A.M. Edition for Mar. 4. Israel’s military is targeting sites in Iran connected to the country's police state, in what WSJ correspondent Margherita Stancati says is a strategy aimed at helping enable a popular uprising against Iran’s leaders. Plus, South Korean stocks see a record drop as fighting in the Mideast ripples across Asian economies. And James Talarico wins Texas’s Senate Democratic primary on a message of electability. Luke Vargas hosts.
The Middle East war is in its fifth day as the U.S. and Israel keep striking targets across Iran and Lebanon, Iran retaliates into the Gulf, and funeral preparations begin for Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. President Trump is offering shifting explanations for why the U.S. struck Iran, as the White House tries to unify its message and Americans remain wary about what the war is meant to achieve. And the first midterm primary results are in, with Democrats in Texas choosing James Talarico and early races in North Carolina and Arkansas offering a first read on where both parties are headed.
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Today’s episode of Up First was edited by Hannah Bloch, Rebekah Metzler, Dana Farrington, Mohamad ElBardicy and Alice Woelfle.
It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Ana Perez and Nia Dumas
Our director is Christopher Thomas.
We get engineering support from Neisha Heinis. Our technical director is Carleigh Strange.
Our Supervising Producer is Michael Lipkin.
(0:00) Introduction (01:55) Middle East War Intensifies (05:58) Trump's Rational For War (09:36) First Midterm Primaries
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Today, we are continuing our series, entitled Developer Chats - hearing from the large scale system builders themselves.
In this episode, we are talking with Oleksandr Piekhota, Principal Software Engineer at Teaching Strategies. Oleksandr helps to show us at what point of scale platform approaches are required, when to run experiments and when to stop, and perhaps more importantly - engineering ownership beyond the code.
Questions
You’ve moved from hands-on engineering into principal and technical leadership roles, working on architecture and platforms.At what point did you realize your work was no longer about individual features, but about the system as a whole
Across several projects, growth didn’t break functionality — it exposed architectural limits.Can you recall a moment when it became clear that shipping more features wouldn’t solve the problem, and a platform approach was required?
You’ve designed and supported APIs end-to-end, from architecture to real customers. How do you distinguish between an API that simply works and one that can truly support business scale?
Internal systems like invoicing and HR workflows began as automation, but evolved into real products.What tells you that an internal tool is worth developing seriously rather than treating as a temporary workaround?
In R&D, you explored CI/CD automation, server-less, and infrastructure experiments — not all reached production. How do you decide when an experiment should continue, and when it’s no longer worth the engineering cost?
You’ve hired teams, set standards, and shaped long-term technical direction. At what point does an engineer stop being a contributor and start owning business-level outcomes?
You contributed to open-source tools that later became part of your company’s infrastructure. Why do you see open source contributions as part of serious engineering work rather than a side activity?
Looking across your projects, how do you now recognize a truly mature engineering system? Is it code quality, process, or how teams respond when things go wrong?
If we look five to seven years into the future, which architectural assumptions we treat as “standard” today are most likely to turn out to be naive or limiting?
The United States' war on Iran is quickly expanding into a regional conflict. On its fourth day, Iran attacked the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, coming after their attack on the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait. In total, over 700 Iranians have been killed as of Tuesday afternoon. Meanwhile, all eyes are on Texas, as voters head to the polls to cast their ballots in one of the first primary elections in the country. The race has already become the most expensive primary in U.S. history, with more than $15 million spent on advertising, according to AdImpact. Democrats haven't won a statewide election since 1994, and they're hoping to make history in November. In business, California gas prices may rise due to the U.S. war on Iran, and Paramount plans to merge its streaming platform with HBO Max as part of its $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. Read more at https://LATimes.com.
You've probably heard of search engine optimization, or SEO. That's what you need to do to get your shoe brand or your coffee shop or your public radio show picked up and pushed out by a search engine. Now, with more people using AI to search for things, these brands have to work on what's being called AEO, or "answer engine optimization." When someone asks Chat GPT "where do I get good coffee in Baltimore?" Your brand shows up. Marketplace’s Stephanie Hughes spoke with Erin Griffith, a reporter at the New York Times, about what companies can do to make the AI look their way.
There is a select handful of people who were never meant to step foot into an office due to their proclivity to screw around. Just like we sent Rob packing to Ohio to bother no one but himself, Lowestoft, England shipped us The Darkness. During the post-grunge era when rock was murkily defined, we were gifted front man and lead singer Justin Hawkins on a silver platter (his manager’s shoulders) to give us crude operatic hair metal ballads. This week, Rob discusses, “I Believe in a Thing Called Love,” a song that proves if you dive head first into cheesiness, it becomes ironic and cool. Later, he is joined by Jill Hopkins who talks about the experience of watching The Darkness live and then comparing that to the people who feel confident enough to sing The Darkness at karaoke.
The bidding war between Paramount and Netflix over the acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery appeared to come to a close last week, when Netflix backed out.
The Times journalists Nicole Sperling, Lauren Hirsch and Jonathan Mahler discuss this Hollywood drama fit for the big screen, and why it could reshape our political and cultural landscape.
Guest:
Nicole Sperling, a New York Times reporter in Los Angeles, covering Hollywood and the streaming revolution.
Lauren Hirsch, a New York Times reporter who covers the biggest stories on Wall Street, including mergers and acquisitions.
Jonathan Mahler, a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine.
With Iran hitting embassies and residential areas around the Middle East, Americans scramble to escape the region. The Pentagon names the first U.S. troops killed in the Iran conflict. And senators grill Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
Have you noticed that more and more of the world feels, well, fake?
Online there's a daily avalanche of dubious advice and information - about health, money, success, happiness - much of it delivered with total confidence and little regard for evidence.
There's the fabricated reviews, inflated metrics and synthetic content.
Influencers present themselves as authorities. The 'fake it till you make it' mantra has hardened into the business model.
Everything is now content. Performed for likes, not tested for truth.
Meanwhile, institutions once trusted to tell us what is true now compete for attention like everyone else - just as new technologies emerge that can generate convincing false information at scale.
How did we get here? What can we do about it? And, well, do we really care?
In this six-part series Jamie Bartlett sets out to understand how fakery stopped being a flaw and became the operating system of modern life.
This isn't a series about individual liars or shysters. It's about the cultural conditions that made modern fakery not just possible, but incentivised, rewarded, and often indistinguishable from success.
From the scripted spectacle of 1980s professional wrestling to the collapse of the global financial system, Jamie traces the incentives that normalised our fake world. Along the way, he's joined by his AI companion, Jimmy Botlett.
The series builds towards one urgent question: in a future shaped by generative AI and synthetic media, how will we tell fact from fakery - and will we even care enough to try?
Credits:
Presenter: Jamie Bartlett
Series Producer: Tom Pooley
Sound Design: Rob Speight
Production Coordinator: Neena Abdullah
Original music: Coach Conrad
Editor: Craig Templeton Smith
In this episode, Mary Katharine Ham and Vic Matus discuss the recent military strikes against Iran, exploring the intelligence and strategy behind the operation, the rationale for the strikes, and the varied domestic and international reactions. They also analyze media coverage and public perception of the events, concluding with thoughts on the future implications for US-Iran relations and American foreign policy.
