A.I-pocalypse Now?
After OpenAI agents hacked a rival company this summer, the word from Silicon Valley was “That’s it! They’re almost ready to kill us all!” B...
Radio and PodcastLive Radio & Podcasts
News & Politics
What Next | Daily News and Analysis
The problem with the news right now? It’s everywhere. And each day, it can feel like we’re all just mindlessly scrolling. It’s why we created What Next. This short daily show is here to help...
Episodes
20 of 2,515 episodes
The 9/11 Panopticon
America didn’t start down the path to a president who is unaccountable to even the Constitution under Trump. He’s the culmination of a chang...
Did ICE Drive Him to His Death?
Thousands of immigrants who were in America legally were suddenly rendered unemployable and subject to deportation after the Supreme Court r...
Dems Can Beat MAGA. Here’s How.
The stage is set for the president’s party to take a real shellacking in this year’s midterm elections—that is, if the Democrats can put tog...
Question Everything: The Sunscreen Paradox
While the What Next team enjoys the holiday, hear this episode from our friends at Question Everything . Mary will be back in the feed with...
Meta Settled. Is it a "Reckoning?"
Does Meta’s $17 billion (give or take) settlement address people’s concerns about social media and its impact on teenagers… or is it already...
ICE Allegedly Shot Someone. Texas Let Him Go
Extraditing someone who was arrested in one state for a crime committed in another state is an extremely routine process—or at least it was....
Is Scott Bessent in Over His Head?
Inflation is up, borrowing is up, debt is rising. If the bond market is offering a review of the new US Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, i...
The WNBA's Caught in the Culture Wars
The WNBA is enjoying its most profitable and popular season in league history. At the same time, it’s become another front in the culture wa...
Can I Still Vote By Mail?
Donald Trump, Supreme Court justices, states, and even the Post Office are all trading legal salvos over mail-in voting. Where does it stand...
Off-the-Record: Friends Don’t Let Friends Ruin Vacation
The idea of a big ol’ group of friends taking a vacation sounds so fun…in theory. In practice, though, the museum friends and the beach frie...
A.I. Enshittifies Everything (Still)
Through stealing your job or simply tanking the stock market—whichever comes first—the rise of artificial intelligence (companies) is a very...
How to Lose Wars and Tank the Economy
From the trade war with Canada to the literal war with Iran, US foreign policy seems to have become “flail at whatever Trump says to flail a...
The A.I. Populist
Intertwined with many Americans’ contempt for data centers is their suspicion of artificial intelligence itself, which is being used to spy...
What Lindsay Clancy Truthers Are Missing
As the trial of Lindsay Clancy over the murder of her three children goes into closing arguments this week, the reactions to the case reveal...
The Progressive Case for Midterms Optimism
Since losing the 2024 presidential election, Democrats have been doing a lot of finger pointing. But with the midterms this fall, it’s time...
Off the Record: We Don’t Talk About Natalie
Nobody objected to Jon Ossoff calling the president disinterested in doing his job. But an off-hand mention of Trump’s “human printer”? That...
Can the Midterms Withstand Prediction Markets?
Hundreds of millions of dollars, desperation for insider info, fury and accusations of conspiracy when it doesn’t go your way—is this gambli...
How Islamophobia Got Even Worse
Islamophobia has never gone away. And while it has been wielded as an electoral strategy against Zohran Mamdani, Abdul El-Sayed and even Bar...
Is Tech Dismantling Democracy?
Our Silicon Valley overlords, as they’ll tell you, aren’t huge fans of liberal democracy—and their products that we’ve integrated into our l...