M.G. Siegler of Spyglass is back for our monthly tech news discussion. Today we dig into whether Tim Cook will retire in 2026, what his legacy will be, and who will likely succeed him as Apple CEO. We also touch on the various Big Tech companies jostling for the title of largest company in the world and what it says about the AI race. Finally, we cover Anthropic's push to become profitable by 2028 and what it says about the state of the AI race.
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Not only are the opportunities for personal financial gain for Trump and his White House cronies driving the administration’s foreign policy decisions, his tariffs look more and more about grift. Trump also inexplicably granted clemency to a private equity exec who ripped off ordinary Americans in a Ponzi scheme, while he plans a pardon for a former Honduran president who trafficked cocaine to America—even as he orders the bombings of suspected drug smugglers in the Caribbean. Meanwhile, on the immigration front, Border Patrol is moving into NOLA, and the administration is exploiting the heinous and tragic DC Guard shooting to try to rid the country of black and brown immigrants.
Over 210,000 federal workers left their jobs this year because of the Trump administration.
That’s according to the Partnership for Public Service Harms Tracker. For many, it’s meant walking away from, or being pushed out of, a decades-long commitment to public service.
And one trend that’s emerging? Fired or laid-off former federal employees and contractors are running for public office.
We feature the voices of several former federal workers to hear why they see politics as the next step, especially after being forced out of jobs that were always meant to stay apolitical. What does it mean for the future health of our democracy?
Find more of our programs online. Listen to 1A sponsor-free by signing up for 1A+ at plus.npr.org/the1a.
Markus Thielen, 10x Research, predicts an imminent crypto bear market and up to a 60% correction in 2026,
Is the crypto bull run over? In this episode of Markets Outlook, Markus Thielen, founder of 10x Research, joins CoinDesk's Jennifer Sanasie, to discuss why we might be heading into a bear market in 2026.
Thielen argues that US stocks historically perform poorly during midterm election cycles. Combining this historical trend with the "institutional fatigue" visible in recent ETF outflows, he breaks down the data suggesting a potential 60% correction is on the horizon.
We also discuss the recent shift in "Whale" accumulation behavior and why the "digital gold" narrative is currently struggling to keep pace with physical gold performance.
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What does your accent – and yes, every speaker has one – say about you? Or perhaps the better question is, what do others hear in your accent? These are the sorts of questions that Devyani Sharma, a professor of language and communication at Oxford's Worcester College, asks every day, especially about the many English speakers around the world.
In this Social Science Bites podcast, Sharma takes a deep dive into the accents of Britain, where accents have famously been used as markers of social status for years. As she tells interviewer David Edmonds, "the UK stands out as a country that's organized its whole social system around accent for a very long time."
As she details for Edmonds, "Interestingly, just a reminder that 'you might be relying on accent as a shortcut and please don't' was enough to change recruiters' behavior. It doesn't always happen with gender and race anymore, and my sense is that's because the message has been saturated. People are annoyed to be reminded before doing a recruiting task, but they haven't thought as much about how much they use accent when judging people."
An estimated 40 million people are living with HIV around the world, including more than 41,000 in Illinois. Thanks to medical advancements, a disease that has killed tens of millions has become more manageable, but doctors and advocates worry that federal funding cuts under the Trump administration could derail that progress. In the Loop discusses with AIDS Foundation of Chicago president and CEO John Peller, Vivent Health president and CEO Brandon Hill and director of Center on Halsted’s HIV hotline Jasmine Mikell.
For a full archive of In the Loop interviews, head over to wbez.org/intheloop.
Plus: A state commission awards licenses to three proposals for casinos in New York City. And Newell Brands, the maker of Yankee Candle and Sharpie, will lay off about 10% of its employees. Pierre Bienaimé hosts.
An artificial-intelligence tool assisted in the making of this episode by creating summaries that were based on Wall Street Journal reporting and reviewed and adapted by an editor.
Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines are grappling with severe flooding, landslides and storm damage after torrential rain and vast cyclones hit the region over the past few days.
Also, the presidential election in Honduras is too-close-to-call, and the Oxford English Dictionary releases its 'word of the year'.
(Photo: A military rescue team vehicle makes its way through a flooded road after heavy rainfall in a suburb of Colombo, Sri Lanka, 30 November 2025. Credit: Chamila Karunarathne/EPA/Shutterstock)
Floods in Indonesia have killed more than 600 people and left 500 unaccounted for. They were caused by a rare cyclone that that formed over the Malacca Strait. It has hit three provinces and affected around 1.4m people. Also: the young African men being lured to Russia on the promise of well-paid jobs, but finding themselves sent to fight in Ukraine; the "forever chemicals" in our bodies, and what we can do about them; a new podcast that discusses the bomb that changed the world; HIV prevention in South Africa; the former Bangladeshi prime minister's niece is found guilty of corruption charges; South Korea's largest data breach; and a hairy new world record.
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