The State of Things

During his campaign, President Donald Trump repeatedly voiced distrust of the national unemployment numbers, calling them “totally fiction" and a “hoax.” He's not alone in his skepticism. A new survey by British polling company YouGov shows many Americans are distrustful of statistics released by the U.S. government and the degree of trust varies along party lines.

Musical performances aim to engage audiences and evoke emotions. But how does the message of art change when it is commemorating specific historical incidences of trauma and suffering? The conference “Performing Commemoration: Musical Reenactment and the Politics of Trauma” will examine how art channels memory, re-enactment and commemoration, and how audiences should interpret specific works.

Many have argued that as regional distinctiveness faded away, Southern identity evaporated along with it. Political science professors Christopher Cooper and H. Gibbs Knotts studied it, and found that white and black southerners still have a strong and salient sense of what it means to be Southern. Host Frank Stasio talks with co-author Christopher Cooper about his new book, “The Resilience of Southern Identity: Why the South Still Matters in the Minds of Its People” (The University of North

Prominent leaders from the North Carolina General Assembly have taken the reigns and are working to rewrite the controversial House Bill 2.

For centuries, musicians have borrowed and sampled from each other, creating musical evolution as they advance their own styles and careers. However, with each cycle of musical cross-fertilization comes attempts to police it. A new comic book, “Theft! A History of Music” (James Boyle and Jennifer Jenkins/2017), dissects 2000 years of music history and its legacy of copyright and control. Host Frank Stasio talks with James Boyle , co-writer of the book, and William Neal Reynolds, Professor of Law

Note: This program is a rebroadcast from January 9, 2017. Activist Bree Newsome gained national attention in the summer of 2015 when she was arrested for scaling the flagpole at the statehouse in Columbia, South Carolina, and removing the Confederate flag. The act of civil disobedience took place in the wake of the killing of nine African-American people at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C. While Newsome continues to engage in political activism in Charlotte, N.C.,

House Bill 2 sparked national discussion after it was introduced in the North Carolina legislature in March 2016. At the center of HB2 was whether transgender people should have the right to use public bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity rather than the biological sex listed on their birth certificate. One year later , the debate over HB2 continues. To mark the legislative anniversary, WUNC digital and reporting teams created a new radio documentary and website about the law .

Is the Mona Lisa hanging on the wall in the Louvre a fake? Why have some people been driven to insanity after being in the presence of art? In a new podcast called “ArtCurious,” Jennifer Dasal , creator of the podcast and associate curator of contemporary art at the North Carolina Museum of Art, unravels some of the mysteries surrounding the art world.

More than 4,000 people surrendered their homes and land to create the Great Smoky Mountains National Park . The park covers more than 500,000 acres and straddles the border between North Carolina and Tennessee.

O ne in 68 children in the United States will develop autism spectrum disorder, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention . The field of autism research has grown rapidly in the past few decades, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is at the forefront of much of this discovery .