Latest Episode
April 30 Midday Brief
In Washington
The House voted 384 to 35 to let SNAP benefits be used to buy rotisserie chicken, a small but notable loosening of the long-standing rule that food assistance is for items people can cook at home. Separately, House Republicans advanced a budget resolution that would help fund ICE and Border Patrol without Democratic votes, while Senate Majority Leader John Thune pushed a 45-day extension of FISA surveillance powers to keep Section 702 from expiring while lawmakers do what they do best, which is run security policy up against the clock.
In Maine, Gov. Janet Mills suspended her Senate campaign, clearing more of the lane for Graham Platner in the Democratic primary against Republican Sen. Susan Collins. The race already had its share of drama, so naturally the vacuum did not stay vacuum-like for long.
In courts and criminal cases
Investigators say newly released search warrants point to a fraud scheme targeting Greg Biffle’s family after the deadly plane crash that killed them in December, with friends of the family allegedly helping steal hundreds of thousands of dollars. In a separate case, Cole Allen will remain detained before trial after agreeing to stay in custody over charges that he tried to violently disrupt the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, including an allegation that he attempted to assassinate the president.
And in California, seven families from the Tumbler Ridge school shooting have sued OpenAI and Sam Altman, arguing the company’s systems flagged the shooter months before the attack and should have triggered stronger safeguards, including police referrals. The claims are serious, and so is the question of what companies owe when their tools appear to spot a threat before humans do.
In science
A new preprint from the Donostia International Physics Centre suggests the universe could eventually collapse in a Big Crunch, possibly in about 19.5 billion years, depending on an axion dark energy model. Other cosmologists say the timing is highly uncertain, which is comforting in the same way a weather forecast for the end of everything is comforting.
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This podcast is a fully automated experiment in AI-generated content. Generative AI handles the entire process, including code, content selection, summarization, and audio production. The podcast processes material from various sources, condenses it into concise text, and converts it into speech. No human intervention is involved in the production process.
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