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Denée Benton is having a very good year. She’s currently starring in season four of the hit television show ‘The Gilded Age’ while starring in the production of ‘School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play.’ But success has been a long time coming. Since her Broadway debut in 2016, Denee has been working in television, theater and movies, often simultaneously, for a decade. She joins host Brittany Luse in a discussion about how a Broadway performance can feel like a physical workout, what’s in store for her Gilded Age character Peggy, and her most “sacred” project to date. Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy

Why IQ still matters to people - even if it's biased. President Trump and Silicon Valley tech bros are obsessed with IQ, but the history of intelligence testing is full of bunk race science and eugenics. With the rise of AI's "super intelligence," should we still be ranking human intelligence at all? In this crossover episode with our friends at Code Switch, we explore who gets labeled as smart with Quinn Slobodian, author of Hayek’s Bastards: Race, Gold, IQ, and the Capitalism of the Far Right and Angela Saini, author of Superior: The Return of Race Science. (00:00) Why Trump and Silicon Valley are obsessed with IQ (03:27) The tech right's IQ fetishism (06:30) How 'The Bell Curve' justified inequality (09:05) IQ's political consequences (15:28) The BITCH test and valuing diverse intelligences (22:23) The myth of biological race (26:13) Does nurture matter more than nature for intelligence? (32:27) Rejecting IQ hierarchies For more episodes about the politics of intelligence, check out: The price you pay for being smart Books vs. Brain Rot: why it's so hard to read You might be suffering from AI brain fry Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy

Divorce can be liberating. And expensive. When author and science journalist Melinda Wenner Moyer separated from her ex-husband, her social media feed was inundated with posts about the freedom of divorce. But while divorce can be empowering… Melinda felt like that narrative overlooked a pretty significant part of the process: the financial burden. And she’s not alone. After detailing her experience on her Substack, Now What, it caught the attention of editors at New York Magazine. Apparently their divorced friends were also having a hard time financially and they wanted someone to look into it. Melinda’s reporting was published in The Cut, titled: The Strong, Empowered, Secretly Broke Divorcee. Melinda joins the show to walk Brittany through how financially punishing divorce can be for women and why we should all be a bit more critical of the laws that intend to treat all parties fairly when we still live in a deeply unequal society. Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy

How do you decide who to vote for? Some people are turning to AI chatbots to craft bespoke voter guides, while others are leaning on the wisdom of their favorite Instagram or TikTok influencers to guide them to the polls. But what are the pitfalls of each of these approaches, and what does our reliance on them say about what we need to feel informed? To find out, Brittany is joined by Maham Javaid, NPR politics reporter, and Dr. Martin Riedl, assistant professor of journalism and media at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Are you looking for more conversations on politics and culture? Check these out: The DSA vs. establishment Democrats How often do you think about the American Empire? Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy

Are we in an economic crisis? It’s a question that prompted Pulitzer Prize-winning data journalist and illustrator Mona Chalabi to pitch her first book, Ten Lives: How What We Have Shapes Who We Are. It chronicles the economic lives of Americans -- from the mega wealthy to those living paycheck-to-paycheck -- over a six year period. She even digs into her own financial life. From the economic highs of inheritances and professional success to the lows of divorces and lawsuits, Mona chats with Brittany about how economic insecurity affects us all. Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy