Should We Worry As Billionaires Buy Up Newspapers?
Patrick Soon-Shiong, the owner of the Los Angeles Times, says we should — and he’s one of those billionaires. In 2018, Soon-Shiong — who minted his fortune by inventing a cancer drug in the 1990s — sc...
12 Aug 202140min
Michael Pollan's 'Trip Report'
Michael Pollan has brewed tea from opium poppies, quit caffeine cold turkey and tried mescaline, a psychedelic found in some kinds of cactus. While the author’s past works have taken on the Western di...
9 Aug 202139min
$54 Billion Later, Why Is Flying Still a Headache?
As the pandemic locked down cities and would-be travelers stayed home, the airline industry begged the government for bailouts — and got them, to the tune of $54 billion. The funds were supposed to h...
5 Aug 202135min
Is Ken Burns Taking Up Too Much Space? He Doesn’t Think So.
From “deepfaking” Anthony Bourdain’s voice to reconstructing a re-education camp in Xinjiang — technologies like A.I. voice generation and V.R. are warping the boundaries of documentary filmmaking. So...
2 Aug 202130min
Would You Give Up Google for This?
Call it a redemption narrative: After working to grow Google’s lucrative advertising business for 15 years, Sridhar Ramaswamy left the Silicon Valley Goliath to co-found Neeva, a subscription-based se...
29 Jul 202138min
‘It’s a Tough Time to Be Mayor’: Lori Lightfoot Responds to Her Critics
Mayors across the country are facing heat. Bill DeBlasio was New York’s default punching bag (perhaps deservedly) throughout the pandemic. Keisha Lance Bottoms decided to forgo seeking a second term a...
26 Jul 202134min
Robot Therapists? Not So Fast, Says Talkspace C.E.O.
Talk therapy has seen a boom during the pandemic. And with mental health chat bots like Woebot on the market and text therapy platforms like Talkspace going public, the possibility of humans outsourci...
22 Jul 202133min
Kara Goes to the Olympics
People love the Olympics. But this year’s Games, which open on Friday, are plagued with controversial suspensions and public pushback, not to mention the pandemic. How did we get here?That’s a questio...
19 Jul 202134min
