Marketplace All-in-One

Union organizers at an Amazon warehouse in Staten Island have scored a legal victory. An aging water infrastructure is the culprit behind a troubling water shortage in the Mississippi capital of Jackson. The BBC checks in from Portugal, where new tech awaits the axe wielders who take part in the cork harvest.

From the BBC World Service: Record-breaking floods across Pakistan are estimated to have washed away 45% of the nation’s croplands and with resources on the ground in short supply, delivering aid is a mammoth task. Australia’s government is moving quickly to try to address a chronic worker shortage that’s left businesses scrambling across the country; it will raise its cap on permanent migration for the first time in a decade. And nations in the Western Balkans are meeting to discuss more regional economic co-operation.

California’s Legislature passed the Age-Appropriate Design Code Act this week. The bill would add website design and age verification requirements for apps and sites likely to be used by kids under the age of 18. Marketplace’s Kimberly Adams speaks with Jen King, a privacy and data policy fellow at Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence.

Hit the dark place sting, we’re discussing some news stories that got our shells feeling a little hollow. First, residents of Jackson, Mississippi, have no clean water. Though help may be finally on the way, we still have questions. Also, a new survey shows just how devastating the pandemic was for students in the classroom. But we’ve at least got a Make Me Smile, thanks to a listener email on the physics of dragons. Get ready to laugh cry.

Here’s everything we talked about today:

If you want to send us your delightful voice memos and emails, you can reach us at [email protected] or leave a voice message at 508-U-B-SMART.

There’s promise and peril on the For You page. On today’s show, we’ll look at how companies cash in or miss out on the big TikTok trends — and why some of those viral fads aren’t as spontaneous as they look. But first: the dust-up over chip exports to China, the Volatility Index and the latest productivity numbers.

First, Diane Swonk of KPMG joins us for today’s talk about what the markets are doing in the wake of new unemployment data. The Biden administration’s restrictions on computer chip sales to China and Russia have put a Silicon Valley chipmaker in a bind. The BBC reports on how the idea of speed limits on Germany’s Autobahn has accelerated debate among drivers.

But first, Oxfam America put together a list of the best (and worst) states for workers to live in, and there are a few things that link the worst states together. We talk to senior economics contributor Chris Farrell about the economic lessons one can take from the Rolling Stones.

From the BBC World Service: Australia’s government is holding a two-day summit in Canberra with business groups and trade unions to figure out what to do about a lack of workers for some jobs. Also, the International Monetary Fund approved a $1.2 billion loan for Sri Lanka to prevent an all-out economic collapse, after a week of talks with government officials. And, in Ethiopia, we hear about the early effects of losing out on a lucrative U.S. trade deal because of the unrest in the country.

This week, NASA postponed a highly anticipated rocket launch after discovering an issue with one of the engines. It delayed a key stage of the space agency’s Artemis missions, which aim to eventually establish a long-term human presence on the moon’s surface and begin building a lunar economy. Part of that is extracting precious metals and minerals to bring back to Earth. NASA hopes to get the Artemis 1 rocket off the ground in the coming days, and speed is of the essence. The U.S. and China are in a new space race to get humans to the moon. “Marketplace’s” Kimberly Adams speaks with Peter Garretson, a senior fellow in defense studies at the American Foreign Policy Council.

Congress hasn’t approved new COVID funding for about a year and a half, and there’s not a whole lot of money left. With the FDA approving new boosters today, we’ll look at what happens when the cash runs out. Plus: A new way to track employment, a portrait of precarity in the restaurant business and a temp check on the American consumer.