In the uncertain moments following 9/11, we were searching for comfort and someone to help us make sense of it all. Today, Rob discusses the one musician who was capable of stepping up and capturing the emotions the American people were feeling: Bruce Springsteen. Rob recaps the political statements Springsteen had been making in the decades before, which prepared him for the creation of “The Rising.” Finally, he is joined by music critic and Springsteen expert Steven Hyden to discuss where the album ‘The Rising’ ranks in his discography.
“Vibecoding,” or using artificial-intelligence tools such as Claude Code to generate code for websites or apps, is the newest A.I. trend, and it could transform the software-development industry.
Kevin Roose, a technology columnist for The New York Times, takes us inside the process.
Guest: Kevin Roose, a technology columnist for The New York Times in the San Francisco Bay Area and a host of the Times tech podcast, “Hard Fork.”
U.S. and Iranian negotiators agree to keep talking after meetings in Geneva, even as President Trump threatens military force and Tehran warns it could retaliate. Stephen Colbert says CBS blocked a political guest from his late-night show, adding to a wave of upheaval involving Anderson Cooper and corporate maneuvering at the network’s parent company. And Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg takes the stand in a landmark trial testing whether social media companies can be held legally responsible for harming young users.
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Today’s episode of Up First was edited by James Hider, Pallavi Gogoi, Brett Neely, Mohamad ElBardicy and Alice Woelfle.
It was produced by Ziad Buchh and Nia Dumas.
Our director is Christopher Thomas.
We get engineering support from Neisha Heinis. And our technical director is Simon-Laslo Janssen.
Our Supervising Producer is Michael Lipkin.
(0:00) Introduction (01:55) US & Iran Plan To Meet Again (05:26) CBS: Colbert & Cooper (09:49) Social Media On Trial
Negotiators from Iran and the U.S. emerge from nuclear talks with words of optimism, despite fears of military strikes if they fail. Civil rights icon Jesse Jackson dies at 84. And London police are cracking down on an increasingly prevalent problem: public phone-snatchings.
In this episode, Mary Katharine Hamm and Vic Matus discuss sexual harassment training and AOC, and somewhat surprisingly, the two are not related. They delve into the recent Munich Security Conference, highlighting key speeches and the responses from various political figures. The conversation also touches on the ongoing redistricting controversy in Virginia and the implications of new laws on representation. Finally, they explore the Olympics and then the rising costs of cocktails.
E23 - For today's amuse douche: a savory sample of our favorite Harvard Law professor’s extremely normal 2015 explanation of his appearances in Jeffrey Epstein’s flight logs. We then take on an almost painfully normal 1997 Dersh LA Times oped in which the lawyer who would go on to secure one of the best plea deals a pedophile has ever received complains about all of those pesky age of consent laws. Finally: some of the worst reactions from men exposed in the Epstein files.
Steven Pinker's linguistic analysis for Epstein's defense team, eventually resulting in Epstein's "sweetheart deal" (attachment in linked email, June 28, 2007).
Check out the OALinktreefor all the places to go and things to do!
U.S. officials met with Iranian envoys in Switzerland Tuesday to negotiate the fate of Iran’s nuclear program — and came away with a “set of guiding principles,” according to Iran’s foreign minister. But trying to figure out what, exactly, each country wants in these talks is confusing at best. Both President Donald Trump and Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have made not-so-veiled threats of military action toward the other country. So what, exactly, is everyone doing here? Do they want a deal – or a war? To find out, we spoke to Nahal Toosi, the senior foreign affairs correspondent and columnist for Politico.
And in headlines, CBS Late Show host Stephen Colbert calls out his own network, President Trump lashes out over a sewage leak in the Potomac River, and Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin is leaving the Trump administration.
On this episode of the Hayek Program Podcast, Chris Coyne talks with Abigail Hall and Jayme Lemke about Kenneth and Elise Boulding’s insights into what it means to build and sustain peace. Drawing on her paper “In Search of Stable Peace,” Hall explores Kenneth Boulding’s framework for understanding peace and war, focusing on the roles of strain and strength and the shifting taboo lines that shape movement between stable and unstable peace. Lemke then turns to Elise Boulding’s vision of peace as an active, everyday practice, emphasizing the often-overlooked forms of peacebuilding embedded in ordinary social relationships and institutions. Together, the conversations emphasize peace as a process shaped by ideas, institutions, and imagination.
Dr. Abigail R. Hall is an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Tampa and a Senior Affiliated Scholar at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. She has published numerous books, including her most recent satirical book, How to Run Wars: A Confidential Playbook for the National Security Elite co-authored with Christopher J. Coyne (2024). She holds a PhD in Economics from George Mason University and is an alum of the Mercatus PhD Fellowship.
Dr. Jayme Lemke is a Senior Research Fellow and a Senior Fellow with the F. A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. She is co-editor of Economy, Polity, and Society, an Associate Editor for the Review of Behavioral Economics, and Secretary of the Society for the Development of Austrian Economics.
**This episode was recorded September 15, 2025 and December 29, 2025.
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