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Chaos Town has been documenting the wildest parts of Portland for a year now. From stripper yoga to the 'penis bush lady' to sideshows – and now, the best look at what is truly happening in Portland's $4m graffiti war.

if you haven't already watched their documentary, do that first: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7npnxP_6poA

In the doc, Chaos Town embedded with an up-and-coming writer rappelling off structures to make a name for themselves, a businessman with graffiti cleanup contracts, a veteran vandal in his secret stash spot with $20k+ in spray paint, and an 84-year-old man taking matters into his own hands – all in an attempt to understand what is really behind the ‘graffiti war’ that nobody appears to be winning.

Cruz on camera, Cam on production and edit, and Jameson as host.

Prisons are constantly going on lockdown because of staff shortages, which means that prisoners can't use the phones. This makes tablet computers sold to incarcerated people are all the more crucial to let their loved ones on the outside know they are safe – but Gaby Caplan has discovered in her reporting for WIRED that federal prisons nationwide seem to have enacted a policy of disabling the messaging functions.

Why should we care? Gaby breaks it down.

Read Gaby's piece here:

https://www.wired.com/story/electronic-tablets-in-federal-prisons-chat-apps-disabled/

How do you make a documentary about Gaza … when they won't let you into Gaza? A mix of OSINT, protests, and Whatsapp calls with a journalist trapped in Rafah.

Seb Walker (former DC Bureau Chief of VICE News) hosted a documentary called A Hidden War, from Scripps News and Bellingcat.

And yes, we talk about Kendrick v Lamar (a tiny bit), but mostly Macklemore.

We get into what it was like to talk to 'both sides' of the war, and what this might mean for US elections at home.

A Hidden War Documentary:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nz9q8dsW9Qg

Macklemore's song 'Hind's Hall':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmg6vbt04TY

Hind Hassan's post on the Pulitzer:

https://www.instagram.com/p/C6qie2UMxCP/?img_index=1

The campus protests are a recent news obsession in the US. But did you hear when a couple students (and former Israel Defense Force members) allegedly sprayed a chemical that sent a number of protesters to the hospital?

This was back in January, but it took AJ+ over two months to finally put out a report. There's a reason for that, which we get into in the podcast. This is the definitive account of the incident – at least, until the police say otherwise.

The minidoc we are referencing* :

Pro-Palestine Students Face Alleged Chemical Attack At Columbia University

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2vNJOQfDmI

Note that this episode only plays parts of the AJ+ report, and if you only listen to this, you're definitely not getting the full picture – including some pretty important caveats about the allegations (including the fact that much of this is nearly impossible to confirm, and the statements from the university). For the full picture, you definitely want to see the full thing. So definitely check that link above.

Also, there's this 404 article:

Bike Lock NYPD Insists Is 'Industrial' Protest Tool Is a Normal Lock Recommended by Columbia University

https://www.404media.co/nypd-bike-lock-chain-kryptonite-columbia-university-protests/

Anna Kook is a producer at AJ+ [@_annakook]

Mustafa Mirza is a freelance producer and photographer [@moosezafa]

As respected sports shows like HBO’s Real Sports die, and ESPN and Sports Illustrated are continually gutted, a new form of sports coverage is rising: shows run by the athletes themselves. Is this a bad thing? Not necessarily, but there are some caveats.

This session’s guest is Joshua Hersh, former correspondent and senior producer at VICE News, and current editor at Columbia Journalism Review.

You can see his article here at: https://www.cjr.org/business_of_news/sports-journalism-survival-foul-territory-mcafee-braun-mlb.php

And Jay Kang’s article: https://www.newyorker.com/news/fault-lines/online-gambling-is-changing-sports-for-the-worse

I do these every Tuesday:

twitch.tv/dexdigi

Krishna Andavolu and his show Weediquette on VICE helped pioneer not only a new generation of weed reporting, but also helped shift attitudes toward marijuana policy, legislation, and culture. He jumped on the stream to talk about his past work, the current state of weed in the US, and to make some predictions about how cannabis may figure into the 2024 election as a Biden campaign strategy.

Here's the newly-released piece Krishna mentioned: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gell2kJLe0M

I do these streams every Tuesday: http://twitch.tv/dexdigi

It's been a weird few weeks on the Internet. I brought on Jason Koebler, cofounder of 404 Media (and former EIC of Motherboard, VICE's tech vertical), to talk about it.

The topics are all from 404media.co . Here are the links:

Pornhub pulling out of Texas: https://www.404media.co/pornhub-blocked-texas/

A cop looking for books to ban in an library: https://www.404media.co/police-bodycam-shows-sheriff-kootenai-idaho-hunting-for-obscene-books-at-library/

The TikTok ban: https://www.404media.co/the-u-s-wants-to-ban-tiktok-for-the-sins-of-every-social-media-company/

and Shrimp Jesus: https://www.404media.co/facebooks-algorithm-is-boosting-ai-spam-that-links-to-ai-generated-ad-laden-click-farms/

This is the full version of our talk. I livestream these every Tuesday: twitch.tv/dexdigi

the 'uncommitted' vote in Michigan is starting to surprise people, including the organizers of the movement itself. I brought on Evan (former VICE News, CNN, and other places), currently at NOTUS.org, to talk about his reporting on the activists.

Read the article he co-authored here: https://www.notus.org/biden-2024/uncommitted-delegate-biden-super-tuesday

Other articles referenced:

[NPR] 'Uncommitted' movement spreads to Super Tuesday states

https://www.npr.org/2024/03/06/1236295096/super-tuesday-results-uncommitted-biden-gaza-israel

[Carnegie Endowment] Black Americans’ Opinions on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict https://carnegieendowment.org/2023/12/13/black-americans-opinions-on-israeli-palestinian-conflict-pub-91230

There's a lot going on in videogames. People upset about about the 'black guy haircut', 8000+ layoffs, and Nintendo is suing people with potentially awful repercussions. So let's get into it.

Trone Dowd is a freelance journalist with bylines at IGN, VICE, and NY Daily News. Find him on Twitter and IG at @theloniusly

Some context: first, this was recorded the day after the official collapse of VICE News. My guest, Tess, had just been laid off, along with just about everyone else. And in a full circle moment, we’re talking about the Proud Boys, a group founded by the guy who was also a co-founder of the company we both used to work at. The first few minutes are us talking a bit about the state of the industry, but the rest is us exploring the ways Christian Nationalism is starting to bring in followers for whom it may be politically, or ideologically, useful.

I do these streams live on Tuesday (9a PT / 12 ET),

twitch.tv/dexdigi

Read Tess' article: Inside the Christian Nationalist Church Where Proud Boys Go to be Baptized

https://www.vice.com/en/article/3akex5/hansel-orzame-proud-boys-church-christian-nationalism