Romina Boccia, Michael F. Cannon, and Adam Michel break down the 43-day government shutdown driven by demands to extend temporary Obamacare subsidies for upper-income households earning well into six figures. The trio examines how the stalemate exposed deeper structural problems: runaway entitlement growth, perverse state incentives, a fragile food stamp and air-traffic control system, and a federal budget process unable to handle partisan deadlock.
Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh’s former prime minister, has been sentenced to death for crimes against humanity. The country is at a pivotal moment as it heads towards parliamentary elections next year. Donald Trump hopes tariffs will return furniture making to America. And why English speakers use their alphabet so oddly.
Marco Rodrigues was born and raised in Canada, but now lives in the Bay Area. His tech genesis was around the time when the internet came out, when he spent an entire summer indoors, worrying his mother. He eventually attended university in Toronto, and went to work for Juniper Networks. Past that, he went towards the startup world - running product teams, and taking part in the ownership and selling of solutions and service offerings. Outside of tech, he is married with twin girls in the Naval Cadet Core. He is a big hockey nut, rooting for the Edmonton Oilers, and enjoys taking his kids to hockey rinks all over the world.
Marco spent many years watching his teams drown in data and tooling. The situations were more complex, but the outcomes weren't getting better. He started to consider the advent of AI, and asked the question - how do we solve these sorts of problems with an agentic SOC platform?
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One thing almost everyone can agree on about Zohran Mamdani, mayor-elect of New York City: he's very good at vertical short-form video.
Love it or hate it, the format has a stylistic language all its own. So, we asked Joshua Scacco, professor of communications and director of the Center for Sustainable Democracy at the University of South Florida, to help us dissect what exactly makes a political short form video effective.
Plus, a House vote on the Justice Department releasing its Epstein files is expected today. And President Trump says that the U.S. would sell F-35 jet fighters to Saudi Arabia. Caitlin McCabe hosts.
Ben here, with a Classic episode. Fellow Conspiracy Realists, way back in 2019 I asked Matt and Noel what we really know about the US Civil Rights movement. Our exploration remains relevant today: The US Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 60s sparked nationwide protests, marches and action, resulting in fundamental changes for a nation that had long touted democracy and equality abroad while oppressing vast swathes of its own citizens at home. It remains one of the most significant times in recent history, but there's another twist to the story -- half a world away, the USSR joined the movement... though its intentions for dong so were anything but altruistic.
The House votes today on whether to force the release of long-awaited Epstein files, a move pushed by a bipartisan coalition despite President Trump’s earlier efforts to stop it. A widening feud between Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene exposes growing cracks inside the MAGA movement over foreign policy and the “America First” agenda. And President Trump welcomes Saudi Arabia’s crown prince to the White House as both sides seek deeper security and economic ties.
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Today’s episode of Up First was edited by Kelsey Snell, Megan Pratz, Rebecca Rossman, Mohamad ElBardicy, and Alice Woelfle.
It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Nia Dumas and Christopher Thomas.
We get engineering support from Stacey Abbott. And our technical director is Carleigh Strange.
For the first time in 30 years, the annual U.N. conference on climate change is taking place without top government representation from the United States. China has emerged as the top dog at the summit and is poised to become the world’s supplier of green energy technology.
David Gelles and Brad Plumer explain the growing showdown between global superpowers over the future of energy.
Guest:
David Gelles, a reporter on the New York Times climate team who leads The Times’s Climate Forward newsletter.
Brad Plumer, a New York Times reporter based in Washington, covering technology and policy efforts to address global warming.
As the House prepares to vote to release the Jeffrey Epstein files, questions remain over whether the Department of Justice will release everything. President Trump declines to rule out U.S. troops in Venezuela, but says he’s open to talks with Nicolas Maduro. And a federal judge suggests "government misconduct" may have tainted the Trump administration’s case against James Comey.
