Why Saudis lost the will to LIV (laugh, love) from @wailinwong.bsky.social feat. golf guru Alan Shipnuck. www.npr.org/2026/05/28/n...

It’s because you can’t hold your beer while playing like you can in cornhole.

Tonight if you’re a New Yorker with children you need to set a good example and get arrested. Prove to your children that you stand for something, particularly New York basketball

Made a playlist of some highlights (old and new favs) from Kilby Block Party in Utah last weekend. Best music festival I’ve ever attended. open.spotify.com/playlist/3r5...

There are now businesses to certify your work as human-generated. @darianwoods.bsky.social profiles one and subjects The Indicator to the "H" test to prove we are not AI slop machines. lnk.to/q1KNPAjtWE

Great marketing for Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey* *The Odyssey takes place before the Peloponnesian War 🤓

East of Eden is my favorite book of all time and to get a remake from Kathy's POV played by Florence Pugh is a fever dream. I can even overlook the fact that Netflix is making it. youtu.be/fdBr5KyUilU?...

Warsh Trading: When a new chair is installed but the interest rates stay the same.

The average hourly wage for private-sector workers in April 2026 was $37.41. When Trump took office in January 2025, it was $37.35 (adjusted for inflation). There has been essentially zero real wage growth under Trump 2.0.

Spreading cycling propaganda whenever and wherever I can. 🫡

"72% of the white population is put into one district. 75% of the Black population is carved into two,” Sen. Jeff Yarbro of Nashville said. “We are being asked to believe that it’s just the luck of the draw, just happenstance.” Within hours of a new congressional map passing, the NAACP filed suit.

Neat memory posted by a Savannah alderman. The large globe that has become a local landmark as you drive into Savannah from I-16 was the idea of Ted Turner’s dad, Ed, who was hired by the Savannah Gas Company to make one of their tanks into a globe. Repainted a few years ago and still standing.

The Devil Wears Prada 2 should have done a brand partnership with Financial Times or Bloomberg to release Andy Sachs' 4-part investigation on the Federal Reserve. (Not a spoiler.)

“There are no conflicts of interest,” the White House press office told us in a statement when we asked about Trump’s conflicts of interests. ArcelorMittal has already delivered 600 tonnes of European steel for the ballroom. www.npr.org/2026/05/07/n...

The SEC is moving forward with eliminating some quarterly earnings requirements. Last year, @wailinwong.bsky.social broke down potential trade-offs of less financial reporting. Maybe better long-term decision making, but worse information environment for investors. open.spotify.com/episode/3fwN...

Latest AI data center outcry from a county in Utah that voted 79% for Trump in the last election. This is a massive 60 sq mile data center backed by Kevin O’Leary of Shark Tank and endorsed by Gov. Spencer Cox that would generate and consume twice as much energy as the entire state. Insanity.

After a year in ICE detention, Georgia barber Rodney Taylor was finally freed. His was among the most horrific accounts of the conditions in these facilities.

Thou art too damned jolly. Sail on.

In its latest ruling gutting the Voting Rights Act, the Roberts Court has inverted the Reconstruction Amendments to justify the same racist devices and practices they were adopted to dismantle (🎁) www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

Co-hosted today’s Indicator with Adrian Ma on our new age of economic warfare and the chokepoints being leveraged against the U.S. open.spotify.com/episode/4cH9...

lol, lmao even.

Love The Indicator and need more numbers from the news explained to you? My colleague @cooperkatzmckim.bsky.social has launched a brilliant companion newsletter that will arrive in your inbox weekly if you sign up here: npr.org/indicatornewsletter

Adidas will sell you a pair of its brand new ultra light running shoes that shattered two world records at the London Marathon for $500. Past performance not indicative of future results. www.wsj.com/video/series...

Some highlights from the 45th annual SCAD Sidewalk Arts Festival.

Back from Italy. Visited the Vatican and converted to a Moka pot coffee drinker. Amen.

Highlight of this panel is when mod @carolecadwalla.bsky.social singles out Google as the primary sponsor of this journalism festival and asks whether they might have ulterior motives. Big applause.

My good friend @amywestervelt.bsky.social talks about how she inadvertently ended up covering Thiel and Musk via her climate coverage in California. “The fossil fuel industry and tech industry operate in the same way. … I see this as an unholy alliance.” Says they use the same PR & law firms. #ijf26

Hope this live magazine involves motorcycle jumps over the Fontana Maggiore and 12-string guitars. #ijf26

Buongiorno, Buonjournos! #IJF26

Lol. Allbirds is organized as a public benefit corporation because nothing matters anymore. Words and laws don't mean anything.

Fun time to be planning a trip to Rome while the president is feuding with the pope. If any journos on here are going to #IJF26 in Perugia, let's connect for an aperitivo!

Unashamedly entering my jam band era, and I can’t recommend a Billy Strings show enough. Cleanest acoustics I’ve ever heard in live music, the fandom is friendly too.

Georgia Voter: It's giving war crime. You can't do that. We don't just annihilate people because we can and, you know, make a grab for the money and the oil. And that's what we've done in Venezuela. And that's what we're doing in Iran.

HOORAY, the Planet Money book is out today! We are so excited to get this book into all of your hands and we hope you enjoy it. It would be great to see you at one of our live shows too, especially if you are in Chicago! That's where I'll be on April 23! Exclamation points! planetmoneybook.com

Happy Easter! Here’s my 2010 Peeptrick Swayze peeps diorama for the Washington Post contest that they discontinued (before discontinuing their journalism in 2025).

[Raye singing] Where the hell is my… 🎶

It has been a year since President Trump announced double-digit tariffs on imports from around the world. So far, those levies have not produced the economic boom the president promised. n.pr/4m30e82

Excellent Bouie piece on the birthright case. Especially how it points out that every academic backing Trump has either explicitly rejected Trump’s take in the past or somehow written extensively on the 14A without raising it (and implicitly rejecting it)… and have no new evidence now. Gift link:

Today's Indicator episode in which I discover school lunches are already pretty, pretty good and don't need a costly MAHA beef tallow makeover. www.npr.org/2026/03/30/n...

I know all the answers to this week’s NPR news quiz thanks to @petersagal.bsky.social visiting Savannah, so I can insider trade all the answers to make money. I think that’s how we all make money now.

After a sweep of successful ballot measures in 2018 (weed, Medicaid, redistricting) Utah’s Republican legislature made it 3x harder to do citizen-led ballot measures, so when Rs tried to place one themselves, they were stymied by their own rules. www.deseret.com/politics/202...

Class action when ... ?

WhatsApp just sent me a text touting its end-to-end encryption after Meta announced it would end encryption for IG dms (following the New Mexico trial). Guess they know a lot of people really won’t like that change and have zero trust in Meta when it comes to privacy. I know I don’t!

Taking the whole day to unpack this new Lindy West memoir and the insane email her husband wrote to a journalist who profiled it quite fairly. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i...

So happy for Afroman and the First Amendment. www.billboard.com/pro/afroman-...

@wailinwong.bsky.social @marychilds.bsky.social and I talking INDUSTRY S4 on the latest Planet Money TV Club! We get into the role of short sellers in the market and the real-life parallels to Wirecard. If you wanna listen, subscribe to Planet Money+! You won't regret it www.npr.org/2026/03/09/n...

Recession Indicator? Alan Greenspan turns 100(!) today: www.youtube.com/watch?v=lp1s...

BLS used the words "edged down" in its monthly labor market report. Have to wonder the number of drafts they went through instead of just saying the U.S. economy lost 92K jobs last month. www.bls.gov/news.release...

Lock in your Kalshi trades.

Indicators of the Week is now on YouTube in addition to our audio feed. See the amazing @wailinwong.bsky.social, @darianwoods.bsky.social and Adrian Ma in technicolor and 3D! youtube.com/watch?v=5Yjo...