing to sponsor their visa.

On today's show, we followed two tech workers as they tried to find jobs before their visas expired, and what they went through as H-1B recipients trying to stay in the country.

This episode was hosted by Alyssa Jeong Perry and Amanda Aronczyk, produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler, engineered by James Willetts, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and edited by Molly Messick and Jess Jiang.

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Surprise, you just signed a contract! How hidden contracts took over the internet

When you make an account online or install an app, you are probably entering into a legally enforceable contract. Even if you never signed anything. These days, we enter into these contracts so often, it can feel like no big deal.

But then there are the horror stories like Greg Selden's. He tried to sue AirBnB for racial discrimination while using their site. But he had basically signed away his ability to sue AirBnB when he made an account. That agreement was tucked away in a little red link, something most people might not even bother to click through.

But, it wasn't always like this. On today's show, we go back in time to understand how the law of contracts got rewritten. And why today, you can accept a contract without even noticing it.

This episode was hosted by Emma Peaslee and Jeff Guo, and was produced by James Sneed. It was edited by Jess Jiang and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. It was engineered by James Willetts. Alex Goldmark is our Executive Producer.

Help support Planet Money and get bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+
in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney. Always free at these links: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, NPR One or anywhere you get podcasts.

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Indicator exploder: jobs and inflation

When someone says "the economy is doing well"—what does that even mean? Like, for workers, for employers, for the country as a whole? According to what calculation? How do you put a number on it?

The world of economics is filled with all sorts of "measuring sticks." GDP. Inflation. Unemployment. Consumer sentiment. Over time, all kinds of government agencies, universities and private companies have come up with different ways to measure facets of the economy. These measures factor into all kinds of huge decisions—things like government policy, business strategies, maybe even your personal career choices or investments.

On today's show, we're going to lift the curtain on two of these yardsticks. We are going to meet the people tasked with sticking a number on two huge measures of our economic well being: the official U.S. government inflation report and the monthly unemployment and jobs numbers. Come along and see how the measures get made.

This episode was hosted by Darian Woods, Stacey Vanek Smith, and Wailin Wong. It was produced by Julia Ritchey and Jess Kung with help from James Sneed. Engineering by Gilly Moon and James Willetts. It was fact-checked by Michael He and Corey Bridges, and edited by Kate Concannon and Viet Le. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.

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So you want to sell marijuana across state lines

In the state of Oregon, there is a glut of grass. A wealth of weed. A crisis of chronic.

And, jokes aside, it's a real problem for people who work in the cannabis industry like Matt Ochoa. Ochoa runs the Jefferson Packing House in Medford, Oregon, which provides marijuana growers with services like drying, trimming and packing their product. He has seen literal tons of usable weed being left in marijuana fields all over the state of Oregon. Because, Ochoa says, there aren't enough buyers.

There are just over four million people in Oregon, and so far this year, farmers have grown 8.8 million pounds of weed. Which means there's nearly a pound of dried, smokable weed for every single person in the state of Oregon. As a result, the sales price for legal marijuana in the last couple of years has plummeted.

Economics has a straightforward solution for Oregon's overabundance problem: trade! But, Oregon's marijuana can only be sold in Oregon. No one in any state can legally sell weed across state lines, because marijuana is still illegal under federal law. On today's episode, how a product that is simultaneously legal and illegal can create some... sticky business problems.

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Bonus: Janet Yellen on Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!

Our friends at NPR's news quiz Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! recently had a very Planet Money guest on their show: Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. They asked her about smoking pot, her extremely high scores in Candy Crush, and when to expect the Harriet Tubman $20 bill.

Today, we're sharing an excerpt of that episode with you, along with some exclusive questions just for Planet Money listeners.

You can listen to the full show and subscribe to Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! wherever you find your podcasts.

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Japan's Lost Decades

Last month, Japan's central bank raised interest rates for the first time in 17 years. That is a really big deal, because it means that one of the spookiest stories in modern economics might finally have an ending.

Back in the 1980s, Japan performed something of an economic miracle. It transformed itself into the number two economy in the world. From Walkmans to Toyotas, the U.S. was awash in Japanese imports. And Japanese companies went on a spending spree. Sony bought up Columbia Pictures. Mitsubishi became the new majority owners of Rockefeller Center.

But in the early 1990s, it all came to a sudden halt. Japan went from being one of the fastest growing countries in the world to one of the slowest. And this economic stagnation went on and on and on. For decades.

On this episode, the unnerving story of Japan's Lost Decades: How did one of the most advanced economies in the world just fall down one day — and not be able to get up? Japan's predicament changed our understanding of what can go wrong in a modern economy. And gave us some new tools to try and deal with it.

This episode was hosted by Jeff Guo. It was produced by Emma Peaslee and engineered by Cena Loffredo. It was edited by Molly Messick. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.

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The junkyard economist

On today's episode, we ride through the streets of San Francisco with a long-time junkman, Jon Rolston.

Jon has spent the last two decades clearing out houses and offices of their junk. He's found all sorts of items: a life-time supply of toilet paper, gold rings, $20,000 in cash. Over the years, he's developed a keen eye for what has value and what might sell. He's become a kind of trash savant.

As we ride with Jon, he shows us the whole ecosystem of how our reusable trash gets dealt with — from metals (ferrous and non-ferrous) to tires to cardboard. And we see how our junk can sometimes get a second chance at life.

If you can understand the junk market like Jon, you can understand dozens of trends in our economy.

This episode was hosted by Erika Beras and James Sneed, and produced by James Sneed with help from Emma Peaslee. It was edited by Jess Jiang. Engineering by Josh Newell. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.

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How the FBI's fake cell phone company put criminals into real jail cells

There is a constant arms race between law enforcement and criminals, especially when it comes to technology. For years, law enforcement has been frustrated with encrypted messaging apps, like Signal and Telegram. And law enforcement has been even more frustrated by encrypted phones, specifically designed to thwart authorities from snooping.

But in 2018, in a story that seems like it's straight out of a spy novel, the FBI was approached with an offer: Would they like to get into the encrypted cell phone business? What if they could convince criminals to use their phones to plan and document their crimes — all while the FBI was secretly watching? It could be an unprecedented peek into the criminal underground.

To pull off this massive sting operation, the FBI needed to design a cell phone that criminals wanted to use and adopt. Their mission: to make a tech platform for the criminal underworld. And in many ways, the FBI's journey was filled with all the hallmarks of many Silicon Valley start-ups.

On this show, we talk with journalist Joseph Cox, who wrote a new book about the FBI's cell phone business, called Dark Wire. And we hear from the federal prosecutor who became an unlikely tech company founder.

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Do immigrants really take jobs and lower wages?

We wade into the heated debate over immigrants' impact on the labor market. When the number of workers in a city increases, does that take away jobs from the people who already live and work there? Does a surge of immigration hurt their wages?

The debate within the field of economics often centers on Nobel-prize winner David Card's ground-breaking paper, "The Impact of the Mariel Boatlift on the Miami Labor Market." Today on the show: the fight over that paper, and what it tells us about the debate over immigration.

More Listening:
- When The Boats Arrive
- The Men on the Roof

This episode was hosted by Amanda Aronczyk and Jeff Guo. It was produced by Willa Rubin, edited by Annie Brown, and engineered by Valentina Rodríguez Sánchez. Fact-checking by Sierra Juarez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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Planet Money and hear our bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.

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Sense of Place: This Tokyo act embodies the energy of Japan's busy capital

Meet the eclectic J-pop trio, CHAMELEON LIME WHOOPIEPIE.

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Sense of Place: Here's five songs that'll make you fall in love with J-Pop

From Hikaru Utada to imase, these tracks showcase the versatility found within Japanese pop music.

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For Nick Cave, it took enduring devastation to embrace true joy

The Australian musician talks about the motivation and meaning behind Wild God, a new album with his band The Bad Seeds.

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Jessica Pratt cracks open the sunny veneer of the California dream

The Los Angeles-based musician was inspired by the dark side of state's mythology in the making of her fourth studio album.

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Manoush's Favorites: Jumpstarting Creativity

We're hard at work on new episodes of the TED Radio Hour, which will start rolling out in March. In the meantime, new host Manoush Zomorodi shares some of her favorite episodes of the show. This episode originally aired on May 10, 2019.

Our greatest breakthroughs and triumphs have one thing in common: creativity. But how do you ignite it? And how do you rekindle it? This hour, TED speakers explore ideas on jumpstarting creativity.

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Pure Joy

More than ever, we need to make time for joy. This hour, Manoush and TED's Head Curator Helen Walters explore talks that surprise, inspire, and delight.

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Ingrained Injustice

As protests for racial justice continue, many are asking how racism became so embedded in our lives. This hour, TED's Whitney Pennington Rodgers guides us through talks that offer part of the answer.

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Listen Again: Pure Joy

Original broadcast date: April 17, 2020. More than ever, we need to make time for joy. This hour, Manoush and TED's Head Curator Helen Walters explore talks that surprise, inspire, and delight.

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The Gratitude Chain: A.J. Jacobs

When A.J. Jacobs set out to thank everyone who made his morning cup of coffee, he realized the chain of thank-yous was endless. This hour, Jacobs shares ideas on gratitude—and how to make it count.

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Jen Gunter: Body Talk

What does it mean to be healthy and to care for our bodies? Physician and writer Jen Gunter empowers us to cut through false medical claims and make informed decisions about our health.

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Bonus Episode: Jon M. Chu

Ever since he started shooting home movies with his family's bulky video camera, Jon M. Chu knew he wanted to be a filmmaker. But after directing several Hollywood blockbuster films like G.I. Joe: Retaliation and Now You See Me 2, Jon felt uninspired by the stories he was bringing to the silver screen. In 2018, he directed Crazy Rich Asians — the first Hollywood film with a majority Asian cast in 25 years — and in 2021, Lin Manuel Miranda's In the Heights. We featured Jon M. Chu in TED Radio Hour's recent episode The Artist's Voice.

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Listen Again: The Gratitude Chain: A.J. Jacobs

Original broadcast date: February 19, 2021. When A.J. Jacobs set out to thank everyone who made his morning cup of coffee, he realized the chain of thank-yous was endless. This hour, Jacobs shares ideas on gratitude—and how to make it count.

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Jason Reynolds: The Antidote To Hopelessness

Jason Reynolds is an award-winning author and National Ambassador for Young People's Literature. This hour, Jason speaks with Manoush about reaching kids through stories that let them feel understood. This conversation is part of a collaboration between NPR and the Library of Congress National Book Festival. For more information about the festival visit loc.gov/bookfest

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Listen Again: Jen Gunter: Body Talk

Original broadcast date: May 28, 2021. What does it mean to be healthy and to care for our bodies? This hour, physician and writer Jen Gunter empowers us to cut through false medical claims and make informed decisions about our health.

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Listen Again: Jason Reynolds - The Antidote To Hopelessness

Original broadcast date: September 17, 2021. Jason Reynolds is an award-winning author and National Ambassador for Young People's Literature. This hour, Jason speaks with Manoush about reaching kids through stories that let them feel understood.

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Steven Johnson: Why We're Living Longer

In the last century, human life expectancy has doubled. This hour, we talk with writer Steven Johnson on the many breakthroughs that made this possible — and where we go from here.

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Jacob Collier: The Language Of Harmony

Musician Jacob Collier is known for his electrifying performances and thoughtful views on art and humanity. This hour, Jacob joins us for a conversation on the sparks that fuel his creative process. Want to share feedback with our team? NPR is conducting a survey to better understand how listeners like you spend time with podcasts. Help us out by completing a short, anonymous survey at npr.org/podcastsurvey - and thanks!

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Addiction, Motherhood, and Jesus with writer Anne Lamott

Writer Anne Lamott has garnered a cult following with her shockingly honest prose on love, death, faith, writing and more. This hour, her wisdom from a career that has spanned 20 books and 40 years.

TED Radio Hour+ subscribers now get access to bonus episodes, with more ideas from TED speakers and a behind the scenes look with our producers. A Plus subscription also lets you listen to regular episodes (like this one!) without sponsors. Sign-up at plus.npr.org/ted.

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Brija Johnson leads new program that expands UCLA’s entrepreneurial ties in the region

Bruin Founders will advance goal 1 of UCLA’s Strategic Plan: to deepen the university’s engagement with Los Angeles.




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UCLA to lead project to help L.A. County cope with extreme heat

Practices to protect public health, including high-risk groups, are featured in an expansive program.




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New semiconductor pilot program at UCLA prepares community college students for jobs in growing industry

The program is co-led by the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA, the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering and Pasadena City College.




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UCLA Chancellor-designate Julio Frenk named to Time’s ‘Latino Leaders 2024’ list

Frenk is among 17 trailblazers recognized for their contributions to politics, business, culture, entertainment and other fields.




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Exemplar of excellence: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar receives the UC Presidential Medal

The larger-than-life UCLA alum, who brought the Bruins and Lakers glory on the court, is honored for his transformative work off of it.




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Tadashi Yanai gives $31 million to support hub for Japanese humanities research at UCLA

The executive and philanthropist’s gift, which will support the Japan Past & Present initiative, is the largest in the history of the Humanities Division.




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Tadashi Yanai dona 31 millones de dólares para apoyar el centro de investigación de humanidades japonesas en UCLA

La donación es más grande jamás otorgada a UCLA Division of Humanities.




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Julio Frenk gets a red-carpet welcome at Time magazine’s celebration of Latino leaders

The chancellor-designate was one of 17 honorees, including actors, playwrights, corporate executives and others, honored for their influence and leadership.




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FHN Choir Students will perform at MSVMA in January

Congratulations to the following students that were named to the MSVMA All-State Vocal Jazz Choir.  These nine students were selected from an extremely difficult video audition.  The choir has a max of 20 singers. An unprecedented 45 percent of the all-state qualifiers are all from Forest Hills Northern. They will perform at the MENC State […]

The post FHN Choir Students will perform at MSVMA in January appeared first on Forest Hills Public Schools.




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Liberal democracy is possible in Muslim-majority countries

TORONTO, ON — A new study by University of Toronto and University of Tübingen researchers suggests that Islam is not as much of an impediment to liberal democracy as is often thought. “One of the key markers for a successful liberal democracy is a high degree of social tolerance,” says U of T sociologist Robert […]




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From Jeopardy to the classroom: IBM brings its Watson platform to the Department of Computer Science at the University of Toronto

TORONTO, ON — A group of students in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Toronto are getting the opportunity of a lifetime. Using the vast capabilities of IBM’s Watson, the cognitive computing technology widely known for winning the 2011 Jeopardy challenge, the students will be learning to develop innovative artificial intelligence (AI)-based […]



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  • University of Toronto