Start Here - The Guthries’ Ransom Response

The family of Nancy Guthrie have begun publicly pleading with would-be kidnappers to clarify any demands. The release of Jeffrey Epstein emails upend public life in the United Kingdom, with pressure building on Prime Minister Keir Starmer. And the Olympic opening ceremonies are about to get underway in Italy. 

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The Daily Detail - The Daily Detail for 3.6.26

Alabama

  • Child Predator Death Penalty Act is soon to become law in Alabama
  • The App Store Accountability Act passes the Alabama senate
  • AL House committee passes bill making it a felony to disrupt a church service
  • Sen. Tuberville says Americans are anxious to see the SAVE Act passed
  • Governor Ivey issues $4.5M in grant money for helping low income families

National

  • ICE has arrested over 4K criminal illegal aliens in the state of MN
  • WH has report showing massive drop in crime rates in US cities
  • DNI's Gabbard confirms that voting machines in Puerto Rico were probed for cybersecurity flaws
  • Catherin Herridge reports that knives are out to stop Gabbard and her election probes by those within the Intelligence Community
  • Hillary Clinton makes demands for her deposition in the House Oversight Committee....Chairman Comer says Nope
  • Bill Maher makes partial admission that conspiracy theorists were right about Epstein and elite pedophile rings

The Ezra Klein Show - Everything Wrong With the Internet and How to Fix It

Ragebait, sponcon, A.I. slop — the internet of 2026 makes a lot of us nostalgic for the internet of 10 or 15 years ago.

What exactly went wrong here? How did the early promise of the internet get so twisted? And what exactly is wrong here? What kinds of policies could actually make our digital lives meaningfully better?

Cory Doctorow and Tim Wu have two different theories of the case, which I thought would be interesting to put in conversation together. Doctorow is a science fiction writer, an activist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the author of “Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It.” Wu is a law professor who worked on technology policy in the Biden White House; his latest book is “The Age of Extraction: How Tech Platforms Conquered the Economy and Threaten Our Future Prosperity.”

In this conversation, we discuss their different frameworks, and how they connect to all kinds of issues that plague the modern internet: the feeling that we’re being manipulated; the deranging of our politics; the squeezing of small businesses and creators; the deluge of spam and fraud; the constant surveillance and privacy risks; the quiet rise of algorithmic pricing; and the dehumanization of work. And they lay out the policies that they think would go furthest in making all these different aspects of our digital lives better.

Mentioned:

Enshittification by Cory Doctorow

The Age of Extraction by Tim Wu

Fighting Enshittification” by Josh Richman

Book Recommendations:

Small Is Beautiful by E. F. Schumacher

Manipulation by Cass R. Sunstein

The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers by Paul Kennedy

Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams

Little Bosses Everywhere by Bridget Read

Jules, Penny & the Rooster by Daniel Pinkwater

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Will Peischel. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Isaac Jones and Aman Sahota. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Michelle Harris, 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. And special thanks to Natasha Scott.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.


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Money Girl - Should I Invest Extra Money or Pay Down My Mortgage? (Reissue)

836. Laura answers a listener’s question about whether to invest extra money or use it to pay down a mortgage for the best long-term benefits.

Find a transcript here. 

Have a money question? Send an email to money@quickanddirtytips.com or leave a voicemail at (302) 364-0308.

Find Money Girl on Facebook and Twitter, or subscribe to the newsletter for more personal finance tips.

Money Girl is a part of Quick and Dirty Tips.

Links:

https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/

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Unexpected Elements - Let the games begin

The Winter Olympics has the Unexpected Elements team looking into some of the incredible science behind the sports. First up, the tale of India’s lone luge pilot: how did using old train tracks as sled runners give him a competitive edge? Then, we look at the physics behind a cheating scandal that has rocked the ski jumping world. Scientific studies tell us exactly how much difference changing a single stitch in a costume can make.

Did you know there are different types of ice? Professor Christoph Salzmann has discovered three of them, and tells us what makes them unique. Plus dinosaurs, disease, and whether we laugh with an accent. All on this week’s Unexpected Elements.

Presenter: Marnie Chesterton, with Chhavi Sachdev and Tristan Ahtone Producers: Margaret Sessa-Hawkins, with Lucy Davies, Imy Harper and Tim Dodd

What A Day - Trump Passes The Buck To Bondi

We're just one week into February, and a lot has happened already — from the fallout over the Department of Justice's Epstein file dump, to President Trump's claims the U.S. should "nationalize" elections, to the decision to pull 700 federal immigration agents out of Minnesota on Wednesday. It's been a lot to follow — so we spoke to Tim Miller. He's writer-at-large at The Bulwark and host of The Bulwark Podcast.

And in headlines, lawmakers are nowhere near an agreement to fund the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. and Iran are set to hold nuclear talks in Oman, and the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots face off in Super Bowl LX.

Show Notes:

Opening Arguments - Um… Epstein might not have killed himself…

OA1233 - We are not conspiracy theorist type people. But... yeah man I don't know. But also, so much more in these files to talk about. If you know anything about the federal government’s 2007 plea deal with Jeffrey Epstein you know that it was bad. But newly-released documents from the Epstein files show that it was actually much worse than that! Thanks to a newly-released legal memo, a draft indictment, and internal emails between prosecutors we now have a much better understanding of the disagreements within US Attorney for the District of Southern Florida Alex Acosta’s office as they finalized the terms of a much-too-friendly agreement between the US government and a billionaire pedophile which a federal appeals court would later call “a national disgrace.” Matt has the receipts for this special emergency episode.

You can also watch this episode on YouTube!

  1. Steve Bannon’s Interview with Jeffrey Epstein (directly downloaded from the DOJ)

  2. Investigation into the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida’s Resolution of Its 2006–2008 Federal Criminal Investigation of Jeffrey Epstein and Its Interactions with Victims during the Investigation (Department of Justice Office of Professional Responsibility, 2020)

  3. Incident Report (Palm Beach Police Department, 2006) 

  4. Epstein indictment draft (United States Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of Florida, 2007)

  5. Appendix in The People of the State of New York v. Jeffrey E. Epstein (2013)

  6. Opinion - Alex Acosta acted with professionalism and integrity in handling the Jeffrey Epstein case (Miami Herald, 2/16/2019) 

Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do!

The Indicator from Planet Money - Just how bad are these job numbers?

It’s a weird time for jobs numbers. Another month, another jobs report pushed back by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Averaging two private sources, ADP and Revelio Labs: an estimated 4,500 jobs were added in January. Sounds like … not many. 

And, yet, the unemployment rate hasn’t seemed to have risen. This might be, in part, due to the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. We’ll explain through the story of one Angeleno.

On today’s show, how bad are these job numbers? Or are they not bad at all? And what does immigration have to do with it? 

Related episodes: 
Can we still trust the monthly jobs report? (Update) 
What you need to know about the jobs report revisions 
What really goes on at the Bureau of Labor Statistics (Update) For sponsor-free episodes of The Indicator from Planet Money, subscribe to Planet Money+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Fact-checking by Sierra Juarez. Music by Drop Electric. Find us: TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Newsletter.  

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Pod Save America - 1117: Trump Threatens to Steal the Midterms

Donald Trump, Steve Bannon, and Mike Johnson hint at plans to steal the midterm elections, from "nationalizing" the voting to straight-up sending ICE to "surround" the polls. Jon and Dan sound the alarm and offer Democrats some advice on how to respond. Then, they react to Border Czar Tom Homan's announcement that 700 DHS officers (out of 3,000) will be leaving Minneapolis, Vice President Vance's refusal to apologize to the family of Alex Pretti for calling him a "domestic terrorist," and Jeff Bezos's gutting of The Washington Post. Then Dan talks to Maine Governor and Senate candidate Janet Mills about ICE's operations in her state, what blue states can do to protect the midterms, and whether the Democratic Party has an age problem.