Tempers flare as Governor Pritzker joins two Democratic Governors in testimony before the House Oversight Committee. Chicago leaders brace for massive “No Kings” protest as President Trump threatens to send military troops to quell protests in Democratic cities. Reset goes behind those headlines and more in our Weekly News Recap. This week’s panelists include AXIOS Chicago reporter Carrie Shepherd, Chicago Tribune immigration reporter Laura Rodríguez Presa and Chicago Sun-Times reporter covering government and politics Mitchell Armentrout.
For a full archive of Reset interviews, head over to wbez.org/reset.
In the early hours of Friday morning, Israel pulled off a historic strike on Iran. As I record these lines, Iran is reporting a “massive explosion” in Isfahan, in a province that is home to several nuclear facilities. In Israel, where Shabbat has begun, the government has ordered all synagogues to shut down—and for citizens to remain close to bomb shelters as they brace for a retaliatory strike.
It is hard to overstate the magnitude of this operation. Israel has taken out much of Iran’s military leadership and some of its top nuclear scientists and hit nuclear facilities across the country. And it is still going. Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to do whatever it takes in order to prevent a nuclear holocaust.
Meanwhile, the X account for Iran’s military has threatened that “our response will be lethal.” And the country’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, has tweeted: “The Zionist regime has prepared for itself a bitter, painful fate, which it will definitely see.”
Donald Trump, for his part, is using this as an opening to push Iran into a nuclear deal. This is a historic juncture for the region—not just for the state of Israel, but for the West.
So last night, just as the news of these attacks broke, I sat down with former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren and former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett to discuss all of it: the strikes, what they accomplished, how Israel defied conventional wisdom and seemed to pull off the impossible, what we can expect in the days ahead, and—perhaps most importantly to many of our listeners—whether or not America is supporting Israel in its efforts.
Was there ever a time when life on earth was peaceful? Free of violence? No predators, no prey, just... vibes? Or has nature always been 'Red in Tooth and Claw'?
Have we always been eating each other?
Our listener Scott sent us on a quest to discover the origins of predators and prey, and to find out what all this ‘eat or be eaten’ stuff is really about.
Taking us back to the very dawn of life on earth, Professor Susannah Porter from the University of Santa Barbara lets Alex peer into an extraordinary world of microscopic warfare. It’s a dog-eat-dog (or, microbe-dissolve-microbe) world, with single celled organisms doing battle with each other. For billions of years, this was life on earth! Tiny, violent, and completely fascinating.
But what about bigger creatures? More complex ones - animals? Speeding forward several billion years, Alex arrives in the Ediacaran Period – a time of unusual tranquility, where strange, plant-like animals lived in relative peace. At the Natural History Museum in Oxford, UK, palaeontologist Dr Frankie Dunn shows him around.
So where did real predators come from, then? Alex is joined by Dr Imran Rahman as he ushers in one of the most extraordinary periods in Earth’s history – the magnificently named Cambrian Explosion! Here we find real predators, with teeth, claws, and impressive hunting appendages. Through the fossil record, we can see an arms race developing – as predators get more sophisticated, so does their prey. It’s ON.
Finally, Alex wonders if our own evolution, shaped as it has been by this predator-prey arms race, might have been very different without the threat of being chomped. Professor Lynne Isbell from the University of California, Davis takes Alex on a trip into our primate past, and tackles one of our most fearsome predators: snakes.
Presenter: Alex Lathbridge
Producer: Emily Knight
Series Producer: Ben Motley
On Saturday, Trump would like nothing more than images from Los Angeles of tear gas and balaclava-clad anarchists throwing bottles at Marines to complement video of himself in the stands at his military parade, saluting the troops amid a field of flags. That's part of the reason why he chose LA to federalize the Guard—home to numerous adversaries who willingly take his bait. And while tanks are going to roll through DC, wrecking its streets for the big birthday boy, Israel is going after Iran like it went after Hezbollah. Meanwhile, Kristi Noem handled the Padilla incident like a little fascist, and it only just occurred to Trump how the deportations will affect farms and hotels. Plus, a "Les Miz" correction, a 'Godfather' goof, and fighting words over The Beach Boys v. Lou Reed.
Tom Nichols joins Tim Miller for the weekend pod. show notes
Plus: Wall Street’s “fear gauge,” the VIX, leaps after Israel’s attack on Iran’s nuclear program and military leadership. And the world’s largest meatpacker makes Its NYSE debut. Zoe Kuhlkin hosts.
In the past few years, as street drug makers increasingly cut fentanyl into drugs like cocaine, there’s been a rise in overdoses among people who aren’t addicted to opioids. Nashville, in particular, has seen overdoses rise among tourists. The city has worked to get overdose reversal drugs into downtown bars and music venues. We'll learn what the uptake process was like. Also: a bond market checkup and a pullback in corporate sponsorship at Pride events.
Israel's military say they struck dozens of military targets, including nuclear targets in different areas of Iran.
Iran says the attacks by Israel are a declaration of war and there are warnings of a strong retaliatory response by Iran to the attacks which killed numerous military officials and scientists.
Also in the programme: Investigators in India have found the on-board video recorder from the Air India plane which crashed on Thursday, killing more than 240 people. We'll report from the crash site in Ahmedabad.
(Photo shows smoke rising from a damaged building in the aftermath of Israeli strikes in Tehran, Iran on 13 June 13, 2025. Credit: Majid Asgaripour/West Asia News Agency via Reuters)
