He was, after all, the eldest boy. The family drama that inspired HBO’s Succession ended this week with a settlement that ensures Rupert Murdoch’s conservative media conglomerate will pass to his oldest and most conservative son, Lachlan.

The Atlantic staff writer McKay Coppins wrote about the Murdoch succession saga for The Atlantic’s April cover story, “Growing Up Murdoch.” He joins Radio Atlantic to share insights from his months of reporting on the family and what he thinks now that the real-life Succession has ended.

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As Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. works to dismantle the national vaccine infrastructure, states have started going their own way. Governors in California, Washington State, and Oregon said they intend to coordinate on vaccine policies. Florida’s surgeon general went in the opposite direction, announcing a plan to end all state vaccine mandates, which he compared to “slavery.” We talk to the Atlantic science writer Katie Wu about how Kennedy’s decisions are affecting the vaccine pipeline and how difficult it will be to rebuild. We also talk about what you, the patient, should do in an atmosphere where the federal government, long the authority on vaccines, is no longer reliable.

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President Donald Trump recently deployed the National Guard to Washington, D.C., and has talked about federalizing the Guard in other cities across the country. In this episode of Radio Atlantic we talk to Atlantic staff writers Quinta Jurecic and Nick Miroff about which legal barriers might hinder Trump from using the military this way, how he might try to push past the courts, and what role immigration enforcement is playing in the president’s plans. 

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There was so much symbolism in President Donald Trump’s two most recent international summits—in Alaska last week with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and then at the White House this week with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. In this episode, we talk with Anne Applebaum, who has been studying Ukraine and Russia for decades and understands their leaders’ underlying motivations. And we speak with politics and national-security writer Vivian Salama, who knows what Trump’s limitations are and explains what the next possible moves could be.

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In July, President Donald Trump issued an executive order calling for an expansion of involuntary commitment—forcing people into treatment facilities—in response to the homelessness crisis. San Francisco has been attempting such an expansion for the past 19 months. What can the rest of the country learn from California? 

This is the final episode in a three-part series from Radio Atlantic, No Easy Fix, about homelessness and addiction in San Francisco.

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At the onset of the AIDS crisis in the early 1980s, U.S. cities began trying new ways to stop the spread of infection among drug users. Ideas that were first seen as radical, such as needle exchanges, quickly caught on—because they worked. San Francisco is one of the first places where such programs took root. Now it’s one of the places questioning whether they should still exist.

This is the second episode of a new three-part miniseries from Radio Atlantic, No Easy Fix, about what it takes to escape one’s demons. 

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For the past five years, American cities have tried—and often failed—to meaningfully address worsening homelessness and addiction. 

In San Francisco, a city that has become emblematic of these crises, a new mayor has pledged to prioritize the problem. And one man, living on the street and struggling with addiction, is ready to make a change.

This is the first episode of a new three-part miniseries from Radio Atlantic, No Easy Fix, about what it takes to escape one’s demons. 

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The Trump administration is again going after undocumented minors—but their approach is different than it was during his first presidency. 

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Read more from Nick Miroff.

Read Stephanie McCrummen’s story: The Message Is ‘We Can Take Your Children’

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Donald Trump and his Department of Justice kicked the conspiracy-theory beehive last week when they rescinded previous promises to make public the government’s secret files on Jeffrey Epstein, the billionaire financier and convicted sex offender charged with the sex trafficking of minors. The Atlantic’s executive editor, Adrienne LaFrance, speaks with the journalist who broke the Epstein story in 2018. Julie K. Brown is an investigative reporter for the Miami Herald and author of the book Perversion of Justice: The Jeffrey Epstein Story. They discuss the significance of Trump’s reversal, the information that’s still hidden from the public, and what the latest revelations mean for Epstein’s hundreds of victims. 

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In the United States and many other Western countries, the decision to have children or not is sometimes framed as a political affiliation: You’re either in league with conservative pronatalists, or you’re making the ultimate personal sacrifice to reduce your carbon footprint. But the declining global birth rate is a fact that defies politics. Dean Spears, a co-author of the new book After the Spike: Population, Progress, and the Case for People, hopes to start a conversation about what a depopulated future might look like, why we should try to avoid it, and how to make the case for more people without undoing social progress. 

Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at theAtlantic.com/listener.

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