--:-- Asma Khalid: This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.
--:-- Tristan Redman: America is changing and so is the world. But what's happening in America isn't just a cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere.
--:-- Asma Khalid: I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, DC.
--:-- Tristan Redman: I'm Tristan Redman in London.
--:-- Tristan Redman: And this is The Global Story. Every weekday, we'll bring you a story from this intersection where the world and America meet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Hello, this is Rosie from Sri Lanka and you're listening to The Happy Pod from the BBC World Service.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Hello, I'm Oliver Conway.
--:-- Oliver Conway: And in this edition, the cafe that's got a whole town moving.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Let's get people dancing again and just be joyous because dancing is good for the soul and it makes people happy. By offering free coffee to anyone who's dancing.
--:-- Oliver Conway: A novel way to reuse discarded cigarette butts.
--:-- Oliver Conway: I've made cushions, keychains, stuffed toys and now we're learning to crochet to make these fruits.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Why hundreds of people in Europe have been dressing as devilish creatures to celebrate the approach of Christmas and...
--:-- Oliver Conway: I think it's fantastic to hear the screams of joy and how much they enjoy it.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Making the ballet more accessible to children from all backgrounds.
--:-- Oliver Conway: We start in the US state of Massachusetts, where staff at a coffee shop have been spreading happiness by getting their small town dancing.
--:-- Oliver Conway: It all began with an offer of a free drink for anyone who came in doing their favourite moves.
--:-- Oliver Conway: A video of the first day went viral and it started a movement across the whole town of Middleborough.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Now the community has put on a day of dance with other businesses joining in.
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: We love like interacting with our customers and like knowing everybody's name and making everyone feel special.
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: And at first it probably took about an hour for the first person to come in dancing.
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: And then once I think once one person did it, then other people were like, Oh, what is what's going on?
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: So I watched the initial TikTok with is it 7.6 million?
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: Yes, yes, yes. It's insane.
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: I with my boss and I was when I got 4000 views that morning, I sent him a screenshot and I was like shocked that it had 4000 views.
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: So the fact now that it's Now on TikTok, it's at, I think, 8.2 million.
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: And it's crazy.
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: And I think that it's like people love things that are making other people happy and just spreading joy.
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: And I don't think it's about $3 coffee for free.
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: I think it's just the fact that we are letting people express themselves.
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: And I saw an array of dance moves some pretty oh yes some pretty impressive ones uh can you tell me what you saw and what your favorites were
--:-- Olivia: Oh yeah so the first person in the video is actually my sister during the moonwalk and she did not expect that this was going to go viral at all
--:-- Olivia: And she's highly embarrassed that she took her shoes off the moonwalk and now 8 million people saw that.
--:-- Olivia: And then a lot of the other ones were regulars.
--:-- Olivia: But yeah, I love all the other, like the different moves that we can see and how different people from different generations dance as well.
--:-- Olivia: I thought it was cool to see.
--:-- Olivia: People were inspiring other people to dance for sure.
--:-- Olivia: Like I know when the group of girls came in and they were all dancing one gentleman was saw them outside and was like come on in and start dancing and he got them going and then they came in dancing
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: Yeah, so we actually were talking about that.
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: We were talking about maybe, like, bring your dogs in and, you know, dance with your dog.
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: Just how we could do various different things to kind of make it more niche and have its own twist on it.
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: So it seems like you've made your regulars very happy.
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: You've gained a lot of social media followers.
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: What would you say to any other businesses thinking about doing this?
--:-- Olivia: I think that it's a great idea.
--:-- Olivia: And today we have 15 other businesses in downtown Middleborough also partaking in it.
--:-- Olivia: We have an axler in place that's doing it, antique stores and the eyeglass store and the liquor store.
--:-- Olivia: Everyone is doing their own little twist on it.
--:-- Olivia: And I think that whether it's something for free or a discount, let's get people dancing again and you know set this atmosphere where people are able to be themselves and express themselves and just be joyous because dancing is good for the soul and it it makes people happy and it's worth it for sure.
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: Around the world more than a billion people smoke and discarded cigarette ends are the most common type of litter on earth.
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: The filters are made from toxic plastic that takes a long time to break down.
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: But an organisation in India has found a rather surprising way to recycle them and turn them into toys.
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: Code Effort says it's recycled around 5 million cigarette butts since 2019.
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: It now pays 2,500 people to pick them up and has installed 200,000 dedicated bins.
--:-- Javi Sajdhiv: So this is an open courtyard with a tin roof shed.
--:-- Javi Sajdhiv: I'm seeing sacks piled up on the left side.
--:-- Javi Sajdhiv: A poster that says what begins on our streets can end in our seas.
--:-- Javi Sajdhiv: The sacks, no surprise, are stuffed with cigarette butts, dirty and bent up from the trash bins and curbs of India.
--:-- Javi Sajdhiv: They have two main components, the paper that holds the whole cigarette together from the outside and the filter, which is this fibrous stuff.
--:-- Javi Sajdhiv: And when people don't finish the cigarette, sometimes the butt also contains leftover bits of tobacco.
--:-- Ramanand Kumar: My name is Ramanand Kumar I am going to live in Bihar
--:-- Ramanand Kumar: Ramanand is one of the longest employees at Effort and he demonstrating the first step after collection sorting
--:-- Ramanand Kumar: So he's picking up the matchsticks, or there's feathers, leaves.
--:-- Ramanand Kumar: The paper wrapper is collected and recycled for use as mosquito-repellent sticks.
--:-- Ramanand Kumar: The tobacco is composted and distributed to local nurseries.
--:-- Ramanand Kumar: But the focus here is the stuff inside the cigarette butt. the fibre in the filter.
--:-- Ramanand Kumar: And once it's separated into a big pile, it's chopped up into tinier bits.
--:-- Ramanand Kumar: So I'm looking down a very, very large mixer grinder.
--:-- Ramanand Kumar: It's got a four-ring blade in it, very large.
--:-- Ramanand Kumar: After cutting, the shortened fibre is washed in a bacterial solution to rinse off and dissolve toxins, and the fluffy white mass that comes out is now white and clean.
--:-- Ramanand Kumar: and this wet fibre is next dried in a spinning drum.
--:-- Ramanand Kumar: All the water is disposed of sustainably.
--:-- Ramanand Kumar: This is the last stage of the process.
--:-- Ramanand Kumar: In Hindi we call it dunai machine.
--:-- Ramanand Kumar: So this is for carding and softening the fibre so that the fibre looks like the one that you saw there.
--:-- Ramanand Kumar: The fluffy cotton type of... Yes.
--:-- Javi Sajdhiv: And from here it's loaded into bags and taken to the homes of the village women who work with it.
--:-- Javi Sajdhiv: We're in a big living room with a huge carpet and a small child who's playing with pom-poms.
--:-- Javi Sajdhiv: And there's a basket next to her with the crocheted stuffed eggplants and oranges.
--:-- Javi Sajdhiv: The little girl's name is Tanishka.
--:-- Javi Sajdhiv: She's three.
--:-- Javi Sajdhiv: Her seven-year-old brother Chirag is here too.
--:-- Javi Sajdhiv: And they're playing with toys and pom-poms, all made with the now cleaned and carded fiber.
--:-- Javi Sajdhiv: Their mother Barsha is crocheting a green yarn into what will be a stuffed pear.
--:-- Barsha: Before this, I was a security guard.
--:-- Barsha: When I had my first baby, I had to leave work, so then I joined this organization.
--:-- Barsha: Now, from home, I can both work and take care of my child.
--:-- Barsha: I make these pieces, I do housework, drop the kids to school, get other stuff done.
--:-- Poonam: I've made cushions, keychains, paper bags, paper envelopes, stuffed toys.
--:-- Poonam: And now we're learning to crochet to make these fruits for an order.
--:-- Poonam: We finish our household chores by about 11.
--:-- Poonam: Then we work until about 5 p.m.
--:-- Poonam: The pairs take time, but I can make three or four oranges or eggplants or apples in a day.
--:-- Poonam: By this time, Poonam and Barsha are joined by five more women from the neighbourhood.
--:-- Poonam: I asked Poonam how she felt working with the fibre from cigarettes.
--:-- Poonam: It's fine. It's safe. It's cleaned.
--:-- Poonam: I think it's a good thing.
--:-- Poonam: People smoke cigarettes and just throw the butts away and create litter.
--:-- Poonam: Parabas gets them collected and recycled.
--:-- Poonam: It cleans our environment.
--:-- Poonam: This is a good thing.
--:-- Poonam: So many people are just wasting time.
--:-- Poonam: We are sitting at home being productive, making something interesting and earning a little to take care of our expenses also.
--:-- Poonam: I mean, that feels nice.
--:-- Javi Sajdhiv: What isn't used to make toys is turned into paper.
--:-- Javi Sajdhiv: And I saw some bookmarks and notebooks made from it.
--:-- Javi Sajdhiv: It's highly fibrous and it's very nice for ink pens.
--:-- Javi Sajdhiv: They also supply their fibre to a company that makes tree-free paper for office stationery.
--:-- Katie Hazeldine: At the end of the summer, the UK was hit by riots that were amplified by comments on social media, but the violence also brought communities together as people helped out with repairing the damage.
--:-- Katie Hazeldine: On the Happy Pod back then, we heard about an amazing fundraising effort to restore a public library in Liverpool that had been set on fire.
--:-- Katie Hazeldine: $320,000 was raised and this week, Spello Library reopened.
--:-- Katie Hazeldine: The night before, public libraries across England were illuminated to, quote, share the light, and in Liverpool, children celebrated with a lantern parade.
--:-- Katie Hazeldine: Tell me about how you felt when you found out that the library had been burnt.
--:-- Katie Hazeldine: Not very happy because it's somewhere that people like to go.
--:-- Katie Hazeldine: I was very sad because that's a library I always go to and I love reading.
--:-- Katie Hazeldine: Why are you so excited?
--:-- Katie Hazeldine: Tell me what you'll enjoy about the library.
--:-- Katie Hazeldine: I probably enjoyed the way that I had some calm, which I get annoyed lots easily by the noise.
--:-- Katie Hazeldine: And the Roth, a huge blue light-up bear, accompanied by its cub, leads this procession from Goodison Park.
--:-- Katie Hazeldine: The Stealing Sheep Marching Band are who you can hear, bringing the party atmosphere with their light-up instruments.
--:-- Katie Hazeldine: And hundreds of school children and their parents are joining them, carrying lanterns to bring back the light to Spellow Lane Library which was torched during those riots in the summer.
--:-- Katie Hazeldine: Are you excited for the library to reopen?
--:-- Katie Hazeldine: Yeah, I'm getting emotional.
--:-- Katie Hazeldine: When I first burned down I was being crying my eyes out.
--:-- Katie Hazeldine: That's the only library we go to.
--:-- Alex McCormick: I just think it's amazing that we've managed to get to this point in such a short amount of time.
--:-- Alex McCormick: The initial target was £500, and the initial intention was just to replace the books that had been burned.
--:-- Alex McCormick: So never in my wildest dreams, I think it would go as far as it did.
--:-- Alex McCormick: The level that it reached and it got so far and wide was just unbelievable.
--:-- Alex McCormick: I think I'm feeling overwhelmed more than anything else, but also so proud of everyone who's been involved and who continues to be involved as Spello continues to grow on the back of this.
--:-- Alex McCormick: I think everyone around the world has got a connection to a good story.
--:-- Alex McCormick: Everyone's got a book that they love.
--:-- Alex McCormick: And if all of this hasn't proved how much we need these spaces and how much we as a society value them, then I don't think anything will.
--:-- Yusuf Kutai: In countries that celebrate Christmas, children are often told they must be good if they want to receive presents from Father Christmas, Santa Claus or Saint Nicholas.
--:-- Yusuf Kutai: In some parts of Europe, there's even a folklore character who is said to punish those who misbehave, the Krampus.
--:-- Yusuf Kutai: In the Central and Eastern Alps, the tradition is celebrated with the Krampus Run, when crowds gather to watch hundreds of people dressed in grotesque demon-like costumes running through towns, scaring children.
--:-- Yusuf Kutai: As the sun brushes its last golden strokes on the dolomites, and the cold air creeps further into my windproof jacket, you think that cows are approaching.
--:-- Yusuf Kutai: But at a closer look, I can see an army of grotesque figures, tractors and flames coming closer.
--:-- Yusuf Kutai: It is the beginning of the Krampusnacht, or Krampus night.
--:-- Yusuf Kutai: The Krampus is a grotesque creature of Alpine folklore.
--:-- Yusuf Kutai: According to legend, it is half goat and half demon.
--:-- Yusuf Kutai: The Krampus is believed to accompany St. Nicholas on his visits to children.
--:-- Yusuf Kutai: According to legend, children who behave receive gifts, while those who misbehave are punished by the Krampus.
--:-- Yusuf Kutai: In Dobbiaco, a town of 3,000 people in northern Italy, this night is taken seriously.
--:-- Yusuf Kutai: 10,000 spectators descend to watch 600 of these Krampuses running through the town.
--:-- Yusuf Kutai: At the end of the march, there's a person dressed as half-bishop, half-Santa Claus, who's accompanied by young children representing angels, who hand out sweets to well-behaved spectators.
--:-- Meinhard Fauster: Participants dress in hairy black or white costumes that resemble the body of a gorilla.
--:-- Meinhard Fauster: They wear bells the size of watermelons on their hips and hold either a flaming torch or birch sticks.
--:-- Meinhard Fauster: Participants wear demonic masks with horns looking like ibexes and teeth like lions.
--:-- Meinhard Fauster: Meinhard Fauster is the organiser of this ritual and makes these masks out of aluminium.
--:-- Meinhard Fauster: Meinhard is also the brains behind the Dobriaco Krampus run.
--:-- Meinhard Fauster: He has performed as a Krampus for almost 20 years.
--:-- Meinhard Fauster: I asked him where he gets his inspiration for the masks.
--:-- Meinhard Fauster: He said the influence is twofold.
--:-- Meinhard Fauster: I get my ideas from old American films because these days movies are too computerized.
--:-- Meinhard Fauster: In the older movies, ideas came from the head, not from artificial intelligence.
--:-- Meinhard Fauster: The other perspective is my own imagination, which then is coupled with what I see in classic films.
--:-- Meinhard Fauster: Managing 600 demonic creatures in a small town is no easy task.
--:-- Meinhard Fauster: Meinhard says that most of the participants are regulars.
--:-- Meinhard Fauster: So, they know the drill, know their limits, and are mindful of their own safety and that of spectators.
--:-- Meinhard Fauster: And he says there's one thing he enjoys every year.
--:-- Meinhard Fauster: I look forward to the malt wine because one part of the parade ends in the Christmas markets.
--:-- Meinhard Fauster: So, after the parade, everyone gathers around in the markets to enjoy malt wine.
--:-- Danny Shrewsbury: Well, earlier this year, Danny Shrewsbury and Bradley Shenton entered the gruelling Badlands Ultra Cycle Race through the mountains of northern Spain.
--:-- Danny Shrewsbury: Completing the nearly 800 kilometres in 53 and a half hours to win the pairs title.
--:-- Danny Shrewsbury: And despite hallucinations and a crash, they say it's brought them closer together.
--:-- Caroline Barker: I did it the year before. I've already done it as a solo person.
--:-- Caroline Barker: And Danny was like, maybe we should do it together next year.
--:-- Caroline Barker: And I was like, it's quite hard.
--:-- Danny Shrewsbury: I did it the year before. I've already done it as a solo person.
--:-- Danny Shrewsbury: And Danny was like, maybe we should do it together next year.
--:-- Danny Shrewsbury: And I was like, it's quite hard.
--:-- Caroline Barker: I think that's the side of me that knew that I would get through this whatever because I wouldn't want to let Brad down, especially because I know that he'd already done it once and that I was putting him through it again.
--:-- Caroline Barker: But also, yeah, the competitive mindset that I've got, I just knew that I'd keep going.
--:-- Caroline Barker: And even if I wasn't okay, I'd pretend I was okay.
--:-- Danny Shrewsbury: After three hours, we are going down this hill and it's like me, then Danny.
--:-- Danny Shrewsbury: It's super bright, chalky, dusty, and there was a huge dip.
--:-- Danny Shrewsbury: I hit it and just was like, whoa, but didn't shout it out properly.
--:-- Danny Shrewsbury: Danny hit it and fully went over her handlebars.
--:-- Danny Shrewsbury: and broke the bike.
--:-- Caroline Barker: But knowing each other so well as you do, how do you like deal with potential tension points like that?
--:-- Caroline Barker: Don't get me wrong. In the second day, when you're like super tired, you just kind of like get angry, but you're angry at the situation.
--:-- Caroline Barker: You're not angry at each other.
--:-- Caroline Barker: You're kind of just like, I'm so tired.
--:-- Caroline Barker: And we would, fortunately, we didn't have like low points at the same time.
--:-- Caroline Barker: I was like so close to quitting and just like, I'm so done with this.
--:-- Caroline Barker: And Danny just goes have a caffeine gel and shut up sometimes you have to get a bit sassy with but it worked
--:-- Caroline Barker: One big thing is like what came with the crash it meant that it snapped my light off
--:-- Caroline Barker: I'm like totally relying on following brad in the dark
--:-- Caroline Barker: He might not have called out that dip but after that we can't do that
--:-- Caroline Barker: Everything I can't call out the dicks of the daylight but I can in the night
--:-- Caroline Barker: The sleep thing though was it 10 minutes in total over the whole time you had it was actually crazy
--:-- Caroline Barker: We hallucinated like no tomorrow but the thing is we're both so stubborn about giving up
--:-- Caroline Barker: Brad was calling out people that wasn't there
--:-- Caroline Barker: I was seeing patterns in rocks that weren't there and I said brad like i'm in a bad way and he was like okay me too five minutes sleep
--:-- Caroline Barker: But it took one of us to actually own up how tired we were
--:-- Caroline Barker: When you're sleep deprived five minutes feels like a whole night full full sleep on the side of the road as well
--:-- Caroline Barker: I managed to snore and wake myself up within five minutes so I think that's quite impressive
--:-- Caroline Barker: By the end of it we both couldn remember much but doing it as a pair you remember different things yeah so you kind of like trigger each other to remember certain bits
--:-- Caroline Barker: So honestly coming through something like that you have a friendship or a partnership for life because you go through something special
--:-- Caroline Barker: I think even a lot of the solo riders, they ended up in little groups, didn't they?
--:-- Caroline Barker: And they kind of end up getting through it together.
--:-- Caroline Barker: And you can't explain in that moment what you've gone through.
--:-- Caroline Barker: But especially doing it as a pair, you can just look at each other and be like, wow, we've actually done it.
--:-- Caroline Barker: What do you do next? How do you top it?
--:-- Caroline Barker: We're really competitive against each other.
--:-- Caroline Barker: And we were like, should we just sign up solo and just race each other?
--:-- Caroline Barker: Doing it again. This time I won't give him a caffeine gel, let's do it himself.
--:-- Lul Hassan: Ballet and opera are often seen as the domain of the wealthy or academic elites.
--:-- Lul Hassan: But here in the UK, efforts are underway to try to make them more open and accessible, especially for children from all backgrounds.
--:-- Lul Hassan: The Royal Ballet and Opera House is opening its doors to schoolchildren who wouldn't normally get the chance to experience these creative arts.
--:-- Lul Hassan: The Happy Pod's Lul Hassan has been finding out more.
--:-- Lul Hassan: The normally serene and sophisticated Royal Ballet and Opera in the heart of London's Covent Garden was filled with the laughter and chatter of thousands of excited children from all over England.
--:-- Lul Hassan: They'd come to see the first performance of the ballet version of Cinderella
--:-- Lul Hassan: The fairy tale about a downtrodden young woman Who is suddenly blessed by fortune and ends up marrying a prince
--:-- Lul Hassan: And the young audience also got a glimpse behind the scenes Finding out how the enormous intricate sets are moved and changed during the intervals
--:-- Lul Hassan: For many children, opportunities like this are not common.
--:-- Lul Hassan: But thanks to money from donors, the theatre has hosted seven such schools events this year, including ballet and opera performances of Alice in Wonderland and Hansel and Gretel.
--:-- Lul Hassan: These children, from a school in Rotherham in the north of England, spoke about what the experience meant to them.
--:-- Lul Hassan: I think my favourite part was where the two sisters were like fighting over the scarves and trying to put makeup on them.
--:-- Lul Hassan: Mine was when the fairy godmother came out.
--:-- Lul Hassan: I found it really difficult at the start but as it got to like the fairy godmother bit I started to understand.
--:-- Lul Hassan: I think it just shows like how with all the costumes how dance can really just tell a story it doesn't have to have any words or anything.
--:-- Gillian Barker: These are extraordinary places, extraordinary experiences, and I believe everyone should have that opportunity.
--:-- Gillian Barker: And I think it's particularly important for people who don't live close to a local theatre, who can't experience the magic of a place like the Royal Ballet and Opera, to be able to come to London and see this quality of work.
--:-- Kevin O'Hare: I mean, it's fantastic to hear the screams of joy and how much they enjoy it.
--:-- Kevin O'Hare: It's that immediacy of their reaction that's so brilliant, and that's what you miss when you're doing a normal show.
--:-- Kevin O'Hare: Kevin O'Hare says opportunities like this can truly shape a child's life.
--:-- Kevin O'Hare: What can seem like just a memory can actually be the moment someone decides what they want to spend their life doing.
--:-- Kevin O'Hare: Every child should have the opportunity to come and see what theatre can offer.
--:-- Kevin O'Hare: And that little spark, and it could be, yes, what they're seeing in the dance has been amazing, but they could be looking at the orchestra and seeing the instruments they're playing and thinking, gosh, I'd like to do that, or how we put it all together.
--:-- Kevin O'Hare: And again, that can spark an interest.
--:-- Kevin O'Hare: And I thought, oh, could I do that? Could I be involved in that?
--:-- Lul Hassan: So what did the children think of their first Royal Ballet experience?
--:-- Lul Hassan: Rectacular.
--:-- Lul Hassan: Interesting.
--:-- Lul Hassan: Amazing.
--:-- Lul Hassan: Brilliant.
--:-- Lul Hassan: It was mesmerising.
--:-- Lul Hassan: It was really nice.
--:-- Lul Hassan: Fantastic.
--:-- Lul Hassan: I feel like it was a magical experience.
--:-- Lul Hassan: I've never really been interested in ballet, but then when I see them doing it, it actually looked fun.
--:-- Lul Hassan: That report by Lul Hassan.
--:-- Oliver Conway: In the last episode, we asked for things that made you happiest or inspired you in 2024.
--:-- Oliver Conway: One response really made a smile, an email from Roji in Sri Lanka, saying how the Happy Pod had helped her through a tough year.
--:-- Oliver Conway: She summed up exactly why we do what we do.
--:-- Oliver Conway: So something that's made me really happy in 2024 is in fact this very podcast, The Happy Pod.
--:-- Oliver Conway: What I really like about The Happy Pod is the fact that it doesn't shy away from people facing difficult situations and also from problems that feel so huge that they're beyond solutions.
--:-- Oliver Conway: What it does focus on is how people keep going in the face of these problems and how they persevere.
--:-- Oliver Conway: And the little things that people do to improve their lives and the lives of people around them.
--:-- Oliver Conway: So that really reminds me to be grateful for everything that I have.
--:-- Oliver Conway: And it really motivates me to keep going as well.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Personally, I feel like trying to change the world is a bit of an overwhelming thing for me.
--:-- Oliver Conway: But I did realize that sometimes all it takes is just a little act of kindness.
--:-- Oliver Conway: And that can mean the world to someone, even if it's just one person.
--:-- Oliver Conway: And at the end of the day, that's worth doing.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Thanks, Roji.
--:-- Oliver Conway: And we'd love to hear what made you happiest or inspired in 2024 from everyday family things to stories from around the world.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Send us an email or voice note to globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk.
--:-- Oliver Conway: And that's all from the Happy Pod for now.
--:-- Oliver Conway: This edition was mixed by Derek Clark and produced by Holly Gibbs and Rachel Bulkeley.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Our editor is Karen Martin.
--:-- Oliver Conway: I'm Oliver Conway.
--:-- Oliver Conway: Until next time, goodbye.
--:-- Asma Khalid: America is changing. And so is the world.
--:-- Asma Khalid: But what's happening in America isn't just a cause of global upheaval.
--:-- Asma Khalid: It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere.
--:-- Asma Khalid: I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C.
--:-- Asma Khalid: I'm Tristan Redman in London, and this is The Global Story.
--:-- Asma Khalid: Every weekday, we'll bring you a story from this intersection, where the world and America meet.
--:-- Asma Khalid: Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
