Podcasts about Columbian

My fellow pro-growth/progress/abundance Up Wingers,With tariff and immigration policies uncertain, and the emerging AI revolution continuing to emerge, there's plenty to speculate about when it comes to the US economy. Today on Faster, Please! — The Podcast, I invite Joseph Politano to help us try and make sense of it all.He is the author of the popular Apricitas Economics Substack newsletter. Politano previously worked as an analyst at the Bureau of Labor Statistics.In This Episode* Trade and immigration headwinds (1:03)* Unpredictable trade policy (7:32)* Tariffs as a political tool (12:10)* The goal: higher tariffs (17:53)* An AI tailwind (20:42)Below is a lightly edited transcript of our conversation. Trade and immigration headwinds (1:03)You're going to have what is probably the largest one-year change in immigration in US history.Pethokoukis: What are the main economic headwinds that you're tracking right now? Or is it just trade, trade, trade?Politano: It's hard for me to not say it's trade, trade, trade because that's what my newsletter has been covering since the start of this administration and I think it's where the biggest change in longstanding policy is. If you look back on, say, the last 100 years of economic history in the United States, that's the kind of level you have to go to find a similar period where tariffs and trade restrictions were this high in the United States.At the start of this year, we were at a high compared to the early 2000s, but it was not that large compared to the 1970s, 1960s, the early post-war era. Most of that, especially in Trump's first term, was concentrated in China, and then a couple of specific sectors like steel or cars from Mexico. Now we have one, you had the big jump in the baseline — there's ten percent tariffs on almost all goods that come to the United States, with some very important exceptions, but ten percent for most things that go into the US. Then, on top of that, you have very large tariffs on, say, cars are 25 percent, steel and aluminum right now are 50 percent. China was up to 20 percent then went to the crazy 150 percent tariffs we had for about a month, and now it's back down to only 30 percent. That's still the highest trade war in American history. I think that is a big headwind.The headwind that I don't spend as much time covering, just because it's more consistent policy — even if it is, in my opinion, bad policy — is on the immigration stuff. You're going to have what is probably the largest one-year change in immigration in US history. So we're going to go from about 2.8 million net immigration to a year, to people like Stan Veuger projecting net-zero immigration this year in the United States, which would be not entirely unprecedented — but again, the biggest shift in modern American history. I think those are the two biggest headwinds for the US economy right now.You're highlighting two big drivers of the US economy: trade and immigration. But analyzing them is tricky because recent examples are limited. To understand the effects of these changes, you often have to look back 50 or 100 years, when the economic landscape was very different. I would think that would make drawing clear conclusions more difficult and pose a real challenge for you as an analyst.Again, I'm going to start with trade because that's where I focused a lot of my energy here, but the key thing I'm trying to communicate to people — when people think of the protectionist era in US history, the number one thing people think about is Smoot-Hawley, which were the very large tariffs right before the Great Depression — in my opinion, obviously did not cause the Great Depression, but were part of the bad policy packages that exacerbated the Great Depression. That is an era in which one, the US is not a big net importer to the same degree; and two, trade was just a much smaller share of the economy, even though goods were a much larger share of the economy.This is pre- the really big post-war globalization and pre- the now technology-era globalization. So if you're doing tariffs in 1930 or prior, you're hitting a more important sector. Manufacturing is a much larger share of the economy, construction is a larger share of the economy, but conversely, you're hitting it less hard. And now you have this change of going from a globalized world in which trade is a much larger share of GDP and hitting that with very large tariffs.The immigration example is hard to find. I think the gap is America has not done . . . let's call it extensive interior enforcement in a long time. There's obviously been changes to immigration policy. Legally the tariffs have gone up. Legally, lot of immigration policy has not changed. We don't pass bills on immigration in the same way. We don't pass bills on tariffs, but we do pass bills on tax policy. So immigration has changed mostly through the enforcement mechanisms, primarily at the border, and then secondarily, but I think this is the bigger change, is the kind of aggressive interior enforcement.The Steven Miller quote that was in the Wall Street Journal is what I think about, like, why aren't you going to Home Depot to try to deport people who are here undocumented? That's a really big change in economic policy from the first term where it was like, “Okay, we are going to restrict the flow of legal and undocumented immigrants at the border, and then mostly the people who are in the interior of the United States, we're only going to focus on people who've committed some other crime.” They got picked up by local law enforcement doing something else, and then we're going to deport them because of that.This is very different, and I think also very different tonally. In the first term, there was a lot of, “People don't want refugees.” Refugee resettlement was cut a lot, but there was a rhetorical push for, “We should let some people in from Venezuela or Cuba, people who were fleeing socialist dictatorships.” That program [was] also very much torn up. So it's hard to find examples, in that case, where you've got to go back to 1924 immigration policy, you've got to go back to 1930 trade policy for the closest analogs.Unpredictable trade policy (7:32)People notice if the specific things that they associate with other countries go up in price, even if those aren't their most important export.Trade policy seems especially difficult to analyze these days because it's been so mercurial and it's constantly evolving. It's not like there's one or two clear policy shifts you can study — new announcements and reversals happen daily, or weekly. I think that unpredictability itself creates uncertainty, which many analysts see as a drag on growth, often as much as the tariffs themselves.I think that's exactly right. I used to joke that there were three people in Washington, DC who know what the current tariff levels are, and I'm not sure any of them are in the White House, because they do change them extremely frequently. I'm going to give an example of the last 24 hours: We had the announced rate on imports from the Philippines from 20 percent to 19 percent, the rate on imports from Indonesia went from 32 to 19, the rate on Japan went from 25 to 15. None of those are legal changes. They've not published, “Here's the comprehensive list of exactly what we're changing, exactly when these are going to go into effect, yada, yada, yada.” It's just stuff that administration officials or Trump, in particular, said. So it's really hard to know with any certainty what's going on.Even just this morning, the Financial Times had a good article basically saying that the US and the European Union are close to a quote-unquote “deal” where the tariffs on the EU would be at 15 percent. Then literally 30 minutes ago, Peter Navarro is on TV and he's like, “I would take that with a grain of salt.” So I don't know. Clearly some people internally know. This is actually the longest period of time that Trump has gone without legally changing the tariffs since he was inaugurated. 28 days was the previous record.Normally — I'll give an example of the last Trump administration — what would happen is you'd have, “Hey, we are doing this Section 301 investigation against China. This is a legal procedure that you say that the Chinese government is doing ABC, XYZ unfair trade practices and we're going to retaliate by putting tariffs on these specific goods.” But you would have a very long list of goods at least a couple of months before the tariffs would take effect.It wasn't quite to this degree, I don't want to make it sound like Trump won, everything was peachy keen, and there was no uncertainty. Trump would occasionally say something and then it would change the next week, but it was much more contained, and now it's like all facets of trade policy.I think a really good example was when they did the tariffs on China going from 10 to 20 to then 145 percent, and then they had to come back a week later and be like, “We're exempting smartphones and certain types of computers.” And then they came back a week after that and were like, “We're exempting other types of electronics and electronic parts.” It does not take an expert to know that smartphones come from China. It's on the package that Apple sends you. And if you were very strategically planning this out, if you were like, “Well, are going to do 150 percent tariffs on China,” that would be one of the first questions someone would be like, “Well, people are going to notice if their iPhone prices go up. Have we thought about exempting them?”During Trump's first term — again, you can take this as political or economic strategy — they mostly focused a lot of the tariffs on intermediate goods: computer parts, but not computers; brakes, not cars. That has more complicated economic costs. It, on balance, hurts manufacturing in the United States more and hurts consumers less, but it's clearly trying to set up a political salience. It's trying to solve a political salience problem. People notice if the specific things that they associate with other countries go up in price, even if those aren't their most important export. There's been much less of that this time around.We're doing tariffs on coffee and bananas. I complain about that all the time, but I think it is useful symbolism because, in an administration that was less concerned about political blowback, you'd be like, “Oh yeah, give me a list of common grocery items to exempt.” This is much less concerned with that blowback and much more slap-dash.Tariffs as a political tool (12:10). . . we're now in the process of sending out these quote-unquote “letters” to other countries threatening higher tariffs. It doesn't seem to me like there's a rhyme or reason why some countries are getting a letter or some countries aren't.I think there's a lot of uncertainty in interpreting administration statements, since they can change basically overnight. Even if the policy seems settled, unexpected events — like, oh, I don't know, a there's a trial of a politician who Trump likes in another country and all of a sudden there's a tariff to nudge that country to let that politician go. If the president views tariffs as a universal tool, he may use them for unpredictable, non-economic reasons, making it even harder to analyze, I would think.I think that's exactly right, and if you remember very early on in the Trump administration, the Columbian government did not want to take deportees on military aircraft. They viewed this as unjust treatment of Columbian nationals, and then Trump was like, “I'm going to do a 20, 30 percent tariff,” whatever the number was, and then that was resolved the next day, and then we stopped doing the military flights two weeks after that. I think that was a clear example . . . Columbia is an important US trading partner, but there's a lot more who are larger economies, unfortunately for Columbia.The example you're giving about Brazil is one of the funnier ones because . . . on April 2nd, Trump comes out and says, “We're doing reciprocal tariffs.” If you take that idea seriously, we should do tariffs against countries that employ unfair trade practices against US exports. You take that idea seriously, Brazil should be in your top offender categories. They have very high trade barriers, they have very high tariffs, they have domestic industrial policy that's not super successful, but does clearly hurt US exports to the region. They got one of the lowest tariff rates because they didn't actually do it by trade barriers, they did it by a formula, and Brazil happens to export some oil, and coffee, and cashews, and orange juice to the United States more than they buy from us. That was the bad formula they did looking at the bilateral trade deficit.So you come back, and we're now in the process of sending out these quote-unquote “letters” to other countries threatening higher tariffs. It doesn't seem to me like there's a rhyme or reason why some countries are getting a letter or some countries aren't. We sent one to Libya, which is not an important trading partner, and we sent one to the Philippines, which is. But the letter to Brazil is half, “Okay, now we remembered that we have these unfair trade practices that we're complaining about,” and then it's half, “You have to let Jair Bolsonaro go and stop prosecuting him for the attempt to stay in power when he lost the election.”It's really hard to say, okay, what is Lula supposed to do? It's one thing to be like, economically, a country like Brazil could lower its tariffs and then the United States would lower its tariff threat. You'd still be worse off than you were at the start of the year. Tariffs would still be higher, trade barriers would still be higher, but they'd at least not be as bad as they could be. But tying it up in this political process makes it much less clear and it's much harder to find an internally consistent push on the political thing. There are out-and-out dictatorships that we have very normal trade relationships with. I think you could say we should just trade with everybody regardless their internal politics, or you could say trade is a tool of specific political grievances that we have, but neither of those principles are being applied consistently.As a business owner, totally separate from the political considerations, is it safe to import something from Mexico? Is Trump going to get upset at Claudia Sheinbaum over internal political matters? I don't know. He was upset with Justin Trudeau for a long period of time. Trudeau got replaced with Mark Carney, who is not exactly the same political figure, but they're in the same party, they're very similar people, and the complaints from Trump have dropped off a cliff. So it's hard to tell what the actual impulse is. I follow this stuff every day, and I have been wrong so many times, it is hard to count. I'll give an example: I thought Trump, last month, was like, “We're going to do 50 percent tariffs on the European Union.” And in my head I was like, “Oh, this makes sense.”With every other major trading partner, we go from a baseline level, we raise to a very large level, we keep that on for a very short amount of time, and then we lower back down to a level that is much higher than what we started at, but much lower than what was in practice. We went from average 20 percent-ish tariffs on China, we went from that to average 40 percent-ish tariffs, and then we went into the mid-100s, and now we're back down to average 50 percent-ish tariffs on China if you count stuff from Trump's first term.So I was like, “Oh, they paused this for 90 days, they're going to come back and they're going to say, ‘Well, everyone except the European Union, everyone except Japan, everyone except Brazil is doing really well in negotiations. We're going to raise tariffs on Brazil to 50 percent for a week and then we're going to lower them back.'” And that was obviously just wrong. They just kicked the can down the road unceremoniously.The goal: higher tariffs (17:53)It's not as though Donald Trump has a specific vision of what he wants the tariff rates to look like in five years, at a number level, per country per good. It's that he wants them to be higher.Do you feel that you have a good understanding, at this point, about what the president wants, ultimately, out of his trade policy?I do. In one word, he wants tariffs to be higher. Beyond that, all of the secondary goals are fungible. Recently, the White House has been saying, “Oh, tariffs don't raise prices,” which is an economic conjecture I think is empirically wrong. You can look at pre- and post-tariff import prices, post-tariff prices are up. It's not a 100 percent being passed through to consumers, but you can see some of that passed through in stuff like toys, and audio equipment, and coffee, and yada, yada.Point being, if you believe that conjecture, then it really can't industrialize the nation because it's implying that foreigners are just absorbing the costs to continue passing products that they make in Japan, or China, or Canada, into the United States. And then inversely, they'll say, “Well, it is industrializing the nation. Look at this investment, this factory that's being built, and we think it's because of the tariffs.”Well, if that's happening, it can't raise revenue. And then they'll come back and say, “Well, actually, it's fixing the budget deficit.” If that's happening, then you're in the worst of both worlds because it's raising prices and you're still importing stuff. So it's hard to find an internally consistent justification.Part of my mental model of how this White House works is that there's different camps on every issue, and it's very much not a consensus institution on policy, but it's also not a top-down institution. It's not as though Donald Trump has a specific vision of what he wants the tariff rates to look like in five years, at a number level, per country per good. It's that he wants them to be higher.He has this general impulse that he wants to reduce trade openness, and then somebody comes up to Trump and goes, “Hey, Mr. President, we should do 25 percent tariffs on cars. Remember where they come from?” And he goes, “That's a good idea.”And then somebody comes up to him and goes, “Hey, Mr. President, we should do a 10 percent baseline tariff on everything that comes into the United States.” And he goes, “That's a good idea.”And then somebody goes and says, “Hey, Mr. President, we should do a tariff that's reciprocal that's based on other countries trade barriers.” And he goes, “That's actually a good idea.”Those are very, very wildly different goals that are conflicting, even in just that area. But it's not that there's one vision that's being spread across all these policies, it's that there's multiple competing visions that are all getting partially implemented.An AI tailwind (20:42)This is the one area where it's only American companies that dominate, and the depth is so high that [other countries] feel like they're not even competing.I see AI as a potential tailwind toward productivity gains, but my concern is that any positive impact may only cancel out the headwinds of current trade and immigration policies, rather than accelerating growth. Is it a big enough tailwind?I do think it's a tailwind, and the US has several distinct advantages specific to AI. The first being that most of the companies that are major players, both from a software-development and from an infrastructure-development point of view, are in the United States. We are here in the DMV, and this is the largest data center cluster on planet Earth, which is kind of crazy that it's in Loudoun County. But that kind of stuff is actually very important. Secondarily, that we have the depth of financing and the expertise that exists in Silicon Valley that is so rare across the rest of the world. So I am optimistic that it will increase GDP growth, increase productivity, maybe not show up as a growth in productivity growth immediately, if that makes sense. Not quite an acceleration, but definitely a positive tailwind and a tailwind that is more beneficial in the United States than it is in other countries.The counter to that is that the AI stuff is obviously not constrained by borders to even a nominal degree, at this point. The fact that everyone talks about DeepSeek, for obvious reasons, but there are tons of models in the Gulf States, in Western Europe, in Australia, and you can access them all from anywhere. The fact that you can access ChatGPT from Europe means that not all the benefits are just captured in the narrow area around open AI headquarters in San Francisco.The secondary thing is that, in my opinion, one of the most important reasons why the United States continues to benefit from this high-tech economy that most other high-income countries are extremely jealous of — you talk to people from Europe, and Japan, and even places like Canada, the prize that they're jealous of is the stuff in Silicon Valley, because they feel like, reasonably, they can make cars and do finance just as well as the Americans. This is the one area where it's only American companies that dominate, and the depth is so high that they feel like they're not even competing. Anyone who wants to found a company moves to San Francisco immediately, but that relies on both a big research ecosystem and also a big immigration ecosystem. I don't know if you saw the Facebook superstars that they're paying, but I believe it was 50 percent non-American-born talent. That's a really big advantage in the United States' case that lots of people want to move to the US to found a company to work for some of these big companies. I don't think that's demolished, but it's clearly partially under threat by a lot of these immigration restrictions.The other important thing to remember is that even though the president's most controversial immigration policies are all about undocumented immigrants, and then to a lesser extent, people who are documented asylees, people who are coming from Haiti, and El Salvador, Venezuela, et cetera, the biggest direct power that they have is over legal immigration, just from a raw numerical standpoint. So the idea that they want to cut back on student visas, they want to cut back on OPT, which is the way that student visas basically start working in the United States, they want to add more intensive restrictions to the H-1B program, those are all going to undermine the benefits that the US will get from having this lead in artificial intelligence.The last thing that I'll say to wrap a big bow around this: We talked about it before, I think that when Trump was like, “We're doing infinity tariffs April 2nd,” there were so many bits of the computer ecosystem that were still tariffed. You would've had a very large tariff on Taiwanese computer parts, which mostly is very expensive TSMC equipment that goes into US data centers. I think that Jensen Huang — I don't know if he personally did this . . . or it was the coalition of tech people, but I am using him as a representative here — I think Jensen Huang went in and was like, “We really badly need this,” and they got their exemption. The Trump administration had been talking about doing tariffs on semiconductors at some point, I'm sure they will come up with something, but in the meantime, right now, we are importing absolute record amounts of large computers. It's at a run-rate of close to $150 billion a year.This is not all computers, this is specific to the kind of large computers that go into data centers and are not for personal or normal business use. I don't know what happens to that, let's say a year and a half from now, if the tariffs are 25 percent, considering how much of the cost of a data center is in the semiconductors. If you're going to have to then say, “Well, we would really like to put this somewhere in Virginia, somewhere in Pennsylvania, somewhere in Arizona, but you have a 25 percent premium on all this stuff, we're going to put it in Vancouver. We're going to put it in somewhere in the Gulf States,” or what I think the administration is very worried about is, “We're going to put it somewhere in China.” That chart of US computer imports, in trade policy, it's really rare to get a chart that is just a straight line up, and this is just a straight line up.On sale everywhere The Conservative Futurist: How To Create the Sci-Fi World We Were PromisedMicro ReadsPlease check out the website or Substack app for the latest Up Wing economic, business, and tech news contained in this new edition of the newsletter. Lots of great stuff! Faster, Please! is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fasterplease.substack.com/subscribe

Today I chat with Columbian composer Juan Cortés Arango as he shares his creative process behind The Head Season 3 and his innovative approach to extended techniques. In this episode we discuss *Juan's transition from cello performance to composition due to tendinitis *Creating organic sounds that feel electronic using extended techniques *Working with prepared piano, unusual woodwinds, and unconventional string techniques *The philosophy behind choosing acoustic instruments over synthesizers *His collaboration process and the importance of documentation in composition *How the music industry is evolving and what it means for composers. About our Guest: Juan Cortés Arango is a versatile Colombian composer based in Los Angeles. Juan's portfolio includes such notable works as Mala Fortuna, Anywhere With You, and Above the Yangtze River. As an additional composer, Juan worked on Pablo Larrain's Golden Globe-nominated Neruda, as well as Judd Apatow's HBO docuseries George Carlin's American Dream, and Amazon Studios' Life Itself, starring Oscar Isaac and Olivia Wilde. Through his close relationship with Richard Ludlow's Hexany Audio, Juan also orchestrates for a wide variety of video games, virtual reality, and interactive media projects, including Honor of Kings and Arknights. He also co-founded Salon de Paprika, a boutique film production house. Both ventures have developed a global clientele since their founding. He is currently building an orchestration collective. Juan graduated from Berklee College of Music in 2014 with a double major in Film Scoring and Electronic Production & Design.

THIS WEEK's BIRDS:  Fred Jackson (vintage bop); Olga Chung, Munir Bashir & Rabih Abou-Khalil (mid-eastern fusion); Columbian sound system culture from Wulomei; reed player Mikko Innnanen w. Organ trio; new music from  guitarist/composer/improvisor  Mary Halvorsen;Portugues  fado from Maria José Silva; long form  Sonny Fortune; James Brandon Lewis salutes Mahalia;  Gulf vocalist Abu Bakr Salem; Kurdish ney trio (Trio Andalabi); vintage Peloponnesian Demotika from Anthe Alexandropoulou & her orchestra;  Rosalia de Souza, Mart'nalia, Paula Lima (perf. Martinho da Vila) and  Carmen Costa  from Brazil; Bandha Maravilha (from Angola); Clément Janinet w. Adama Sidibe; West African musique authenticite from Orchestre Regional De Mopti; Malian Wagadu pop pop from Mamadou Mariko; legends from Lebanon: Wadih al Safi, Fairuz; twaarab from coastal Kenya perf. by  Nyota Ndogo;  vintage salsa from Orquesta Experimental; Cuban salsa from Wayne Gorbea, Elite Revé;  and, as ever, lots of mumbling and so much, much more. Catch the BIRDS live on Friday nights, 9:00pm-MIDNIGHT (EST), in Central New York on WRFI, 88.1 FM Ithaca/ 88.5 FM Odessa;. and WORLDWIDE online via our MUSIC PLAYER at WRFI.ORG. 24/7 via PODBEAN: https://conferenceofthebirds.podbean.com via iTUNES: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/conference-of-the-birds-podcast/id478688580 Also available at podomatic, Internet Archive, podtail, iheart Radio, and elsewhere. Always FREE of charge to listen to the radio program and free also to stream, download, and subscribe to the podcast online: PLAYLIST at SPINITRON: https://spinitron.com/WRFI/pl/20853914/Conference-of-the-Birds and via the Conference of the Birds page at www.WRFI.ORG https://www.wrfi.org/wrfiprograms/conferenceofthebirds/  Join us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/conferenceofthebirds/?ref=bookmarks Find WRFI on Radio Garden: http://radio.garden/visit/ithaca-ny/aqh8OGBR

Chris and Josh are back with another Deep Dive. This week they discuss potential replacements for Luis Diaz if the Columbian is to leave the club this summer!To get even more amazing Liverpool content, subscribe to Redmen Plus! Visit RedmenPlus.com for more information!Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/redmentv. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When a creative project lasts for many years, how do you create a cohesive story? How do you gather and organize that much research? At what point do you begin writing? How do you handle the changing of an editor? What happens when you don't know the ending? And what if you hoped for a different ending? We cover all these questions with Jennie Erin Smith, author of Valley of Forgetting, a book ten years in the making, about a vast Columbian family and the Alzheimer's researchers who studied them.Jennie Erin Smith is the author of Valley of Forgetting: Alzheimer's Families and the Search for a Cure. She is a regular contributor to The New York Times and has written for The Wall Street Journal, The Times Literary Supplement, The New Yorker, and others. She is a recipient of the Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award; the Waldo Proffitt Award for Excellence in Environmental Journalism in Florida; and two first-place awards from the Society for Features Journalism. She lives in Florida and Colombia. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

 If current trends continue, the city of Vancouver can expect to build roughly 700 new housing units this year. That’s far less than the city’s goal of building 2,000 new housing units annually and a sharp decline from the roughly 1,100 units it developed last year. The Columbian recently reported on the drop in new construction in Vancouver and the factors contributing to it, including tariffs on steel, aluminum and lumber which are driving up construction costs.    Earlier this month, Vancouver’s Economic Prosperity and Housing Director Patrick Quinton outlined several steps the city council could approve to spur new construction. They include eliminating off-street parking requirements for new affordable housing and deferring the collection of fees from developers for market-rate housing. Quinton joins us to talk about these proposed changes amid a housing shortage in Vancouver and the region.  

Avocado soup is lusciously creamy and rich with lots of delicious flavors like lime, garlic, onion, cumin and cilantro. This recipe is based on a Columbian soup called Crema de Aguacate. Recipe: Creamy Avocado Soup from TheCookful.Here are the links to some of the items I talked about in this episode: #adSouper CubesLarge Sauce PanChef's KnifeCutting BoardCitrus PressImmersion BlenderBlenderAvocado Cottage Cheese Toast RecipeThe All New Chicken CookbookThis episode was also published in August, 2024.Here's the Recipe Of The Day page with all of our recipe links!If you want to make sure you always find out what today's recipe is, do one or all of the following:Subscribe to the PodcastJoin the ROTD Facebook Group, TikTok, or InstagramBlog and Newsletter: CookTheStory.comWebsite: TheCookful.comCourses: Free Mini Cooking CoursesGuide: Free Rotation Ready Meal Planning GuideHave a great day! -Christine xo

Maria Artunduaga is the founder & CEO of Samay, the winner of the 2024 MedTech Innovator accelerator, as well as a groundbreaking physician, scientist, and inventor. Maria discusses her inspiring journey from a small town in Columbia to leading a top MedTech company in the US. After pivoting away from plastic surgery training, she channeled her efforts into creating Sylvee, an AI wearable sensor for COPD patients. Maria shares her relentless determination, innovative problem-solving strategies, and the creation of a company culture that emphasizes learning and diversity.    Guest links: https://www.samayhealth.com/home | https://www.linkedin.com/in/drartunduaga/  Charity supported: ASPCA Interested in being a guest on the show or have feedback to share? Email us at theleadingdifference@velentium.com.  PRODUCTION CREDITS Host: Lindsey Dinneen Editing: Marketing Wise Producer: Velentium   EPISODE TRANSCRIPT Episode 057 - Maria Artunduaga [00:00:00] Lindsey Dinneen: Hi, I'm Lindsey and I'm talking with MedTech industry leaders on how they change lives for a better world. [00:00:09] Diane Bouis: The inventions and technologies are fascinating and so are the people who work with them. [00:00:15] Frank Jaskulke: There was a period of time where I realized, fundamentally, my job was to go hang out with really smart people that are saving lives and then do work that would help them save more lives. [00:00:28] Diane Bouis: I got into the business to save lives and it is incredibly motivating to work with people who are in that same business, saving or improving lives. [00:00:38] Duane Mancini: What better industry than where I get to wake up every day and just save people's lives. [00:00:42] Lindsey Dinneen: These are extraordinary people doing extraordinary work, and this is The Leading Difference. Hello, and welcome back to another episode of The Leading Difference podcast. I'm your host Lindsey, and I am delighted to welcome as my guest today, Maria Artunduaga. Maria is a physician, scientist, and inventor with 60 plus prizes, including becoming the first woman to lead a US LATAM company to win MedTech Innovator, the world's most competitive accelerator for medical technology surpassing over 1300 global companies. A top 1% student in Columbia, her country of birth, she relocated to the US to pursue plastic surgery training, but abandoned it to dedicate herself to solve the problem that killed her grandmother-- a lack of home technologies that can detect COPD exasperations early. Maria has raised 5.2 million, almost 60% in non-dilutive capital from NSF and NIH to build Sylvee, an AI wearable sensor that can provide COPD patients with continuous data on pulmonary functions similar to what continuous glucose monitoring sensors do for diabetic patients. Her invention has been featured by a hundred plus media outlets, including Forbes, TechCrunch, Bloomberg, Fierce Healthcare, and more. Before Samay, Maria completed postdoctoral studies in human genetics at Harvard Medical School, started a plastic surgery residency at the University of Chicago, and completed two master's degrees, one in global public health at the University of Washington, and another in translational medicine at the University of California at Berkeley and San Francisco. She lives in Mountain View, California with her husband, 2-year-old daughter, and four pets. In her free time, she enjoys flamenco dancing, bolero singing, traveling the world, and fostering diversity in and outside the workplace by mentoring underrepresented scientists and entrepreneurs. All right. Well, thank you so much for being here, Maria. I'm so excited to finally get a chance to speak with you. I'd love if you would share a little bit about your background and your career trajectory. What led you to MedTech? [00:02:40] Maria Artunduaga: Sure. So it's gonna be a little long and I'm gonna tell you everything about my life because the personal history is very important to me and for my company too. So, as you have noticed, I have an accent. So, I grew up in Columbia in a very small town in the southern part of the country. My parents were both doctors and I'm the oldest of four kids and two of us followed their lead. So my life in my city was pretty chill. Everyone knew everyone. I spent most of my days at a Catholic school studying very hard on weekends where I usually spent tagging along my parents to doctor events. One of the things that I really like to tell, it's how my parents work as entrepreneurs really shaped my life. They were real pioneers. They built in my hometown the first big clinic back in the eighties and the nineties. And my mom was the only woman in that group, and she actually was the CEO for a while, which was a big deal. She was the only woman in a partnership of 10 people. And watching them build that clinic, that hospital really taught me a lot about dealing with uncertainty and finding solutions. Every day we'll have supper or lunch and I'll just hear all of these challenges and stories, their struggles and how they solve things. Something that was, that is definitely super helpful in what I do now, right? So, and then I was 16 and after high school I moved to Bogota, the capital, which is up in the mountains, it's very cold. I got a scholarship 'cause I was always a very good student. You know, career I spent my last year, I spent nine months in the US. Honestly, coming to the US blew my mind. The technology that I got to see, the speed, effects on science, it was nothing like I've ever seen before, and that was true inspiration for me. So I knew that I had to come to the US. I needed to come back to learn from the best, of course. And it's interesting because my parents didn't want me to relocate to the US. I was the oldest. I was supposed to follow into their footsteps and obviously, like inherited that clinic, right? That hospital, we call it clinic, it's actually a hospital. And I was a very contrarian. I didn't listen to them. I told them, you know, I really wanna be where the best people are. And what I did was that I, it took me three years to save the money to come to the US, to get Harvard to actually sponsor me my visa because they wouldn't pay me for the first year. So I remember I had to save $30,000, which in pesos is significant. So back in 2007, so many years ago, I made it to Boston, and the original idea was that I wanted to become a pediatric plastic surgeon and bring that level of care back to Columbia. I spent four years of researching a genetic ear condition that's called microtia. And with that work, I was able to land a plastic surgery residency spot or position at the University of Chicago. And I shared this with a lot of people. I actually had a really negative experience. Things didn't go as planned. I actually faced discrimination. I eventually, you know, had to leave and I made the top choice to never ever go back into clinical practice. And I changed paths. I was 32 years old and yeah I decided to switch gears. I retrained into public health and tech. And then in 2016, I moved to the Bay Area where I am right now. And I got another scholarship to finish master's in translational medicine at UC Berkeley and UCSF. And during the courses that I took, some of them with business class etc., etc., I decided to found Samay in 2018. I really wanted to build something that would really make a difference in respiratory medicine. And this is where my grandmother comes. So my, the grandmother, my abuela, her name was Sylvia and she had Chronic Obstruct Pulmonary Disease or COPD and she's the reason behind my company. So, she often couldn't tell when her symptoms were getting worse. That's a huge problem. Catching the respiratory attacks, exacerbations is definitely key to keeping people outside of the hospitals, and obviously feeling their best to have a better quality of life. So, that's what we are trying to solve with a company, right? If we are able to catch those exacerbations even with a day or two notice in advance, right, that we can all make a difference. And so by missing these exacerbations, we are having really high expenses in hospitalizations and ER visits and the problem we trying to solve is that today technologies that are adequate enough to be used outside of the hospital because the ones that are considered to be the gold standard, they are very expensive. They are confined to their hospitals and they are very difficult to complete for the patient, especially when they're exacerbating. They need to blow out forcefully for about 10 seconds, 21 times. So what we are doing is, we are developing a sensor that makes it super simple for people to use it at home to track their lung function without doing those forceful maneuvers and ideally in the future to warm them, right? Like to let them know when things are starting to go south or obviously, you know, not going very well, and that's what it's all about. I mean, that's what we do with Sylvee right here. And it's wearable sensor and we have done significantly well over the past couple of years. We actually just won MedTech Innovator. [00:08:04] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Significantly well over the last few years. Yes. So congratulations on that, and I want to dive into all of those exciting milestones in just a second. But I am, first of all, so inspired by your story. Thank you for just sharing that your resilience and your grit and your determination are really admirable. So thank you for sticking with something that was not easy, not an easy path. [00:08:29] Maria Artunduaga: I know. I know. [00:08:31] Lindsey Dinneen: It continues not to be, ironically, as we've kind of touched on before, but just going backward a little bit in your story. So I, it sounds to me like getting the opportunity to watch your parents have this incredible impact on their community and the healthcare and the opportunity is just so valuable for you. And even just learning about how your mom was the CEO and those kinds of things, did that help shape the idea for you that not only is entrepreneurship possible, is innovation and healthcare possible, but you can also be this in incredible leader as a woman in whatever capacity? I would just love to dive into that. [00:09:13] Maria Artunduaga: Yeah, it's super interesting, right? My mom really taught me a lot about leadership. She's a surgeon, so you can imagine how good of a leader she is in the operating room at home, everywhere, right? I mean, she's definitely the general, that's how I call her. And I honestly, I try to replicate, so my leadership and styles pretty much shaped by her. So I always call her my best role model whenever somebody asks me about the question, right? So I'm just like her. I lead from the front. I like setting the pace by working the hardest. So I really like to lead by example and I also, just like she did, and obviously because of her surgical training, I hold myself to a really high standard, and I expect everyone on my team to do the same. So people in my company know that I'm very strict, I'm very disciplined, and they know that from the beginning. It's so funny because when I interview all of them, at the final interviews with me, and I actually do the anti sale to join Samay. It's like, this is, these are all the reasons why you shouldn't join. I start describing myself as a very intense, obsessed CEO with insomnia, which I still have, because I really wanna make this work, right? So, yeah, I, ask them, and most of them say yes. I really like, I attract people that like challenges, especially intellectual challenges. So, yeah, to this point, most of them say yes. Some of them have obviously, you know, because probably too much. But at the same time, I tell them, "Look, this is going to be very hard in terms of the deliverables, the things that we're expecting from you." But at the same time, my goal is to not only help people with respiratory problems, I try to sell the company as a company where everyone that gets hired can be themselves and thrive. So, so for example, I tell them," Look, I'm trying to be the boss that I never had." And this goes obviously very tied to the very negative experience that I had during my surgical residency and even before, right? So, I never had a boss that really supported me, who recognize my true self and those characteristics as good things, right? So they always try to tone me down. I'm very energetic, as you can notice, and I'm also super ambitious. I'm really ambitious. I wanna do all of these great things. And they always thought that I was aiming for too much, especially for a woman. It's like, " You need to lean in, Maria. You need to behave." So I remember my residency, they were criticizing like, "Why are you behaving like this, Maria? Why are you asking so many questions? You're asking too many questions. You look more as an internal medicine doctor. Why are you always smiling, Maria? Why are you so happy?" So now, with everyone that I hire, what I try to do is that I focus on understanding their dreams and I try to figure out how this job is gonna help them get there. So if they wanna become a top engineer, maybe they wanna learn managerial skills, or they wanna run operations, or they eventually wanna become a founder themselves. So I try to create a partnership with them where they obviously help me succeed with the company, build Samay, but at the same time they get to do this personal growth. So it's extremely important that they get to place where they wanna be. [00:12:32] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, that's wonderful. And such a gift to your employees. And I also honestly, that sort of anti interview or whatever technique is brilliant because you do want it to be a fit for everyone, and it's so much better to have aligned expectations from the start. So, oh my goodness, that's so interesting. So, okay, so then. Speaking into that, how do you develop a company culture for yourself? You've learned from some pretty negative experiences, so obviously that's what not to do, but you know, as you're crafting your own company culture now, what kinds of things are sort of your core values, other than of course, your hard work and your excellence and holding yourself and others to high standards, but what kinds of things do have you developed that make it special to be where you are? [00:13:19] Maria Artunduaga: Yeah, I mean, that's a really good question. I'm very true to myself, and one of the things that I wanna do with Samay, it's I wanna create legacy. If you go to my WhatsApp, that's exactly the little logo or the slogan that's below my name: I'm creating or building my life's legacy. That's how I pitch myself. So I really wanna be remembered as someone that made healthcare more accessible, especially for the people that get left behind. So growing up in Columbia, I saw firsthand how unfair things will be and I wanted to change that. So that's how the values of Samay go, people first. I think legacy, it's extremely important, right? It's about getting those life changing tools and opportunities into the hands of people who really need them. And again, it's not necessarily, the group that we're building. It's the own experience of building a company with me, learning from the company, from the people that are working with. I really wanna make it accessible for people. And I wanna also be obviously a source of inspiration. You don't necessarily need to be this perfect person to be a CEO. You know, life is a struggle and that's totally fine. Just be very passionate about building legacy, right, your work and how you're impacting other people. And especially for me, I do a lot of work with women and minorities. I really wanna empower them to chase their dreams in science and technology. I really care about people. I don't know, I'm selfless about me. It's all about the others and creating legacy and being remembered. So, yeah, that's how I, that's how I roll. [00:14:59] Lindsey Dinneen: I love that. I love that. So speaking of you embracing the CEO role, when you first started your company, did you feel ready to step into this kind of position? Or was it something where you just were like, "You know what? I see the need. I know I can make a difference in this field. I'm gonna do it and I'll learn along the way." [00:15:19] Maria Artunduaga: No, not at all. And let, so there's a very good anecdote that I'm sharing. Again, back to all of these life changing experiences. I got into medtech because of, I don't know, somehow the planets got aligned, right? So I was doing a master's in public health because I thought that was going to be my real call, working for Gates in Seattle, because that's where I actually lived for about two years. Then I came to realize that it was very bureaucratic. It's very, was very slow. I have a type A personality. I really like to fix things very quick. I like to implement stuff. So I decided to do a second master's degree, and as I mentioned, here in Berkeley, I decided to join one of Atma METs minority programs for students, right? It's called SMDP. And I remember that was back in 2016, and they sent me to Minneapolis for the big conference. And that's where I got my first real taste of MedTech. And I remember watching the MedTech Innovator finals with Paul Grand. He was introducing the program, the finalist. I remember clearly seeing all of his pitches and how Green Sun Medical CEO won, and it was a game changer to me because when I saw them pitch, it was very exciting. You know, all these technologies, the many millions of people they could definitely impact, I saw that, and it clicked. I could turn the scientific ideas into something that helps millions in a way, the way how I would practice medicine, but in a more impactful way. So interesting story though. So the other thing that was very inspiring or at least that motivated me, I was the only person in the room who looked like me and spoke with an accent from South America, from Latin America. So it was like two reasons behind it. For me, it was I wanna be a medtech entrepreneur, but at the same time I wanna be able to break the glass ceiling, right? The first Latina physician CEO building a company that has hardware, software, and AI, this is what we actually do. And yeah, so it, it's mainly that. I really like challenges and I'm very motivated to show people that I can do things that might seem impossible or too difficult. So I really like showing people that anything is possible with a lot of hard work and determination. So yeah, that's mainly it. [00:17:47] Lindsey Dinneen: I love that. Embracing those challenges, running full steam at them and having that, I don't know, that gumption is fantastic too. And the desire, like... [00:17:57] Maria Artunduaga: Thank you. [00:17:57] Lindsey Dinneen: ...you said, to break through those ceilings and to represent and say, "No, it is possible." It is, and I love that. So, excellent. Okay, so can you share a little bit about the journey that the company has gone under recently and some of the really exciting milestones? I know there have been bumps and whatnot, but maybe some of the exciting things that have been developing and what you're looking forward to as you continue down the road. [00:18:24] Maria Artunduaga: Sure. I mean, whew. There are so many things that have been happening for the last couple of months. So it's been a long journey. It's been six years so far. Initially, you know, I wanted to build a company with an idea that was inspired, obviously, by the fact that I lost my grandmother to exacerbation and also because, at the time, I didn't know what I wanted to build. When I was doing an interview with a pulmonologist, what I realized was that I could actually build a technology that could be inspired by consumer devices, so hearing aids for example. And funny story is that my husband who is also Columbian, and went to MIT, he's been working at Google for over a decade and he's an auto engineer. He does a lot of things. He's very smart and he's one of the main architects. What I decided to do back then was, let's repurpose hearing aid technology by sending signals through the chest, and let's use the physical principle of acoustic resonance to understand what's going on inside of the lungs. And that's exactly what we are doing. We have 10 granted patents so far. We have 20 more pending on pulmonary so far. So we've done a lot of things. So we've tested that device on 450 people almost. All of our numbers of accuracy are over 90. Sensitivities and specificities are also between 82 to 98. Right now we are starting to see changes a few days before an exacerbation is actually diagnosed by a physician, which is extremely exciting. We have data from two people. Obviously it's a small sample size. We are following eight of them, and we're aiming to finish at 60 to hundred people in the next year or so. So that's our main goal. We've raised 5.2 million, 60% of that money is coming from grants, federal grants, and we just submitted a breakthrough designation to the FDA about a week ago, so fingers crossed, though, we get it right? There are a lot of things in the pipeline, things that are very exciting. Right now I'm super excited 'cause those six years were very hard. I was running a science project with my nails, getting money from grants, help from people who have known me forever. It was very hard for me to recruit a full-time CTO. So my husband has been helping me with some hours here and there. And we have right now 12 people in Columbia. So for developers, designers, clinical researchers, we are running most of our operations in Latin America because it's extremely, well, obviously cost efficient, and more importantly, we have access to people that are patients especially that are, that exacerbate more often. So we are to leverage all the different angles that we can get. [00:21:04] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Wow. So lots of exciting things in the works and in the future, and oh my goodness, I'm so excited, can't wait to continue to celebrate all those wonderful accomplishments. So I'm curious, as you've taken this journey and even before with your other health experiences and finding this path, are there any moments all along the journey that really stand out to you as affirming, "Yes, I am in the right place at the right time, in the right industry." [00:21:31] Maria Artunduaga: Yeah, beyond the MedTech Innovator, the experience eight years ago, I mean, every day I find that this is the perfect fit for me. I always tell people, "Look, entrepreneurship is not for everyone. It really needs to be a fit of personality." So when I talked to my parents, because at the beginning they weren't very agreeable with the idea of me becoming an entrepreneur 'cause physicians don't do this, right? I was sort of like a black sheep of a family, 'cause my sister, she's successful and she's a pediatric radiologist as she's working for an academic center in, in Dallas. So, my personality, I'm Type A. I'm very anxious. I really like doing things super fast. I really like to get things done, right? So, I dunno if I picked the wrong career, probably could have done a better job as an engineer, as a scientist myself. So at heart, I'm a true scientist. That's what I really enjoy. I like practicing medicine, sort of miss it a little bit, but I'm more in the quest of solving questions and discovering, right? That's what really excites me. And then, every day is a new day when you're building a company. And the challenges that I have every day, all of the problems I have to solve, I really enjoy the process of solving them. And this is a little crazy. Who gets excited with problems, right? So, I don't know, that's probably me. So I guess every day, the moment I go home or that I go to sleep, I say, "This is perfect. I don't think I'll be as happy as I am right now if I had stayed medicine. I don't think so." [00:23:10] Lindsey Dinneen: Wow. And that says a lot. And that just affirms to you on a daily basis, "Yeah. I am doing what I'm supposed to be doing. That's wonderful. [00:23:17] Maria Artunduaga: Exactly. Right. It's like, yeah, I'm good at this thing. You know? I like solving problems. I got, I really enjoy the fires. I really like them. I's like, I don't know. I'm, yeah. I'm addicted to them. [00:23:30] Lindsey Dinneen: I love that. Well, and that is unusual, and I'm curious, do you? But it's a great thing. No, it's a wonderful thing. Yeah, no, absolutely. I love that. So, so when you're at finding yourself up against a problem, do you start with any particular kind of established framework? Do you like to just brainstorm solutions? How do you approach problem solving? [00:23:53] Maria Artunduaga: Gosh, this is a really good question. It's like, you know, if I had to teach something, right? So I'm very good at solving problems, at connecting different disciplines, right, to solve those issues. So for example, the way how I go about them, first of all, I don't get frustrated or too anxious about it. I always try to think first, right? And then, yeah, I start brainstorming. I'm very quick at thinking, my mind goes super quick. I have a whiteboard right behind me. I do a lot brainstorming on my own. I ask a lot of questions too. So I rely on a lot of people, and I get a lot of feedback on the way, how I think a problem needs to be solved. And obviously with time and experience, the older that you get, the better you become, right? So yeah, honestly, every problem is different. I just like seeing it from different angles, right? I'm very good with social stuff. I'm very good with arts too. I really like doing science, learning a about engineering. I really like different ways of solving problems. For example, I remember that I we had this NIH grant and we were working collaboration with a big, famous academic center right here. And things weren't working very well. That was through during a pandemic and I was getting charged things that we actually didn't approve. So things were getting a little awkward. I decided to finalize that agreement. But then I got through this situation that I had no access to patients here in the States, and at the time, I didn't have my clinical site in Columbia opened up. So what I did was the craziest thing, which is what I did, was that I bought an $80,000 machine and I came into an agreement with a friend from medical school who has a pulmonary practice in South Florida, one of the largest pulmonary practices. He's a partner with nine other guys, and they see probably a hundred patients every day. Can you imagine that? So respiratory patients, and I told him, "Look, I don't have any money to pay your rent, but I'm gonna give you equity for that rent, and you're gonna use this machine from Monday through Thursday, and I'm going to test your patients from Friday to Saturday. And I'm going to bring people, I'm going to become my own CRO, right? So I'm gonna bring people, doctors, from Columbia on a J1 visa as a research scholar visa. I'm gonna train them and I'm gonna get them to do the recruitment, review everything, test the patients. We are going to become our own CROs, and we are going to do as many people as we can every single week." So we were able to do 430 people in a span of a probably a year and a half. Something that usually would cost us thousands of dollars. I dunno how much money I spend, probably just 300,000 to do everything. Can you imagine? I mean, that's significantly cheap compared to any other quote that I've been getting from an academic center. So, I sometimes go for the crazy idea, right? Like, what's the craziest thing that I could think of? I literally, I write it down, right? And then I just try to double check with my lawyer. "Am I doing something illegal here?" And I, yeah, I cross reference with other founders. " I'm thinking of doing this, how that's that sound?" And they're like, "This is pretty non-traditional, Maria, but I mean, if you can get it done..." I'm like, "Yeah, of course I can get it done." And I just get it done. I just don't take a no for an answer. I'm very good at also finding, convincing people to jump on board with the vision, the mission. This excitement, this energy, people really get very engaged with Samay and with me as a founder, and they love it. Most of these people either have invested in the company, they are helping me many more hours, pro bono, literally free, and we are building together. [00:27:43] Lindsey Dinneen: Wow, that is so cool. And what a fantastic story. Thank you for sharing that one as well. Oh my word. [00:27:50] Maria Artunduaga: I have way too many stories to share. This is the one I really like to, to tell people. [00:27:55] Lindsey Dinneen: I love that, and I love the willingness to come up with those crazy ideas. And it might be just so crazy that it works. So, hey, you never know until you try, and that's fantastic. Oh my gosh, I love that approach. Alright, so pivoting the conversation a little bit just for fun. Imagine you are to be offered a million dollars to teach a masterclass... I know! ...to teach a masterclass on anything you want. What would you choose to teach? [00:28:22] Maria Artunduaga: Yeah. So, good question. So, gosh, I, I tackle problem. So my, my brain again is very good at figuring stuff out. That plus the fact that I'm very stubborn. So if I'm into something, I don't give up easily. And now I'm gonna tell the story about our winning MedTech Innovator. We beat 65 companies globally, right? And I still like, sort of, I cannot process that we won. So the story goes like this, but a year ago, I tried to raise five millions, my very first institutional round, and I totally flopped. [00:28:55] Lindsey Dinneen: Oh. [00:28:56] Maria Artunduaga: I only got $200,000 because multiple funds that I was talking to, they wanted me to feel half of the round before weighing any money or signing anything. So you can imagine. So do I got, you know, chicken or the egg problem? I failed. And instead of crying or mopping, I thought, "Okay, wait. I got into Medtech Innovator. You know what? I'm just gonna win that competition, still $350,000." And why not? So obviously people, my advisors, my best friend, "Like, you're crazy. It's the most competitive thing ever. You're not established in the field. People know who you are, but it's not like you have exited a company or anything, right? You're not even an engineer, Maria." So what I did was, again I went back to my whiteboard. Again, I probably should have become an engineer before, I dunno. I'm really good at solving problems. So I was like, "You know, this is a problem. These are the different ways how I can tackle this." And more importantly, I'm very good at the studying stuff. I really like, again, knowing, wisdom, information. I just love that. I really love that. So what I did was, I treat it like a big project, and I talked to the past winners, anyone who had done or won any sort of like prize with MedTech Innovator, and I figure out their secret sauce. So I either talk to them, I studied every single video, every single pitch. I spend many hours studying everyone who had one or had done significantly well throughout the accelerator. So what I discovered was the accelerator was kind of a school, like a school. So the harder you work, the better you do. And one of the things that I realized was that mentors and reviewers were key players. So I focused on building those connections. I met with many of them. I probably spent about, I don't know, probably four to five hours meeting with mentors, anyone who I thought could help me somehow, obviously, for free, because a lot of the help that they give used for free. And I also spent a lot of time doing homework, the webinars, et cetera, et cetera. I ask a lot of people for advice. I really got people excited about Samay. I recruited my mentors and they got on board from day one. Because of that, I started building those relationships and it was authentic. I mean, don't get me wrong, this wasn't like, you know, I'm trying to play anybody. I really care about what they had to say, and I incorporate all that feedback into my company to this day. So the other thing is, I make sure to go to everywhere, every webinar, every event, everything. My camera was always on, because most people, when they do their webinars, they don't even turn on their cameras, right? So I was very engaged. I was asking questions, I was getting involved with everything. Same thing with the Slack channel that we have for MedTech Innovator. I was helping people, I was sharing stuff. I was even offering to make introductions. I really made sure that people knew who I was. And I obviously also asked the MedTech Innovator people, the staff, for help, feedback, right? Am I doing this right? What do you think I should do? Anything that you can share with me that you think. I was very clear with them. I wanna go to the, I wanna get to the finals. I told them, and I remember they telling me, "Oh, Maria, about getting to the finals, it's so hard. It depends on the strategics and the sponsors." And I was like, " I'm gonna get there. What do you think I should do?" So I literally ask a lot of people how I needed to get there. And with the finals, the way how they pick the finalist, it's actually the mentors who go in front of the strategics, and they sort of champion your company. And they really went to bat for us. They told them how committed I was, the many people that from my team were actually going for participating to the winner because I brought people from my team... [00:32:45] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. [00:32:46] Maria Artunduaga: You know, very few founders did that. I brought people from Colombia, obviously online, people who barely could understand English. But, I made them prepare questions. "You need to do this and that we need to be super engaged. We need to help other people." And they saw it was hard work. And at the end, we got into the finals and what I realized was, okay, so after the finals, I understood that the game was, obviously it changed. The way how the winner is chosen is that the audience votes, right, during The MedTech Conference. So what I did was, I went all in on social media. We made an awesome video for the best video competition. I remember that that was the first thing that I did back in June. I scheduled two weeks. I flew to Columbia. I hired right people. I made sure that I was perfect, so I was part of the creative team. I designed everything. Again, I really like arts, right? That's why, one of the reasons why I didn't, I was in pleasantry and that's why I really like dancing too, right? So I'm obsessive with everything that we do. I really am into the details and I supervise everything. And we also got into the finals for the best video competition. So I was going to this problem from every single angle. I didn't let anything up to chance. I, yeah, I'm a freak. I'm a control freak. That's what I did. I remember that even for the pitch, the four and a half minute pitch, I practiced, I don't know how many hours, but every single thing that I say that was obviously memorized, needed to be perfect. The way how I, let's go back to dancing since you're a dancer yourself, the way how I moved my hands, right? The way, how I walked on that stage, everything was rehearsed. So, yeah, I mean, I just I worked my ass off. I mean, everything was the way it needed to be and that's how we won. [00:34:39] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Wow. That's great. What a fantastic story. Yeah. Amazing. Yes. I love how it's so choreographed. Yeah, that's [00:34:48] Maria Artunduaga: great. It was choreographed, [00:34:50] Lindsey Dinneen: I love that. Excellent. Well, I know you have touched on the importance of legacy and how much that means to you, but how do you wish to be remembered after you leave this world? [00:35:03] Maria Artunduaga: Oh gosh. Yeah. I mean, so I have a little daughter, I want to some somehow replicate the same experience that I had with my mom. Maybe she doesn't even realize how much of the inspiration and the impact that she had on me. And again, leading by example, I don't spend a lot of hours with my daughter, right? I have a nanny for 12 hours. So my salary goes to her payment, right? Yeah, I wanna be remembered as somebody who tried very hard, who literally, instead of saying things, I walked the talk. The things that I said I was going to say. For example, I'm very opinionated with anything diversity and inclusion because, as I've said, I've experienced discrimination myself. So I walk the talk, I build a product, I build the change. I worked really hard. I impacted a lot of people. And more importantly, the world has changed somehow because I existed. So that's that. It's as simple as that. I wanna help other people get to fulfillment of their lives and their dreams. And yeah, and I obviously wanna be happy while I do all of these things. And more importantly, I wanna feel that I learned a lot. I really like learning. The process of learning every single day, learning a new thing makes me super happy. So if I don't learn something new, I consider day as, you know, as like a flop or something. So yeah, it's very simple. I'm actually a very simple person, I'm not that complicated. [00:36:30] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Okay. And then final question. What is one thing that makes you smile every time you see or think about it? [00:36:39] Maria Artunduaga: Oh, cute. I mean, obviously my daughter. So I'm a mom. I'm 44, well, almost 45, and I had her at 42. So just thinking about her makes me smile every single time. She's a miracle baby. She's, you know, after four years of IVF, eight retrievals, it finally happened. I finally had her, and having her in my life has turned my world upside down in the best way. She's determined, and she's only three. She's diving into doing all sorts of things. She's doing gymnastics, she's building Legos, she's doing engineering stuff. I really like that "I can do anything attitude" and obviously I'm sort of like reinforcing her to do anything she wants to try. So seeing her try all these new things, all this confidence that I, that she has. It's like, I don't know. I mean, that inspires me. That motivates me to be a better mom, a better CEO, and to do exactly the same thing with the people that I work with. So everyone in my company, I I tell them I'm a mom, right? So, remember that, and I try to do the same with them. It's like I tell them, what do you wanna do? What do you wanna learn this month? What do you need? Right? My work as a CEO is getting the resources and put out the fires. Just tell me, and this is your playground, so I'm trying to do exactly the same with my daughter too. But yeah, I'm very happy with her. [00:38:07] Lindsey Dinneen: Aw, that's wonderful. I'm so glad. Well, oh my goodness, this conversation has been amazing. I kind of wish it didn't have to end, but I also wanna respect your time 'cause obviously you have so much going on. But thank you so much for sharing about your story, your advice. You're so inspiring, and I know this is gonna inspire so many people to go for it, and not to have the fear, to have that problem solving mentality, and growth mindset and learning and, hey, look where curiosity got you. [00:38:37] Maria Artunduaga: Yeah, exactly. That's a perfect slogan. It's all about that curiosity and it gets you places. Look at me. [00:38:43] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And this is just the start. [00:38:47] Maria Artunduaga: Yes, of course. [00:38:48] Lindsey Dinneen: Indeed. So I just wanna say thank you again for your time today, and we just wish you the most continued success as you work to change lives for a better world. [00:38:58] Maria Artunduaga: Thank you so much and thank you again for invitation. I really enjoyed it. [00:39:02] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, absolutely. Me too. And we are honored to be making a donation on your behalf as a thank you for your time today to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which is dedicated to preventing animal cruelty in the United States. We really appreciate you choosing that organization to support and thank you just again, so very much for your time here today. Yeah, and holy cannoli, thank you so much to our listeners for tuning in, and if you're feeling as inspired as I am right now, I'd love it if you'd share this episode with a colleague or two, and we'll catch you next time. [00:39:44] Ben Trombold: The Leading Difference is brought to you by Velentium. Velentium is a full-service CDMO with 100% in-house capability to design, develop, and manufacture medical devices from class two wearables to class three active implantable medical devices. Velentium specializes in active implantables, leads, programmers, and accessories across a wide range of indications, such as neuromodulation, deep brain stimulation, cardiac management, and diabetes management. Velentium's core competencies include electrical, firmware, and mechanical design, mobile apps, embedded cybersecurity, human factors and usability, automated test systems, systems engineering, and contract manufacturing. Velentium works with clients worldwide, from startups seeking funding to established Fortune 100 companies. Visit velentium.com to explore your next step in medical device development.

In hour 2, Mark reviews recent audio of Elise Stefanik calling out the New York Governor Kathy Hochul for her poor policy leading to the harming and death of US citizens. Ethan then hosts, "Ethan's News" where he discusses the latest trending entertainment news, this day in history, the random fact of the day, and much more. Mark is then joined by Brad Young, 97.1's Chief Legal Analyst and a Partner with Harris, Fischer and Young. He discusses what powers Trump has to send troops into cities, the Trump administration being told by a judge that they have to release Columbian protestor Khalil, female athletes appealing a landmark NCAA settlement, and the Supreme Court saying a family can sue over wrong house raid. He's later joined by Tim Oldenburg, a St Louis Alderman who discusses millions being spent from the Rams settlement fund to fix up the Dome at the America's Center.

In hour 1 of The Mark Reardon Show, Mark discusses the horrific plane crash in India as well as a Democratic Senator being forcibly removed after crashing Kristi Noem's press conference. Mark is then joined by Frannie Block, a reporter for The Free Press who discusses the article, "Reading, Writing and Racism: The Three R's in Philly Schools." He is later joined by Cassie Smedile, a former RNC Spokesperson. She discusses Democrats continued disarray, DNC Chair Ken Martin's leaked phone conversation with David Hogg, as well as why Democrats continue to be on the wrong side of so many issues. In hour 2, Mark reviews recent audio of Elise Stefanik calling out the New York Governor Kathy Hochul for her poor policy leading to the harming and death of US citizens. Ethan then hosts, "Ethan's News" where he discusses the latest trending entertainment news, this day in history, the random fact of the day, and much more. Mark is then joined by Brad Young, 97.1's Chief Legal Analyst and a Partner with Harris, Fischer and Young. He discusses what powers Trump has to send troops into cities, the Trump administration being told by a judge that they have to release Columbian protestor Khalil, female athletes appealing a landmark NCAA settlement, and the Supreme Court saying a family can sue over wrong house raid. He's later joined by Tim Oldenburg, a St Louis Alderman who discusses millions being spent from the Rams settlement fund to fix up the Dome at the America's Center. In hour 3, Mark is joined by Heather Mac Donald who discusses the rioting and protesting occurring in Los Angeles. Later, Mark is joined by Kenneth Abramowitz, the author of "The Multifront War: Defending America from Political Islam, China, Russia, Pandemics and Racial Strife". He discusses whether or not we should be concerned about Iran. They wrap up the show with the Audio Cut of the Day.

In this segment, Mark is joined by Brad Young, 97.1's Chief Legal Analyst and a Partner with Harris, Fischer and Young. He discusses what powers Trump has to send troops into cities, the Trump administration being told by a judge that they have to release Columbian protestor Khalil, female athletes appealing a landmark NCAA settlement, and the Supreme Court saying a family can sue over wrong house raid.

Send us a textRetired DEA Agents Chris Feistl & Dave Mitchell join The Happy Hour to discuss their time in Columbia. These two men helped hunt down the feared godfathers of the Cali Cartel. After Pablo Escobar's death, the Cali Cartel grew in power and dominated the world's cocaine industry. They were sending planes, shipping containers, and anything else they could fill with cocaine to the USA, only to return back to Columbia full of millions of US dollars. With this they paid off the Columbian people, police, & even THE PRESIDENT!  How could they be stopped? Chris Feistl & Dave Mitchell detail it on The Happy Hour and in their new book, AFTER ESCOBAR!This episode was recorded live on the network infront of Happy Hour V.I.P.sIf you want to be part of the live tapingsfollow us on Twitchhttps://m.twitch.tv/thehappyhourscorwww.TheHappyHourSocialClub.comAS ALWAYSThe Happy Hour is brought to you by the official Top Shelf Alcohol of the Happy Hour!CLEARWATER DISTILLERY https://shop.clearwaterdistilling.com/PROMO CODE KINGHAPSAVES 10% and free shipping over $100OLD SCHOOL LABSAmazing Supplements made for Amazing people!TRY OATMEAL CREAM PIE PROTEIN! Save 15% site wide with promo code Kinghaphttps://shop.oldschoollabs.com/?aff=364

It was a weekend of unrest in L.A. as protesters and ICE agents collided. Trump sent in the National Guard, defying the California governor’s wishes. The Los Angeles Times has been covering the scenes. Following their spectacular fallout, how could Trump and Musk hurt each other? We’ll speak to Bloomberg’s Ted Mann. Some families are moving from the U.S. due to policies aimed at transgender people. NBC News’s Jo Yurcaba joins to tell us their stories. Plus, Kilmar Ábrego García returnd from wrongful El Salvador deportation to face U.S. charges, a Columbian presidential candidate was shot while campaigning, and a thrilling end to the French Open. Today’s episode was hosted by Yasmeen Khan.

Your daily news in under three minutes. At Al Jazeera Podcasts, we want to hear from you, our listeners. So, please head to https://www.aljazeera.com/survey and tell us your thoughts about this show and other Al Jazeera podcasts. It only takes a few minutes! Connect with us: @AJEPodcasts on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Threads and YouTube.

Explore the fascinating intersections between ancient native earthworks and mysterious artifacts that hint at pre-Columbian ingenuity or mythic contact. In this episode, we dive into:Mound Builder marvels: From Cahokia's immense earthen pyramids to the enigmatic Serpent MoundThe Lost Colony of Roanoke & More 

Researchers have been on a long journey to discover what may cause Alzheimer's disease. Looking all over the globe, they thought the answer would lie in a mountain town in Columbia. Our expert explains the decades of research and drug testing, as well as the unassuming clue they now think could be the key to finding a treatment for this condition. Learn More: https://radiohealthjournal.org/does-a-columbian-community-hold-the-key-to-curing-alzheimers-disease Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A mysterious sphere was seen in the sky over the Columbian city of Buga back in march, 2025, before being recovered on the ground. It has sparked considerable debate due to both its mysterious origin and a series of archaic and archetypical symbols etched on its surface. Researchers have translated the symbols via AI to the following: “The origin of birth through union and energy in the cycle of transformation, meeting point of unity, expansion, and consciousness — individual consciousness.” Those researchers then gave their interpretation of the message: “We interpret it as a message to humanity, encouraging a collective shift in consciousness to help Mother Earth — especially considering the current issues with pollution and environmental decline.”According to Dr Julia Mossbridge, cognitive neuroscientist, “The sphere itself seems kind of like an art project… If an artist is doing this, why is that? Well, I think it's partly the same reason. It's because we're learning that we don't understand what's in our skies or our waters. And there's something going on that's essentially bigger than us.”One of the men who found the sphere, named only as Jose, felt sick for days after touching the orb: “When I poured water on it, it started to smoke, and the water vaporized instantly,” he added. What we have here is an old story, one that is rooted in both collective mythology and UFO legend. Roswell, Kecksburg, and Rendlesham lore maintain mysterious symbols on the craft, Roswell famously had metal that couldn't be altered and had mystical powers, the Flatwoods monster case involved a family and dog becoming sick, and the core reasoning of countless UFO abductions and “alien” interactions involve warnings over pollution and environmentalism.  The spherical shape of the Buga object is both an archetypical UFO and a traditional symbol of the soul. Back in April, 1974, the Betz family found a mysterious sphere near their home on Fort George Island, Florida. Slightly smaller than a bowling ball but weighing about 30lbs, it was strongly affected by solar radiation. Researchers from Louisiana “found radio waves coming from it and a magnetic field around it,” and the US Navy's attempt to x-ray the sphere initially failed because the “machine wasn't strong enough to penetrate the steel.” It was determined later the sphere was of human origin. In Coast Rica there are hundreds of stone spheres, while metallic microspheres have been reported in crop circles. South African miners also found in the 1970s spherical objects ranging in size from a few millimeters to several centimeters. The Klerksdorp, Africa, spheres have also been found in Czech Republic and Cost Rica. While some argue they are geological in nature, others speculate they are artificial, which is shocking because they date to 2.8 billion years ago.  While on the subject of the spherical archetype, there is Sam Altman's (OpenAI) new ORB device: Time reports: “Stare into the heart of the plastic-and-silicon globe and it will map the unique furrows and ciliary zones of your iris. Seconds later, you'll receive inviolable proof of your humanity: a 12,800-digit binary number, known as an iris code, sent to an app on your phone. At the same time, a packet of cryptocurrency called Worldcoin, worth approximately $42, will be transferred to your digital wallet—your reward for becoming a ‘verified human'.”By scanning the iris, the ORB can determine your humanity, which is ultimately based on 6 protons, 6 neutrons, and 6 electrons, i.e., carbon - the mark of the beast. Built by Tools for Humanity, “It aims to verify 50 million people by the end of 2025; ultimately its goal is to sign up every single human being on the planet. The free crypto serves as both an incentive for users to sign up, and also an entry point into what the company hopes will become the world's largest financial network, through which it believes ‘double-digit percentages of the global economy' will eventually flow.” Why do they need to be verified? Because Altman and TFH believe that incoming “AI AGENTS” will make it impossible to verify what or who is real. The ORB will be installed at gas stations and stores across the USA first, incentivized by free cryptocurrency and facilitating/issuing both a WORLD CURRENCY called Worldcoin and a “WORLD ID,” while providing for a “universal basic income (UBI).” Your identity will be based on the scanning of your “unique furrows and ciliary zones of your iris.” In other words, the gateway to your soul will be captured and used as a “mark” of your humanity. Without it, it's not just that you won't be able to “buy or sell,” you won't even be classified a HUMAN. Images of this “orb” from Time Magazine show the device resting in front of a black and white background, reminiscent of the masonic floor, while the device itself is an artificial all-seeing eye. Elon Musk works in league with Yuval Harari, Sam Altman, and Larry Ellison, the latter two behind the Stargate Project, rushing to gather data for gene specific injections to change DNA. Their names are very telling in Hebrew: Yuval Harari means “streaming from the mountain”; Sam Altman means “name of the old God” and also “Samael, the seducer and accuser” “altering man”; and Larry Ellison means “light of my God Yahweh,” or “victory of the son of Elohim.” Take the names of their companies too: OpenAI, Oracle, and Nvidia (associated with the evil eye). Take Musk's X platform AI called Grok, whose logo is the eye of Saturn. The sons of Elohim are those who have a covenant with (A) God and are selected to be the rulers of planet earth. It now makes perfect sense why Israel is the central leader of this technology; why the black cube is central in artificial intelligence development, including MIT's use of the image, and blackbox AI; and why Jews wear them on their heads or why Muslims walk around one seven times. Think about the shadowy Israeli firm Black Cube or the Larry Fink run BlackRock, not to mention the mostly Israeli Black Box AI. The square is the world and the sphere is the soul-spirit. If the humanity can be reduced to raw energy and data via an artificial spherical device, that scans the gateway, then rather than the soul-spirit inhabiting a body the body will be plugged into the black cube and only carnal urges will remain. *The is the FREE archive, which includes advertisements. If you want an ad-free experience, you can subscribe below underneath the show description.-FREE ARCHIVE (w. ads)SUBSCRIPTION ARCHIVEX / TWITTER FACEBOOKYOUTUBEMAIN WEBSITECashApp: $rdgable Paypal email rdgable1991@gmail.comEMAIL: rdgable@yahoo.com / TSTRadio@protonmail.comBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-secret-teachings--5328407/support.

We would LOVE to hear what you think. Please drop a line. "Across Continents: The Unbreakable Bond of a Colombian Duo"In this heartfelt episode, we sit down with a talented Colombian music duo Substant who, despite living on opposite sides of the globe, continue to create powerful music together. Their journey is a testament to passion, resilience, and the unbreakable bond of friendship.We delve into their unique story—sharing the challenges of maintaining a creative partnership across distances—and explore the personal struggles one member openly discusses, including battles with depression and thoughts of suicide. Their honesty and vulnerability add a profound depth to this inspiring conversation, reminding us of the healing power of music and human connection.Join us for an episode filled with passion, authenticity, and hope—an intimate look into the lives of two artists who refuse to let distance or darkness define them.Support the show

In the 1960s, a deep anxiety set in as one thing became seemingly clear: We were headed toward population catastrophe. Paul Ehrlich's “The Population Bomb” and “The Limits to Growth,” written by the Club of Rome, were just two publications warning of impending starvation due to simply too many humans on the earth.As the population ballooned year by year, it would simply be impossible to feed everyone. Demographers and environmentalists alike held their breath and braced for impact.Except that we didn't starve. On the contrary, we were better fed than ever.In his article in The New Atlantis, Charles C. Mann explains that agricultural innovation — from improved fertilization and irrigation to genetic modification — has brought global hunger to a record low.Today on Faster, Please! — The Podcast, I chat with Mann about the agricultural history they didn't teach you in school.Mann is a science journalist who has worked as a correspondent for The Atlantic, Science, and Wired magazines, and whose work has been featured in many other major publications. He is also the author of 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus and1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created, as well as The Wizard and the Prophet: Two Remarkable Scientists and Their Dueling Visions to Shape Tomorrow's World.In This Episode* Intro to the Agricultural Revolution (2:04)* Water infrastructure (13:11)* Feeding the masses (18:20)* Indigenous America (25:20)Below is a lightly edited transcript of our conversation. Intro to the Agricultural Revolution (2:04)I don't think that people realize that the fact that most people on earth, almost the average person on earth, can feed themselves is a novel phenomenon. It's something that basically wasn't true since as far back as we know.Pethokoukis: What got my attention was a couple of pieces that you've worked on for The New Atlantis magazine looking at the issue of how modern Americans take for granted the remarkable systems and infrastructure that provide us comfort, safety, and a sense of luxury that would've been utterly unimaginable even to the wealthiest people of a hundred years ago or 200 years ago.Let me start off by asking you: Does it matter that we do take that for granted and that we also kind of don't understand how our world works?Mann: I would say yes, very much. It matters because these systems undergird the prosperity that we have, the good fortune that we have to be alive now, but they're always one generation away from collapse. If they aren't maintained, upgraded and modernized, they'll fall apart. They just won't stand there. So we have to be aware of this. We have to keep our eye on the ball, otherwise we won't have these things.The second thing is that, if we don't know how our society works, as citizens, we're simply not going to make very good choices about what to do with that society. I feel like both sides in our current political divide are kind of taking their eye off the ball. It's important to have good roads, it's important to have clean water, it's important to have a functioning public health system, it's important to have an agricultural system that works. It doesn't really matter who you are. And if we don't keep these things going, life will be unnecessarily bad for a lot of people, and that's just crazy to do.Is this a more recent phenomenon? If I would've asked people 50 years ago, “Explain to me how our infrastructure functions, how we get water, how we get electricity,” would they have a better idea? Is it just because things are more complicated today that we have no idea how our food gets here or why when we turn the faucet, clean water comes out?The answer is “yes” in a sort of trivial sense, in that many more people were involved in producing food, a much greater percentage of the population was involved in producing food 50 years ago. The same thing was true for the people who were building infrastructure 50 years ago.But I also think it's generally true that people's parents saw the change and knew it. So that is very much the case and, in a sense, I think we're victims of our own success. These kinds of things have brought us so much prosperity that we can afford to do crazy things like become YouTube influencers, or podcasters, or freelance writers. You don't really have any connection with how the society goes because we're sort of surfing on this wave of luxury that our ancestors bequeathed to us.I don't know how much time you spend on social media, Charles — I'm sure I spend too much — but I certainly sense that many people today, younger people especially, don't have a sense of how someone lived 50 years ago, 100 years ago, and there was just a lot more physical suffering. And certainly, if you go back far enough, you could not take for granted that you would have tomatoes in your supermarket year round, that you would have water in the house and that water would be clean. What I found really interesting — you did a piece on food and a piece on water — in the food piece you note that, in the 1980s, that was a real turning point that the average person on earth had enough to eat all the time, and rather than becoming an issue of food production, it became an issue of distribution, of governance. I think most people would be surprised of that statistic even though it's 40 years old.I don't think that people realize that the fact that most people on earth, almost the average person on earth, can feed themselves is a novel phenomenon. It's something that basically wasn't true since as far back as we know. That's this enormous turning point, and there are many of these turning points. Obviously, the introduction of antibiotics for . . . public health, which is another one of these articles they're going to be working on . . .Just about 100 years ago today, when President Coolidge was [president], his son went to play tennis at the White House tennis courts, and because he was lazy, or it was fashionable, or something, he didn't put on socks. He got a blister on his toe, the toe got infected, and he died. 100 years ago, the president of the United States, who presumably had the best healthcare available to anybody in the world, was unable to save his beloved son when the son got a trivial blister that got infected. The change from that to now is mind boggling.You've written about the Agricultural Revolution and why the great fears 40 or 50 years ago of mass starvation didn't happen. I find that an endlessly interesting topic, both for its importance and for the fact it just seems to be so underappreciated to this day, even when it was sort of obvious to people who pay attention that something was happening, it still seemed not to penetrate the public consciousness. I wonder if you could just briefly talk to me about that revolution and how it happened.The question is, how did it go from “The Population Bomb” written in 1968, a huge bestseller, hugely influential, predicting that there is going to be hundreds of millions of people dying of mass starvation, followed by other equally impassioned, equally important warnings. There's one called “Famine, 1975!,” written a few years before, that predicted mass famines in 1975. There's “The Limits to Growth.” I went to college in the '70s and these were books that were on the curriculum, and they were regarded as contemporary classics, and they all proved to be wrong.The reason is that, although they were quite correct about the fact that the human race was reproducing at that time faster than ever before, they didn't realize two things: The first is that as societies get more affluent, and particularly as societies get more affluent and give women more opportunities, birth rates decline. So that this was obviously, if you looked at history, going to be a temporary phenomenon of whatever length it was be, but it was not going to be infinite.The second was there was this enormous effort spurred by this guy named Norman Borlaug, but with tons of other people involved, to take modern science and apply it to agriculture, and that included these sort of three waves of innovation. Now, most innovation is actually just doing older technologies better, which is a huge source of progress, and the first one was irrigation. Irrigation has been around since forever. It's almost always been done badly. It's almost always not been done systematically. People started doing it better. They still have a lot of problems with it, but it's way better, and now 40 percent, roughly, of the crops in the world that are produced are produced by irrigation.The second is the introduction of fertilizer. There's two German scientists, Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch, who essentially developed the ways of taking fertilizer and making lots and lots of it in factories. I could go into more detail if you want, but that's the essential thing. This had never been done before, and suddenly cheap industrial fertilizer became available all over the world, and Vaclav Smil . . . he's sort of an environmental scientist of every sort, in Manitoba has calculated that roughly 40 percent of the people on earth today would not be alive if it wasn't for that.And then the third was the development of much better, much higher-yielding seeds, and that was the part that Norman Borlaug had done. These packaged together of irrigation fertilizer and seeds yielded what's been called the Green Revolution, doubled, tripled, or even quadrupled grain yields across the world, particularly with wheat and rice. The result is the world we live in today. When I was growing up, when you were growing up, your parents may have said to you, as they did me, Oh, eat your vegetables, there are kids that are starving in Asia.” Right? That was what was told and that was the story that was told in books like “The Population Bomb,” and now Asia's our commercial rival. When you go to Bangkok, that was a place that was hungry and now it's gleaming skyscrapers and so forth. It's all based on this fact that people are able to feed themselves through the combination of these three factors,That story, the story of mass-starvation that the Green Revolution irrigation prevented from coming true. I think a surprising number of people still think that story is relevant today, just as some people still think the population will be exploding when it seems clear it probably will not be exploding. It will rise, but then it's going to start coming down at some point this century. I think those messages just don't get through. Just like most people don't know Norm Borlaug, the Haber-Bosch process, which school kids should know. They don't know any of this. . . Borlaug won the Nobel Prize, right?Right. He won the Nobel Peace Prize. I'll tell you a funny story —I think he won it in the same year that “The Population Bomb” came out.It was just a couple years off. But you're right, the central point is right, and the funny thing is . . . I wrote another book a while back that talked about this and about the way environmentalists think about the world, and it's called the “Wizard and the Prophet” and Borlaug was the wizard of it. I thought, when I proposed it, that it would be easy. He was such an important guy, there'd be tons of biographies about him. And to this day, there isn't a real serious scholarly biography of the guy. This is a person who has done arguably more to change human life than any other person in the 20th century, certainly up in the top dozen or so. There's not a single serious biography of him.How can that be?It's because we're tremendously disconnected. It's a symptom of what I'm talking about. We're tremendously disconnected from these systems, and it's too bad because they're interesting! They're actually quite interesting to figure out: How do you get water to eight billion people? How do you get . . . It is a huge challenge, and some of the smartest people you've ever met are working on it every day, but they're working on it over here, and the public attention is over here.Water infrastructure (13:11). . . the lack of decent, clean, fresh water is the world's worst immediate environmental problem. I think people probably have some vague idea about agriculture, the Agricultural Revolution, how farming has changed, but I think, as you just referred to, the second half, water — utter mystery to people. Comes out of a pipe. The challenges of doing that in a rich country are hard. The challenges doing a country not so rich, also hard. Tell me what you find interesting about that topic.Well, whereas the story about agriculture is basically a good story: We've gotten better at it. We have a whole bunch of technical innovations that came in the 20th century and humankind is better off than ever before. With water, too, we are better off than ever before, but the maddening thing is we could be really well off because the technology is basically extremely old.There's a city, a very ancient city called Mohenjo-daro that I write about a bit in this article that was in essentially on the Pakistan-India border, 2600 BC. And they had a fully functioning water system that, in its basics, was no different than the water system that we have, or that London has, or that Paris has. So this is an ancient, ancient technology, yet we still have two billion people on the planet that don't have access to adequate water. In fact, even though we know how to do it, the lack of decent, clean, fresh water is the world's worst immediate environmental problem. And a small thing that makes me nuts is that climate change — which is real and important — gets a lot of attention, but there are people dying of not getting good water now.On top of it, even in rich countries like us, our water system is antiquated. The great bulk of it was built in the '40s, '50s, and '60s, and, like any kind of physical system, it ages, and every couple years, various engineering bodies, water bodies, the EPA, and so forth puts out a report saying, “Hey, we really have to fix the US water system and the numbers keep mounting up.” And Democrats, Republicans, they all ignore this.Who is working on the water issue in poorer countries?There you have a very ad hoc group of people. The answer is part of it's the Food and Agricultural Organization because most water in most countries is used for irrigation to grow food. You also have the World Health Organization, these kinds of bodies. You have NGOs working on it. What you don't have in those countries like our country is the government taking responsibility for coordinating something that's obviously in the national interest.So you have these things where, very periodically — a government like China has done this, Jordan has done this, Bolivia has done this, countries all over the world have done this — and they say, “Okay, we haven't been able to provide freshwater. Let's bring in a private company.” And the private company then invests all this money in infrastructure, which is expensive. Then, because it's a private company, it has to make that money back, and so it charges people for a lot of money for this, and the people are very unhappy because suddenly they're paying a quarter of their income for water, which is what I saw in Southwest China: water riots because people are paying so much for water.In other words, one of the things that government can do is sort of spread these costs over everybody, but instead they concentrate it on the users, Almost universally, these privatization efforts have led to tremendous political unhappiness because the government has essentially shifted responsibility for coordinating and doing these things and imposed a cost on a narrow minority of the users.Are we finally getting on top of the old water infrastructure in this country? It seems like during the Biden administration they had a big infrastructure bill. Do you happen to know if we are finally getting that system upgraded?Listen, I will be the only person who probably ever interviews you who's actually had to fix a water main as a summer job. I spent [it at] my local Public Works Department where we'd have to fix water mains, and this was a number of years ago, and even a number of years ago, those pipes were really, really old. It didn't take much for them to get a main break.I'm one of those weird people who is bothered by this. All I can tell you is we have a lot of aging infrastructure. The last estimate that I've seen came before this sort of sudden jerky rise of construction costs, which, if you're at all involved in building, is basically all the people in the construction industry talk about. At that point, the estimate was that it was $1.2 trillion to fix the infrastructure that we have in the United States. I am sure it is higher now. I am delighted that the Biden people passed this infrastructure — would've been great if they passed permitting reform and a couple of other things to make it easier to spend the money, but okay. I would like to believe that the Trump people would take up the baton and go on this.Feeding the masses (18:20)I do worry that the kind of regulations, and rules, and ideas that we put into place to try and make agriculture more like this picture that we have in our head will end up inadvertently causing suffering for the people who are struggling.We're still going to have another two billion people, maybe, on this earth. Are we going to be able to feed them all?Yeah, I think that there's no question. The question is what we're going to be able to feed them? Are we going to be able to feed them all, filet mignon and truffled . . . whatever they put truffle oil on, and all that? Not so sure about that.All organic vegetables.At the moment, that seems really implausible, and there's a sort of fundamental argument going on here. There's a lot of people, again, both right and left, who are sort of freaked out by the scale that modern agriculture operates on. You fly over the middle-west and you see all those circles of center-pivot irrigation, they plowed under, in the beginning of the 20th century, 100 million acres of prairie to produce all that. And it's done with enormous amounts of capital, and it was done also partly by moving people out so that you could have this enormous stuff. The result is it creates a system that . . . doesn't match many people's vision of the friendly family farmer that they grew up with. It's a giant industrial process and people are freaked out by the scale. They don't trust these entities, the Cargills and the ADMs, and all these huge companies that they see as not having their interests at heart.It's very understandable. I live in a small town, we have a farm down there, and Jeremy runs it, and I'm very happy to see Jeremy. There's no Jeremy at Archer Daniels Midland. So the result is that there's a big revulsion against that, and people want to downsize the scale, and they point to very real environmental problems that big agriculture has, and they say that that is reason for this. The great problem is that in every single study that I am aware of, the sort of small, local farms don't produce as much food per acre or per hectare as the big, soulless industrial processes. So if you're concerned about feeding everybody, that's something you have to really weigh in your head, or heavy in your heart.That sort of notion of what a farm should look like and what good food is, that kind of almost romantic notion really, to me, plays into the sort of anti-growth or the degrowth people who seemed to be saying that farms could only be this one thing — probably they don't even remember those farms anymore — that I saw in a storybook. It's like a family farm, everything's grown local, not a very industrial process, but you're talking about a very different world. Maybe that's a world they want, but I don't know if that's a world you want if you're a poor person in this world.No, and like I said, I love going to the small farm next to us and talking to Jeremy and he says, “Oh look, we've just got these tomatoes,” it's great, but I have to pay for that privilege. And it is a privilege because Jeremy is barely making it and charging twice as much as the supermarket. There's no economies of scale for him. He still has to buy all the equipment, but he's putting it over 20 acres instead of 2000 acres. In addition, it's because it's this hyper-diverse farm — which is wonderful; they get to see the strawberries, and the tomatoes, and all the different things — it means he has to hire much more labor than it would be if he was just specializing in one thing. So his costs are inevitably much, much higher, and, therefore, I have to pay a lot more to keep him going. That's fine for me; I'm a middle-class person, I like food, this can be my hobby going there.I'd hate to have somebody tell me it's bad, but it's not a system that is geared for people who are struggling. There are just a ton of people all over the world who are struggling. They're better off than they were 100 years ago, but they're still struggling. I do worry that the kind of regulations, and rules, and ideas that we put into place to try and make agriculture more like this picture that we have in our head will end up inadvertently causing suffering for the people who are struggling.To make sure everybody can get fed in the future, do we need a lot more innovation?Innovation is always good. I would say that we do, and the kinds of innovation we need are not often what people imagine. For example, it's pretty clear that parts of the world are getting drier, and therefore irrigation is getting more difficult. The American Southwest is a primary candidate, and you go to the Safford Valley, which I did a few years ago — the Safford Valley is in southeast Arizona and it's hotter than hell there. I went there and it's 106 degrees and there's water from the Colorado River, 800 miles away, being channeled there, and they're growing Pima cotton. Pima cotton is this very good fine cotton that they use to make fancy clothes, and it's a great cash crop for farmers, but growing it involves channeling water from the Colorado 800 miles, and then they grow it by what's called flood irrigation, which is where you just fill the field with an inch of water. I was there actually to see an archeologist who's a water engineer, and I said to him, “Gee, it's hot! How much that water is evaporated?” And he said, “Oh, all of it.”So we need to think about that kind of thing if the Colorado is going to run out of water, which it is now. There's ways you can do it, you can possibly genetically modify cotton to use less water. You could drip irrigation, which is a much more efficient form of irrigation, it's readily available, but it's expensive. So you could try to help farmers do that. I think if you cut the soft costs, which is called the regulatory costs of farming, you might be able to pay for it in that way. That would be one type of innovation. Another type of thing you could do is to do a different kind of farming which is called civil pastoral systems, where you grow tree crops and then you grow cattle underneath, and that uses dramatically less water. It's being done in Sonora, just across the border and the tree crops — trees are basically wild. People don't breed them because it takes so long, but we now have the tools to breed them, and so you could make highly productive trees with cattle underneath and have a system that produces a lot of calories or a lot of good stuff. That's all the different kinds of innovation that we could do. Just some of the different kinds of innovation we could do and all would help.Indigenous America (25:20)Part of the reason I wrote these things is that I realized it's really interesting and I didn't learn anything about it in school.Great articles in The New Atlantis, big fan of “Wizard and the Prophet,” but I'm going to take one minute and ask you about your great books talking about the story of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. If I just want to travel in the United States and I'm interested in finding out more about Native Americans in the United States, where would you tell me to go?One of my favorite places just it's so amazing, is Chaco Canyon, and that's in the Four Corners area — that whole Four Corners area is quite incredible — and Chaco Canyon is a sign that native people could build amazing stuff, and native people could be crazy, in my opinion. It's in the middle of nowhere, it has no water, and for reasons that are probably spiritual and religious, they built an enormous number of essentially castles in this canyon, and they're incredible.The biggest one, Pueblo Bonito as it's called now, it's like 800 rooms. They're just enormous. And you can go there, and you can see these places, and you can just walk around, and it is incredible. You drive up a little bit to Mesa Verde and there's hundreds of these incredible cliff dwellings. What seems to have happened — I'm going to put this really informally and kind of jokingly to you, not the way that an archeologist would talk about it or I would write about it, but what looks like it happened is that the Chaco Canyon is this big canyon, and on the good side that gets the southern exposure is all these big houses. And then the minions and the hoi polloi lived on the other side, and it looks like, around 800, 900, they just got really tired of serving the kings and they had something like a democratic revolution, and they just left, most of them, and founded the Pueblos, which is these intensely democratic self-governing bodies that are kind of like what Thomas Jefferson thought the United States should be.Then it's like all the doctors, and the lawyers, and the MBAs, and the rich guys went up to Mesa Verde and they started off their own little kingdoms and they all fought with each other. So you have these crazy cliff dwellings where it's impossible to get in and there's hundreds of people living in these niches in these cliffs, and then that blew up too. So you could see history, democracy, and really great architecture all in one place.If someone asked me for my advice about changing the curriculum in school, one, people would leave school knowing who the heroes of progress and heroes of the Agricultural Revolution were. And I think they'd also know a lot more about pre-Columbian history of the Americas. I think they should know about it but I also think it's just super interesting, though of course you've brought it to life in a beautiful way.Thank you very much, and I couldn't agree with you more. Part of the reason I wrote these things is that I realized it's really interesting and I didn't learn anything about it in school.On sale everywhere The Conservative Futurist: How To Create the Sci-Fi World We Were PromisedFaster, Please! is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. 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"Worldbuilding Through Memory and Myth: Elias Hernandez on Storytelling, Surrealism, and the Legacy of Conflict" In this immersive episode of What's My Thesis?, host Javier Proenza welcomes artist and educator Elias Hernandez, whose deeply narrative visual practice draws from Latin American surrealism, video game aesthetics, and inherited stories of displacement and resilience. A recent MFA graduate from USC and collaborator with cult streetwear label Brain Dead, Hernandez charts a complex universe in his paintings—populated by star-bearing knights, sentient castles, and time-traveling wizards—where memory, mythology, and trauma are rendered in fantastical allegory. Born in Mountain View and raised between the Bay Area and Sunnyvale, Hernandez reflects on a childhood steeped in card games like Magic: The Gathering, which sparked his fascination with visual storytelling. These early interests evolved into a practice that explores “the burden and blessing” of cultural inheritance—from Salvadoran family histories shaped by civil war to folkloric Catholic imagery and Latin American feminist surrealism. In conversation, Hernandez discusses how drawing, teaching, and game-inspired worldbuilding intersect in his creative process. His paintings act as sequential mythologies—each one building upon the last—presenting a nonlinear, symbolic narrative of a hero's journey infused with biblical allusions, cosmic cults, and archetypes of good and evil. These compositions resist linear interpretation, instead inviting viewers into a slow unfolding of meaning that echoes oral tradition and pre-Columbian storytelling. As Hernandez explains, his work is not overtly political, yet it is politicized by its very existence within American contemporary art spaces. Drawing from artists like Otto Dix, Diego Rivera, and Leonora Carrington, his practice embodies a transhistorical dialogue where surrealist aesthetics and contemporary iconography converge—memes, murals, and medieval allegory colliding in a uniquely generational vision. Highlights include: How early exposure to fantasy media and tabletop gaming shaped his narrative sensibility The role of inherited trauma in the creative act and character development Reflections on his time as a bilingual educator in Oakland and the visual languages of immigrant youth A detailed breakdown of his fictional universe, including moon-worshipping cults and star-forging armor The spiritual dimensions of drawing and ceramics as ritual practices Insight into Central American cultural erasure and mythological reimaginings Hernandez's work transcends medium and genre, bridging pop culture with ancient cosmology, and positioning painting as a vehicle for complex identity expression and speculative folklore. This episode is an invitation into the mind of a worldbuilder—one who channels collective memory into realms where the past haunts, empowers, and transforms. Follow Elias Hernandez on Instagram @eliasxhernandez and visit his website at www.eliashernandez.art. Listen now and subscribe to What's My Thesis? on your favorite podcast platform. If you enjoyed this episode, leave a five-star review and support the show on Patreon for early access and bonus content. #EliasHernandez #LatinArt #SurrealistPainting #WorldbuildingArt #ContemporaryArtPodcast #WhatsMyThesis #ArtAndIdentity #FantasyArt #CivilWarMemory #MagicTheGatheringArt #USCArt #BraindeadCollab

Join Dave and Wayne for genre television show news, a glimpse into what the hosts are watching, listener feedback, and analysis of the Apple TV+ series Dark Matter. This week on the SciFi TV Rewatch podcast we discuss how each Jason navigates the strange world in which they find themselves. Will Jason Prime find his way home, or will his counterpart worm his way into the family he's built with Daniela and Charlie. In our What We're Watching segment, Dave moves away from international crime drama for the Columbian series Medusa. Wayne decides it's time to forgo television for some much needed sleep.  In Listener Feedback, Fred from the Netherlands wonders why alt Jason lives in such a modest home, Alan in England thinks alt Jason's bedroom moves are a bridge too far, and Cincinnati Joe enjoys season 3 of The Wheel of Time. Remember to join the genre television and film discussion on the SciFi TV Rewatch Facebook group for the latest genre television show news and podcast releases. Episode Grade: A

fWotD Episode 2892: Giant anteater Welcome to Featured Wiki of the Day, your daily dose of knowledge from Wikipedia’s finest articles.The featured article for Saturday, 5 April 2025 is Giant anteater.The giant anteater (Myrmecophaga tridactyla) is an insectivorous mammal native to Central and South America. It is one of four living species of anteaters, of which it is the largest member. The only extant member of the genus Myrmecophaga, it is classified with sloths in the order Pilosa. This species is mostly terrestrial, in contrast to other living anteaters and sloths, which are arboreal or semiarboreal. The giant anteater is 182 to 217 cm (72 to 85 in) in length, with weights of 33 to 50 kg (73 to 110 lb) for males and 27 to 47 kg (60 to 104 lb) for females. It is recognizable by its elongated snout, bushy tail, long foreclaws, and distinctively colored pelage.The giant anteater is found in multiple habitats, including grassland and rainforest. It forages in open areas and rests in more forested habitats. It feeds primarily on ants and termites, using its foreclaws to dig them up and its long, sticky tongue to collect them. Though giant anteaters live in overlapping home ranges, they are mostly solitary except during mother-offspring relationships, aggressive interactions between males, and when mating. Mother anteaters carry their offspring on their backs until weaning them.The giant anteater is listed as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. It has been extirpated from many parts of its former range. Threats to its survival include habitat destruction, fire, and poaching for fur and bushmeat, although some anteaters inhabit protected areas. With its distinctive appearance and habits, the anteater has been featured in pre-Columbian myths and folktales, as well as modern popular culture.This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 01:14 UTC on Saturday, 5 April 2025.For the full current version of the article, see Giant anteater on Wikipedia.This podcast uses content from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.Visit our archives at wikioftheday.com and subscribe to stay updated on new episodes.Follow us on Mastodon at @wikioftheday@masto.ai.Also check out Curmudgeon's Corner, a current events podcast.Until next time, I'm standard Joanna.

For millennia, chili peppers have been at the heart of the Americas - long before Columbus set sail, before the Aztecs built their empire, and before the Incas wove them into myth. Originating in what is now Peru and Bolivia, these fiery pods were among the first crops cultivated by humans, shaping the diets, medicine, and rituals of entire civilizations.From the wild “tolerated weeds” of early foragers to the carefully cultivated varieties prized by the Maya and Aztecs, chiles were far more than a seasoning - they were power, tribute, and even punishment. In Incan lore, Brother Chile Pepper was woven into creation myths, while Aztec markets overflowed with dozens of varieties, traded and taxed like gold. When Columbus finally arrived in the Caribbean, he wasn't discovering chiles - he was stumbling upon a centuries-old tradition that had already conquered the New World.Join John and Patrick as they trace the ancient roots of the chile pepper, exploring its sacred role in pre-Columbian societies, its legendary place in Aztec and Incan mythology, and the fateful moment it first crossed the Atlantic. But this is just the beginning - because once Columbus carried chiles back to Spain, their journey was only getting started.----------In Sponsorship with Cornell University: Dyson Cornell SC Johnson College of Business-----------Join the History of Fresh Produce Club for ad-free listening, bonus episodes, book discounts and access to an exclusive chatroom community.Support us!Share this episode with your friendsGive a 5-star ratingWrite a review -----------Subscribe to our biweekly newsletter here for extra stories related to recent episodes, book recommendations, a sneak peek of upcoming episodes and more.-----------Instagram, TikTok, Threads:@historyoffreshproduceEmail: historyoffreshproduce@gmail.com

Watch the screenplay reading: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFc5CPBmoUg In the dilapidated streets of Brooklyn, Josh runs a failing employment agency that's haunted by three ghosts. Josh is reluctantly recruited by them to help solve a series of murders. Of Course, Death's AKA-Al curiosity is piqued and decides he's in too. Get to know the writer: What's the screenplay about? It”s about a guy by the name of Josh, who runs or attempts to run an employment agency in the rough side of Booklyn. Josh's demeanor on the outside is mild mannered, however, there is another side to him that is better left buried. He is able to see ghosts, for whatever reason, and there are 3 living upstairs who are his friends. Mary, his secretary, likes Josh and although Josh doesn't show it, he likes her too. The three ghosts, Jazmine, George and Detective O'Shaughnessy, frustrated with their ghost boredom ask Josh's if they can help somehow solve the crime of the young girls who have gone missing or have been murdered. Reluctantly Josh agrees . As it turns out, Mary can also see ghosts as well to her surprise when she stumble unpon Josh and the ghosts upstairs. To make a long story short, they all embark on plan to save the missing girls, and death, AKA, Al, catches wind and decides to help them as a change of pace. Their adventures begin, Mary winds up getting kidnapped and almost dying, death takes a liking to Jazmine, the Columbian rebels, living under immigrations radar in the area come to help them as well as the Brooklyn Police department. Does everyone live happily ever after? Maybe not, as it turns out Mary works for hell, let me rephrase that, she is the queen of hell, and it's her job not to let the dogooders do too much good and upset the balance of good and evil. But no one knows Mary's ulterior motives expect maybe death, AKA, Al. Subscribe to the podcast: https://twitter.com/wildsoundpod https://www.instagram.com/wildsoundpod/ https://www.facebook.com/wildsoundpod

Like other federal agencies, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is facing possible cuts to staffing and funding. The federal agency’s green and resilient retrofit program is intended to upgrade aging affordable housing. The program would also help fund proposals that reduced energy use.   But as the Associated Press reported, funding is being terminated by the Department of Government Efficiency and links to the program on the housing department’s site are no longer available.  Nonprofit leaders in the affordable housing industry say they’re still waiting for federal dollars that were promised. Managers of Smith Tower, an apartment building in Vancouver, say they were awarded funding but haven’t received the money. The construction is currently in limbo, The Columbian reported.    Margaret Salazar is the CEO of REACH Community Development,  a nonprofit affordable housing provider. She joins us with more on how this affects Oregon’s housing crisis and what it means for low-income residents.   

On this week's episode, we talk about Saraya leaving AEW, Columbian travel, TNA firings, Jon Moxley's gruesome spot, and John Cena's promo progression. Cheers and thanks for letting us penetrate your ears.

Andy in North Carolina was curious about New Jersey threatening to take away Trump's liquor License. Does Mark have the Answer? James in Suffolk County NY wants to if the Columbian terrorist that is getting shipped back to NJ, will be able to come back to NY?

Andy in North Carolina was curious about New Jersey threatening to take away Trump's liquor License. Does Mark have the Answer? James in Suffolk County NY wants to if the Columbian terrorist that is getting shipped back to NJ, will be able to come back to NY? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Frank Wolf is an explorer, a writer, and one hell of an adventurer.  In this episode we cover what he learned about endurance and survival during his travels in the Arctic, Central America, and Antarctica. Check out his fantastic book Two Springs, One Summer anywhere you get books in including Indigo and Amazon. https://www.indigo.ca/en-ca/two-springs-one-summer-a-year-inside-the-life-of-a-chronic-adventurer/9781771606844.html https://www.amazon.com/Two-Springs-One-Summer-Adventurer/dp/1771606843 Please feel free to share this episode with that one crazy outdoor enthusiast in your life because that's how the show grows! Cheers, Stephan Kesting P.S. Also check out my own book Perseverance, Life and Death in the Subarctic - links available at https://www.stephankesting.com/perseverance-book  

A new resolution centered around protections for undocumented students passed unanimously by the Evergreen Public Schools board last week. As first reported on by the Columbian, the vote was initially planned for early February, but with testimony from more than 20 students, parents and community members, the vote was postponed. Students within the district provided input and helped shape the new resolution that eventually passed. Caiden Mizrahi-Boyarsky is a senior at Union High School and president for Students Advocating for Equity. Isabella Garcia and Sarah Barrios are both seniors at Mountainview High School and are senior representatives for the Latino Club. They join us to talk about their testimony and how they helped shape the new resolution.

This week, Sara shares the incredible story of one of Columbia's most beloved national heroes. Her role in the revolutionary war against Spain was epic, but what she does after her arrest made her a full-blown legend. Check out the full episode for the story! — A Broad is a woman who lives by her own rules. Broads You Should Know is the podcast about the Broads who helped shape our world! BroadsYouShouldKnow.com YT/IG/FB @BroadsYouShouldKnow & TW @BYSKpodcast — 3 Ways you can help support the podcast: Write a review on Apple Podcasts Share your favorite episode with a friend or on social Send us an email with a broad suggestion, question, or comment at BroadsYouShouldKnow@gmail.com — Broads You Should Know is hosted by Sara Gorsky. IG: @SaraGorsky Web master / site design: www.BroadsYouShouldKnow.com — Broads You Should Know is produced and edited by Sara Gorsky, with original music by Darren Callahan.

The Columbian Exchange remains maybe the most significant historical development in modern history-setting the stage for the world we inhabit today. In modern day Mexico, the post-conquest colonial period led to the beginnings of many processes that would define Mexico and the Americas for years to come-the encomienda system, the racial casta system, class struggle in Mexico, tension between Spanish and indigenous, and the sparks of future Revolution. With the benefit of hindsight and counterfactuals, it's worth asking if the Columbian Exchange was the best or worst outcome we could have gotten? This is the final part in a series on the rise, fall, and enduring legacy of the Aztec Empire. Thanks for listening and thanks for the support.  -Consider Supporting the Podcast!- Leave a rating or review on apple podcasts or spotify! Support the podcast on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/reflectinghistory Check out my podcast series on Aftersun, Piranesi, Arcane, The Dark Knight Trilogy, and Nazi Germany and the Battle for the Human Heart here: https://www.reflectinghistory.com/bonuscontent Try my podcast series "Nazi Germany and the Battle for the Human Heart"-- What led to the rise of Nazi Germany? The answer may surprise you…Why do 'good' people support evil leaders? What allure does fascism hold that enables it to garner popular support? To what extent are ordinary people responsible for the development of authoritarian evil? This 13 part podcast series explores these massive questions and more through the lens of Nazi Germany and the ordinary people who collaborated or resisted as the Third Reich expanded. You'll not only learn about the horrifying, surprising, and powerful ways in which the Nazis seized and maintained power, but also fundamental lessons about what fascism is-how to spot it and why it spreads. Through exploring the past, I hope to unlock lessons that everyone can apply to the present day. Check it out on my Patreon page at: https://www.patreon.com/reflectinghistory. Try my podcast series "Piranesi: Exploring the Infinite Halls of a Literary Masterpiece"-- This podcast series is a deep analysis of Susanna Clark's literary masterpiece "Piranesi." Whether you are someone who is reading the novel for academic purposes, or you simply want to enjoy an incredible story for it's own sake, this podcast series goes chapter by chapter into the plot, characters, and themes of the book...“The Beauty of the House is immeasurable; it's kindness infinite.” Piranesi lives in an infinite house, with no long-term memory and only a loose sense of identity. As the secrets of the House deepen and the mystery of his life becomes more sinister, Piranesi must discover who he is and how this brings him closer to the “Great and Secret Knowledge” that the House contains. Touching on themes of memory, identity, mental health, knowledge, reason, experience, meaning, reflection, ideals, and more…Piranesi will be remembered as one of the great books of the 21st century. Hope you enjoy the series as much as I enjoyed making it. Check it out at https://www.patreon.com/reflectinghistory. Subscribe to my newsletter! A free, low stress, monthly-quarterly email offering historical perspective on modern day issues, behind the scenes content on my latest podcast episodes, and historical lessons/takeaways from the world of history, psychology, and philosophy: https://www.reflectinghistory.com/newsletter.

Congresswoman Ashley Hinson (R-IA) is doubling down on her effort to support America's heartland. The Congresswoman joins Jason to discuss their parallel experiences working alongside Democrats in Congress who are unwilling to find common ground with Republicans. She also emphasizes the importance of protecting taxpayers' dollars and supporting the nation's agricultural community.   Bring on the stupid: Columbian police arrested a man for attempting to smuggle packs of illicit drugs under his toupee.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Episode 1656 - brought to you by our incredible sponsors: Lucy: 100% pure nicotine. Always tobacco-free.  Let's level up your nicotine routine with Lucy.  Go to Lucy.co/HARDFACTOR and use promo code (HARDFACTOR) to get 20% off your first order. Lucy has a 30-day refund policy if you change your mind. Birddogs: For a limited time, our listeners get a FREE HAT with any order when you use code HARDFACTOR at birddogs.com. Get their best-selling hat completely free when you use code HARDFACTOR at birddogs.com. Support our show and let them know we sent you! Fitbod: Fitness App, Get 25% off your subscription or try the app FREE for seven days at Fitbod.me/HARDFACTOR DeleteMe: Get 20% off your data protection DeleteMe plan by texting Hard Factor to 64000 Timestamps: 00:00:00 - Story teases 00:03:30 - Wonder Woman the game has been canceled  00:08:15 - Razzlekhan drops another banger before serving her sentence 00:13:35 - Fake SBF DOGE account and meme coin 00:20:20 - Pilot gets bitten by stowaway tarantula mid-flight  00:25:00 - A couple on a 14-hour Qatar Airway flight has a dead woman sat next to them mid-flight  00:36:40 - Man gets caught with a toupee stuffed with cocaine in Columbian airport 00:40:10 - Steve Smith's affair gets crazy after husband releases the texts THANK YOU for listening! Join our community and get access to Discord App Chat w/ the hosts, and Bonus Podcasts @ patreon.com/HardFactor but Most importantly... HAGFD! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On today's episode of the History Guy Podcast, we talk about one of the most important parts of the Columbian exchange, and possibly the reason that Europe was able to colonize and dominate much of the world in the early modern period: The Potato.

While on a Columbian blacktail deer hunt on California's Steinbeck Vineyard Larry had the chance to visit with Camp Chef's Brooks Hanson about camp cooking, outdoor cooking recipes, and some of Camp Chef's truly innovative products that make cooking in the Great Outdoors both fun and successful! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a textWelcome to part one of a special two-part show with renowned advocate and expert in the field of human trafficking, and the founder of Libertas International Tyler Schwab. I'm going to warn you that the subject we cover during this interview is deeply disturbing and shocking, but I believe necessary to uncover the tragedy that is human trafficking.Here are some shocking numbers for you to think about. It is estimated that over 40 million victims worldwide are trapped in human trafficking today. One in four victims are children. Human trafficking generates over 150 Billion dollars annually. This sick and twisted business has to be exposed and stopped!Tyler and his nonprofit Libertas International are doing their best to put an end to this horrible business and help the survivors of this despicable industry. If you are a regular listener to the show, you know I like to have fun and attempt to lighten serious subjects. That wasn't possible for this episode. We are talking about modern slavery. But I feel we need to bring this crime to light and punish the criminals who facilitate this heinous crime.In today's episode we discuss:·      How witnessing a crime on January 6, 2011, changed his life forever.·      Tyler's beginnings in fighting modern slavery.·      What is Human Trafficking? You have heard it, why is in the shadows of mainstream media and pop culture?·      40 million people trapped in Human trafficking in the world! How can this be?·      How does human trafficking generate over 150 billion a year?·      How he educated himself regarding human trafficking and how and why he started his non-profit, Libertas International.·      The border crisis and human trafficking. ·      The Columbian connection.Please visit Tyler's website and consider donating to this worthy cause!Check out the new Cops and Writers YouTube channel!Check out my newest book, The Good Collar (Michael Quinn Vigilante Justice Series Book 1)!!!!!Enjoy the Cops and Writers book series.Please visit the Cops and Writers website.  What would you do if you lost the one you loved the most? How far would you go to quench your thirst for vengeance?https://a.co/d/2UsJPbaSupport the show

Tonight, Castle Bridge Media intern Zeek Ortiz interviews Ty Drago, author of the novel ST. DAMNED from Castle Bridge Media. ABOUT THE BOOK“ST. DAMNED is a hell of a book. It's a devious collision of raw horror and existential weirdness. Highly recommended!” -–Jonathan Maberry, NY Times bestselling author of NecroTek and The Dragon in WinterFive years ago, paranormal researcher Dr. Mia Lakatos was the sole survivor of an ill-conceived reality TV investigation of St. Damien's Lutheran Church in Camden, New Jersey, a bloody encounter that destroyed her reputation and poisoned her life. Now, out of the blue, the government has asked for her help. A vicious Columbian drug czar will be attending a key underworld summit across the street from the famous haunted church. The FBI is planning a stakeout inside St. Damien's, and they need Mia along for her expertise. But nothing, absolutely nothing, will convince Mia to re-enter that hellish place, except maybe a cryptic decades-old message that might hold the key to cleansing “St. Damned” and finally freeing the scores of souls who are trapped there. Suddenly, Mia Lakatos finds herself returning to the most dangerous haunted site on Earth to face down the deranged ghost of an infamous serial killer whose iron will rules over those innocent spirits in his sway. But the road to redemption is paved in blood—including, quite possibly, her own.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/castle-of-horror-podcast--4268760/support.

A Columbian lady who was feared by many and was responsible for the Cocaine Cowboy Wars.

(Friday 02/07/25)Amy King and Neil Saavedra joins Bill for Handel on the News. Federal judge delays Trump administration's buyout deadline for federal workers. Ippei Mizuhara sentences to 57 months for stealing from Shohei Ohtani. Billabong, Quiksilver and Volcom stores to close in the US, blaming fast-fashion rivals. Nissan set to step back from merger with Honda, sources say. Columbian president says cocaine ‘no worse than whiskey.' Key safety system off in Army helicopter that collided with American Airlines jet, senator says.

On today's MJ Morning Show: Odds of asteroid hitting in 2032 Morons in the news Preparing for the big game egg test Michelle's face Creep-o-Meter - Bill Belichick may be engaged... are they too many years apart? What do our listeners think about the age difference? Trader Joe's 2025 Egg Test... We took calls about if we should redo Send the gift of a video of an elephant pooping for Valentine's Day America's favorite movie Columbian president - Legalize cocaine Wedding stories Michael Jordan's son's post after arrest Flight with a man being restrained AND a proposal Pilots don't like when passengers do this... Super Bowl notes Duncan track suits Super Bowl ad with Seal Egg Test 2 Oranges in Florida License places that didn't get enough pre-orders Michelle's "girls party" Cajun Fester on how to enjoy New Orleans for the big game

Quebec officials ask public not to boo American peewee hockey players. Schoolboy, 13, arrested for impersonating doctor in UK hospital. Cocaine "no worse than whiskey," would be "sold like wine" if legalized worldwide, Colombia's president says. // SUPPORT by joining the Weird AF News Patreon http://patreon.com/weirdafnews - OR buy Jonesy a coffee at http://buymeacoffee.com/funnyjones Buy MERCH: https://weirdafnews.merchmake.com/ - Check out the official website https://WeirdAFnews.com and FOLLOW host Jonesy at http://instagram.com/funnyjones

If you like learning about the current news and improving your English for your next English conversation, this English lesson is for you. While watching a news clip about President Donald Trump threatening to put tariffs on Columbian good coming into the U.S, you will learn English phrasal verbs, English idioms,, and other advanced English vocabulary that can really stump English learners.

Uncover timeless displays of romantic affection or "true love" that were intended to endure long after death. We'll explore some remarkable examples, starting with the gold foil figures found at pre-Christian sites across Scandinavia that depict both mortal couples and the wedding of the Norse god Freyr to the jötunn Gerd. Then we'll examine a pre-Columbian stone pendant found on the ancestral lands of the Timbisha Shoshone (now known as Death Valley, California) that immortalized one couple's journey together. We'll discover the shared brass memorial over the adjacent graves of Elizabeth Etchingham and Agnes Oxenbridge, two English noblewomen who lived during the Tudor period, and the popular uprising in the previous century that helped pave the way for their public declaration of devotion.We'll visit the Etruscan necropolises once again for examples of masterwork sarcophagi depicting affectionate couples lounging on couches called Klinai or lying in bed and facing one another. After that we'll delve into Ancient Egyptian tomb art and monuments like the tomb of Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum, two elite men from the 5th dynasty of Ancient Egypt who's tomb art depicts them in ways typically seen in heterosexual couples to show they were married. And we'll learn about the intricate art from the tomb of King Tutankhamun that show him and his wife Ankesenamun in affectionate moments during their brief reign from 1332 – 1323 BCE. Last but not least, we'll explore the monuments Ramses the Great built during his reign in 1279-1213 BCE that display his devotion to his Great Royal Wife Nefertari, like her beautifully decorated tomb in the Valley of Queens or the temple dedicated to her at Abu Simbel.Transcripts For transcripts of this episode head over to: https://archpodnet.com/tpm/11Links See photos related to episode topics on Instagram Loving the macabre lore? Treat your host to a coffee!ArchPodNet APN Website: https://www.archpodnet.com APN on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/archpodnet APN on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/archpodnet APN on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/archpodnet Tee Public Store: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/archaeology-podcast-network?ref_id=5724Affiliates Motion

While Cassie Sainsbury was fighting to survive in the notorious Columbian prison, she was being attacked on the outside. Just 22 and unable to speak Spanish, she was arrested, strip searched by male guards, sexually assaulted and thrown into an all-male holding cell, forced to use the toilets in front of dozens of men. That was just the beginning of her never ending nightmare. Cassie sits down for a rare tell-all interview with Gary Jubelin, revealing how she survived, why she doesn’t want to be remembered for her crime and what life looks like now. Find out more in her book, Cocaine Cassie: Setting The Record Straight, here. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

110 MinutesNSFWPete and members of the Old Glory Club talk about the latest headlines.Old Glory Club YouTube ChannelOld Glory Club SubstackOld Glory Club WebsitePete and Thomas777 'At the Movies'Support Pete on His WebsitePete's PatreonPete's Substack Pete's SubscribestarPete's GUMROADPete's VenmoPete's Buy Me a CoffeePete on FacebookPete on TwitterBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-pete-quinones-show--6071361/support.

Lester Griffin launched The Foundation nearly two years ago in response to his own experiences with the criminal justice system and the support he wished he had as a youth growing up in Vancouver. The nonprofit provides resources for at-risk teens and young adults such as job development skills, mentorship and community service opportunities. It also helps adults recently released from incarceration by providing them free boxes of food, hygiene supplies and access to a team of navigators with lived experience to support their reentry into society.   The Columbian previously wrote about The Foundation and, more recently, about Griffin’s efforts to open a transitional housing complex in Vancouver in the coming weeks for people released from prison. The Restored Transitional Complex will have 14 beds, a communal living area and aims to provide stable housing for occupants for up to a year. Griffin joins us to share more details, along with Ajay Harnage, a formerly incarcerated individual who hopes to move into the new facility. 

//The Wire//2300Z January 27, 2025////ROUTINE////BLUF: DIPLOMATIC SCANDAL ERUPTS, IS QUICKLY RESOLVED, BETWEEN THE U.S. AND COLOMBIA. SKIRMISH BREAKS OUT ON SOUTHERN U.S. BORDER NEAR FRONTON, TX.// -----BEGIN TEARLINE------International Events-France: A 14-year-old was murdered by two as-yet-unidentified assailants in Paris. The boy died after being stabbed for refusing to give up his phone to the attackers, who were later arrested. Local police have stated that both assailants had previously been arrested for violent crime.Colombia: Diplomatic tensions remain high following a brief scandal involving deportations over the weekend. Trouble began when Colombian authorities refused to allow two American deportation flights to land in their country. Immediately following this development, the United States imposed a 25% tariff on all Colombian trade with the United States, and canceled all of the visas for all Columbian government officials in the United States. A few hours after President Trump posted these terms on his social media account, Colombia relented and will now accept all deportation flights as previously agreed. As a result, the United States has removed the threat of tariffs, and has resumed the status quo. AC: While short-lived, this diplomatic spat has largely served as a very strong message in the diplomatic arena, and proven that the United States government will not hesitate to impose tariffs.Middle East: Tensions have flared again following the ceasefire in Gaza as territorial aspirations have become more publicly known. Over the weekend, President Trump made his policy position more clear by desiring Gaza to be completely abandoned by the Palestinians. Specifically, he stated that "You're talking about probably a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing".Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC): Conflict has intensified once again following the rapid advance of M23 rebels in the eastern region of the war-torn nation. Over the weekend the Rwandan-backed (and ethnically Tutsi) M23 rebels conducted a rapid advance into the city of Goma in eastern DRC. -HomeFront-Texas: One individual was shot by military police as they attempted to breach the perimeter of JBSA - Fort Sam Houston Saturday afternoon. AC: So far, very few details have been released regarding this incident, however the individual was reportedly attempting to enter the installation via the Walters Gate. The assailant was treated at a local hospital.Indiana: Mathew Huttle was shot and killed by State Police during a traffic stop in Jasper yesterday evening. AC: Huttle was recently pardoned by President Trump as part of the J6 pardons. Right now, the circumstances of this incident are unclear, however the shooting allegedly took place after Huttle resisted arrest. What originally prompted the traffic stop, and the attempt to arrest him remains unknown. As such, in the absence of information the larger context of many J6 prisoners being re-arrested on state charges must be considered as many loose ends pertaining to the J6 incident remain unresolved.USA: Deportations continue as before, with many ICE raids taking place in many major cities throughout the United States. Fortification efforts at the southern border continue as thousands of troops arrive and begin deterrence and security operations.This afternoon, Texas DPS officials reported a skirmish along the border in the Rio Grande Valley Sector, near the town of Fronton. A suspected Cartel element (of unknown size) attempting to aid illegals in their entry to the United States opened fire with small arms on unidentified American forces on the American side of the river. No casualties were reported on either side as a result of the engagement, though the crossing of illegals was halted as the suspected Cartel members broke contact and egressed from the area.

When a girl walking on a Provincetown, Massachusetts beach discovered the decomposing body of a young woman in the summer of 1974, it began an investigation into what would become one of the most notorious cold cases in the state's history. The victim—who would remain unidentified for nearly five decades—and her killer were the source of much speculation, with theories ranging from an extra in Jaws to the victim of the local mob. After decades of mystery, DNA from the remains of “the Lady of the Dunes” was subject to extensive genetic matching and was finally identified as thirty-seven-year-old California resident Ruth Terry. A year later, authorities in Massachusetts announced their main suspect in the murder was Guy Muldavin, Terry's husband at the time of her death. Muldavin died in 2002 and thus couldn't be prosecuted for the crime, so the case was finally closed. Identifying Ruth's killer brought an end to one of the most enduring murder mysteries in Massachusetts, yet identifying the Lady of the Dunes and her killer turned out to the be the beginning of a new mystery. Indeed, investigators soon learned this might not have been Muldavin's first murder, but one of several mysterious disappearances that traced back to him.Thank you to the Incredible Dave White of Bring Me the Axe Podcast for research and Writing support!ReferencesAbrams, Norma, and Sidney Kline. 1960. "Nab village Casanova onb grisly find." Daily News (New York, NY), December 2: 33.Associated Press. 1960. "Woman's remains found in search of old Seattle home." Bellingham Herald , August 31: 1.—. 1950. "Police probe for clues in beach killing." Berkeley Gazette, June 19: 1.—. 1961. "Rockwell says resentment le to life of deception." Longview Daily News, October 25: 11.—. 1960. "Rockwell on hunger strike; seeks death." Peninsula Daily News, December 3: 1.—. 1961. "Rockwell's wife not sure she will remain married." The Columbian, October 20: 2.Cavallier, Andrea, and Sheila Flynn. 2023. "'Lady of the Dunes' killer identified after nearly 50 years." The Independent, August 30.Dowd, Katie. 2022. "California man questioned in double murder linked to 'Lady of the Dunes' victim Ruth Marie Terry." SF Gate, November 3.McClatchy Newspaper Service. 1950. "Sea search is started for missing girl." Sacramento Bee, June 20: 1.McClatchy Newspapers Service. 1950. "Kidnaping is suspected in beach killing." Sacramento Bee, June 23: 1.—. 1950. "State detective is called into beach death case." Sacramento Bee, June 22: 1.Murphy, Shelley. 2023. "DA says husband killed 'Lady'." Boston Globe, August 29: 1.NBC News 10. 2022. "Man eyed in Lady of ther Dunes murder had a dark side." NBC News 10, November 11.Reynolds, Ruth. 1961. "Too many women, too many lies." Daily News (New York, NY), December 24: 38.Rule, Ann. 2007. Smoke, Mirrors and Murder: And Other True Cases. New York, NY: Pocket Books.Sacramento Bee. 1950. "Humboldt beach slaying may join long list of county's unsolved mysteries ." Sacramento Bee, June 30: 22.—. 1963. "Lie test plan is dropped in hunt for bones." Sacramento Bee, April 3: 47.San Francisco Examiner. 1963. "Con tells of killing lovers." San Francisco Examiner, March 22: 22.—. 1963. "Girl-killer's search for grave fails again." San Francisco Examiner, March 25: 3.—. 1963. "'Murderer' can't find victim." San Francisco Examiner, April 2: 3.The Doe Network. 2017. 119UFMA. May 17. Accessed November 25, 2024. https://www.doenetwork.org/cases/119ufma.html.United Press. 1950. "Waitress sought for questioning in state beach death mystery." Los Angeles Evening Citizen News, June 19: 4.Wood, John B. 1974. "The baffling case of the body on Cape dunes." Boston Globe, December 22: 1.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Episode 1615, brought to you by our incredible sponsors: Prize Picks: Download the PrizePicks app today and use code HARDFACTOR and get $50 instantly when you play $5!! Chubbies: For a limited time, our friends at Chubbies are giving our listeners 20% off with the promo code HARDFACTOR20 at checkout at chubbiesshorts.com. Lucy: Let's level up your nicotine routine with Lucy.  Go to Lucy.co/HARDFACTOR and use promo code HARDFACTOR to get 20% off your first order. Factor Meals: Head to FACTORMEALS.com/50hardfactor and use code 50hardfactor to get 50% off your first box plus free shipping. Uncommon Goods: Find something for everyone on your list this holiday season - Check out Uncommon Goods and use our code HARDFACTOR for a great deal: www.uncommongoods.com Hims: Start your free online visit at Hims.com/hardfactor for your personalized ED treatment options Timestamps: 00:00:40 How was everyone's holiday? 00:03:10 The boys are in the Chiefsaholic documentary 00:05:50 Mark was attacked by a group of stray chihuahuas  00:07:50 Two men died in Portland while searching for Sasquatch  00:10:50 Man ruins multiple Christmas Eve masses and pours whiskey into the holy water  00:14:50 An Indian man swallows a chick for fertility, and dies, but the chick lived  00:17:20 Florida pizza delivery woman stabs customer who left her $2 tip 00:22:50 Scientists claim Earth used to have rings like Saturn 66 million years ago 00:25:00 The slap is a giant plankton that looks like a Fleshlight  00:27:45 Congresswoman caught ripping a vape in Columbian parliament  00:30:20 H1-B Visa debate takes the internet by storm  00:34:00 Woman runs a fake marriage into a robbery scam 00:36:55 Texas man threatens to kill several customer service reps online   Thank you for listening, go to Patreon.com/HardFactor to support the pod and get access to discord chat and bonus podcasts.... But MOST Importantly, HAGFD!! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices