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Lauren Groff has long been one of the most daring and emotionally precise writers working today. Her new collection, ‘Brawler,’ returns her to the short story with a set of fierce, searching narratives about people pushed to their limits.

Mining tailings are the waste byproduct of mining, consisting of ground rock, water, and processing chemicals that remain after extracting valuable minerals. They have been disposed of for thousands of years, but the industrial mining in the late 19th and 20th centuries is responsible for most of what occupies large, engineered dams. Estimates are that there are over 8,000 active and inactive tailings facilities storing nearly 220 billion cubic meters of material. They pose many environmental dangers, some catastrophic in nature.

(Airs 03/05/26 @ 3 p.m.) WAMC’s David Guistina in conversation with New York State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli. We’ll talk about the potential financial impact of the war in Iran, the $260 billion dollar state budget which the comptroller says is spending more that it’s taking in, and the need, he says, for more money to fund the Tuition Assistance Program (TAP).

On this week's 51%, we kick off Women's History Month and preview an exhibit about Ulster County’s first elections with women voters in 1918. Women in New York won the right to vote a few years before the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920. The Ulster County exhibit, opening March 11 on the second floor of the county office building in Kingston, features archival voter rolls and artifacts from the county board of the elections as well as the League of Women Voters of the Mid-Hudson Region, giving a glimpse into the lives of the everyday women who jumped at the opportunity to vote.

Installing solar panels on bodies of water has the potential to generate large amounts of renewable energy. Among other benefits, floating solar has the advantage of not taking up land that has other uses. However, there are potential interactions between birds and floating solar facilities, possibly being problematic for both.

Matthew Pearl, the bestselling author of "The Dante Club" returns to fiction with a sharp, darkly comic novel, "The Award," that peels back the layers of literary ambition. It is about an earnest young writer trying to find his footing in a world teeming with literary aspiration, one where ambition can warp judgment, and where a single moment of recognition can tip a life off its axis.

The world’s oceans just keep getting hotter. International analysis published in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences finds that the oceans stored more heat in 2025 than in any year since modern measurements began.

The use of energy by artificial intelligence technology is rapidly increasing. Massive data centers performing the intense computation needed for training large models are consuming huge amounts of energy. Last year, AI consumed over 4% of U.S. electricity, putting a real strain on electric grids. Projections are that AI energy demand will more than double by 2040.

Tidal power is a way to generate clean, renewable energy by harnessing the rise and fall of ocean tides. Unlike wind and solar power, tidal power is predictable on a regular basis.

The Best of Our Knowledge explores topics on learning, education, and research.An analysis of small, prehistoric fossils found in sandstone is giving researchers new clues into the time before the explosion of complex life on Earth.And we’ll visit high school students celebrating Lunar New Year, which is now being recognized in New York state schools.