Thomas Willing was a merchant trader, America’s first bank president, and its first central banker. Willing bankrolled – and in the process helped save – the American Revolution and then fundamentally shaped the financial architecture of the young Republic. Yet at a decisive moment in Willing's life he voted against independence, as a clash between Pennsylvania's moneyed elite and the emergent lower and middle classes embroiled the politics of 1776 in bitter class conflict. 

• Guest: Richard Vague, author of “The Banker Who Made America: Thomas Willing and the Rise of the American Financial Aristocracy, 1731-1821”,  published by Polity
• Producer: Catherine Zengerer

With the National Party leaving the Coalition, and a Nats leadership spill pending, we look at the disproportionate power the Nats have wielded in the Coalition. 

Springtails are pretty much everywhere, and all over the world. They are important nutrient recyclers, but not many people know about them.

• Guest: Mark Stevens, Senior research scientist at the South Australian Museum. Affiliate associate professor at Adelaide University’s School of Biological Sciences. Co-author, with Cyrille D’Haese of Sorbonne University, of an article on springtails for The Conversation 
• Producer: Ann Arnold

When Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney stepped onto the stage at the World Economic Forum in Davos , no-one expected him to set the world on fire. His speech went viral, as he talked of the rupture to the rules-based order and called on middle powers to step up. “If we’re not at the table, we're on the menu,” he said. He never mentioned Donald Trump’s name, but his message was clear. He was there to garner support from countries equally alarmed by a United States gone rogue. His speech came fresh off the back of a visit to Xi Jinping in China and he was keen to sell Canada’s virtues to the Davos crowd as well. So what is he up to? 

• Guest:  Ian Austen, The New York Times Canada Correspondent
• Producer: Catherine Zengerer

On January 24, nurse Alex Pretti was protesting the presence of immigration officers in Minnesota when he was detained and surrounded by Border Patrol guards. Two guards shot Pretti in the back, killing him on the street. Pretti was 37, and Trump officials initially blamed him for his own death. Bystander video contradicted the official accounts, and now Trump has begun to distance himself from the killing. Will Pretti's killing force Trump to alter his aggressive tactics? Will there be more violence?

• Guest: Bruce Shapiro, contributing editor with The Nation magazine and Director of the Global Center for Journalism and Trauma

If you looked at Australian history through the lens of a single day — January 26 — what kind of nation would you be looking at? In his new book Matt Murphy has collected an event from each of the 237 Straya Days we've had since 1788. Some days shaped the nation, some days were terrible, and some were plain weird.

• Guest: Matt Murphy, part-time historian and author of Straya Day: The unofficial history of Australia's national day
• Producer: Alex Tighe

Last year saw the biggest expansion yet of Indigenous Protected Areas. Advocates say IPAs are the ideal approach for managing ecologically important land, while reconnecting First Nations people with their country, and providing employment. 

Guest: Associate Professor BHIAMIE  WILLIAMSON, from Monash University. Chair of Country Needs People, a not for profit organisation that supports indigenous land and sea management.  A Euahlayi  man from north-west New South Wales. Producer: Ann Arnold

On this Australia Day, we look at the political weaponising of multicultural Australia, and immigration, and we ask how this is playing out in voters' minds.

Guest: Kos Samaras, pollster, and director of strategy and campaigns with the Redbridge Group, which analyses community perceptions. Former Labor Party strategist. Producer: Ann Arnold

It’s 125 years since the death of Oscar Wilde. The famous playwright and author died alone in a French hotel in 1900. Since that time, so much has been written about his wit, prose and character. Some of it fact, some of it rumour, much of it, speculation. In his new book called After Oscar: The Legacy of a Scandal, Oscar Wilde’s grandson, Merlin Holland, sets the record straight. The book is thirty years in the making and is an exploration of Wilde’s posthumous reputation and how his imprisonment for homosexuality affected Wilde's family, friends and literary legacy.

Guest: Merlin Holland, Oscar Wilde's grandson and author, Oscar: The Legacy of a Scandal,

Producer: Ali Benton

Stephen Miller, often described as the architect of Donald Trump’s immigration policy, has been a defining force behind some of the administration’s most hardline measures. Known for his uncompromising stance on border security and deportations, Miller has shaped policy from the inside, translating Trump’s instincts into concrete executive actions. At just 40, he wields disproportionate influence in the White House, crafting rules that have reshaped asylum procedures, tightened visa restrictions, and fueled the administration’s “zero tolerance” approach

• Guest: Ashley Parker, staff writer for The Atlantic
• Producer: Ali Benton