Say More

Imagine it’s the eve of the 2024 presidential election, and you get a call that sounds like it’s coming from a family member or a friend — or even the president — telling you the polls will be closed and you should stay home. The call could sound real but be totally fake, generated by easily available AI technology. That type of ruse is hugely concerning to national security expert and author Mile...

This week Shirley ventures outside the studio and visits local restaurant owner Irene Li to make dumplings together for Lunar New Year. Irene is co-founder of Mei Mei Dumplings in South Boston. Shirley and Irene share their memories of celebrating Lunar New Year as children and their relationship with Chinese-American culture. Irene talks about the state of the restaurant industry and how she want...

Blaxploitation films are known for their Black stars, gritty material, and funk music. When they caught on in the early 1970s, these movies had a ton of style and iconic characters. At the time of their release, they were celebrated for their depictions of Black empowerment but also criticized for perpetuating stereotypes and caricatures of Black culture. The Boston Globe’s chief film critic, Odie...

The ideological battles on college campuses have reached a new pitch in recent months, leading to high-profile presidential resignations and calls for more. This week’s guest on Say More says this is all part of a long-standing campaign to destabilize and overhaul higher education, funded by billionaires on the right. Nancy MacLean is a historian at Duke University. Nancy tells host Shirley Leung...

The New Hampshire primaries will take place on January 23. The choices voters in the small state make could have a major impact on the presidential election. The Democratic primary in New Hampshire isn't competitive this year, but the Republican one could be interesting. On today’s episode, Boston Globe politics reporter Emma Platoff introduces us to three New Hampshire GOP voters as they decide h...

The Globe’s Brian Bergstein will be joining Say More about once a month to host conversations about artificial intelligence, with the aim of asking big questions and getting past the hype. Artificial Intelligence is hard to define. It’s even harder to regulate. But without good regulation, the technology could do a lot of harm to innocent people. This week, Brian speaks to Columbia Professor Tim W...

The New Hampshire primary is around the corner for Republicans. Former President Trump has a massive lead in the polls, but Nikki Haley has been gaining on him. Can the former South Carolina governor do enough to shake things up? On today’s episode, guest host Kimberly Atkins Stohr, a Boston Globe senior opinion writer, talks to the Globe’s James Pindell, Carine Hajjar, and Scot Lehigh about what...

Unhappiness is on the rise in America, according to a recent survey. What can we do about it? A lot, says Arthur Brooks, who teaches a class on the science of happiness at Harvard Business School. He joins Shirley on Say More to talk about his own journey to become happier, his partnership with Oprah, and the special gift he received from the Dalai Lama. Email us at saymore@globe.com. See Privacy...

On this week’s episode, we turn the mic around and Shirley answers questions from co-workers, friends, and listeners. What guest changed Shirley’s perspective? Who are her podcast host inspirations? What advice does she have for her younger self? Plus, a special guest! Email us at saymore@globe.com. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/...

While sports betting used to require a trip to Las Vegas, a 2018 Supreme Court decision lifted a ban, and now residents of more than 30 states are allowed to place wagers on a vast array of game statistics and outcomes. The largest share of the US online sports betting market belongs to the company DraftKings, based in Massachusetts. The young industry has grown rapidly, and already has its share...

The Globe’s Brian Bergstein will be joining Say More about once a month to host conversations about artificial intelligence, with the aim of asking big questions and getting past the hype. This week, Brian speaks to MIT professor Manolis Kellis about the ways AI is decoding DNA and transforming medical research. They discuss the exponential pace of technological progress, the true nature of intell...

While many Nobel Prize winners specialize in abstract corners of science, this year’s winners of the medicine award innovated something we can all appreciate. Dr. Drew Weissman and Dr. Katalin Karikó developed the RNA science behind vaccines that saved countless lives during the COVID-19 pandemic. Poorly funded and ignored for decades, their work is now spurring a revolution in medicine. Shirley L...

Author Ben Mezrich has made a career of writing books that become movies. He’s drawn to characters with big bank accounts and messy lives. His latest book, “Breaking Twitter: Elon Musk and the Most Controversial Corporate Takeover in History,” was ripped right from the headlines. Ben talks to host Shirley Leung about Musk’s dramatic demise after buying Twitter, and how Musk’s behavior on the socia...

The holiday season is upon us, which means the social pressure to shop is relentless — especially for clothes. But this week’s guest on Say More says we should think before we buy, for the sake of the planet. Globe Opinion Columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr has published a new series on the unsustainability of the fashion industry and what consumers can do about it. Kimberly is a clothing designer he...

The Big Dig took Boston apart and put it back together again. It buried a highway and redrew the map of downtown. The project was delayed for years and went billions of dollars over budget, making it a national laughingstock. But this week on Say More, guest Ian Coss tells host Shirley Leung that the Big Dig might not wholly deserve its reputation as a massive boondoggle. He says the Big Dig was a...

November is Hip-Hop History Month. Boston is not exactly famous for its contributions to Black music and culture. If anything, many people associate the city with rock — and racism. But music historian and writer Dart Adams says Boston has long had a flourishing Black music scene, producing icons like Donna Summer and game-changing groups like New Edition. This week on Say More, in honor of hip-ho...

The Globe’s Brian Bergstein will be joining Say More about once a month to host conversations  about artificial intelligence, with the aim of asking big questions and getting past the hype. This week, Brian speaks to computer scientist Joy Buolamwini about her new book, “Unmasking AI: My Mission to Protect What Is Human in a World of Machines.” Buolamwini says technology that has a harder time rec...

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has raged for decades, but this time it’s different. The brutal killing of more than 1,400 Israelis by Hamas has shocked the country, precipitating a relentless counterattack by the Israeli military, which has killed thousands and displaced a million people in Gaza. The US has always had a central role in the conflict, and many are asking how that role should evolv...

For generations, the car has been a powerful emblem of American freedom. Now, with self-driving cars, freedom means letting robots do the work. Relying on a web of sensors, radar, and artificial intelligence, driverless vehicles are currently navigating cities like San Francisco, Phoenix, and Las Vegas. But are they safe? Can they actually do a better job than us? Laura Major, chief technology off...

The messaging platform Slack has become an indelible part  of the modern workplace. Since the start of the pandemic, the company’s rise feels intertwined with the seismic changes in how we work and communicate — so much so that Slack, like Google, is now widely understood as a verb. This week, Say More’s Shirley Leung speaks to Slack CEO Lidiane Jones about how technology is reshaping the workplac...

One of the main tenets of journalism is this: Don’t become the story. But that’s been difficult for Marty Baron, who, as editor of The Washington Post during the Trump years, often found himself at the center of the storm. Following his tenure at The Boston Globe, where he helped uncover rampant clergy sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, Marty led the Post through a tumultuous time in American po...

For a minute there, it really felt like cryptocurrency was going mainstream. Exchanges were thriving and generating billions of dollars for investors. Now, the industry is facing dozens of lawsuits and bankruptcies, and billions of investor dollars have been lost. The industry is struggling to scrape back legitimacy, while government regulators scramble to catch up. On this week’s episode of Say M...

The 2024 election season is in full swing in New Hampshire and other key primary states. While a Trump-Biden standoff may feel inevitable, recent history has shown us anything is possible in politics. A gaggle of GOP candidates are running to beat Trump, who is fighting legal battles on multiple fronts. President Biden is flagging in the polls and facing constant questions about his age. On today’...

When it comes to the crush of the American daily news cycle, Heather Cox Richardson has always taken the long view. The New England-based historian gained wide popularity writing casual, history-informed summaries of the news — a perspective millions of readers were hungry for. Her new book is called “Democracy Awakening.” Shirley sits down with Heather to talk about the evolution of the GOP, the...

Many scientific advances can be traced back to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The university has long been a leader in engineering and technology. But with great power comes great responsibility. What role should places like MIT play in determining how science is developed and used? Shirley sits down with the new president of MIT, Sally Kornbluth, to discuss the ethics of controversial...