With the lifting of Title 42, America is once again forced to consider its border policy, just as Democrat-run cities struggle to find shelter for busloads of migrants sent north from the US-Mexico border. What responsibilities do states and cities far from the border have? And with Congress frozen, what can President Biden actually do? Doris Meissner of the Migration Policy Institute talks through the dilemmas facing the Biden administration and Rosemarie Ward reports from the town of Newburgh, where migrants are being sent from New York City shelters. John Prideaux hosts with Charlotte How ..read more

There have long been worries about manhood in the United States. Today, nearly half of men believe traditional masculinity is under threat. While the left talk about toxic masculinity, some politicians on the right fear men’s very “deconstruction”. Researchers point to data showing a relative decline in men’s education rates and rise in deaths from drugs and suicide. Does the debate over masculinity obscure actual problems for boys and men? And what does the fight over America’s men mean for the country’s women, and its politics?  Richard Reeves, author of “Of Boys And Men”, talks us thr ..read more

While Washington debates the debt ceiling, the entitlements time bomb is ticking. The trust fund that pays for much of Medicare, the health-insurance scheme for the elderly, will run out of money by 2031. The fund that pays old-age benefits for Social Security, the state pension scheme, will be exhausted by 2033. Politicians need to agree to a fix, but it’s not clear that they will. What would happen if these funds reach insolvency? And how could that be avoided?  John Prideaux hosts with Charlotte Howard and Idrees Kahloon. You can now find every episode of Checks and Balance in one pl ..read more

Israel is marking its 75th anniversary. America has always been its closest foreign ally, but that relationship has seldom been easy.  That’s true now: progressive Democrats are questioning the party’s innate pro-Israel stance, and Benjamin Netanyahu’s controversial judicial reforms have met with open disapproval from the White House.  What might relations look like in another 75 years?  The Economist’s Josie Delap assesses the impact of Netanyahu’s judicial plans.  We go back to a eulogy given by an American leader for his Israeli counterpart.  And The Economist’s An ..read more

Fox News has settled a mammoth defamation lawsuit over its coverage of the 2020 presidential election. Dominion Voting Systems had accused the network of knowingly spreading the lie that its machines somehow rigged the election by awarding votes to Joe Biden. Defamation cases are notoriously hard to win in America, and it was remarkable that this one got so far. Will it change Fox News? The Economist’s Kennett Werner sets out the background to the lawsuit. We return to the founding of Fox News. And law professor RonNell Andersen Jones explains what the case tells us about how the media works ..read more

American authorities confiscated a record amount of illegal fentanyl along the southwest border in 2022. But even so, last year will still likely see the highest number of fatal overdoses in America’s 20-year opioid epidemic. In this episode–our second on the opioid epidemic–we trace the supply chain from China to the southern border, via Mexico. Can that supply route be interrupted? And how do America’s relationships with China and Mexico affect the flow of drugs? San Diego’s mayor, Todd Gloria, describes the effect fentanyl has had on his city. Alan Bersin, former commissioner of Customs an ..read more

Donald Trump has been charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records.  He denies all the charges, and in a New York courtroom earlier this week pleaded not guilty. For most American politicians this would be the end of their presidential ambitions—why not for Mr Trump? Former prosecutor Matthew Galluzzo assesses the case.  We hear about a world leader who had several brushes with the law. And The Economist’s James Bennet considers whether it’s a mistake to prosecute Donald Trump.   John Prideaux hosts with Charlotte Howard and Idrees Kahloon. You can now find ever ..read more

Voters in Chicago are choosing between two candidates for mayor, and two very different wings of the Democratic Party.  One contender is conservative, for a Chicago Democrat, and backed by the police union. The other is a progressive, who once called to defund the police. Why does the Chicago mayoral election matter outside of the city limits?   The Economist’s Daniel Knowles profiles the candidates. We learn about a notoriously powerful Chicago mayor. And former education secretary Arne Duncan explains how the city is failing many of its children, and what the new mayor will n ..read more

Texas is on a roll.  People and companies are flocking to the Lone Star State.  It’s an energy pioneer, its size means it has a significant say in national politics and its coffers are full, in part due to an influx of federal money.   What’s behind the Texan boom? Texas’s governor Greg Abbott makes the case for his state.  We go back to the abrupt end of a previous Texan boom.  And developer Ross Perot junior explains why it’s easy to do business in Texas. John Prideaux hosts with Charlotte Howard and Alexandra Suich Bass.  You can now find every episode of Ch ..read more

More than 650,000 Americans have died of overdoses since the start of the opioid epidemic. Fentanyl, easily available and dangerously powerful, killed seventy thousand people in 2021 alone. Now, as the federal government estimates more than five million people struggle with an opioid addiction, states are increasingly looking for sweeping solutions to the crisis. What solutions are there? And what’s stopping them being enacted? Keith Humphreys, drug policy advisor to George W Bush and Barack Obama, talks us through the state of epidemic. And The Economist’s Stevie Hertz heads to Oregon to see ..read more