From the Statue of Liberty to the Golden Gate Bridge, and places in between like Yellowstone and the site of the Battle of Gettysburg, the National Park Service has been a point of American pride since its inception. And with a small budget and actually generating revenue, even fiscal hawks had no reason to complain. 

So why is the Trump administration cutting their budget? 

Guests:

Jon B. Jarvis,18th director of the National Parks.

Kevin Heatley, former superintendent of Crater Lake National Park, Oregon.  

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Podcast production by Ethan Oberman, Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.

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It’s hard to make money in the music industry. But if you could flood every streamer with hundreds of “original” songs without having to, you know, write or produce it yourself, there’s money there—and less for everyone else. 

Guests: 

Chris Molanphy, host of Slate’s Hit Parade podcast.

Kate Knibbs, senior writer at Wired

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In January, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Meta was moving from employing professional fact-checkers to letting its users fact-check each other. If you’ve heard that it’s going perfectly, then you, too, have been exposed to misinformation.

Guest: Geoffrey Fowler, tech columnist with the Washington Post

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Donald Trump’s never been all that committed to the truth. But experts are warning that by firing the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics and appointing loyalists across the judiciary, he’s taken his war on facts to another level. How long can he attempt to remake reality before the truth—someday, eventually, but inevitably—hits back?

Guest: David A Graham, staff writer at the Atlantic.

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Podcast production by Ethan Oberman, Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.

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More than a thousand rabbis and Jewish leaders have signed a letter calling for Israel to end “the use and threat of starvation as a weapon of war.” This New York rabbi, who has felt a connection to Israel her whole life, explains why she signed. 

Guest:  Sarah Reines, rabbi at Temple Emanu-El in Manhattan.

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Podcast production by Ethan Oberman, Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.

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How Texas redrawing its election maps could set off a gerrymandering arms race across the country—a race the Republicans are likely to win. 

Guest:  Ari Berman is a voting rights correspondent at Mother Jones. 

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Podcast production by Ethan Oberman, Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.

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Belief in democracy was, until quite recently, taken for granted in America. But what if democracy is less a static noun, and more of a dynamic ideal we (could be) working towards?

Guest:  

Osita Nwanevu, contributing editor at The New Republic, columnist at The Guardian, author of “The Right of the People: Democracy and the Case for a New American Founding.”

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Podcast production by Ethan Oberman, Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.

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OpenAI’s Sam Altman, flanked by President Trump and Softbank’s Masayoshi Son, announced a hugely ambitious investment in data centers across America to support all the artificial intelligence we’re going to be using. Months in, the project has been scaled back to a single, power-hungry data center in Ohio.

Guest: Berber Jin, reporter covering A.I. for the Wall Street Journal

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Some disputes resist an easy “good vs. evil” dynamic, but when one side calls their plans “Operation Satanique,” it’s not too hard to figure who “the baddies” are.

Guest: Dan Kois, Slate writer.

Articles mentioned in this piece:

The Last Days of the Rainbow Warrior

Why We Keep Putting Up With Martin Short

Who Killed the Segway 

This Is the Correct Way to Divide Public Bathrooms

Who Won the World Cup of Arm Folding?

Also mentioned: What Next: The Lawsuit Scaring Protesters. 

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Podcast production by Madeline Ducharme.

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A shadow app for the dating world had its data hacked and exposed, and it laid bare the perils of creating safe spaces for women online — and of relying on tech companies.

Guest: Kate Lindsay, host of Slate’s ICYMI

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