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How to Parse Escalating Warnings About AI Sep 16, 2026

Show notes

Tech leaders, including the CEOs of Anthropic and OpenAI, are calling for a slowdown of the development of generative artificial intelligence. This comes after an Anthropic researcher resigned over concerns that AI’s rapid development threatened human existence, and nearly 1,400 AI workers signed an open letter calling for government oversight of their industry. We’ll talk about where this tech — and its regulation — stands, and unpack the latest AI developments shaking up Silicon Valley.

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Teen Overdose Confirms Arrival of Deadly Opioid in San Francisco Sep 16, 2026

Show notes

A 16-year-old boy from San Francisco died in April from the city’s first confirmed overdose involving cychlorphine . The synthetic opioid is considered much more potent than fentanyl, which is already more potent than heroin and other opiates. It has killed dozens of people across the country since 2024. This week, San Francisco police announced they had arrested four suspects accused of supplying the deadly pills in the overdose case. We’ll talk about San Francisco’s response so far, -and what the arrival of this deadly drug means for a city that has struggled with more than 4,000 drug overdose deaths since 2020.

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Have You Navigated a ‘Quiet Divorce?’ Sep 15, 2026

Show notes

Some marriages don’t end with a blowup or betrayal. Instead, partners slowly become emotionally disconnected – more like roommates than lovers. It’s a phenomenon that’s been dubbed a “quiet divorce.” We talk with psychologists Thema Bryant and Eli Finkel about why relationships quietly come undone, how to rebuild connection and when it may be time to let go.

Guests:

Eli Finkel, professor of psychology, Northwestern University; host, “Love Factually” podcast; author, “The All-or-Nothing Marriage: How the Bes Marriages Work”
Dr. Thema Bryant, psychologist and author, “Matters of the Heart”

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Neuroscientist Antonio Damasio on Why Feeling is the Key to Consciousness Sep 15, 2026

Show notes

In his new book, “Natural Intelligence and the Logic of Consciousness,” pioneering neuroscientist Antonio Damasio synthesizes his decades of research in neurobiology and philosophy of mind into a central idea: we are conscious because we feel. “It is traditionally said that we are able to feel our feelings because we are conscious,” he writes, but instead, “we must be able to feel in order to become conscious.” We talk to Damasio about his lifetime of research into the mind and his thoughts on the possibility of conscious AI.

Guests:

Antonio Damasio, psychology, philosophy and neurology professor and director of the Brain and Creativity Institute, University of Southern California; author, “Natural Intelligence and the Logic of Consciousness”

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Orville Schell’s 30-Year Secret: Exposing China’s Secret Prisons Sep 14, 2026

Show notes

In 1991, China scholar and journalist Orville Schell teamed up with CBS News’ 60 Minutes for a perilous undercover investigation into China’s laogai—a vast network of forced labor camps secretly exporting goods into American markets. Fearing severe retaliation against his family and friends in China, Schell shelved his written account for three decades. In his new book, “Inside China’s Secret Prisons: An Undercover Exposé and Its Lasting Legacy,” Schell reveals how that clandestine operation played out and shares why forced labor persists in China today.

Guest:

Orville Schell, director of the Center on US-China Relations at the Asia Society and author of the new book “Inside China’s Secret Prisons: An Undercover Exposé and Its Lasting Legacy”

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Economists Make the Case For and Against California’s Billionaire Tax Sep 14, 2026

Show notes

California voters will decide this fall whether the state should impose a one-time 5 percent tax on billionaires, with much of the revenue going toward health care amid federal funding cuts. Supporters say Proposition 40 could raise tens of billions of dollars while also helping to address the growing wealth inequality in the state. Opponents argue the tax could drive billionaires out of California, shrinking the state’s income tax base and ultimately costing more than it raises. We talk to two leading economists: Gabriel Zucman, who helped develop the measure, and Joshua Rauh, one of its most vocal critics, about whether the billionaire tax would help California’s economy – or hurt it.

Guest:

Gabriel Zucman, professor of economics, UC Berkeley; Paris School of Economics – author of “We Need to Tax Billionaires”; helped develop Prop 40
Joshua Rauh, economist and professor, Stanford Graduate School of Business – senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research; opposes CA Prop 40

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Legendary Musician Joan Baez Joins Us in Studio Sep 11, 2026

Show notes

Joan Baez’s iconic voice has matured over the decades, but the way she’s used it has remained consistent. As a rising folk music star in the 1960s, she performed at the March on Washington alongside the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and founded the Institute for the Study of Nonviolence in California’s Carmel Valley. Now, she’s outspoken about the Trump administration. A musician, poet, author and activist, Baez is known for being idiosyncratic: Her latest act? Joining a circus in Alameda. We speak with Baez about the evolution of her voice and what she sees as artists’ role in activism.

Guests:

Joan Baez, legendary singer, activist, author and cultural icon. Her honors include eight gold albums, a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, a Kennedy Center Honor, as well as numerous awards for her civil rights work.

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25 Years Later, 9/11 is Shifting From a Memory Into a History Lesson Sep 11, 2026

Show notes

It’s been 25 years since the United States experienced the deadliest terrorist attack in our history on Sept. 11, 2001. The attacks profoundly changed our nation from how we view ourselves and treat first responders to how we balance national security and personal privacy. For many Americans, the attacks fractured our nation and created a stark before-and-after. But now, a quarter of a century later, close to a third of people in the U.S. were born after the twin towers fell, or were too young to retain any memories of it. Sept. 11 is morphing from a memory into history. We’ll talk about how the attacks reshaped our national psyche, identity and sense of security within our own borders and what we want younger generations to know about it.

Guests:

Wajahat Ali, author, “Go Back to Where You Came From”, columnist for the Daily Beast, co-host of the podcast Democracy-ish, writes The Left Hook substack.
Michael Mark Cohen, American and African American studies professor, UC Berkeley, teaches the course, History of the Present: The U.S. After 9/11
Geraldine Baum, former New York correspondent and bureau chief, Los Angeles Times

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After Fleeing Taliban, Four Women Rebuild in the U.S. Sep 10, 2026

Show notes

When the Taliban retook Afghanistan five years ago, the New York Times evacuated more than 120 Afghan journalists, translators and other employees and family members. In a new book,
journalists Rebecca Blumenstein and Diana Kapp follow four young women from the group who must rebuild their lives in America, navigating college, work, language and faith. We’ll talk with the authors and one of the young women profiled about what freedom means after escape — and what the U.S. owes the Afghans it left behind.

Guests:

Diana Kapp, journalist and co-author, "The Last Free Women: A Daring Escape from Afghanistan and Coming of Age in America"
Rebecca Blumenstein, president-editorial, NBC News; co-author "The Last Free Women: A Daring Escape from Afghanistan and Coming of Age in America"
Mursal Rahim, fled Afghanistan in 2021

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Claudia Rankine on the Friendships That Unsettle and Sustain Us Sep 10, 2026

Show notes

Acclaimed poet and essayist Claudia Rankine’s new book, “Triage,” follows the turbulent, decades long friendship between a Black woman and a nonbinary Palestinian who meet in college and invent a ritual of collapsing to the ground whenever they see each other. Over time, that act of collapse comes to hold new meaning as they reckon with wounded histories, political violence and the strain of loving someone who can also unsettle you. Blending memoir, criticism, essay and visual art, “Triage” is Rankine’s first book after her celebrated American trilogy and some of her most personal writing yet. Rankine joins us to talk about friendship, grieving, and what it means to keep acting – and relating – in a time of relentless personal and global loss.

Guests:

Claudia Rankine, poet, playwright and author, her new book is "Triage", professor of Creative Writing at NYU; a MacArthur "Genius" grant recipient

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