623. Can New York City Win Its War on Rats?

Epic Systems manages the electronic health records for hundreds of millions of people. This makes Faulkner a healthcare heavyweight and one of the most successful female entrepreneurs in history. So why haven’t we ever heard much from her? Stephen Dubner travels to Verona, Wisc., ...  Show more

New York City’s mayor called them “public enemy number one.” History books say they caused the Black Death — although recent scientific evidence disputes that claim. In an updated episode from 2025, we ask: Is the rat a scapegoat? And what does our rat hatred say about us? SOURCE ...  Show more

November 18, 2022. New York City is at war... with rats. And today, Mayor Eric Adams is set to announce four new pieces of legislation aimed at combating this scurrying problem. Two of these laws will target garbage, the rats' main source of food. If you put trash in places the r ...  Show more

Animals are essential in maintaining ecosystem balance, but in some cases they can have the opposite effect. In the coastal city of Mombasa, Kenya, authorities are looking to cull 1 million Indian house crows. Conservationists say they are becoming a nuisance and have significant ...  Show more

Jens Ludwig has an idea for how to fix America’s gun violence problem — and it starts by rejecting conventional wisdom from both sides of the political aisle. 

On paper, a thirty-three-year-old socialist would seem an unlikely contender for mayor of New York City. But Zohran Mamdani’s campaign proved compelling enough to make him the front-runner to lead the largest city in America. On the first in a series of Critics at Large interv ...