Week of March 18th, 2019

The Uncertain Hour is going inside America’s drug war this season. We’re starting with the strange and little-known story of how, 30 years ago, George H.W. Bush came to hold up an baggie of crack in his first televised speech in the Oval Office.

Halle Butler hated working. Now she writes about it.

How George H.W. Bush turbocharged the war on drugs. Plus, the latest home sales numbers and the struggle to fight extremism online.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service this week announced some changes to the visa program for highly-skilled foreigners who fill U.S. jobs in technology, science, engineering and other fields. These changes are supposed to make the process of applying for H-1B work permits easier.  Click the audio player above to hear the full story.

The next steps are up to Barr, Congress and likely the federal courts.

Spring is officially here, and in addition to daffodils, there may be more “for sale” signs popping up on front yards. According to data out Friday from the National Association of Realtors, sales of existing homes rose nearly 12 percent last month. One month does not a trend make, but an increase in home sales […]

Lots of Texans drive to Mexico for vacation. Many go for a very different reason: dental work.

One day, early in the semester, Keith Jackson didn’t show up to class. He’d been arrested for selling crack, but for his classmates, that wasn’t the surprising part.

Nebraska officials report that the flooding in the wake of the recent "bomb cyclone" has caused more than $550 million in damage.

President Trump signed an executive order Thursday calling for more protections of campus free speech and comprehensive publication of data about students’ post-graduation economic outcomes.

On Monday, Apple is holding a special event tagged with the line “It’s showtime!”

And should Netflix and Hulu be worried?

Nebraska officials estimate that flooding has caused $1.3 billion in damage in the state, more than half of it to crops and cattle. The disaster there and in neighboring Iowa follows a difficult year for both states’ farmers, who’ve been reeling from the ongoing trade war and softening global economy. Now Iowa and Nebraska, with […]

Extremists are far too at home on social media. Whose job is it to root them out?

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell spoke Wednesday about low inflation, which he called “one of the major challenges of our time.” Historically, inflation concerns have more often been around too-high inflation, such as the U.S. experienced in the 1970s and early 1980s. But too little inflation can also be problematic, especially for the Federal Reserve’s ability […]

Asian-Americans have the highest percentage of college grads of any minority group. And though they represent just 6 percent of the population, they account for 20 percent of Ivy League students. But once they enter the workforce, it’s a different story.  Click the audio player above to hear the full story.

Rhyming poetry can be hard … with apologies to the Bard.

Chinese video game companies hit a snag with regulatory pause in the world's biggest video game market.

The company is shifting its attention to accident prevention.

Money from corporate political action committees might matter less than you might think.

Volvo is planning to introduce tech that monitors the health and wakefulness of drivers. But do the benefits outweigh the privacy costs? Plus, China’s tight video game regulations and more

It was the perfect political prop: drugs seized by government agents right across the street from the White House, just in time for a big presidential address. The reality was more complicated.

This season on The Uncertain Hour, we tell that story.

Levi Strauss & Co. returns to the stock market this week. The 165-year-old company is hoping to sell more than $500 million in shares, which it will invest in broadening product offerings and appealing more to young people. 

In a sharp turn from December’s forecasts, the Federal Reserve announced yesterday that it will hold short-term interest rates steady. The announcement comes amid signs of a slowing economy and weakening consumer and business spending. For workers and the housing market, however, the economy is still healthy.

A former Facebook policy worker says platforms have a lot to lose if they don't crack down on misinformation.

What can the biggest social media platforms in the world do to radicalization online?

In our economy, the devices we use are constantly asking us to share — or sometimes just taking — our data. And when it comes to that data, not much of it is more personal and private than our health. Yet personal health devices and apps are a growing industry, a subset of which is targeted […]

Where candidates receive their money may be as important as how much they make. Plus: Fallout from Facebook’s job discrimination settlement and “femtech” apps that help women control their health — while collecting a lot of personal data.

How podcasting became the biggest corporate craze since the company memo.

It’s no secret that nearly all of Facebook’s revenue comes from advertising. But did you know Facebook is accused of allowing advertisers to discriminate against minorities, women and other protected groups? In some cases, civil rights groups say, Facebook made it possible for housing, job and credit advertisements to post to the feeds of white […]

In 2010, shortly after Arizona had passed the controversial immigration law known as Senate Bill 1070, Jessica Gonzalez was riding a bus through downtown Phoenix when it passed a crowds of protesters and counter-protesters. Gonzalez remembers being the only person with brown skin on the bus. When the protesters spotted her through the window, she […]

After years of legal battles, a Miami-based company won the right to carry out exploratory oil drilling in the Florida Everglades.

Yesterday at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, Google unveiled a new gaming platform called “Stadia.” Instead of focusing on a local console, the platform will be cloud-based and offer instant access to play from sites like YouTube, meeting both casual gamers and aficionados where they are. The company plans to launch Stadia in […]

The VSL lets you compare the cost of a regulation to the benefit in probable lives saved.

“Large media corporations have a duty to take on this challenge,” one expert says.

“Large media corporations have a duty to take on this challenge,” one expert says.

The multimillion-dollar industry relies heavily on H-2B visa workers from Mexico and Central America.

The online marketplace just got a little more interesting. Instagram launched in-app purchase and payment services for 20 major brands, including Nike, Burberry and Uniqlo. Shoppers will now be able to click on Instagram posts featuring items they want and complete purchases, all while staying inside the app. The news raises questions about data privacy […]

The Chinese economy could be killing recycling in the U.S.

For Sam Desai, vice president at RM Metals, a year of tariffs on his balance sheet changed his work habits.

The United Kingdom voted for Brexit almost three years ago, but there’s still no deal in place to politically and economically untangle itself from Europe. The BBC’s Ros Atkins tells us why we should care about Brexit.

As college tuition and student debt continue to rise, the White House is proposing reforms to student loan policy.

As Major League Soccer’s 24th season gets underway, sports investors are fueling a soccer growth spurt.

Experts say more venues with large crowds could soon be experimenting with going cashless.

According to a new report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin — which ranks the health of nearly every county in the U.S. — more than 10 percent of households live with the burden of extremely high housing costs. Where people spend more than half of their income on housing, it […]

For years, China used U.S. recyclables in its factories, but the country stopped buying foreign trash last year. Plus: Will Instagram’s in-app purchases threaten Amazon?

Alan Krueger, a groundbreaking Princeton University economist who served as a top adviser in two Democratic administrations and was an authority on the labor market, has died.

And what can social media companies do to intervene?

And what can social media companies do to intervene?

The San Francisco assessor's office has waited years to update its technology systems.

Heavy rain and melting snow have brought historic flooding to parts of the Midwest. Around 200 miles of Missouri River levees in Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri and Kansas have been compromised, according to the Associated Press, and flood warnings are still up for at least a dozen states. At least two people have died, thousands have […]

When OPEC decides to restrict global oil supply and raise prices, it can become very tempting for some nations, particularly smaller producers, to break the pact and sell more oil. OPEC members and allies are currently meeting in Azerbaijan, and the monitoring committee has been reviewing the “percentage of conformity” for each nation. Essentially, it […]

The financial technology company Fidelity National Information Services, Inc. (FIS) has agreed to buy the e-commerce payment processor, Worldpay, for $34 billion in cash and stock. FIS is taking on some Worldpay debt, which brings the overall value of the deal to around $43 billion. You might not have heard of these two companies, or others […]

Last week the Bureau of Labor Statistics released a report confirming a rising cost of living in the United States as the consumer price index rose 0.2 percent. Although it was a small hike, it affected the prices of food, gas and rent. We called up some Marketplace listeners to get their thoughts about how […]

The number of 18- to 37-year-olds getting injectable fillers has grown more than 20 percent in the past five years. Plus: The latest on the FAA and Boeing, and the big business of pumping and dredging in flooded Nebraska.

With divided government, getting family-leave or sick-day bills out of Congress and to the president is highly unlikely before the 2020 election.

Demand for coyote fur has been on the rise thanks, in part, to trendsetting by Canada Goose.

Older equipment may lose its grip on space and time when its clocks roll over.

Roy Snipes and the local Catholic diocese are fighting new sections of border wall to protect a tiny, white chapel known as La Lomita.

The new Model Y is — technically — a lot like the Model 3.

The new Model Y is — technically — a lot like the Model 3.

Botox and injectable fillers are now being marketed to women in their 20s and 30s.