What Next | Daily News and Analysis

How American white evangelical Christianity has reshaped itself in the image of Donald Trump. Guest: Rev. Angela Denker, Lutheran pastor and author of Red State Christians: A Journey into White Christian Nationalism and the Wreckage It Leaves Behind If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes...

South Africa has accused Israel of committing genocide before the International Court of Justice and is asking the United Nations to intervene and order the Israeli government to cease military operations in Gaza. The ICJ now must decide how to characterize an increasingly bloody campaign. Guest: Adil Haque, professor of international law at Rutgers University and author of Law and Morality at War...

Biden’s poll numbers have been bad pretty much his whole presidency, but going into an election year, he looks especially weak where his party is usually strongest: young voters, Black voters, and Latino voters. What messaging unlocks some—any—enthusiasm for voting for Joe Biden again?  Guest: Alexander Sammon , politics writer for Slate .  If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Sl...

It’s a holiday weekend, so the What Next team is taking a little break from the news, and dropping you one of our favorite other Slate podcasts. This time around, we’re listening to One Year: 1990. We'll be back in your feed tomorrow. A middle-aged single dad in Chicago was outraged by all the cigarette billboards popping up in Black communities. In 1990, he picked up a paint roller and became an...

Covered in cameras, full of microphones, and always eager to use location data, our vehicles are “smartphones on wheels”—and privacy nightmares. Guest: Kashmir Hill , technology and privacy reporter for the New York Times. If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and...

Shortly after take off from Portland, OR, the plug exit on a Boeing 737 Max 9 jet blew out – causing an uncontrolled decompression of the plane. Now, accident investigators are hard at work, trying to determine what happened in what's the latest catastrophe for the respected commercial airplane provider. Guest: Jon Ostrower, Editor-in-chief of The Air Current If you enjoy this show, please conside...

Primaries competing with caucuses; states going rogue; and parties totally out of sync with each other — the 2024 primary season has everything.  Guest: Ari Berman, voting-rights reporter for Mother Jones and author of “ Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America .” If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zer...

Long-time CEO Wayne LaPierre is out and legal challenges and lawsuits are mounting—but does that mean the NRA is losing its influence over American politics?  Guest: Dr. Matthew Lacombe, the Alexander P. Lamis Associate Professor in American Politics at Case Western Reserve University, author of Firepower: How the NRA Turned Gun Owners into a Political Force If you enjoy this show, please consider...

How the ADL’s commitment to the state of Israel threatens and undermines its ability to fight antisemitism at home.  Guest: Mari Cohen , associate editor at Jewish Currents If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—and you’ll be supporting the work w...

With not one but two spending cliffs on the near horizon—not to mention wars abroad and a crisis at the border—can one of the all-time least productive Congresses get anything done this session? Guest: Marianna Sotomayor , congressional reporter for The Washington Post If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podc...

What the Cybertruck says about safety, regulation, and the degree to which Tesla is beholden to the whims of Elon Musk.  Guest: Edward Niedermeyer, author of Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—a...

If A.I. and chatbots are the next wave of innovation, then the New York Times and other media organizations are determined to get paid this time.   Guest: Megan Morrone, technology editor for the Axios AI+ newsletter If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear...

The federally mandated minimum wage hasn’t gone up since 2009, but across the country states, counties, and cities are raising their minimum wage. Is this long overdue help for America’s poor, or merely a low-risk political win?  Guest: David Neumark , labor economist and professor at University of California-Irvine If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus memb...

How much longer can Ukraine and Russia fight at a stalemate? And does the outcome of the war depend on Biden winning a second term? Guest: Fred Kaplan, Slate’s “War Stories” correspondent and author of The Bomb .  If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Pru...

On Oct. 14, 2023, Wadee Alfayoumi, a six-year-old Arab-American boy, was stabbed to death by his landlord, Joseph Czuba. Months later, his parents are struggling to make sense of it. Guest: Aymann Ismail , Slate staff writer. If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn...

Buying “renewable energy certificates” is a way for companies to claim to reach their renewable energy goals—instead of, say, putting solar panels on their roof. One of the most enthusiastic consumers of RECs is the federal government. But is this ostensibly environmentally-friendly system actually standing in the way of true sustainability?  Guest: Najib Aminy , producer for Reveal. If you enjoy...

While the What Next: TBD team spends some time with their families during the holidays, we revisit some of 2023’s biggest, strangest, and best stories. Regularly scheduled programming resumes in January. Artificial intelligence—as it already exists today—is drawing from huge troves of surveillance data and is rife with the biases built into the algorithm, in service of the huge corporations that d...

While the What Next: TBD team spends some time with their families during the holidays, we revisit some of 2023’s biggest, strangest, and best stories. Regularly scheduled programming resumes in January. Pedestrian deaths in America have been rising for the last decade, while dropping in Europe and Japan. What makes the U.S. so dangerous for pedestrians? Guest: Jessie Singer , author of There Are...

While the What Next team spends some time with their families this week, we revisit some of 2023’s biggest, strangest, and best stories. Regularly scheduled programming resumes Jan. 2. For all of his success, Steven Spielberg has a spotty record at the Oscars. He’s been nominated 22 times, but he’s only won three. Is it a curse?  This Sunday could mark a shift for the King of Hollywood’s five deca...

While the What Next team spends some time with their families this week, we revisit some of 2023’s biggest, strangest, and best stories. Regularly scheduled programming resumes Jan. 2. In a recent public hearing, three government officials told Congress that not only are “unidentified anomalous phenomena” real, they’re a major national security concern. But one witness took his testimony even furt...

While the What Next team spends some time with their families this week, we revisit some of 2023’s biggest, strangest, and best stories. Regularly scheduled programming resumes Jan. 2. Everybody loves pandas—and China knows it. As we say goodbye to the National Zoo’s pandas, we look back at 50 years of “panda diplomacy” and consider its uncertain future. Guest: E. Elena Songster, author of Panda N...

While the What Next team spends some time with their families this week, we revisit some of 2023’s biggest, strangest, and best stories. Regularly scheduled programming resumes Jan. 2. Not all of the Cardinals who elected Pope Francis are pleased with the changes he’s made, or his vision for where the Catholic Church goes next. Both the 86-year-old Francis and his detractors are preparing for his...

While the What Next: TBD team spends some time with their families during the holidays, we revisit some of 2023’s biggest, strangest, and best stories. Regularly scheduled programming resumes in January. Twitter’s “blue check” verification went from something you applied for, to something you could pay for, to something you had to pay for…to something that many celebrities wouldn’t even accept for...

From our friends at Financial Times's FT News Briefing: The FT’s Peter Spiegel, Katie Martin and Elaine Moore preview what could happen in geopolitics, markets and artificial intelligence in 2024.  Listen to the FT News Briefing podcast every Monday through Friday here:   https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ft-news-briefing/id1438449989 The FT News Briefing is produced by Fiona Symon, Sonja Huts...

Without infrastructure to support all-electric vehicles, consumers have increasingly embraced the hybrid. The lower emissions are good—but are they slowing down our transition into an electric future?  Guest: Patrick George, editor-in-chief of InsideEVs.com, contributor to The Atlantic and The Verge. If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits...