Are sports just gossip with analytics? How did a man named Matt Farley manipulate the music streaming economy? And Google’s new A.I. tool is coming for our podcasting jobs. (It's legitimately terrifying.) Plus: bird deterrents, license plates, poop songs, WAGs, Stefon Diggs, and your sister.

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We all have that person from our childhood we just knew was gonna be a star. And more than 20 years before she was a 13-time Grammy winner and a star of the new Joker movie, there was a girl visiting Pablo's all-boys high school named Stefani Germanotta, playing third-wave grunge songs in the corner. His classmate Patrick Wolf — from the band Goodnight, Texas — even asked her to sophomore semi-formal. And while Pablo was preparing for a debate tournament instead, Lady Gaga (and the Plastic Gaga Band) was born.

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The director of the Oscar-winning O.J. documentary, Ezra Edelman, has completed one of the greatest films ever made: a nine-hour epic about Prince. So why won't the artist's estate let this movie out of the vault? Pablo and New York Times critic-at-large Wesley Morris are two of the only people to have seen it. And they're finally able to reveal what they learned: about the hypothetical cancellation of an icon; Prince's actual scouting report as a basketball player; the disease of pop stardom; the cost of genius; and whether you will ever see this masterpiece, too.

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Dirty lobster sex! Shirtless Glen Powell! Emily in Compost! Do we have your attention yet? If Hurricane Helene, a litany of facts and general guilt about global warming were enough, then we would've done something by now. Enter the climate culture war. Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson — co-founder of Urban Ocean Lab, marine biologist and author of "What if We Get It Right?" — envisions the future of planet Earth as a group project for 8 billion people, in which we deploy solutions, not dystopianism. How close to paradise can we get?

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You have heard about the grocery store. And the photographs cannot be unseen. But the 1955 murder of a 14-year-old in Mississippi — a killing that sparked the Civil Rights Movement, that forever shaped America — has been criminally underreported. Until Wright Thompson, son of the Delta and sportswriter of the century, embarked upon a story about LeBron's Lakers... that became a mapping of intentionally constructed, deeply hard-wired silence, in his new instant bestseller and surrealistic people's history, The Barn.

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Donald Trump was at the Alabama-Georgia game. Tim Walz was at The Big House in Ann Arbor, ahead of tonight's VP debate between a high-school coach and an Ohio State grad. College football has always been a passport to America that will never be too woke to go broke, but now the sport itself has become a battleground state. Jane Coaston — Republican whisperer, Michigan fanatic, new host of Crooked Media's "What a Day" podcast — considers whether the presidency might be decided by a disconnect between two formerly allied institutions. And an emerging strain of influencer conservatism.

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Why are men so weird about celebrating their own birthdays? The ultramarathon wars waged on Wikipedia. And how former UNLV QB Matthew Sluka has weaponized college football’s redshirt system in the NIL era. Plus: doljabis, parenting advice, and Pablo vs. Mina.

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The existential dread of going to work. The self-doubt born of 70,000 boos. The anxiety crank. The loneliness. There is no pressure quite like the expectations placed upon the top pick. And Alex Smith — 14-year NFL QB, ESPN analyst, and host of the new podcast Glue Guys — would know: He had one of the worst rookie seasons in football history. So Alex helps Pablo play armchair psychologist on the abject terror of being Bryce Young, Trevor Lawrence and Caleb Williams, with lessons for every leader on how to own your vulnerability — and develop the next Patrick Mahomes. Even if the paparazzi aren't watching you stretch every morning.

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Two NASA astronauts are in the midst of an extended, headline-grabbing, eight-month stay in orbit. So we turned to Terry Virts, former commander of the International Space Station, as our official PTFO Outer Space Correspondent. Because he was stranded there for 200 days after his cargo ship blew up — low on underwear, polo shirts and his beloved borscht. Turns out, there are way worse places to be than staring out a Russian dorm-room window while watching bombs, auroras, typhoons and the very essence of human nature, from 250 miles up. Also: how to pee, dream and listen to Hans Zimmer without gravity. (Hint: Do not raw-dog the universe.)

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Before he came down the golden escalator, Donald Trump was desperate to own a pro-football franchise on the cheap. So he dispatched a political emissary with a mission for five mischievous super-fans: ban Bon Jovi from Buffalo, so that Trump could purchase the Bills instead of him. Correspondent Noah Shachtman travels to an alternate universe where, associates say, Trump would have occupied the owner's box instead of the Oval Office — and finds evidence, on a literal bridge of the American divide, that we're still halfway there.

Read the companion article at Rolling Stone:

Is Trump's Whole Political Career Just a Cockeyed Revenge Plot Against the NFL?

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