Gas tops $4 a gallon. Trump tells nations upset by high fuel prices to get their own oil. Final preps for tomorrow's moon mission. CBS News Correspondent Steve Kathan has those stories and more on the World News Roundup podcast.
The Russian government may soon pass an unusual law giving any former Russian president legal immunity -- not only from any crimes committed while in office, but for any acts before or after their presidency, as well. This lifetime immunity proposal has international spectators scratching their heads in confusion... and diving into conspiracy. Tune in to learn more in this week's oddly prescient Classic episode.
Pakistan says it is ready to host U.S.-Iran talks in the coming days, but Iran is still attacking U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia and other targets across the Gulf as the war enters its fifth week. President Trump is sending mixed messages on the war, claiming Iran agreed to most of his demands while threatening to obliterate its energy infrastructure if a deal isn't reached soon. And TSA workers are finally getting paychecks after more than 40 days without pay, but Congress still hasn't reached a deal to fund the Department of Homeland Security.
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Today’s episode of Up First was edited by Gerry Holmes, Rebekah Metzler, Russell Lewis, Mohamad ElBardicy, and Adriana Gallardo.
It was produced by Ziad Buchh and Ava Pukatch.
Our director is Christopher Thomas.
We get engineering support from Stacey Abbott. Our technical director is Carleigh Strange.
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(0:00) Introduction (01:51) Iran War Week 5 (05:23) Trump's Mixed Messages (09:15) TSA Back Pay
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Robert Brennan grew up in Boston and loved it so much that he ended up calling it home again. He spent time in New York between his bookend times, but he enjoys the chill pace and great music of Boston over the fast pace of the big apple. Outside of technology, he likes to read nonfiction and fiction, specifically science fiction. He loves music, and. Has been playing guitar for 25 years now. He frequents the live music scene around Boston, and even lives near a jazz club.
Robert observed the release of the first version of Devin a few years ago, which was very exciting to see agent driven development. But he and his co-founders were concerned with who was going to govern how this software was going to get written - and they hypothesized that it should be open source and community driven.
The civil rights icon had a history of sexually abusing women and girls, which the Times reporters Manny Fernandez and Sarah Hurtes spent five years investigating. They spoke to “The Daily” about how they uncovered the story.
As President Trump threatens more strikes on Iran, analysts raise concerns about the closure of another key shipping route. Despite a blockade, a Russian tanker is allowed to deliver oil to Cuba. And deposition video sheds light on the early days of DOGE cutbacks.
Consciousness is this amazing, mind-bending riddle. It’s the only thing any of us truly knows. We experience everything else in life through it. And yet we barely understand it. We don’t know what it’s made of or how it works or why it exists.
But scientists and theorists have been trying to answer those questions, and have made some startling discoveries. The science writer Michael Pollan, known for books like “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and “How to Change Your Mind,” spent five years on the vanguard of this research. And his new book, “A World Appears: A Journey Into Consciousness,” shows that the closer you look at consciousness, the weirder it gets.
I asked Pollan to walk through some of the places his mind wandered on this journey — including the role of the body and feelings in consciousness, fascinating studies that provide evidence for plant sentience, the researchers who have abandoned their old theories after trying psychedelic drugs, and the possibility that consciousness may not emerge from inside us at all. “I’ve entered this ‘never say never’ realm with this research,” Pollan told me.
This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Kristin Lin. Fact-checking by Kim Freda. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota and Isaac Jones. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Michelle Harris, Rollin Hu, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.
Awash in a sea of rum describes the years between the 1670s and the 1830s in the colonies that would later become Canada. Millions of litres of the sugar-based liquor were imported every year to supply a comparatively small population of colonists and Indigenous people. Why rum, and why so much? Rum was cheap and plentiful. Intimately connected to the West Indian slave plantation complex, rum shipped to early Canada and around the Atlantic World was part of the early modern expansion of intercontinental trade known as the first globalization.Canada in the Age of Rum (McGill-Queen's UP, 2026) by Professor Allan Greer shows what happened to the vast quantities that came to Canadian shores. Rum was especially important to workers in the early Canadian staples industries. Fishermen and fur-trade voyageurs drank rum in massive quantities, supplied on credit and at grossly inflated prices by their employers, an arrangement that served to claw back wages and ensure the profitability of enterprises that would not have been viable otherwise. Traders deliberately sought to get hunting peoples hooked on rum in order to ensure a steady supply of pelts – alcohol was not so much a commodity for sale as it was a gift used to induce hunters to conform to the ways of the capitalist economy. However, Indigenous people drank rum in their own ways and for their own reasons; and when drinking became a serious social problem, they organized to resist it. The story ends in the 1830s when the combined effects of the temperance movement and the rise of whisky led to a sharp decline in rum consumption. This brilliant history follows the thread of a single commodity from West Indian plantations to Newfoundland, Quebec, and the west, revealing rum as a critical lubricant of the social life of early Canada and its particular version of early capitalism.
This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.