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Sensemaker

The Observer

The Sensemaker from The Observer - one story every day to make sense of the world.


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  • 1,388 episodes
  • Updated June 19

Episodes1388

Newest first
  • Sep 7, 2021 · 5 min

    Ep 168: Understanding the Covid numbers

    Schools in England have gone back this week, and there's real worry about a surge in Covid infections. What can we learn from what's happened to infections this summer?You can get the Sensemaker newsletter as an email delivered to your i...

  • Sep 6, 2021 · 8 min

    Ep 167: Justice at the end of the opioid epidemic?

    A big opioid case has been settled in court. Purdue Pharma, one of the drugs companies behind the opioid epidemic has been dissolved, and the family that ran it agreed to pay a mammoth $4.5 billion court settlement. The payout will go to help victims o...

  • Sep 3, 2021 · 7 min

    Ep 166: Knives out for Dominic Raab

    As Kabul fell, the Foreign Secretary tripped up. Dominic Raab was famously on holiday. But was it an accident that he became front-page news?

  • Sep 2, 2021 · 7 min

    Ep 165: How New Orleans weathered the storm

    New Orleans gets its fair share of hurricanes and Hurricane Ida was one of the biggest. But it did less damage and killed fewer people than Hurricane Katrina. Is New Orleans finally learning the lessons of past disasters?

  • Aug 31, 2021 · 7 min

    Ep 163: The trial of Elizabeth Holmes

    She was once a female Silicon Valley icon. The world's youngest self-made billionaire. Now, she's a disgraced former CEO, on trial for fraud. Is this where the story of Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos finally ends?

  • Aug 27, 2021 · 8 min

    Ep 162: The fatal border

    A little-known US law, brought back in by Donald Trump, has caused a surge in migrants from Mexico. It's not what President Trump intended.You can now get the Sensemaker newsletter as an email delivered to your inbox once a day. It’s our edit...

  • Aug 26, 2021 · 6 min

    Ep 161: Blame in Beirut

    Meet Camille Abousleiman, the lawyer trying track down the truth in the aftermath of the Beirut port explosion.

  • Aug 25, 2021 · 8 min

    Ep 160: The trials of R. Kelly

    R&B star R. Kelly has been put on trial for alleged sexual abuse, three decades after his first conviction. Why did it take so long to get to this point?

  • Aug 24, 2021 · 5 min

    Ep 159: Trouble in Tokyo?

    The Tokyo Paralympic Games are about to start. But with the city under its fourth state of emergency, enthusiasm is beginning to wear thin. So what price are Tokyo’s residents paying for the Games?

  • Aug 23, 2021 · 6 min

    Ep 158: Haiti's double disaster

    Haiti was hit by a deadly earthquake and then, a few days later, a huge storm. It's not the first time the country has faced a catastrophe...

  • Aug 20, 2021 · 6 min

    Ep 157: America's classroom war

    Florida's Governor Ron DeSantis has blocked a mask mandate for the state's schools, going against advice from the Center for Disease Control. But with a fourth Covid wave causing more hospitalisations, can the state really afford to "get...

  • Aug 19, 2021 · 7 min

    Ep 156: Policing the incels

    Jake Davison, an 'incel' who was radicalised online, killed five people with a licensed gun. Should social media checks be a part of gun ownership?

  • Aug 17, 2021 · 6 min

    Ep 154: Australia's third wave

    Australia's triumphant Olympians are returning to a month-long quarantine as the country hits its third wave of Covid infections. What's gone wrong?

  • Aug 16, 2021 · 6 min

    Ep 153: Code red on climate

    Last week the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a 'code red' report. Disaster is coming faster than we thought. But will leaders act fast enough?

  • Aug 13, 2021 · 6 min

    Ep 152: The Duke of York... in the dock?

    When Virginia Giuffre was under the age of 18, she claims Prince Andrew forced her to have sex with him. He's always denied it. But her lawyer is now convinced the case will come to court. Is he right?

  • Aug 12, 2021 · 6 min

    Ep 151: The Taliban returns

    Just months after US President Joe Biden announced he’d be withdrawing American troops from Afghanistan, the country is in chaos. How serious is the Taliban threat?

  • Aug 11, 2021 · 5 min

    Ep 150: Fires and fury in Greece

    Fires have ripped across the island of Evia, in Greece. And when help finally came it was too little, too late. 

  • Aug 10, 2021 · 5 min

    Ep 149: A suspicious death

    When the Belarusian human rights activist Vitaly Shishov was found hanged in a forest on the outskirts of Kyiv in Ukraine it was reported as suicide. His friends were immediately suspicious. They think it might be a political murder. Why?