Marketplace All-in-One

Extreme heat is driving up the price of natural gas in the U.S., but energy woes are hitting across the pond too. The European Union is asking everyone from factories to families to cut back on natural gas use, but cross-country cooperation is proving difficult. We’ll talk about both stories today. First, a recap of the economic week that was.

We check in on the state of manufacturers, and it turns out they have some concerns. The Chinese ride-hailing app Didi just got hit with a billion-dollar fine over cybersecurity. After an economic crisis more than a decade ago forced people to leave Greece, there are signs people are coming back.

So far, earnings season has not been great to social media companies that depend on ad sales. We take a deeper look into the spike in jobless claims. Some school districts have had to get creative in finding teachers as the start of the school year approaches.

From the BBC World Service: Turkey has announced it has negotiated a plan between Russia and Ukraine to potentially allow vital exports to resume through the Black Sea. Sri Lanka’s new president announces that he’ll maintain his role as finance minister. And we hear from the people reversing the trend of brain drain in Greece.

Facebook is reallocating resources from its News tab product and its newsletter platform, Bulletin, to focus more on its creator economy, according to The Wall Street Journal. Its News products rely on paid content from professional journalists and publishers. That’s different from, say, news articles people sometimes see on their feed — not on the actual News tab — which are usually shared by friends. Marketplace’s Kimberly Adams speaks with Keach Hagey, author of that Wall Street Journal article.

Hey everyone, we’re taking a short break today, but we’ll be back tomorrow with an all-new Make Me Smart. In the meantime, here’s a deep dive episode you may have missed, all about the James Webb Space Telescope. NASA released its first images earlier this month.

For the first deep dive of 2022, we’re going to space! OK, not really. But we’re talking about the most powerful space telescope ever. The James Webb Space Telescope cost $10 billion, a lot of tech went into developing it and we can’t stop obsessing over it. Neither can our guest.

“I cannot contain my excitement. It’s been a wild roller coaster getting to this point. And to have this telescope now launched in space, it’s just so thrilling for astronomers everywhere,” said Caitlin Casey, professor of astronomy at the University of Texas at Austin, who will be leading the biggest project on the JWST.

The telescope is expected to help researchers discover some of the most distant galaxies and study the atmosphere of planets outside our solar system to see if they’re habitable.

On the show today: what the JWST tells us about the future of public and private investment in space exploration.

Casey will also highlight the technological developments created by the JWST and its predecessor, Hubble, and how they’ve impacted industries from medical equipment to GPS technology.

In the News Fix, some companies have stopped predicting when they’ll be back in the office. Plus, an in-depth investigation into the House and Senate members who enslaved Black people. Later, we’ll discuss why some people want to tone down our use of the term “deep dive” and an answer to the Make Me Smart Question from the 2011 Nobel Prize winner in physics.

Here’s everything we talked about today:

The new subvariant and President Biden’s diagnosis show that COVID-19 isn’t done with us yet, even if a lot of things feel “back to normal.” Are we on our way out of the pandemic, or is this the new normal? We asked a few experts. Also in this episode, a transportation trifecta: corporate air travel makes a comeback, freight rail faces complications and used cars are (hopefully) returning to pre-pandemic prices.

We start off with Diane Swonk of KPMG for a snapshot of today’s market activity. The BBC’s Victoria Craig checks in from Greece regarding the European Central Bank’s interest rate hike. A survey finds troubling inequities in who gets paid time off. Major League Baseball has reached a pact with minor leaguers over pay.

The growing concerns about a recession are forcing many tech companies to re-evaluate staffing in a variety of ways. We speak to an epidemiologist about how the monkeypox outbreak is shining a light on still-existing health infrastructure issues.

From the BBC World Service: The European Central Bank will raise interest rates today for the first time in 11 years. What does that mean for heavily indebted southern European countries like Greece? Victoria Craig has this special edition of the program live from Athens.