Podcasts about Italy

In 1859, Swiss businessman Henry Dunant witnessed the Battle of Solferino, in Italy. He couldn't believe the lack of aid for the wounded soldiers and came up with two ideas – a voluntary aid organisation and an international treaty to protect those injured in wartime. They went on to become the International Committee of the Red Cross in 1863 and the first Geneva Convention in 1864. Henry's great great great grand nephew, Gabriel Martinez, read excerpts from his book, A Memory of Solferino, to Rachel Naylor. Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more. Recent episodes explore everything from the death of Adolf Hitler, the first spacewalk and the making of the movie Jaws, to celebrity tortoise Lonesome George, the Kobe earthquake and the invention of superglue. We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: Eva Peron – Argentina's Evita; President Ronald Reagan and his famous ‘tear down this wall' speech; Thomas Keneally on why he wrote Schindler's List; and Jacques Derrida, France's ‘rock star' philosopher. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the civil rights swimming protest; the disastrous D-Day rehearsal; and the death of one of the world's oldest languages.(Photo: Participants representing 16 states during the adoption of the first Geneva Convention on 22 August 1864 in Geneva. Credit: AFP via Getty Images)

Following the vines through Umbria yields rich rewards. Discover the untold wines of this central Italian region and follow their stories through rolling hills home to medieval towns and long held traditions. Read the full episode show notes here > untolditaly.com/287NEW! - the Untold Italy app - Umbria guide available - DOWNLOAD FOR iOS  •  DOWNLOAD FOR ANDROIDThe app is FREE to download and check out our Milan guide and general travel content. Upgrade to PREMIUM  for a one time fee to access Rome, Florence, Venice, Sorrento, Cinque Terre, Amalfi Coast, Capri, Ischia, Tuscany, Lake Como, Lake Garda, Veneto, Lombardy, Campania, Lazio, Puglia, Abruzzo, Calabria with much more to comeSupport the showJoin our mailing list and get our FREE Italy trip planning checklist - subscribe here | Join us on tour: Trip schedule | Discover our Trip Planning Services | Visit our online store | Follow: Instagram • Substack • Facebook • YouTube • Online travel assistantThe Untold Italy travel podcast is an independent production. Podcast Editing, Audio Production and Website Development by Mark Hatter. Production Assistance and Content Writing by the other Katie Clarke - yes there are two of us!

Megan is joined by Tim Hauraney from the mountains of Italy to discuss all of the hottest rumors and story lines from F1 (12:11). They take on the news form Cadillac and Mercedes and what possible seats need to be filled. They also discuss Lewis Hamilton's struggles at Ferrari and how he can recover. Host: Megan Schuster Guest: Tim Hauraney Producer: Steve Ahlman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ponytail street justice in Italy

Jess here! A while back, Sarina and KJ talked about how much they enjoyed Tess Gerritsen's novel, The Spy Coast, and Sarina reassured KJ she'd enjoy book two of the series even more. I had never read a Tess Gerritsen novel, and while I'd heard her name before and vaguely understood she wrote thrillers, I was starting from square one when I downloaded the audio version of The Spy Coast. Now, I'm not an international spy thriller kind of gal. In the abstract, I understand the allure of books like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy or Six Days of the Condor. Spies! Intrigue! International [almost exclusively men] of mystery! But they have never really floated my proverbial boat. That said, I loved Tess Gerritsen's spies and the world they inhabit. There's a sense of place - nay, a downright LOVE of place - and a retiring, rural New England domesticity that spoke to this retiring, rural New England reader. Book two, The Summer Guests, is even more rooted in Maine, on its history and the social dynamics of its natives and its summer people. Once I tore through those first two books, I went back to Gerritsen's first book, The Surgeon, one of Time Magazine's top 100 thriller/mystery books of all time and the first in the Rizzoli & Isles series, consequently made into a long-running television series. Gerritsen has a fascinating career trajectory, lots to talk about regarding pantsing and plotting, where the ideas come from, and lots of other geeky details about the writing life. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did. Find Tess at Tessgerritsen.com, or on Bluesky, @TessGerritsen Transcript below!EPISODE 462 - TRANSCRIPTJennie NashHey everyone, it's Jennie Nash, founder and CEO of Author Accelerator, the company I started more than 10 years ago to lead the emerging book coaching industry. In October, we'll be enrolling a new cohort of certification students who will be going through programs in either fiction, nonfiction, or memoir, and learning the editorial, emotional, and entrepreneurial skills that you need to be a successful book coach. If you've been curious about book coaching and thinking that it might be something you want to do for your next career move, I'd love to teach you more about it, you can go to bookcoaches.com/waitlist to check out the free training I have—that's bookcoaches.com/waitlist. The training is all about how to make money, meaning, and joy out of serving writers. Fall is always a great time to start something new. So if you're feeling called to do this, go check out our training and see if this might be right for you. We'd love to have you join us.Multiple SpeakersIs it recording? Now it's recording, yay. Go ahead. This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone. I don't remember what I'm supposed to be doing. All right, let's start over. Awkward pause. I'm going to rustle some papers. Okay, now—one, two, three.Jess LaheyHey, this is Jess Lahey, and this is the Hashtag AmWriting Podcast. This is the podcast about writing all the things—short things, long things, poetry, prose, narrative nonfiction, fiction, creative nonfiction, queries, proposals. This is the podcast about writing all the things. More than anything else, this is the podcast about the writing life and about getting the work done. I am Jess Lahey. I'm the author of The Gift of Failure and The Addiction Inoculation. And you can find my journalism at The Atlantic and The Washington Post, and my bi-weekly (formerly bi-weekly) column at The New York Times, The Parent-Teacher Conference, ran for about three years I am joined today by Sarina Bowen, who has written 50-odd books. She has written lots and lots of romance, and her most recent addition to the world of publishing has been her thrillers, Dying to Meet You and The Five Year Lie. And she has a book coming out this fall called Thrown for a Loop. The reason I am recording this intro on my own—which, as you may know if you've been listening, is highly unusual for us—is because I know myself. And I know when I'm really excited to talk to someone on the podcast; I'm going to flub the intro. I'm going to forget something. I'm going to forget to introduce them altogether. So today, I'm doing that first, so I don't mess it up. A while ago on the podcast, you may have heard Sarina and KJ read some books by an author named Tess Gerritsen. I had heard of Tess Gerritsen, but I had never read any of her books. I just hadn't yet. I haven't read Nora Roberts yet. I haven't read—there are lots of authors I haven't read yet. And sometimes you don't even know where to start. So when Sarina and KJ recommended Tess Gerritsen's new series set in Maine—the first one being The Spy Coast and the second one being The Summer Guests—I figured I had a good place to start. And you know, as a New Englander, I love a good book about New England, and that was the start of my interest in Tess Gerritsen's work. I have gone back to the beginning and started with her book The Surgeon, which was her first book in the series that became the Rizzoli and Isles Series, as well as a television show. Tess Gerritsen has a—she's written through 33 books at this point. And as I now know, she has also directed a documentary called Magnificent Beast about pigs, which I listened to this morning while I was vacuuming the house. I loved it. She also—she has a lot to say about genre, about publishing, about second careers, about a writing place, and about process. So let's just jump right into it. I am so excited to introduce to you today, Tess Gerritsen. So from the perspective of what our listeners love—this podcast, the Hashtag AmWriting Podcast —is super geek. People who love the nuts and bolts and the dorky details of the writing life. Sarina has a past life in finance, and so she tends to be, like, our “no, but let's talk about the numbers” kind of person. I'm just the research super dork, which is why I spent my morning watching your documentary about pigs.Tess GerritsenOh my god! (Laughing)Jess LaheyMagnificent Beast. I—I've joked in the past that if I could, I would probably just research things in—in, you know, maybe there'll be a book out there, maybe there won't, but I would research things and—and just learn as much as I could. And so I loved—loved—your Magnificent Beast documentary. I thought it was fantastic. But one of the reasons that we wanted to talk to you, just from the very beginning, is that we feel like you do some pretty incredible world-building and relationship-building with your places and your characters. And so I just—I would love to start there, mainly with the idea of starting with the real nuts and bolts stuff, which is, like, what does an average writing day look like for you? And how do you, sort of—how do you set that up? What does it look like, if you have an average writing day? Maybe you don't.Tess GerritsenWell, it's hard to describe an average writing day, because every day is—there are days when you sit at your desk and you just, you know, pull your hair. And there are days when you get distracted by the news. And there are many days when I just do not want to write. But when I'm writing, the good days are when my characters are alive and talking to me. And it's—it's—you talked about world-building and character-building. That is really key to me. What are they saying to me? Can I hear their voices? And it sounds a little—a little crazy, because I am hearing voices. But it's those voices that really make characters come alive.Jess LaheyI—You have said in other interviews that you are very much—sorry to those of you who hate the terms—that you are very much a pantser. And you are sitting on this interview with a consummate plotter. Sarina is our consummate plotter. So could you talk a little bit about how those character—how those voices—influence, you know, the pantsing of the—of the book, and—and how that works for you?Tess GerritsenWell, I mean, it is weird that I am a pantser. And it's funny—I think that people who are plotters tend to be people who are in finance or in law, because they're used to having their ducks lined up, you know. They—they want everything set up ahead of time, and it makes them feel comfortable. And I think a large part of becoming a pantser is learning to be comfortable with unpredictability. Learning to just let things happen, and know you're going to take wrong turns, know you're going to end up in blind alleys—and yet just keep on forging ahead and change direction. So I suppose that what helps me become a pantser, as I said, is hearing a character's voice. If, for instance, when I wrote The Spy Coast, the first thing I heard about that book was Maggie Bird's voice. And she just said, “I'm not the woman I used to be.” And that's an opening there, right? Because you want to find out, Maggie, who did you used to be? And why do you sound so sad? So a lot of it was just—just getting into her head and letting her talk about what a day-to-day life is, which is, you know, raising chickens and collecting eggs and becoming—and being—a farmer. And then she does something surprising in that very first chapter. There's a fox that's killing her chickens, so she grabs her rifle and kills it with one shot. And that opens up another thing, like—how are you, a 62-year-old woman, able to take out a rifle and kill a fox with one shot? So it's—it's those things. It's those revelations of character. When they come out and they tell you something, or they show you they—they have a skill that you weren't aware of, you want to dig deeper and find out, you know, where did they get that skill?Sarina BowenAnd that is a really fun way to show it. I mean, you're talking today with two people who have also kept chickens.Multiple Speakers(All laughing)Jess LaheyAnd had foxes take their chickens, actually.Sarina BowenOh yes, because the two go together.Tess GerritsenYes.Sarina BowenBut yes, I admit I have never shot a fox, and maybe wouldn't.Jess LaheyI have yelled very loudly at a fox, and he actually—I have to say—really mad respect for the fox, because he took one look at me—he did drop the chicken that I was yelling at him for grabbing—and then he went across the street, around the neighbor's house, around the back of the other neighbor's house, and came at the exact same chicken from the other side of the house, where I couldn't see him out the window.Tess GerritsenOh, they are so smart. They are so smart.Jess LaheySo smart. Sarina, it sounded like you had something— you had something you wanted to add, and I interrupted you when we were talking about pantsing and we were talking about world-building and characters speaking to you.Sarina BowenWell, I just had thought that it was a lovely moment to explain why I was so excited to read this book after I heard Tess speak at Thriller Fest 2024, in a packed room where there was nowhere to sit except on the floor. You told the audience a little bit of a story from your real life that—that made you want to write that book. And I wonder if you could tell us what that was, because for me—I mean, we were only five minutes into your talk, and I'm like, oh, I'm—I'm going to download that tonight.Tess GerritsenWell, yes, it was. A lot of my books come from ideas that I've been stewing over for years. I have a folder called the ideas folder. It's an actual physical manila folder. And if I see something in an article or a newspaper or a magazine, I'll just rip it out and stick it in there, and it sometimes takes a long time before I know how to turn this into a book. So the idea for The Spy Coast is a little bit of obscure knowledge that I learned 35 years ago, when I first moved to Maine. My husband is a medical doctor. He opened up a practice, and when he would bring in new patients, he would always get an occupational history. And he used to get this answer—this very strange answer—from his new patients. They would say, “I used to work for the government, but I can't talk about it.” And after he heard that three times, he thought, what town did we land in? And who are these people? And we later found out that on our very short street, on one side of us was a retired OSS person, and on the other side was retired CIA. A realtor told us that our town was full of CIA retirees. So, I mean, of course you want to ask, why did they get here? What are they doing here? What are their lives like? I knew there was a book in there, but I didn't know what that book was. I needed 35 years to come up with the idea. And what I really needed to do was become old and—and realize that as you get older, especially women, we become invisible. People don't pay attention to us. We are over the hill. You know, everybody looks at the young, pretty chicks, but once you start getting gray hair, you fade into the background. And with that experience myself; I began to think more and more about what it's like to be retired. What is it like to be retired from a job that was maybe dangerous, or exciting, or something that you really risked your life to—to achieve? So that was—that was the beginning of The Spy Coast. What happens to CIA retirees—especially women—who are now invisible? But that makes them the best spies of all.Jess LaheyYeah, and we have—we did this really cool thing, this really fun thing for us on the Hashtag AmWriting Podcast. It's like a supporter-only thing, where we call First Pages, where very brave authors—very brave writers—submit their first page to us, and we talk about it and decide whether or not we'd want to turn the page. And you have an incredible skill on your first pages. You're very, very good at first pages. And I was thinking about The Summer Guests, that you had this wonderful line that I'm going to read now:Purity, Maine, 1972. On the last day of his life, Purity police officer Randy Pelletier ordered a blueberry muffin and a cup of coffee at the Marigold Café,Which immediately reminded me of my very, very favorite line from all of literature—my very favorite first line—which is Irving's first line from A Prayer for Owen Meany, in which he ruins the story for you right there in the first line:I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice—not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother's death, but because he is the reason I believe in God.There is this incredible power to first lines. And I'm sort of wondering where—how first lines happen for you. Do they happen first? Do they happen last? Do they happen along the way?Tess GerritsenFirst lines usually happen last. I—it's—I will write the whole book, and I'll think, something's missing in that first chapter. How do I open this up? And, you know, there are things that make lines immediately hypnotic, and one of those things is an inherent contradiction—something that makes you think, wait, okay, you start off this way, but then all of a sudden, the meaning of that line switches. So, yeah, it starts off with, you know, this guy's going to die. But on that last day of his life, he does something very ordinary. He just orders coffee at the local café. So I think it's that contradiction that makes us want to read more. It's also a way to end chapters. I think that—that if you leave your reader with a sense of unease—something is about to go wrong, but they don't know what it is yet—or leave them with an unanswered question, or leave them with, as I said, a contradiction—that is what's page-turning. I think that a lot of thriller writers in particular mistake action for—for being—for being interesting. A car chase on the page is really very boring. But what's interesting is something that—you could feel that tension building, but you don't know why.Sarina BowenI have joked sometimes that when I get stuck on a plot, sometimes I will talk at my husband and—and say, “you know, I'm stuck here.” And he always says, “And then a giant squid attacked.” And it—of course I don't write books that take place where this is possible, so—but it never fails to remind me that, like, external action can sometimes be just, you know, totally pointless. And that if you're stuck, it's because one of your dominoes isn't leaning, you know, in the right spot. So...Tess GerritsenYeah, it's—it's not as much fun seeing that domino fall as seeing it go slowly tilting over. You know, I really learned this when I was watching a James Bond movie. And it starts off—you know, the usual James Bonds have their cold open to those action and chasing and death-defying acts. I found that—I find that really, in that movie anyway—I was like, Ho hum. Can we get to the story? And I found the time when I was leaning forward in my theater seat, watching every moment, was really a very quiet conversation aboard a train between him and this woman who was going to become his lover. That was fascinating to me. So I think that that transfers to book writing as well. Action is boring.Jess LaheyYou and Sarina do something that I feel, as a writer; I would probably not be very good at, which is creating that unease. I—Sarina in particular does this thing... I've read every one of Sarina's books, as a good friend is supposed to do. And I text her, and I say, Why don't they just talk about it and just deal? Get it out in the open! And she's like, you know, we just got to make these people uncomfortable. And you both have this incredible talent for helping—keeping the reader, uh, along with you, simply because there is this sense of unease. We're slightly off-kilter the whole time. And yet in me, as a people pleaser, that makes me very uncomfortable. I want people to be happy with each other. So how do you—if you get to a place where you feel like maybe things aren't off-kilter enough, or things aren't off-balance enough—how do you introduce a little bit of unease into your—into your story?Tess GerritsenWell, I think it comes down to very small points of conflict—little bits of tension. Like, we call it micro-tension. And I think those occur in everyday life all the time. For instance, you know, things that happen that really don't have any big consequence, but are still irritating. We will stew about those for—for a while. And, you know, I used to write romance as well, so I understand entirely what Sarina is doing, because romance is really about courtship and conflict. And it's the conflict that makes us keep reading. We just—we know this is the courtship. So there's always that sense of it's not quite there, because once the characters are happy, the story is over, right?Sarina BowenYeah.Multiple Speakers(All laughing)Sarina BowenAlso, writing the ends of romance novels is the least interesting part. Like, what...? Once the conflict is resolved, like, I cannot wait to get out of there.Tess GerritsenRight, exactly. You know, I—I pay attention to my feelings when I'm reading a book, and I've noticed that the books that I remember are not the books with happy endings, because happiness is so fleeting. You know, you can be happy one second, and then something terrible will happen. You'll be unhappy. What lasts for us is sadness, or the sense of bittersweet. So when I read a book that ends with a bittersweet ending—such as, you know, Larry McMurtry Lonesome Dove—I ended up crying at the end of that book, and I have never forgotten that ending. Now, if everybody had been happy and there had been nobody to drag all those miles at the end, I would have forgotten that book very quickly. So I think—I try—I always try to leave the end of the book either bittersweet—I mean, you want to resolve all the major plot points—but also leave that sense of unease, because people remember that. And it also helps you, if you have a sequel.Sarina BowenThat's so interesting you've just brought up a couple of really interesting points, because there is a thriller—I actually write suspense now—and one of the books that so captured my attention about five years ago was killing it on the charts. And I thought it was actually a terrible book, but it nailed the bittersweet ending. Like, the premise was solid, and then the bittersweet ending was perfect, and the everything between the first chapter and the last chapter was a hot mess, but—but—um, that ending really stuck with me. And I remember carrying it around with me, like, Wow, they really nailed that ending. You know, and—and maybe that has, like, legs in terms of, like, talking about it. And, you know, if it—if—if it's irritating enough, like, the tension is still there—enough to, like, make people talk about it—it could actually affect the performance of that book. But also, um, one thing that I really love about this series—you have—what is the series title for the...?Tess GerritsenMartini—The Martini Club.Sarina BowenThe Martini Club, right? So The Martini Club is two books now. I inhaled the first one last summer, and I inhaled the second one this summer. And The Martini Club refers to this group of friends—these retired spies. And of course, there are two completely different mysteries in book one and book two. And I noticed a couple of things about the difference between those mysteries that was really fun. So in the first case—or in one of the two cases, let's see—in one of them, the thing that happens in their town is actually, like, related to them. And in the other one, it's kind of not. So to me, that felt like a boundary expansion of your world and your system. But also, I just love the way you leaned into the relationship of these people and their town in such a way. And how did you know to do that? Like, how—what does your toolbox say about how to get that expansiveness in your character set? Like, you know, to—to find all the limits of it?Tess GerritsenThat—you know, so much is like—it's like asking a pole-vaulter how they do it. They just—they have just—I guess its muscle memory. You don't really know how you're doing it, but what I did know was—with age, and because I love these characters so much—it really became about them and about what is going to deepen their friendship? What kind of a challenge is going to make them lean into each other—lean on each other? That's really what I was writing about, I think, was this circle of friends, and—and what you will do, how much you will sacrifice, to make sure your friends are safe. No, you're right—the second book is much more of a classic mystery. Yeah—a girl disappears. I mean, there was—there were—there were CIA undertones in that, because that becomes an important part of the book. But I think that what people are—when people say they love this book—they really talk about the characters and that friendship. And we all want friends like this, where we can go and—and—and have martinis together, and then if we—one of us needs to—we'll go help them bury a body.Multiple Speakers(All laughing)Tess GerritsenThat's—they all have shovels, and they're willing to do it. That's the kind of friendship—friends—we want.Jess LaheyWell, and that's funny you mention that—I had an entire question—it wasn't even a question, it was a statement—in here about friendships and being grateful to you for the reminder about the importance of relationships. And this entire podcast was born out of the fact that we were talking writing all the time, and we just wanted an official way to sit down once a week and actually talk about the work. And your work is suffused with just these incredible relationships—whether that's the Rizzoli and Isles—you know, in your first—in the one of your other series—and I'm just—I'm very grateful for that, because we—especially—I think I re—I really crave books about female relationships, especially about older female relationships. And I have been loving your books, and I've—like, as I may have mentioned to you in my initial email—I had—I'm so sorry—never read your books before. And I admitted in the introduction that there are lots of very, very famous authors whose books I have never read. And it's always so exciting to me to dive into someone's series and realize, oh, this person really touches on themes that mean a lot to me, and I can already tell that I'm going to be enjoying a lot of their books to come forward. So thank you for all of the great descriptions of relationships and how we do rely on each other for various aspects of just how we get through all of this stuff.Tess GerritsenYeah—get through life. But you know what's funny about it is that it didn't start that way. For instance, let's go back to Rizzoli and Isles. The very first time they both appear in a book is in The Apprentice. And they don't start off being friends. They start off being—they're so different. As the TV producer once said, “you've really written about Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock.” That's okay—they are—in the books. They are not natural friends. But like real-life friendships, sometimes—just kind of develop slowly, and—and they have their ups and downs. So there are times when—when Jane and Maura are barely speaking to each other because of conflicts they have. But by the time book twelve comes around—or maybe book seven comes around—you know that they would risk their lives for each other. So I think that if you're writing a series like Rizzoli and Isles, or like The Martini Club, it really helps to develop the friendship on the fly and see how they react to certain stresses. The next book, which I just turned in, called The Shadow Friends—it even put—pushes them even further, and it really—it really strains a marriage, because it's—it's more about Ingrid, and an old lover comes back into her life. She used to—they were both spies—and he is, like, hot, hot, hot—Antonio Banderas kind of guy. And here's Ingrid, married to Lloyd, you know, who's just a sweet analyst who cooks dinner for her every night. And I—when I was coming up with that story, I thought, I want to write a book about their marriage. So it wasn't—the plot wasn't about, oh, you know, international assassinations, even though that does occur in the book. It's really about the story of a marriage.Jess LaheyAnd it gives you, it gives you added unease. You know, if you have your two characters not speaking to each other, and you know your readers love those characters and crave those characters to be getting along at some point, then that's just another reason that we're following along. I was just thinking about, uh, Michael Connelly, uh, book the other day, because I really, really like the series he did with Renée Ballard and her relationship with the Bosch character, and how that series is totally about crime, but yet it's also very much about the relationship. And I think I follow—I continue to read those because of the relationship between those two human beings, and less so because of the murder mystery sort of stuff.Tess GerritsenI think it really becomes important if you're dealing also with Hollywood television series. I still remember what the producer first said when he called me up about Rizzoli and Isles. He said, "I love your girls, and I think they belong on TV.” He didn't say, I love your plots. He didn't say, I love your mysteries, you know, all your intricate ups and downs. It was really about the girls. So if you hope to sell to a television series, really, it's about characters again.Jess LaheyAbsolutely.Sarina BowenI was going to ask about longevity, because you have so many books, and you're so obviously still invigorated by the process, or there wouldn't be a book three that you just turned in. So how have you been able to avoid just being sick to death of—of writing suspense novel after suspense novel?Tess GerritsenI refused. That's what it is. You know, I—I don't—I guess I could say that I have a little bit of ADHD when it comes to—to the books I write. I cannot—after 13 books of Rizzoli and Isles, I just had a different idea. And it takes—it takes a certain amount of backbone to say no to your publisher, to your editor, to people who are going, well, when's the next one in this series coming out? And to be able to say, I need a break. I need to do something completely different. So over—how many years I've been a writer—almost 40 now—I've written science fiction and historicals and a ghost story and romantic suspense and spy novels and medical thrillers and crime novels. I've been all over the place, but each one of those books that took me out of what I was expected to do was so invigorating. It was a book that I needed to write. As an example, I wrote a book called Playing with Fire. Nobody wanted that book. Nobody expected that book. It was a historical about World War II, and about music—about the power of music—and having to do with the death camps. I remember my publisher going, "What are you doing?" And, you know, it's—it's true—they're—they—they are marketers, and they understood that that book would not sell as well, and it didn't. But it still remains one of my favorite books. And when you want to write a book, you need to write that book. That's all—even—even if nobody wants it.Jess LaheyI actually was—I'm so pleased that this came up, because that was actually going to be my question, because both you and Sarina have done this—done, you know, 90 degrees—whether it's out of, you know, one genre into another—and that, to me, requires an enormous amount of courage. Because you know you have people expecting things from you. And you in particular, Tess, have people saying, "No, I want the next one. I love this relationship. I want the next one." And—and dealing—you're not just dealing with the disappointment of whether it's an agent or an editor, but the disappointment of fans. And that's a pressure as well. So when I used to do journalism, I remember a question I asked of another journalist was, "How do you continue to write without fear of the comment section?" And essentially, for us, that's our—you know, those are our readers. So how do you find that thing within yourself to say, no, this really is the thing that I need to be writing now?Tess GerritsenWell, that is a really—it's a really tough decision to buck the trend or buck what everybody's expecting, because there's a thing in publishing called the death spiral. And if your book does not sell well, they will print fewer copies for the next one. And then that won't sell well. So you start—your career starts to go down the drain. And that is a danger every time you step out of your tried and true series and do something out of—you know, completely out of the ordinary. I think the reason I did it was that I really didn't give a damn. It was—it was like, Okay, maybe this will kill my career, but I've got to write this book. And it was always with the idea that if my publisher did not want that, I would just self-publish. I would just, you know, find another way to get it out there. And I—I was warned, rightly so, that your sales will not be good for this book, and that will—it will hurt the next contract. And I understood that. But it was the only way I could keep my career going. Once you get bored, and you're—you're trapped in a drawer, I think it shows up in your writing.Jess LaheyI had this very conversation with my agent. The—my first book did well. And so then, you know, the expectation is, I'll write like part two of that, or I'll write something for that exact same audience again. And when I told my agent—I said, "You know, this book on substance use prevention and kids—I—it's—I have to write it. And I'm going to write it even, you know, if I have to go out there and sell it out of the trunk of my car." And she said, "Okay, then I guess we're doing this." And yes...Tess Gerritsen(Laughing) They had their best wishes at heart.Jess LaheyAnd honestly, I love—I loved my book that did well. But The Addiction Inoculation is the book I'm most proud of. And, you know, that's—yeah, that's been very important to me.Tess GerritsenI often hear from writers that the book that sold the fewest copies was one that was—were their favorites. Those are the ones that they took a risk on, that they—I mean, they put their heart and soul into it. And maybe those hurt their careers, but those are the ones that we end up being proud of.Jess LaheyI like to remind Sarina of that, because I do remember we text each other constantly. We have a little group, the three of us, a little group text all day long. And there was—I remember when she first wrote a male-male romance, she was scared. She was really scared that this was going to be too different for her readers. And it ended up being, I think, my favorite book that she's ever written, and also a very important book for her in terms of her career development and growth, and what she loves about the work that she does. And so I like to remind her every once in a while, remember when you said that really scared you and you weren't sure how your readers were going to handle it?Sarina BowenRight? Well, I also did that in the middle of a series, and I went looking for confirmation that that is a thing that people did sometimes, and it was not findable. You know, that was...Jess LaheyWhat? Change things up in terms of—change things up in the middle of a series?Sarina BowenIn the middle of a series. And anyway, that book still sells.Tess GerritsenThat is a great act of courage, but it's also an act of confidence in yourself as a writer. There are ways to do it. I think some writers will just adopt a different pen name for something that's way out there.Jess LaheyIt's funny you should say... it's funny you should say that.Sarina BowenWell, no, and I never have done that, but, um—but anyway, yeah, that's hard. I, uh...Jess LaheyYeah.Sarina BowenIt's hard to know. Sometimes...Jess LaheyWe entertain it all the time. We do talk about that as an option all the time. Shouldn't we just pick up and do something completely different? One of the things that I also—I mentioned at the top of the podcast about, you know, you went off—not only have you done lots of different things in terms of your writing—but you went off and you did an entire documentary about pigs. I have—I have to ask you where on earth that came from and why. And it is a total delight, as I mentioned, and I have already recommended it to two people that I know also love the topic. But, you know, to go off—and especially when you usually, as some of us have experienced—our agents saying, so when am I going to see more pages? or when am I going to see the next book? And you say, I'm really sorry, but I have to go off and film this documentary about pigs.Tess GerritsenYes. Well, you know, I was an anthropology major in college, and I've always been interested in the pig taboo. You know, back then, everybody just assumed it was because, yeah, it was disease or they're dirty animals—that's why they're forbidden food. It never quite convinced me, because I'm Chinese-American. Asia—you know, Asia loves pork. Why aren't they worried about all that? So I was in Istanbul for a book tour once, and I remember I really wanted bacon, and, you know, I couldn't get bacon. And then I thought, okay, I really need to find out why pork is forbidden. This is a—this is a cultural and historical mystery that never made sense to me. The explanations just never made sense to me. It cannot be trichinosis. So I told my son that—my son is—he does—he's a filmmaker as well. And he just said, "Well, let's do it. Let's—we will pose it as a mystery," because it is a mystery. So it took us probably two years to go and—you know, we interviewed anthropologists and pet pig owners and archaeologists, actually, just to find out, what do they say? What is the answer to this? And to us, the answer really just came down to this cultural desire for every—every tribe—to define us versus them. You know, they eat pigs. They're not us, so therefore they're the enemy. And it was fascinating because we—we ended up finding out more about pigs than I was expecting, and also finding out that people who have pet pigs can sometimes be a little unusual.Jess LaheyAnd the people who purchase the clothes for the pigs are also crazy.Tess GerritsenYes. Sew outfits for their pigs and sleep with their pigs. And there was—there was one woman who had—she slept on the second floor of her house, so she had an elevator for her pig who couldn't make it up the stairs, and, you know, ramps to get up onto the bed because they've gotten so fat—they've been overfed. But it was—for me, at the heart of it was a mystery.Jess LaheyAs a nonfiction author whose whole entire reason for being is, "I don't know—let's find out," I think that's just the most delightful thing. And I loved your framing as, "I don't know, we have this question, let's go out there and just ask people about it and find the experts." And that's—oh, I could just live on that stuff. So...Tess GerritsenSo could I. You know, research is so enticing. It's enticing. It is—it can get you into trouble because you never write your book. Some of us just love to do the research.Jess LaheySarina actually has taken skating lessons, done glass blowing—what else have you done? Yoga classes and all—all kinds of things in the pursuit of knowledge for her characters. And I think that's a delight.Sarina BowenYes. If you can sign up for a class as part of your research, like, that is just the best day. Like, you know, oh, I must take these ice skating lessons twice a day for five months, because—yeah—or twice a week, but still.Tess GerritsenYou must be a good ice skater then.Sarina BowenI'm getting better.Tess GerritsenSo you never gave them up, I see.Jess LaheyWell, it's fun because she usually writes about hockey, but she has a figure skater coming up in this book that's coming out this fall. And she's like, "Well, I guess I'm just going to have to learn how to figure skate."Tess GerritsenYeah.Sarina BowenI also—one time I went to see Rebecca Skloot speak about her big nonfiction The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.Tess GerritsenOh, okay.Sarina BowenAnd she said that all her best ideas had come from moments in her life when she went, "Wait, what?!"Tess GerritsenYes. Yep.Sarina BowenIncluding for The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Like, she learned about the cells in high school—she was in high school biology class—and the teacher said, like, "This woman died in the '60s, but we're still using her cells," and she said, "Wait, what?!" And that's—that's what you made me think of with the pigs. Like, I think...Jess LaheyWell, and also your folder of ideas. I mean, I immediately texted Sarina after listening to a podcast where I heard an ad, and the ad made me go, "Oh that could be creepy." And then I'm like, "Okay, this is—this is a plot. This is going in the folder somewhere." And so you have to just think about how those things could unfold over time. And I love the idea of—and even in journalism—there are articles that I've written where I said, this just isn't their time. And then, like, five years later, I'll hear something out there, and I'm like, okay, finally, it's the time for this thing. And there's a reason you put that article in your idea—in your paper—manila folder of ideas.Tess GerritsenWell, I think writers are—we have to be curious. We have to be engaged in what's going on around us, because the ideas are everywhere. And I have this—I like to say I have a formula. It's called "two plus two equals five." And what that means is, sometimes you'll have a—you'll have a piece of information that, you know, there's a book here, but you haven't figured out what to do with it. And you wait for another piece of information from some completely different source, and you put them together, and they end up being like nuclear fusion—bigger than the…Sarina BowenYes!Jess LaheyYes!Tess GerritsenSome of the parts.Sarina BowenMost every book I've ever written works like that. Like, I have one idea that I drag around for, like, five years, and then I have this other idea, and one day I'm like, oh, those two things go together.Tess GerritsenYep.Jess LaheyYeah, absolutely. I think Stephen King mentioned that about Carrie. I think it was like, telekinesis, and that usually starts about the time of menstruation, and it was like, boom, there was Carrie. You know, those two things came together. I love that so much. So you mentioned that you have just handed in your next book, and we don't—we do not, as a rule, ask about what's next for an author, because I find that to be an incredibly intimidating and horrifying question to be asked. But I would love to hear; you know, is this—is this series one that you hope to continue working on? The main series, mainly because we have quite fallen in love with your little town in Maine—in Purity, Maine. Fantastic name for your town, by the way. It's really lovely. It creates such a nice dichotomy for these people who have seen and heard things during their careers that maybe are quite dark, and then they retire to a place called Purity. Is this a place where we can hopefully spend a little bit of time?Tess GerritsenWell, I am thinking about book number four now. I have an idea. You know, it always starts with—it starts with an idea and doodling around and trying to figure out what—you know, you start with this horrible situation, and then you have to explain it. So that's where I am now. I have this horrible situation, I have to explain it. So, yeah, I'm thinking about book four. I don't know how—you never know how long a series is going to go. It's a little tough because I have my characters who are internationally based—I mean, they've been around the world—but then I can't leave behind my local cop who is also a part of this group as well. So I have to keep an eye out on Maine being the center of most of the action.Sarina BowenRight, because how many international plots can you give Purity, Maine?Tess GerritsenThat's right, exactly. Well, luckily…Jess LaheyLook, Murder, She Wrote—how many things happened to that woman in that small town?Tess GerritsenExactly, exactly. Well, luckily, because I have so many CIA retirees up here, the international world comes to us. Like the next book, The Shadow Friends, is about a global security conference where one of the speakers gets murdered. And it turns out we have a global security conference right here in our town that was started by CIA 40 years ago. So I'm just—I'm just piggybacking on reality here. And—not that the spies up here think that's very amusing.Sarina BowenThat is fantastic, because, you know, the essential problem of writing a suspense novel is that you have to ground it in a reality that everyone is super familiar with, and you have to bring in this explosive bit of action that is unlikely to happen near any of us. And those two things have to fit together correctly. So by, um, by putting your retired spies in this tiny town, you have sort of, like, gifted yourself with that, you know, precise problem solver.Tess GerritsenYeah, reminding us.Sarina BowenYeah.Tess GerritsenBut there's only so far I can take that. I'm not sure what the limits... I think book four is going to take them all overseas, because my local cop, Jo, she's never been out of the country—except for Canada—and it's time for her dad to drag her over to Italy and say, "Your dead mom wanted to come to Italy, so I'm taking you." And, of course, things go wrong in Italy for Jo.Jess LaheyOf course, of course. Well, we're going to keep just banging on about how much we love these books. I think we've already mentioned it in three podcast episodes so far in our “What have you been reading lately that you've really loved?” So we're—we're big fans. And thank you so much for sitting down to talk with us and to—you know, one of the whole points of our podcast is to flatten the learning curve for other authors, so we hope that that's done a little bit of that for our listeners. And again, thank you so much. Where can people find you and your work if they want to learn a little bit more about Tess Gerritsen—her work?Tess GerritsenYou can go to TessGerritsen.com, and I try to post as much information there as I can. But I'm also at Bluesky, @TessGerritsen, and what is now called “X”—a legacy person on X—@TessGerritsen, yes.Jess LaheyThank you so, so much again. And for everyone out there listening, keep your butt in the chair and your head in the game.The Hashtag AmWriting Podcast is produced by Andrew Perella. Our intro music—aptly titled Unemployed Monday—was written and played by Max Cohen. Andrew and Max were paid for their time and their creative output, because everyone deserves to be paid for their work. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amwriting.substack.com/subscribe

 When I told an Italian friend we were going on holiday to the Dolomites, she told me it's her favorite place in the whole world, and yet word of its delights doesn't seem to have reached these shores yet. Breathtakingly beautiful, and a  great destination to visit with the family in both summer and winter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's really in the food on our plates? The journey to our supermarket shelves is one of broken economics, environmental destruction, and social injustice.But what if agriculture could look completely different?This week, Christiana Figueres and Paul Dickinson travel to Umbria, Italy, to visit QuintoSapore, a farm founded by twin brothers Nicola and Alessandro. After leaving city careers, they set out to reinvent farming: growing food in a way that respects living things, restores soil, and values the people who work the land.Instead of short-term, precarious labour, they offer full-time contracts, living wages, and community. Instead of chemical fertilisers and pesticides, they look to biomimicry, biochar, and heirloom seeds - not discovering, but remembering the old ways and learning from nature.From a revelation in a drought-stricken woodland, to redefining what it means to “grow” rather than “produce” food, this episode is a reminder that the path to climate resilience runs straight through our fields.Learn more

This episode is part three in an ongoing series about brands and how they influence our identities and drive consumerism.In this episode we will be unpacking and exploring various examples of "cause marketing:"The flaws in the "buy one, give one" model,How brands engineer fundraiser collections to be profitable,The effectiveness of "round up" at checkout campaigns,Why B Corp certification doesn't mean as much as it once did,The real reason companies do fundraisers for charity and causes,And we will do the math to get to what a 1% giveback really means.Additional reading:"Melania Trump says 'don't care' jacket was a message," BBC."T-shirt makers riff on Melania Trump's jacket with their own message and donate proceeds to refugee services," Lindsay Ellefson, CNN."The Broken 'Buy-One, Give-On" Model: 3 ways to save TOMS Shoes," Cheryl Davenport, Fast Company."The Impact of TOMS Shoes," Bruce Wydick."Shoeing the Children: The Impact of the TOMS Shoe Donation Program in Rural El Salvador."Dr. Bronner's Statement on Dropping B Corp Certification"The B Corp Standard is at Risk," Fair World Project."Nespresso: Known for Human Rights Violations, Now B Corp Certified," Fair World Project."How Nespresso's coffee revolution got ground down," Ed Cumming, The Guardian.Rio Tinto Corporate Rap SheetJOIN AMANDA FOR THE CLOTHESHORSE BIRTHDAY CRAFTERNOON ON SEPTEMBER 21!!!ALSO: get your tickets for Clotheshorse LIVE!10/23  Seattle, WA @ Here-After10/26  Portland, OR @ HoloceneGet your Clotheshorse merch here: https://clotheshorsepodcast.com/shop/If you want to share your opinion/additional thoughts on the subjects we cover in each episode, feel free to email, whether it's a typed out message or an audio recording:  amanda@clotheshorse.worldDid you enjoy this episode? Consider "buying me a coffee" via Ko-fi: ko-fi.com/clotheshorseClotheshorse is brought to you with support from the following sustainable small businesses:Slow Fashion Academy is a size-inclusive sewing and patternmaking studio based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Designer and fashion professor Ruby Gertz teaches workshops for hobbyists and aspiring designers, so that anyone can learn the foundational skills of making, mending, and altering their own clothes. Ruby also provides professional design and patternmaking services to emerging slow fashion brands, and occasionally takes commissions for custom garments and costume pieces. She has also released several PDF sewing patterns for original designs under her brands Spokes & Stitches, and Starling Petite Plus. Check the schedule for upcoming workshops, download PDF sewing patterns, and learn about additional sewing and design services at www.slowfashion.academy.The Pewter Thimble Is there a little bit of Italy in your soul? Are you an enthusiast of pre-loved decor and accessories? Bring vintage Italian style — and history — into your space with The Pewter Thimble (@thepewterthimble). We source useful and beautiful things, and mend them where needed. We also find gorgeous illustrations, and make them print-worthy. Tarot cards, tea towels and handpicked treasures, available to you from the comfort of your own home. Responsibly sourced from across Rome, lovingly renewed by fairly paid artists and artisans, with something for every budget. Discover more at thepewterthimble.com Deco Denim is a startup based out of San Francisco, selling clothing and accessories that are sustainable, gender fluid, size inclusive and high quality--made to last for years to come. Deco Denim is trying to change the way you think about buying clothes. Founder Sarah Mattes wants to empower people to ask important questions like, “Where was this made? Was this garment made ethically? Is this fabric made of plastic? Can this garment be upcycled and if not, can it be recycled?” Signup at decodenim.com to receive $20 off your first purchase. They promise not to spam you and send out no more than 3 emails a month, with 2 of them surrounding education or a personal note from the Founder. Find them on Instagram as @deco.denim.Vagabond Vintage DTLV is a vintage clothing, accessories & decor reselling business based in Downtown Las Vegas. Not only do we sell in Las Vegas, but we are also located throughout resale markets in San Francisco as well as at a curated boutique called Lux and Ivy located in Indianapolis, Indiana. Jessica, the founder & owner of Vagabond Vintage DTLV, recently opened the first IRL location located in the Arts District of Downtown Las Vegas on August 5th. The shop has a strong emphasis on 60s & 70s garments, single stitch tee shirts & dreamy loungewear. Follow them on instagram, @vagabondvintage.dtlv and keep an eye out for their website coming fall of 2022.Located in Whistler, Canada, Velvet Underground is a "velvet jungle" full of vintage and second-hand clothes, plants, a vegan cafe and lots of rad products from other small sustainable businesses. Our mission is to create a brand and community dedicated to promoting self-expression, as well as educating and inspiring a more sustainable and conscious lifestyle both for the people and the planet.Find us on Instagram @shop_velvetunderground or online at www.shopvelvetunderground.comSelina Sanders, a social impact brand that specializes in up-cycled clothing, using only reclaimed, vintage or thrifted materials: from tea towels, linens, blankets and quilts.  Sustainably crafted in Los Angeles, each piece is designed to last in one's closet for generations to come.  Maximum Style; Minimal Carbon Footprint.

Why we think Taylor Swift is the next Super Bowl halftime show performer, debating which director has the better movies, revealing wild celebrity rider lists, determining if Italy or USA has the better food, and more!----------SIGN UP FOR LEGENDZ CASINO AND SPORTSBOOK100% More On Your First Purchase (Up To $100)!https://www.legendz.com/en-US/?register=me&btag=59_37ga824cidpidvar1var2var3var4var5affid59tid----------0:00 SUPER BOWL HALFTIME SHOW PERFORMER!4:05 MAKESHIFT UPDATES!5:33 BRIAN'S BEEN SLEEPWALKING?10:15 BETTER MOVIES, NOLAN OR SCORCESE?16:01 JOIN LEGENDZ CASINO AND SPORTSBOOK!18:24 BETTER FOOD, ITALY OR USA?25:29 CRAZY CELEBRITY BACKSTAGE REQUESTS!36:22 FIVE SHOCKING WIFE TIPS!40:38 WHEN DOES AFTERNOON END?44:19 WHAT DOES 6/7 MEAN?48:12 ARE THESE DEALBREAKERS OR NOT?53:11 MEMBER SHOUTOUTS!

In this episode of The Sarah B Show - Sarah goes over the good, bad, ugly and romantic details of the first leg of her Italian solo trip: the gorgeous and lively city of Florence! www.gocleanse.com/sarah

Following our double-episode on the Florence Working-Class Literature Festival back in February, our co-host Matt was invited to this year's festival, recording this episode on-site at the ex-GKN factory in Florence. Featuring the various writers, researchers, organisers, and activists in attendance, this episode captures the atmosphere of the festival at this critical time for the GKN struggle.Our podcast is brought to you by patreon supporters of both Working Class Literature and Working Class History. Our supporters fund our work, and in return get exclusive early access to podcast episodes, bonus episodes, free and discounted merchandise and other content. Join us or find out more at patreon.com/workingclasshistoryTaking place on 4-6 April 2025, the opending day of the festival marked the 1367th day since the 400+ workforce at the GKN car parts factory in Florence was first made redundant. They subsequently seized the factory and remain in control of it to this day, despite receiving their third – and now final – redundancy notice in the days leading up to this year's festival.Recorded on-site at the occupied GKN factory on the outskirts of Florence, this episode features the voices of various writers, researchers, organisers, and activists that we spoke to while at the festival. These conversations took place against a frenzy of activity, both for the festival but also the GKN struggle itself.AcknowledgementsThanks to all our patreon supporters for making this podcast possible. Special thanks to Jazz Hands, Fernando Lopez Ojeda, Nick Williams and Old NormOur theme tune for these episodes is ‘Occupiamola' (or ‘Let's Occupy It') as sung on a GKN workers' demonstration in 2024. Many thanks to Reel News London for letting us use their recording. Watch the documentary it's taken from hereThis episode was edited by Jesse FrenchBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/working-class-history--5711490/support.

Can you help me make more podcasts? Consider supporting me on Patreon as the service is 100% funded by you: https://EVne.ws/patreon You can read all the latest news on the blog here: https://EVne.ws/blog Subscribe for free and listen to the podcast on audio platforms: ➤ Apple: https://EVne.ws/apple ➤ YouTube Music: https://EVne.ws/youtubemusic ➤ Spotify: https://EVne.ws/spotify ➤ TuneIn: https://EVne.ws/tunein ➤ iHeart: https://EVne.ws/iheart EV LEASE RATES DROP BELOW GAS CARS https://evne.ws/3HulKmz AUDI-SAIC LAUNCHES E5 SPORTBACK ELECTRIC SEDAN IN CHINA https://evne.ws/4743URD ITALY INTRODUCES MAJOR ELECTRIC VEHICLE SUBSIDIES https://evne.ws/4oJRip0 VOLKSWAGEN PLANS MAJOR EV EXPANSION https://evne.ws/3Ux0gs6 CHINESE EV FIRMS OVERSEAS INVESTMENT SURPASSES DOMESTIC INVESTMENT https://evne.ws/45EqVrZ UPCOMING EV DEBUTS AT THE 2024 MUNICH MOTOR SHOW https://evne.ws/4fN7G4f MG LAUNCHES MGS5 EV SUV IN NEW ZEALAND https://evne.ws/3JlBPvo NISSAN LEAF LEADS UK EV RELIABILITY STUDY https://evne.ws/4oIxQZZ BYD SEAL U DM-I LEADS UK PLUG-IN HYBRID SALES https://evne.ws/4mOCWC2 ELECTRIFY EXPO INDUSTRY DAY EXPANDS TO EAST COAST https://evne.ws/4myvtaD CAN-AM UNVEILS OUTLANDER ELECTRIC ATV https://evne.ws/3HwdDpA ELECTRIC CARS REDUCE DRIVER STRESS AND IMPROVE WELLBEING https://evne.ws/4lTzZzz ARCHER'S MIDNIGHT AIRCRAFT COMPLETES 55-MILE FLIGHT https://evne.ws/3HGCln6

Today's guest is Tamu McPherson, the beloved tastemaker and storyteller behind All the Pretty Birds. Born in Jamaica and raised in New York, Tamu left behind a career in law to pursue love and her creative passions, carving out a space in fashion, photography, and media with her vibrant perspective. She founded All the Pretty Birds, a platform that champions diverse voices and celebrates personal style, and she's recently expanded her vision into the world of hospitality with two exciting projects: a joyful tabletop and picnic collaboration with Italian design house Bitossi Home, and her own rosé wine, Tamu Rosé, created with a winery close to her heart.Tamu joins host Kerry Diamond to talk about her ideal picnic set-up in Italy, why rosé is her ultimate summer sip, and how embracing la dolce vita is really about savoring beauty, community, and connection.Thank you to Nonino and Square for their support. Learn more at square.com/bigTickets for Jubilee L.A.Subscribe to Cherry Bombe's print magazineMore on Tamu: Instagram, All the Pretty Birds, Tamu RoséMore on Kerry: InstagramPast episodes and transcripts

Mike in Long Island, NY, called Mark to talk about what our founding fathers for our country really wanted for politicians, and how they should behave. Vincent in Brooklyn, NY, calls Mark to tell him about how Italy's voting system runs.

Mike in Long Island, NY, called Mark to talk about what our founding fathers for our country really wanted for politicians, and how they should behave. Vincent in Brooklyn, NY, calls Mark to tell him about how Italy's voting system runs. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Margo is joined by artist, designer, and educator helping to lead the modern revival of punch needle rug hooking, Micah Clasper-Torch. Based in Los Angeles, Micah's work blurs the lines between art, craft, and design, creating one-of-a-kind textile pieces that range from coats and accessories to wall hangings and soft sculpture. With a background in fashion design from both The Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City and the Politecnico di Milano in Italy, Micah weaves together her love of fine art, heritage craft, and wearable design. In 2019 she became a certified Oxford Punch Needle Instructor and, in 2020, launched Punch Needle World, an online community, shop, and educational platform dedicated to uplifting the craft and its history. Her debut book, Punch Needle Fashion (Quadrille, June 2025), brings punch needle into the world of contemporary fashion with 15 original projects and a beautifully photographed exploration of the medium. Margo and Micah discuss: Micah's journey from fashion design to punch needle leadership The revival of punch needle and its fascinating history How tailoring and handmade construction shape her work The inspiration behind Punch Needle Fashion and what sets it apart Building creative community through Punch Needle World Tips for beginners (including her go-to needle size!) Embracing the blur between art, craft, and fashion   Connect with Micah https://www.micahclasper-torch.com/ https://www.punchneedleworld.com/ https://www.instagram.com/claspertorch https://www.instagram.com/punchneedle.world Punch Needle Fashion Book - https://tinyurl.com/mrx5rmez   Connect with Margo: www.windowsillchats.com www.instagram.com/windowsillchats www.patreon.com/inthewindowsill www.yourtantaustudio.com/thefoundry  

The collection of sculptures in the great hall of the Bargello Museum in Florence, Italy, located on the second floor, contains one of the world's most important collections of sculptures, including Ghiberti's and Brunelleschi's “Competition Panels,” Donatello's marble and bronze “Davids” and “St. George,” and Verrocchio's bronze “David.” 

US President Donald Trump floated the prospect of US security guarantees for Ukraine, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is looking for options after India got hit by extremely high US tariffs, Soho House has agreed to a take-private deal, and Softbank is buying $2bn worth of Intel shares. Plus, the FT's Leila Abboud explains why more Italian bonds are starting to look a little more like French bonds. Mentioned in this podcast:Trump floats US security guarantees for Ukraine in meeting with ZelenskyyFrench borrowing costs close in on Italy's as investors fret over debtsDonald Trump tariffs threaten Narendra Modi's ‘Make in India' driveSoho House agrees $2.7bn take-private dealSoftBank to buy $2bn in Intel shares as it grows US investmentsToday's FT News Briefing was produced by Ethan Plotkin, Fiona Symon, Sonja Hutson, and Marc Filippino. Additional help from Kelly Garry and Gavin Kallmann. Our acting co-head of audio is Topher Forhecz. The show's theme music is by Metaphor Music.Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Information designer and advocate for data humanism, Giorgia Lupi, spent her childhood in Italy organizing buttons in her grandmother's tailor shop, a data collector already in the making. The teenage years had her expressing herself through the punk rock and heavy metal scene in her town. After receiving her master's degree in Architecture, she began her PhD in Design at Politecnico di Milano while founding Accurat, an internationally acclaimed data-driven design firm. Now a partner at Pentagram, and author of personal projects such as Dear Data, she continues to push for a humanistic approach to data as a path to understanding our complex realities. Images, links and more from Giorgia!Clever is hosted and produced by Amy Devers, with editing by Rich Stroffolino, production assistance from Ilana Nevins and Anouchka Stephan, and music by El Ten Eleven.SUBSCRIBE - listen to Clever on any podcast app!SIGN UP - for our Substack for news, bonus content, new episode alertsVISIT - cleverpodcast.com for transcripts, images, and 200+ more episodesSAY HI! - on Instagram & LinkedIn @cleverpodcast @amydeversSpecial thanks to our sponsors!Wix Studio is a platform built for all web creators to design, develop, and manage exceptional web projects at scale.Clever listeners get an exclusive 15% discount on Saily data plans! Use code “clever” at checkout. Download Saily app or go to https://saily.com/clever Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Meet Nikki Taylor – an Australian expat, author, TV personality and real estate expert who over the last decade has advised thousands of overseas clients on how to realize their dreams of owning property in Italy. Nikki combined her love of all things Italy with her years of experience in the real estate, finance and the holiday rental industry and launched Italy Property Consulting. Her expertise has landed her spots on HGTV's House Hunters International and HGTV's Mediterranean Life.Her clients primarily consist of Americans who are burnt out and looking for a change of pace, or on the hunt for good investment opportunities in order to create generational wealth and additional income. Many come to Nikki open to purchasing properties sight unseen, which is a trend that picked up during the pandemic and continues to be a popular offering of hers. Being the only bilingual property expert in Italy with both a background in real estate and finance has allowed Nikki to work with high-net worth individuals and celebrity clients.Nikki's love for Italy stemmed from her own corporate burnout. “After years of hopping around the corporate world in Australia, the United Kingdom and Brazil, I had finally hit a wall and moved to Italy where I fell in love with the dolce vita lifestyle,” she says. “While working in real estate in Puglia, I noticed a lot of similarities in inquiries from foreign buyers. They all had the same doubts and fears about investing from afar into the Italian real estate market. I decided to create the first ever course in the country and the industry on buying property in Italy, called Unlock Your La Dolce Vita. From there I took on one-on-one clients and launched my consulting firm.”Find more from Nikki athttps://www.instagram.com/nikkitaylors_ladolcevitaGet your Jumpstart Journal here: http://subscribepage.io/YCauoKWork with me: www.karaleighgarrison.com/coaching

Last time we spoke about the fall of Shanghai. In October 1937 a small battalion led by Colonel Xie Jinyuan transformed the Sihang Warehouse into a fortress against the advancing Japanese army. These men, known as the "800 Heroes," became symbols of hope, rallying local citizens who provided vital support. Despite heavy casualties, they held out against overwhelming odds until a strategic retreat was ordered on November 1. As Japanese forces intensified their assaults, they breached the Chinese defenses and captured strategic positions along Suzhou Creek. The fighting was fierce, marked by desperate counterattacks from the besieged Chinese soldiers, who faced an unyielding enemy. By November 9, the Chinese faced a full retreat, their organized defenses collapsing into chaos as they fled the city. Desperate civilians sought refuge in the International Settlement but were met with hostility, exacerbating the terror of the moment. Amidst the turmoil, remaining forces continued to resist in pockets, holding out as long as possible. By November 11, Japanese troops raised their flag in the last stronghold, marking a grim victory.   #163 Crossing Nanjing's Rubicon Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. As the Japanese were mopping up Shanghai, Chiang Kai-Shek wrote in his diary on November 11th “I fear that they could threaten Nanjing”. Over In Shanghai, General Matsui Iwane was dealing with foreign correspondents, eager to learn what Japan's next move would be and to this he simply stated “For future developments, you had better ask Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek”. The correspondents were surprised by this response and pressed him further. He replied . “Chiang Kai-shek was reported to have predicted a five-year war, well, it might be that long. We don't know whether we will go to Nanjing or not. It all depends on Chiang.” At this point Shanghai was falling under Japanese control and now Matsui and his fellow field commanders were thinking, what's next? Nanjing was certainly the next objective. It was a common understanding amongst the Japanese leadership, that if the four main eastern cities of Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Nanjing were lost, Chiang Kai-Shek's government would collapse. Three of these cities had been taken, Nanjing was dangling like fresh fruit. Matsui's staff believed the Chinese units departing Shanghai would mount a stand immediately west of the city, probably a defensive line running from Jiading to Huangduzhen. On the night of November 11th, Matsui issued a command to all units in the Shanghai area to advance west along the railway towards Nanjing. Their first objective would be a line extending from Taicang to Kunshan. Chiang Kai-Shek was not only reeling from military defeats, but also the gradual loss of his German allies. The Germans were increasingly aligning with the Japanese. Chiang Kai-Shek was looking for new external help, so he turned to the Soviets. It was a marriage of convenience, Chiang Kai-Shek signed a non-aggression pact with the USSR that year and wasted no time pleading for aircraft and pilots. Moscow began sending them before the ink touched the paper. 200 aircraft and pilots in return for some essential minerals, wolfram and tungsten. The Sino-Soviet friendship even drew in an unlikely source of support, Sir Winston Churchill. The Soviet envoy to the UK described how during a meeting with Churchill “he greatly praised our tactics in the Far East: maintenance of neutrality and simultaneous aid to China in weaponry.” Soviet pilots found themselves dispatched to Nanjing where they were briefed by Yakov Vladimirovich Smushkevich, the deputy commander of the Soviet Air Force. “The Japanese armed forces are technically superior to the Chinese. The Chinese Air Force is a particular concern. Soviet pilots who have rushed to China's aid are currently in Nanjing. They are fighting valiantly.” Meanwhile back at Shanghai discipline and order that had characterized previous Chinese withdrawal had collapsed. Simply put, there were hundreds of thousands of men trying to retreat across the lower Yangtze region, it was a shitstorm. Many units had to disengage during combat with the enemy and scramble to pull out. Huang Qixiang, the deputy commander of the Chinese right flank in Shanghai, executed a strategic withdrawal moments before his command post succumbed to the advancing enemy forces. Just fifteen minutes after his departure, the area was overrun by Japanese troops. In a desperate bid to avoid capture, another general had to cross a creek, nearly drowning in the process. Rescued while barely clinging to life and drenched in icy water, he was welcomed by a peasant family who aided in his recovery before he resumed his arduous journey westward. The scale of this withdrawal, occurring both day and night, could hardly escape the enemy's notice, and its complexity made the operation increasingly difficult. The execution of the withdrawal exacerbated the situation significantly. Orders to abandon their positions started to trickle down immediately after the upper command made the decision. However, these orders reached the units in a disorganized manner. Many telephone lines had been sabotaged, and when soldiers were sent to relay the orders in person, they faced severe disruptions in the transportation network. Consequently, many units only became aware of the withdrawal when they witnessed the mass movements of their comrades heading westward. Upon realizing what was happening, many soldiers fled in a state of panic. There were no comprehensive plans outlining the retreat, no designated routes for the various units, nor any established timetables. The outcome was a chaotic scramble for survival. Soldiers who had fought side by side for three months suddenly found themselves competing against one another in a desperate race to escape. At bridges and other chokepoints, weary soldiers exhausted their last reserves of strength, brawling with their fellow troops to be the first to cross. Meanwhile, officers traveling in chauffeur-driven cars attempted to assert their rank to gain priority access to the roads, adding to the growing disorder that ensued. The massive army was hindered by its sheer size, resulting in miles of congested roads filled with men unable to move in any direction. This made them easy targets for Japanese aircraft, leading to a bloody cycle of repeated attacks. Planes adorned with the red Rising Sun insignia would emerge from the horizon, swooping down to strike at these vulnerable formations. As commander Chen Yiding recalled “The lack of organization and the gridlocked roads resulted in far more casualties than could have been avoided,”.  On November 12th, the newspaper Zhaongyang Ribao, published an editorial addressing the citizens of Nanjing, to remind them that tough times lay ahead now that Shanghai had fallen. The article stipulated they needed to prepare the city for the upcoming battle,  “Now, all the citizenry of the capital must fulfill their duty in a way that can serve as a model for the entire nation.” Nanjing in 1937 was a city touched by the war, but not enough to change the social fabric just yet. Cinema's remained open, the shopping arcade was crowded as usual, traffic was heavy along Zhongshan Road, order remained. Telephones remained on, except during air raids. Connections to the outside world functioned as they should, given this was the capital. The region had seen a good harvest in 1937, no one was going hungry. However as the front 200 miles away drew closer, bombing raids more frequent, fear of the enemy increased. Contact with the outside world gradually declined. By mid November the train link from Nanjing to Shanghai was severed.  While the fear amongst the populace increased, so did a newfound sense of common purpose against a common enemy. Poster calling for the Chinese to unite against the Japanese invaders were found throughout Nanjing. Residents were conscripted for various fortification efforts, with some receiving basic military training to help defend the city. Those who refused to cooperate faced severe penalties as “traitors,” while the majority willingly participated. Both military and civilian police were deployed throughout the city, diligently checking identities in an ongoing effort to root out spies and traitors. The authorities enforced a strict prohibition against discussing military matters in restaurants and other public venues. Then all the high ranking military officials and politicians families gradually began departing the city in secrecy. This was followed by said politicians and military officials. Twas not a good look. Nanjing soon saw its population decline from 1 million to half a million. Those who stayed behind were mainly the poor, or those anchored, like shopkeepers. Every day saw a steady stream of Nanjing citizens leaving the city over her main roads, fleeing into the countryside with carts full of belongings. On November 12th at 10am orders were issued for the Japanese to advance west. What had been a war of attrition, where inches of land were claimed with blood, suddenly it was a war of movement. As one Japanese soldier recalled “In the course of 50 days, I had moved only two miles. Now suddenly we were experiencing rapid advance”. As the Japanese came across small towns, they found large posters plastered on all the walls. These were all anti-japanese with some nationalist propaganda. The Japanese soldiers would tear them down and paint up their own messages “down with Chiang Kai-Shek!”.  Towns and cities west of Shanghai fell rapidly one after another, each succumbing to a grim pattern: swift conquest followed by widespread devastation. Jiading, a county seat with a population of approximately 30,000, succumbed to a prolonged siege. When the 10st division captured Jiading on November 13, after relentless shelling had leveled a third of the city, they began a massacre, indiscriminately killing nearly everyone in their path, men, women, and children alike. The battle and its aftermath resulted in over 8,000 casualties among the city's residents and surrounding countryside. One Japanese soldier referred to Jiading as “A city of death, in a mysteriously silent world in which the only sound was the tap of our own footsteps”.  On November 14, soldiers from the 9th Division reached Taicang, an ancient walled city designed to withstand lengthy sieges. As they crossed the 70-foot moat amid heavy fire, the Japanese troops confronted the formidable 20-foot-high city wall. After breaching the wall, their infantry swiftly entered the city and seized control. The destruction persisted long after the fighting ceased, with half of the city being devastated, including significant cultural institutions like the library, and salt and grain reserves were looted. It was as if the Japanese aimed to obliterate not just the material existence of the people but their spiritual foundation as well.  Casual cruelty marked the nature of warfare along the entire front, with few prisoners being taken. Ishii Seitaro, a soldier in the 13th Division's 26th Brigade, encountered a mass execution while marching alongside the Yangtze River. Several headless corpses floated nearby, yet three Chinese prisoners remained alive. A Japanese officer, personally overseeing the execution, wore a simple uniform, but the two ornate swords at his belt indicated his wealthy background. Approaching one prisoner, the officer dramatically drew one of the swords and brandished it through the air with exaggerated flair. In an almost theatrical display, he held it aloft, the blade trembling as if he were nervous. The prisoner, in stark contrast, exhibited an unnerving calmness as he knelt, awaiting his inevitable fate. The officer swung the sword down but failed to deliver a clean strike. Although he inflicted a deep gash to the prisoner's skull, it was not fatal. The prisoner collapsed, thrashing and emitting a prolonged scream that sent chills through those present. The officer, seemingly exhilarated by the anguish he caused, began wildly slashing at the figure until the screams subsided. Ishii turned away in horror, his mind swirling with confusion. Why were the Chinese being executed? Had they not surrendered?  Three months into the war's expansion to the Yangtze region, air raids had become an all too frequent menace in Nanjing. The first major raid came on August 15th and increased each week. On the night of August 27, approximately 30 bombs were dropped on Purple Mountain, specifically targeting the Memorial Park for Sun Yat-sen, aiming to hurt the morale of Nanjing's residents. As days melted into weeks and weeks stretched into months, the landscape of Nanjing transformed under the weight of war. Residents began constructing dugouts in courtyards, gardens, public squares, and even on streets. Foreigners painted their national flags on top of buildings and vehicles, attempting to avoid the risk of being machine-gunned by strafing aircraft. Each raid followed a predictable routine: sirens wailed loudly 20 to 30 minutes before the attack, signaling pedestrians to seek shelter and drivers to stop their engines. By the time a shorter warning sounded, the streets had to be cleared, leaving nothing to do but await the arrival of Japanese planes. Initially, the part-US-trained Chinese Air Force posed a considerable threat to Japanese bombers. The 4th and 5th Chinese Squadrons, stationed near Nanjing to defend the capital, achieved early success, reportedly downing six bombers during the first air raid on Nanjing. Much of the credit for these aerial victories belonged to Claire Chennault, a retired American Army Air Corps captain who had become an advisor to the Chinese Air Force, overseeing Nanjing's air defense. Chennault taught his pilots tactics he had developed in the US but had never fully implemented. His strategy was straightforward: three fighters would focus on one enemy bomber at a time. One would attack from above, another from below, while a third would hover in reserve to deliver the final blow if necessary. He instructed the Chinese pilots to target the engines rather than the fuselage, reasoning that any missed shots could hit the gas tanks located in the wing roots. This approach proved successful, leading to the loss of 54 Japanese planes within three days. For Chennault, it validated his belief that air superiority required a diverse range of aircraft, not just bombers. Nighttime raids, however, posed a greater challenge. Chennault, along with other commanders, sought solutions. Chinese General C.C. Wong, a German-trained artillery officer overseeing the country's anti-aircraft defenses, ensured that dozens of large Sperry searchlights were positioned throughout Nanjing in a grid pattern. This setup had a dual purpose: it would dazzle the Japanese bomber crews and highlight their planes in silhouette for Chinese fighters above to target. The bravery of the most skilled Chinese pilots occasionally gained media attention, making them local celebrities amidst an otherwise grim war environment. However, this bright moment faded quickly when the Japanese command decided to provide escorts for their bombers. Consequently, the elite of China's air force, its finest pilots and aircraft, were lost within weeks that fall. All air raids were brutal, but the worst assaults occurred at the end of September. As a radio broadcaster reported on September 25th “Gallons of civilian blood flowed today as Nanking endured three ferocious air raids”. In total, 96 Japanese sorties were launched on that day. Witnesses observed around a dozen Chinese aircraft retreating north across the Yangtze, initially believing they were fleeing, but some returned to confront the enemy. When Chinese fighters managed to down a Japanese bomber, the streets erupted in cheers as civilians momentarily forgot their fear. The primary aim of the September 25 attack appeared to be spreading terror among the civilian population. Chiang Kai-Shek wrote in his diary that day  “The repeated Japanese air raids over the past several days have had no impact on our military installations. Instead, civilian property has sustained significant damage.” Around 20 bombs struck the Central Hospital, one of Nanjing's largest medical facilities, causing extensive destruction and prompting the evacuation of its staff. Two 1,000-pound bombs exploded nearby, leaving large craters. Had these bombs landed slightly closer, they could have resulted in mass casualties among the hospital's 100 patients, including a Japanese pilot who had been shot down earlier that month. The air raids at the end of September prompted protests from the Americans, British, and French governments to Japan. In response, Tokyo issued a statement on September 30, asserting that while they were not intentionally targeting non-combatants, it was “unavoidable” for achieving military objectives that military airfields and installations in and around Nanjing be bombed.   The battle for Jiashan was among the fiercest in the southern Yangtze delta campaign in November 1937. Although Jiashan was a moderately sized town straddling a crucial railway connecting Shanghai to Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang province. For the Japanese, seizing Jiashan was imperative for their westward advance; without it, their military progress would be severely hampered. Jiashan had endured three days of relentless bombing by the Japanese Air Force, driving most residents to flee into the surrounding countryside. Only about 100 remained, those who were too old or too sick to escape, abandoned by family or friends who lacked the means to assist them. The Japanese troops brutally bayoneted nearly all of these individuals and buried them in a mass grave just outside the town's northern gate. Jiashan was captured by the 10th Army, a division fresh from victories and eager to engage in combat, unlike the weary forces of the Shanghai Expeditionary Force further north. With less than a week of combat experience, the 10th Army's soldiers were hungry for a fight. The martial spirit of the 10th Army was exemplified by its commander, Yanagawa Heisuke. Born near Nagasaki in 1879, he was among a group of retired officers called back to active service as the war in China escalated unexpectedly. Having served in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 and taught at the Beijing Army College in 1918, Yanagawa had considerable experience in military affairs. However, his past exposure to China did not cultivate any empathy for the enemy. He was determined to push all the way to Nanjing, and once there, he intended to blanket the city in mustard gas and incendiaries until it capitulated. While Japanese commanders debated the value of capturing Nanjing, the Chinese were equally preoccupied with whether it was worth defending. Most military professionals viewed the situation as a lost cause from the start. After the fall of Shanghai, Chiang Kai-shek summoned one of his top commanders, Chen Cheng, to Nanjing for discussions. “How can Nanjing be held?” Chen Cheng shot back “Are you ordering me to hold Nanjing?” Chiang replied “I am not”. Chen Cheng stated frankly, “I believe Nanjing should not be held at all.” By mid-November, Bai Chongxi, one of China's most respected generals, advocated for declaring Nanjing an open city. He argued that defending it was not only unnecessary but also impossible. All available forces had been deployed to Shanghai and were now exhausted. Furthermore, no reinforcements would be forthcoming if they made a stand in Nanjing. Instead of stubbornly clinging to fixed positions, he preferred a more flexible defensive strategy. Zhang Qun, Chiang's secretary, supported Bai's stance, believing that while Nanjing should ultimately be abandoned, political considerations were paramount. If the Chinese simply withdrew and allowed the Japanese to occupy the city, it would undermine China's position in any future negotiations. The Japanese would not be able to present themselves as victors who had triumphed in battle. Similarly, Chiang's chief military advisor, General Alexander von Falkenhausen, was against attempting to hold Nanjing. He deemed it “useless from a military perspective, suggesting it would be madness.” He warned that if Chiang forced his army into a decisive battle with their backs to the Yangtze River, “a disaster would probably be unavoidable.” Chiang's head of the operations bureau Liu Fei argued Nanjing could not be abandoned without a fight as it would crush the NRA's morale. He believed that defending the city could be managed with as few as 12 regiments, although 18 would be feasible. Most at the meeting agreed and Chiang understood Nanjing's international recognition necessitated some form of defense, doomed or not. A second meeting was formed whereupon, Tang Shengzhi, a general staff officer whose loyalties were, lets be honest very flip floppy. During the warlord era, he routinely switched sides, especially against Chiang Kai-Shek. At the meeting Tang stated in regards to Nanjing's international prominence and being the final resting place of Dr Sun Yat-Sen “How can we face the spirit of the former president in heaven? We have no choice but to defend the capital to the death.” Chiang's commanders were all well aware of his intentions. The generalissimo was eager for a dramatic last stand in Nanjing to serve propaganda purposes, aiming to rally the nation and convey to the world that China was resolute in its fight against Japan. His commanders also recognized the rationale behind fighting for Nanjing; however, very few were inclined to embark on what seemed a likely suicide mission. The third meeting occurred the day after the second. Chiang opened by asking, as many anticipated, “Who is willing to shoulder the burden of defending Nanjing?” An awkward silence followed. Then Tang Shengzhi stepped forward. “Chairman, if no one else is willing, I will. I'm prepared to defend Nanjing and to hold it to the death.” Without hesitation, Chiang accepted his offer. “Good, the responsibility is yours.”A little refresher on Tang, he had played a role in Chiang Kai-shek's efforts to unify China by force in the 1920s, when the nation was a patchwork of fiefdoms. However, their relationship had soured on two occasions, forcing Tang into temporary exile, first to Japan and then to Hong Kong. The Japanese invasion of northeastern China in 1931 prompted a loose reconciliation, and since then, Tang had held several important positions, notably organizing war games simulating a Japanese assault on Nanjing. However Tang had often suffered from illness, and crucially, he had not led troops in the field against the Japanese since the onset of full-scale war that summer. Hailing from Hunan province, he was a typical provincial soldier and would likely face challenges commanding respect among elite divisions loyal solely to the central government in Nanjing. He was definitely not the first choice for such a significant task.  Amazingly, while tens of thousands of Chinese and Japanese were killing each other, while Japanese planes relentlessly bombarded Chinese cities including the capital, and while Japanese soldiers committed heinous atrocities against Chinese civilians, the two nations maintained diplomatic relations. China had a fully operational embassy in Tokyo, led by Xu Shiying, a 65-year-old diplomat. This surreal arrangement persisted because neither side was willing to officially declare war. In the fall of 1937, as Japanese armies were heavily engaged on two fronts within mainland China, Xu met with Japanese Foreign Minister Hirota Koki to propose a non-aggression treaty. The proposal was swiftly rejected in Nanjing. By November 1937, Xu was no longer at the forefront of events, and foreign observers shifted their focus from the capitals of the warring nations to Belgium. While large-scale battles raged along the lower Yangtze, representatives from 19 countries convened in Brussels to search for a way to end hostilities. Although China participated in the conference, Japan did not. Japan had received two invitations to join the talks, with its response to the second arriving in Brussels on November 12: a firm rejection. Japan asserted that it preferred direct bilateral negotiations with China, dismissing the Brussels conference held under the auspices of the Nine-Power Treaty, a pact signed in 1922 aimed at ensuring China's national sovereignty and territorial integrity. Japan argued that intervention by a collective body like the conference “would merely stir national sentiments in both countries and complicate efforts to reach a mutually satisfactory resolution.” The League of Nations had called for a Nine-Power conference a month earlier, which ultimately became a 19-power conference as other nations with interests in East Asia joined. From the outset, Japan opposed the assembly and was absent when the first plenary meeting commenced in Brussels on November 3. Japanese leaders feared that China might attempt to leverage the conference against Western powers, recalling how, in 1895, Japan had been denied its spoils following its first modern war with China due to the intervention of Russia, France, and Germany, who blocked Japan from claiming the strategic Liaodong Peninsula adjacent to Korea. China also exhibited a lukewarm attitude toward the conference. While Japan feared the potential outcomes, China was concerned about the lack of significant results. The proposal to transition discussions from the League of Nations, perceived as ineffective, to the even less authoritative Nine Powers, which lacked formal organization. Nonetheless, the Chinese chose to participate in Brussels, maintaining the pretense that something meaningful could be accomplished. Shortly after Japan's second rejection of the invitation, Wellington Koo made an impassioned plea in Brussels, stating, “Now that the door to conciliation and mediation has been slammed in your face by the latest reply of the Japanese Government, will you not decide to withhold supplies of war materials and credit to Japan and extend aid to China?” In reality, Koo understood that significant Western aid to China was highly unlikely, aside from token gestures. Previous international discussions had momentarily halted Japanese advances in the past; for instance, in 1932, Japanese troops had paused their movements in the Shanghai area just hours before the League of Nations General Assembly commenced. However, that was nearly six years earlier, and circumstances had changed dramatically since then. Rogue states had grown bolder, while democracies seemed increasingly timid. Thus, the Chinese agenda in Brussels was not primarily driven by hopes for substantial Western concessions. Instead, the delegates had been tasked by Nanjing to anticipate the post-conference landscape and to actively seek ways to encourage Europe and America to support Soviet military action against Japan.   China, long reliant on Germany as a diplomatic partner, increasingly felt betrayed, not just by Germany, but also by its fascist ally, Italy. Consequently, it began looking more favorably upon the Soviet Union, Japan's archrival in Northeast Asia, as its main source of international support. The Soviet Union exhibited a firmer stance than the Western democracies at the Brussels conference, joining China in advocating for collective security in Europe and Asia. On November 15th, a small group of officers from the 10th Army gathered for late-night discussions in an abandoned building north of Hangzhou Bay, where they would effectively decide the fate of China. Yanagawa Heisuke, the commander of the 10th Army, presided over the discussions. Fresh from the battlefield since the beginning of the month, he was eager to escalate the fight, a sentiment echoed among the others. It was an unusual meeting, where officers as low in rank as major were making decisions typically reserved for the highest echelons of political power. The agenda included a pivotal question: Should they adhere to Order No. 600 received from Tokyo a week prior, which instructed them to halt their advance along a line from Suzhou to Jiaxing? Or, should they disregard these explicit orders and push forward to seize Nanjing? While the Japanese Army had failed to completely annihilate the Chinese forces around Shanghai, there was a consensus that their adversary was now reeling from recent setbacks, presenting an opportune moment to strike decisively and secure a swift victory. The only remaining question was how aggressively to pursue this goal. Colonel Terada Masao, a senior staff officer within the 10th Army, spoke first. “The Chinese Army is currently retreating toward the capital. We should cross that line and pursue the enemy straight to Nanjing.” Major Iketani Hanjiro, a staff officer recently attached to the fast-moving 6th Division, then offered his input “From a tactical perspective, I completely agree with Terada that we should cross the line, but the decision to attack Nanjing should be considered not just tactically, but also politically. It's not that field commanders can't create a fait accompli to pressure our superiors in Tokyo. However, we must proceed with great caution”. A staff officer raised this question  “What if Tokyo orders us to pull back those smaller units?” Iketani responded “In that case, we will, of course, withdraw them to this side of the line”. Ultimately, Iketani's cautions were set aside, and Terada's aggressive approach prevailed. The majority agreed that the tactical circumstances presented a rare opportunity. Japanese troops in the Shanghai area were poised to advance west, not through small, individual skirmishes but with a substantial deployment of their forces. Officers estimated that if a decisive push was made immediately, Nanjing could fall into Japanese hands within 20 days. However Colonel Kawabe Torashiro, the newly appointed chief of the Army General Staff's Operations Section suddenly arrived at the theater. He was sent on a mission to assess whether the Central China Area Army should be granted greater operational freedom. It was well known in Tokyo that field officers were eager to capitalize on the momentum created by the collapse of Chinese defenses around Shanghai. Kawabe's task was to explore the possibility of allowing forces to cross the line from Suzhou to Jiaxing and move westward in pursuit of the retreating enemy. However, Kawabe was staunchly opposed to further military adventures in China. Kawabe was part of the dwindling faction of "China doves" within the Japanese military. As early as the summer of 1937, he had become alarmed by a letter from a civilian Japanese visitor to the Chinese mainland, warning that Japanese officers were attempting to engineer an “incident” with China to provoke open conflict. This would provide Japan with a pretext to expand its influence in northern China. Kawabe had attempted to alert his superiors, but his warnings fell on deaf ears. They had been lulled into a false sense of security by reports from China that dismissed all talk of war-mongering as baseless and alarmist. When he arrived to the front he stated “I am here to inspect conditions on the ground so that a final decision can be made on where to establish the operational restriction line”. Alongside him came General Akira Muto, recently appointed the commander of the Central China Area Army. He also happened to be one of the architects of the Marco Polo Bridge Incident. Muto responded promptly: “The line currently stretches from Suzhou to Jiaxing, but we should consider crossing it. This will help us achieve our overall objectives in the theater.” Muto continued, arguing that the 10th Army should be permitted to advance to Huzhou, south of Lake Tai, effectively cutting off communications between Nanjing and the strategic city of Hangzhou. He further claimed that the Shanghai Expeditionary Force should be allowed to capture the vital city of Jiangyin, suggesting, perhaps overly optimistically, that its loss could lead to the fall of Chiang Kai-shek. Ultimately, Muto insisted, Nanjing should also be seized, which he asserted would bring an end to the war. Kawabe listened patiently, a practice he would repeat in the following days as other field officers echoed similar sentiments, eagerly expressing their desire to advance all the way to Nanjing. Yanagawa and his 10th Army exemplified this aggressive mindset. Nevertheless, just as the hawks within the Japanese military and the nation's political leadership appeared to be prevailing in the struggle over China policy, they faced unexpected challenges from a different direction. Germany, a power with ambiguous sympathies in East Asia, was quietly engaged in negotiations aimed at bringing peace. Oskar Trautmann, Germany's ambassador to China, had maintained an objective and neutral stance when he met with Chiang Kai-shek in early November to relay Japan's conditions for initiating peace talks. These conditions included extensive concessions in northern China, such as the withdrawal of all Chinese troops to a line south of Beijing and the establishment of a pro-Japanese regime in Inner Mongolia, bordering the Soviet-controlled Mongolian People's Republic. Chiang dismissed these demands outright, but Trautmann and his superiors in Beijing continued their top-secret efforts. Germany's motivation for seeking an end to the Sino-Japanese War was not rooted in a genuine love for peace, but rather in their embarrassment over witnessing their old Asian ally, China, fighting against their new partner, Japan. Herman Göring, president of the Reichstag and a leading figure in the Nazi party, told a Chinese visitor, “China and Japan are both friends of Germany. The Sino-Japanese War has put Germany between Scylla and Charybdis. That's why Germany is ready to seize the chance to become a mediator.” Germany also feared that a prolonged conflict in China could jeopardize its commercial interests in East Asia and weaken Japan's capacity to confront the Soviet Union, potentially freeing Moscow to allocate more resources to a fight in Europe. In essence, continued hostilities could significantly harm Germany. Japanese field commanders were frustrated by Germany's mediation efforts.  When news of Trautmann's mission leaked, the German diplomat faced severe criticism in the Chinese media, which deemed any negotiation with the "Japanese devils" unacceptable. Additionally, there was the matter of China's ties with the Soviet Union; employing a German mediator raised the possibility of cooperation among China, Japan, and Germany, potentially expanding the anti-Soviet bloc, which would, in turn, pressure Moscow to increase its support for China. By mid-November, however, the complexities of this diplomatic game started unraveling and then Japan took action. At 7:00 am on November 19, Yanagawa issued instructions to his troops in the field. “The enemy's command system is in disarray, and a mood of defeat has descended over their entire army. They have lost the will to fight. The main Chinese forces were retreating west of the line stretching from Suzhou to Jiaxing, and this withdrawal was soon likely to spiral into a full-scale retreat. We must not miss the opportunity to pursue the enemy to Nanjing.” I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. Shanghai had fallen, and the Japanese forces pursued their fleeing enemy further west. However they had orders to halt, but would they? Officers from top down deliberating on the issue, with the vast majority pushing for a drive to Nanjing. They thought it represented the end objective of the conflict. They would all be very wrong. 

In this episode of Oh Shoot, Cassidy Lynne (@cassidylynne) recaps her Italy photography workshop, and debriefs her planning process, the pros & cons, the highlights, and her overall takeaways from hosting the retreat. Get 15% off Aftershoot at https://aftershoot.com/friends?ref=cassidy Use code OHSHOOT for 10% off all digital products at www.cassidylynneeducation.com/shop WATCH THESE EPISODES ON YOUTUBE! https://www.youtube.com/CassidyLynne Want more free education? Check out my website for photography freebies, presets, & courses! https://cassidylynneeducation.com Are you apart of our photography Facebook community group? Go to http://facebook.com/groups/cassidylynne/ and join the discussions of thousands of other photographers. Where you can find me: Follow me on Instagram!! Follow me on Tik Tok! Music by @mattngesa

Title: Million Dollar Monday - Eli Facenda Summary: In this Million Dollar Monday episode, Seth Bradley interviews Eli Facenda, who shares that he made his first million through an international youth sports tour company. The business was growing fast until COVID wiped it out completely. He made his last million through his current business, which helps entrepreneurs use credit card points to take luxury trips for a fraction of the cost. Now, Eli is focused on making his next million by scaling the same business through lower-ticket, community-driven, and digital products, while maintaining his high-ticket services. Links to Watch and Subscribe: https://youtu.be/o8qmXoQf8LE Bullet Point Highlights: First Million: Built through a youth sports international tour company (pre-COVID) Business Model: Organized overseas travel for youth teams and families Impact of COVID: Entire business was decimated by travel restrictions Last Million: Made via a business helping entrepreneurs maximize credit card points for luxury travel High-ticket offers: $5K–$15K services, hit $1M revenue in 2024 Next Million Strategy: Scale through lower-ticket products, community offerings, and digital content (YouTube, affiliates) Goal: Reach more people without sacrificing service quality at the high-ticket level Approach: Reverse path—starting high-ticket, moving into scalable, lower-ticket reach Transcript: Seth Bradley (00:00.16) Welcome to Million Dollar Monday with Eli Facenda. Let's just jump right in. Let's do it. Yeah. How did you make your first million?   So I actually made my first million in a tour company. Now I made the first million. I didn't get to keep the first million, but what we were doing, we were running sports trips all over the world. This is actually part of how I fell in love with the travel industry and the work that I'd now do with points. And ultimately what we were doing, we were creating these international tour packages for youth sports teams and families to go on these international tours. So think of like a 14 year old baseball team in your, you're in San Diego. We'd like do a selection of kids.   from that area, the families would come and they would go to Japan or Italy or wherever and travel for 10 days, experience the culture, have an educational tour and also play the local teams. So we did that in a variety of sports, ice hockey and baseball and lacrosse, all these different sports and we were growing a lot and then that was ramping right until COVID and that just decimated the entire business. it took us about two years to get to a million and then we started to double almost every year for a few years and that was like,   really really tough break in COVID but that was the first night.   Man, nobody saw that coming. I No,   Eli Facenda (01:09.548) definitely you know group large or large group sports international travel was like the worst potential like you can't go overseas and you definitely can't do it with 60 people so it was a brutal industry to be in   Yeah, there were certain sectors that just, I mean, there was nothing you could do. We opened up our first gym actually two weeks before COVID hit in 2020. So we had our, us like two years to open and then our grand opening. And then we had a bunch of free clients in those first two weeks. And then they ended up being free clients for about a year because we couldn't charge them. Cause we couldn't get them back in the gym. We're doing online workouts and all that kind of stuff. Isn't that? Hey, we adapt man.   Yeah, the true entrepreneurial muscles are definitely strengthened in times like that though. mean, like the people that bounce back and figure it out, like you just have a new sense of confidence of like, you know, I can handle anything.   Yeah, man. I mean, you pivot, right? Like I actually ended up launching my first podcast during COVID because I was stuck inside and it was like, all right, let's do this. Let's get on Zoom and interview people and all that kind of stuff, man. So that leads us right to the next question, man. How'd you make your last million? How'd you make that transition?   Yeah, so the last million that I made was in the current business that I have. so essentially what we've been doing there for about four years now is helping entrepreneurs maximize their travel on credit card points. So helping them get their dream bucket list trips, these 30, 40, $50,000 trips all over the world for about 90 % off by leveraging credit card points. And we've traditionally had some pretty high ticket services. I mean, not crazy expensive, but like,   Eli Facenda (02:40.046) know, 5, 10, 15K in that range has been the main service. And so we cracked our first million about two years in. So that was 2024. Actually, it was the first year we made a million there.   Awesome man, awesome. How about your next million? Where are you scaling to?   Yeah, so the next million I want to make is the same business. I love what I do. I really enjoy it. And what I want to do is do it in a more community oriented and lower ticket way. So I want to have bigger reach, more digital products, more of the community, more affiliate services and stuff like that. And I'm really excited about kind of cracking the code on that because we've done it decently with the higher ticket stuff, more agency level service level stuff, which is great. And we're still cranking on that. We're going keep growing it. But I really want to see what we can do with   So the lower ticket stuff, creating awesome stuff on YouTube that leads to different channels and distributions there. So that's the next million and same business, just different type of money.   love it man. Yeah, that's kind of opposite of how some people approach it, right? You usually start with a lower ticket and then you have to build up that base before anybody will give you, you know, higher, pay for that higher ticket product, but you're kind of working backwards because you want to help more people.   Eli Facenda (03:44.398) Totally, exactly. Yeah, there's a limit. mean, what we do in the high ticket is incredible, but it really is a specialized skill. Like you think about like a bookkeeper or an accounting firm or something, there's like a million bookkeepers. There's like 50 people that know points and travel to the level that I need them to know it to really serve clients with the highest level. So there's a real limit on the ability to scale that. It's also just like, we want to be able to do really quality work for less people, but then serve more people with the other stuff too. Links from the Show and Guest Info and Links: Seth Bradley's Links: https://x.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.youtube.com/@sethbradleyesq www.facebook.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.threads.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.instagram.com/sethbradleyesq/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethbradleyesq/ https://passiveincomeattorney.com/seth-bradley/ https://www.biggerpockets.com/users/sethbradleyesq https://medium.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.tiktok.com/@sethbradleyesq?lang=en Eli Facenda Links: https://www.instagram.com/elitravelguy/ https://x.com/elitravelguy https://www.linkedin.com/in/eli-facenda/ https://www.facebook.com/eli.facenda https://www.youtube.com/@elifacenda https://www.threads.com/@elitravelguy https://www.skool.com/@eli-facenda-5305?t=posts

Paris returns to share insights from a three-week trip through New York, London, Switzerland, Italy and France. Most importantly, she focuses on what helped her with stability on this trip and how you can try these tips out yourself! Key topics include the importance of staying present by minimizing social media use, the benefits of journaling during travel, and strategies for maintaining stability while navigating a busy itinerary. Paris also previews upcoming podcast episodes, which will cover overcoming comparison and self-doubt and understanding and managing shame spirals in bipolar disorder.If you love someone that lives with bipolar and you want to learn strategies to better support them, enroll in Love Well Bipolar ⁠here⁠! Stay connected with Paris here!00:00 Welcome Back to the Podcast00:55 Recap of My Trip02:52 Maintaining Stability While Traveling08:51 Travel Tips and Personal Reflections14:09 Concluding Thoughts and Upcoming Episodes

Coffee is a big responsibilityJulia Caesar speaks to Giuseppe Lavazza, chairman of coffee giant Lavazza, about the multiple challenges facing the industry today. Many people around the world say they can't function without their morning cup of coffee. In fact, global coffee consumption has been steadily rising with around two billion cups of coffee consumed every day. This growth is driven by rising demand in emerging markets like China and India, as well as the popularity of specialty and cold coffee beverages.However, the industry itself is facing major challenges, including an increase in the cost of raw materials due to changing weather patterns, growing concerns over geopolitical instability impacting shipping routes, and economic uncertainty due to tariffs.The coffee market, which was valued at approximately $495.5 billion in 2023, is a far cry from when Lavazza coffee was first established nearly a century ago in Turin, Italy. The Interview brings you conversations with people shaping our world, from all over the world. The best interviews from the BBC. You can listen on the BBC World Service, Mondays and Wednesdays at 0700 GMT. Or you can listen to The Interview as a podcast, out twice a week on BBC Sounds or wherever you get your podcasts.Presenter: Julia Caesar Producers: Lucy Sheppard and Ben Cooper Editor: Nick HollandGet in touch with us on email TheInterview@bbc.co.uk and use the hashtag #TheInterviewBBC on social media.(Image: Giuseppe Lavazza. Credit: Jaimi Joy/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Greece - and much of southern Europe - has faced a series of wildfires over the past weeks, prompting evacuations and even resulting in deaths. As Greece grapples with another summer of wildfires, questions abound over how to combat this phenomenon and build resilience, and the role of the media, the government, and civil society. Niko Efstathiou, an Athens based journalist and author, joins Thanos Davelis as we dig into these questions.You can read the articles we discuss on our podcast here:Wildfires: What we don't know is what burns usOverhead power lines under scrutiny after wildfiresRiyadh requests Greek mission renewalTurkey's deepening ties with Italy, Spain

In this episode of the Show Up or Shut Up Podcast, host Wendy Solganik interviews mixed media artist Roxanne Evans Stout. Wendy announces that Roxanne will be joining Fodder School 5 as a first-time instructor. The conversation delves into Roxanne's artistic journey which began in her childhood in Santa Monica and evolved through various stages, including her experiences growing up in different places due to her father's Air Force career, her education in the sciences at Humboldt State, and her eventual shift to a more free-form, mixed media art style. Roxanne talks about her teaching career, her close relationship with her mother who was also an artist, and how her mother's passing intensified her commitment to art. The episode also explores Roxanne's teaching experiences in locations like Santa Fe and her upcoming workshop in Italy. Wendy and Roxanne discuss the unique elements of Roxanne's art, including her use of neutral colors, texture, and inspiration from nature. Roxanne shares her excitement for the new projects in Fodder School 5 and drops hints about her plans for the artistic journey ahead.00:00 Introduction to the Podcast and Guest02:37 Roxanne's Early Life and Artistic Beginnings04:04 Life in Santa Monica and Artistic Influences07:48 College Years and Meeting Her Husband13:23 Life in Northern California and Early Art Career20:43 Teaching Career and Artistic Evolution22:46 Developing a Unique Artistic Style25:35 The Influence of Blogging and Artist Books29:15 Collections and Inspirations35:27 The Story Behind the Work Table36:38 Challenges of Building a Custom Table37:49 Creating an Inspiring Studio Space39:35 The Evolution of My Art Journey40:15 Teaching and Workshops43:13 Artist Residencies and Their Impact46:38 Upcoming Workshops and Inspirations52:58 Exploring My Color Palette58:31 Influence of My Mother's Art01:06:03 Conclusion and Future Plans

In this episode, LDG discusses the historic campaign of the Italian women's national team (Le Azzurre) at the 2025 Euros, and what the future of Italian women's football is looking like.He starts by discussing the status quo of domestic women's football in Italy before the Euros, talking about the national team's prior results and Serie A Femminile's stature.He reintroduces the context of the Euros by sharing a soundbite he recorded after the final whistle of the Italy-England semifinal blew, then discusses the outlook for the Italian team.He discusses Italian players transferring to leagues such as the NWSL, WSL, and Frauen-Bundesliga, and includes a clip of Sofia Cantore talking about her move to the Washington Spirit/how she is adjusting to the NWSL. He examines how these transfers may impact the national team and outlines the systemic changes needed in Serie A Femminile and Italian women's football for continued progress.Thank you for listening! Remember to follow us wherever you get your podcasts, on Instagram (@the_womens_soccer_podcast) and Bluesky (@thewomenssoccerpod.bsky.social). In addition, leave a 5-star review and tell all your friends about our show!

European leaders are set to join a meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and United States President Donald Trump at the White House to discuss an end to the war in Ukraine. The UK, Italy, Finland and France will attend the meeting in support of Ukraine's President, who is under pressure from the U-S to accept a quick peace deal. It follows Mr Trump's face-to-face meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska, which did not include Ukraine, and ended without achieving a ceasefire.

In this first of our two-part Food & Wine Festival special, Scott and Candice dig deep into the front half of the 2025 EPCOT International Food and Wine Festival. From flaky samosas to suspicious milkshakes, we break down what's new, what's returning, and what's totally skippable. Along the way, you'll hear our festival strategy, hot takes on influencer hype, and why we're not falling for the pickle milkshake trend (again).Plus, we share our Eat to the Beat concert picks (Spoiler: Gen X is THRIVING), how you can help choose Scott's breakfast on social, and why the dining plan may be a double-edged sword when it comes to festival snacking.By the end of this episode, you'll have a full itinerary for navigating World Celebration, Discovery, and Nature – including what's open now, what's delayed until late September, and which booths are just not worth the hype.

On this episode of Think Theory Radio our host Damien talks about his recent trip to Belgium and Italy! From drinking delicious Belgian beer & walking the streets of Brussels to touring the vineyards & wineries of the Tuscany region & the beautiful city of Florence. Listen in as we talk beer, chocolate, art, wine, architecture, culture, pizza, and much more!!!

In Episode 618 of The Knife Junkie Podcast, host Bob DeMarco sits down with Ric Valdez, founder of Ocaso Knives, for an fascinating look at building a gentleman's knife company from the ground up. Valdez, who spent nearly two decades in the Cold Steel executive suite, shares how he identified a gap in the market for elegant, high-performance pocket knives suitable for business professionals and decided to fill it himself.The conversation covers his impressive growth since launching just under three years ago, including expansions in booth size at Blade Show, new product launches like the Lucent automatic knife, and exciting partnerships with renowned designers. Valdez discusses his global manufacturing strategy, working with facilities in Taiwan, Italy, Japan, and now the United States, each chosen for specific expertise and capabilities.The highlight announcement involves Andrew Demko transitioning from collaborator to partner, with plans for American-made knives featuring the signature shark lock mechanism.Beyond product development, Valdez shares valuable insights about brand building, customer engagement, and entrepreneurship. His philosophy of building genuine relationships within the knife community, creating destination experiences at trade shows, and focusing on solving real problems rather than just making products offers lessons that extend far beyond the knife industry. The discussion also touches on future plans for expanding into adjacent markets like watches and pens, with the ultimate goal of creating a complete lifestyle brand.This episode provides an insider's look at the challenges and rewards of growing a knife company in today's competitive market. Valdez's approach to balancing elegance with performance, managing multiple collaborations, and building authentic customer relationships makes this essential listening for knife enthusiasts, entrepreneurs, and anyone interested in successful brand building.Visit https://www.theknifejunkie.com/618 for more, and find Ocaso Knives online at https://www.ocasoknives.com, on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/ocaso_knives, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ocasoknives.Be sure to support The Knife Junkie and get in on the perks of being a patron, including early access to the podcast and exclusive bonus content. Visit https://www.theknifejunkie.com/patreon for details. You can also support The Knife Junkie channel with your next knife purchase. Find our affiliate links at https://theknifejunkie.com/knives.Let us know what you thought about this episode and leave a rating and/or a review. Your feedback is appreciated. You can also email theknifejunkie@gmail.com with any comments, feedback, or suggestions.To watch or listen to past episodes of the podcast, visit https://theknifejunkie.com/listen. And for professional podcast hosting, use The Knife Junkie's podcast platform of choice: https://theknifejunkie.com/podhost.

It's Story Time, our walk through cricket history via your listener quiz challenges. This week, Adam and Geoff are back together and heading back to Italy in the 1940s, via a detour to Spain in the 2020s. A couple of long-running clues are finally broken down, piece by piece, as we discover some Mary Poppins history, dual-sport families, and place a great of the game in a different space and time. It's a fun one. Your Nerd Pledge numbers for this week: 10.21 - Chris Dobbins 6.34 - Jeremy Bourke 3.92 - Matt Wing 1.92 - Aravind Support the show with a Nerd Pledge at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/thefinalword⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Maurice Blackburn Lawyers - fighting for the rights of workers since 1919: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠mauriceblackburn.com.au⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Tickets for our Wormsley match, August 18: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠uk.emma-live.com/WormsleyFinal2025⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Get your big NordVPN discount: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠nordvpn.com/tfw⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ We're giving away a brand new Virat Kohli Genius King cricket bat, gloves, and case, PLUS a YEAR'S supply of Noobru Pro - worth over £1600! For entry, T&Cs, and 15% off any purchase go to: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠noobru.com/finalword⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Get 10% off Glenn Maxwell's sunnies: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠t20vision.com/FINALWORD⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Find previous episodes at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠finalwordcricket.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Title track by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Urthboy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the July of 1844 Dickens, his wife Catherine, their five children, his sister-in-law Georgina - plus three servants and their dog Timber - left London for Italy. What followed was an extraordinary adventure for them all.Returning to the series to talk to Dominic about his new Oxford University Press edition of Pictures From Italy is the inimitable Dr. Pete Orford also returning to read excerpts from the book is the brilliant actor Tom Andrews ...The recording Vivaldi's Four Seasons has been granted under license from Epidemic Sound Support the showIf you'd like to make a donation to support the costs of producing this series you can buy 'coffees' right here https://www.buymeacoffee.com/dominicgerrardThank you so much!Host: Dominic GerrardSeries Artwork: Léna GibertOriginal Music: Dominic GerrardThank you for listening!

Nancy Silverton is a chef from Los Angeles. Her newest book, The Cookie That Changed My Life, is out now. We chat about Chris' 16-hour flight to Korea, his indoctrination into the K-pop community, a trip to California's wine country, she doesn't listen to music while cooking unless she's in Italy, why she doesn't like In-n-out, a new flavor or Coca Cola, she's opening a pasta restaurant in Koreatown and a diner in Larchmont, she really be dressing, controlling the consistency of your restaurants is tougher when they're in Saudi Arabia, how she got into podcasting having never listened to a podcast before, making teens do all your work for you, she gave up cocaine and got addicted to shopping, her neighborhood in LA, oversized cookies, Waffle House, her philosophy on milkshakes, we pitch Ye Olde Nancy's Provisions Shoppe (est. 2024) the last person she comped a meal for, the hamburger of her dreams, and how she stays snatched constantly eating bread and pasta her whole life. ⁠instagram.com/nancysilverton⁠ ⁠twitter.com/donetodeath⁠ ⁠twitter.com/themjeans Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lij Shaw of Recording Studio Rockstars recently sat down with Gabe Dagrezio to dive into his journey from frontman of The New Story to a highly regarded producer, engineer, and studio owner. With years of experience in the music industry, Gabe has worked with a wide range of artists, helping them craft their sound through both performance and technical mastery. He emphasizes the importance of authentic recordings combined with solid technical skills, often sharing how preparation and understanding the artist's vision are key to great results. Gabe also talks about his studio setup, his approach to mixing and mastering, and how modern tools like room simulation headphones can elevate home recordings. Throughout the conversation, he highlights the value of community organizations like AES, continual learning, and building genuine relationships—lessons that are crucial for anyone looking to thrive in today's ever-changing industry. Get access to FREE mixing mini-course: https://MixMasterBundle.com My guest today is Gabe Dagrezio. Gabe started as the frontman of The New Story, an Italian touring band signed to EMI/Virgin in the early 2000s. His time in the studio sparked a deep passion for recording, leading him to master performance, engineering, and production. Gabe is a skilled guitarist, songwriter, and singer who has performed thousands of shows worldwide. His background gives him a performer's sensitivity in the studio, bridging the gap between artistry and technical precision. With a Bachelor of Music in Songwriting, Contemporary Guitar, and Music Technology, he brings a well-rounded approach to recording, mixing, and coaching artists to their best performances. We met a couple years ago and here's a quote from Gabe “NAMM, I walked up to you because I listen to your podcast, and I recognized the voice, then, I looked at your badge :)” THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS! http://UltimateMixingMasterclass.com https://usa.sae.edu/ https://www.izotope.com Use code ROCK10 to get 10% off! https://www.native-instruments.com Use code ROCK10 to get 10% off! https://www.adam-audio.com/ https://www.makebelievestudio.com/mbsi Get your MBSI plugin here! https://RecordingStudioRockstars.com/Academy  https://www.thetoyboxstudio.com/ Listen to the podcast theme song “Skadoosh!” https://solo.to/lijshawmusic Listen to this guest's discography on Soundcloud: Recent productions: https://on.soundcloud.com/BMSg25zFjH4crFA99 Original songs: https://on.soundcloud.com/YVPKzB29pob8UAy9A If you love the podcast, then please leave a review: https://RSRockstars.com/Review CLICK HERE FOR COMPLETE SHOW NOTES AT: https://RSRockstars.com/519

In today's podcast episode, we'll talk about whether or not Hertz will put Nick in jail, how Greg's British Airways flight was saved by Delta, and Marriott's "Brilliant" potential new business card line-up.Giant Mailbag(03:02) - Catch Greg on these podcasts: Chris Hutchins / All the Hacks: Top Airline & Hotel Transfer Partners to Maximize Your Points(03:42) - Point me to first class (Devon): What Credit Card Points Are Really Worth in 2025(04:18) - Many people wrote in with examples of where an International Driver's Permit is required (Japan, Italy, etc)See episode 318 about The Rental Car Game hereCard News(07:28) - Chase Sapphire Reserve® Card offer (100K + promo credit good for up to $500 towards a single Chase Travel℠ booking after $5K spend in 3 months) ending soon.Crazy Thing DOUBLE HEADER(09:36) - Alaska: Atmos Rewards(15:14) - A reader has a strange Lifemiles story to report...Nick's JetBlue 25for25 Update(18:52) - Marriott Day Use Rate: Got lounge access, earned elite night credit (and points)(20:30) - Edgar Hotel Martha's Vineyard: Undeniably Choice in some ways, but great room & value.(23:37) - Lounge access reminders worth a mention: Ritz card gets unlimited visits & guests at Sapphire Lounges. Use the Ritz card, not Priority Pass, for access. Amex Platinum cardholders get Escape Lounge with 2 guests. We've used Escape lounges at SJU, PVD, FLL, and PBI on this trip. Of those, only PVD is on Priority Pass (so remember to check for these!).(26:53) - Couldn't check in online for Etihad-booked flight ACK-LGA (expected -- no birthdays for P1 & P2). Got it fixed at the BOS Mosaic check-in area. Ended up being a quick fix. Glad they could do it at BOS because time was tight at ACK.(30:27) - Nick's Hertz rental (even if you only have the first part of the story -- it's entertaining!)Awards, Points, and More(36:14) - Air Canada Aeroplan program updates (mileage and status earning changes)(44:51) - Greg's positioning flight to Boston for the British Airways first class flight(49:01) - Greg flies AA Flagship Preferred Suites LHR to ORD(51:21) - If Uber to the airport seems expensive, try switching your airline(54:43) - New Reasonable Redemption Values (RRVs)Main Event: Marriott's rumored business cards(1:03:51) - The following is based on surveys, not announced changes...(1:05:18) - Amex Bonvoy Business card(1:13:28) - Amex Marriott Bevy Business(1:20:22) - The Rumored Amex Bonvoy Brilliant BusinessQuestion of the Week(1:28:22) - Which hotel-branded credit card is the best?Subscribe and FollowVisit https://frequentmiler.com/subscribe/ to get updated on in-depth points and miles content like this, and don't forget to like and follow us on social media.Music Credit – “Ocean Deep” by Annie Yoder

Alastair Humphreys is a legend in the world of adventure. If you haven't heard of him, here's a few of things he's gotten up to over the years … “Aged nine, he completed the 20 mile Yorkshire 3 Peaks challenge, then the National 3 Peaks in 24 hours aged 13. At 15 he cycled off-road across England … Then after leaving school, he cycled from Pakistan to China, Land's End to John O'Groats, Turkey to Italy, Mexico to Panama and across South America. He ran a charity project in the Philippines and the London marathon dressed as a rhino.” And that was before he left school! This episode picks up the story after he graduated university - and don't worry it doesn't stop.  Our ‘CONNECTION' episodes are deep dive interviews with some of the most inspirational and influential people in the world of travel and adventure.  Whether you're looking for an epic saga about a cross-continental bike trip or the wildest story about playing the violin you've ever heard, you're going to enjoy this episode about the many types of adventure that exist, how we can have them, and why we need them. FIND ALASTAIR Follow him on Instagram @Al_Humphreys. Find his latest book, Local, wherever books are sold (though we recommend ordering from your local bookshop!). Follow him on Instagram @Al_Humphrey to see what he's up to now, and sign up to his free newsletter at AlastairHumphreys.com where you can also find information on all his books, podcasts and more. SOCIAL Share the show with your friends! Subscribe to the podcast wherever you're listening, follow @armchairexplorerpodcast on Instagram and Facebook, check out Armchair Explorer's website, armchair-explorer.com, and learn more about APT Podcast Studios on their website at APTpodcaststudios.com. CREDITS This episode was produced by Armchair Productions. Find our other shows at armchair-productions.com. Aaron Millar presented the episode and Charles Tyrie did the audio editing and production. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, we discuss the Jubilee of Youth, a Roman Catholic event held in Rome, Italy, from July 29 to August 3, 2025, which attracted nearly 1 million youth from around the world. Much of what has been shared on social media by the Catholic Church is attractive to young evangelicals who are led to believe they can find the answer to their disillusions with faith and church in the Roman Catholic Church. But what is the real message of the Jubilee of Youth? Join us as we respond to this question.Episode resource:https://vaticanfiles.org/en/2025/08/vf245-jubilee-of-youth/Support the show

Giovanni Leoni is on the verge of leaving Parma to sign for Premier League champions Liverpool. Nima Tavallaey and Carlo Garganese debate, discuss, and analyze a question on this topic sent in from patron/YouTube member. This is an extended clip from this weeks Q & A episode of The Italian Football Podcast available only to patrons on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon.com/TIFP⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube Memberships⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. To listen to this & all other full episodes of The Italian Football Podcast (and support the show), go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon.com/TIFP⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ OR now also available on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ OR ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube Memberships⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and sign up. Your support makes The Italian Football Podcast possible. Follow us: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠, ⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

12 - Another Mulligan's remote show is underway today with Dom and Dan down in Wildwood! We are joined by Mike from Wake UP NJ, Robin Shaffer from Protect Our Coasts NJ, and Keith Hartsell! What is the real big problem in the Garden State? 1220 - Dom's Big List: The Top 10 moments of Mulligan's 1235 - Senator Mike Testa joins the roundtable! Why did he get into politics? Why does he like oysters so much? Why change the Bay of Delaware to the Bay of New Jersey? 1250 - We welcomed listeners Danielle and Nancy to the table to share their story of struggle and survival and we applaud them on the show. 1 - The roundtable at Mulligan's is joined by Chip Snapper! A.K.A Joe Conklin, the man of a thousand voices joins us. How does Chip like the shore? What is “Fragrant Vagrant” Day? Chip takes us through how the Trump presidency and headlines in the news are affecting him in his daily life. How does the President like West Wildwood? 120 - The Table is joined by Paula Scanlan and Matt Rooney in addition to Mike Testa and Mike from Wake Up NJ. Paula is a big beer drinker! How does the table view Paula's work? What is working with Scott Presler like? 135 - Fox News Contributor focusing on law enforcement, legal, and intelligence issues and founder of http://Opsdesk.org Paul Mauro hops on the line. What are DC police looking to do as they secure main streets downtown, and even arresting a guy for throwing a Subway sandwich at them? With carjacking by youths so prevalent in the capital? 140 - Get Matt Rooney a headset! More from the table. 150 - The Table finishes the hour with more from Paula. 2 - Joe of Columbus and The Earl of Tacony join us at the table with Joe Conklin. Dom has his own gravy now? Joel Embiid sits down at the table to talk about his credit in the new Naked Gun movie. Why does Earl have a jar of catnip? Joe took a nice photo with Paula, and we get his reaction to Putin and Trump meeting. 215 - Dom's Money Melody! 220 - Chef Dave also joins the program today. 230 - Joining the table are Betty and Frank who are heading over to Italy with the listeners. Philadelphia GOP Leader Vince Fenerty joins us to discuss Pat Dugan running as a Republican against Larry Krasner. Why is it so hard for Republicans in Philadelphia? What can Dom do to help the local GOP? 240 - Pam joins her husband Jonny Z to discuss the new “summer White House” shirts! What's for dinner? What did Johnny think of Kelsey Grammer being at his bar after being a big fan of ‘Cheers'? 250 - The Lightning Round!

Canada and Italy line up with the U.S. on this week's menu for the Ron Flatter Racing Pod.  Ashley Mailloux from FanDuel TV examines the 166th running of the King's Plate. She offers analysis about the field that includes No Time, the morning-line favorite trying to become the 40th filly to win this first race of the Canadian Triple Crown. The Palio di Siena, the ancient bareback race run twice every summer in Tuscany, happens again this weekend. Sportscaster Kenny Mayne and producer Matt Doyle recall their adventure covering the sometimes controversial event that is centuries old. La Cara, Good Cheer and Nitrogen are the big names in the Grade 1 Alabama at Saratoga. Super Screener creator Mike Shutty handicaps that and other races this weekend. Co-hosts John Cherwa of the Los Angeles Times and Keith Nelson of Fairmount Park join in paying tribute to a famous guest of an old Arlington Million (G1). The Ron Flatter Racing Pod via Horse Racing Nation is available via free subscription from Apple, Firefox, iHeart and Spotify as well as HorseRacingNation.com.

We're headed back to the 1970s and Italy, as we watch a kung-fu movie with very little kung-fu, but a whole lot of one liners, as we watch the amazingly titled Mr. Hercules Against Karate. Join us as we discuss the lack of good martial arts, when this movie wears out its welcome, and compare it to all-time classic literature. Join our Patreon at just $1 a month. The Patreon page is now live and you can check it out at Patreon.com/TCTAMPod.Find us on Bluesky, Instagram, and Threads @TCTAMPod and on TikTok @theycalledthisamovie.Our theme music was written and performed by Dave Katusa. He can be found on Instagram @dkat_productions.

A video of a woman in a Roman collar and Mass vestments has been published, in which she appeared to lift her hands as if she were concelebrating Mass at the Holy House of Loreto for the Jubilee of Youth. Dr. Taylor Marshall offers commentary. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I wanted a "best summer ever," but what I got was good, not great. If you've ever faced a similar disappointment—a goal that fell flat, a plan that didn't pan out, or a feeling that just wasn't what you'd hoped for—this episode is for you. I'm sharing my personal disappointment and how I'm handling it. Using my WN-WIN formula, we'll walk through what went well, what didn't, and what's most important now. Tune in to learn how to navigate your own disappointments with a practical and hopeful approach. Sign up as a Supporter to get access to our private, premium, ad-free podcast, More Personal. Episodes air each Friday! ⁠Get on the waitlist for Italy!⁠ Single traveler survey ⁠here⁠. More for Moms Conference Leave a rating and review Check out my ⁠workshops⁠! Follow About Progress on YOUTUBE! Book Launch Committee Free DSL Training Full Show Notes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Host Ricky Sacks was joined by Actors TJ Ramini, Darren Hart and Jim Via Oh So Spurs as our first-ever appearance in the UEFA Super Cup ended in a heartbreaking penalty shootout defeat to Paris Saint-Germain after a dramatic night in Italy on Wednesday. In what was Thomas Frank's first competitive game as our Head Coach, we looked like we were going to add more silverware to the Europa League trophy we won three months ago, leading the Champions League winners 2-0 with five minutes to go. A goal in each half from defenders Micky van de Ven and Cristian Romero – leading the team out after being appointed club captain – coupled with an outstanding display put us in control at the Stadio Friuli, home of Udinese. But PSG dug deep and levelled with two late goals, Kang-In Lee scoring with five minutes left before Goncalo Ramos equalised in the 94th minute. The game went straight to penalties and once again we led 2-0, but we couldn't hold onto our advantage again and ended up losing 4-3 on spot-kicks. The French champions only returned to training recently having reached the FIFA Club World Cup Final during the summer, but fielded eight of the starting 11 that began the Champions League Final against Internazionale, which they won 5-0. However, we produced a superb performance. All over the pitch we were excellent, defensively sound, snapping into tackles and closing up the gaps in midfield and dangerous in attack, while the pressing of the team in all areas was outstanding, not allowing PSG to get into their stride until the final moments when they dragged themselves back into the contest to force the shootout. Nominate Last Word On Spurs for Best Podcast - Premier League at the

Episode 487 / Logan T. Sibrel Logan T. Sibrel (b. 1986; Jasper, Indiana) is a Brooklyn-based painter. He received his BFA from Indiana University in 2009 and his MFA from Parsons the New School for Design in 2011. He has exhibited at Kornfeld Gallery in Berlin, Beers London, Vardan Gallery in Los Angeles, Monti8 in Rome, Eleftheria Tseliou Gallery in Athens, 1969 Gallery and Auxier Kline in New York, and is represented by Galerie Thomas Fuchs in Stuttgart. He has participated in the Palazzo Ventidue Artist Residency in Nardò, Italy, The Palazzo Monti Artist residency in Brescia, and the inaugural Wildfjords  Artist Residency in Ísafjörður, Iceland. One of his paintings was used for the cover of Brandon Taylor's The Late Americans, and he illustrated Meg Remy's book Begin by Telling. Aside from visual art, he is 1/2 of the Brooklyn-based band, Sister Pact.upcoming shows:1. Armory with Galerie Thomas Fuchs; September 5-72. Thought Cage (solo) at Auxier Kline in NYC opening September 13th3. Art Athina (fair) with Eleftheria Tseliou Gallery; September 18-224. Intimität: Queere Kunst der Gegenwart (group show) at Kunstmuseum Albstadt in Germany; November 7th - April 12, 2026

An incident at the Basilica of Loreto, where the Holy House of Mary is enshrined, is drawing widespread attention. Footage shows Catholic bishops concelebrating Mass alongside a woman dressed in a cassock and clerical collar, possibly a Protestant “priestess.”

A big Thank You to Belinda for requesting this episode! On a remote stretch of highway in the Australian Outback, a young couple's road trip turned into a nightmare. Peter Falconio, a British backpacker, vanished without a trace, and his girlfriend, Joanne Lees, was found battered and distraught, having escaped a terrifying ordeal. But as police began to unravel the events of that night, people started to doubt Joanne's story. Was she a brave survivor, or was she hiding a dark secret? Join Jen & Cam as they discuss 'Into the Never-Never: Peter Falconio & Joanne Lees' Come to Italy with us in 2026! Call to speak to an agent ⁠1-800-438-7672 ⁠ ⁠https://groups.goaheadtours.com/tours/zvrg-true-crime⁠ If you have any questions, RSVP with the link below for our Zoom meeting on August 19th at 6 PM CST. Can't wait to meet you! https://tinyurl.com/3sbzz7cz Thank you to our team Listener Discretion by ⁠⁠⁠Edward October ⁠⁠⁠ Research & Writing by Lauretta Allen Executive Producers Nico & Jesse of The Inky Pawprint ⁠⁠⁠https://theinkypawprint.com⁠ Sources: https://youtu.be/1ecev-s1S3Y?si=RzWiYo9FiD7XzqcH https://youtu.be/EOI6HiMayK4?si=ip07xi1aaONpVjoK https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Territory https://www.newspapers.com/image/259639810/?match=1&terms=Joanne%20Lees https://www.newspapers.com/image/727358980/?match=1 https://www.newspapers.com/image/720094814/?match=1&terms=Joanne%20Lees https://www.newspapers.com/image/752702312/?match=1&terms=Joanne%20Lees https://www.newspapers.com/image/121437746/?match=1&terms=Joanne%20Lees https://www.newspapers.com/image/121591385/?match=1&terms=Joanne%20Lees https://www.newspapers.com/image/257729313/?match=1&terms=Joanne%20Lees https://www.newspapers.com/image/1052210791/?match=1&terms=Joanne%20Lees https://www.newspapers.com/image/1140309498/?match=1&terms=Joanne%20Lees https://www.newspapers.com/image/1179747398/?match=1&terms=Joanne%20Lees https://www.newspapers.com/image/1049290141/?match=1&terms=Joanne%20Lees https://www.newspapers.com/image/752436797/?match=1&terms=Joanne%20Lees https://www.newspapers.com/image/726001238/?match=1&terms=Joanne%20Lees https://www.newspapers.com/image/752434849/?match=1&terms=Joanne%20Lees https://www.newspapers.com/image/753330238/?match=1 https://www.newspapers.com/image/723422920/?match=1&terms=Joanne%20Lees https://time.com/archive/6952425/terror-australis/ https://www.news.com.au/national/northern-territory/the-unanswered-questions-about-peter-falconios-murder-as-outback-killer-dies-aged-67/news-story/9e85d77b4d33e26fbceb00d7b22defe0 https://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/outback-murder-mystery-of-peter-falconio-remains/news-story/c24596ba385b0b0751e616cf75235139  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Peter_Falconio https://www.theage.com.au/national/doubt-over-dna-test-in-falconio-case-20071224-ge6ji5.html https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/nov/02/australia.uk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ja-Y3vw0WDQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihObH8e3jvQ&t=1128s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ov-S8ZoLgE Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On November 1, 2007, a man named Rudy Guede broke into a random home in Perugia, Italy, then raped and killed Meredith Kercher—a 21-year-old exchange student from the University of Leeds. You might not even remember the names Rudy Guede and Meredith Kercher. But one name you will remember is Meredith's roommate, Amanda Knox, a 20-year-old exchange student from Seattle. In the weeks and years after Kercher's murder, the media and the prosecution concocted a narrative that Amanda, her boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, and Guede had played a violent sex game leading to Kercher's murder. Amanda was portrayed as a deviant sex fiend, a slut, a killer, and a psychopath. The problem is that none of it was true. Amanda had only been dating Sollecito a week. She had never met Guede. And most importantly, she was not playing a sex game that led to Kercher's death. Amanda would end up spending a total of eight years on trial and four years in prison for a murder she did not commit. And Kercher's real murderer—Guede—would never be charged with killing Kercher alone. He'd spend only 13 years behind bars for this crime. And after his release in 2021, he would be accused of committing a similar crime again. Here's the part of the story most people don't know: On the morning of November 5, 2007, Amanda Knox was taken into custody in Italy. She wasn't given a lawyer or a translator. She wasn't told that she was a suspect. She was questioned for 53 hours. She was struck by a police officer, gaslit, and pressured into signing a confession. Now, 18 years since she was taken into custody, she has released a memoir called Free: My Search for Meaning to tell the full story of what happened in Perugia, how she fought for vindication, how the tabloids and credible news organizations villainized her, and what her life has been like since she was exonerated in 2015. Today on Honestly, Bari asks Amanda Knox how she survived in prison, how she reintegrated into society, why she returned to Italy to confront the judge who put her behind bars, why she chooses forgiveness, and what it means to be truly free. Go to ⁠groundnews.com/Honestly ⁠to get 40% off the unlimited access Vantage plan and unlock world-wide perspectives on today's biggest news stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices