Cat Schuknecht

Judy, Lyn and Donna Ulrich were driving to a volleyball game when their Ford Pinto was hit from behind by a Chevy van. The Pinto caught fire, and the three teenagers were burned to death. This week on Hidden Brain, we talk to a former Ford insider who could have voted to recall the Pinto years before the Ulrich girls were killed — but didn't. And we ask, is it possible to fairly evaluate our past actions when we know how things turned out?

We don't always behave the way economic models say we will. We don't save enough for retirement. We give money to charity. This week, why we act in ways that go against our "rational" self-interest.

In the months since the spread of the coronavirus, stories of selfishness and exploitation have become all too familiar: people ignoring social distancing guidelines, or even selling medical equipment at inflated prices. Most of our public and economic policies take aim at these sorts of people — the wrongdoers and the profiteers. But is there a hidden cost to the rest of us when we put bad actors at the center of our thinking? Do the measures we put in place to curtail the selfish inadvertently hurt our capacity to do right by others?

Boris Johnson is engaged to his girlfriend, Carrie Symonds. The couple is expecting their first child.

One day after the United States signed an agreement with the Taliban, Ashraf Ghani said a proposed prisoner swap between the Taliban and his government could not be a precondition for talks.

Ken Starr was stripped of his presidency at Baylor University in 2016, accused of overseeing an administration that ignored a campus sexual assault scandal.

Jeffrey Epstein died by apparent suicide on Saturday while awaiting trial on charges of sex trafficking. With no defendant to stand in court, the criminal case against Epstein is effectively over.

Former students at the Dalton School in Manhattan remember Epstein as a young, charismatic teacher. More than four decades later, Epstein stands accused of sexually abusing dozens of underaged girls.

Alabama officials tell NPR that if the FBI had shared its case file, they would have investigated the James Reeb murder case while one of the assailants was still alive.

A fourth man was involved in the 1965 attack on civil rights worker and minister James Reeb, but that man was never identified or charged in Reeb's murder, an NPR investigation revealed.