News Items Podcast with John Ellis
110 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 2 years ago - ★★★★ - 130 ratingsNinety percent of the news out there tells you nothing about where the world is going — ten percent of it tells you everything. Every afternoon on the News Items Podcast with John Ellis, John and Rebecca Darst focus on that ten percent — news that’s interesting, important or both. The podcast is based on John Ellis’ News Items, an email newsletter that goes out to organizations including the Council on Foreign Relations, Samsung Next, and the Wall Street Journal. Tune in every Monday through Thursday afternoon to hear decades of journalistic experience packed into 20 or so minutes of insight, plus guest interviews on finance, U.S. politics, foreign affairs, science and technology.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Episodes
‘So Close to the Edge’: Adam Tooze on the Pandemic Economy
September 16, 2021 21:54 - 42 minutes - 39.2 MBJohn interviews Adam Tooze, a historian, the author of five books on economic history, and a professor at Columbia University, where he is the director of the interdisciplinary European Institute. Adam also writes a newsletter, “Chartbook,” which in its own words, reports on "economic data, images, stories that matter." Adam’s two latest books deal with the major economic crises of the past two decades. “Crashed” looks back at the global financial crisis of 2007 and 2008, and explains both ...
Steve Coll on the Taliban’s Return to Power
September 15, 2021 21:39 - 28 minutes - 26.4 MBJohn interviews Steve Coll, a staff writer at The New Yorker, the dean of the Columbia Journalism School, the author of eight books, and a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize. Between 1989 and 1992, he worked as The Washington Post's South Asia bureau chief. That experience ultimately led him to write two books on Afghanistan and Pakistan (with a third on the way). The first, “Ghost Wars,” won a Pulitzer Prize in 2005. It chronicles the C.I.A.'s secret wars in Afghanistan and how these ...
From Kabul to Oregon: Jeffrey Stern on Reporting the World
September 14, 2021 22:30 - 21 minutes - 20 MBJohn interviews Jeffrey Stern. An award-winning journalist and the author of three books, Jeffrey originally started his career as a foreign correspondent in Afghanistan. In 2018, his book “The 15:17 to Paris” was adapted into a film by Clint Eastwood, and in 2019, he won the Overseas Press Club award for best human rights reporting in any medium and Amnesty International’s USA Media Award in the international news category. John talks to Jeffrey about how he became a writer; his first book...
Why Spy Novels Matter, with Joseph Kanon
September 09, 2021 21:46 - 27 minutes - 25.1 MBJohn interviews Joseph Kanon, a former publishing executive who became a bestselling author in his 50s. Joseph’s spy novels take place in the aftermath of World War II and the Cold War that followed. He published his debut novel, “Los Alamos,” in 1997, and the story of a murder set against the backdrop of the Manhattan Project won the Edgar Award for best first novel. His third novel, “The Good German,” was adapted to the big screen by director Steven Soderbergh and starred George Clooney an...
How A.I. Can Help Us Fight Climate Change
September 08, 2021 21:02 - 22 minutes - 20.8 MBJohn interviews Priya Donti, a Ph.D. student in computer science at Carnegie Mellon University. She is also the co-founder and chair of Climate Change A.I., an organization working at the intersection of climate science and machine learning. Priya’s goal is to use machine learning to analyze, slow, and adapt to climate change. This could include optimizing pollutive supply chains, improving climate models, and helping researchers create next-generation batteries. John and Priya talk about ...
Why Big Tech Won’t Get Into the News Business, with Josh Tyrangiel
September 07, 2021 22:09 - 23 minutes - 21.5 MBJohn interviews journalist Josh Tyrangiel. After quickly rising through the ranks at Time Magazine, Josh became the editor of Bloomberg Businessweek and then the executive vice president of news at Vice Media. There, he launched the Peabody Award and Emmy Award-winning “Vice News Tonight.” Last year, Josh joined Eden Productions, as a development executive in charge of documentaries. John talks to Josh about his career, the future of the news business, and what makes for a good podcast. H...
‘Like Cellophane on Fire’: Joe Klein on the Fall of Afghanistan
September 02, 2021 22:35 - 44 minutes - 41 MBJohn interviews Joe Klein, an award-winning journalist who wrote for Time, Newsweek, The New Yorker, and New York Magazine, among others, and the author of seven books, including the bestselling “Primary Colors.” John and Joe discuss Afghanistan’s fate; radical centrism; how the news media has changed; and With Honor, a political organization Joe works with to help elect military veterans to Congress. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
How Neural Networks Changed the Face of A.I.
September 01, 2021 21:55 - 27 minutes - 25.2 MBJohn interviews Cade Metz, a technology correspondent at The New York Times and the author of “Genius Makers,” a book on artificial intelligence. The book focuses on neural networks, an approach whereby, given enough data, A.I. can get better at specific tasks — like recognizing speech or images — all on its own. The idea behind neural networks dates to the ‘40s and ‘50s, but it was largely abandoned for decades. Today, a few dogged researchers, along with the tech giants that act as the fie...
M.L.B. Chief Rob Manfred on What’s Next for Baseball
August 31, 2021 21:41 - 24 minutes - 22.8 MBJohn interviews Major League Baseball’s commissioner, Rob Manfred. Before joining the MLB in 1998, in part to oversee labor relations, Rob worked for the league as a lawyer at the firm Morgan Lewis. “I was lucky enough literally to get assigned to Major League Baseball work,” Rob says. “I caught a real break there.” In 2014 the league’s 30 owners elected him to lead the MLB as the tenth commissioner in its history. John and Rob talk about the MLB’s efforts to reach younger, cable-cutting ...
‘Brain on Fire’: How Susannah Cahalan Reported On Her Own Illness
August 26, 2021 22:00 - 25 minutes - 23.7 MBJohn interviews Susannah Cahalan, author of the bestselling memoir “Brain on Fire.” In 2009, Susannah’s reporting career at the New York Post was derailed by a frightening set of symptoms. She grew paranoid, lost touch with reality, and alienated those around her with aggressive, seemingly inexplicable behavior. This culminated in multiple seizures, a hospital stay, and a diagnosis of anti-NMDA-receptor autoimmune encephalitis — Susannah’s body was essentially attacking her own brain. Whil...
How Tesla (Almost) Failed to Start, with Tim Higgins
August 25, 2021 21:35 - 24 minutes - 22.8 MBJohn interviews Tim Higgins. Tim is a tech reporter at The Wall Street Journal, a regular CNBC contributor, and the author of “Power Play: Tesla, Elon Musk, and the Bet of the Century.” The book chronicles Tesla’s multiple near-death experiences and shows how it came to symbolize the electric car and, ultimately, grew into the largest automaker in the world by market value. However, Tim says, “this isn't the story of Elon Musk,” and the book reports on many of the other figures that give T...
When A.I. Recognizes Emotion, with Rosalind Picard
August 24, 2021 21:01 - 27 minutes - 25.4 MBJohn interviews A.I. scientist Rosalind Picard. Rosalind is a pioneer in the field of affective computing, the co-founder of two companies at the forefront of A.I., Affectica and Empatica, and the founder and director of the affective computing research group at the MIT Media Lab. Affective computing aims to close the emotional gap between computers and their users. As Rosalind wrote in her book “Affective Computing,” published in 1997, “if we want computers to be genuinely intelligent, to...
The Case Against Ghislaine Maxwell, with Lisa Bryant
August 19, 2021 21:55 - 19 minutes - 18.1 MBJohn interviews Lisa Bryant, the director and executive producer of the Netflix docuseries “Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich.” In the second episode of this two-part conversation, John and Lisa discuss Epstein’s suspicious death in a jail cell in 2019, as he awaited trial — and the curious story of his alleged co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell, who is set to go on trial in November. Part one of the conversation aired yesterday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
How Jeffrey Epstein Got ‘Filthy Rich,’ with Lisa Bryant
August 18, 2021 22:10 - 20 minutes - 18.8 MBJohn interviews Lisa Bryant, the director and executive producer of the Netflix docuseries “Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich.” In the first episode of this two-part conversation, John and Lisa discuss the making of the series; Epstein’s background and wealth; and how he rubbed elbows with (and ensnared) powerful people. John also asks Lisa about Epstein’s first conviction in 2008, and how a “sweetheart deal” allowed him to step out of jail for 12 hours a day, six days a week. Part two of the c...
‘Inevitable’: Gayle Tzemach Lemmon on the US' Afghan Exit
August 17, 2021 21:57 - 25 minutes - 23.3 MBJohn interviews Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, a bestselling author and an adjunct senior fellow for women and foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. John and Gayle discuss her newest book, “The Daughters of Kobani,” which tells the story of the all-female Kurdish militia that helped defeat ISIS in Syria. They also talk about Afghanistan, and what the Taliban’s victory could mean for both the Biden administration and Afghanistan's neighbors. (This interview was conducted before the fall...
On the Origins of the Coronavirus, with Donald McNeil
August 12, 2021 21:37 - 23 minutes - 21.3 MBJohn interviews award-winning journalist Donald G. McNeil Jr. In this, the second half of a two-part interview, John and Donald talk about the early days of the pandemic and the evidence, regarding the origins of the virus, behind the animal-to-human transmission theory versus the lab leak theory. If you haven’t heard part one, make sure to go back and listen to John and Donald discuss the Biden administration’s response, the Delta variant, and the financial incentives behind the anti-vacci...
Time for a Vaccine Mandate, with Donald McNeil
August 11, 2021 22:08 - 20 minutes - 18.8 MBJohn interviews award-winning journalist Donald G. McNeil Jr. about a recent essay, published in Medium, where he excoriates the Biden administration's handling of the pandemic. In part one of this two-part interview, John and Donald discuss the administration’s aforementioned stumbles; the financial incentives motivating the leaders of the anti-vaccine movement; and the deadly risks posed by the Delta variant, as tens of millions of unvaccinated children return to school. Make sure to tune...
How Substack Breaks Through the Attention Economy
August 10, 2021 21:17 - 23 minutes - 21.8 MBJohn interviews Hamish McKenzie, one of the co-founders of Substack. Since its start in 2017, the company has managed to upend the relationship between journalists and news outlets. A good number of prominent writers, including Anne Helen Peterson, Glenn Greenwald, Andrew Sullivan, Matt Yglesias — and John Ellis himself — have started newsletters on Substack, and some of them make a good deal more money than they did when they were employed at traditional outlets. Of course, the company has...
How Voice Profiling Will Revolutionize Health Care, with Rita Singh
August 09, 2021 23:23 - 23 minutes - 21.2 MBJohn interviews Rita Singh: a pioneer in the emerging field of voice profiling, the author of “Profiling Humans from Their Voice,” and an associate research professor at Carnegie Mellon University. Rita and her team are developing technology that can analyze a human voice signal and unlock a wealth of information about its owner. With only a short voice recording, researchers can make startlingly accurate deductions about a person’s skeletal structure, general appearance, age, and even their...
We're on the Verge of Guiding Our Own Evolution, with Jane Metcalfe
August 06, 2021 21:23 - 43 minutes - 39.4 MBJohn interviews Jane Metcalfe, the former president and co-founder of Wired magazine, about her fascinating career: from starting the “Rolling Stone of technology,” to co-founding a chocolate factory, and most recently, founding Neo.life. Metcalfe describes it as a digital media company that reports on how “to apply engineering to human biology.” With this new venture, she makes the case for a new field she calls neobiology. It is, in her words, “the next stage of the digital revolution,” or...
Jim Cramer of Mad Money on Life, China, and Jerome Powell
August 05, 2021 21:19 - 48 minutes - 44.7 MBJohn interviews the legendary Jim Cramer, host of CNBC’s “Mad Money with Jim Cramer” for the past 16 years, co-host of “Squawk on the Street,” and co-founder of the financial news site TheStreet. John and Jim have a fun and freewheeling conversation about everything from Cramer’s early days as local reporter in California, to China’s ambitions regarding Taiwan, and why he thinks Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is an unsung hero of the left. This is a lightly edited rerun of the intervie...
Andrew Sullivan on the Rise of the Woke
August 04, 2021 22:16 - 27 minutes - 25.2 MBJohn interviews Andrew Sullivan, the noted British-American writer and podcaster, as well as the author of the forthcoming collection “Out on a Limb: Selected Writing, 1989–2021.” Named acting editor of The New Republic, at only 26, he quickly established himself as one of America’s leading public intellectuals. In 1989, he wrote a piece titled, “Here Comes The Groom: A (conservative) case for gay marriage.” That headline gives a glimpse into his heterodox style of thinking. As further proof...
Running America’s Busiest Port During COVID, with Gene Seroka
August 03, 2021 21:36 - 24 minutes - 22.5 MBJohn interviews Gene Seroka, the executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, in the midst of a pandemic import boom and global supply chain woes. The two discuss how Seroka’s experience working in Shanghai during the 2002-2004 SARS outbreak informed his early handling of COVID-19 at what is, by some measures, the busiest port in North America. They also talk about how the port battles cybersecurity threats; the effect pandemic buying has had on global supply chains; and the crucial role th...
‘Tinkering with the Building Blocks of Life,’ with Jane Metcalfe
August 02, 2021 21:28 - 28 minutes - 26.4 MBJohn interviews Jane Metcalfe, the former president and cofounder of Wired magazine, about her fascinating career: from cofounding Wired, to cofounding a chocolate factory, and most recently, founding Neo.life. As Jane tells John, Neo.life is an online magazine about “engineering life,” or, “what happens when you bring an engineering mindset to biology.” It covers the most promising research in genomics, synthetic biology, 3-D printing and artificial intelligence, and it makes the case for a ...
Why Xi Jinping Is Hammering One Industry After Another
July 29, 2021 22:16 - 30 minutes - 28.1 MBJohn interviews Diana Choyleva, the founder of Enodo Economics – a macroeconomic and political forecasting company focused on China. Choyleva grew up in communist Bulgaria, and her personal experience living under a command economy, combined with her Western education in market economics, give her a unique perspective on China. In this conversation with John, Choyleva explains China's debt problems; why President Xi Jinping is prioritizing economic control over short-term growth; and the stra...
Four Illusions about Biden, Trump and 2024
July 28, 2021 22:00 - 22 minutes - 20.8 MBScience and tech headlines: A South Korean study has found that one shot of the AstraZeneca vaccine plus another of the Pfizer vaccine produces more antibodies than getting the AstraZeneca vaccine alone. Quantum computing startup PsiQuantum has raised $450 million in a series D round. It plans to develop a quantum computer using photons to store information. News items: A congressional panel urged US corporations to pull their sponsorships of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics. John expl...
How Big Business Can Help Beat Climate Change with Mark Tercek
July 27, 2021 22:44 - 26 minutes - 23.9 MBJohn interviews Mark Tercek, a former partner at Goldman Sachs who left the world of finance to become the CEO of The Nature Conservancy (TNC) – the world’s largest environmental nonprofit organization. During his 11 years at TNC, the organization raised over $7 billion dollars to fight climate change and protect land and water around the world. Tercek is also the author of “Nature’s Fortune: How Business and Society Thrive by Investing in Nature.” John and Mark discuss the move from invest...
Will the Delta Variant Send Us Back Into Lockdown?
July 26, 2021 21:29 - 20 minutes - 18.5 MBScience and tech headlines: A consortium of 99 scientists has completed the map of the human genome, discovering more than 2,000 new genes in the process. Autonomous truck startups brought in more than $5 billion in funding in the first five months of 2021. John and Rebecca talk about the promise of self-driving semis. News items: Los Angeles County reinstated mask mandates and social distancing after official health reports found that 20% of new infections were in people who were vacci...
How to Rebuild After Losing a $6 Billion Business
July 22, 2021 22:02 - 27 minutes - 24.9 MBIn the first of a series of interviews with entrepreneurs, John speaks to Jonathan Bush. He is the CEO of Zus Health, a health-tech startup that aims to become the “Build-A-Bear” of digital health platforms for health care providers; the former CEO of Athenahealth; and John Ellis’ first cousin. Bush grew Athenahealth from a small startup in his basement into a public company with a $6 billion market capitalization and 5,000 employees. He and John talk about that journey, and how he came back ...
The Story Behind News Items
July 21, 2021 21:53 - 22 minutesIn this special episode, host John Ellis explains how he developed the newsletter that forms the basis of the podcast, and how it evolved – from its start as a 2016 campaign newsletter for employees at Fox Business; to a morning newsletter for The Wall Street Journal CEO Council; to an independent newsletter published on Substack; to of course, a podcast. John also answers some of the questions he gets most frequently from readers and listeners, including how many people work on the newslette...
We're Still Not Talking About Climate Change Enough
July 20, 2021 21:44 - 29 minutes - 26.8 MBJohn interviews Alice Hill, senior fellow for energy and the environment at the Council on Foreign Relations; a former special assistant to President Obama; and author of the upcoming book, The Fight for Climate After COVID-19. Hill talks about how adapting communities to extreme and changing weather is just as important as lowering global carbon emissions. For that, Hill argues, the Biden administration ought to draw a national resilience plan. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for mo...
$16 Trillion and Counting: The Index Fund Turns 50 Years Old
July 19, 2021 22:25 - 22 minutes - 20.9 MBScience and tech headlines: England ended all pandemic-related safety restrictions today. The British tabloids are calling it “Freedom Day,” but Rebecca and John don't see it quite the same way. China was the only country to see continued growth in robotics in 2020. News items: Floods in Germany have killed 200 people and hundreds more are still missing. John and Rebecca discuss how the tragedy, and the larger specter of climate change, could influence Germany’s upcoming elections. ...
What to Make of ‘the War on Terror’
July 15, 2021 20:57 - 25 minutes - 23.3 MBJohn interviews General (Retired) Russell Howard, former US Army Commander and founding director of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. John asks Howard about whether “the War on Terror” is won and Afghanistan’s fate as US soldiers leave the country. He and John also discuss the repercussions on neighboring nations like Iran, Pakistan, and even China, as well as the state of three major terrorist organizations — ISIS, Al Qaeda, and Hezbollah. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy...
France Takes on Google & the FTC Takes on Amazon
July 14, 2021 21:30 - 26 minutes - 24.3 MBScience and tech headlines:The CEO of BioNTech, Ugur Sahin, says vaccine booster shots are critical to beating the pandemic. Apple anticipates a jump in demand for its next line of iPhones, as evidenced by its order to manufacture 90 million of them. News items: REvil, the Russian hacking group responsible for recent cyber attacks on JBS Foods and other companies, went offline on Tuesday. Rebecca asks John who he thinks is behind the shutdown — Biden, Putin, or the hackers themselves? P...
What’s Next for Haiti?
July 13, 2021 21:07 - 23 minutes - 21.3 MBJohn interviews Amy Wilentz, a journalist; author; professor at the University of California, Irvine; and an expert on Haiti. Wilentz describes the situation after last week’s assassination of President Jovenel Moïse. The two also discuss the role of gangs in Haiti; Taiwanese interest in the country; and what happens next. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Why J.D. Vance Terrifies Democrats
July 12, 2021 21:53 - 24 minutes - 22.9 MBScience and tech headlines: Chinese scientists have drawn up plans for a fleet of rockets that could push a potentially Earth-bound asteroid off course. Waters near areas with high levels of amphetamine use can be polluted by trace methamphetamines, and Czech researchers have found that fish can grow addicted to it. The drug reduces their overall activity and shows up in their brain tissue. News items: England’s “Freedom Day” from COVID restrictions, set for July 19, (and amidst a surg...
Introducing: The Recount Daily Pod
July 06, 2021 04:00 - 1 minute - 3.64 MBEvery morning on The Recount Daily Pod, host journalist Reena Ninan will break down the most important news of the day, both domestically and abroad. In 5 minutes or less, you’ll walk away feeling smarter and more in sync with the world. Then, tune in for an interview with journalists who are on the forefront of the stories that affect us all. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
SPECIAL: ‘A Full-Fledged Economic Cold War’ with David Barboza
July 02, 2021 21:00 - 47 minutes - 43.7 MBJohn interviews David Barboza, the Pulitzer Prize-winning co-founder of the digital newsmagazine The Wire China. They discuss how the country has changed in the last few decades; why predictions of China’s economic collapse never pan out; the potential for war over Taiwan; and how the Chinese Communist Party lost the international community’s trust. This is a longer, lightly edited version of an interview that ran on Thursday, June 17. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more infor...
SPECIAL: ‘A Full-Fledged Economic Cold War’ with David Barboza
July 02, 2021 21:00 - 53 minutesJohn interviews David Barboza, the Pulitzer Prize-winning co-founder of the digital newsmagazine The Wire China. They discuss how the country has changed in the last few decades; why predictions of China’s economic collapse never pan out; the potential for war over Taiwan; and how the Chinese Communist Party lost the international community’s trust. This is a longer, lightly edited version of an interview that ran on Thursday, June 17. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartp...
Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman on the Red-Hot Housing Market
July 01, 2021 20:53 - 26 minutes - 23.9 MBRebecca interviews Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman on the housing market frenzy. They discuss the pandemic’s impact on buyers and sellers; how remote work could revitalize middle America; and the labor and lumber shortages contributing to a lack of inventory. Plus, Glenn offers his top home buying tip. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Japan’s Toughest Olympic Event? Public Health
June 30, 2021 20:25 - 26 minutes - 23.9 MBJohn interviews Sheila Smith, a senior fellow on Japan studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. They discuss the successes and failures of Abenomics, the arc of the pandemic in Japan, and the tricky political and public health considerations behind hosting an Olympics during a global crisis. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Resisting the Resistance with The WSJ’s Gerard Baker
June 29, 2021 21:40 - 27 minutes - 25.5 MBJohn interviews Gerard Baker, editor-at-large of The Wall Street Journal (and its former editor-in-chief) on his rise to the top of the paper. They discuss what it was like to run the newsroom during the Trump presidency and the era of #Resistance journalism. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Why China Is Just as Polarized As the US
June 28, 2021 20:53 - 25 minutes - 23.6 MBJohn interviews Elizabeth Economy, a senior fellow for China studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. They talk about China’s political history, Xi Jinping’s rise to power and the country’s not-so-unified front. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
How the GOP Became the Trump Party, with The WSJ’s Gerald Seib
June 24, 2021 22:25 - 29 minutes - 27.4 MBJohn interviews Gerald Seib, executive Washington editor of The Wall Street Journal, and the author of "We Should Have Seen It Coming: From Reagan to Trump—A Front-Row Seat to a Political Revolution." They talk about the evolution of populism within the GOP, how party leadership misread its base on immigration, and what’s next for Republicans in 2022 and beyond. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Oh, Canada: Always Whining about American Cultural Imperialism
June 23, 2021 21:36 - 22 minutes - 20.3 MBScience and tech headlines: Researchers have mapped in detail how a compound modeled on a natural microorganism produces hydrogen. One distant but possible application: clean energy. mRNA vaccines are one thing, but the next medical revolution could rely on proteins (like parts of the coronavirus spike) created entirely in labs rather than found in nature. News items: COVID-19 news: the Delta Plus variant could cause a third wave in India. The original Delta variant is 50% more transmis...
Where Is El Chapo’s Money? With Phoebe Eaton
June 22, 2021 21:31 - 22 minutes - 20.5 MBJohn interviews investigative journalist Phoebe Eaton about her book, “In the Thrall of the Mountain King: The Secret History of El Chapo, the World's Most Notorious Narco.” Phoebe tells John about meeting the drug kingpin’s mother in Culiacán – and how she got her to open up by asking about the secretive religious traditions practiced by the family. She also explains why pilots are venerated in Culiacán’s narco culture; how drug bosses use straw owners to shield their earnings from seizure; ...
How Biden Became a China Hawk
June 21, 2021 21:38 - 24 minutes - 22.4 MBScience and tech headlines: Google’s internet browser, Chrome, will block cookies starting in early 2022. John and Rebecca discuss the implications. Cuba’s three-jab Soberana 2 vaccine has qualified for approval from the WHO, giving the world one more tool in the fight against COVID-19. News items: BuzzFeed is negotiating the purchase of Complex Networks, and it has plans to merge with a SPAC and go public soon. But it might all be for naught – John explains why he thinks most digita...
Sen. Tom Cotton Part II
June 18, 2021 21:00 - 20 minutes - 19.1 MBIn the second half of John’s interview with Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), they talk about what it was like to live through the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021; Biden’s goals in office; and the Senator’s recent talks with former President Donald Trump. This is a follow up episode to part I of John’s interview with the Senator that aired on Tuesday, June 15th. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Is Xi Jinping President for Life? with David Barboza
June 17, 2021 21:50 - 23 minutes - 21.7 MBJohn interviews David Barboza, former Shanghai bureau chief at the New York Times and co-founder of The Wire China. The two discuss China’s leverage on the global economy; the geopolitics of Taiwan; and what’s changed since Barboza first arrived in China in 2004. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Perpetually Unregulated Crypto Is a Pipe Dream
June 16, 2021 21:48 - 21 minutes - 19.6 MBScience and tech headlines: There are roughly a million animal and plant species at risk of extinction. A special section in The Economist argues biodiversity loss is a threat on par with climate change. A leading Arctic researcher warns that irreversible global warming may already be upon us. News Items: Fox Corp. announced a $100 million bet on NFTs, or Non-Fungible Tokens. Rebecca and John explain why they like the move. American regulators are anxious about the $100+ billion mark...