This weekend, former President Trump warned supporters on Truth Social he could be arrested on Tuesday, and called for them to “TAKE OUR NATION BACK!” Although it’s unclear whether Trump is facing imminent arrest, many observers believe legal proceedings focused on Trump’s “hush money” payment to Stormy Daniels suggest an indictment is coming soon.
How strong is this case, and how likely is it that Trump will face real legal consequences?
Guests:
Dahlia Lithwick, host of Slate’s Amicus, and author of “Lady Justice: Women, the Law, and the Battle to Save America.”
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Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, and Madeline Ducharme, with help from Jared Downing and Laura Spencer.
Melissa, Leah, and Kate preview three Supreme Court cases up for argument this week. The cases focus on water rights on Indian reservations, the constitutionality of a federal law that prohibits people from encouraging unlawful immigration, and Jack Daniels (yes, the alcohol company) suing a dog toy company over a poop-related joke. Plus, a new venture from Leonard Leo provides some insight into what conservatives think liberals sit around doing all day.
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For a transcript of this episode, go to crooked.com/strictscrutiny
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Edith Wilson dated and then married Woodrow Wilson while he served as president of the United States in 1915. In her new biography, Untold Power: The Fascinating Rise and Complex Legacy of First Lady Edith Wilson, author Rebecca Boggs Roberts – daughter of the late NPR founding mother Cokie Roberts – explores Wilson's influential role in her husband's administration. But as Roberts tells NPR's Steve Inskeep, at a time when women didn't yet have the right to vote, Wilson often hid her political contributions from the spotlight.
Planetary scientists announced some big news this week about our next-door neighbor, Venus. For the first time, they had found direct evidence that Venus has active, ongoing volcanic activity.
"It's a big deal," says Dr. Martha Gilmore, a planetary geologist at Wesleyan University. "It's a big deal in that there are no other planets, actually, where we've seen active volcanism." (Moons don't count - sorry Io!)
What makes that fact so striking is how inhospitable a place Venus is now – crushing pressure, a toxic atmosphere and a surface temperature around 850 degrees Fahrenheit. So, what happened? How did Earth and its closest sibling diverge so sharply?
On today's episode, Martha talks with scientist in residence Regina G. Barber about what studying Venus can tell us about the past and the future of our own planet.
34 days after it first formed at the far end of the Indian Ocean, record-breaking Cyclone Freddy made a repeat landfall on Mozambique as well as passing over Malawi, causing extensive damage and loss of life. Climate scientists Liz Stephens and Izidine Pinto join Roland to give an update on the destruction and explain how Cyclone Freddy kept going for an exceptionally long time.
At the Third International Human Genome Summit in London last week, Professor Katsuhiko Hayashi announced he had created baby mice from eggs formed by male mouse cells. Dr Nitzan Gonen explains the underlying science, whilst Professor Hank Greely discusses the ethics and future prospects.
And from one rodent story to another, SARS-CoV-2 has been detected in brown rats scurrying around New York sewers. Dr Thomas DeLiberto from the US Department of Agriculture gives Roland the details.
When imagining a robot, a hard-edged, boxy, humanoid figure may spring to mind. But that is about to change.
CrowdScience presenter Alex Lathbridge is on a mission to meet the robots that bend the rules of conventionality. Inspired by how creatures like us have evolved to move, some roboticists are looking to nature to design the next generation of machines. And that means making them softer. But just how soft can a robot really be?
Join Alex as he goes on a wild adventure to answer this question from listener Sarah. He begins his quest at the ‘Hello, Robot’ Exhibition at the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein, Germany to define what a robot actually is. Amelie Klein, the exhibition curator, states anything can be a robot as long as three specific criteria are met (including a cute cuddly baby seal). With this in mind, Alex meets Professor Andrew Conn from the Bristol Robotics Lab who demonstrates how soft materials like rubber are perfect contenders for machine design as they are tough to break and - importantly for our listener’s question - bendy.
Alex is then thrown into a world of robots that completely change his idea of what machines are. He is shown how conventionally ‘hard’ machines are being modified with touches of softness to totally upgrade what they can do, including flexible ‘muscles’ for robot skeletons and silicon-joined human-like hands at the Soft Robotics Lab run by Professor Robert Katzschmann at ETH Zurich. He is then introduced to robots that are completely soft. Based on natural structures like elephant trunks and slithering snakes, these designs give robots completely new functions, such as the ability to delicately pick fruit and assist with search and rescue operations after earthquakes. Finally, Alex is presented with the idea that, in the future, a robot could be made of materials that are so soft, no trace of machine would remain after its use...
Image credit: Jack McBrams/Getty Images
Producer: Roland Pease
Assistant Producer: Sophie Ormiston
If you hate Vince McMahon, then maybe you’ll buy a tee-shirt for his rival. And that’s a great outcome for the WWE.
Abraham Josephine Riesman is the author of “Ringmaster: Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America.” Ricky Mulvey caught up with Riesman to discuss:
- Vince McMahon’s early life as a “pretty nice kid”, and the parts of his story he doesn’t want wrestling fans to know. - WWE’s potential deal with the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund. - The Montreal Screwjob, and the groundwork for the modern WWE. - A story about Saddam Hussein’s side job as a wrestling promoter, Andre the Giant, and a golden gun.
Company discussed: WWE
Host: Ricky Mulvey Guest: Abraham Josephine Riesman Engineer: Dan Boyd
“The Breakdown” is written, produced and narrated by Nathaniel Whittemore aka NLW, with today's editing by Jonas Huck, research by Scott Hill and additional production assistance by Eleanor Pahl. Jared Schwartz is our executive producer and our theme music is “Countdown” by Neon Beach. Music behind our sponsor today is “Foothill Blvd” by Sam Barsh. Image credit: erhui1979 / Getty Images, modified by CoinDesk.
Join the most important conversation in crypto and Web3 at Consensus 2023, happening April 26-28 in Austin, Texas. Come and immerse yourself in all that Web3, crypto, blockchain and the metaverse have to offer. Use code BREAKDOWN to get 15% off your pass. Visit consensus.coindesk.com.
Located in the heart of South America is the Amazon, the world's largest river. It isn’t just big, it is by almost any measure you can think of the world’s largest river, and it is so by a wide margin.
In addition to the river itself, the Amazon basin is the location of one of the greatest collections of biodiversity on the planet. It is home to millions of species of plants and animals.
Despite its enormous size and importance, there is one area where the Amazon falls behind the other great rivers of the world.
Learn more about the Amazon, the world’s largest river, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
