President-Elect Donald Trump captured the White House by winning the Electoral College, even as Hillary Clinton won about half a million votes more than Trump. In response, some are calling for a national popular vote to decide the...

Book: Beyond the White House

The poet who will carry on a tradition and present her new work, "The Hill We Climb" at the inauguration this week is already quite accomplished at the age of 22. Jeffrey Brown talked to Amanda Gorman to learn more, as part of our...

Why Jimmy Carter May Be The Most Misunderstood President In American History

As coronavirus has spread across the U.S., so have reports of violence against people of Asian descent, and the FBI warns a surge in hate crimes could be yet to come. These fears have led to the creation of a website for reporting such...

Today, Craig Benzine is going to dive into the factors that influence judicial decisions. As you may have noticed, the Supreme Court recently handed down some pretty big decisions on same-sex marriage (in Obergefell v Hodges) and the...

In which John Green teaches you about the Progressive Presidents, who are not a super-group of former presidents who create complicated, symphonic, rock soundscapes that transport you into a fantasy fugue state. Although that would be...

This week Craig Benzine talks about how the president gets things done. Filling the role of the executive branch is a pretty big job - much too big for just one person. It's so big that the president employs an entire federal...

The secret to winning an argument isn't grand rhetoric or elegant style, says US Supreme Court litigator Neal Katyal -- it takes more than that. With stories of some of the most impactful cases he's argued before the Court, Katyal shows...

In which Craig Benzine teaches you about delegation, and informal powers. What are all these federal agencies about? Well, the president has a lot of stuff to do as the chief executive, and as much as Americans like to talk about...

Be spreaders of facts and truths, says scientist and immunologist Dr. Anthony Fauci. Having advised seven US presidents on various disease outbreaks including COVID-19, he shares insights on the present and future of pandemics, backed up...

About 10% of the world population is left-handed. But why does handedness exist and what determines which hand is dominant? Scientists have suggested several theories, but the answer may well lie with evolution.

The climate crisis has been largely caused by irresponsible adults in developed countries, but it's the children of developing nations -- like Zimbabwean environmental activist Nkosilathi Nyathi -- that suffer from the most disastrous...

About 10% of the world population is left-handed. But why does handedness exist and what determines which hand is dominant? Scientists have suggested several theories, but the answer may well lie with evolution.

Negative campaigns—or campaigns that work by painting opposing candidates in a negative light—have been used for decades. But today, thanks to information that can be gained from social media, these campaigns may be even more effective...

Taylor Wilson believes nuclear fusion is a solution to our future energy needs, and that kids can change the world. And he knows something about both of those: When he was 14, he built a working fusion reactor in his parents' garage. Now...

Colonialism remains an inescapable blight on the present, lingering in the toxic, internalized mythologies and stereotypes that have outlived the regimes that created them, says historian Farish Ahmad-Noor. Examining why these prejudices...

We're at a unique moment in history, says UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown: we can use today's interconnectedness to develop our shared global ethic -- and work together to confront the challenges of poverty, security, climate change and...

Known worldwide for her courage and clarity, Christiane Amanpour has spent the past three decades interviewing business, cultural and political leaders who have shaped history. In conversation with TED Curator Chris Anderson, Amanpour...

Tesla's Autopilot system is the most advanced available right now, but it has limitations, and some of those limitations might be us.

We hear anywhere from 10 to 200 lies a day. And although we've spent much of our history coming up with ways to detect these lies by tracking physiological changes in their tellers, these methods have proved unreliable. Is there a more...

Born in 1731 to freed slaves on a farm in Baltimore, Benjamin Banneker was obsessed with math and science. And his appetite for knowledge only grew as he taught himself astronomy, mathematics, engineering, and the study of the natural...

In Lebanon there is one gunshot a year that isn’t part of a scene of routine violence: The opening sound of the Beirut International Marathon. In a moving talk, marathon founder May El-Khalil explains why she believed a 26.2-mile running...

When Julius Maada Bio first seized political power in Sierra Leone in 1996, he did so to improve the lives of its citizens. But he soon realized that for democracy to flourish, its foundation needs to be built on the will of the people....