The World and Everything In It 12.29.25 A Supreme Court case over intellectual disability, a year-end economic review, and a pioneer of cloning
Dec 29, 2025
David Bonson, a financial analyst and founder of The Bonson Group, discusses surprising GDP trends and the economic outlook for 2026, focusing on labor and tariff impacts. Mary Muncy, a reporter for World, shares the fascinating story of John Gurdon, whose pioneering work in cloning set the stage for advances like CRISPR, sparking ethical debates around gene editing. Together, they dive into the intersection of law, economics, and groundbreaking science.
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Souter's Quiet Judicial Transformation
- David Souter arrived as a perceived conservative but quickly showed judicial empathy and skepticism about death-penalty administration.
- Former clerks recall the emotional toll of handling last-minute death-row petitions and Souter's humane guidance.
Measuring Intellectual Disability For Death Penalty
- Ham v. Smith tests where the Eighth Amendment draws the line for executing people with low IQs.
- The Court must balance risking faked low scores against states repeatedly testing defendants to reach execution eligibility.
Expert Portrait Of The Defendant
- Forensic neuropsychologist John Fabian described Jody Smith as low-functioning verbally yet aware of his crime and punishment.
- Fabian's testing produced IQ scores in the mid-70s and adaptive functioning evidence that supported intellectual-disability findings.