Podcasts about North Carolina

Rob and Kelvin debate whether Luka Doncic deserves NBA MVP consideration, and tell us if it’s fair to call Shai Gilgeous-Alexander one of the villains of the NBA. Plus, NCAA national champion and ACC Network analyst Joel Berry II swings by to discuss the Hubert Davis era at North Carolina, the perception that young players struggle in March Madness more than veterans, which teams are most likely to win the NCAA Tournament, and much more!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Rob and Kelvin tell us if it’s fair to call Shai Gilgeous-Alexander one of the villains of the NBA, and explain why sports teams and athletes should not feel obligated to accept invitations to the White House. Plus, NCAA national champion and ACC Network analyst Joel Berry II swings by to discuss the Hubert Davis era at North Carolina, the perception that young players struggle in March Madness more than veterans, which teams are most likely to win the NCAA Tournament, and much more!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Rob and Kelvin debate whether Luka Doncic deserves NBA MVP consideration, share a few of their favorite ‘Chuck Norris Facts’ in honor of the late, great martial artist, and take a trip out to Shekel City for Rob's nightly bets. Plus, FS1 college basketball analyst Casey Jacobsen swings by to discuss Hubert Davis’ uncertain future at North Carolina, how much pressure is on Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo in this NCAA Tournament, why some college coaches prefer not to recruit 5-star prospects, and much more!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Behind a 19-point comeback, VCU upset North Carolina in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, and speaking of upset...Taylor. Can Hubert Davis recover from this loss as head coach? Stugotz has a few coaches he thinks are sniffing around Chapel Hill, waiting for an opening. Then, VCU head coach Phil Martelli Jr. joins the crew to talk about the game and preparing his team for the moment. Martelli Jr. grew up listening to sports radio in Philadelphia, so we also get his take on the Phillies and Eagles.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Matt Norlander and Chip Patterson recap an eventful Thursday at the 2026 NCAA Tournament! VCU hands North Carolina a historic loss. Siena gives Duke a scare, High Point dances past Wisconsin and plenty more from Thursday! (0:00) Intro (3:45) VCU's historic comeback against North Carolina + … Hubert Davis? (20:15) Duke's spooky Siena scare! (29:20) High Point dances passed the Wisconsin Badgers (41:25) Texas beats BYU and AJ Dybantsa's career is probably over (47:55) Nebraska takes over OKC and it wasn't close (51:00) Bouncing around: Michigan, Vandy, Louisville & more (1:04:00) 5-Hour Energy Starting 5 Theme song: “Timothy Leary,” written, performed and courtesy of Guster Eye on College Basketball is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever else you listen to podcasts. Follow our team: @EyeonCBBPodcast @GaryParrishCBS @MattNorlander @Boone @DavidWCobb @TheJMULL_ Visit the ⁠betting arena on CBSSports.com⁠ for all the latest in ⁠sportsbook reviews⁠ and ⁠sportsbook promos⁠ for ⁠betting on college basketball⁠. You can listen to us on your smart speakers! Simply say, “Alexa, play the latest episode of the Eye on College Basketball podcast,” or “Hey, Google, play the latest episode of the Eye on College Basketball podcast.” Email the show for any reason whatsoever: ShoutstoCBS@gmail.com Visit Eye on College Basketball's YouTube channel: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeFb_xyBgOekQPZYC7Ijilw⁠ For more college hoops coverage, visit ⁠https://www.cbssports.com/college-basketball/⁠ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit ⁠https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Nick Kostos is LIVE on this Friday! Nick Kostos opens the show reacting to North Carolina's epic collapse against VCU. VCU Head Coach Phil Martelli Jr joins the show to react to his teams comeback win in the tournament.

VCU Head Coach Phil Martelli joins the show to react to their comeback win over North Carolina.

Nick Kostos is LIVE this Friday! Nick Kostos opens the show reacting to North Carolina's meltdown loss against VCU.

Nick Kostos is LIVE on this tournament Friday! Nick opens the show reacting to North Carolina's epic meltdown loss against VCU yesterday. Plus, Nick breaks down his favorite bets for the weekend, reacts to the Lakers winning streak, and MUCH MORE! Brad Evans, Sarah Kustok, VCU Head Coach Phil Martelli Jr, and High Point Head Coach Flynn Clayman join the show!

Rob and Kelvin explain why Matt Leinart is totally justified for never allowing USC to un-retire his #11 jersey, and tell us why North Carolina basketball coach Hubert Davis has to get fired following his latest NCAA Tournament meltdown.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Big Ben talks about North Carolina getting upset by VCU in Round 1 of the NCAA Tournament, LeBron James saying the media is ripping him to "sell papers", Maller to the Third Degree, Lame Jokes of the Week, and more!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ben Maller talks about North Carolina falling to VCU in the NCAA Tournament and if they get a pass because they played without Caleb Wilson, Bruce Pearl claiming that fatigue was a factor as to why UNC lost, what else stood out on Day 1 of the Tournament, and more!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Rich reacts to an eventful day one of the NCAA Tournament including High Point's historic upset of Wisconsin, 16-seed Siena nearly taking out the East's 1-seed Duke, and VCU stunning blue blood North Carolina. Actor Josh Duhamel joins Rich in-studio to promote his new ‘Preschool' comedy movie, weighs in on his beloved Minnesota Vikings signing free agent QB Kyler Murray, reveals his surprising pick to cut down the nets in the NCAA Tourney's championship game, and more.   Rich weighs in on the importance of student journalism and gives props to VCU Head Coach Phil Martelli Jr. for giving props to the students covering the Rams this year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

North Carolina's basketball program faced the worst case scenario on Thursday night in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. The Tar Heels continued their trend of poor sloppy play down the stretch of a game and this time, it was the VCU Rams there to take advantage of the miscues and end UNC's season in Greenville.  Inside Carolina's senior reporter Greg Barnes joins Tommy Ashley to discuss the day after aftermath of Carolina's collapse and what's next for Carolina Basketball. With the transfer portal opening on April 7th, any actions taken by incoming Athletic Director Steve Newmark, current AD Bubba Cunningham and Chancellor Lee Roberts need to happen quickly - regardless of which route they choose to take in the coming days. Barnes and Ashley highlight both sides of the decision as well as financial and fundraising implications around NIL and the Smith Center debate. How does the football situation play into the decision process as well as the coming tide for conference realignment for UNC? Clearly the decisions are complicated as Barnes describes but the implications and final results are massive for the program and school. **Call to Action:** **Subscribe:** Follow 'Inside Carolina' wherever you get your podcasts to never miss an episode! **Review:** Leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify to help us reach more Tar Heel fans! **Visit:** Explore http://www.InsideCarolina.com for breaking news, recruiting updates, and expert commentary on all things UNC sports.This show is brought to you by Inside Carolina, the No. 1 site for UNC sports coverage and community. Visit http://www.InsideCarolina.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

North Carolina's season came to a crashing end as the familiar script of the past five years played out in Greenville, SC in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Carolina led by 19 points in the second half only to collapse down the stretch and lose to VCU in overtime, 82-78. In the process, the Heels blown lead was the largest in UNC tournament history, the sixth largest all time in tournament history and the second largest second half lead blown in tournament history.  Inside Carolina's Sherrell McMillan and senior reporter Greg Barnes join Tommy Ashley for The Postgame and try to make sense of how Carolina's season can end after playing some of it's best basketball for 26 minutes and some of it's worst over the last 15. McMillan and Barnes highlight the mistakes that have permeated this team all season - and the program over the last several seasons - and how the VCU Rams were able to capitalize and make the Tar Heels pay.  The IC trio discusses the future of Hubert Davis and the standards of Carolina Basketball. What are those standards?  Have they changed? And what will the administration do about the situation the program finds itself in after year five of the Davis era?   **Call to Action:** **Subscribe:** Follow 'Inside Carolina' wherever you get your podcasts to never miss an episode! **Review:** Leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify to help us reach more Tar Heel fans! **Visit:** Explore http://www.InsideCarolina.com for breaking news, recruiting updates, and expert commentary on all things UNC sports.This show is brought to you by Inside Carolina, the No. 1 site for UNC sports coverage and community. Visit http://www.InsideCarolina.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Tyler Metcalf (@tmetcalf11) and Stephen Gilaspie (@StephenGHoops) break down the opening day of March Madness looking at the biggest matchups, must watch games, 2026 NBA Draft ramifications, and so much more. 0:00 Intro 3:35 BYU vs Texas 21:10 Duke vs Siena 33:20 North Carolina vs VCU 43:03 Arkansas vs Hawaii 49:30 Bouncing around with the rest of the games Draft Guide and Merchandise: noceilingsnba.bigcartel.com Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/no-ceilings-nba-draft/id1595712943 Written work: noceilingsnba.com Twitter: @NoCeilingsNBA YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@NoCeilingsNBA To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today on the show, Eddie and I get to keep talking about the Winter Olympics (mountaineering is wild!), the latest wild west movie I've watched, snow skiing stories, the difference in weighing things vs measuring them, and what makes a good biscuit... and of course we're just adding to the list of what we want The Buddies Tour to look like!  Plus, you're not ready to hear Eddie's new way of saying, “I have to use the restroom.” Things get a bit unhinged today.  Have you gotten your tickets to The Buddies tour yet?! Eddie and I are coming to: Keller (Fort Worth), Texas on Friday, May 15th Colorado Springs, Colorado on Saturday, May 16th Orlando, Florida on Friday, June 5th Charlotte, North Carolina on Sunday, June 7th Trussville (Birmingham), Alabama on Friday, June 12th Nashville, TN on Saturday, June 13th Y'all, this is going to be an actual blast. I hope these nights are just pure fun. Tickets are selling QUICKLY! Go to thebuddiestour.com We cannot wait to see you there! IF YOU MAKE SOAP, please come tell us over on instagram at @thatsoundsfunpodcast or shoot us an email at tellmemore@anniefdowns.com. . . . . . ⁠Find the show notes here⁠ Want to watch this episode? Watch on your Spotify App, or head on over to our YouTube Channel and be sure to like and subscribe!  We have a Substack now! Find it at spirituallystronger.com. Sign up to receive the AFD Week In Review email and ask questions to future guests! . . . . . Thank you to our sponsors! Shopify: Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial and start selling today at Shopify.com/soundsfun⁠. Capstone Wellness: Learn more at capstonewellness.com/thatsoundsfun. Boll and Branch: Get 15% off your first order plus free shipping at BollAndBranch.com/thatsoundsfun with code thatsoundsfun. NYTimes bestselling Christian author, speaker, and host of popular Christian podcast, That Sounds Fun Podcast, Annie F. Downs shares with you some of her favorite things: new books, faith conversations, entertainers not to miss, and interviews with friends. #thatsoundsfunpodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Live Call-in Show from this past Sunday night, March 15, 2026!  Mike and Scott were back together for another BOGP Open Line (but the phone lines were giving us major issues again tonight, so I sincerely apologize for that; it will be working better next week!) where we discussed more thoughts on bags for your Disney Parks day, answered some questions about a couple's trip to Walt Disney World next month, Scott and I had some takes about TV in the staterooms at Walt Disney World and on Disney Cruise Line, and we got a great call from Listener Tim from North Carolina with an amazing review of his retirement cruise on the Disney Fantasy last week!  Come join us in the BOGP Clubhouse this week at www.beourguestpodcast.com/discord.  Please visit our website at www.beourguestpodcast.com.  Thank you so much for your support of our podcast! Also, please follow the show on Twitter @BeOurGuestMike and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/beourguestpodcast.  Become a patron of the Be Our Guest Podcast over at www.patreon.com/BeOurGuestPodcast.  Thanks to our friends at The Magic For Less Travel for sponsoring today's podcast!

Inside Carolina's senior reporter Greg Barnes joins Tommy Ashley to break down North Carolina's first round NCAA Tournament game against Virginia Commonwealth. The Heels come into Thursday's game on a two game losing streak and as Barnes points out, losing three to end a season has not happened in Chapel Hill in over 50 years.  With that, Barnes and Ashley discuss the pressure on Hubert Davis and his coaching stand and how a wins in March can alleviate that pressure or conversely, how losing can ramp up the conversations about the future direction of the UNC program.  Barnes highlights the keys to success for the Heels with Henri Veesaar and guard play key on the offensive end while interior defense and three point defense will be vital to keep a smaller but athletic Rams team in check. **Call to Action:** **Subscribe:** Follow 'Inside Carolina' wherever you get your podcasts to never miss an episode! **Review:** Leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify to help us reach more Tar Heel fans! **Visit:** Explore http://www.InsideCarolina.com for breaking news, recruiting updates, and expert commentary on all things UNC sports.This show is brought to you by Inside Carolina, the No. 1 site for UNC sports coverage and community. Visit http://www.InsideCarolina.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Fresh off a California sweep, North Carolina's sluggish start on Wednesday did not keep the Tar Heels from pushing their win streak to six, winning 8-2 over UNC Greensboro. Head coach Scott Forbes joined Inside Carolina's Tommy Ashley for their weekly conversation highlighting the Diamond Heel outfield defense and pitching as keys to his team's success of late.  Ashley and Forbes dig into the pitching plan for a season from the weekend starters to key numbers in the bullpen and how Forbes and his staff mesh plans against the reality of the situations that arise during a season. With Caden Glauber stepping to the front of the pen with his performances this season, Forbes discusses his players' willingness to take on any role necessary for the team. Finally, Forbes discusses Louisville and what the Cardinals will bring to Boshamer Stadium in a three game series beginning on Friday, March 20th. **Call to Action:** **Subscribe:** Follow 'Inside Carolina' wherever you get your podcasts to never miss an episode! **Review:** Leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify to help us reach more Tar Heel fans! **Visit:** Explore http://www.InsideCarolina.com for breaking news, recruiting updates, and expert commentary on all things UNC sports.This show is brought to you by Inside Carolina, the No. 1 site for UNC sports coverage and community. Visit http://www.InsideCarolina.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

About :Festa Italiana Charlotte: Ciao! St. Anthony Foundation of Charlotte welcomes you to The 21st Annual Festa Italiana Charlotte: An Italian Food & Wine Festival.Our All-inclusive event features 25+ Culinary Partners showcasing Italian and Italian-American cuisine and beverages during our Grand Tasting experience. Guest can anticipate Live Performances, Chef Demonstrations, Italian Sports Car Exhibit, Art Show, an Italian Village Market and more in the heart of Uptown Charlotte, NC. Spring Cocktail Attire is encouraged.We invite you to join us for one the premier Italian Food & Wine events in the Southeastern U.S.Bio:Chef and entrepreneur Majid Amoorpour is the driving force behind The Everyday Market, a European-style cafe and market with locations in Belmont and Charlotte, North Carolina. An internationally trained pastry chef who began his career in Sweden and worked across Europe before co-founding Charlotte's Bistro La Bon, Amoorpour centers his culinary philosophy on the "everyday" rather than the occasional. He prioritizes technique over complexity, advocating for focused, small menus of 10 to 15 scratch-made items perfected to the highest quality within a community-centered environment.Bio:Dr. Vincent E. Voci is a board-certified, fellowship-trained plastic surgeon based in Charlotte, North Carolina, with over 35 years of private practice experience and a distinguished medical background including degrees from the University of Louisville and training at Duke University. Beyond his clinical expertise—which includes pioneering the first medical spa in North Carolina and introducing procedures like Botox and liposuction to the region—Dr. Voci is widely recognized as the Founder and Chair of Festa Italiana Charlotte. Inspired by his family's Italian roots, he established the festival in 2006 as a cultural and humanitarian event hosted by the St. Anthony Foundation of Charlotte, which he also chairs. Under his leadership, the festival has grown from a small gathering to a major annual gala in Uptown Charlotte, raising over $300,000 for Nevins Inc. to support individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. A Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, Dr. Voci continues to balance his surgical milestones in reconstructive and cosmetic surgery with a deep commitment to community service and Italian heritage.Website: https://www.festaitalianacharlotte.org/

In this episode of The Spread Zone, Scott Rizzuto and Jackson Burkett break down the start of March Madness with picks and betting angles from the First Four through the Round of 64, including Prairie View A&M as a short underdog, a look at the Miami (OH) vs. SMU total, and several key matchups like VCU vs. North Carolina and St. Louis vs. Georgia. The guys also highlight double-digit underdog value, large spread considerations, and a strong lean toward Northern Iowa as a live 12-seed with upset potential.LEGAL DISCLAIMERWe provide information about sports betting for entertainment purposes only. Please confirm gambling regulations in your state of residence. To participate in sports gaming, you must be 21 years of age or older and be physically present in a state where sports betting is legal. If you or someone you know has a sports betting or gambling problem, please call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit www.ncpgambling.org for more information and further assistance.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Big changes are coming to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.With Kristi Noem out at the Department of Homeland Security, all eyes are on FEMA to roll out millions of dollars in stalled federal funding for disaster responses. That's especially true in North Carolina, where the western part of the state is still grappling with the effects of Hurricane Helene.We sit down with a panel of experts to find out what the future holds for FEMA in the Tar Heel state.Find more of our programs online. Listen to 1A sponsor-free by signing up for 1A+ at plus.npr.org/the1a.To manage podcast ad preferences, review the links below:See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

New York Times bestselling author and therapist Nedra Tawwab shares her journey of discovering the need for finding healthy, dependable relationships instead of clinging to hyper-independence. She shares how others benefited while she paid the cost of staying strong for everyone else but neglecting her own needs. She shares her healing roadmap from her new book Balancing Act. Nedra Glover Tawwab is a licensed therapist and the author of Set Boundaries, Find Peace, an instant New York Times best-seller translated into over 35 languages worldwide. In addition, she has authored six other books, including Drama Free and, most recently, a children's book titled What Makes You Happy. A sought-after relationship expert, she has practiced relationship therapy for more than fifteen years. With more than 2.5 million followers across her social media platforms, Tawwab has appeared as an expert on Red Table Talk, The Breakfast Club, Good Morning America, and CBS Morning Show, to name a few. Her work has been highlighted in The New York Times, The Guardian, and Vice, and has appeared on numerous podcasts, including The School of Greatness, We Can Do Hard Things, and Ten Percent Happier. She lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, with her family.Don't forget to like, subscribe, and share.

Hi! Carmel Valley schools are operating on a half-day schedule all week, and we're in the middle of an extreme heat wave, so it feels like a mini spring break before real spring break is upon us in April. I know a lot of your kids have spring break this month (my friend Mary Pell is visiting from North Carolina right now for her daughter's spring break!), so today we're sharing a few spring break-related things, should it be on your radar right now, too.Whether or not you're in a spring break time of life: spring as a season will be official on Friday! To celebrate, Saturday's new recipe includes my favorite spring vegetable, asparagus, but in the meantime, we wanted to share our team's personal favorite super-springy recipes from the archives to welcome the new season. And lest you forget: there's a whole “spring” section in the What to Cook recipe index — along with many, many more categories based on cook time, protein, and mood. If you're ever needing inspiration for dinner, let the index be your guide. Also worth noting if you're a Substack app user: we are VERY happy to report that the WTC index is pinned again under “posts” when you're on the WTC homepage within the app. The pinned posts went missing for a few weeks but they're back, baby!Caro's: sheet-pan spring salmonThis is perhaps the springiest weeknight dinner recipe I've ever written. Dilly sauce, asparagus, roasted potatoes, and salmon with lots of lemon… it's so fresh and delicious. It's also both gluten- and dairy-free as written and is delicious served either right out of the oven or at room temp, so you could cook the entire meal ahead of time, let it cool, and store it covered in the fridge. Bring it out 30-ish minutes before dinner to let it come to room temperature, then dig in! It's a total crowd pleaser. There's an even simpler version of this meal — it omits the potatoes — in WTC the book on page 40! Jillian's: crispy artichoke and chicken saladArtichokes are one of my favorite spring vegetables! This is a good-all-week salad that combines roasted marinated artichokes with chicken that you marinate in the artichoke brine, a can of white beans, kale, homemade croutons, and the most addicting, springy lemon-Parm dressing out there. I typically eat vegetarian and highly endorse the mushroom vegetarian riff that Caro suggests! Molly's: roasted asparagus farrottoI cooked this meal one day last week after the time change and it was a perfect springy experience. I sipped a glass of white wine (the same wine I used later for the recipe!) while the asparagus and farro roasted away in the oven and the evening sunlight (!!) poured through the windows. It's VERY tasty, and Caro's asparagus-roasting hack in this recipe — you cook it on an inverted pot lid! — always makes me feel like a pro. Do you have a favorite springy WTC recipe?!Whether you're traveling this season or not, these “vacation house” meal plans will get you in the springy and/or spring break spirit! Version one + version two. I'm taking my older boys on a very adventure-heavy spring break trip with Lonely Planet Journeys (formerly known as Elsewhere, the travel company that sent me on the Camino and to Patagonia!) next month. It'll be my first real trip with kids that isn't a plop vacation by the pool/beach — we are going to be making our own chocolate from native cacao! Snorkeling in cenotes! Exploring ancient ruins! We are all so excited and grateful for the opportunity.That said, my typical spring break plan is to go somewhere that I can plop in front of a body of water (pool, beach, lake, etc.) with the kids, and have easy access to a house or hotel room with all the creature comforts we may need. Other years, we hang at home and go to the pool after work and/or on local outings that we can't usually do when the kids are in school. Whatever your plans may be, here's a random collection of spring break tips and things we are loving.* I've said this before but one of my favorite vacation tricks is shipping a Thrive order to the rental house with pantry staples, kids snacks and meals (like Goodles!), and any other miscellaneous things we'll need during the trip like sunscreen, dish soap, diapers, etc. I love that when I'm filling my Thrive box I don't have to study the ingredients lists — they have a strict vetting process to ensure that everything they carry is organic and free from more than 1,000 artificial, synthetic, and GMO ingredients. It also saves me money!!! The membership's only $5 a month, they run sales all the time within their membership, and the items are already priced up to 30% off retail. Click here to get 30% off your first order and a free $60 gift of your choice when you sign up. And as a reminder, new-to-Thrive WTC Insiders get $25 off their first four orders (plus lots of other perks)! * I got this suit in black for Mexico and it's a really nice middle ground between mom suit and sexy suit. It's definitely VERY SNUG in my normal size, so size up if you're on the fence about going up or down!* At the pool this week three of my friends had this sun hat and it looked so good on everyone! I'm a ball cap person but I know I need to become a sun hat person for more coverage, ugh. * I continue to be obsessed with this glowy face sunscreen. It's honestly helping me remember to wear SPF every day because I love the way it brightens up my face when I'm not wearing makeup!* Loeffler Randall gifted me a really great travel tote bag and it got a lot of use in February. I love that it slides onto the handle of my roller bag and actually stays in place, it fits under the airplane seat nicely, and has tons of storage compartments. And it's nylon, so it transitions from airplane to poolside splashes nicely.* Speaking of roller bags, I just got a new one and I'm VERY into it. I really prefer a hard shell when I'm trying to cram WAY too much stuff into a carry-on (like for my 10-day business trip in February!), and this one has tons of great storage compartments and glides really nicely.* I just ordered these Bermuda shorts! In black. I'm very excited about them!! * From Molly: I went shopping at Vuori this past weekend in NYC and found another pair of my all-time favorite shorts, the Villa, in this new color. I wear them everywhere — exercise classes, my kids' sports practices and games, and as a coverup at the beach and pool. They have a wonderfully roomy thigh, dry quickly, and are just the comfiest. I also got this tee — I'm a shorty and the crop hits perfectly with high-waisted bottoms like the Villas. (From Caro: I've been thinking about ordering these!! We love a roomy thigh. I've been getting a lot of wear out of my fave $20 shorts but they're more athletic looking than the Villa.)* Speaking of coverups…* From Caro: I've been wearing this button-up dress to the pool (and around town) all week (and I wore it all last summer while pregnant and postpartum!).* From Molly: I shared this Quince coverup last year but can update that it held up well all summer (and we live at the beach so I wore it a ton!). It stretches out/gets weighed down a bit when it's wet, but shrinks back up once washed and dried. I love this one, too, that's similar but collared. I'm also excited for an order from this sister-owned small business to arrive soon — I'm trying to invest in more UPF-50 coverups!* From Molly: One last staple I'll be packing for beach outings this spring: my Reefs! The back strap makes them easy to walk through soft sand in (I hate it when flip flops fling sand up my legs!), and you can hose them down afterward.Every week, we dig into the What to Cook archives to see what we were cooking this time in years past — the recipes worth bringing back into your rotation. Here's this week's lineup.1. farro fattoush, 2025Here's another springy good-all-week salad that will hold up well in the fridge for days! This one packs farro, chickpeas, tons of herbs, crunchy veg, a punchy lemony dressing, and poached chicken for protein. It's fresh, herby, and satisfying in a way that makes a lunch (or dinner!) salad feel like a real meal, not a side dish.2. the ultimate easy-but-fancy spring menu, 2024Your blueprint for a special occasion spring meal that comes together with zero stress: slow-roasted lamb, lemony potatoes, a bright salad, asparagus, and Gruyère & black pepper biscuits with hot honey butter! It comes with a full plan of attack to keep things seamless, but you can also mix and match pieces for a simpler, just-as-delicious meal.3. rotisserie-ish chicken with schmaltzy frizzled cabbage, 2023A sheet-pan dinner where the chicken does double duty — roasting on top of cabbage so all that schmaltzy goodness drips down and transforms it. Add buttery sweet potatoes and you've got a cozy, low-effort, high-reward situation. From WTCer Jill: “Wow. My husband kept saying, ‘this is restaurant quality'… The cabbage is SO GOOD… And the chicken was so moist and flavorful. First time cooking a whole chicken and this recipe made it so easy.”4. roasted harissa chicken and sweet potato bowls, 2022Jammy, caramelized sweet potatoes and harissa-roasted chicken layered over a cool, creamy swoop of yogurt or labne — then finished with crunchy nuts, pops of sweet dried fruit, and a squeeze of lemon. This meal hits every note (spicy, creamy, tangy, crunchy) and is endlessly adaptable depending on what you have.5. one-skillet crispy chicken burrito bowls, 2021So many of you have this recipe on repeat — it's easy, reliable, and a total crowd-pleaser. Rice cooks in salsa until it's rich and flavorful, chicken gets golden and crispy on top, and everything finishes with melty, bubbly cheese under the broiler.We use affiliate links when sharing product recs, which means we may earn a small commission off of purchases you make through those links. This does not cost you anything extra and is a way to support the production of and team behind What to Cook. Sponsorships are another way we partner with brands that we authentically love and can personally vouch for. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit whattocook.substack.com/subscribe

Jack MacTavish is a retired United States Army Colonel and author of action-adventure and espionage fiction. Over a military career spanning more than 36 years in both the U.S. Army and Army Reserve, he served in airborne, special operations, and joint assignments, including roles supporting U.S. Army Special Operations Command and U.S. Special Operations Command. His operational experience took him across multiple global regions, including Afghanistan, Korea, Haiti, Central and South America, and the Middle East. In addition to his military service, MacTavish has supported missions within the U.S. Intelligence Community as a contractor. MacTavish is the author of Royal Diamonds (2026), his debut novel, which blends action-adventure, espionage, and historical intrigue. His writing is informed by firsthand experience, emphasizing realism, operational authenticity, and the complexities of modern conflict and global power dynamics. He currently resides in North Carolina, where he continues to write and remains an advocate for veteran causes, including support for the Special Operations Warrior Foundation.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

North Carolina's March Madness run opens on Thursday night in Greenville, South Carolina as the Heels face the VCU Rams in the 6/11 game top open the evening session in Bon Secours Wellness Arena. North Carolina Governor Josh Stein joins the show to discuss the tournament but also share his views on the Dean Smith Center arena debate, the state of college basketball and college athletics in the NIL and transfer portal era.  Stein, a product of Chapel Hill High School, offers his unique perspective on the transition from Carmichael Auditorium to the Smith Center in 1986 and the feelings and moods of the fanbase when that shift occurred. He also discusses the current landscape from the perspective of being the North Carolina Attorney General during the Tez Walker eligibility issue in 2023. Barnes and Ashley wrap the show discussing their own personal bracket picks with highlights on key games and potential upsets in the early rounds that start on Thursday and Friday. Each shares their Final Four picks and championship picks as well.   **Call to Action:** **Subscribe:** Follow 'Inside Carolina' wherever you get your podcasts to never miss an episode! **Review:** Leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify to help us reach more Tar Heel fans! **Visit:** Explore http://www.InsideCarolina.com for breaking news, recruiting updates, and expert commentary on all things UNC sports.This show is brought to you by Inside Carolina, the No. 1 site for UNC sports coverage and community. Visit http://www.InsideCarolina.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode of The Spread Zone, Scott Rizzuto and Jackson Burkett break down the start of March Madness with picks and betting angles from the First Four through the Round of 64, including Prairie View A&M as a short underdog, a look at the Miami (OH) vs. SMU total, and several key matchups like VCU vs. North Carolina and St. Louis vs. Georgia. The guys also highlight double-digit underdog value, large spread considerations, and a strong lean toward Northern Iowa as a live 12-seed with upset potential.The Spread Zone is presented by FanDuel Sportsbook!LEGAL DISCLAIMERWe provide information about sports betting for entertainment purposes only. Please confirm gambling regulations in your state of residence. To participate in sports gaming, you must be 21 years of age or older and be physically present in a state where sports betting is legal. If you or someone you know has a sports betting or gambling problem, please call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit www.ncpgambling.org for more information and further assistance.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

With the North Carolina primary over and done, get ready for the campaign leading to November. Get ready for a blizzard of advertising, particularly in the race for U.S. Senate. It is likely to be the most expensive Senate race in the country, with about half a billion dollars expected to be spent. In a world where people are entrenched in their ideologies, how do you convincingly use that money?

After a decade in public office, Sen. Graig Meyer (D-Orange) is leaving the General Assembly to head up the state's leading progressive think tank, the North Carolina Justice Center.  Meyer joins Tim to talk about leaving office, the current status of progressives and Democrats in North Carolina, and the shocking news of the state's most powerful politician, Phil Berger, on the verge of losing his seat in the legislature.

Laura Hope Whitaker took over Extra Special People (ESP) as a college sophomore. The organization had a $125,000 budget, a $50,000 deficit, and a founder who had just passed away from pancreatic cancer. Twenty-one years later, ESP runs a $8 million budget across five communities in Georgia and North Carolina, employs 50 full-time and 200 part-time staff, and operates a social enterprise that employs 85 adults with developmental disabilities.In this episode of the Charity Charge Show, host Stephen Garten sits down with Laura to talk through what it actually takes to scale a nonprofit, why "nonprofit is just a tax code," and the leadership principles she documents in her new book, The Joy Exchange.Quick SummaryESP serves people with disabilities through afterschool programs, family support, and a social enterprise called JavaJoy.Laura took over as a sophomore in college after the founder died, inheriting a deficit and four board members (one of whom was in jail).Her core growth framework: treat the nonprofit like a business, know the numbers, and be unapologetic about fundraising.Board management is a strategic function, not an obligation. Boards should evolve as the organization evolves.Mentorship and continuous learning have been the constant throughout 21 years of leadership.

Empire Records (1995) was chosen by Patreon supporter Nick, and it represents a perfect snapshot of mid-90s youth culture wrapped inside a modest studio comedy. Directed by Allan Moyle and produced by Regency Enterprises for Warner Bros., the film was developed during a period when studios were eager to tap into the alternative music scene and Generation X attitudes. Rather than focusing on blockbuster spectacle, the production centered on character-driven storytelling and the energy of independent record store culture, something that resonated strongly with the decade's music-obsessed audiences.Filming took place primarily in Wilmington, North Carolina, with production designers transforming a local storefront into the now-iconic Empire Records shop. The cast featured a mix of emerging young actors, many of whom would go on to have prominent careers in film and television. Although the movie underperformed during its initial theatrical release, it found new life on home video and cable television throughout the late 1990s. Over time, Empire Records developed a passionate cult following, becoming one of the defining nostalgia pieces for fans of 90s alternative culture and music-driven coming-of-age films.TRAILER GUY PLOT SYNOPSISOne record store. One unforgettable day. And a group of employees who refuse to let the music stop.When a tight-knit crew of misfits faces the possibility of losing the place that means everything to them, emotions run high, tempers flare, and secrets start spilling out. Over the course of one chaotic day, friendships are tested, dreams collide, and the soundtrack of a generation plays loud.Empire Records — where the music is loud, the drama is louder, and the day will change everything.FUN FACTSEmpire Records was released during the height of the 1990s alternative rock boom, featuring a soundtrack packed with era-defining artists.The film helped popularize the phrase “Damn the man, save the Empire!”, which became a lasting cult quote among fans.Several cast members, including Liv Tyler and Renée Zellweger, were early in their careers when the film was released.The movie's soundtrack album became more commercially successful than the film itself, selling strongly throughout the 1990s.Many scenes in the film were trimmed or removed from the theatrical cut, with additional material later appearing in extended versions.October 8th has become known among fans as “Rex Manning Day,” inspired by one of the film's most memorable in-universe events.The movie is frequently cited as a cult classic of Generation X cinema, capturing the attitudes and anxieties of 90s youth culture.The fictional Empire Records store was inspired by the independent record shops that thrived before digital music changed the industry.Over the years, the film has inspired fan screenings, themed parties, and annual celebrations tied to its cultural references.Despite its modest box office, the movie's reputation has grown significantly thanks to home video and streaming-era rediscovery.Support the ShowIf you enjoy the show and would like to support us, we have a Patreon ⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠.If you're listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, leaving us a 5-star review (and a short comment) really helps more people discover the show. It's quick, free, and makes a huge difference.Referral links also help out the show if you were going to sign up:⁠⁠⁠NordVPN⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠NordPass⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thevhsstrikesback@gmail.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/vhsstrikesback⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Announcement: Uniting Ministries and Generations to Mobilize the Church in PrayerChurch Prayer Leaders Network, Prayershop Publishing, and Presence Pioneers Media are excited to announce the merger of our ministries.For decades, leaders such as Jonathan Graf, Dave & Kim Butts, and others have labored tirelessly to mobilize prayer in churches across America and beyond. Church Prayer Leaders Network (CPLN), Prayershop Publishing, and Prayer Connect magazine have been invaluable resources for thousands of prayer leaders, intercessors, and pastors who are hungry to see revival in their churches and cities. Moving forward, Presence Pioneers Media (PPM) is honored to serve as a steward of the books, content, resources, and relationships developed by CPLN and Prayershop.The co-founders of PPM are Matthew Lilley and Jonathan Friz, both of whom have led various prayer ministries for multiple decades. Along with founding Presence Pioneers, Matthew has helped launch multiple houses of prayer in North Carolina and has served in nationwide leadership roles with ministries such as Awaken the Dawn and Burn 24-7. Jonathan Friz is the founder of 10 Days, a global prayer movement that mobilizes united prayer in hundreds of locations for 10 days in the spring and the fall. Jonathan also helped found the 24-7 Global Family prayer room and the New England Prayer Alliance.With this acquisition, Presence Pioneers Media hopes to build on the foundation laid by the previous generation while reaching new generations with the timeless call to prayer and revival. Technology and forms of communication may evolve from generation to generation, but the truth of God's word is constant. Whether it be books, podcasts, movies, videos, articles, or magazines, our vision is to serve the prayer movement, prayer leaders, and the Church at large with online resources and print materials to fuel intimacy with God, revival, and awakening.This merger is an answer to our prayers. It will allow Church Prayer Leaders Network's mission to continue under the banner of Presence Pioneers Media. And it will increase the impact of Presence Pioneers by reaching more people with more prayer resources than ever before. We are so thankful for the Lord's leading in this transition, and we believe the best is yet to come!Jonathan Graf, President of Church Prayer Leaders NetworkMatthew Lilley, President of Presence PioneersJonathan Friz, Director of Presence Pioneers Media

FAITHBUCKS.COM

NCAA First Round VCU vs North Carolina: Preview and Prediction

On this episode, my guest is Hasan Kerim Güç. Kerim graduated from Istanbul High School in 1992 and from Yildiz Technical University in 1996. Between 1997-2004, he completed his master's degree in Information Systems and Business Administration in Baltimore, USA. He returned to Turkey in 2010. Realizing that the treasure he had been looking for for 14 years was right in his own home, he took the position of Chief Editor at Nefes Publishing House in 2014. Kerim nourishes his business life with Sufi studies and is pursuing a doctoral degree from the Usküdar University Institute for Sufi Studies. He has published four books.Show Notes* Rejecting the American Dream* Anatolian and Sufi Hospitality* Sufis and the Ottomans* Tanri misafiri (“God's guest”)* Togetherness, and the roots of Religion* When we welcome suffering, we make honey out of pain* Submission, servants and the prophet Mohammed* The Conference of the Birds / Stories from the Thirty Birds* Limits to hospitality in the Islamic world* Bereket / Baraka* Rumi's Guest HouseHomework* Kerim Vakfı* Stories from the Thirty Birds* Cemalnur Sargut: A Sufi Life of Love, Suffering, and Divine Union* Cemalnur Sargut Books* Kerim Guc - Instagram* Kyoto University Kenan Rifai Center for Sufi Studies* Ken'an Rifâî Chair of Islamic Studies at Peking University* University of North Carolina (UNC) Ken'an Rifâî Chair in Islamic StudiesTranscriptChris: [00:00:00] Welcome to the End of Tourism podcast, Kerim. Hoș geldiniz.Kerim: Thank you very much for having me.Chris: Yeah, it's my pleasure. Thank you for joining me today. Perhaps you could tell our listeners, where you find yourself and what the world looks like there for you.Kerim: Well, first of all, I'm an immigrant also. I was an immigrant. I lived in the US for a while, and then I came back to to my own country. And things are very different here than there, than it is in US. From the perspective of what I did... I was actually an engineer, and I was working in the IT fields, and I was living the American dream, and then I realized that there was some kind of an emptiness, and this whole thing, and I decided to go back to Turkey and [00:01:00] study Sufism, and since my mother was actually a Sufi teacher. She decided to actually move this whole Sufism into academia. So, she basically established an institute in Istanbul - Üsküdar Istanbul - at the University of Üsküdar. The difference between this institute and the other schools, the people like myself, like engineers, coming from different disciplines, including lawyers and whatnot, they were not able to do their masters or PhDs in Sufism, because in other universities, they require for you to actually have theology backgrounds. But with this new establishment, we were able to educate people from all different disciplines and, [00:02:00] so we basically concentrated on ethics rather than the religion itself.So, a lot of people coming from different areas, especially the white-collar people, living this, like - how do I say that? - it's a world of money and materialism and all kind of that stuff. They're coming to our institute and realizing that money or career is not the only goal for life.And we started to concentrating on things like spirituality more than the materialist world.Chris: Thank you. Well, I'm very much looking forward to exploring these themes with you and a little bit of the work that you do with Kerim Vakfı.Kerim: Sure.Chris: And so for the last season of the podcast, I'm very much interested in focusing on different hospitality traditions and practices from around the [00:03:00] world, as I mentioned to you. And, one of the key themes of the podcast is radical hospitality. Now, the word “radical” comes from Latin and it means “rooted,” or we might even say “local” or “living.”And so. I'm curious if there are any radical hospitality practices that you think are unique to your place, to Istanbul, or to the Sufi community that you might be willing to share with us today?Kerim: Well, Istanbul, actually, is a very metropolitan city. So like the other metropolitan cities, we kind of lost that - what we call the hospitality of Anatolia. Anatolia is basically the Eastern part of Istanbul. And in Istanbul, we have, right now, 25 million people in a very small area. And in older days when the population was smaller, [00:04:00] we were able to show our hospitality, because the Turkish hospitality is very famous, actually. In this area the hospitality is very famous, including the, you know, Greek and Arab hospitality. Usually, it's a little bit different than the western countries.For instance, we welcome people - we used to, and probably still, in the countryside - the people coming from other cities or countries or whatnot. The locals actually helped them out as much as possible. They even invite them to their own houses and let them stay for how long they want to stay. And this was kind of like a regular thing in the old days. It's still going on very much in the eastern side of Turkey, pretty much in the countryside. [00:05:00] But Istanbul, like other cosmopolitan cities, we kinda lost that. You know, neighbourly things. We have a lot of neighbours and we we have always good... we used to have a lot of good relationship with them, but nowadays, again, because of this material world, we kind of lost this hospitality.So from the Sufi point of view, hospitality is very important. It's interesting that you mentioned the “radical.” You were talking about where “radical” come from, but you didn't talk about where “hospitality” comes from. See, there is a relationship between the hospital and the hospitality and the way the Sufis look at things is very much like the illnesses in our body are our guests. So, we don't think that they're bad for you. They're actually [00:06:00] the guests of our house for a time being. So we show them the hospitality as much as we can, and then hopefully we say goodbye to them.Chris: Wow. Wow. That's fascinating. I do know that the term “hospitality,” hospital is part of that, and hospital historically came from these notions of hospitality. I mean, in the western world in, and at least in the Christian world, there's a kind of unauthorized history in which a lot of this hospitality, as you mentioned, that was offered to the stranger, was done by the families or the individual houses or homes within a community. A stranger would come and they would ask for hospitality, ask for food and shelter, and the family would have to decide whether to do that and how to do it. [00:07:00] And then at some point, the institution of the Church kind of stepped in and said, “you know what? You don't have to do this anymore. When the stranger comes to the community, when they show up at your door, just send them to us. Just send them to the church and we'll give them what they need.”And so this did a number of things, but the two most obvious ones, I think, are that the family, the individuals in the family and the community on a grassroots level, slowly ended up losing their ability, their unique kind of familial or personal ability to host the stranger. And at the same time, of course, the church used this as a way to try to convert, the stranger.Kerim: Right.Chris: And so I'm curious if there's anything in that realm that you see in the Islamic world, maybe in the Sufi world... you mentioned that, since the [00:08:00] imposition of modernity and the industrial Revolution in the world, we see less and less possibilities for small-scale, grassroots hospitality between people, in part, because there's so much movement, and of course, because the hospital has its brothers and sisters in the sense of the “hotel” and the “hostel.”Kerim: Absolutely.Chris: So, I'm curious if there's anything like that that comes to mind for you in regards to the Islamic world.Kerim: Well, one thing is about like the Ottomans. The Ottomans, when they were coming from the Anatolia and then started conquering all those places in the Balkan area, Greece and Bulgaria, Hungary and all those places, after they actually conquered, they sent Sufis to those places. And, like in Hungary, there is a person, his name is [00:09:00] Gül Baba, which means “Rose Father.” That's what they call him. He actually has his own tekke (tekke is like a church for Sufis). And this place, it's like a school more, more like a school, but it's a religious school.And in this tekke, he actually finds all those people with needs, and he pretty much helped them out with all those needs. And the people coming from different religions, they actually started liking people like from the Turks' point of view, because the Turks were symbolized by these Sufi movements. And instead of, you know, pushing people to convert or demolishing the churches and rebuilding mosques and stuff. Instead of that, they actually [00:10:00] welcomed people from all over the world, or all over the place, basically, to stay in the tekke, to eat and to get education in the tekke. So this was a great strategy of Ottomans. That's how they actually stayed in Europe for almost like 600 years. So that was very much like, you know, their strategy, I think. And in a good way.Chris: Yeah, you know, in my research I found out that there's still Sufi orders in the Balkans a group called the Bektashi.Kerim: Right.Chris: And of course, with the very little historical understanding that I had, I was very surprised. I had no idea. But of course, when I eventually went to visit the regions that my father is from, I saw churches, synagogues, and mosques, all in the same little neighbourhoods.[00:11:00] So, quite an impressive kind of understanding that the major religions in those places could coexist for so long. And that in the context of someone who grew up in North America, who thought it was the opposite (previously) and such things are so difficult.Kerim: Right. Right.Chris: So, Kerim, a mutual friend of ours has told me, that in the Turkish language, there is a phrase (and excuse my pronunciation). The phrase is tanri misafiri.Kerim: Right.Chris: Which translates into English as something like “God's guest.”Kerim: Right.Chris: Or “the guest sent by God.”Kerim: Right. Right.Chris: And so I'm wondering if you could speak about this phrase, maybe what it means to you and where you think it comes from?Kerim: Well, in Anatolia, it's a very famous phrase. And like I said previously, you know anybody coming from somewhere else, who comes into somebody's [00:12:00] house, is allowed to stay in the house as “the guest of God,” because we believe that God has sent that guest to us and we try to... you know, it's more like making that guest happy means making God happy. So, that's the understanding of older generations.In today's metropolitan areas, I don't think it's possible because of the security problems and everything. But like I said, in the countryside, people are very welcoming when it comes to this, because it is very important that knowing that person is actually coming from God, from Allah, so we have to take care of that person as much as possible to please God, actually.So that's how it is. I still see that in many cities in the [00:13:00] more eastern side of Turkey or south side of Turkey, or even north side of Turkey except in the bigger cities. But in the smaller cities, people are much more welcoming, again because of this specific idiom, actually.Chris: From tanri misafiri?Kerim: Right. Tanri means “God” in our language. In the original Turkish language, it's tanri, and, misafiri means “ the guest.”Chris: Yeah. So beautiful. Thank you for sharing that with us.Kerim: Absolutely.Chris: And so when guests arrive in a home, you know, in English, at least in, in the context of the older traditions, it is said that the guest or the potential guest, the stranger, asks for hospitality. They don't necessarily say “ they ask for food,” which we can imagine that surely they [00:14:00] do. They don't necessarily say that “they ask for shelter” or “accommodation,” which we surely we could imagine they do. But the literature often says they ask for hospitality.And so, when we think of hospitality today, we often think about people sitting around a table eating food together. And so I'm curious if there's a shared understanding among Sufis or at least the community that you live among and in, about the importance of both eating food and eating food together.Kerim: Togetherness is probably one of the most important things in the Islamic religion. Because like even our way of worshiping God - Allah - we try to do that in a union as much as possible. It is very interesting, the words that “religion” comes from.[00:15:00] Re- means “again,” and legion means “union.”So it's almost like “religion” itself means “to recreate the union,” “to reshape the union,” “ to have the union back,” because we have the tendency to be alone. And even you can imagine that in the western countries, in the western world, a lot of people want to be alone.Like, there's a lot of individuals rather than a group of people. And in the eastern world, it's a little bit different. We are more like family-oriented people. We try to do things together. I mean, there are advantages and disadvantages obviously, but there is a difference between them.So, we always had this [notion that] “the more is better,” basically. You know, more people is better. So, we help each other, [00:16:00] we understand each other, we talk about our problems. When we try to solve them, it's easier together. And if there's pain, you know, the pain actually, can be eased with more people, easier, I think, compared to have this pain alone. So, again, we're more family-oriented people.And the Sufi are very much like that. The Sufi always pray together, and they think that it creates a n energy, basically. It produces an energy that basically helps all of them at the same time, in a union.Chris: Hmm hmm. And do you find that sitting down for a meal together also creates that kind of union, or recreates as you were saying?Kerim: I think so. Doing any kind of activities, including eating... eating is basically the most common activity [00:17:00] that we do in our daily life and getting together, to talk about our things together, and discuss things together, all those things - togetherness, when it comes to the idea of togetherness - I think, is beautiful.Chris: Hmm, hmm. Amen. Yeah, I very much agree with that, Kerim.And so, when we think about hospitality, and we think about food, we often imagine big banquet tables and as you said, this sense of togetherness and celebration.But there's also, you know, from what little I've read, there's also this important aspect of the religious life in the Islamic world, and perhaps in the Sufi world as well that points to, maybe not the absence of food, but a different way of being fed, and a different way of feeding that doesn't [00:18:00] include the food we're used to, the kind of material food. And we often refer to this as fasting. And so, there's a beautiful video that you sent me, Kerim, of your mother speaking, and she recalls a phrase in that video from her own mother who said that “when we welcome suffering, we make honey out of pain.”And so, this is a question I very much want to ask you because I've fasted myself quite intensely. I'm curious, what is the honey that comes from fasting? Or, what do you think is the honey that comes from fasting?Kerim: Right? First of all, yeah, fasting is in our religion. So, we basically do that one month in the whole year. It's called Ramadan. In some cases, we actually do that because our Prophet Muhammad, when he [00:19:00] lived, he was fasting every Monday and every Thursday. So it was like a common practice for some of the religious people. And at least we do that one month in the whole year.And obviously, that month is a little bit difficult, you know, because we not only stop eating, we also stopped drinking and all that stuff. In theory, we should not be lying, we should not be telling bad things to other people or gossiping and all that stuff, but usually we do during that time. I mean, in theory, we should not be doing that.So it's like a whole discipline thing - the whole fasting. And at the end of the thirty days, you become a really, really different person. And first of all, one thing that [00:20:00] I feel, is that you understand the people who do not have food. We still have people in the world, unfortunately, in Africa, and all those places, the people, having less access to food as we do, and we feel like, oh yeah we don't actually thank God for all those things that he's giving to us. And this is the time that you start thinking about the reality and start thanking God for actually giving us all that food, twenty-four hours, seven days [a week]. And when you are fasting during that time, you are understanding the feeling of these people, who are like poor and who cannot eat.There are people now, in the social media, we are seeing people, who never had [00:21:00] chocolates in their life. The people living in these countries or in the cities or metropolitan cities, we never think about these things.So, we take these things for granted, and during that time of fasting, you start thinking about these stuff and then you become more thankful, and that's basically honey itself, after the suffering. And I wouldn't say “suffering,” because we don't suffer as much as they do, honestly.And we're just telling our egos, “just stop for a day to do bad things and stop eating,” and all that stuff that ego wants to have. And again, it's at the end of the thirty days, you become a new person because now you have a different mentality. Now, in the other eleven months, you still forget about these things, but [00:22:00] again, it comes through. It's like a cycle.Chris: Yeah. Yeah. I totally agree with you that, you know, gratitude is the honey and...Kerim: Absolutely.Chris: ...I remember the fasting that I did over the course of four years, and I don't know if it was as intense as the fasting that happens during Ramadan, but doing that fasting and trying to feed something other than myself for a time imbued a degree of hospitality and gratitude that I don't think I had ever felt before. And it sticks to me. It sticks to my bones to this day. And it's something that, like you said, I also have to constantly remind myself of those moments when I sit down to eat a meal, because it's so easy to forget.Kerim: Absolutely. Absolutely. And one thing is [00:23:00] basically during that time of fasting, you basically stop feeding your ego, and start feeding your spirit, basically. That's what I think.Chris: That's beautiful. Yeah. I absolutely understand that. Thank you, Kerim.So my next question is around the word “ submission.” So, translated into English, the word “Islam” means “submission.” Now I've read that this word can also be translated to mean “servants of God.” Servants of God.Now in English, the word “servant” can be synonymous with “host.” A servant and a host. Now, there's a book by an author named Mona Siddiqui called Hospitality in Islam. And in that book she writes, it's actually a quote, but she writes,“'What is faith?' The Prophet replied, ‘the giving of [00:24:00] food and the exchange of greetings.' He ends on a most dramatic note saying, “a house which is not entered by guests is not entered by angels.”Kerim: Perfect. Yeah.Chris: And it seems that in this phrase, the Prophet is suggesting that the way we are with guests and strangers has something to do with how we are with the divine, which I think you kind of alluded to a little bit earlier.And so I'm curious, is this something that you've seen in your own days or in those of others that you know? Is hospitality a practice that connects us to the divine?Kerim: Absolutely. Because reaching God, you need to reach people first. To be able to reach God... when I say “reach God,” meaning be in communication with Him, is basically being in a communication [00:25:00] with the people he created. So, to serve the people is basically serving him from the Islamic point of view.So, and that's a hadith that you mentioned in the book. It's a hadith of Prophet Mohammed, like you said. And Prophet Mohammed always... it was a common practice that he was hosting maybe, you know, 10-15 people every night. And he was a poor person, by the way. I mean, he doesn't have much money, much food or anything, but they share. There was a time that... there's a story that somebody, actually, one of his apostles rather, asks him to visit him for a dinner. So he invites him to a dinner.But during his conversation, Prophet Mommed said, “can I bring my friends too?”[00:26:00]And the apostle says, “of course you can bring your friends.” And he brings hundreds of people. Now, the host only have some bread, and maybe a little bit meat, and a little bit rice in the cup.So, he was ashamed because he doesn't have any money, and the Prophet Mohammed is going to bring all those guests together, and he didn't know what to do. But he uses submission, basically.He said, well, if Prophet Mohammed is coming, then something is going to happen. And as he was thinking all those things, Prophet Mohammed puts his hand on top of the rice holder. And every time he was putting rice onto the dishes, the rice never ends, the meat never ends. So he served like 200 people during this invitation and the food never ended.[00:27:00]So he was happy for his submission, basically.Chris: Wow. Beautiful. Thank you, Kerim.Kerim: Of course.Chris: You know, you have this beautiful book - that is still in the mail, unfortunately I haven't got my hands on it yet, but I'm very much looking forward to it - called Stories From the Thirty Birds, which I understand is inspired by The Conference of the Birds, this incredible book from I think the 1300s.And I'm curious if you could tell us a little bit about that book and what, if any inspiration or maybe teachings around hospitality that come from both, The Conference of the Birds and how you've employed it in your book.Kerim: Right. The Conference of the Birds is really a beautiful story of Farid ud-Din Attar who lived in Nishapur, which is in Khorasan, in Iran, today. And he was one of the very famous [00:28:00] Sufis at that time. He was the teacher of Rumi. A lot of people know Rumi. And he wrote this book about birds, millions of birds, who are in the process of going to their king, which is the phoenix (or what we call it simurg). And during that time, during that travel, they go through seven valleys, and in each valley some of the birds get lost, because the valleys actually symbolize things.Like, the first valley is the valley of intention. So, a lot of birds actually don't have the intention to reach their king. The king is basically symbolizing Allah (God), and the birds are symbolizing us very much, and we are getting [00:29:00] lost during the time of life. Like, our intention is basically this world. If our intention is staying in this world, then we stay in this world. And that's the valley of intention.And a lot of birds, like half of them, actually, get lost in this stage.And the second valley is the valley of love. And the birds that get lost in this valley are the ones that actually think the beauty is in this world, rather than they don't see the beauty of God himself. So they see the shadow of that beauty in the world, but they're content with that beauty, and they don't really want to move on.And again, the third valley is the value of wisdom. And the birds that get lost in this valley are the ones who think that knowledge, [00:30:00] in this world, is more important than anything else, and they don't realize the source of the knowledge is actually their king.So on and so forth, they go through the seven valleys and at the end of the seventh valley, only thirty birds remain. And the thirty birds, they're ready to see their king, and they go through this mountain called Qaf, where the  simurg, the phoenix lives (behind the mountain). And it's very difficult to get there, basically. When they get there, they can't find the king over there. They only find a mirror. So, they realize the king is themselves, but more specifically, the union of thirty birds. So simurg - the [00:31:00] phoenix - in Iranian, in Persian means “thirty birds,” actually. Si is “thirty.” “Burg” is “bird,” actually.So from what we understand is, the union of ourselves, what we are seeing, is our reflection, because the king is actually a perfect mirror. But we don't see ourselves, only, we see the union of thirty birds together. So there are birds that we don't think live together. For instance, a hawk doesn't live with a smaller bird together, but in this union, they live together. There in one. And they use whatever advantage they have together. So it's almost like being one and using the characteristics of every single bird [00:32:00] itself.Chris: And I imagine that someone growing up in a culture like that, whether back then or more recently, and hearing this story or hearing it multiple times throughout their life or maybe once a year, that that notion also might arise in the way that they are with others, the way they are with strangers.Kerim: Right.Chris: And so, I have one final question for you, if that's all right?Kerim: Absolutely.Chris: So, before we say farewell I'd like to ask you about Istanbul, and I'd like to ask you about the limits to hospitality. So, last year, on a trip I took to the city I met a friend of a mutual friend of ours, and for a couple of hours we walked around the Karakoy neighbourhood and he spoke to me about how the city has changed quite a bit over the last decade.For many people who grew up in Istanbul, the city [00:33:00] might now appear to be very difficult to live in. He said that the cost of living has skyrocketed. The rents, the rent prices or costs have doubled. And much of this is a combination of tourism and gentrification in the city.Now it seems that many religious traditions speak of the importance of welcoming strangers and offering them hospitality, but they also speak of the limits to such hospitality. In one particular, hadith or saying of the Prophet Mohammed, it is said that “hospitality is for three days. Anything more is charity or sadaqah.”Again, excuse my pronunciation.Kerim: No. That's perfect pronunciation.Chris: And so I'm curious, you mentioned a little bit earlier, in the Sufi community and perhaps in the Islamic communities, there is this notion of togetherness, but also that “more is better.” And so I'm [00:34:00] curious in the context of what's happening in Istanbul and what's happening in many places around the world, do you think there should also be limits to the hospitality that is offered to the guest or stranger?Kerim: Well, of course. I mean, of course we have financial issues here, and it's very difficult for us to actually serve other people as much as we want to. But again, when we are together, even if it's very difficult to live in the city, it's still something, you know?What I see: the rent went up, like you said, so the people try to move into their family houses, the houses there of their families and everything. And in western countries, it's difficult. You usually don't do this kind of stuff, but in our community, it's much easier to do these things. And, you know, the families welcome the children [00:35:00] more than other countries. So that's something I think that's a positive thing.But to the strangers. What do we do for strangers? Obviously, we do as much as possible. We may not be able to serve them as much as we used to, obviously, before this inflation. And we have the highest inflation in the world, or probably the second-highest inflation. So again, it's difficult, and Istanbul became probably one of the most expensive cities in the world. But even that, again, we may not be able to take them to dinner every night, but we serve what we have in the house, like in the Prophet Mohammed's story.Whatever we have, we share. And, we call it bereket, as in Arabic baraka, they call it. Baraka is something [00:36:00] like... we use it for money. It's not “more money.” That's not important. How do I say that? I don't even know how to say it in English, but it's more like “the luck of the money, itself.” Basically, you may be able to buy more stuff with less money based on your luck. That's basically what we call it. Bereket. So the bereket is much more important than the amount of the money or the financial thing. And the bereket always goes up when you share it.Chris: Beautiful. Yeah, I love that. I mean, in English, not to reduce it at all, but in English we say, quality over quantity.”Kerim: Yeah, absolutely.Chris: And you said that, in order to offer hospitality or the hospitality that we would like to offer to our guests, sometimes maybe that means not doing it all the time, [00:37:00] because one simply cannot. Right. It's not possible.Kerim: Right.Chris: But yeah, it's a really beautiful point.Kerim: Rumi is a very important Sufi, probably known by many Americans. Even the world knows him. He wrote a poem, which is about the guests. So, if you don't mind, I'm gonna read that, uh, it's called the Guest House and it goes like:This human life is a guest house. Every dawn, a new visitor arrives.A gladness, a sadness, a pettiness, a flash of insights all come knocking, unannounced.Welcome them all. Make room even if a band of sorrows storms inand clears your rooms of comfort.Still honour every guest.[00:38:00] Perhaps they empty you to prepare you for something brighter.The gloomy thought, the shame, the bitterness,greet them at the door with a smile, and lead them inside.Be thankful for whoever comes, for each is sent as a messenger from the beyond.So that's a poem by Rumi, and I think it pretty much explains the whole hospitality thing.Chris: Yeah, that's a gorgeous, gorgeous poem. I love that. I'll make sure that's up on the End of Tourism website when the episode launches.And so finally, Kerim, uh, I'd like to thank you so very much for being willing to join me today, to be willing to speak in a language that is not your first, or mother tongue, and to share with us some of the beauty that has touched your days. Before we say goodbye, [00:39:00] perhaps you could tell our listeners how they can follow and learn more about Kerim Vakfı, Stories from the 30 Birds, your book, and any other projects you might want them to know about.Kerim: We have a Sufi centre in North Carolina, at the University of North Carolina. We have a centre in China, Beijing University, and another center in Kyoto University in Japan. And my mother's book about the commentary of some Quranic verses is the one. For instance, Yasin is available through Amazon and my book Stories from the 30 Birds is available on Barnes and Noble and all that other places in US.Chris: Beautiful. Well, I'll make sure that those links are all available on the End of Tourism website and on my Substack when the episode comes out. [00:40:00] And on behalf of our listeners, tesekkur, tesekkur.Kerim: I thank you. Get full access to Chris Christou at chrischristou.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, we’re revisiting Raffaldini Vineyards in Ronda, NC! This year marks the 25th anniversary of Raffaldini’s founding. We sit down with Jay Raffaldini to reflect on how the winery has evolved from its earliest days and what lies ahead for the next quarter century. We first interviewed Jay back in season 1, and a lot of things have changed over time so listen in for details. Raffaldini Vineyards has been known for its focus on Italian varietals and embracing Old World traditions. As Jay shares in our conversation, the story of Raffaldini is also rooted in perseverance, experimentation, and deep family connections. At its founding, the North Carolina Wine industry was just taking shape. Many practices, techniques, and vineyard practices for the North Carolina climate were being written in real time. Jay talks to us about those early challenges and what he’s learned over time to establish his house style and build on quality over time. Wine Class with the Wine Mouths is back again! Join us as they talk about Tannat; a bold and structured grape that’s gaining in popularity here in North Carolina. For more information about the Wine Mouths, head to https://www.winemouths.com/ or find them on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok @Winemouths. The Wine Mouths theme was written and performed by Joshua Morris. You can find him at https://soundcloud.com/joshtime. If you like this episode, please leave us a rating and review. It really helps spread the word. Subscribing and sharing with a friend is another great way to support Cork Talk. This episode was made possible in part by a grant from the North Carolina Wine and Grape Council. For more information, please visit https://www.ncwine.org

If you stepped outside lately and noticed your car, porch, or driveway suddenly covered in yellow dust, you're seeing the start of pollen season across North Carolina.Every spring around mid-March, pine trees release huge amounts of pollen into the air. The wind carries it everywhere — covering cars, outdoor furniture, and eventually making its way inside homes.In this episode, Derek Cole explains what's really happening when pollen season arrives, why your HVAC system works harder during this time of year, and what homeowners can do to keep their indoor air cleaner before the summer heat arrives.You'll learn:• Why everything turns yellow every spring• How pollen actually gets inside your home• Why HVAC filters clog faster this time of year• Simple steps to protect your indoor air qualityIf you live in Laurinburg, Fayetteville, Pinehurst, Sanford, Lumberton, or anywhere across the Sandhills, pollen season is just part of life — but there are smart ways to stay ahead of it and keep your home comfortable.New episodes cover real homeowner questions about comfort, energy bills, and how HVAC systems actually work.

Thousands of Bigfoot sightings span centuries, credible witnesses include police and forest rangers, and the most famous film footage has never been debunked — yet not a single bone, skeleton, or verified piece of physical evidence has ever been found. So what are we supposed to think?*No AI Voices Are Used In The Narration Of This Podcast*Take the Weird Darkness Survey: https://weirddarkness.com/SURVEYIN THIS EPISODE: Does a giant bipedal mammal unknown to science exist in the United States? (Legend of Sasquatch) *** 
A mother and daughter go camping with the Girl Scouts – but what they experienced was not part of the fun, age appropriate itinerary. (Terror at Girl Scout Camp) *** Kirk Anderson said that Joyce McKinney tied him to a bed for three days and raped him repeatedly. She said that wasn't possible. (The Case of the Manacled Mormon) *** Those interested in the paranormal likely already have heard of black eyed kids, or shadow people – but one person came across a being that inhabited the body of a co-worker – and turned the face completely black. (Was It Real?) *** If you lived in Illinois in 1977, you might have looked to the skies to see something terrifying – as Illinois was under siege by winged weirdness in the form of giant feathered fowls. (Thunderbirds Over Illinois) *** A perimeter search revealed blood stains in the yard, and bloody prints on the nearby garage. What Happened to Evelyn Hartley? (The Babysitter Who Vanished) **** A woman searches in vain for important papers, and gets a little help from a deceased grandparent. (Grandpa's Guns) *** Did a Nikola Tesla experiment cause the Tunguska Blast? (Tesla's Death Ray) *** The U.S. State Department has evacuated even more Americans due to a sickness that is spreading when people hear strange sounds. What could be causing the noise? (Sickening Strange Sounds) *** Do the ghosts of doomed lovers haunt a jagged cliff in Hot Springs, North Carolina? (The Ghosts of Lovers Leap) *** We'll take a look at Bhangarh Fort – one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of India. (Bhangarh Fort: The Most ‘Haunted' Place In India) *** A lifelong medium comes across a smiling entity. (Smiling) *** People in in the southwest of the United States are reporting sightings of giant birds, monsterous batlike creatures, even winged humanoids. What are they seeing? (Bizarre Bird Monsters of the Rio Grande) *** Were a murderer's actions driven by a mental disorder, was he feigning mental disability, or did he in fact make an evil pact with Satan himself? (Contract With The Devil) *** Jack the Ripper. Who was the man (or woman) behind history's grisliest unsolved murders? (Six Chilling Theories About Jack The Ripper)CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…00:00:00.000 = The Foreboding00:00:57.476 = Show Open00:04:01.465 = Legends And Lies of Sasquatch00:09:13.025 = Was It Real?00:11:28.473 = Manacled Mormon00:18:25.387 = Babysitter Vanished ***00:27:39.124 = Grandma's Guns00:29:22.766 = Thunderbird Over Illinois ***00:40:15.693 = Terror at Girl Scout Camp00:44:16.680 = Six Chilling Theories About Jack The Ripper00:50:06.467 = A Contract With The Devil01:00:29.940 = The Ghosts of Lovers Leap01:03:10.783 = Bizarre Big Bird Monsters01:17:13.927 = Bhangarh Fort01:23:11.001 = Sickening Strange Sounds ***01:30:16.007 = Smiling01:31:58.724 = Tesla's Death Ray01:40:58.958 = Show Close*** = Begins immediately after inserted ad breakHELPFUL LINKS & RESOURCES…https://WeirdDarkness.com/MUSIC = Songs and Videos by our Weird Darkness punk band, #DarkWeirdnesshttps://WeirdDarkness.com/STORE = Tees, Mugs, Socks, Hoodies, Totes, Hats, Kidswear & Morehttps://WeirdDarkness.com/HOPE = Hope For Depression or Thoughts of Self-Harmhttps://WeirdDarkness.com/NEWSLETTER = In-Depth Articles, Memes, Weird DarkNEWS, Videos & Morehttps://WeirdDarkness.com/AUDIOBOOKS = FREE Audiobooks Narrated By Darren Marlar SOURCES and RESOURCES:“Terror at Girl Scout Camp” by an unknown author: (website no longer exists) “The Case of the Manacled Mormon” by Gina Dimuro for All That's Interesting: https://tinyurl.com/w9o8coy“Thunderbirds Over Illinois” by Troy Taylor: https://tinyurl.com/sm4zvqd“Was It Real” by Zaruje for YourGhostStories.com: https://tinyurl.com/rs7s2zw“Legend of Sasquatch” posted at The Unredacted: https://tinyurl.com/v3rokfm“The Babysitter Who Vanished” by Gary Sweeney for The Line Up: https://tinyurl.com/qmez2p3“Grandpa's Guns” written by Amanda Rummel, submitted directly to Weird Darkness “Tesla's Death Ray” posted at The Unredacted: https://tinyurl.com/v7scbe7“Six Chilling Theories About Jack The Ripper” by Jessica Ferri for The Line Up: https://tinyurl.com/r3e32vu“Sickening Strange Sounds” by Micah Hanks for Mysterious Universe: https://tinyurl.com/uy5tfjb“Smiling” by Rachael West, submitted directly to Weird Darkness“The Ghosts of Lovers Leap” by an unknown author (website no longer exists) “The Bizarre Bird Monsters of the Rio Grande” by Brent Swancer for Mysterious Universe: https://tinyurl.com/varh42j“Bhangarh Fort: The Most ‘Haunted' Place In India” posted at Tripoto.com: https://tinyurl.com/tw4muoy“A Contract With The Devil” by Robert Willhelm for Murder By Gaslight: https://tinyurl.com/ha7dhzh=====(Over time links may become invalid, disappear, or have different content. I always make sure to give authors credit for the material I use whenever possible. If I somehow overlooked doing so for a story, or if a credit is incorrect, please let me know and I will rectify it in these show notes immediately. Some links included above may benefit me financially through qualifying purchases.)= = = = ="I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness." — John 12:46= = = = =WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.=====Originally aired: September 12, 2018EPISODE PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/IsBigfootRealABOUT WEIRD DARKNESS: #WeirdDarkness is a true crime and paranormal podcast narrated by professional award-winning voice actor, Darren Marlar. Seven days per week, Weird Darkness focuses on all things strange and macabre such as haunted locations, unsolved mysteries, true ghost stories, supernatural manifestations, urban legends, unsolved or cold cases, conspiracy theories, and more. Weird Darkness has been named one of the “20 Best Storytellers in Podcasting” by Podcast Business Journal. Listeners have described the show as a blend of “Coast to Coast AM”, “The Twilight Zone”, “Unsolved Mysteries”, and “In Search Of”.DISCLAIMER: Stories and content in Weird Darkness can be disturbing for some listeners and intended for mature audiences only. Parental discretion is strongly advised.

JOIN THE EYE ON BRACKET GAME! Gary Parrish and Matt Norlander preview Thursday and Friday of the 2026 NCAA Tournament! Which Round 1 matchups are most intriguing? Where are the upsets waiting to happen? All that and more on the doorstep of the madness! (0:00) Intro + the tournament starts today! (4:00) Games to watch on Thursday (4:30) Ohio State vs. TCU (8:01) North Carolina vs. VCU (12:45) Georgia vs. Saint Louis (17:00) Nebraska vs. Troy (19:00) Duke vs. Siena (23:15) Arkansas vs. Hawaii (27:30) Games to watch on Friday (28:00) Kentucky vs. Santa Clara (33:30) Texas Tech vs. Akron (36:00) UConn vs Furman (38:30) Arizona vs LIU (44:00) Alabama vs Hofstra (48:20) Kansas vs. Cal Baptist (52:45) DraftKings Upset Alert (59:45) Sling TV Game to Watch: you gotta watch Miami on Wednesday night (1:08:30) Norlander's nuggets ahead of the tournament Theme song: “Timothy Leary,” written, performed and courtesy of Guster Eye on College Basketball is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever else you listen to podcasts. Follow our team: @EyeonCBBPodcast @GaryParrishCBS @MattNorlander @Boone @DavidWCobb @TheJMULL_ Visit the ⁠betting arena on CBSSports.com⁠ for all the latest in ⁠sportsbook reviews⁠ and ⁠sportsbook promos⁠ for ⁠betting on college basketball⁠. You can listen to us on your smart speakers! Simply say, “Alexa, play the latest episode of the Eye on College Basketball podcast,” or “Hey, Google, play the latest episode of the Eye on College Basketball podcast.” Email the show for any reason whatsoever: ShoutstoCBS@gmail.com Visit Eye on College Basketball's YouTube channel: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeFb_xyBgOekQPZYC7Ijilw⁠ For more college hoops coverage, visit ⁠https://www.cbssports.com/college-basketball/⁠ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit ⁠https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Haley Adams is back. After a ten-year career in CrossFit that started when she was just 14 years old, the 2018 Fittest Teen on Earth took a much-needed break in 2023. Today, she opens up about the weight of expectations and the intense pressure she felt after moving to the individual division. She discusses how negative social media comments impacted her body image and relationship with food, and how stepping away allowed her the space she needed to focus on both her mental and physical health. Haley shares the joy of rediscovering her love for training, learning to prioritize wellness over burning calories, and the excitement of joining the Red Bull family. We also touch on her fifth-place finish at the 2024 CrossFit Games and her life beyond the box, (that's CrossFit-speak for gym) — including her love for Disney movies and her ever-growing family of animals. IN THIS EPISODE Haley’s early start in CrossFit at age 14 and her transition from gymnastics. Winning the teenage division and the onset of intense pressure as an individual competitor. The impact of social media on her body image and mental health. Her decision to take a year off in 2023 and the "total mental breakdown" that led to it. The healing process, returning home to North Carolina, and rediscovering the fun in fitness. Learning to fuel her body properly and moving away from disordered eating habits. Her current training routine, recovery strategies, and the importance of a support system. Life outside the gym: Disney movies, her two cats, Australian Shepherd puppy, axolotl, and hermit crabs. QUOTABLE MOMENTS "By taking that step back, I chose myself. And that’s the most beautiful example. I think so many amazing things came from that." "I realized like, sure I was at rock bottom, but it can’t get worse. Things get hard, but don’t give up on yourself." "I was training so much because I was scared that someone was going to outwork me ... just a tunnel vision, nothing else in the world mattered to me. That’s all I cared about." "It’s okay to still have bad days. It’s not the end of the world. It doesn’t mean that you’re taking a step backwards or going into your old ways." "Try to enjoy the whole process because it could be gone tomorrow. Once I learned to enjoy competing again, it was like a whole different experience." "I’ve learned to be a lot nicer to myself because, at the end of the day, this is the voice that you’re stuck with in your head. So you might as well make it nice." SOCIAL@haleyadamssss@emilyabbate@iheartwomenssports JOIN: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Daily Hurdle IG Channel⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ SIGN UP: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Weekly Hurdle Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ASK ME A QUESTION: Email hello@hurdle.us to with your questions! Emily answers them every Friday on the show. Listen to Hurdle with Emily Abbate on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Energy bills are rising, data centers are multiplying, and the grid is straining to keep up. What happens next? For two decades, electricity prices in the United States barely moved. Demand was flat, natural gas was cheap, and the system was largely stable. That era is over. A surge in data center construction, accelerating electrification, and the legacy of years of underinvestment in energy infrastructure have collided to create a system under strain.Nowhere is that more visible than in PJM, the largest wholesale power market in the US, stretching from Illinois to North Carolina, and home to some of the world's most active hot spots for data center development. Host Ed Crooks is joined by Paul Segal, CEO of LS Power, and Melissa Lott, Partner for Energy Technologies at Microsoft, to assess how the system can meet the new challenges it faces.LS Power is a leading developer and operator of electricity generation and transmission, so Paul is right at the heart of these questions. He is making multi-billion dollar decisions that shape the ways that America's electricity gets supplied.He makes the case that competitive markets, given the right rules and durable signals, can deliver the solutions the grid needs. LS Power is pursuing demand response, battery storage, renewable projects, and gas generation simultaneously. And he warns that political interventions, such as price caps, risk weakening the signals that drive investment. The question of who pays is at the heart of the debate. A bipartisan group of state governors got together with the Trump administration to call for emergency procurement of new generation capacity in PJM, with data centers expected to bear the cost. Paul argues this is inevitable. For hyperscalers to maintain a social license to keep building, he says, households cannot be left to pick up the bill for load growth created by data centers. Melissa brings the consumer perspective, noting that US household electricity prices rose 26% between 2019 and 2024, outpacing income growth and falling hardest on the most energy-vulnerable families. The episode also looks at longer-term structural solutions, including the case for more competition in transmission planning and the lessons from Texas's wildly successful CREZ program to build out grid infrastructure.It closes with a discussion of another issue that is high on Paul's agenda: mentorship and training. He believes industry leaders have a responsibility to create opportunities for the next generation, despite the threat to entry-level roles created by AI. There is a huge task in front of us to build the grid of the future, and we need skilled and experienced people to do it.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Michel Amar, CEO of DigiPower X (DGXX), returns to break down the US Data Centers (USDC) drama… why USDC is great for DGXX shareholders… and why the next few weeks will be a game-changer for the company. In this episode: Breaking down the DigiPower X (DGXX) drama [0:20] Welcome back, Michel Amar, CEO of DGXX [5:13] Why USDC is great for DGXX shareholders [7:21] Power demand continues to outpace supply [23:56] Major news at the North Carolina and Alabama sites [28:30] Why the next few weeks will be a game-changer for DGXX [37:12] Plans for the future: $100M per month in revenue [41:27] A word for the social media haters [48:26] Did you like this episode? Get more Wall Street Unplugged FREE each week in your inbox. Sign up here: https://curzio.me/syn_wsu Find Wall Street Unplugged podcast… --Curzio Research App: https://curzio.me/syn_app --iTunes: https://curzio.me/syn_wsu_i --Stitcher: https://curzio.me/syn_wsu_s --Website: https://curzio.me/syn_wsu_cat Follow Frank… X: https://curzio.me/syn_twt Facebook: https://curzio.me/syn_fb LinkedIn: https://curzio.me/syn_li

Reporting from North Carolina, Ginger Zee tracks the violent storm system that's bringing severe weather and the potential for widespread destructive winds and tornadoes from Florida to the Northeast, and blizzard conditions to the upper Midwest; James Longman has details on Pres. Trump blasting some U.S. allies for refusing to answer his new call for help in reopening the critical Strait of Hormuz; Steve Osunsami has the latest on a federal judge temporarily blocking HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr's changes to the childhood vaccine policies, which would have reduced the number of recommended childhood vaccines from 17 to 11; and more on tonight's broadcast of World News Tonight with David Muir. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For the North Carolina basketball program,  reaching the Sweet Sixteen was the benchmark of success in the NCAA Tournament since Dean Smith broke through in the late 1960s. Smith's 1967-69 run of ACC regular season championships, ACC Tournament titles and Final Four berths set the standard for UNC and throughout his tenure on the Tar Heel sidelines, Smith delivered. Roy Williams did virtually the same until he retired in 2021. Hubert Davis's teams have reached that threshold in two of his four years in Chapel Hill with another tournament run beginning on Thursday against VCU. So what is the standard? What defines North Carolina success in the NCAA Tournament? Is that different for this specific team given the injuries and this year's bracket?  Inside Carolina's senior reporter Greg Barnes joins Tommy Ashley to discuss the past, present and future of Carolina in the NCAA Tournament and they include the Duke rivalry in the discussion as the Blue Devils head into their own tournament run with a sweep of the league trophies this season.   **Call to Action:** **Subscribe:** Follow 'Inside Carolina' wherever you get your podcasts to never miss an episode! **Review:** Leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify to help us reach more Tar Heel fans! **Visit:** Explore http://www.InsideCarolina.com for breaking news, recruiting updates, and expert commentary on all things UNC sports.This show is brought to you by Inside Carolina, the No. 1 site for UNC sports coverage and community. Visit http://www.InsideCarolina.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

So much of marketing is a "hook" headline or some shock and awe video on your scroll. However, how do you find true authentic and real life health solutions with your product, then check out the story of KATE FARMS. We are so excited to have Catherine Hayden the Chief Marketing Officer of the brand, who happens to be a registered dietician join the show. So fun being live at eTail, people pop by and sit down. So on this episode, we get a Bonus that my great eTail co-host Lauren Livak Gilbert now has a BFF and helped out with this great conversation. KATE FARMS made bold distribution decisions and are making people healthier one fan at a time!   Enjoy Always Off Brand is always a Laugh & Learn!    FEEDSPOT TOP 10 Retail Podcast! https://podcast.feedspot.com/retail_podcasts/?feedid=5770554&_src=f2_featured_email   Guest: Catherine Hayden  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/catherine-hayden-28233816/ Extuitive - https://extuitive.com/   Guest: Brent Peterson  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brentwpeterson/ KATE FARMS: https://www.katefarms.com/   Guest: Lauren Livak Gilbert  LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurenlivak/ Lauren's Podcast - Unpacking the Digital Shelf: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/unpacking-the-digital-shelf/id1483944522   eTail: https://etailwest.wbresearch.com/ QUICKFIRE Info:   Website: https://www.quickfirenow.com/ Email the Show: info@quickfirenow.com  Talk to us on Social: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/quickfireproductions Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/quickfire__/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@quickfiremarketing LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/company/quickfire-productions-llc/about/ Sports podcast Scott has been doing since 2017, Scott & Tim Sports Show part of Somethin About Nothin:  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/somethin-about-nothin/id1306950451 HOSTS: Summer Jubelirer has been in digital commerce and marketing for over 17 years. After spending many years working for digital and ecommerce agencies working with multi-million dollar brands and running teams of Account Managers, she is now the Amazon Manager at OLLY PBC.   LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/summerjubelirer/   Scott Ohsman has been working with brands for over 30 years in retail, online and has launched over 200 brands on Amazon. Mr. Ohsman has been managing brands on Amazon for 19yrs. Owning his own sales and marketing agency in the Pacific NW, is now VP of Digital Commerce for Quickfire LLC. Producer and Co-Host for the top 5 retail podcast, Always Off Brand. He also produces the Brain Driven Brands Podcast featuring leading Consumer Behaviorist Sarah Levinger. Scott has been a featured speaker at national trade shows and has developed distribution strategies for many top brands. LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-ohsman-861196a6/   Hayley Brucker has been working in retail and with Amazon for years. Hayley has extensive experience in digital advertising, both seller and vendor central on Amazon. Hayley lives in North Carolina.  LinkedIn -https://www.linkedin.com/in/hayley-brucker-1945bb229/   Huge thanks to Cytrus our show theme music "Office Party" available wherever you get your music. Check them out here: Facebook https://www.facebook.com/cytrusmusic Instagram https://www.instagram.com/cytrusmusic/ Twitter https://twitter.com/cytrusmusic SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/artist/6VrNLN6Thj1iUMsiL4Yt5q?si=MeRsjqYfQiafl0f021kHwg APPLE MUSIC https://music.apple.com/us/artist/cytrus/1462321449   "Always Off Brand" is part of the Quickfire Podcast Network and produced by Quickfire LLC.  

I just got back from Charlotte, North Carolina, where I attended official dealer training as part of launching ROPED — Robotic Outdoor Power Equipment Distributors. This wasn't just a product demo… it was a full behind-the-scenes look at what it really takes to become a robotic mower dealer. In this episode, I share my hands-on experience with the new Kress Voyager mower and the upcoming iPilot technology, plus insights into installation, backend systems, dealer expectations, and how manufacturers are preparing for the autonomous future of lawn care. I also talk about what surprised me, what excited me most, and what this means for contractors, property owners, and the industry as a whole. If you're curious about robotic mowing, considering becoming a dealer, or want to stay ahead of where outdoor equipment is heading, this episode gives you a front-row seat to what's coming next.

Some WW2 historical backdrop for context of today's political landscape.FAITHBUCKS.COM

On January 2, 2000, eighteen-year-old Zebb Quinn finished his shift at Walmart in Ashville, North Carolina and set off to look at a used car with his co-worker, Jason Owens. Halfway to their destination, Zebb told Jason he received an important call on his pager and needed to return the call immediately and they would have to postpone their plans to look at the car. That was the last time anyone saw Zebb Quinn. For weeks, Zebb's family and the Ashville police searched for the teenager, but it was as though he had disappeared into thin air. Then, to everyone's surprise, Zebb's car was found in a parking lot not far from the hospital where his mother and sister worked, as though someone had left it in a conspicuous place where it would be found. But more surprising than the discovery of the car itself was the incredibly strange and unexpected evidence found inside the vehicle, including several markings on the windows in red lipstick and a live black labrador puppy. References Alexander, Phil. 2000. "Police, family puzzled by Arden teen's disappearance." Asheville Citizen-Times, January 21: 11. Bever, Lindsey. 2015. "N.C. man charged in murder of Food Network star, her." Washington Post, March 18. Brevorka, Jennifer. 2004. "Police release tape in case of teen's disappearance four years ago." Asheville Citizen-Times, January 1: 15. Burgess, Joel. 2022. "Judge accepts plea deal in cold case." Asheville Citizen-Times, July 27: 1. —. 2022. "Zebb Quinn's killer dead, says Owens." Asheville Citizen-Times, July 22: 1. DeGrave, Sam. 2018. "Lawyers clash in Zebb Quinn case." Asheville Citizen-Times, March 16: 1. Forrest, Brett. 2001. "The vanishing." Spin, February 1: 90. Kepley-Steward, Kristy. 2020. "20 years after the disappearance of Zebb Quinn, still very few answers." WLOS News, January 3. King, Kimberley. 2022. "Former friend shares about 'pathological liar' Owens ahead of plea deal in Zebb Quinn case." WPDE News, July 22. Maxwell, Tonya. 2001. "Questions abound in Quinn case." Asheville Citizen-Times, January 2: 9. Morrison, Clarke. 2005. "Detectives hope re-enactment will jog memories." Asheville Citizen-Times, January 14: 1. 2012. Disappeared. Produced by Peacock Productions. Performed by Peacock Productions. Tomlin, Robyn. 2000. "A mother pleads: Where is my son?" Ashville Citizen-Times, August 6: 1. Warren, Sabian. 2012. "Dog a living link to Quinn cold case." Asheville Citizen-Times, April 20: 1. —. 2015. "Suspect destroyed bodies." Asheville Citizen-Times, March 21: 1. Cowritten by Alaina Urquhart, Ash Kelley & Dave White (Since 10/2022)Produced & Edited by Mikie Sirois (Since 2023)Research by Dave White (Since 10/2022), Alaina Urquhart & Ash KelleyListener Correspondence & Collaboration by Debra LallyListener Tale Video Edited by Aidan McElman (Since 6/2025) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In February 1975, nine-year-old Marcia Trimble vanished while delivering Girl Scout cookies in Nashville's Green Hills neighborhood, shattering the sense of safety surrounding one of the city's most affluent communities. Her disappearance and murder became one of Tennessee's most haunting cold cases, marked by suspicion, unanswered questions, and a mystery that lingered for decades. Join the Community on Patreon: Want more Southern Mysteries? You can hear the Southern Mysteries show archive of 60+ episodes along with Patron exclusive podcast, Audacious: Tales of American Crime and more when you become a patron of the show. You can immediately access exclusive content now at patreon.com/southernmysteries