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What’s Your Favorite Children’s Book? Oct 24, 2025

Show notes

There’s the picture book you wanted your parent or caregiver to read to you over and over. There’s the one with musical rhymes you love performing for your kids. The editors at the Atlantic’s books desk chose 65 “essential” children’s books, spanning the 1936 classic “The Story of Ferdinand” to 2024’s “I’m Sorry You Got Mad.” The list includes bedtime stories, books that teach counting and tales that make big emotions comprehensible for little ones. We’ll talk with the book editors about how the Atlantic made its list. And we’ll hear what your favorite books mean to you and your children.

Guests:

Boris Kachka, senior editor, The Atlantic

Emma Sarappo, senior associate editor, The Atlantic

Maya Chung, senior associate editor, The Atlantic

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You Can Buy a Burrito on Installment. But Should You? Oct 24, 2025

Show notes

While indulging in online retail therapy, you’ve probably seen an option at checkout to buy now, pay later. Companies like Afterpay, Affirm, and Klarna let consumers pay in four installments for nearly anything, including clothes, concert tickets, or even a burrito. For some consumers, it’s a tech-assisted layaway plan that helps when cash is tight. For others, it’s a chance to splurge on otherwise unattainable goods. On social media, it’s called “Klarnamaxxing” and it’s getting some consumers into a world of debt.

Guests:

Annie Joy Williams, assistant editor covering politics and culture, The Atlantic

Julie Margetta Morgan, president, The Century Foundation, an independent think that that researches public policy; former associate director of research, monitoring and regulations at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Amy X. Wang, story editor, New York Times Magazine

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David Brooks on 'Why America Needs a Mass Movement – Now' Oct 23, 2025

Show notes

The Trump administration’s constant flouting of court orders, its conversion of ICE into a massive paramilitary organization, its extortion of universities and corporations. It’s all prompted political commentator David Brooks to pose what he calls the question of the decade: “why hasn’t a resistance movement materialized here?” A self-described moderate, Brooks says we’re naive to think Trumpism will end in three years; rather, if unopposed, “global populism of the sort Trumpism represents could dominate for a generation.” We talk to Brooks about how he assesses the No Kings protests and how he’d build on past social movements to counter the tide of populist authoritarianism. We also talk to him about why learning to see other people more deeply can help build meaningful alliances, a concept he develops in his book “How to Know a Person,” which was just released in paperback.

Guests:

David Brooks, opinion columnist, The New York Times; contributing writer, The Atlantic; commentator, PBS NewsHour

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Fired Federal Immigration Judges Speak Out Oct 23, 2025

Show notes

The Trump administration has fired dozens of immigration judges in California seemingly without cause and despite growing backlogs of cases. Judges who lost their jobs say these firings will impede due process for millions of immigrants facing deportation. This comes at a time when federal authorities want to deport millions of people as quickly as possible. We talk with two local immigration judges who have been terminated by the Trump administration about the changes they have seen in our immigration system and what it means for the rule of law in our country.

Guests:

Chloe Dillon, head of criminal immigration defense, San Mateo County Private Defender Program; former federal immigration judge terminated by the Trump administration

Elisa Brasil, attorney, Landerholm Immigration; former federal immigration judge terminated by the Trump administration

Tyche Hendricks, senior editor covering immigration, KQED

Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman, reporter, KQED News

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California Takes On Potent Synthetic Drug 7-OH Oct 22, 2025

Show notes

Reports are rising of addiction, overdose and death tied to 7-OH, a potent new synthetic drug. The painkiller is a lab-made offshoot of the herbal drug kratom. 7-OH is more than 10 times stronger than morphine and has been dubbed “gas station heroin” because it’s sold openly in gas stations and vape shops, including here in California. At least six people in Los Angeles have died from overdoses related to the drug since this spring, and health officials warn it could cause an addiction crisis. We’ll talk about how the state is trying to curb its use.

Guests:

Lester Black, cannabis editor, SFGATE

Dr. Brian Hurley, addiction physician; medical director of the Bureau of Substance Abuse Prevention and Control, Los Angeles County Department of Public Health

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How Intelligence – Both Human and Artificial – Happens Oct 22, 2025

Show notes

How exactly does the mind work? How do we learn and make decisions? And how does that compare to the way AI thinks? In their new book, “The Emergent Mind: How Intelligence Arises in People and Machines,” San Francisco State psychologist Gaurav Suri and Stanford’s Jay McClelland examine how neural networks work in our brains, and in AI.

Guests:

Gaurav Suri, computational neuroscientist and professor, San Francisco State University

Jay McClelland, professor and director of the Center for Mind, Brain, Computation and Technology, Stanford University

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Rabbi Calls for Boundless Compassion Amid Divides Oct 21, 2025

Show notes

Rabbi Angela Buchdahl leads the largest synagogue in New York City. But she says she’s never been so afraid to talk about Israel. That’s because she thinks that compassion for people suffering on either side of the war in Gaza has come to be seen as disloyal and even threatening – a zero sum empathy calculus that also applies to ideological battles fought in our country every day. Buchdahl is the first Asian American to be ordained a rabbi, a journey she describes in her new memoir “Heart of a Stranger: An Unlikely Rabbi’s Story of Faith, Identity, and Belonging.” We talk to her about why knowing what it feels like to be an outsider has helped her enable connection among people with disparate views and what happens when we become incapable of empathy.

Guests:

Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, senior rabbi, Central Synagogue in New York City - author, "Heart of a Stranger: An Unlikely Rabbi's Story of Faith, Identity, and Belonging"

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What Steep Health Insurance Price Hikes Could Mean for Nearly 2 Million Californians on Covered CA Oct 21, 2025

Show notes

The cost of healthcare insurance is at the core of the government shutdown. Democrats and Republicans are at a stalemate over the extension of subsidies that decrease the price of insurance purchased under the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. Without the extension, experts predict a sharp increase in premiums for the 44 million Americans who rely on this health insurance. And hundreds of thousands of Californians may be priced out of the market. With open enrollment beginning in two weeks, we’ll talk to experts including the director of Covered California, about what’s at stake.

Guests:

Larry Levitt, executive vice president, KFF

Jessica Altman, executive director, Covered California, the state health insurance exchange

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Federal Workers Face New Round of Layoffs as Labor Rights Under Attack Oct 20, 2025

Show notes

Unions for federal employees say the White House is planning thousands more layoffs, even though a federal judge in San Francisco has blocked it. This is taking place as the Trump administration has left the National Labor Relations Board paralyzed after firing Biden-appointed members upon taking office. We talk with William Gould IV, the former National Labor Relations Board Chairman, about the rights of workers during a shutdown, the ways California labor regulators could push back and the future of organized labor in the country. We also talk to Gould about his new memoir where he reflects on breaking barriers as Stanford Law’s first Black professor. The book is called “Those Who Travail and Are Heavy Laden.”

Guests:

William Gould IV, Professor Emeritus, Stanford Law School

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Cory Doctorow on Why the Internet Got So Terrible, So Fast, and What to Do About It Oct 20, 2025

Show notes

Cory Doctorow coined a word to describe how what we once loved about the internet, and relied on, has become exploitative, corrosive, and anti-user. And now he’s written a book about it, “Enshittification: Why Everything Got Worse and What to Do About It.” He analyzes how TikTok, Google Search, email, music streaming and other services and platforms – technology that we expect to always improve – have declined so fast. But the tech activist and science fiction writer insists it can be fixed. “This era, the Enshittocene, is the result of specific policy decisions, made by named individuals,” he writes, and those policies can be reversed and the individuals can be held accountable. We talk to him about what’s gone wrong and how we can make a new, good internet.

Guests:

Cory Doctorow, science fiction writer, technology activist and journalist. Author, "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It"

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