Policymaking on the high seas
Question: What is the world’s largest habitat? Here’s a hint: It also takes up about half of the Earth’s surface. Any guesses? It’s the high seas, the parts of the open ocean outside any single countr...
3 Maj 202344min
How Secretary Buttigieg wants to make America’s roads safer
On this week’s episode of The Weeds, we sit down with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to talk about transportation policy in America. From subways and buses to cars and safer roads, listen for...
26 Apr 202352min
Mifepristone and the FDA’s exhaustive approval process, explained
It’s been 10 days since a federal judge in Texas issued an unprecedented ruling that nullified the 2000 Food and Drug Administration approval of mifepristone, the first medication in a two-pill combin...
18 Apr 202337min
How corporations got all your data
Sean Illing speaks with Matthew Jones, historian of science and technology, and co-author (with data scientist Chris Wiggins) of the new book How Data Happened. They discuss the surprisingly long hist...
11 Apr 202353min
Do assault weapons bans work?
After the shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville in late March, President Biden once again called for reinstating the federal assault weapons ban. The United States banned new sales of assault w...
4 Apr 202343min
Medicaid’s “Great Unwinding”
On April 1, 2023, a Covid-era Medicaid policy called continuous enrollment will end. The policy allowed recipients to retain their benefits, even if they were no longer eligible, throughout the federa...
28 Mars 202346min
Why Illinois wants to end cash bail
This month, the Illinois Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case examining the Safe-T Act. The legislation would bring sweeping reform to the state’s criminal justice system, but one policy in pa...
21 Mars 202352min
The debt ceiling drama
You’ve probably heard by now that President Joe Biden released his 2024 budget proposal. You’ve also probably heard that it has almost no chance of passing through both chambers of Congress. What is l...
14 Mars 202342min
