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It's ev.news Briefly for Thursday 27 August 2026, only today's headlines and nothing else, in just 4 minutes if you haven't got time for the full show.Patreon supporters fund this show, get the episodes ad free, as soon as they're ready and are part of the ev.news Community. You can be like them by clicking here: https://www.patreon.com/evnewsHYUNDAI PLANS 41 EUROPEAN MODELS BY 2030Hyundai and Genesis will launch 41 new or updated models in Europe by 2030, targeting more than 420,000 EV sales a year against 116,000 in 2025, with Ioniq 3 production having started at İzmit on 14 August and a small electric SUV, a mid-sized electric SUV and commercial vehicles to follow. CEO José Muñoz said Europe is one of the most competitive regions on the planet and that every EV credit protects the ICE and hybrid business, while the claimed 30% battery-cost reduction is a planned saving on 2027 models using mid-nickel NCM cells rather than an achieved one.HYUNDAI CLAIMS MORE THAN 600 MILES FOR SANTA FE EREVHyundai's first range-extender EV, the Santa Fe EREV, is due in North America in the first half of 2027 with a claimed 600-plus miles of total range from a battery less than half the size of a comparable EV's, using electric motors for drive and an engine solely as a generator. Production begins in Alabama in early 2027, with Hyundai expecting EREVs to matter more in North America than in Europe, and an Ioniq V EREV planned for China plus a Genesis EREV in early 2027.HYUNDAI PLANS INTERMEDIATE N PERFORMANCE TIERHyundai is creating an unnamed performance tier between N Line trims and full N models, using N powertrains but at lower cost and better suited to daily driving. It sees the high-volume middle ground as a sales opportunity that could also free the flagship N cars, such as the Ioniq 5 N and Ioniq 6 N, to become more track-focused, though no technical details have been disclosed.HYUNDAI SELECTS KALUZA FOR SMART CHARGINGHyundai has named London-based Kaluza its global partner for EV smart charging and vehicle-to-grid services, starting with Hyundai and Kia in the UK and expanding to Australia, with OVO becoming the first UK retailer to offer smart charging through the Kia App. The deal sits within Hyundai Motor Group's AllDayEnergy programme launched in July, expanding existing pilots in Jeju, the US and the Netherlands, with V2G services planned for next year.OMODA 4 SET FOR BARCELONA ESPORTS DEBUTChery brand Omoda will launch its 4.4-metre Omoda 4 compact crossover in Europe at the Valorant Champions Tour EMEA finals in Barcelona from 28 to 30 August, targeting younger technology-oriented buyers, before an Italian debut at the Turin show on 11 September. Europe accounts for more than 40 percent of Omoda and Jaecoo's global sales, and Chery, Europe's second bestselling Chinese automaker in July behind BYD, opened its first European hub and R&D centre in Barcelona in April.VOLVO ADDS SHARED ANIMAL HAZARD ALERTSA Volvo software update lets EX60, EX90 and ES90 cars use sensors and cameras to detect large animals such as deer and sheep, upload the location to the cloud and warn approaching vehicles, including those on the European Data for Road Safety programme, with added alerts for pedestrians, cyclists, roadworks and accidents ahead. Safety chief Åsa Haglund said the newer models' computing power makes this possible but that warnings must be trustworthy, since false positives deteriorate trust in driver-assistance systems.VOLTPOST ADDS CEILING AND SURFACE EV CHARGERSVoltpost has extended its Voltpost Air range beyond lamppost retrofits with ceiling-mounted chargers that lower retractable cables in parking garages and surface-mounted units for walls, pedestals and kerbside sites without poles. It claims installations take hours rather than days and can cut costs by up to 70%, though it has told Massachusetts regulators each charger needs 40A and dual-port units 80A, with some sites requiring power upgrades or a new meter.PLUG-IN SOLAR PANELS LEGALISED ACROSS GREAT BRITAINPlug-in solar panels became legal to buy and use across Great Britain on 27 August, with kits generating up to 800W, meeting up to 20% of a home's electricity use and saving up to £110 a year, after independent safety testing found compliant panels safe under a specification stricter than Germany's. Complete kits are expected to cost around £400–£600 initially and will be stocked by Amazon, Argos, Currys, B&Q, Screwfix and Wickes, with government assuming 15% of households pay for mounting help and 20% need minor electrical work.NIO CERTIFIED USED EVS START AT 26,900 EUROSNio's cheapest certified used EV in Europe costs 26,900 euros without a battery, which buyers instead subscribe to under Battery as a Service at 169 euros a month for 75kWh or 289 euros for 100kWh in Germany and the Netherlands, adding close to 7,000 euros over the remaining warranty for the larger pack. All cars are 2023 or 2024 builds with roughly two years of warranty left, drawn from Nio's own fleet and given full technical, cosmetic and structural inspections, original-parts repairs and no scheduled servicing for six months or 10,000 kilometres.APTERA SECURES UP TO $44 MILLION INVESTMENTAptera Motors has secured a strategic investment of up to $44 million from Shanghai Launch Automotive Technology, or Launch Design, covering fixtures, tooling, testing and pilot production for its first 40 solar electric vehicles at its planned Carlsbad, California site. The company is targeting the start of production in Q4 2026, with first vehicle bodies and chassis expected in October 2026.VESSEV RAISES $A27 MILLION FOR HYDROFOIL PRODUCTIONAuckland-based Vessev has raised $US19 million in Series A and follow-on funding led by Blackbird Ventures to scale production of its electric hydrofoiling vessels, grow its market team and develop onboard software and telemetry. The 2017-founded firm, which launched the 40-nautical-mile VS-9 in 2024 and has since added the VS-12, has delivery agreements in Sydney, Perth and Tasmania and named FlyTahoe as its first US customer, though its first Perth VS-9s only arrive in early 2027 pending classification and regulatory approval.
TRASH IN THE CAN: INTENSIVE CARE This week, the boys head to the Netherlands for the gloriously goofy 1991 slasher Intensive Care. Filmmaker and stage director Jason Neulander joins us to discuss George Kennedy's easiest paycheck, saxophone seduction, and an entire town's lack of peripheral vision. Plus, Jason tells us about his new show, Treasure […]
Fifth-time guest Lisa Harper is back — fresh off a whirlwind trip through England, Wales, the Netherlands, and Scotland, and still nursing the jet lag. Between hug-ministry theology, Levi's 75-day merino wool shorts experiment (Lisa remains skeptical), and a surprise moment praying with a stranger in a London store, the conversation turns to Lisa's new book on the Song of Songs — unpacking how the Bible's most intimate book taught her that God delights in her, brokenness and all. Connect with us on social! Lisa: @lisadharper Levi: @levilusko Jennie: @jennielusko Fresh Life Church: @freshlife [Links] Get Lisa's book, Song of Songs: The Love We Long For: https://bit.ly/4xQn2MY Visit Lisa's website: https://bit.ly/3UAIS8W Get the 5 Gallon Bucket: https://bit.ly/sdl4sHY Get the Lusketeer Sticker: https://bit.ly/sdl4sHY Subscribe for more exclusive content: https://levilusko.com/hitl-subscribe Time Stamps: 00:00:00 – Lisa's fifth visit and the great HITL guest rankings 00:01:37 – Confessions of a hug-ministry professional 00:08:28 – Levi's 75-day merino wool shorts experiment 00:11:19 – Praying with a stranger in a London store 00:14:09 – King Arthur's Seat and an accidental royal garden party 00:19:46 – Introducing her new book, Song of Songs: The Love We Long For 00:24:53 – Why the bride's voice matters more than we think 00:36:47 – Favorite vignettes and the Song of Songs sequel jokes 00:46:17 – Closing thoughts on intimacy, bruises, and redemption
It's ev.news Briefly for Tuesday 25 August 2026, only today's headlines and nothing else, in just 4 minutes if you haven't got time for the full show.Patreon supporters fund this show, get the episodes ad free, as soon as they're ready and are part of the ev.news Community. You can be like them by clicking here: https://www.patreon.com/evnewsWALMART OPENS 100TH FAST-CHARGING STATIONWalmart has opened its 100th branded EV fast-charging station at its Monument, Colorado Supercenter, extending a network that now covers 20 states — up from 17 a month earlier — despite the retailer having no branded chargers less than two years ago. The four-stall site uses ABB Mobility all-in-one dispensers delivering up to 400 kW with NACS and CCS1 connectors and app-only payment, part of a rollout that added 612 stalls in the first half of 2026 and ranked second only to Tesla for new ports energised in Q2, at an average $0.43 per kWh with 10% off for Walmart+ members.HYUNDAI OPENS IONIQ V PRE-SALES IN CHINABeijing Hyundai has begun pre-sales of the Ioniq V at the 2026 Chengdu Auto Show ahead of a September launch, priced from 119,900 yuan (about $17,300) to 139,900 yuan across three versions, with up to 650 km of CLTC range, an 800-volt E-GMP architecture, CATL LFP batteries of 53.5 or 66.8 kWh and single motors of 140 or 168 kW. It is the first production Ioniq developed in China, using a 27-inch 4K Snapdragon 8295 screen, Momenta highway L2+ assistance and Baidu and ByteDance AI infotainment, as Hyundai targets 20 electrified models and 500,000 annual Chinese sales by 2030.POLESTAR CLAIMS UNEQUAL US TREATMENTPolestar has accused the US Commerce Department of "disparate treatment" after a June 24 denial blocked its American sales from model year 2027, noting that Volvo — which shares Chinese majority owner Geely and builds the Polestar 3 on the same South Carolina line — was authorised earlier in 2026. In an Aug. 18 letter, Peter Wexler said the 13-month review dismissed mitigation offers including audits, cybersecurity reviews and removal of China links from data management, despite officials indicating in January and April that approval was likely; dealers have called the outcome devastating, with a New Jersey group suing for $25 million over an allegedly concealed US withdrawal.DUTCH PLUG-IN MARKET FAVOURS RICH HOUSEHOLDSStatistics agency CBS found that the Netherlands' shift to electric cars has mainly benefited wealthy households, with the top-earning 10% buying almost 75,000 of the roughly 259,000 electric and plug-in hybrid cars traded in 2025 and the top 20% accounting for nearly half. The lowest-earning 10% bought about 6,000, or 2%, and two-thirds of cars bought by the poorest fifth were over a decade old, prompting a €52 million, three-year subsidy scheme from the final quarter of 2026 for lower- and middle-income buyers of second-hand EVs who scrap older petrol or diesel vehicles.MERCEDES CLA ELECTRIC COVERS 385 MILES AT 70 MPHThe dual-motor 2027 Mercedes-Benz CLA 350 4MATIC Electric covered 385 miles in a constant-speed 70 mph range test on 19-inch wheels, exceeding its 312-mile EPA Combined rating by 73 miles, or 23%, with 2 miles remaining at 0% charge. Consumption of 225 Wh per mile implied 86.6 kWh used against an 85-kWh net battery, with the result credited to the 800-volt Mercedes Modular Architecture and a two-speed rear-motor transmission of the type that has also helped Porsche and Audi models beat their ratings.OPEL SETS 2028 DATE FOR ELECTRIC CORSAOpel CEO Florian Huettl has pushed the all-electric Corsa successor from 2027 to 2028, moving the brand's best-seller onto Stellantis' STLA Small platform as a battery-electric-only model with bigger batteries, more range and prices from €25,000, against the current e-CMP Corsa Electric's 46-49 kWh battery, 429 km claim and €30,440 starting price. Huettl cited improving range, charging and fuel costs rather than any fixed date to end combustion engines, and Opel will still deliver the e-CMP-based Corsa GSE, capable of 0-100 kph in 5.5 seconds, to dealers this year.ROME BACKS ELECTRIC AND HYDROGEN BUSESRome will spend €117 million from Italy's infrastructure ministry on new buses through operator ATAC, split between €83.6 million for hydrogen models and €27.1 million for battery-electric ones plus depot upgrades, though neither quantities nor manufacturers have been named. A further €6 million in European funding will build a green hydrogen hub using local electrolysis at ATAC's Acilia site, complementing a charge introduced in July 2026 for EVs entering a restricted central zone that takes about 50,000 cars a day against a designed capacity of 20,000.SUZUKI PLANS VISION E-SKY EUROPE EXPORTSuzuki intends to export its Vision e-Sky electric microcar from Japan, with Europe possible in 2027 and the UK and Italy under review at an expected UK price below £20,000, ahead of a Japanese world premiere in autumn and production at a plant southwest of Tokyo. Based on Japan's kei-car class and targeting 310 km of range with likely LFP cells from BYD's corporate network, it would be Suzuki's first battery-electric kei car and reportedly the first exported almost unchanged, offering growth potential after European sales fell 15% to 187,000 in the year to March.MEXICO ELECTRIFIED SALES RISE AS PRODUCTION FALLSMexico sold 95,037 electrified vehicles in the first half of 2026, up 44% year on year for a 12.6% market share, led by Toyota in conventional hybrids and boosted by expanding Chinese brands, while charging points reached 60,934 and 170 electrified models are now offered. Production moved the other way, falling to 47,411 units from 110,002 a year earlier as weaker US demand cut Equinox output by 81.6% and Blazer output by 80%, prompting the Electro Mobility Association to call for policies supporting both electrification and domestic manufacturing.ELECTRIC MOTORHOME USES EVOLVE PLATFORMCityFreighter, Vöhringer and Motive Development have unveiled an electric motorhome demonstrator for Europe's 4.25-tonne Class B category, built on CityFreighter's Evolve skateboard with a Vöhringer AIRPLY lightweight interior and coming in under 3.5 tonnes complete with kitchen, bathroom and heat pump, leaving about 750 kg of payload. Its 128-kWh battery gives roughly 400 km of range, supports vehicle-to-load and charges from 10-80% in about 20 minutes at up to 200 kW, while independent battery replacement and upgrades are pitched as protecting residual value in vehicles that often stay in service for decades.
Today on Tales of a Nuffield Scholar supported by NFU Mutual we bring series two to a close with something slightly different
Wednesday, August 26, 2026 Welcome to Point of View's Wednesday show with host Kerby Anderson. He opens the show with a recap of today's top stories. Then he welcomes Deneé Barracato, Executive Director of Chicagoland FCA. She shares how FCA ministry is launching in the Netherlands. Connect with us on Facebook at facebook.com/pointofviewradio and on Twitter @PointofViewRTS […]
London's better in a black cab. Get the https://blackcab.com app on Apple or Google Play. No surge pricing. Regulated fares. Professional drivers. Get 15% off your eSIM today—download the Saily app or visit https://saily.com/lwos and use code LWOS at checkout. With Tottenham set to have a very interesting season under Roberto De Zerbi, make sure you never miss an update with our brand new Substack. Download the Substack app for exclusive coverage of Last Word On Spurs: https://lastwordonspurs.substack.com/ Please also help grow our community and join us on Roundtable as we bring you all the latest Tottenham Hotspur news in written format over at: https://roundtable.io/sports/soccer/premier-league/tottenham The Last Word On Spurs panel reassembles as Manchester City could be set to hijack Tottenham Hotspur's move for Cody Gakpo, with Spurs facing competition for the Netherlands international. We discuss the latest developments, and our number one alternative to Gakpo and assess why the club are yet to officially announce the arrivals of Savinho and Omar Marmoush. The uncertainty comes on a day when Manchester City released training footage showing Marmoush still at the club's training base, despite multiple reports suggesting the Egyptian had travelled to London to undergo his medical. Savinho, meanwhile, is understood to have already completed his medical, with only the official confirmation of his move seemingly pending. We also discuss the latest on James Maddison, who requires further medical checks following the knock he picked up against Brentford, before closing with the developing story surrounding the consortium that announced an agreement to purchase the majority of Daniel Levy's stake in ENIC, Tottenham's parent company. Despite the announcement, the consortium is yet to pay for the deal, with questions now being raised over how the takeover will be funded. Independent Multi-Award Winning Tottenham Hotspur Fan Channel (Podcast) providing instant post-match analysis and previews to every single Spurs match along with a range of former players, managers & special guests. WEBSITE: www.lastwordonspurs.com #THFC #TOTTENHAM #SPURS Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Psychologists Off The Clock: A Psychology Podcast About The Science And Practice Of Living Well
Parenting a kid with ADHD takes way more than standard advice; it requires understanding a complex brain difference that impacts focus, sleep, big emotions, and daily energy.In this episode, child psychologist Dr. Emily King and TILT Parenting founder Debbie Reber join Emily to give their perspective on what neurodivergent parenting looks like by challenging the "disorder" label, unpacking why behaviors shift between home and school, and diving into hidden struggles like RSD, time blindness, and burnout.From navigating evaluations to handling the gap between your child's age and their developmental stage, this conversation offers the honest, evidence-based grounding every parent needs.Tune in now, and reach out to Emily Edlynn to learn more about her 1-on-1 parent coaching!Listen and Learn: Should ADHD be framed as a medical disorder or a brain regulation difference?How pathologizing language impacts stigma, diagnosis, and access to support in both clinical and educational settings Why the name "ADHD" is misleading and how the disorder goes far beyond inattention and hyperactivity to affect emotional regulation, sleep, appetite, and energy management How to navigate the ADHD diagnosis process from choosing between a pediatrician and a full neuropsychological evaluation to gathering cross-environment data and shifting parent strategies for lasting behavioral change Overlooked ADHD traits that rarely get covered in formal evaluations and practical strategies to support your child without damaging their self-esteem How ADHD-related time blindness, task avoidance, and a lack of future-oriented thinking drive daily struggles like running late and better understanding your child's neurodivergent experience How emotional sensitivity, sensory processing, and energy regulation manifest in children with ADHD and autism and why a child's behavior can look so drastically different between home and school Why raising a neurodivergent child feels like "advanced parenting," and the deep isolation, constant judgment, and overwhelming family burnout that comes with itResources:https://www.dremilyking.com/The Neurodivergent Learner https://www.learnwithdremily.com/bookhttps://www.learnwithdremily.com/bookhttps://www.instagram.com/emilywkingphd/https://www.facebook.com/emilywkingphdhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/emilywkingphd/https://www.debbiereber.com/Differently Wired: A Parent's Guide to Raising an Atypical Child with Confidence and Hope https://bookshop.org/a/30734/9781523506316https://www.facebook.com/DeborahReberAuthor/https://twitter.com/debbiereber Tilt Parenting Podcast 359 A Conversation with Dr. Emily Edlynn on Raising Autonomous ChildrenEmily Edlynn's website – contact her directly if you are interested in a parent group! Emily Edlynn's Substack pieces about ADHD:Raising ADHD: Beyond the DiagnosisRaising ADHD: Why Common Parenting Strategies Don't WorkWhat the New York Times Got Wrong About ADHDUnderstanding This One Emotion Will Transform Your ParentingAbout Emily King and Debbie ReberEmily King is a child psychologist who has worked with neurodivergent learners for over 20 years. She received a Ph.D. in School Psychology from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and began her career in Houston, Texas specializing in school-based mental health in K-12 public schools. She has since worked in private practice in North Carolina supporting the mental health, executive functioning, and social needs of neurodivergent youth. Dr. Emily hosts the Learn with Dr. Emily Substack, where she provides parent workshops, is the creator of The Neurodiverse Classroom®, a professional development curriculum for educators, and her first book, THE NEURODIVERGENT LEARNER, came out on August 25th. Debbie Reber is a parenting activist, bestselling author, speaker, and the founder of Tilt Parenting, a top resource for parents raising neurodivergent children. Since launching Tilt in 2016, Debbie has championed a strengths-based approach that reframes how society supports differently wired kids. Her groundbreaking book, Differently Wired, is widely recommended by professionals in education and mental health, and her Full-Tilt Parenting Podcast has 10+ million downloads, featuring leading voices in the intersection of parenting and neurodivergence. A parent coach and Positive Discipline trainer, Debbie has been featured in The Washington Post, The New York Times, and on NewsNation, is a three-time TEDx speaker, and is a founding expert and advisor for HumanUp. She lives in the Netherlands with her husband and two cats, while her neurodivergent young adult attends university in Scotland.Related Episodes:395. Neurodivergence with Jennifer Kemp367. ADHD in Adulthood with Michaela Thomas344. Differently Wired Kids with Deborah Reber319. Autonomy-Supportive Parenting with the AMAZING Emily Edlynn202. The Addiction Inoculation with Jess Lahey187. Raising a Child with ADHD with Russell BarkleySee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Gaby Dijkstra is an outdoor enthusiast, solo traveller, and researcher with a passion for remote mountain environments. Whether climbing, skiing, or paragliding, she feels most at home in the mountains and has travelled to all seven continents, breaking barriers as a solo female adventurer. After years of working in education and girl empowerment projects, Gaby became increasingly curious about the construct of gender and how societal expectations shape our behaviours, opportunities, and experiences. This curiosity ultimately led her to pursue a PhD at Rotterdam School of Management, designing her own research project to investigate the role of gender in extreme environments. In 2024, Gaby spent 191 days in the Himalayas, including 132 days living on the mountains, conducting fieldwork during a full climbing season in Nepal. Her research explored the role of gender in the extreme mountaineering industry, particularly among the people who work and operate in these challenging environments. Along the way, she joined a commercial expedition to climb Ama Dablam, visited the Khumbu Icefall and the Manaslu region, and was invited to take part in an exclusive winter expedition to Annapurna I. Through interviews, observations, and lived experience, Gaby gathered what she describes as "a mountain of data" on how gender norms continue to shape the culture of mountaineering. In this episode, Gaby shares what she learned from her time in the Himalayas, why the traditional heroic narrative of mountaineering can be harmful to both men and women, and how understanding gender as a social construct can help us rethink leadership, decision-making, and belonging in extreme environments. Listen to this episode to learn about conducting a PhD in one of the world's most challenging landscapes, the hidden gender dynamics within the mountaineering industry, and why talking to other women and pursuing your curiosities can open doors to entirely new adventures. *** New episodes of the Tough Girl Podcast drop every Tuesday at 7 AM (UK time)! Make sure to subscribe so you never miss the inspiring journeys and incredible stories of tough women pushing boundaries. Do you want to support the Tough Girl Mission to increase the amount of female role models in the media in the world of adventure and physical challenges? Support via Patreon! Join me in making a difference by signing up here: www.patreon.com/toughgirlpodcast. Your support makes a difference. Thank you x *** Show notes Living in Amsterdam, Netherlands 37, freelancer and researcher Having a background in sports management Using sports to help society tackle challenges PhD at Rotterdam School of Management Designing her own study project - the role of gender in extreme environments Gender as a social construct How social constructs can limit us in who we are and how we behave What is appropriate behaviour for societies gender expectations Study something that is interesting for you Looking at gender and not understanding the construct Loving all types of outdoor sports. Being most happy when in the mountains Where are all the women - always being surrounded by men Starting to work in leadership project. Girl empowerment projects. Introducing girls to sports Getting frustrated and wanting to learn more about the construct of gender Wanting to know how this plays out in extreme environments If there are no obstacles - where would you like to go for your PhD? Wanting to go back to the Himalayas 191 days in the field, spending 132 days on a mountain Conducting fieldwork in the mountains of Nepal for a full climbing season Looking at the role of gender in the climbing industry - especially for people working in the mountains Studying only from the Nepal side Taking part in a commercial climbing expedition - climbing Ama Dablam (6,812 metres (22,349 ft)) Doing a participant observation study - What it means to be a client in the industry Being invited to join an exclusive winter expedition - visiting Annapurna I Visiting the Manaslu Region Vistiting Mt. Everest and the Khumbu icefalls Speaking with women climbing and working The lessons and learning from the research - having "a mountain of data!" Her PnD based on three articles The first article based on doing a discourse analysis based on 100 years of expedition reports - looking at gender norms and how they can be identified The 2nd and 3rd articles based on her experience Looking at the theory of sense making, decision making Not looking at the different between men and women The heroic sense of mountaineering - the summit above all else…. The traditional norms and how it can harm both men and women Women being extra tough on other women How to connect with Gaby to find out more about her work Wanting to be outside rather than on social media Words of advice for other women who want to purse their interests Talk to other women Social Media Website: www.sportsleadership.nl Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/gabydijkstra
Lando Norris can win the drivers title: real or overreaction?Max Verstappen has signed up for four more years of pain: real, not overreaction.
Join the LB trio from the Netherlands as they break down an eventful final Dutch GP at Zandvoort! From home heartbreak, to questionable team orders and some much-needed points for Aston Martin, they run through the lot. Want more Late Braking? Support the show on Patreon and get:Ad-free listeningFull-length bonus episodesPower Rankings after every raceHistorical race reviews& more exclusive extras!Don't forget! You can also gift a Late Braking Patreon subscription—perfect for loved ones or your own wish list. Choose anything from 1 month up to a full year of top-notch F1 content: https://www.patreon.com/latebrakingf1/gift Connect with Late Braking:You can find us on YouTube, Instagram, X (Twitter) and TikTokCome hang out with us and thousands of fellow F1 fans in our Discord server and get involved in lively everyday & race weekend chats!Join our F1 Fantasy League and see if you can beat us! LEAGUE CODE: C6Y6R4ZUY02Get in touch any time at podcast@latebraking.co.uk Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Send us Fan MailThe Vital MX 'MXGP Podcast Show' tackles the sixteenth round of the 2026 FIM Motocross World Championship, the Grand Prix of The Netherlands at Arnhem. Hosts Lewis Phillips and Adam Wheeler dive deep into that on-track action with support from DC Shoes.
In this episode of the Fitness + Technology Podcast, Bryan O'Rourke welcomes Frank van de Ven to the show. Frank recently retired as Chief Commercial and Chief Marketing Officer of Life Fitness, closing out a nearly three-decade run with the company that took him from EMEA Marketing Director to General Manager of Life Fitness Benelux, Managing Director for Continental Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and ultimately Vice President International, with responsibility for Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia-Pacific. Born in the Netherlands and a veteran of Philips and GE Plastics before entering the fitness industry, Frank spent the early 1990s as Commercial Director of High Five Health Promotion, where he built the franchise model that carried the brand into the commercial club market. He has served multiple terms on the board of EHFA (now EuropeActive), written columns for two trade publications, and presented at conventions across Europe. Today he advises a portfolio of companies —including HUR, One Beyond Success, Recharge Yourself, and Fold Reformer — and mentors emerging leaders across the sector. In this wide-ranging conversation, Bryan and Frank trade questions on trends, technology, and where the industry is heading. Check out FIT-C's 2026 Digital Pulse Report: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GTV2QT18 Learn more about Fitness Brazil 2026: https://www.fitnessbrasil.com.br/fitness-brasil-expo-2026/ Learn more about HFA's European Congress: https://hub.healthandfitness.org/european-congress One Powerful Quote: 18:46: "If you do what you get, you get what you got." 4-10 Bullet Points (w/ timestamps) - Highlighting key topics discussed: 3:34: Bryan opens the show, and Frank walks through his path into the fitness industry and the work he's focused on now. 10:42: Frank identifies the key trends shaping the market, and the ones the industry is overlooking. 18:40: Bryan asks how the competitive landscape is shifting as new ideas and products enter the space. 21:03: Frank shares his perspective on technology and the impact it's having across the industry. 23:59: Frank closes with the lessons he's taken from his career. Bullet List of Resources: https://foldreformer.com/ Guest Contact Information: https://www.linkedin.com/in/frank-van-de-ven-48b5974/ https://www.bryankorourke.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryankorourke/ http://www.fittechcouncil.org/ https://www.youtube.com/user/bko61163
London's better in a black cab. Get the https://blackcab.com app on Apple or Google Play. No surge pricing. Regulated fares. Professional drivers. Get 15% off your eSIM today—download the Saily app or visit https://saily.com/lwos and use code LWOS at checkout. With Tottenham set to have a very interesting season under Roberto De Zerbi, make sure you never miss an update with our brand new Substack. Download the Substack app for exclusive coverage of Last Word On Spurs: https://lastwordonspurs.substack.com/ Please also help grow our community and join us on Roundtable as we bring you all the latest Tottenham Hotspur news in written format over at: https://roundtable.io/sports/soccer/premier-league/tottenham The new Premier League season is finally here, and on the latest episode of Last Word On Spurs, we look ahead to Tottenham Hotspur's opening-day trip to Brentford as Roberto De Zerbi prepares for his first full campaign in charge. We run through the latest team news and discuss how De Zerbi could set his side up at the Gtech Community Stadium, while assessing the challenges Brentford could pose and the threats Spurs will need to be ready for. There's also plenty to get stuck into on the transfer front. Spurs are closing in on a sensational double swoop for Manchester City forwards Savinho and Omar Marmoush, as the club look to add some much-needed attacking firepower. We debate what the pair could bring to De Zerbi's side and how they could change the balance of the team. We also discuss Tottenham's ongoing pursuit of Cody Gakpo and what it might take for Liverpool to finally consider parting ways with the Netherlands international. With Spurs having already undergone a huge summer rebuild, we ask the big question: what more do Tottenham need to do to genuinely be considered Premier League title challengers? Finally, the boys lock in their season predictions — from where Spurs will finish to how far De Zerbi can take this new-look Tottenham side. Brentford. Transfers. Gakpo. Savinho. Marmoush. Title ambitions. Season predictions. The new era is here. Let's get into it. COYS! #THFC #COYS #TOTTENHAM Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Joe's Premium Subscription: www.standardgrain.comGrain Markets and Other Stuff Links —Apple PodcastsSpotifyTikTokYouTubeFutures and options trading involves risk of loss and is not suitable for everyone.
Are GCSE's working for all children? Figures show resits in Maths and English are dragging down the overall results in those subjects. Whilst post 16 education has evolved with A levels, BTECs and T levels, GCSE's have remained largely unchanged since they were introduced in 1988. Chloe Tilly talks to Vanessa Clarke, BBC education correspondent.The CEO of Travelodge Jo Boydell has resigned following a string of security lapses in which unauthorised room access has been granted without the guest's permission. Chloe speaks to Sharon Thompson who made contact with the BBC, reporting that a man accessed her hotel room at 2am, frightening her and her daughter. We'll also hear from Carolyn Pearson, CEO of a travel security company on how women can keep themselves safe while staying in hotels.Parents are taking on debt, cutting maternity leave short and some say they've even resorted to unsafe feeding practices because of the cost of infant formula. New research shows the profits that baby formula companies are making and the impact on family finances, mental health and babies' wellbeing. Chloe is joined by Professor Amy Brown, who led the study and mum Ruth Kenfield.The latest of our series where our academic researchers in residence talk about something that's caught their eye this summer. Ashleigh Percival-Borley served in the British Army in Afghanistan, but now she's close to completing a doctorate in history at the University of Durham looking at women in the Special Operations Executive. That's the organisation responsible for espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance behind enemy lines during the Second World War. But Ashleigh thinks it's time for us to reconsider one particular set of women who worked at the Special Operations Executive such as June Darton Kerr. This weekend, one of Britain's brightest young female motorsport talents will be racing in the Netherlands. Alisha Palmowski won at Silverstone last month. It was the first time what's known as the F1 academy, which promotes female drivers, has raced there. Alisha is one of a new generation of female drivers hoping to prove that women belong at the very highest levels of motorsport. She joins Chloe.Presenter: Chloe Tilley Producer: Corinna Jones
LISTENER DISCRETION IS ADVISED! References: Alam N, Oskam E, et. al. PHANTASi Trial Investigators and the ORCA (Onderzoeks Consortium Acute Geneeskunde) Research Consortium the Netherlands. Prehospital antibiotics in the ambulance for sepsis: a multicentre, open label, randomised trial. Lancet Respir Med. 2018 Jan;6(1):40-50. Jouffroy, R., Annane, D., et. al. (2026). A 1-hour resuscitation bundle for prehospital management of septic shock. Critical Care Medicine. Knack, S. K. S., Scott, N., Driver, B. E., et al. (2024). Early physician gestalt versus usual screening tools for the prediction of sepsis in critically ill emergency patients. Annals of Emergency Medicine. Kotnarin R, Sirinawee P, Supasaovapak J. Impact of Prehospital Antibiotics on in-Hospital Mortality in Emergency Medical Service Patients with Sepsis. Open Access Emerg Med. 2023 May 26;15:199-206. Poynter, M. J., Farrugia, A., Kelly, E., & Simpson, P. M. (2023). Prehospital administration of antibiotics in addition to usual care versus usual care alone for patients with suspected sepsis – A systematic review. Paramedicine, 21, 52–65. Scales DC, et. al. Prehospital antibiotics and intravenous fluids for patients with sepsis: protocol for a 2×2 factorial randomised controlled trial. BMJ Open. 2025 May 27;15(5):e104257.
Daniel Buitrago, Brandon Fifield & Chad Aurentz are back in studio with special guest and archery pro Justin Befort of Hoyt Archery and Full Curl Archery out of Anchorage, Alaska. Daniel got the Goat back from @grizzlyexpediters, micros spikes vs cramp-ons, congrats to sheep hunters on opening week (Emily, Cole & Joe Peters), cleaning big game critters in the water, mustache strength, solitude of a solo hunter, Justin'n goat hunt, Ollin Snapcase adapter, pushing the tag when you potentially injure a big game animal, the new Alaska State Sheep Identification quiz has some tricky questions, Justin's intro, Born & Raised Alaskan, first archery moose kill on For Richardson Army Base, The Vegas Shoot, top of the line, trust the float, shooting at the mind game, train hard & complete easy , The bow hunter games, club comp vs. Hoyt Comps, Easton Foundation, international shooting venues, Vegas, Netherlands, India, Turkey, China, Olympic Re-Curve in the Olympics, getting set-up with a bow, from then lotto the high, foundation outdoors freeze dried meals, the 3r's brought to you by Gameday Mens Health, Justin his on that magnesium, Western Mountaineering Kodiak bag, Visit our Website - www.alaskawildproject.com Follow on Instagram - www.instagram.com/alaskawildproject Watch on YouTube - www.youtube.com/@alaskawildproject $upport on Patreon - www.patreon.com/alaskawildproject
Find us at www.crisisinvesting.com Doug and Matt answer viewer questions on which dystopian story best fits the West today, focusing on expanding surveillance tech and a drift toward "1984," plus a nod to a second dystopia involving "Soma." They discuss the U.S. pressuring the Netherlands via the MATCH Act to curb ASML chip-tool sales to China, arguing there's no legitimate state role and warning it could damage ASML and supply chains. On reserve currency, Doug says paper currency is a government substitute for money and predicts a return to gold. They debate China's "communist" label, claiming the party intervenes less than often assumed and noting high Chinese savings versus low U.S. savings. They cover the Japanese carry trade, U.S. debt, depression risk, preparation advice for a 31-year-old leaving the military and a 44-year-old permaculture worker, draft speculation, Cyprus investing timing, AI/AGI risks, retirement income strategies, and priorities for small monthly investing, ending with an Einstein interest-rate joke and a teaser for an upcoming Bill Buppert interview. 00:00 Viewer Questions Return 01:11 Surveillance State Fears 03:58 Chip War and ASML 06:53 Reserve Currency and Gold 09:08 Is China Really Communist 11:50 Japan Carry Trade Risks 14:17 Starting Prep at 31 17:14 Generalist or Specialist 19:02 Draft Anxiety and Independence 22:29 Cyprus Investing Outlook 24:15 AI Agents Gone Rogue 25:21 Is AI Becoming Life 27:14 Investing Around AI Risk 28:39 Boats Planes And Expat Taxes 30:29 Critical Metals Watchlist 31:56 Retirement Income Portfolio 33:35 Small Budget Priorities 35:54 Robot Liability Questions 38:32 Antifragile Society Debate 42:06 Wrap Up And Interest Rates Joke 44:14 Next Guest Announcement
Rubio Rubin, of El Paso Locomotive, joins Josh on this episode of The Soccer Romantics to discuss his extraordinary career so far; from Oregon to the Netherlands and from Liga MX to the Guatemalan National Team, Rubin has travelled the world and has a wonderful perspective. Listen now to hear how he's fallen in love with futbol and where he's going next.
Benjamin Kruithof is a multiple prize winning Luxembourg-born cellist. In 2025 he won the Young Artist of the Year award. He's given recitals all over Europe including Cologne, Amsterdam, Vienna, Budapest, London and Baden-Baden. As a soloist, recent highlights include performances with the Luxembourg Philharmonic, Liechtenstein Symphony and the East-West Chamber Orchestra. In recital, he has performed at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Kings Place in London and the Salle Cortot in Paris. His Chamber music projects include an extensive tour of the Netherlands with Noa Wildschut. My featured song is the new re-mixed, re-mastered version of “Ma Petite Fleur String Quartet”, in Dolby Atmos released on St7dio - Classical. All links. —------------------------------------ The Follow Your Dream Podcast: Top 1% of all podcasts with Listeners in 200 countries! Click here for Start Here Click here for All Episodes Click here for Guest List Click here for Guest Testimonials Click here for Pillars Click here for Robert's Project Grand Slam Click here to Subscribe Clickhere to receive our Email Updates Click here to Rate and Review the podcast —---------------------------------------- CONNECT WITH BENJAMIN: www.benjamin-kruithof.com "MA PETITE FLEUR STRING QUARTET CLICK HERE FOR ALL LINKS —----------------------------------- ROBERT'S NEWEST RELEASE: “THE BUZZ” - Ft. Darius de Haas (vocals) and Dave Eggar (Celo). Short, Sweet and Totally Different CLICK HERE FOR OFFICIAL VIDEO CLICK HERE FOR ALL LINKS —-------------------------------------- Audio production: Jimmy RavenscroftKymera FilmsConnect with the Follow Your Dream Podcast:Website - www.followyourdreampodcast.comFollow Robert's band, Project Grand Slam, and his music:Website - www.projectgrandslam.com
Over the last few decades automation has completely changed the way eggs are processed. And with robots now assuming many of the jobs handled previously by humans, producers can now process eggs faster, and with a higher degree of accuracy than ever before. Bill Bretschneider is a product manager for MOBA, a company based in Barneveld in the Netherlands, and one of the world's biggest suppliers of egg grading, breaking, and sorting equipment. Today, Bill walks us through the innovation milestones of the past few decades, including the rollout of AI crack detection, and explains what more needs to happen before we see truly autonomous facilities.
Who grows the best marijuana in the world? Cali, Colorado. Netherlands, Spain? Also we discuss what it was like to be a home growers in the 80s and 90s.
learn about Kamp-Linfort, a small town between Duisburg and the Netherlands
Who grows the best marijuana in the world? Cali, Colorado. Netherlands, Spain? Also we discuss what it was like to be a home growers in the 80s and 90s.
Cadillac begins the second half of the season with the blood sacrifice of Graeme Lowdon. We don't reference Williams because we tactically recorded this shortly before all contract announcements.
This week on Drumcode Live we have a live mix from Adam Beyer recorded at Awakenings Festival in Hilvarenbeek, Netherlands.
The fourth and final episode in Jonathan Wilson and Rob Draper's Total Football series explores Ajax's remarkable success under Stefan Kovacs and the Netherlands' unforgettable 1974 World Cup campaign.Kovacs inherited Rinus Michels' European champions but allowed the side's fluid, player-led style to evolve. Ajax continued to win major honours, including two European Cups, but growing player power and Johan Cruyff's influence created tensions beneath the success. As internal divisions deepened, Kovacs left, Cruyff departed for Barcelona, and Ajax's golden era began to unravel.Enter the 1974 World Cup. Despite a difficult qualification process and a squad shaped by rivalries, Michels and Cruyff assembled a side that thrilled the world. They swept past Argentina, overcame Brazil in a fiercely contested encounter, and brought Total Football to its global peak.But in the final against hosts West Germany, an early lead was not enough. Off-pitch distractions, overconfidence and German resilience contributed to a famous 2–1 defeat.The Dutch did not lift the World Cup, but their legacy was greater than a single trophy: Total Football transformed how the modern game is played. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
The Netherlands has updated its national dietary guidelines, and they may be among the most progressive in the world.In this Summer Short, Michelle and Kevin explore the country's newly revised "Wheel of Five," which places greater emphasis on plant-based eating, provides clear weekly food targets, and considers both personal health and environmental sustainability.From reducing red and processed meat to increasing legumes and offering practical tools like government-supported food swaps and meal planning apps, the new guidance goes beyond simply telling people to "eat healthier."Join us as we discuss what makes these recommendations so groundbreaking, how they compare with Canada's Food Guide, and why practical, measurable nutrition advice could help people make lasting changes.Have a question for Michelle? Get in touch at hello@nutritionfornoobs.com or connect with us on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/nutrition4noobs) or Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/nutrition4noobs)
Last time we spoke about the beginning of the Pacific War. In late 1941, the Second Battle of Changsha ended with Chinese forces claiming victory despite suffering nearly 100,000 casualties against roughly 1,670 Japanese losses. Chiang Kai-shek's government launched an aggressive propaganda campaign, flooding international press with fabricated triumph narratives to sustain national morale. Behind closed doors, Chiang was furious at his generals' tactical failures, executing commanders and dismantling units. Meanwhile, geopolitical forces threatened China's survival. Japan's 1939 defeat at Nomonhan crushed hopes for a Soviet alliance against Tokyo. Germany's pact with the Soviet Union left China isolated, while Western powers remained reluctant to commit meaningful support. Britain offered little; the US provided only modest loans. By 1941, facing potential collapse, Chiang desperately searched for allies while Wang Jingwei's Japanese-backed rival government beckoned as an alternative. China's exhausted people endured horror—including a 1941 bombing massacre in Chongqing that killed over 400 trapped civilians. Then Japan unleashed a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. #215 An Implosion in the East 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. In the early morning of December 7, 1941, the US Pacific Fleet was anchored at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Two waves of Japanese bomber aircraft, launched from six aircraft carriers, attacked the vessels and their sleeping crews, destroying the battleship Arizona outright and damaging seventeen others, as well as most of the military aircraft parked nearby. Some 2,400 Americans died, and another 1,100 were wounded. Within a day Japanese invasion forces had attacked Siam, Malaya, and the Philippines. Chiang Kai-shek heard the news at one o'clock in the morning and immediately dictated a letter of support to President Roosevelt, pledging commitment to a new "common battle." The news reached Zhou Fohai in Shanghai as well. On December 8 across the international date line from Hawaii he had heard the sounds of firing as the Japanese took over the rest of the city, and then received reports that Japan had declared war on the Western powers. "I heard they'd bombed Honolulu, Manila, Singapore, and Hong Kong. From now on, the Pacific becomes a killing ground." When Japanese carrier planes descended on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, they were executing far more than a tactical strike. They were unleashing the culmination of a strategic vision that had shaped Japanese military planning since the 1920s: the Nanshin-ron, or "Southern Advance" doctrine. The Nanshin-ron represented a critical strategic choice that emerged from internal Japanese debates during the 1920s and 1930s. Japan faced an inescapable vulnerability: it was an island nation with virtually no natural resources of its own. The nation's population had doubled since the Meiji Restoration, growing to over 70 million by 1941. An industrial economy of tremendous sophistication, capable of producing world-class warships, aircraft, and military equipment, depended entirely on imported raw materials. Oil, rubber, tin, iron ore, bauxite, copper, and manganese all had to be acquired through foreign trade or conquest. This resource dependency was not a luxury problem; it was an existential one. A nation that could not feed itself or fuel its economy was a nation vulnerable to strangulation by enemies who controlled the resources it needed. Japanese strategic thinkers divided into two camps on how to resolve this vulnerability. The Hokushin-ron advocates, primarily within the Army, pushed for expansion northward into Siberia and Mongolia, seeking to conquer Soviet territory and resources. The Soviet Union possessed vast tracts of land, mineral wealth, timber, and agricultural output. From a purely materialist perspective, the Northern Advance made geographic sense—it was contiguous with Manchuria, which Japan had already secured in 1931. Yet by the late 1930s, the Hokushin-ron strategy had suffered a catastrophic blow. In 1938 and 1939, Japanese and Soviet forces clashed at Khalkhin Gol in Mongolia in what the Japanese called the Nomonhan Incident. The battles revealed a terrifying truth: the Soviet Red Army, under General Georgy Zhukov, was far more formidable than Japanese military planners had anticipated. Soviet armor, air power, and coordinated tactics annihilated Japanese forces. Japan suffered over 60,000 casualties while inflicting perhaps 10,000 on the Soviets. The defeat was concealed from the Japanese public, but it was unmistakable to military planners. A direct clash with Soviet power could end catastrophically. The Northern Advance, it became clear, would almost certainly provoke war with a nation capable of destroying the Japanese Army. This strategic defeat tilted the balance decisively toward the Nanshin-ron. If Japan could not safely expand northward, it must expand southward, toward Southeast Asia, the Dutch East Indies, Indochina, and the western Pacific. The appeal of the Nanshin-ron was immediately apparent to the Navy, which had always been more oriented toward maritime commerce and expansion across the ocean. The territories to the south were not militarily formidable. The colonial powers, Britain, the Netherlands, France, were either already defeated in 1940 or distracted by their own desperate struggles leaving Britain fighting alone against Germany. The United States, though potentially a formidable adversary, was not yet at war, and there was a chance, however slender, that a decisive blow against American naval power might convince America to negotiate rather than fight. But beyond strategic opportunity, the Nanshin-ron offered something that the Hokushin-ron did not: it offered resources of staggering abundance. The Dutch East Indies possessed oil reserves that could dwarf Japan's consumption for years. Malaya produced the world's rubber. Thailand offered agricultural bounty and geographic position. Burma's timber and agricultural products could feed Japan's growing empire. The Philippines possessed harbors, airfields, and economic output. These were not marginal additions to Japan's economy—they were transformative. Together, they would convert Japan from a resource-hungry island nation into the master of an imperial domain encompassing hundreds of millions of people and containing most of the strategic materials necessary for sustained industrial warfare. In the last episode I explained the western sanctions and embargoes that drained Japan's military of the resources they required to continue the China War. By 1941, Japan faced a civilization crisis. Japan imported roughly 90 percent of its petroleum, and the bulk of that came from the Dutch East Indies and the United States. Suddenly, the American supply was cut off entirely. Reserves would last perhaps 18 months if Japan's military and industrial consumption continued at existing rates. After that, the military machine would sputter and die. The industrial economy would collapse. Even civilian life would become impossible to sustain. Japan was facing not merely economic inconvenience but literal strangulation by the Western powers. Yet it would be a mistake to reduce Japanese motivation to just materialism. Japanese military leaders wrapped their conquests in an ideological framework, one that many of them genuinely believed, or wanted to believe, served a higher historical purpose. The concept of the Daitoa Kyoeiken, the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere," posited a new regional order in which Japan would play the leading role in liberating Asian peoples from Western colonial domination and creating an Asian-centered political and economic system. This ideology drew on genuine anti-colonial sentiment. For a century, Western powers had dominated Asia, treating Asian peoples and nations as subordinate, colonized territories existing to serve Western economic interests. Japan, which had modernized and Westernized enough to avoid colonization, saw itself as the natural leader of an Asian renaissance—a civilizing force that would restore Asian dignity and independence even as it established Japanese hegemony. Of course, this was propagandistic. Japanese conquest represented a substitution of one imperial master for another, and often a harsher and more brutal one at that. But for understanding Japanese decision-making, the ideology mattered profoundly. It provided Japanese leaders with a moral narrative for conquest. It allowed them to understand themselves as liberators rather than mere conquerors. It provided a rationale for extracting resources from occupied territories and for mobilizing subject populations to support the Japanese war effort. And it resonated with anti-Western sentiment throughout Asia, making Japanese occupation seem, in some quarters, preferable to continued Western colonial rule. The slogan Hakko ichiu—"eight corners under one roof", captured this ideological vision: a unified Asia and eventually world under Japanese guidance. Whether Japanese leaders truly believed this vision or cynically deployed it as propaganda, it shaped how they understood their actions and justified them to their subjects. Now I know this is a podcast dedicated to the century of humiliation, ie: China's experience. But I thought it was necessary just to have one episode explain what Dan Carlin titled "a supernova in the east" and I have titled an implosion in the east. I won't go into depth into the campaigns as some of them have a lot of Chinese involvement and we will be covering them in depth, but rather I will explain the rationale for Japan's numerous invasions following the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. Japan's assault on Malaya began within hours of the Pearl Harbor attack, indeed, Japanese troops were already landing on the Kota Bharu beachhead on the Malaysian peninsula before dawn on December 8, 1941 local time. Malaya was one of the world's largest rubber producers, and Singapore, at the tip of the peninsula, was the linchpin of British naval power in the Far East.The Japanese interest in Malaya was straightforward but crucial: rubber. The Japanese military consumed vast quantities of rubber for tires, gaskets, hoses, and countless other applications. American and Dutch rubber supplies were now cut off by embargo. Malaya's rubber plantations represented perhaps the world's richest reservoir of this strategic material. Beyond rubber, Malaya and the surrounding region were major tin producers—essential for alloys and manufacturing. For Japan to conduct prolonged warfare, Malaya was not a luxury target; it was a necessity. Singapore represented something different: a symbol of Western power in Asia and a strategic chokepoint. As the major British naval base in the region, Singapore served as the anchor of British imperial authority across the South China Sea. By seizing Singapore, Japan would not only capture crucial resources and port facilities but would also deliver a psychological blow to the entire edifice of Western dominance in Asia. The fortress city that the British considered nearly impregnable fell within seventy days, a stunning demonstration of Japanese military capability and the vulnerability of overextended Western empires. If Malaya was critical for rubber, the Dutch East Indies was essential for oil. The region, comprising present-day Indonesia, was the world's third-largest oil producer and had reserves that could sustain Japanese military operations for years. This was the jewel of the resource-conquest strategy. Japanese planners had long eyed the East Indies, but direct conquest had seemed risky while Britain and America remained neutral or opposed. With both now at war, the window of opportunity had opened. Japan needed the oil so desperately that when the Dutch East Indies Petroleum Company initially agreed to some Japanese oil purchases before the war, Tokyo was already planning its takeover. The conquest of the Dutch East Indies would provide not just oil but also tin, nickel, bauxite, and other materials essential to an industrial war machine. The islands would also provide air and naval bases from which Japan could defend its new empire and potentially threaten Australia. The Japanese invasion of the Dutch East Indies, which began in late December 1941 and accelerated through January and February 1942, was methodical and comprehensive. Various island groups were targeted systematically: Java, Borneo, Celebes, and the Moluccas. Dutch military forces, though brave, were overwhelmed. By March 1942, Japan had secured the entire archipelago,a stunning logistical and military achievement that delivered vast resources into Japanese hands. Thailand presented a fundamentally different case from Japan's other targets. Rather than conquest, Japan pursued alliance with military strongman Plaek Phibunsongkhram, who had seized power in a 1938 coup as a nationalist ideologue determined to reassert Thai sovereignty and recover territory lost to French colonialism in the nineteenth century. Thailand was the last independent state in mainland Southeast Asia, hemmed in by British-controlled Burma and Malaya to the west, and French Indochina to the east. For a century, Thailand had survived by playing European imperial powers against each other. But by the late 1930s, this strategy was becoming obsolete. Europe was distracted by Hitler's Germany. Colonial powers were weakening. Japanese power was visibly ascending. Phibunsongkhram recognized both danger and opportunity. He could resist Japan and invite invasion, or he could ally with Japan and profit from rising Asian power. Japanese diplomats approached Thailand with sophistication: they offered military alliance and support for Thai territorial expansion at French expense. This addressed Thailand's deepest national wound, the humiliation of nineteenth-century territorial losses to France. The Franco-Thai War of 1940-1941 became transformative. With Japan providing military support, advisors, tanks, aircraft, Thai forces defeated the French for the first time in history. By May 1941, Thailand had recovered 54,000 square kilometers of Cambodian territory and portions of Laos. For Phibunsongkhram, this was extraordinary: he had achieved what Thai leaders could not in a century, reclaiming territory from a Western imperial power. Domestically, his position was dramatically strengthened. The parallel to China's century of humiliation—the foundation of your podcast is striking: Thailand too was reversing colonial diminishment through association with rising Asian power. The Thai-Japanese relationship was unique. Unlike the Philippines, Malaya, or the Dutch East Indies, Thailand would retain nominal independence. Phibunsongkhram remained in power. Japanese occupation was light. Thai forces maintained their own command structure. Most importantly, Thailand's territorial gains from the Franco-Thai War were recognized and secured. Japan valued Thai cooperation more than conquest. Burma, controlled by the British, was the next target in Japan's southwestward advance. Japanese planners had multiple motivations for invading Burma. First, it was strategically positioned on India's eastern frontier, and Japan harbored ambitions of eventually striking toward India and linking up with Germany in the Middle East or at least destabilizing the British position in South Asia. Second, Burma was a significant producer of timber and agricultural products. Third, and perhaps most importantly, the invasion of Burma was meant to cut the Burma Road, the crucial supply line that allowed American aid to reach Nationalist China. The invasion of Burma began in late 1941 and accelerated through early 1942. The invasion of the Philippines, which began on December 10, 1941, just days after Pearl Harbor, served multiple strategic purposes. Like the assault on Pearl Harbor itself, it was meant to neutralize American military power in the region, in this case, the American garrison under General Douglas MacArthur and the American colonial administration. But the Philippines were also valuable in their own right. The islands sat directly in the path of what Japan envisioned as its defensive perimeter. By controlling the Philippines, Japan would make it extraordinarily difficult for American forces to project power westward into Southeast Asia. The territory would provide naval and air bases critical to defending Japan's new empire. Additionally, the Philippines possessed some agricultural and industrial resources valuable to the war effort, and their conquest delivered a psychological victory, defeating American forces and ending American colonial rule in Asia, which appealed to anti-Western sentiment that Japan tried to cultivate. Beyond Southeast Asia and the Philippines, Japan rapidly invaded Guam and Wake island to extend Japan's defensive perimeter further into the Pacific and eliminate American air and naval bases that could threaten Japanese operations. Guam, seized on December 10, 1941, fell within two days, the American garrison was small and the island's strategic value lay primarily in denying the United States a forward staging ground for any counteroffensive. Wake Island, attacked the same day and finally captured on December 23 after a brief but heroic American defense, served similar purposes: cutting off American reconnaissance and interdicting potential supply lines to the Philippines. Now I believe that's enough of the implosion in the east, let's get back to the situation in China. After Chiang Kai-shek sent his letter of support to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, pledging Chinese commitment to what he termed a new "common battle." he did something most revealing about his mood towards the global war. He played "Ave Maria" on his gramophone, celebrating with an almost spiritual gratitude the implications of what had just transpired in the American Pacific. This moment crystallized the profound difference Pearl Harbor would mean to different members of the emerging Allied coalition. For the United States, the attack was pure shock, a violation of the sanctity of American soil and the complacency of American isolationism. For Britain, it was like the pricking of a large, painful blister—painful but perhaps not entirely unexpected given Japan's regional ambitions. But for China, the relief that surged through the government and the consciousness of the Chinese people surpassed even Britain's response. For four long years, China had fought Japan almost alone, watching as Western nations remained neutral or limited their commitment to rhetorical support and modest material assistance. Now, suddenly, the trajectory of the entire conflict had shifted with breathtaking speed. Chiang's emotional state at this moment could scarcely be contained, and those close to him understood that beneath his carefully maintained Confucian composure burned an intoxicating sensation of vindication. These Western powers who had been so impatient with Chinese strategy, who had mocked the retreats of the Nationalist Army and spoken scornfully of Japanese capabilities, were now themselves in headlong retreat from those very islanders. In Hong Kong, Singapore, and Manila, British and American forces would be fighting desperately for their lives against the Japanese military that China had been contending with for years. Chiang could not have failed to perceive the irony: the Japanese had conquered vast stretches of China through relentless campaigns, yet Westerners had dismissed Chinese resistance as inadequate. Now the Japanese were proving that they posed a formidable challenge to Western military power as well. There was a bitter satisfaction in this vindication, even as Chiang understood that the strategic implications of American entry far outweighed any emotional satisfaction. What was pragmatic and strategically clear to Chiang, however, was far more important than any emotional satisfaction. The United States was now at war, and it was on China's side. This represented the transformation for which Chiang had labored for years, bringing the full weight of American industrial capacity and military might to bear against the Japanese enemy. The diplomatic foundations for this alliance had already been laid in the months preceding Pearl Harbor. Beginning in the spring of 1941, the United States had begun to commit significant resources to supporting China. In April 1941, following the conclusion of the Soviet-Japanese neutrality agreement, which had devastated Chinese morale by suggesting that Japan might attack the Soviet Union rather than move southward, the Roosevelt administration had determined to provide $45 million worth of militarily useful commodities to China as an immediate gesture of support. Then, on May 6, 1941, President Roosevelt had made a more formal commitment by announcing that the munitions provisions of the Lend-Lease Act applied to China, declaring a phrase that captured the strategic logic of American assistance: "defending China is the key to defending America." This declaration represented a significant shift in American policy, elevating China from a regional concern to a central element of American grand strategy in Asia. Subsequently, in July 1941, Roosevelt had sent Owen Lattimore to China to serve as political adviser to the Chinese government, a position that signaled deepening American engagement with Chinese affairs. In August, the administration appointed John Magruder as military attaché and head of the American Military Mission to China (AMMISCA), with the primary responsibility of overseeing the delivery of Lend-Lease material to the Chinese armed forces. On the diplomatic front, Chiang moved with remarkable alacrity. He had already severed relations with Germany on July 2, 1941, the very day after Hitler had formally recognized the Wang Jingwei puppet government in an attempt to appease Japan and encourage it to finally implement the Southern Advance. Now, on December 8, 1941, just one day after the Pearl Harbor attack, Chiang took the decisive step of formally declaring war against the Axis powers, Germany, Italy, and Japan. This declaration transformed China's position from a beleaguered nation fighting a war of survival into a formal member of the Allied coalition. Chiang had seized the opportunity that Pearl Harbor presented to ally China with a genuinely strong power against Japan, a gambit that fundamentally altered the diplomatic weight and international legitimacy of both the Chinese government and the Chinese cause. From a strategic perspective, the Japanese had committed what Chiang and others immediately recognized as a catastrophic blunder. On the operational level, Pearl Harbor was indeed a devastating tactical success, the American Pacific Fleet was crippled, and Japanese forces now enjoyed temporary naval superiority throughout much of the Pacific and Southeast Asia. Yet strategically, Pearl Harbor represented a failure of epic proportions, a miscalculation rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of the intangibles of warfare: what motivated the Chinese people and what motivated the Americans. The Chinese had understood, through four years of brutal conflict, that warfare was about more than territorial conquest and resource acquisition. It was about will, about endurance, about the capacity to absorb punishment and continue fighting. The Japanese had learned this lesson imperfectly in China, where despite overwhelming military advantages they had been unable to force a decisive conclusion or compel Chinese surrender. The Americans would teach the Japanese this lesson even more emphatically. The attack on American sailors in Hawaii instantly galvanized the American population to prosecute an unlimited war, with Tokyo itself as the ultimate destination of American counterattack. While Americans would remember the "date that will live in infamy" primarily because of the assault on Pearl Harbor itself, the strategic consequence was that Japanese actions in Hawaii had introduced numerous new adversaries into the Pacific conflict: not only the United States, but also Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and the Netherlands. These additions transformed what had been, from the Japanese perspective, a regional conflict with manageable parameters into a global war that Japan could not possibly win through any conceivable means. What made this particularly disastrous for Japan was the context in which the new theater had been opened. Japan was already deeply mired in a quagmire in China—a "malignant quagmire," as one observer would later characterize it, that had consumed vast resources, inflicted enormous casualties, and failed to produce decisive victory. In military strategy, it is sometimes wise to open a new theater in order to attack an enemy from an additional and unexpected direction, thereby dispersing their forces and creating new challenges for them to manage. But opening a new theater that introduces an entirely new, powerful adversary, and doing so when one is already overextended in an existing theater is a prescription for strategic catastrophe. This was precisely what Japan had done at Pearl Harbor. Chiang Kai-shek understood the magnitude of Japan's miscalculation with crystalline clarity. He understood that whatever the military complexities that lay ahead, whatever the challenges of coordinating with Western allies, and whatever the limitations of Western military assistance to China might be, the fundamental equation had changed. The United States would ultimately defeat Japan. The Chinese did not need to defeat Japan by themselves; they merely needed to survive long enough for American industrial and military capacity to grind the Japanese military into defeat. In the immediate aftermath of Pearl Harbor, Chinese and American officials moved swiftly to formalize the alliance and establish the mechanisms of wartime cooperation. Roosevelt asked Chiang Kai-shek to serve as commander in chief of the Allied forces in the China theater, a designation that recognized China's central role in the Pacific War and elevated Chiang's international standing to something he had long sought: a position as an equal partner in the Allied coalition, a seat at the "top table of global decision-making" alongside Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin. To support this expanded role and to ensure effective coordination of the military effort, Roosevelt dispatched Lieutenant General Joseph W. Stilwell to China. Stilwell was not chosen randomly; he brought fifteen years of experience in China, a deep familiarity with the country, its military, and its complexities that few American officers possessed. Stilwell was appointed to serve simultaneously as the U.S. government's military representative in China, as chief of staff of the China Theater, and as commander in chief of the American forces in the China-Burma-India (CBI) theater. This appointment established the framework for joint Chinese-American military cooperation and represented an American commitment to the Asian theater that, while never receiving the resources devoted to the European theater, nonetheless signified recognition of China's strategic importance. Trust me, going forward we will be having a lot of time dedicated to the hilarious bromance / bro hatred of Vinegar Joe and Peanut. Yet the formation of an alliance and the establishment of command structures was easier than the practical implementation of military cooperation. The fundamental challenge that would plague Chinese-American relations throughout the war emerged almost immediately: the problem of delivering military assistance to China. Before Pearl Harbor, the United States and China had reached agreement on three major points regarding military assistance. First, the United States would provide training and technical support to assist China in establishing a modern air force. Second, the United States would provide training and equipment for a ground army consisting of thirty divisions. Third, the United States would assist China in constructing railways and highways from Yunnan to Burma, along with the provision of rolling stock and vehicles to support these new transportation routes. These were ambitious plans, reflecting the extent of Chinese need and American willingness to support the Chinese war effort. However, the outbreak of the Pacific War threw American plans into disarray. The fundamental strategic doctrine guiding American policy was the "Europe first" strategy, which meant that the European theater and the defeat of Nazi Germany received priority over the Pacific theater. Additionally, China's geography made it extraordinarily difficult to supply. China could only be reached through supply lines of extraordinary length and complexity, either through the port of Rangoon in Burma and then overland via the treacherous Yunnan-Burma Road, or through the port of Hong Kong, which immediately fell into Japanese hands after Pearl Harbor. The first Sino-American loan agreement had specified that the United States would deliver commodities worth $45 million to China in 1941. However, shipping shortages meant that only $26 million worth of commodities actually left the United States. These commodities were shipped to the transit port of Rangoon, where a massive traffic jam developed as supplies accumulated faster than they could be distributed onward to China. Along the Yunnan-Burma Road, that "much-contested life line" as it came to be known, conditions were chaotic. The road had always been a source of trouble: it was long, extraordinarily difficult to keep in repair, fantastically dangerous to travel, and too narrow to permit much volume of traffic at any one time. Due to mismanagement and pilfering, the commodities that were shipped out of Burma suffered heavy losses in transit, and only one-third of them eventually arrived in Chongqing. Yet the United States had already established one valuable asset in China that could be deployed relatively quickly: an air force nucleus. Just before Pearl Harbor, a group of American aviators had been formally organized in Chongqing who worked on volunteer status for China under the command of Colonel Claire Chennault, an American aviation officer who served as instructor at the Chinese Air Force Cadet School. Some of these men had been flying in China since the Kuomintang first began purchasing American aircraft, having come to demonstrate the aircraft and remaining to pilot and teach. Others had hurried to China after being released from their volunteer service in Spain, where they had gained combat experience during the Spanish Civil War. It was a familiar joke that pilots from both sides of the Spanish conflict were likely to meet and work side by side in China, but political convictions proved immaterial to these professional aviators, they got on well enough with each other, mercenaries of the twentieth century united by their expertise and their willingness to fight. When American traffic on the Burma Road swelled in volume and became chaotic, with cargo lost to pilfering and trucks breaking down from mishandling, the air freight service into Chongqing became increasingly vital to maintaining Chinese military capabilities. The backbone of this organization was American, and it had been in operation for months before the Japanese attack. Halfway down the Burma Road, over the border in Burma, was a plane factory backed by American and Chinese capital, providing some degree of repair and maintenance capacity for the aircraft operating out of China. Recognizing the strategic value of these experienced aviators and the need to formalize and expand their operations, American and Chinese officials moved quickly to incorporate this volunteer group, formally known as the American Volunteer Group or "Flying Tigers," into the U.S. Army Air Force. This transformation of volunteer aviators into official American military personnel represented a commitment to providing air support to Chinese operations, recognizing that air power could compensate to some degree for Chinese numerical disadvantages in ground combat. In Chongqing, it was clear that among the United Nations fighting Japan, America was the only one taking China seriously, the only one prepared to invest significant resources in Chinese military capabilities and the Chinese war effort. Yet Pearl Harbor brought consequences that extended far beyond the strategic and diplomatic spheres. For Western civilians living in China,missionaries, teachers, doctors, businessmen, and journalists, the attack represented a catastrophic change in their status and their fate. Until December 8, 1941, Westerners residing in China had maintained a curious protected status as foreign neutrals, even in areas nominally controlled by the Japanese. This status had provided them with a measure of distance from, and protection against, the grinding reality of the war that had devastated Chinese populations. For a century, Americans had been part of an imperial presence in China, sometimes benevolent, sometimes violent, but always ultimately under Western control. That world came to an abrupt end on December 8, 1941. All across eastern China, Americans and Britons were rounded up and interned. The International Settlement of Shanghai—that remarkable oasis of neutrality that had persisted in the midst of a war-torn city—was now reunified under Japanese control. Thousands of foreigners with Allied nationality were sent to holding camps scattered throughout occupied China. Some, like the eleven-year-old British boy Jim Ballard, would remain imprisoned for the remainder of the war, enduring hunger, cold, and disease in camps like Longhua, which housed approximately 2,000 detainees. Forty years later, as the novelist J. G. Ballard, he would memorialized this experience in his semi-autobiographical novel Empire of the Sun. For missionaries like Velva Brown, the evacuation process was degrading and final. The missionary staff were permitted to pack no more than three suitcases with their belongings. As they prepared to leave, Japanese and Taiwanese "sightseeing" parties arrived to decide which houses they might want to occupy. The journey home aboard crowded Japanese ships offered no concessions to status or dignity; ambassadors, consuls, merchants, and missionaries alike were given "bed-sized strips of Chinese matting which we spread side by side on the iron floor of the hold," as Brown recorded. The humiliation was compounded by the finality of it all. For many, their decades-long presence in China was ending not in orderly retreat but in hasty evacuation, leaving behind "servants, many of whom had been with us for fifteen or twenty years." Despite these immediate human tragedies, the strategic transformation that Pearl Harbor wrought for China was undeniable. Chiang Kai-shek now embarked on an entirely new sort of life, heavily involved with the leaders and generals of the Western powers. He held diplomatic discussions with the leaders of the United Nations and military planning sessions with Western generals. In these unfamiliar circumstances, he did his best to live up to the Confucian ideal of the gentleman, seldom permitting the mask to slip—though the pressure of these new responsibilities and the intoxicating combination of vindication and anxiety would occasionally prove too much even for his considerable self-control. Within weeks of Pearl Harbor, Chiang demonstrated the value he could bring to the new alliance. He visited India and spoke with the leaders of the Indian independence struggle as an ally and friend, as a fellow non-European speaking to others seeking to escape from colonialism and imperial domination. He joined the Allies in their first joint campaign, not in China but in the jungles of neighboring Burma, committing Chinese forces to operations outside China's borders in support of the broader Allied military strategy. Yet the price that Chiang would pay for China's belated entry into the global alliance against the Axis powers would prove to be a heavy one. Chiang desperately needed his new American and British partners, but accepting this alliance would unleash forces within Chinese society that would threaten the very basis of his political control. The complexities of this bargain would become most visible in the four-year struggle between Chiang and General Joseph Warren Stilwell, the American officer who would become simultaneously his chief of staff and the administrator of American military assistance to China. This relationship, shaped by mutual suspicion, different strategic visions, and incompatible political agendas, would define Chinese-American military cooperation during the Pacific War and would have profound implications extending far beyond the battlefields of Asia. 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. Pearl Harbor's shock reverberated through Asia. Japan's assault on Hawaii, combined with invasions of Burma, the Philippines, Guam, and Wake Island, inadvertently transformed regional conflict into global war. Chiang Kai-shek, vindicated after four years of isolation fighting Japan, embraced American alliance with profound relief. The U.S. committed military aid, appointed General Stilwell as chief of staff, and recognized China as a co-belligerent. For Chiang, this partnership brought diplomatic status but also internal tensions that would define the Pacific War's final chapter.
Dr. Julia Bailey-Serres is Director of the Center for Plant Cell Biology and Distinguished Professor of Genetics at the University of California, Riverside. She also holds the University of California John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Chair and is Professor of Rice Physiology at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. A major focus of Julia's lab is to investigate how plants survive water extremes with the goal of improving the ability of crops to survive a temporary flood. When she's not working, Julia enjoys gardening, hiking, traveling, and spending time with her friends and family. She also has fun baking and cooking with fresh vegetables from her garden. She was awarded her B.S. in biology from the University of Utah and her Ph.D. in botany from the University of Edinburgh. Afterwards, Julia conducted postdoctoral research at the University of California, Berkeley before joining the faculty at UCR. She has received many awards and honors over the course of her career, including being named an elected Member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a Fellow of the American Society of Plant Biologists. In addition, she has been recognized with the Stephen Hales Prize from the American Society of Plant Biologists. In our interview, Julia shares more about her life and research.
This one is Claude Sonnet 5 - did a decent job. Got Gemini to do it at the same time and it was SHIT. --------------------------Jack the Insider and Hong Kong Jack open with an air-conditioner instalation story that would give any WHS officer a heart attack, before diving into the immigration debate consuming the Western world, Albo's cringeworthy podcast melon gag and the diplomatic fallout with Japan, Angus Taylor's Twitter misfire, a grim Newspoll for Labor, the conviction of former Bishop Christopher Saunders, the unravelling Mahmoud Fazal/Four Corners scandal, an AI Royal Commission, Israel's rejection of the Gaza peace plan, Ukraine's drone edge, a spot of Marxism 101, and a bumper sports wrap covering the Ashes build-up, Geelong's concussion waiver scandal and the NRL's new PNG and Perth franchises.00:00:26 — Cold open: Hong Kong air-con drama. Hong Kong Jack recounts tradesmen scaling the building exterior, tying off to a sewer pipe and rigging a platform in under an hour — a workplace safety non-starter back home.00:01:20 — Immigration policy in limbo. Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke pulls his National Press Club address after Cabinet gets cold feet on migration numbers; One Nation capitalises on the vacuum.00:02:17 — Paul Kelly on the West's immigration reckoning. The hosts unpack Kelly's column on multiculturalism's failures in Europe versus its comparative success in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the US, and why a clear pathway to national identity matters.00:04:23 — The politician/public disconnect. A Financial Times study (John Burn-Murdoch) showing big gaps between public and political opinion on migrant assimilation across Britain, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden.00:06:10 — Is the far right the cause or the symptom? A robust back-and-forth on whether One Nation, AfD, Reform UK and Le Pen's party are driving the backlash or simply capitalising on governments that lost control of migration systems.00:08:50 — Albo's podcast melon gag fallout. The PM's crass "melons" line about the Japanese Prime Minister on a comedy podcast draws a diplomatic complaint from Tokyo and calls for an apology he still hasn't given.00:10:39 — Why politicians chase the "youth" podcast circuit. Discussion of Albo's ties to Sandilands-style FM radio and whether the audience numbers justify the reputational risk.00:12:32 — Latika Bourke's double standard question. Would a corporate CEO survive the same scrutiny as a Prime Minister? The Jacks disagree on how novel the standard really is.00:14:14 — Angus Taylor's Twitter misfire. A dissected, over-written tweet accusing the "socialist" Albanese government lands badly — "people might think they're bumbling fools, but they don't think they're socialist."00:15:53 — Angus Taylor and the ICAC donation question. A circular exchange over an unresolved email regarding a potential donation tied to a group under ICAC scrutiny.00:17:52 — Coalition social media strategy. Jane Hume's five-a-day Instagram habit and whether the Coalition's messaging is landing with anyone at this point in the electoral cycle.00:18:52 — Productivity and work-from-home. Westpac CEO Anthony Miller warns rates could stay elevated into 2028 without a productivity fix; Victoria shelves its work-from-home legislation ahead of the planned 1 September start.00:21:36 — Red tape and the housing/business regulation debate. Building approval bottlenecks, the Coalition's building-standards rollback proposal, and why company/tax reporting (not ABN registration) is the real handicap for small business.00:24:14 — Newspoll: Labor's primary vote "plunges." Labor down to 29 percent (from 31), described by the Jacks as more "meandering" than plunging — with a look at how far off Labor is from its 34.5 percent election benchmark.00:25:31 — Kos Samaras/RedBridge on the new voter blocs. A breakdown of Labor's inner-city, under-45, migrant-heavy base; One Nation's mortgage-stressed, outer-suburban trades vote; and the Coalition's shrinking, wealthy, over-55 remnant — plus where the Jacks think the analysis oversimplifies.00:28:42 — How the Coalition lost its heartland. Reflections on 19 years of Coalition government since Howard, the failure to read demographic warning signs, and the loss of both the "asset rich" and "asset poor" ends of its old coalition.00:31:49 — Content warning: child sexual abuse. Former Bishop of Broome Christopher Saunders, 76, found guilty of one count of sexual penetration and multiple indecent assault charges against a young Indigenous man; sentencing yet to be scheduled.00:32:50 — Saunders' pattern of behaviour. Allegations of financial mismanagement, smuggling alcohol into dry Indigenous communities, a 2019 police raid uncovering exploitation material, and a Vatican finding he likely abused Indigenous youth.00:34:59 — The Bishop Ronald Mulkearns parallel. The Ballarat bishop's Royal Commission appearance and mysterious final holiday hosted by Saunders in Broome shortly before his death.00:37:06 — The Four Corners/Mahmoud Fazal scandal. Fazal's background as a self-described former Mongols bike gang sergeant-at-arms turned journalist; his Cocaine Nation and Meth Highway reports pulled from air, along with a Background Briefing program.00:38:33 — Media Watch's verdict. Linton Besser's assessment that Fazal was "embellishing his journalism," and how ABC's editorial oversight failed across two flagship programs.00:39:39 — The Jordan Shanks (Friendly Jordies) threat allegations. Fazal's alleged role relaying threats from the Alameddine crime family after Shanks' house was firebombed twice; Fazal disputes the death-threat characterisation.00:41:36 — Where journalism crosses into participation. Jack the Insider's personal rule against interviewing active criminals, and a wider discussion of when reporters become "players" rather than observers — including a detour to the "Poison Dwarf," Clayton Milne.00:46:20 — A 2006 ice epidemic documentary as the gold standard. A comparison piece where public health officials and police saw the crystal meth wave coming years before government — done properly, without masked, unverifiable sources.00:48:21 — South Australia's $3 million AI Royal Commission. Premier Peter Malinauskas announces the inquiry; the Jacks are sceptical it will produce much, suspecting it's more about attracting AI investment.00:49:27 — The AI investment bubble risk. Massive capital flowing into Anthropic, Meta and Google versus cheaper, competitive Chinese models — and what that imbalance could mean for the S&P 500's AI-heavy weighting.00:51:00 — Israel rejects Trump's 15-point Gaza plan. Distrust that Hamas will disarm, and why the stakes feel existential rather than abstract for Israelis.00:52:32 — Israel's 27 October election. Netanyahu's fragile coalition, Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Smotrich's collapsing poll numbers, and the growing backlash over ultra-Orthodox exemptions from IDF service.00:57:09 — Ukraine: Starlink access and drone warfare. Elon Musk restricting Ukrainian Starlink use against Russia, a declined meeting with Trump, and Ukraine's drone successes — including a joint exercise with US forces in Germany.01:00:29 — Reports of distress aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. Unconfirmed accounts of sailors going overboard after roughly ten months of continuous deployment.01:01:52 — Stephen Kotkin on Marxism's enduring appeal. Why intellectuals keep returning to Marxist ideas despite the historical body count — and a tangent on campus recruitment, ASIO and the "special role" intellectuals imagine for themselves.01:05:15 — Iran, Cambodia and the fate of the intellectual class. Historical examples of revolutions turning on the intelligentsia that helped bring them about.01:06:06 — Sport check: the Ashes build-up begins. Australia's shaky start against Bangladesh, Steve Smith's lucky reprieve, and questions over Alex Carey's batting position and the middle order.01:08:24 — Selection headaches: Labuschagne and Nathan Lyon. Marnus Labuschagne's technical struggles and whether Lyon plays out the year, with the World Test Championship and next year's Ashes on the horizon.01:11:03 — Geelong's concussion contract waiver scandal. A player reportedly signing away his right to sue over concussion management; questions over why the club didn't submit the waiver to the AFL or AFLPA, and calls for points deductions rather than fines.01:16:04 — Jake Kelly's likely retirement and player consent. Whether it matters who initiated the waiver, and why players will "sign anything" to keep playing despite long-term brain injury risks.01:18:30 — NRL expansion: PNG Chiefs and Perth Bears. Tax-free salaries giving PNG Chiefs an effective cap advantage, players relocating to a purpose-built village in Port Moresby, and Perth's 2027 entry into the competition.01:22:36 — Poaching rugby fans, AFL's expansion and wildcard finals. The Perth Bears' leadership, Tasmania Devils' draft concessions, Nigel Lappin's coaching move, and early impressions of the AFL's new wildcard finals round.
Keith Johnson chineke orchestra martin Gellner – dark was the night cold was the ground – VA – Morgan Freemans Symphonic Blues Experience – 2026Super chikan mark yacovone chineke orchestra martin Gellner – crossroads - VA – Morgan Freemans Symphonic Blues Experience – 2026Buddy Guy - Nine Below ZeroBig Harp George - Death Rattle of the republic - single -2026 Alexis P. Suter Band, The – It is not my cross to bear - Just Stay Live_ Recorded Live at The Falcon (Live) -2026Grainne Duffy – Need your love so bad -What Am I Supposed to Do – 2026Snowy White - Midnight BluesGary Moore - The ProphetKenny Wayne Shepherd – Deje Voodoo - Ledbetter Heights (The 30th Anniversary Sessions) – 2026Steve Earle & Los Lobos Volver A Celaya - single – 2026James Buddy Rogers – Dimples - Covered In Blues – 2026Chris rea – Road to hell part 2
Tony Gosling is a former BBC radio broadcaster who went down the rabbit hole. This episode is mainly about Traitors Of Arnhem, Tony's book revealing the somewhat mind-blowing truth about Operation Market Garden: that it failed by design rather than accident. Also on the menu: high level Nazi spies; Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands; Bilderberg; A Bridge Too Far; Lord Carrington; Ian Fleming; Martin Boorman; Warlocks; was the BBC always evil or was there a golden age? thisweek.org.uk Tony's YouTube: https://youtube.com/@peterborenius?si=9tSrLpPW7UOYEw0J ↓ ↓ This Delingpod is very kindly sponsored by https://sinacrisps.com The crisp you can eat without the guilt. No seed oils and just 3 ingredients. Use code: JAMES with your purchase for 15% off. ↓ ↓ How environmentalists are killing the planet, destroying the economy and stealing your children's future. In Watermelons, an updated edition of his ground-breaking 2011 book, James tells the shocking true story of how a handful of political activists, green campaigners, voodoo scientists and psychopathic billionaires teamed up to invent a fake crisis called ‘global warming'. This updated edition includes two new chapters which, like a geo-engineered flood, pour cold water on some of the original's sunny optimism and provide new insights into the diabolical nature of the climate alarmists' sinister master plan. Purchase Watermelons by James Delingpole here: https://jamesdelingpole.co.uk/Shop/ ↓ ↓ ↓ Buy James a Coffee at: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/jamesdelingpole To support independent, no-holds-barred journalism and gain first and full access to all James's content, subscribe directly at https://www.jamesdelingpole.co.uk x
Julian Sas – Turpetine moan - Live – 1998Doghouse Sam & His Magnatones – Nobody else around - Gone too long – 2024Bacon Fat Louis – I do believe -Bacon fat Louis Live - 2016 (NL)Stef Paglia Trio – Blue eyes - Light & Darkness – 2023Tomi Leino Trio – Life gave me a dirty deal - Get On Down – 2013Alice Armstrong – Punchline - Fury & Euphoria - EP – 2025Guto Konrad – Hope - Looking for Change 2026Cuban Heels -Monkey on my back - Gritbag GutBucket Music Vol. 2 – 2011Cinelli Brothers – Fools paradise - Live Here And There - 2026Dawn Brothers – She Turns my Radio on - Next Of Kin (Deluxe Edition) (2019)Dom Martins - Laundromat - Live At The Harlington. – 2021Walter trout - Got a broken heart - Positively Beale street - 1997
A year on from his move to Monaco, Paul Pogba's contract could be terminated any day now. What went wrong? And can he still find a landing spot for the final days of his career at the top level?Dotun is joined by Andy and David Cartlidge to discuss that – plus, what we expect from Djed Spence's exciting move to Inter, why Xavi as Netherlands head coach could be a match made in heaven, and Andy and David get very excited about some new La Liga away days this season. Come join us!Ask us a question on X, Instagram and TikTok, and email us here: otc@footballramble.com.For ad-free shows, head over to our Patreon and subscribe: patreon.com/footballramble.***Please take the time to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your pods. It means a great deal to the show and will make it easier for other potential listeners to find us. Thanks!*** On The Continent is your definitive podcast for European football. Subscribe for new podcasts every single week and throughout the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
United States President Abraham Lincoln and his assassin John Wilkes Booth were both deeply immersed in Shakespeare's works. And yet, the conclusions they reached about how best to end tyranny--a feature of both Macbeth and Julius Caesar--could not have been more different. As James Shapiro (Shakespeare in a Divided America) explained to Jacke in a conversation they had in 2023, reading Shakespeare from opposing vantage points is not unusual in American history. What does this mean for our understanding of the past--and our hopes for the future? On Sale Now! For more information and to order Great Detective! An Adventure for Two People [2-Book Boxed Set] by Jacke Wilson, visit press.historyofliterature.com. SPECIAL OFFER! For a limited time, enter promotion code SHIP26 to get free domestic or international shipping! (Available in the U.S., Canada, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Iceland, Estonia, Netherlands, Australia, and New Zealand.) The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Participatory Animism: Gotta know the full horror to respond with Liberating Ingenuity…. By Dedicating to being cultural agents on behalf of what we love and what we are in Nature Caroline welcomes return of 2 favorite first responder wizards: Michael Stocker, Director Ocean Conservation Research, scientist-musician, human ambassador from Ocean… to guide humans to have some bleeping manners David Grimes, Bardic River Guide , Musician, Artists for Nature “The importance of the project – a collaboration of the international nonprofit Artists for Nature Foundation in The Netherlands and the Nature Conservancy in Cordova – is Prince William Sound and the Copper River Delta, two halves of a beating heart, says David Lynn Grimes, the organizer and a participating artist. Article: Artists in Nature https://thecordovatimes.com/2025/05/15/artists-in-nature-new-cordova-project/ Ocean Conservation Research https://ocr.org/ The post Liberating Ingenuity appeared first on KPFA.
Scotland and Netherlands say the ICC's plans to shrink the men's 2027 Cricket World Cup to 12 teams will make it harder for associate nations to qualify. Alison Mitchell, Charu Sharma and Brett Sprigg discuss the impact this will have on the sport. Three Test series get underway this week with Bangladesh in Australia, India travel to Sri Lanka and England host Pakistan. Brett says the Tigers deserve their chance to play against Australia and Charu believes spin will play a big role in the sub-continent if the monsoon rains stay away. Meanwhile, Alison can't pick a clear favourite in the England v Pakistan series. And move over Cristiano Ronaldo, Madeira and Portugal has a new sporting icon. We hear from Moises Henriques on why he swapped the Aussie gold and green for Portugal's red and green as he hopes to get them qualified for the next T20 World Cup.Photo: BANGALORE, INDIA - NOVEMBER 12: Roelof van der Merwe of Netherlands reacts during the ICC Men's Cricket World Cup India 2023 between India and Netherlands at M. Chinnaswamy Stadium on November 12, 2023 in Bangalore, India. (Photo by Matt Roberts-ICC/ICC via Getty Images)HOBART, AUSTRALIA - MARCH 14: Matt Machan of Scotland looks dejected after being dismissed by Pat Cummins of Australia during the 2015 Cricket World Cup match between Australia and Scotland at Bellerive Oval on March 14, 2015 in Hobart, Australia. (Photo by Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)
Thursday's Football Daily with David Wilson is packed with big talking points — from the FAI withdrawing its support for Gianni Infantino amid growing governance and transparency concerns, to the fallout from FIFA's private investment proposal.It's also a huge European night for the League of Ireland: Shamrock Rovers look to finish the job in Albania, Bohs chase a comeback in Denmark, and a sold-out Tolka Park awaits Shelbourne's second leg against Ajax.Plus: PSG beat Aston Villa in the UEFA Super Cup, major transfer headlines (Rodri, Enzo, Romero), Messi retirement hints, and Xavi's Netherlands appointment.Become a member and sign up at offtheball.com/join
People across the world are eagerly awaiting a solar eclipse, with the Moon set to block out our view of the Sun. The BBC's science correspondent reports from northern Spain - one of the areas expecting a rare total eclipse. Also: rescue efforts continue after the earthquake in Colombia; a Syrian court sentences the ousted president, Bashar al-Assad, to death for crimes against humanity; Donald Trump defends swapping planes due to a reported security threat, despite anger from journalists left on Air Force One; the Winter Olympics sport of curling finds new fans in sunny Italy; and the American TV channel Hallmark celebrates its 25th anniversary.The Global News Podcast brings you the breaking news you need to hear, as it happens. Listen for the latest headlines and current affairs from around the world. Politics, economics, climate, business, technology, health – we cover it all with expert analysis and insight. Get the news that matters, delivered twice a day on weekdays and daily at weekends, plus special bonus episodes reacting to urgent breaking stories. Follow or subscribe now and never miss a moment. Get in touch: globalpodcast@bbc.co.ukPhoto: Solar eclipse viewing preparations in the Netherlands. A woman wears eclipse glasses in Almelo. 11 August 2026. Credit: Vincent Jannink. EPA/Shutterstock
Los Angeles resident Kamala Harris visited New Orleans to celebrate the charter schools she condemns at home -- and to encourage schoolkids to fight Republicans. Gavin Newsom swerves out of his “moderate” lane and endorses Abdul El-Sayed in the Michigan Senate race. This week in California history: Richard Nixon resigns, Buck Owens is born, and a San Francisco trans activist who sought political asylum in the Netherlands discovers there's no place like home. Music by Metalachi. Email Us:dbahnsen@thebahnsengroup.comwill@calpolicycenter.org Follow Us:@DavidBahnsen@WillSwaim@TheRadioFreeCA Show Notes: David on Capital Record: The Common Good, Pornography, Gambling, and You Will on NPR's Left, Right & Center: The ‘Socialist' Brand Helps Some Democrats…For Now New Orleans students get advice from Kamala Harris at back-to-school rally How New Orleans Turned Around Its Failing Schools Congratulations @AbdulElSayed Sacramento judge sides with Attorney General Rob Bonta in Prop 39 ballot title lawsuit California's Medi-Cal has a bad case of fraud — and there's only one cure Medicaid Expansion's Growing Improper Enrollment Crisis Have an idea to fix San Francisco? You could win $50 million San Francisco dad questioned by park rangers for teaching his own kids tennis at public court Civil war breaks out in rich, white California town as activists from crime-plagued neighboring city demand it's ‘canceled' Transgender American who fled US admits it was ‘the dumbest thing,' returns home from European asylum center Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
There are few things more frustrating for an Emergency Physician than caring for patient after patient who lands in the ED not because it's necessarily the best place for their care, but because every other door in the health care system was closed, confusing or impossible to find. Emergency Medicine and Primary Care often operate in different worlds—one built around rapid diagnosis and uncertainty, the other around continuity and prevention—but our patients move constantly between the two. In this special EM Cases podcast, EM–Primary Care Health Systems Strategies, we step outside the usual ED lens with Dr. Tara Kiran (host of the Primary Focus podcast) and Dr. Danielle Martin to ask how we can deliver the right care, in the right place, at the right time. We challenge assumptions about what drives ED use and explore team-based primary care, after-hours cooperatives, call-first triage, virtual care, information sharing and warm handoffs. Drawing on models from Canada, the Netherlands, Denmark and elsewhere, we finish with practical strategies to reduce fragmentation, improve continuity and make the system work better for patients and providers. Please consider a donation to EM Cases to support our mission of providing high quality free open access medical education here: https://emergencymedicinecases.com/donation/. Disclaimer: This episode was recorded in October 2025, prior to Dr. Danielle Martin becoming a candidate for government office. The views and opinions expressed by Dr. Martin in this discussion were her own at the time of recording and do not represent or reflect the views, policies, or positions of the Government of Canada.
Memory Villages explores the promise and the questions surrounding dementia villages—care communities designed to feel more like neighborhoods than institutions. We discuss how familiar surroundings, routine, meaningful activity, and freedom of movement may support dignity and engagement, while also examining the important concerns: cost, access, staffing, evidence of benefit, safety, and ethics. The United States has been slower than countries such as the Netherlands and Canada to build full residential memory villages. The reasons appear to be less about lack of interest and more about how long-term care is financed, the cost of creating a village-scale setting, and the need for stronger evidence that the model improves outcomes—not just appearances. The takeaway: a beautiful setting alone does not guarantee good care. Families should look closely at staff training, individualized support, daily activities, transparency, and how a community protects both safety and autonomy.
Season 20, Episode 25: Australia's legacy-defining 21 Test run begins in the Top End, with Bangladesh keen to stifle the run to the WTC Final, and maybe even some careers. England point towards a Test revival for Dan Lawrence, and KP misfires about the death of traditional media. Pakistan arrived in England and just perhaps have stumbled across a competitive team. The Hundred makes a lot of noise, but did anyone hear? And what exactly is the future of the AB Medal? Scotland and the Netherlands slam the ICC, will the Windies risk missing another World Cup. Yas Rana joins Adam Collins. Could you support the show? You can send us a Nerd Pledge or become a member at patreon.com/thefinalword, and could win a case of Stomping Ground beer for your trouble. Browse their range at stompingground.beer Stop snoring with 10% off a Zeus device: use code TFW2026 at zeussleeps.com With Morie Candles you can buy one item, get 30% off the next, with the offer code TFW5. At morie.com.au/discount/TFW5 Get 15% off Step One clothes at uk.stepone.life/discount/TFW148 Check out the Lord's Performance Centre for activities and courses: lords.org/lords/performancecentre Get yourself 10% off lovely Duncan Fearnley bats and kit with code TFW10 Join England's Test tour of South Africa in 2026 with Gullivers Sports Travel. Learn more or book at gulliverstravel.co.uk Get your big NordVPN discount: nordvpn.com/tfw or 10% off BIG Boots UK boots and socks at bigboots.co.uk/?ref=thefinalword Find more at finalwordcricket.com Title track by Urthboy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Henry David Thoreau was not a traditional Christian, and yet he was a deeply, profoundly religious man. In this episode, Jacke talks to Lydia Willsky-Ciollo about her book Wildness: Henry David Thoreau and the Making of an American Theology, which describes how Thoreau's experiences in nature helped him imagine and develop a distinctly American theology of the wild. PLUS Douglas Clark (The Will in English Renaissance Drama) stops by to discuss his choice for the last book he will ever read. On Sale Now! For more information and to order Great Detective! An Adventure for Two People [2-Book Boxed Set] by Jacke Wilson, visit press.historyofliterature.com. SPECIAL OFFER! For a limited time, enter promotion code SHIP26 to get free domestic or international shipping! (Available in the U.S., Canada, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Iceland, Estonia, Netherlands, Australia, and New Zealand.) The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Last time we spoke about the ending of the Second Battle of Changsha. In late September and early October 1941, Chinese commander Chen Cheng planned an operation to retake Yichang, a strategic Yangtze River city whose control was essential for protecting the approach to Chongqing. Japanese forces were pulling back from Changsha, weakened by supply problems and casualties, which created an opportunity for Chen to intensify his campaign. Yichang had been captured by Japan in 1940, a defeat that Chen carried as a personal and political burden. He therefore moved to encircle the Japanese 13th Division inside Yichang and drive it to collapse. Although the Chinese held a clear manpower advantage—fourteen divisions against the encircled Japanese—progress was slowed by stubborn fighting from prepared, entrenched positions. The battle inside the city produced desperate close-quarters combat and heavy casualties, showing how the fate of Yichang and the wider defense of Chongqing were tightly linked. #214 War hits the Pacific 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. The guns fell silent on October 9, 1941, as the Ninth War Zone's forces restored their pre-battle positions, marking the end of the Second Battle of Changsha. The balance sheet was grim on both sides, but it was China that bore the heavier cost. The Ninth Military Front suffered 70,672 killed, wounded, or missing. The concurrent Yichang offensive added a further 21,368 casualties to the Sixth Military Front, a force that outnumbered its Japanese opponents ten to one yet still failed to retake the city. By the time the dust settled, the Chinese army had lost nearly 100,000 men across both theatres. The Chinese command was frank, at least in private, about what had gone wrong. The Japanese had moved with a speed that recalled Blitzkrieg, advancing 130 kilometres in eleven days and withdrawing at twelve kilometres a day, catching the defenders perpetually off-balance. The 26th, 37th, 10th, and 74th Corps had been picked apart piecemeal rather than fighting in concert, the original plan to destroy the Japanese south of the Miluo River coming to nothing. Elite formations had paid a disproportionate price: the 74th Corps suffered 14,521 casualties, the 37th Corps 14,015, and the 58th Division alone lost 6,192 of its 11,907 men, nearly its entire fighting strength. Yet none of this was the story the public would hear. On October 10th, China's National Day, radio stations announced the "Second Great Victory in Northern Hunan", the annihilation of over 40,000 enemy troops. Newspapers rushed out special editions. Congratulatory telegrams flooded in from government ministries and civic organizations. Senior officials seized on the moment: Sun Ke, Premier of the Executive Yuan, declared that the victory "laid the foundation for the counter-offensive and the recapture of Hankou and Guangzhou," while General Bai Chongxi called it "the pivotal moment for us to turn defeat into victory." Chiang Kai-shek, reading through the pages of triumphant commentary produced overnight by his propagandists, was reportedly impressed by their industry, if not convinced by their content. He had not wanted to call it a victory at all, but the political calculus was unavoidable: after four years of war, an exhausted nation needed the psychological sustenance that only "victory" could provide. The gap between public performance and private reality was nowhere more visible than in the arrival of a twenty-two-member international press delegation on October 13th. Journalists from Britain, the United States, France, the Netherlands, Portugal, Hong Kong, and major Chinese newspapers were flown to Changsha and carefully guided through selected battlefields, where they inspected mountains of war trophies and heard testimony from soldiers and civilians. They left satisfied, presenting their war souvenirs—swords, binoculars, Japanese military flags—to their audiences back home as proof of Chinese heroism and Japanese defeat. Both China and Japan were claiming victory simultaneously. The only conclusion the foreign press could draw was that one side was lying, and it was not the side that had shown them the evidence. Chiang Kai-shek's real verdict came at the Third Nanyue Military Conference, held from October 16 to 21. His anger was withering. He condemned his generals for their obsession with defending sprawling outer perimeter lines while leaving city centres barely fortified, a mentality so rigid, he said, that the Japanese could announce the exact time of their advance and withdrawal in advance and still execute it on schedule without interference. "Generals, what a disgrace this is!" On the failure to capture prisoners, only 263 prisoners were claimed across the entire front, of whom only 16 names were actually published, he was almost incredulous: "We can definitely defeat the enemy, capture many enemy prisoners, and seize countless enemy weapons! Even if we cannot capture ten thousand prisoners, we should at least capture a thousand! If not a thousand, then at least a hundred! But now, you don't even have ten!" The conference handed down punishments to match the rhetoric. Liao Lingqi, commander of the shattered 58th Division, was sentenced to death for desertion and shot on October 22nd. His men were so outraged that three regimental commanders resigned in protest; the division was pulled from the order of battle entirely and given three months to rebuild. Li Yutang, commander of the 10th Corps, was dismissed—though the Third Battle of Changsha would begin before his replacement could take post, and he would be reinstated to play a key role in the city's defence. On the Japanese side, the 11th Army acknowledged 1,670 killed, 5,184 wounded, and 14 missing, far fewer than Chinese claims, though post-war regimental histories suggest the true figure was higher. Lieutenant General Anami, who had championed the operation, found himself stung by the charge that the battle had served mainly as material for Chinese propaganda. On November 23rd, he reportedly reacted with visible displeasure when someone in his headquarters said as much aloud. Anami's annoyance was easy enough to understand, but the accusation carried a troubling degree of accuracy. The Second Battle of Changsha had yielded no decisive strategic gain and no substantial alteration in the military balance. What it did generate, rather effectively, was a story and by the autumn of 1941, stories were one of the few things China still had in plentiful supply. The most consequential struggles were taking place not along the Miluo River, but in foreign ministries and embassies, in Washington and Moscow, in the messages passing between Chongqing and London, and in the increasingly strained calculations of statesmen trying to determine, amid rapidly changing circumstances, whom to support and for how long. For Chiang Kai-shek, the challenge was never merely military. It was structural, and had been so from the outset. He had always seen clearly, precisely because he understood China's weakness, that Japan could not be defeated by China alone. The country lacked the industrial base, the logistical reach, and after four years of relentless attrition more and more the manpower needed to force a decisive result on the battlefield. China's survival depended on making its war inseparable from the wars of other powers. Since 1937, Chiang's diplomacy had pursued that single objective: convincing enough great powers that their interests were aligned with China's, and holding that coalition together long enough for Japan to be subdued. That effort turned out to be vastly more difficult than it ought to have been. The problem started with the international order in which the war emerged. Chiang had hoped to assemble a concert of allies willing to help defend China against Japanese aggression. He was blocked not just by the reluctance of neutral states to aid China, but by the speed with which alliances shifted in the opening years of the Second World War. He had never welcomed the prospect of a general European conflict, correctly fearing that it would push China even further to the margins of world attention. Even so, he recognized that once the lines had hardened between the imperial democracies and fascism, new alignments might become possible. From his perspective, the growing amity between Berlin and Moscow was therefore disastrous. He had been eager to draw the USSR into war against Japan. Instead, the Soviets were now effectively aligned with the Nazis, who were themselves allied with Tokyo. The world created after Versailles had already enraged many Chinese. After all, the May Fourth demonstrations of 1919 had arisen directly from the settlement reached at the Paris Peace Conference. Yet that older order had at least possessed recognizable anchors, especially the dominance of the two great European empires and the United States. Now those empires were weakening, and no one could say with confidence what the new geopolitical order would be. For all Chiang knew, Germany might emerge as Europe's new dominant power. The early years of the European war produced a bewildering spectacle of diplomatic realignment. The Nationalist government had previously enjoyed a short-lived flirtation with Nazi Germany. In fact, Hitler's regime continued supplying Chiang with munitions in the first months of China's war against Japan. The Anti-Comintern Pact of 1936 had theoretically joined Germany, Italy, and Japan into the Axis, but mutual distrust prevented them from forming anything like a fully coherent alliance. Chiang found it useful to imply to Western powers that he might be pushed into closer alignment with Germany, a particularly disturbing possibility for the USSR, which faced enemies in both Europe and Asia. But eventually the contradictions in German policy toward East Asia became too severe. In April 1938, Germany yielded to Japanese pressure and ended its support for China. Britain offered little meaningful help. Neville Chamberlain became prime minister in May 1937 at the head of a Conservative-led National Government, and was quickly overwhelmed by the deteriorating European situation. If Czechoslovakia was for him a "far-off country of which we know nothing," China's fate was even more distant and obscure to many, perhaps most policymakers in London. The Nationalists had more success in cultivating the United States. At the Nine-Power Conference in Brussels in November 1937, the Chinese delegation failed to persuade Washington to impose sanctions on Japan and confront it directly. By the middle of 1938, however, American views were beginning to shift. As Japan pushed deeper into southern China, it became increasingly obvious that the occupied territory would be closed to foreign trade. In December 1938, Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau arranged a private American loan of $25 million to China, to be repaid through shipments of tung oil, a varnish product whose real importance lay not in itself, but in what the arrangement signified: a quiet American expression of faith that Chongqing would survive. Chiang also held on to the hope of an even less likely partnership. He had become fiercely anti-Communist during the 1920s, yet in the early years of the anti-Japanese war his greatest hope still rested on Soviet entry into the conflict. Soviet advisers and pilots had aided China from 1937 to 1939, but the USSR never formally declared war on Japan. Still, as Japanese aggression in northern Asia intensified, it remained possible that the Soviets would eventually be drawn in. Then, as so often happened whenever Chiang tried to impose some control over the course of the war, events beyond China's borders altered the struggle in fundamental ways. While Western attention remained fixed on Europe's darkening horizon, a battle with major consequences for East Asia unfolded on the frontiers of Outer Mongolia, Manchukuo, and the eastern Soviet Union. Throughout much of 1938 and early 1939, one faction within the Japanese Imperial Army sought to pressure the Soviets along their eastern frontier. The USSR appeared vulnerable; Stalin's paranoid purges had executed or exiled many of the Red Army's best officers. In May 1939, fighting broke out near Nomonhan between forces from Soviet-backed Mongolia and Japanese troops from Manchukuo. Within days, both sides had reinforced heavily, until nearly 60,000 Soviet troops faced about 40,000 soldiers from the Kwantung Army. Over the next four months, until mid-September, they fought a major battle ending in a decisive Japanese defeat and establishing the reputation of General Georgi Zhukov, who would later become one of Stalin's most celebrated wartime commanders. The much-derided Soviet Army had fought with formidable effectiveness, and the result was not only a ceasefire but also a nonaggression pact between the two sides, extinguishing, in one stroke, Chiang's hopes for a Chinese-Soviet military alliance. The final blow came after developments in northern Europe. In the Winter War of 1939–1940, the Soviet invasion of Finland led Britain and France to back a motion expelling the USSR from the League of Nations. China, then a member of the League Council, declined to use its veto to block the resolution. Stalin was enraged by Chiang's failure to prevent Soviet expulsion, and mutual suspicion thereafter poisoned relations between the two leaders for the rest of the war against Japan. China would now have to continue without further major Soviet backing. By the spring of 1940, China's position had become deeply precarious. In March, senior Japanese negotiators sought an agreement with Chiang in Chongqing, while Wang Jingwei was trying to formalize his rival Nationalist government in Nanjing. This effort, known in Chinese as the Tong Operation, and in Japanese as Operation Kiri, led to talks in Hong Kong from March 7 to 10, 1940. Militarily, the Nationalists were in grave danger: the United States remained neutral, and Europe was in chaos. Indeed, that same spring, with France seemingly near collapse, the British government also sent out discreet feelers to explore the possibility of a negotiated peace with Germany. For China, Western assistance was nowhere in sight. The Japanese judged the moment favorable for pressing Chiang toward concessions. Faced with serious danger to his regime, Chiang allowed the door to negotiation to open just slightly. As a consequence, the Japanese delayed full recognition of Wang Jingwei's new government. Through the summer and autumn of 1940, Tokyo remained uncertain about the defector. Prominent Japanese figures such as Count Arima Yoriyasu of the Privy Council said Wang's conduct demonstrated his untrustworthiness, and Foreign Minister Matsuoka Yōsuke continued to express interest in an agreement with Chongqing. Zhou Fohai captured the defectors' frustration, men who believed they had made the highest patriotic sacrifice when he wrote: "Chongqing sees us as collaborators, we see ourselves as heroes. We think only peace can save the country — that's why we think of ourselves as heroes. If we end up classed as heroes, then China and Japan will be at peace. If we end up classed as collaborators, then China and Japan will never be at peace."That formulation conveyed something genuine about the moral dizziness of the period. Most of the defectors were not men devoid of principles; they were men whose principles had carried them to a place that history would find exceptionally hard to pardon. The "New Fourth Army Incident" brought to a close one of the most consequential years in modern Chinese political history. The battle of ideas unfolding in 1940 was already visible to informed contemporaries. Early in 1941, US Ambassador Nelson Johnson sent Washington a detailed assessment of the Chinese political situation in reply to another report passed along by Major Evans Carlson, an American officer who had made an extensive journey through the Chinese interior. The contrast between the two documents revealed a widening split in American views of China. Carlson, together with his travelling companion, the New Zealander Rewi Alley, had become increasingly sympathetic to the Communists after visiting their territories in 1938 and admiring their discipline. Carlson described the Nationalists as moving toward "fascism," and argued that American aid should be conditioned on Chiang's government being compelled to adopt more "democratic" institutions. Johnson strongly disagreed. It was "only normal and natural," he wrote, that the Nationalists wanted to retain power, but during the war they had established the National Political Consultative Council, in which multiple parties, including the Communists, were represented. He also noted that the CCP could publish its own newspaper in Chongqing in a way that would have been impossible before the war. One might have expected the Nationalists to use the war as a justification "to extinguish . . . all political opposition," yet instead they had chosen to "muddle along." Johnson further thought that the influence of competing cliques inside the Nationalist Party had been overstated. Chiang Kai-shek, by contrast, had "grown in stature, as he has come to be recognized as the symbol of united resistance to Japanese encroachment"; ultimately, "it is he who makes the final decisions." Johnson did agree with Carlson that Chiang's regime was hesitant to encourage a broad-based popular movement animated by anything beyond anti-Japanese feeling, though he also pointed to Nationalist cooperative programs and county-level reforms. But he rejected the idea that American support should depend on sweeping political transformation. Chiang was committed to continuing the war against Japan, and Washington should back him in that effort. In a notably farsighted passage, Johnson wrote: "It is my view that since the fall of the Manchu dynasty and the collapse of the traditional Chinese concept of government the Chinese people have been feeling their way along toward a new evolving form of government. A definitive form of government has not yet been established and may not be established for decades; it may or may not be in the form of a democracy, but it will be a type of government that will be adapted to the needs of China and its people." The tension between these two American interpretations, Carlson's idealized belief in the Communists and Johnson's pragmatic support for Chiang was more than a minor bureaucratic dispute. It foreshadowed a debate that would dominate American foreign policy for the next decade, and would still echo when the People's Republic was proclaimed in 1949. The disastrous experience of 1940 seemed to cast doubt on whether any future for China existed outside the Japanese Empire. As 1941 wore on, another dreadful event shook the exhausted wartime capital. On June 5, Chongqing endured roughly five hours of bombing, driving the population into air-raid shelters. In one tunnel in the Shibati district, the conditions were even worse than usual. The large shelter was supposed to have lights and electric fans, but the generators had never been connected. Inside, the air was dark, hot, and suffocating. Around ten that evening, people began emerging from the tunnel when rumors spread that the Japanese were returning with poison-gas bombs. Air-raid wardens forced people back inside, even as others were still trying to come out. Bodies toppled over one another, and panic spread as people realized they could not breathe. Over the next few hours, hundreds died underground in the darkness. The exact number was never definitively established: the official figure was 461, though a contemporary police report placed it far higher, at 1,527. What rescuers remembered most vividly were the tortured expressions of the dead, people tangled together in each other's arms as they lost consciousness, clothing ripped to shreds by desperate hands clawing at one another, and bodies so drenched in sweat that they looked as though they had been soaked in water. One survivor, Tang Zhengchang, remembered a hand reaching out from a pile of corpses and pleading, "Sir, please help me . . ." The grip on Tang's shorts was so tight that it pulled them off; he escaped the tunnel naked from the waist down. Official descriptions of the disaster were softened. Even so, the tragedy deepened the city's gloom and in a place already saturated with grief, an added layer of darkness mattered a great deal. Yet events elsewhere would soon offer the National Government a narrow margin of hope. Late in 1940, Franklin D. Roosevelt won re-election as president of the United States. "I am not going to send your boys into any foreign wars," he had proclaimed during the campaign against Wendell Willkie. But Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull both understood that Nazi domination of Europe posed a grave challenge to American influence there. And with China's "Open Door" to trade effectively shut by Japanese occupation, it was becoming increasingly clear that strict neutrality might not remain viable. In a 1941 report on China's domestic and foreign situation, Ambassador Johnson noted that during Germany's sweeping victories across Europe in mid-1940, the Chinese had become anxious about whether the Allies would remain committed to their cause. Britain's refusal to surrender, however, together with continuing Soviet goodwill, lifted public morale in China. People now looked toward the United States and Britain for support and felt that "victory" was "virtually theirs." Then, on June 22, 1941, the world awoke to news that roughly three million German soldiers were advancing into the Soviet Union. Operation Barbarossa, Hitler's invasion of the USSR, dramatically overturned the nonaggression that had governed relations between the two major European dictatorships for the previous two years. It transformed the war in Europe entirely. Less obviously, it also transformed the war in Asia. Thanks to intelligence leaks, Chiang Kai-shek had already realized that war between Germany and the USSR was likely. After the neutrality treaty between the USSR and Japan was signed on April 13, 1941, Chiang predicted that the United States would be drawn into the Asian war, and even that Japan might eventually reverse course and strike the Soviet Union. If that happened, China would become the critical Asian ally of both Washington and Moscow. Stalin had been caught off guard by the German assault — largely because he ignored increasingly urgent warnings from senior colleagues receiving intelligence from well-placed spies in Germany and the Comintern, eager to preserve its alliances, now pressed the Chinese Communists to cooperate more closely with the Nationalists. On June 23, 1941, the CCP Central Committee responded with a declaration that it would "persevere in the Anti-Japanese United Front, persevere in Nationalist-Communist cooperation," and would align itself with the British, the Americans, and others resisting the "fascist rulers" of the Axis. In Chongqing and Yan'an, the German attack on the Soviet Union was interpreted as a hopeful sign that Japan's fortunes might be beginning to turn. In Nanjing, the reaction was different. On June 22, Zhou Fohai recorded in his diary that, although the outcome "cannot be predicted," members of the Nanjing regime "all believe Germany will win and will take Moscow within two months." Zhou speculated that Japan could not easily reconcile its neutrality treaty with the USSR and its membership in the Anti-Comintern Pact, which was supposed to unite the Axis against Soviet expansionism. Still, because Germany had struck first, Japan was under no formal obligation to help. Zhou also continued to view events through a lens he had never abandoned: that of Chinese nationalism. "If Chongqing joins the Allies and they win," he wrote, "then this is good for China." If they lost, it would be disastrous for Chiang Kai-shek; but because Wang Jingwei had established a government in Nanjing under Japanese sponsorship, China now had "a foot in both boats." It was a ruthless calculation, but not a wholly dishonorable one. Zhou was not merely advancing Japanese interests. He was hedging, wagering on multiple futures in the name of a China he believed would endure beyond whatever constellation of powers happened to dominate at the moment. Whether posterity would judge that conduct prudent or collaborative was a question he could neither settle nor live to see resolved to his satisfaction. The summer of 1941 marked a major geopolitical turning point in the war. Until then, the conflicts in China and Europe had remained separate, if desperate, struggles on the Eurasian continent. Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union now forced Japan to decide whether it too would enter war against the USSR. Debate in Tokyo was brief. Although some officials, including Foreign Minister Matsuoka, favored striking north before moving south, both the Kwantung Army and the Navy advised against helping Germany at least until Germany had succeeded in drawing substantial Soviet forces away from Siberia and into Europe. Konoye, once again prime minister, agreed. With the northern option set aside, Japanese leaders turned toward another great power instead: the United States. Japan's failure to gain further decisive momentum in China had fueled demands for broader regional expansion, especially into Southeast Asia, with its abundant oil, rubber, and other strategic resources. From 1940 onward, measures such as the pressure to close the Burma Road made it increasingly obvious that Tokyo had adopted a more aggressive posture in Asia. Unable to subdue China, Japanese policymakers chose instead to escalate the conflict still further. Japanese political life had become ever more dominated by the unresolved war in China. As early as 1938, military expenditures consumed about 70 percent of the national budget, and that same year a National Mobilization Bill granted the government "total war control" over the zaibatsu, Japan's major industrial conglomerates. By 1940, the New Order was making itself felt throughout everyday life, with campaigns against luxury and extravagant consumption taking on new prominence. In February 1940, a parliamentarian was expelled from the Diet simply for daring to criticize the "holy war" in China. In such an atmosphere, retreat from imperial ambitions became increasingly unthinkable. That figure, 70 percent of the national budget devoted to the military is worth dwelling on, because it reveals something essential about the trap in which Japanese strategists had placed themselves. The war in China had not been won, yet abandoning it would have meant admitting a failure so severe that it would have shaken the ideological and institutional foundations of military supremacy in Japanese politics. The only apparent ways out required pushing further in: more conquest, more extraction, more expansion. The logic was brutally clear, and profoundly destructive. The Roosevelt administration watched these developments with growing alarm. Though still formally neutral, the United States was already using Lend-Lease to provide major assistance to Britain and the Soviet Union in their struggles against Germany. It now expanded aid to China as well. On February 10, Roosevelt's representative Lauchlin Currie visited Chongqing to inform Chiang Kai-shek that the United States would soon provide $45 million in military equipment. General John Magruder, head of the small AMMISCA mission, the American Military Mission in China had been sent to Chongqing in September 1941, as part of quiet preparation for possible Chinese entry into an alliance against Japan. The China branch of the OSS, precursor to the CIA, was led by General William "Wild Bill" Donovan, whom Roosevelt had dispatched to China in early 1941. The Americans repeatedly tried to discourage Japan from moving south into Southeast Asia, but relations only grew more confrontational. Japan occupied the southern part of French Indochina, and in response the United States imposed an oil embargo in July 1941. The consequences were immense. Japan imported around 80 percent of its oil from the United States. Without that supply, its navy, the essential instrument for southern expansion had reserves for perhaps eighteen months. The real question facing Tokyo, then, was not whether it must act, but how soon. Unable any longer to resist mounting military pressure for war, Konoye resigned on October 16 and was replaced as premier by General Tōjō Hideki. Tokyo accelerated its preparations for conflict with the Western powers. Planned targets included Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaya, the Netherlands East Indies, and the Philippines. I should note, if you want to learn about all of this history in more detail, you can go check out the pacific war channel on youtube. I have a chronological series that is just now talking about events like the Japanese invasion of french indochina and the road to pearl harbor. Throughout the autumn of 1941, increasingly desperate negotiations took place between Japan and the United States. Washington insisted that Japan withdraw from China; Tokyo was equally firm that it would do no such thing. From the Japanese point of view, the demand to leave China was not a serious negotiating position but a demand for national humiliation a call to repudiate four years of war, vast casualties, and the ideological basis of Japanese militarism in a single diplomatic act. In the end, the gulf between the two positions could not be bridged. While civilian and military leaders in Tokyo argued over the pace at which they should move toward war, few among Japan's rulers doubted that war was coming. At the imperial conference of November 5, it was formally agreed that if no satisfactory diplomatic solution had been reached by December 1, war would follow soon after. Talks in Washington between Ambassador Nomura Kichisaburō, diplomat Kurusu Saburō, and Secretary of State Cordell Hull led nowhere. On November 26, Hull delivered a note repeating the American position that Japan must withdraw from both China and Indochina. On December 1, the imperial conference resolved to go to war; the following day, the date of attack was fixed as December 8, December 7 by American time. In one sense, this was the culmination toward which the entire previous decade had been moving. The war in China had started as a localized conflict, then expanded into a continental one, and was now about to become something larger still: a truly global war, stretching from the North Atlantic to the western Pacific. China's long, lonely resistance would suddenly gain new dimensions and new allies, though not the ones Chiang had spent four years trying to cultivate, and not under circumstances he would have chosen. In the early morning of December 7, 1941, the US Pacific Fleet lay anchored at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, its sailors and officers still largely asleep as dawn crept across the Pacific. The attack did not come without warning signs, American and Japanese diplomats had been locked in increasingly desperate negotiations throughout the autumn, each side hardening its position until no room remained to maneuver. Washington had demanded that Japan withdraw from China, a condition Tokyo viewed not as a serious opening offer but as a demand for national humiliation: a call to repudiate four years of brutal war, hundreds of thousands of casualties, and the entire ideological foundation upon which Japanese militarism rested. No agreement was possible on those terms, and both sides privately knew it. The strike force assembled in secret was formidable. Six aircraft carriers, the Akagi, Kaga, Sōryū, Hiryū, Shōkaku, and Zuikaku had sailed under strict radio silence across the North Pacific, launching their aircraft in two successive waves before the American base had any meaningful chance to respond. The first wave of approximately 183 planes swept in just before 8 a.m., targeting the rows of battleships moored along Battleship Row and the military airfields at Wheeler, Hickam, and Ford Island simultaneously, ensuring that American aircraft could not scramble in time to mount an effective defense. A second wave of roughly 170 planes followed less than an hour later, pressing the attack on damaged ships and harbor installations. The destruction was staggering. The battleship Arizona suffered a catastrophic magazine explosion after a armor-piercing bomb penetrated her forward decks, killing nearly 1,177 of her crew in minutes, almost half of the total American dead from the entire attack. The Oklahoma capsized after being struck by multiple torpedoes. The West Virginia and California sank at their moorings. In total, seventeen vessels were damaged or destroyed, and the vast majority of military aircraft at the nearby airfields were caught on the ground and obliterated before they could take flight. Around 2,400 Americans were killed and another 1,100 wounded, making it the deadliest single attack on American soil or territory in the nation's history to that point. Yet the attack was not a complete strategic success for Japan. The US Pacific Fleet's aircraft carriers, the vessels that would ultimately decide the naval war in the Pacific happened to be at sea that morning and escaped unharmed. The harbor's fuel storage and repair facilities were also left largely intact, allowing the fleet to reconstitute faster than Japanese planners had anticipated. What Japan achieved in tactical devastation, it partly squandered in strategic miscalculation. The attack ended American neutrality instantly and irrevocably. The following day, President Roosevelt addressed Congress, calling December 7 "a date which will live in infamy," and within hours the United States declared war on Japan. For China, after more than four years of fighting alone, the blow that devastated Pearl Harbor paradoxically carried a thread of desperate hope at last, the great power Chiang Kai-shek had spent years trying to draw into the conflict had arrived, not under circumstances he would have chosen, but arrived nonetheless. 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. After years of fighting, China's situation darkened in 1941 with intense bombing of Chongqing and fears of poison-gas attacks. Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union in June shifted alliances and pressured Japan toward wider war. Japan escalated plans for Southeast Asia, suffered an oil embargo, and negotiations with the United States broke down over withdrawing from China and Indochina. Then the Pearl Harbor attack began the Pacific War.
Renaissance English History Podcast: A Show About the Tudors
In 1513, Charles Brandon knelt in front of Margaret of Austria, regent of the Netherlands, and lifted the ring right off her finger. Twice. The gossip reached all the way to her father, the Holy Roman Emperor, and for a minute, Henry VIII was actually pushing for his best friend to marry one of the most powerful women in Europe.It never happened. But what if it had? In this episode I dig into the real story behind the ring, why the marriage was never actually going to happen, and what it would have meant for England, the Habsburgs, and the entire Tudor succession, including a very direct line to Lady Jane Grey never existing at all. Join us for TudorCon 2026, October 23-25 in Richmond, VA. About 20 in-person tickets remain: tudorcon.englandcast.com Can't make it in person? Join us for TudorCon From Home, and for a limited time get early bird pricing on the Privy Council tier (ends September 15): tudorcon.englandcast.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
This week we're sharing something special that was previously only available on Substack: Jonathan's conversation with Meredith Sprengel, Research and Program Director for the Subtle Energy Funders Collective and Fellowship Director for the Biofield Fellowship Research Program. Meredith studies what most people would call energy healing — someone holds their hands over you, or sends an intention, and the body drops into a deep state of rest. In that state, curious and sometimes miraculous things start to happen.Science can already measure the electrical field your heart and brain give off, and the faint light your cells emit. But what about a field that connects all of us? And what if it's the missing piece in how the body heals itself?Meredith walks us through a preclinical study at MD Anderson Cancer Center where a specific energy healing practice stopped the growth of pancreatic cancer cells. She also describes her own research in the Netherlands, where people receiving healing showed an exponential rise in biophoton emissions — the faint light our cells give off when they're metabolically active. A mitochondrial researcher who reviewed the data said it resembled what you see in someone who just went for a run.Meredith has interviewed many healers who describe scanning the body and feeling spots that are heavy, hot, or stuck — places where old emotional pain is believed to be held. What her research has found is that healing rarely looks like pain suddenly disappearing. More often, a person's relationship to that pain changes, and connection to other people and a sense of meaning seem to play a role in that shift.So how does it actually work? Some healers say they're channeling god, source, or consciousness. Others describe clearing blockages of stuck energy. And others say they're not doing the healing at all — just giving the body space to do what it already knows how to do.Meredith and her co-host Ivy Ross explore all of this in their six-part podcast series, Phenomena: The Science and Stories of Energy Healing, sitting down with healers, people who've received healing, and the scientists studying what's actually happening.Energy healing has been practiced for centuries. Science is finally starting to catch up!Watch the Stuart Fails to Save the Universe Official Podcast on HBO Max, the HBO Max YouTube channel, or listen wherever you get your podcasts. https://link.mgln.ai/StuartVisit drinkag1.com/BREAKDOWN and get a FREE AG1 Flavor Sampler and a FREE bottle of Vitamin D3 + K2 in your Welcome Kit with your first AG1 subscription order.Get your annual IANDS Conference tickets at https://conference.iands.org.Follow us on Substack for Exclusive Bonus Content: https://bialikbreakdown.substack.com/BialikBreakdown.comYouTube.com/mayimbialikSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Widely regarded as the first professional woman writer in English literature, Aphra Behn (1640-1689) is best known for her plays and her novel Oroonoko, she's been an inspiration to countless writers across the ages.This archive episode, first released in October 2017, was selected as part of a ten-episode series by Misha Glenny. In the episode, Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and times of Behn, who made her name and her living as a playwright, poet and writer of fiction during the Restoration. Virginia Woolf wrote of her: 'All women together, ought to let flowers fall upon the grave of Aphra Behn... for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds'. Behn may well have spent some of her early life in Surinam, the setting for her novel Oroonoko, and there are records of her working in the Netherlands as a spy for Charles II. She was loyal to the Stuart kings and refused to write a poem on the coronation of William of Orange. She was regarded as an important writer in her lifetime and inspired others to write but fell out of favour for two centuries after her death when her work was seen as too bawdy, the product of a disreputable age.With Janet ToddFormer President of Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge UniversityRos BallasterProfessor of 18th Century Literature at Mansfield College, University of OxfordandClaire Bowditch Post-doctoral Research Associate in English and Drama at Loughborough University Producer: Simon Tillotson. Reading list: Kate Aughterson, Aphra Behn: The Comedies (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003) Ros Ballaster, Seductive Forms: Women's Amatory Fiction 1684-1740 (Oxford Clarendon Press, 1991) Aphra Behn (ed. Joanna Lipking), Oroonoko (Norton and Co, 1997) Aphra Behn (ed. Paul Salzman), Oroonoko and Other Writings (Oxford University Press, 2009) Aphra Behn (ed. Jane Spencer), The Rover and Other Plays (Oxford University Press, 2008) Aphra Behn (ed. Janet Todd), Oroonoko (Penguin Classics, 2003) Aphra Behn (ed. Janet Todd), Oroonoko, the Rover and Other Works (Penguin Classics, 1999) Aphra Behn (ed. Janet Todd), The Complete Works of Aphra Behn:7 vols. (Pickering and Chatto, 1992-6) Claire Bowditch, The Works of Aphra Behn (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming) W. J. Cameron, New Light on Aphra Behn (University of Auckland Press, 1961) Maureen Duffy, The Passionate Shepherdess: Aphra Behn, 1640-89 (Jonathan Cape, 1977) Derek Hughes, The Theatre of Aphra Behn (Palgrave Macmillan, 2001) Derek Hughes (ed.), Versions of Blackness: Oroonoko, Race and Slavery (Cambridge University Press, 2007) Jane Spencer, Aphra Behn's Afterlife (Oxford University Press, 2000) Janet Todd (ed.), Aphra Behn Studies (Cambridge University Press, 1996) Janet Todd, Aphra Behn: A Secret Life (Fentum Press, 2017) Janet Todd and Derek Hughes (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Aphra Behn (Cambridge University Press, 2004) S. J. Wiseman, Aphra Behn (Northcote House, 1996) In Our Time is a BBC Studios production Spanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Misha Glenny and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.