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Apple | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon | Google Listen and follow ‘Hard Fork’Users are protesting Zoom’s liberal data-collection policy. Authors are shutting down websites that scrape their work. And, in a concession to users, OpenAI is allowing websites to opt out of web scraping. Then, street activists are deterring self-driving cars by placing traffic cones on the hoods of vehicles. Plus, How Reddit has squashed the Reddit Revolt.

Persons: Reddit Organizations: Apple, Spotify

A few days ago, when the U.S. team was eliminated from the FIFA Women’s World Cup, it marked the end of a history-making run. Rory Smith, chief soccer correspondent for The Times, argues that it also marked the end of something even bigger: an entire era that redefined women’s sports.

Persons: Rory Smith Organizations: U.S, FIFA, The Times

Satellites owned by Elon Musk’s Starlink orbit the earth and beam an internet connection to almost anywhere. In 2019, the company sent its first 60 or so satellites into orbit — today, it has some 4,500 circling the planet, with around 1.5 million customers across about 50 countries and territories. Adam Satariano, a technology correspondent for The Times, details the company’s rise and power, and discusses the implications of one man’s controlling it all.

Persons: Elon Musk’s, Adam Satariano Organizations: Elon, The Times

How did the National Rifle Association, America’s most influential gun-rights group, amass its power? A New York Times investigation has revealed the secret history of how a fusty club of sportsmen became a lobbying juggernaut that would compel elected officials’ allegiance, derail legislation behind the scenes, and redefine the legal landscape. Mike McIntire, an investigative reporter for The Times, sets out the story of the N.R.A.’s transformation — and the unseen role that members of Congress played in designing the group’s strategies.

Persons: Mike McIntire Organizations: Rifle Association, New York Times, The Times

Apple | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon | Google Listen and follow ‘Hard Fork’On Sunday night, a crane arrived in downtown San Francisco to take down the Twitter sign from the company’s office building. The crane’s arrival marked the death of Twitter, the brand, and the start of X, Elon Musk’s everything app. Today, why Elon’s acquisition feels more and more like cultural vandalism and what, if anything, will replace the global town square. Then, is Sam Altman’s universal basic income cryptocurrency app Worldcoin an iris scanning tool to save humanity, or just another attempt to get rich on crypto? Plus: a trip to Google’s robotics lab, where artificial intelligence models are creating breakthroughs.

Persons: Elon, Sam Altman’s Organizations: Apple, Spotify, Twitter Locations: San Francisco

“Barbie” is premiering this weekend and is trying to pull off a seemingly impossible task: taking a doll best known for reinforcing conventional stereotypes of women and rebranding it as a symbol of feminism, all without coming off as a shameless ad for the doll’s maker, Mattel. Willa Paskin, a journalist and host of Slate’s Decoder Ring podcast, recounts her conversation with the film’s director, Greta Gerwig, about how she approached the challenge.

Persons: “ Barbie ”, Willa Paskin, Greta Gerwig Organizations: Mattel

For months, President Biden has been wrestling with one of the most vexing questions in the war in Ukraine: whether to risk letting Ukrainian forces run out of the artillery rounds they desperately need to fight Russia, or agree to ship them cluster munitions — widely banned weapons known to cause grievous injury to civilians, especially children. On Friday, the Biden administration announced that it would send the weapons, which have been outlawed by many of Washington’s closest allies. David E. Sanger, a White House and national security correspondent for The New York Times, tells the story behind the president’s contentious decision.

Persons: Biden, Washington’s, David E, Sanger Organizations: The New York Times Locations: Ukraine, Russia

Earlier this month, a group of hard-right Republicans hijacked the floor of the House of Representatives in protest against Speaker Kevin McCarthy. The mutiny, staged by nearly a dozen members of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus, raised questions about whether the speaker could continue to govern his slim and fractious majority. Annie Karni, a congressional correspondent for The Times, explains how and why this small group of members made the chamber ungovernable.

Persons: Kevin McCarthy, Annie Karni Organizations: Republicans, Caucus, The Times

Over the past three decades, Lucy Calkins helped create a set of strategies for teaching children how to read, known as balanced literacy. It was widely adopted in the United States, including in New York, the country’s largest public school system. But doubts about the approach persisted, and now it seems that using balanced literacy has given a generation of American students the wrong tools. Dana Goldstein, who covers family policy and demographics for The Times, discusses the story of balanced literacy and how Professor Calkins is trying to fix the problems that the technique created.

Persons: Lucy Calkins, Dana Goldstein, Calkins Organizations: The Times Locations: United States, New York

This episode contains descriptions of violence. In the two years since the United States pulled out of Afghanistan, the Taliban has shut women and girls out of public life. Christina Goldbaum, a correspondent in the Kabul bureau for The New York Times, traveled across Afghanistan to talk to women about how they’re managing the changes. What she found was not what she had expected.

Persons: Christina Goldbaum Organizations: The New York Times Locations: United States, Afghanistan, Kabul

With stunning speed, the status of trans youth has become the rallying cry of the Republican Party, from state legislatures to presidential campaigns. Adam Nagourney, who covers West Coast cultural affairs for The New York Times, explains how that came to be, and why it’s proving such a potent issue.

Persons: Adam Nagourney Organizations: Republican Party, The New York Times

The James Webb Space Telescope, the most powerful ever made, has revolutionized the way we see the universe. The name was chosen for James E. Webb, a NASA administrator during the 1960s. But when doubts about his background emerged, the telescope’s name turned into a fight over homophobia. Michael Powell, a national reporter for The Times, tells the story of Dr. Hakeem Oluseyi, an astrophysicist whose quest to end the controversy with indisputable facts only made it worse.

Diana Nguyen and Ben Calhoun and Marion Lozano, Elisheba Ittoop, Diane Wong andThis episode contains descriptions of alleged sexual assault. It’s been more than five years since the #MeToo movement, driven by reporting at publications like The New York Times, toppled powerful and abusive men. Behind that essential journalism were sources, many anonymous, who took enormous risks to expose harassment and sexual violence. Today, Rachel Abrams, a producer and reporter at The Times, speaks to Ali Diercks, a lawyer who provided crucial information for a major #MeToo story. Ms. Diercks has waived her anonymity to discuss the costs of her coming forward and what she thinks about her decision years later.

For two decades, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has loomed large over Turkish politics. But skyrocketing inflation and a devastating earthquake have eroded his power and, in a presidential election over the weekend, he was forced into a runoff. Ben Hubbard, The Times’s Istanbul bureau chief, discusses how Turkey’s troubles have made Mr. Erdogan politically vulnerable.

Adrienne Hurst and Dan Farrell andListen and follow The DailyApple Podcasts | Spotify | StitcherLakishia Fell-Davis is aware that at this point, in 2023, most people are treating the coronavirus pandemic as a thing of the past. For her, though, Covid still poses a real threat: Fell-Davis has Type I diabetes, putting her at higher risk of hospitalization and long-term complications from illness. She felt much more comfortable when schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District were online during the first year and a half of the pandemic and her kids, Makayla and Kevin, were attending virtually. Sure, they missed their friends, but they were shy and soft-spoken children who had never really strayed far from home. Fell-Davis cried when she learned that in the fall of 2021, the school district would require students and teachers to return to in-person learning.

President Biden has announced that he will seek another term in the Oval Office, despite the fact that he will be 81 on Election Day 2024. Not everyone is overjoyed about that prospect — more than half of Democrats don’t want him to run again. Nonetheless, the party’s leaders are increasingly confident about his chances. Jonathan Weisman, a political correspondent for The Times, explains why.

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