3:28

You may hear the words “impact investing” this week. It’s fast becoming the way a new generation of wealthy are choosing to invest in society. Chronicle of Philanthropy editor Stacy Palmer explains.

Transcript

LYNN NEARY, HOST:

It’s time once again for our regular segment, Words You’ll Hear. That’s where we try to understand stories we’ll be hearing about by parsing some of the words associated with those stories. This time, we’re looking at a phrase you’ll be hearing more about in the coming months – impact investing. That’s a new twist on philanthropy for the next generation of wealthy, including Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Here to talk about it is Stacy Palmer, she’s the editor of The Chronicle of Philanthropy. Welcome to the show, Stacy.

STACY PALMER: Happy to join you.

NEARY: So what exactly is this impact investing, and how is Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg using it?

PALMER: Impact investing is exactly what it sounds like. It’s investing, and the impact part is to say can we get some social good out of our investments?

NEARY: All right. And how is that different from what we think of as charitable giving or traditional charitable giving?

PALMER: It used to be that wealthy people would set up a foundation and most of the money would come out in grants. And because of federal law, they would end up giving about 5 percent of their assets every year to charities and 95 percent of their assets would be invested in anything that maximized returns. Now people started saying that 95 percent of money that’s being invested might not be invested in very good things, so let’s focus there, and let’s look at how we make sure that our investments are doing good.

NEARY: In reading about this, I came across some other, I thought, very intriguing descriptions of the way young entrepreneurs are approaching charitable giving – hacker philanthropy was one and philanthrocapitalism was another. Is there a real sea change going on?

PALMER: There’s an important change happening. And one of the things that’s been part of this conversation is how can we use the market to better advantage, and does it make sense to have nonprofits so separate from the market? Now, there are people who don’t think this is a great idea and are very concerned about it because they said the whole reason philanthropy and nonprofits exist is to correct what the market does wrong. But it’s for sure changing the way philanthropy works and thinks.

NEARY: And there are a lot of tax implications here too. What’s the IRS take on this?

PALMER: The IRS told foundations that we understand that there’s this big change going on. And it had a very strict standard that you really had to maximize your financial investments. So that IRS ruling saying we’re not going to take this strict stance was seen as a really big deal.

NEARY: And there are also critics who are saying that this is a way to protect wealth, and that if it is protected from taxation, there’s less money for government programs. Is there truth to that or?

PALMER: Absolutely. That’s a big concern that people have when they saw this Zuckerberg money that it just means less taxes. But it’s not necessarily sure that’s the case. A lot of it is going to be how it plays out and how it’s structured. It could well be that they pay traditional taxes. And as a matter of fact, they made a statement saying that they would be paying taxes just like everybody else.

NEARY: Are there any other examples of some of the nation’s most wealthy people who are doing similar kinds of philanthropic giving?

PALMER: Very much so. Pierre Omidyar is considered sort of the father of this idea, and he’s the founder of eBay. Laurene Powell Jobs is using her money this way. So it’s really become a very popular area. And all of us will be able to put our money into impact investments as well because a lot of financial companies are developing products that will be affordable for people to get with as little as $20 in an investment. So we’re all going to be hearing about impact investing for a long time.

NEARY: That was Stacy Palmer. She’s the editor of The Chronicle of Philanthropy. Thanks so much for joining us, Stacy.

PALMER: Happy to be here.

Copyright © 2015 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio.

3:50

A story about a deadly terrorist attack briefly inspired a frenzied media scrum Friday morning in Southern California when dozens of reporters and TV news crews entered the home of the two shooters in the San Bernardino massacre.

NPR’s Nate Rott spoke to the landlord at the shooters’ apartment in nearby Redlands after the scrum began. The landlord says he allowed journalists into the home of Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik after it was returned to his control by federal law enforcement officials. Reporters quickly held up photographs to the camera, picked up documents and generally tramped throughout a site that had still been considered part of an active federal investigation just hours earlier.

While all three major cable networks showed footage, MSNBC was particularly aggressive, claiming it had broadcast an exclusive with its footage, shown only a few minutes before its competitors. Indeed, MSNBC’s Kerry Sanders complained that rival news teams were “a-pushing and a-shoving.”

He subsequently held up photographs from the apartment, presumably of family and friends, and even showed a California driver’s license of the mother of the male shooter. Her identifying characteristics, including her date of birth, address, eye color and the like, were clearly visible on screen.

MSNBC issued a statement Friday afternoon apologizing in part for its broadcast: “Although MSNBC was not the first crew to enter the home, we did have the first live shots from inside. We regret that we briefly showed images of photographs and identification cards that should not have been aired without review.”

It was a notable acknowledgement of the absence of editorial discretion. CNN took a victory lap by issuing its own statement citing a “conscious editorial decision not to show close-up footage of any material that could be considered sensitive or identifiable.” Fox similarly broadcast images from the shooters’ home but did not show images of the IDs.

Regardless, the scene was chaotic on all the networks, as though they were broadcasting live streams of reporters picking up scattered tiles of a mosaic and examining them one by one, without any hope of context or meaning.

People on social media complained in real time, accusing journalists of voyeurism or worse. CNN’s Anderson Cooper looked visibly uncomfortable, and Wolf Blitzer later said, “I’ve certainly never seen anything like this.” One of CNN’s law enforcement analysts watching the video live said, “I am so shocked I cannot believe it,” though he appeared to be referring as much to the decision by law enforcement officials to walk away from the killers’ home as to the reporters’ activities.

At a later press conference, David Bowdich, assistant director of the FBI office in Los Angeles, said his team had extracted all relevant evidence and no longer had any interest in the apartment.

The landlord told a local CBS station that the media had “rushed in” — that he had not let all those reporters in. MSNBC’s Sanders told viewers that the TV tabloid show Inside Edition had paid $1,000 to get in and that everyone streamed in with its crew. (A spokesperson for Inside Edition declined an NPR request for comment.)

After about 20 minutes, the circus had devolved to outright farce. A CNN producer told Blitzer that the throng in the apartment was no longer composed simply of journalists, but of curious onlookers: “There’s a woman with a dog walking into the house.”

NPR producer Becky Sullivan contributed reporting to this story.

1:39

A federal jury has convicted former Massy Energy CEO Don Blankenship for conspiring to willfully violate mine safety standards at the Upper Big Branch mine, site of a 2010 explosion that killed 29 people. The misdemeanor charge carries a sentence of up to one year in prison. He was acquitted of two more serious charges involving securities fraud and making false statements.

Transcript

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

In West Virginia, a federal jury has convicted former Massy Energy CEO Don Blankenship of conspiring to willfully violate federal mine safety laws. The case concerned the Upper Big Branch mine. In 2010, an explosion there killed 29 miners. Convictions like this are rare among top coal executives. From West Virginia Public Broadcasting, Ashton Marra has more.

ASHTON MARRA, BYLINE: Dozens of West Virginians gathered outside the Charleston courthouse awaiting the verdict – guilty on one misdemeanor charge, not guilty on two felony counts.

SHIRLEY WHITT: They did say guilty, so he’s not walking away from this.

MARRA: Shirley Whitt lost her brother in the mine explosion that sparked the investigation into Massey Energy and its CEO. The two felony charges were for allegedly lying to investors and securities officials. But U.S. attorney Booth Goodwin maintains the misdemeanor conviction is still a victory.

BOOTH GOODWIN: I’m not, in any way, disappointed with this result. I think it brings justice and justice that was long overdue.

MARRA: The prosecution had tied the felony charges to company generated documents about safety which the defense argued could not be traced to Blankenship himself. Bill Taylor is Blankenship’s lead attorney.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

BILL TAYLOR: There’s never been a charge of securities fraud based upon the kind of subjective language like that. You know, there was a quality of make-it-up-as-you-go-along in this case.

MARRA: No further charges are expected in the Massey investigation. Blankenship’s attorneys, however, say they will appeal the misdemeanor conviction. Sentencing is scheduled for March. For NPR News, I’m Ashton Marra in Charleston, W. Va.

Copyright © 2015 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio.

3:52

NPR’s Robert Siegel talks with Dale Russakoff, author of the book, The Prize, about what lessons Zuckerberg learned from his $100 million donation to fix Newark, N.J., schools.

Transcript

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

When Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, announced the birth of their daughter, they also announced that they plan to give away 99 percent of their Facebook shares to charity. In an open letter to their newborn daughter, Maxima, they wrote about what they hope to accomplish and how they’re going to do it. For people who follow the Facebook founder closely, the details reveal a lot about what he’s learned since he donated a hundred million dollars to fix Newark, N.J.’s public schools back in 2010. That effort was widely seen as falling far short of its goals. Dale Russakoff wrote about it in a book called “The Prize.”

DALE RUSSAKOFF: What I found interesting from the very beginning was, you know, he was disarmingly open about how little he knew about philanthropy. He was 26 years old and he said that the goal of this gift was, you know, first of all, to try to help Newark and Newark students, but he wanted to use it as a chance to learn to become a better philanthropist.

SIEGEL: Well, when you saw the open letter yesterday, what struck you as evidence of lessons that he took away from the Newark experience?

RUSSAKOFF: Well, the first two principles were – seem to be drawn very directly from lessons learned from the problems they had in Newark. The first one, they think that philanthropy has to be for the long-term. I mean, 25, 50, 100 years – and the Newark gift was supposed to be a five-year gift in which they were going to not only turn around the Newark schools but come up with a model that could be used in every district in the country to turn around all the failing schools in urban America. I don’t know that they ever expected to accomplish that in the first place, but five years is not enough time to do that even in one city. And then the second principle was that they wanted to make sure that, you know, in doing philanthropy, that they were engaged from the beginning with the people who they were trying to serve – the community – and that they had to know their needs and their desires in order to serve them and in order to help empower them. And I think one of the real problems in Newark was that there was no – almost no community involvement and that the entire agenda was planned without the input of anyone who had ever taught in the Newark schools or had a child in the Newark schools, and there was tremendous, explosive resistance in Newark that at various points, imperiled the whole effort.

SIEGEL: I wonder if they’ve derived a lesson from the scale of the gift compared to the institution they were giving to. That is, a hundred million dollars is a huge amount of money, but the Newark public schools spend about a billion dollars a year.

RUSSAKOFF: That’s right. In over five years, a hundred million dollars is only 2 percent of what the district schools were already spending. So, you know, they were talking about trying to change the systems in the school – the management systems. And I think they had hoped that by changing systems and changing incentives and having better data and better evaluation systems and better pay systems, to reward teacher excellence – that all of those things would translate into better student performance. And I think they realized that you have to do a lot more in the community and the neighborhoods and in the lives of the kids as well as in the system of the schools.

SIEGEL: Why a new philanthropic organization? Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan are 31 and 30. They’re not very experienced in charitable works even with the experience of Newark. They could have given the money to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation instead. What’s the point of creating a new philanthropic institution do you think?

RUSSAKOFF: Well, I think that they want to do things differently. You know, they’re – what they’re looking at in education is very different from what Bill Gates is looking at. And they want to do not just charitable investments but, you know, perhaps some profit-making investments to develop technologies that they think can make a different. So it’s not a foundation, it’s a – kind of a hybrid organization, it’s an LLC.

SIEGEL: Dale Russakoff, thanks for talking with us about it.

RUSSAKOFF: Oh, thanks for having me.

SIEGEL: Dale Russakoff is author of the book “The Prize.” It’s about Newark, N.J.’s attempt to fix its schools with a hundred million dollar donation from Mark Zuckerberg.

Copyright © 2015 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio.

5:41

Providence is considered by many to be the finest restaurant in Los Angeles, a gourmet seafood eatery run by chef Michael Cimarusti. He’s won several James Beard awards and two highly coveted Michelin stars. He is also a fisherman who is piloting a program to support local, small-scale fishermen.

We first told you about this program when it launched in Southern California in September. Called Dock to Dish, it’s a restaurant-supported fishery that allows local fishermen to sell directly to local chefs. It’s based on the model of community-supported agriculture, where members share the risks of food production by pre-buying weekly subscriptions. In this case, restaurants commit to buying local seafood from small-scale fishermen. The idea is to create a supply-based system, offering whatever is plentiful and in season.

The first Dock to Dish program launched three years ago in Montauk, N.Y., and has been hailed as a revival of community-based fisheries. Cimarusti has been trying out its West Coast incarnation. How’s it going so far? NPR’s Mandalit del Barco recently checked in with the chef.

Cimarusti says it’s sometimes a challenge to come up with recipes for the unusual species that land in his kitchen thanks to the program.

“You know, the fishermen that go out — they fish, they land whatever they catch and that’s what we get,” Cimarusti says. “So you have to be flexible, and you have to be willing to experiment and deal with things that you might have absolutely no idea of how to prepare.”

Things like fresh live sea cucumber, wavy turban snails and Kellet’s Whelk. That’s the kind of sea life you find off the coast of Santa Barbara, an hour and a half north of L.A.

If you listen to Mandalit’s story on All Things Considered, you’ll hear as she heads out to sea with Cimarusti and one of the fishermen who supplies his restaurant.

Randy Graham, a fisherman who is also taking part of the Dock to Dish pilot, says “it’s kind of a revolution.”

“We’re trying to get the customer to get the idea of, Yeah, you’re paying a little bit more for your fish, but we’re not using nets, not using any unsustainable resources to bring the fish to you. This was what was caught in Santa Barbara today — get used to eating it,” Graham says.

The concept seems to be catching on; Dock to Dish L.A. already has other chefs and restaurants waiting to jump aboard.

Sarah Rathbone, cofounder of Dock to Dish L.A., says it’s taste makers like Cimarusti and other chefs who will reel the rest of us into making sustainable seafood choices.

“My goal is to make it something that goes beyond those who can afford the fine dining — to people who are just looking to make sustainable decisions when it comes to their seafood choices,” she says.

3:56

The bucolic Capay Valley is about an hour outside Sacramento, Calif., and its ranches, alfalfa fields and small, organic produce farms have earned it a reputation as an agricultural gem. It’s pretty serene, except for the cacophony inside the valley’s most lucrative business, the Cache Creek Casino.

That casino — and the huge crowds it attracts on any given night — has been a source of tension between local farmers and the tiny California Indian tribe which runs it, the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation. But it’s because of the casino’s success that the Yocha Dehe can fund its newest venture, across the highway: the tribe’s own brand of olive oil — bottled in a state-of-the-art facility.

It’s harvest time, and at one small farm in the valley, workers rake olives off branches on to a net which they dump into bins. The fruit is trucked just down the road and pressed into oil at the Yocha Dehe’s olive mill, in equipment imported from Florence, Italy. About 40 growers from the region process their olives here.

About a decade ago, former Tribal Chairman Marshall McKay visited the olive center at nearby University of California, Davis.

“They had this fascinating tale of quality and quantity and the healing benefits of good fresh oil,” he says, “and [that] it may be a burgeoning market in California.”

Now the Yocha Dehe tribe is at the forefront: It’s growing, milling and marketing extra-virgin olive oil. Though only in its fifth year of production, the olive oil is used in over 200 restaurants – including the famed Chez Panisse. A premium version of the oil, called Seka Hills, is sold in specialty shops and upscale farmers markets.

The olives are new, but the Yocha Dehe and other Native American groups thrived in villages here for thousands of years before European contact.

McKay says, “People, outsiders came into the valley: Gold Rush prospectors, cattle ranchers, soldiers.” His ancestors fled to the hills, but many were still massacred.

“We were in the way, so we were removed,” he says. “It was genocide. It just hasn’t been talked about in history.”

Those who survived were relocated to barren land, a way of slowly killing the tribe, according to McKay.

“I grew up in severe poverty,” says James Kinter, Yocha Dehe’s tribal secretary. “Growing up here on the reservation, we used to go pick walnuts on the side of the road for dinner sometimes. My mom, she used to work in the fields, worked as a waitress. She was a single mom, raising three children, and everybody was kind of in that situation in the tribe.”

In the 1980s, laws regulating Indian gaming began to loosen, and the tribe opened a bingo hall. Kinter was 5 years old. “It was great, just to see people get excited about something, and it brought us together as a tribe,” he says.

They expanded, eventually opening the casino — which averages 2,000 visitors daily, swelling traffic on the valley’s two-lane highway, and reportedly earning hundreds of millions of dollars a year for the tribe.

McKay says to keep the approximately 100 tribal members grounded and engaged despite their newfound wealth, they receive higher incomes if they’ve graduated from high school, or work, or attend college full-time. Or, as he puts it, “Are you doing something for yourself instead of just waiting for a handout?”

But casino development made waves with some neighbors. When the casino expanded in 2002, protesters drove tractors up and down the valley’s small highway, citing concerns about increased traffic on rural roads.

Tom Frederick and his wife own Capay Valley Vineyards and Winery, right next door to the casino. As farmers, he says, the tribe is doing a great job. “They do the best of everything,” he says, adding,” I don’t begrudge them that.”

But he is frustrated that, because they’re a native sovereign nation, some Yocha Dehe operations — like the casino and its adjoining golf course — operate under different regulations than the rest of the valley. “It’s a concentration of money and power, so we just seek some kind of balance,” Frederick says. He and his wife are part of a group voicing concerns about the possibility of more casino-related development in the future, and how that could impact the agricultural character of the valley.

Down the valley at Capay Organics, co-owner Thaddeus Barsotti has a different take. He grew up going to school with tribe members, in tougher times. “I think it’s a cool story anytime you see people not having a lot and taking advantage of the opportunities they’re given and ending with more than they had. That’s the American dream, right?” he says.

Former tribal chairman Marshall McKay says with the Yocha Dehe opening up the olive oil mill, and working in agriculture, tensions with their farming neighbors in the Capay Valley have eased. After all, they’re all in the same line of work now.

“That wasn’t like that a few years ago,” he says. “People weren’t looking at us in the eye. We weren’t looking at them in the eye, and now that’s changed.”

11:14

The talk in the Barbershop this week is about Black Friday, Black Lives Matter and social “cuffing.” Wesley Lowery, national reporter at The Washington Post, Katie Notopoulos, a senior editor at Buzzfeed, and Jozen Cummings, an editorial associate at Twitter, join the conversation.

Transcript

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Now it’s time for our weekly trip to the Barbershop. That’s where we gather some interesting folks to hear about what’s on their minds and what’s in the news. Black Friday and Black Lives Matter are some of the things people have been talking about this week. So sitting in the chairs of for a shapeup today are Jozen Cummings. He’s an editorial associate at Twitter and creator of the blog untilIgetmarried.com. He hosts a weekly podcast with WNYC called the Empire Afterparty. And he joins us from New York’s Radio Foundation studio. Hi, Jozen.

JOZEN CUMMINGS: Hi, Michel.

MARTIN: Also in New York is Katie Notopoulos. She’s a senior editor at BuzzFeed, and co-host of the podcast Internet Explorer. Katie, glad you’re here.

KATIE NOTOPOULOS: Thanks for having me.

MARTIN: And also with us is Wesley Lowery in Washington, D.C. Thanks for taking the metro across town.

WESLEY LOWERY: Oh, of course, anytime.

MARTIN: He’s a national reporter at The Washington Post. And I hope everybody had a happy Thanksgiving. We are hearing that fewer people are out and about doing the Black Friday thing. Were any of you out and about? Katie, were you out?

NOTOPOULOS: I was. I was actually out with my in-laws right around Rockefeller Center in Midtown yesterday. And there was definitely, I mean, just a ton of people out on the street. I wouldn’t have wished it on my worst enemy.

MARTIN: Yeah, it doesn’t sound like that fun. Jozen, what about you? Did you rally and rise? Did you get any bargains? What were you up to?

CUMMINGS: Absolutely not. I was in bed on my mobile device, looking through my email for great deals and kind of making a list.

MARTIN: Sounds sane. Wesley, what about you?

LOWERY: Nothing. I didn’t do any shopping at all. I sat there and looked at all my emails. And by the time I to do it, it was, like, 1:00 a.m., and I couldn’t do it anymore.

MARTIN: You probably could’ve gone some place. You could’ve gotten some vitamins for someone. But, you know, I’m told that – well, we know that Black Friday had been targeted by Black Lives Matter protesters in cities like Chicago and Seattle and Portland and Chicago. The demonstrators marched down the Magnificent Mile – the very ritzy shopping district – and they were able to shut down parts of the street for a few hours. And on social media, there were a lot of people calling for shoppers to boycott Black Friday altogether. And I’m just interested – Jozen, maybe you want to start. What do you think about this? I mean, do you think that this is a good use of people’s time and attention?

CUMMINGS: I do. I think that there is a lot of value in protesting in these valuable areas in these spaces where people would normally just go about doing their normal holiday traditions and disrupting that because these issues – people see it on TV – more people see it on TV than they probably see it in person. And they probably think that that’s not something that they have to deal with or be exposed to. But these protests become really – grow in importance when you see people take up the courage to actually go into places like the Magnificent Mile. That, to me, takes guts. I’ve marched; I’ve protested, and whenever you’re going into very public spaces, there’s always – you know, your heart beats a little bit faster. And to see these people line up in front of stores and not care what the spectators thought, not – I think that that what was very courageous of them.

MARTIN: Wes, what do you think? I know you were just in Minneapolis. You were covering – there was actually a shooting…

LOWERY: Yes.

MARTIN: …Of Black Lives Matter protesters there, and you were covering that. What are your thoughts about this?

LOWERY: Of course, so I was on the ground. One thing – I think it’s really interesting about the Black Friday protests this year in Chicago and in a few other places is that they tried – they made the same attempt last year. So last year, if you remember the Darren Wilson grand jury decision came two or three days before Thanksgiving. And so there was this big push in St. Louis – let’s boycott Black Friday; let’s show them, this’ll be a thing. And they couldn’t quite get it together. And so it’s very interesting that the difference a year makes, where, you know, the Laquan McDonald decision – or the videos were released the same day as the anniversary of the Darren Wilson grand jury decision. It had been exactly one year. And here we saw two or three days later, these massive protests and Black Friday protests. So it was really – to me, it was really interesting. I mean, I think that it makes obvious sense – if you’re going to be an activist, you want to affect people, and you kind of want to inconvenience people who otherwise wouldn’t pay attention to your activism or your issues. And so showing up and screwing up their brunch or screwing up their shopping is a pretty good way to do that.

MARTIN: Well, and the question, though, Katie is does it cause more resentment than it does – does it attract or does it repel? That’s the question I would have, Katie. Do you have an opinion?

NOTOPOULOS: Hard to say – I’m sure that if I was there trying to get 40 percent off Kenneth Cole and I was barred from entering the store, I’d be very annoyed and upset. But, you know, that’s also at the end of the day not very important. And the idea that you’re stopping this mindless consumerism with something a little bit more mindful is I think a good thing net overall.

MARTIN: All right, well, let me change gears now. We’re talking about the holiday season. I’m not going to lie, I just heard about this, the whole question of whether it makes sense to have a special relationship for the season, cuffing season. I’m sorry, I mean, I feel so far behind. I’m so ashamed. But, you know, I have been married for quite some time, so maybe it’s a good thing I didn’t know about this. But Jozen, you were – as I mentioned, you founded this blog. Do you say enough with this, don’t do this.

CUMMINGS: Yes.

MARTIN: You said don’t do it. This is not the time. Tell me about it.

CUMMINGS: I don’t think that cuffing season should actually come during these winter months. I think if you’re single going into the holidays, consider yourself lucky, all right? Just, you know, that’s one less gift you have to get. There’s an excitement – there’s the excitement of being single on New Year’s Eve. Who knows what can happen? That’s the night that you can – that you can meet someone. And I also think that the spring and the summer is a very under – very underrated season to have someone. There’s just so much to do, so many, like, outdoor activities and great weather to enjoy that it’s actually nice to enjoy it with someone else.

MARTIN: All right.

CUMMINGS: You know, for the winter months, the colder months, get together with some friends, put on some ugly sweaters and see what happens.

MARTIN: And see what happens – Katie, did you know about this? How did this term come about?

NOTOPOULOS: I don’t know exactly how it came about. But I think it makes total sense. I mean, I think the summertime is a way better time to be single or meeting people. You know, everyone’s wearing a little bit less clothing, you look great. The winter time, you’ve got a big bulky coat on walking around. You can’t, like, look at other people on the street and be, like, hello, you know?

MARTIN: I don’t know, I look pretty good in a sweater.

(LAUGHTER)

MARTIN: Bathing suit, not so much. I’m just being honest, just saying.

NOTOPOULOS: I think it makes perfect sense. You just want to – it’s cozy, you just want to stay at home in a snowstorm and snuggle and watch Netflix.

MARTIN: Wes, where are you, cuff or not to cuff…

LOWERY: Oh, yeah, no, totally…

MARTIN: …That’s the question.

LOWERY: …Cuff. And that’s where it comes from. It comes from handcuffing, right, so this idea of, like, locking somebody down for the winter.

MARTIN: I thought it came off like muff – or cuff, like muff…

CUMMINGS: Oh, no. Oh, no…

MARTIN: See, I should just stop talking now. I need to stop talking. I just should stop talking.

LOWERY: It’s not about winter wear. You know, it’s about the handcuffs.

MARTIN: I was hoping it had to do with…

LOWERY: It’s, like, I’m locking you down for the winter because I need someone to come to the holiday party with me. I mean, like, Jozen’s out of his mind. He wants to be single for New Year’s Eve. Like, that’s totally not fun at all.

CUMMINGS: I just want to encourage people to stay strong.

LOWERY: Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no, no…

CUMMINGS: You know, you’re single, you can do it. You can do it.

LOWERY: No, the winter is Netflix time. It is, like, it’s cold outside. I’m not trying to go outside. I’m trying to have you come over. Maybe I’ll go over there if I really have to. I have to go to this terrible work holiday party, maybe you could come and talk to me and give me an excuse to leave early. That is the time I want to have a girlfriend. Summer – you know, there’s all types of stuff going on. People are day drinking, there are parties, there’s the beach – much better time to be single.

MARTIN: I think we have a split decision here – cuff or not to cuff…

CUMMINGS: Well, I think – yeah, I think I’m outvoted.

MARTIN: All right, now to the uncuffing. If you’ve ever had the challenge of what to do about your ex on social media, Facebook is rolling out a new tool. It’s called Take A Break, and it helps you see less of your ex. You don’t have to unfriend or block them. Facebook will filter them out for you. Again, I should just stop talking because I didn’t know about this. I didn’t know about this either.

LOWERY: Because you’ve been cuffed for too long. Because you…

MARTIN: Thank you. I like it, actually. So OK, is anybody else going to take advantage of this new feature? Wes, are you uncuffing? Are you undoing…

LOWERY: Am I un…

MARTIN: Un-something – taking a break right this minute on your phone?

LOWERY: You know, right now, in the studio, my phone, exactly. No – so I don’t know that I’m actually going to use this, although I’ve thought about it with some exes. You know, these are really dramatic. I don’t think a lot of people, especially people, you know, maybe who’ve been married who maybe didn’t have to go through dating and social media can quite comprehend how miserable it can be. Like, Facebook works on an algorithm. So I’m dating you, it means I’m checking your page every day. I’m making sure other guys aren’t trying to talk to you. I’m looking at photos of us. Like, every day I’m probably interacting with you on Facebook. Well, Facebook remembers that. And so that means your photos show up more in my feed. It means your statuses show up more in my feed. So we have a dramatic, terrible breakup, I don’t ever want to see you again. And for months, I will see nothing but everything you’re doing. And so I do think it actually is a really…

MARTIN: Even if you unfriend somebody?

LOWERY: Well, you unfriend them. But see, that gets a little drastic.

CUMMINGS: That’s dramatic.

MARTIN: That’s dramatic.

CUMMINGS: That’s very dramatic.

LOWERY: The etiquette’s a little gray. Can I unfriend you? Should I block you? Can I – so this would be a good step to try to untangle it a little bit.

MARTIN: Untangle – Katie, what about you?

NOTOPOULOS: I mean, I’m totally in favor of people using this. I think this is also perfectly timed because this weekend is historically when all college freshmen break up with their high school…

LOWERY: Yes.

NOTOPOULOS: …Sweetheart that…

CUMMINGS: That’s very true.

NOTOPOULOS: …They tried to stay together with. So it comes out at, like, a perfect time when all these people actually need this feature in their lives to block out their old ex.

MARTIN: Wow.

CUMMINGS: It’s also…

MARTIN: Jozen…

CUMMINGS: It’s also good that – at least Facebook recognizes, you know, relationships take place online as much as they do in real life. And it can be tricky navigating that space. So I think that this is a great tool for those of us who don’t want to be dramatic with the whole – with the whole unfriending thing because that does make a huge statement and maybe a louder statement than you really want. And so…

MARTIN: But if you’re not seeing – this is – OK, help me here, I’m confused because you’re right, I’ve been married for a long time. And this predates the whole thing. If you’re breaking up with somebody, why don’t you just unfriend them? I don’t get – why is that – that’s just – is that rude?

CUMMINGS: Because it’s supposed…

NOTOPOULOS: Then they win.

CUMMINGS: Yeah, it’s supposed to…

(LAUGHTER)

CUMMINGS: It’s not supposed to be that deep, right, like, we already broke up. That’s as deep as it’s supposed to go. Now you want to unfriend me, which is basically saying you can’t stand to see my – a picture of my brunch? How dare you?

MARTIN: Oh, dear. OK, well, thanks for schooling me on that.

CUMMINGS: So – yeah, so it can go like that. It’s…

MARTIN: Glad I don’t need, but thanks for letting me know what’s what.

CUMMINGS: Yeah, it’s the same thing on Twitter when you could just mute somebody instead of unfollowing them.

MARTIN: All right, that’s…

CUMMINGS: It’s, like, a great tool.

MARTIN: All right, that’s Jozen Cummings, writer and host of WNYC’s Empire Afterparty podcast. Wesley Lowery, national reporter at The Washington Post and Katie Notopoulos, senior editor at BuzzFeed and co-host of the podcast Internet Explorer. Thanks, everybody.

LOWERY: Thank you.

NOTOPOULOS: Thank you.

CUMMINGS: Goodbye.

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3:58

Is daily fantasy sports a game of skill or one of chance? Just ask one of the industry’s top winners, a Bostonian who treats daily fantasy sports as his day job.

The 27-year-old math and econ grad says he puts more than $100,000 at stake each day, and that he’s up a cool three million so far this year. On a morning ahead of a day full of sports competitions, he analyzes his fantasy rosters, assesses his risk and submits multiple entries in a bid to beat everyone else who thinks they can put together a better fantasy team.