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Dame Judi Dench has played everyone from the writer Iris Murdoch to M in the James Bond films. But among the roles the actress is most closely associated, are Shakespeare’s heroines and some of his villians.

Amongst those roles are the star-crossed lover Juliet, the comical Titania and the tragic Lady Macbeth. Now she’s reflecting on that work, and Shakespeare’s work in Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays The Rent.

The book is comprised of Dench’s conversations with her friend, the actor and director Brendan O’Hea.

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Protests against Israel’s war in Gaza on college campuses have expanded across the country. They’re the biggest student protests, since college students demonstrated against the Vietnam war in the late sixties and early seventies.

What do the campus protests of today have in common with those of the sixties? How might they affect the policies of their universities and the US government?

Thirty years ago, South Africa became an emblem of a multiracial democracy. Decades on, how is that legacy holding up?

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Three decades ago, South Africa held its first democratic election, closing the door on the apartheid era.

And Nelson Mandela was elected its first Black president.

Today, the country is still led by Mandela’s political party – the African National Congress. But polls show that voters are growing increasingly dissatisfied with the party’s leadership, and next month’s national elections could lead to the ANC having to share power with opposition parties.

Thirty years ago, South Africa became an emblem of a multiracial democracy. Decades on, how is that legacy holding up?

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During the early days of the pandemic, former NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins became a familiar voice steering the country through an unprecedented public health crisis.

Now, he is going through his own health crisis, an aggressive form of prostate cancer. By talking about it publicly he hopes to draw attention to routine screening.

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Last year, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a strict immigration law making it harder to hire undocumented workers.

But like much of the country, Florida is dealing with a tight labor market and some employers are struggling to find workers.

NPR’s Jasmine Garsd reports on how the law is affecting the state’s economy, from construction sites, to strawberry fields.

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One of Richard Nixon’s most famous quotes…right up there with “I am not a crook”… had to do with presidential immunity.

“When the president does it” he said “that means that it is not illegal.” That idea – that you can’t prosecute someone for actions taken as president – the Supreme Court has never actually ruled on it.

On Thursday, the Justices will take a crack, with the federal election interference case against former president Donald Trump hanging in the balance.

We preview how things might go.

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Americans often rank the economy as a number one voting issue. As part of NPR’s “We the Voters” series we check back in with four Americans we’ve been following since the pandemic.

They share how they’re faring in a the current economy, and how that might influence the positions they take in the 2024 presidential election.

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The broad outlines of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case have been known for months.

Hush money payments to a former porn star made in 2016, when Trump was a presidential candidate. Bragg alleges Trump was involved in a scheme to cover up those payments, one that amounted to criminal fraud.

Now we’re getting a more detailed outline of their arguments – and Trump’s defense.

We break down the legal case at the center of the political universe.

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For the last 60 years a transportation revolution has largely passed America by.

Bullet trains were invented in Japan in the early 1960s. Since then, countries all over the world have adopted the technology and constructed sprawling networks of high speed rail lines.

Despite spending billions of dollars in federal funding, he U.S. lags far behind. But a recent visit from Japan’s Prime minister has revived interest in bullet train projects around the country.

One of those projects is in Texas – a proposed high-speed rail line between Houston and Dallas.

NPR’s Andrew Limbong speaks with Dallas Morning News mobility and transportation reporter Amber Gaudet about what it will take to get Texas’ high-speed rail project completed, and what it could mean for high-speed rail in America.

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Civil War, the new A24 film from British director Alex Garland, imagines a scenario that might not seem so far-fetched to some; a contemporary civil war breaking out in the United States.

And while the film has taken heat for little mention of politics, the question of an actual civil war has everything to do with it.

Amy Cooter is a director of research at the Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. Her work has led her to the question that Garland’s movie has put in the minds of both moviegoers and political pundits: Could a second civil war really happen here?

Cooter joins host Andrew Limbong to discuss the actual threat of current political movements in the U.S., outside of the movie theaters.

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