Hey everyone, it’s Joel. We’ll be back soon with our regularly scheduled episode, but today I’m bringing you an episode of another podcast we enjoy and think you will too. It’s called The Assignment with Audie Cornish. It’s impossible to get the full story from fiery Twitter threads and push alerts. That’s why veteran journalist Audie Cornish is speaking with the people who actually live the headlines. Each week, she speaks with people at the center of our political and cultural debates...

Simone Gold, a former ER doctor, is the founder of a non-profit called “America’s Frontline Doctors,” known for spreading misinformation about COVID. After she was arrested for taking part in the Jan. 6 insurrection, she received millions of dollars in donations. And that’s when the feuding within her organization began.  You can read Joel Stein’s Financial Times story, “How a squad of MAGA warriors flush with cash turned on each other” here:...

How did the Guinness World Records company come to be? And how, in the age of the internet, does the company make money? Imogen West-Knights spent a year investigating. She learned how to be a record adjudicator (it’s riskier than it sounds), met a man who has broken more than 700 records, and tried to break a record herself.  You can read Imogen West-Knight’s Guardian story, “The Strange Survival of Guinness World Records,” here:...

The history of Dr. Bronner’s soap is even crazier than the famously crazy writing on the side of a Dr. Bronner’s soap bottle. The company was founded by a man who escaped from a mental asylum. Now it is the top-selling natural soap brand in North America. How did this happen? Carrie Battan paid their headquarters a visit to find out.  You can read Carrie Battan’s GQ story, “Is Dr. Bronner’s the Last Corporation With a Soul,” here: https://www.gq.com/story/dr-bronners-corporate-success Take...

In 2010, an art collector named Forrest Fenn published a memoir called “The Thrill of the Chase,” in which he described hiding a treasure chest somewhere in the United States. His memoir inspired hundreds of thousands of treasure hunters to scour the country for it. Now, over a decade later, much about this chest still remains a mystery.  You can read Svati Kirsten Narula’s story “America’s Greatest Hidden Treasure Was Found—So Why Are People Still Looking?” here:...

A woman in Louisiana named Donna Metrejean fell in love with a D.E.A agent in Oregon named Robert Golden. She uprooted her whole life to be with him. But all was not what it seemed.  You can read Jeff Maysh’s story “Undercover Lovers” here: https://jeffmaysh.substack.com/p/undercover-lovers  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Comedian Dave Chappelle has been buying up properties in the tiny town of Yellow Springs, Ohio. The residents have mixed feelings about their powerful neighbor’s real estate decisions and it’s been splitting the town in two.  Reporter Tyler J. Kelley paid a visit to Yellow Springs to see if it’s really becoming Chappelleville. You can read Tyler J. Kelley’s Bloomberg story “What Happens When Dave Chappelle Buys Up Your Town”...

In celebration of Bloomsday on June 16th, we’re bringing you a special James Joyce mystery. Ten years after achieving stratospheric and unlikely fame, the world’s greatest Ulysses scholar disappeared. Reporter Jack Hitt went on a quest to find out if he was dead, alive or insane.You can read Jack Hitt’s New York Times story “The Strange Case of the Missing Joyce Scholar, here: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/12/magazine/the-strange-case-of-the-missing-joyce-scholar.html See...

Bananas is a comedy podcast from the Exactly Right network, home of the hit true crime comedy podcast My Favorite Murder. Each week on Bananas, comedians Kurt Braunohler and Scotty Landes discuss the strange, fascinating, and just plain bananas news from around the world. Plus, each episode they are joined by a fantastic guest like Bridget Everett, Hannah Einbinder, Yeardley Smith, SuChin Pak and…. Charlize Theron! This episode is called “Pushin’ Peanuts Up Pepsi Mountain with V Spehar”...

When a benign urban planning concept is co-opted by conspiracy theorists, an unsuspecting professor becomes the target of right-wing death threats. Tiffany Hsu covered the story of the 15 minute city conspiracy for The New York Times. You can read the full story here: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/28/technology/carlos-moreno-15-minute-cities-conspiracy-theories.html   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Every month in New York City, a small group of people who feel like they’ve been ostracized for holding unpopular opinions and their supporters meet up to chat, debate, and even sing folk songs. Reporter Emma Green attended a recent gathering.  You can read Emma Green’s New Yorker story “The Party is Cancelled” here: https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-local-correspondents/the-party-is-cancelled  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Nearly all of the high-end microchips in the world - the ones we depend on for our phones and cars  –  are manufactured in an unassuming factory in Taiwan. Virginia Heffernan is one of the few reporters to go inside. She wrote about what she saw for Wired. You can read Virginia Heffernan's story, "I Saw the Face of God in a Semiconductor Factory" here: https://www.wired.com/story/i-saw-the-face-of-god-in-a-tsmc-factory/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When a nurse named Tiffany Dover fainted on camera after getting a Covid vaccine, anti-vaxxers assumed the worst. Shortly after, the internet was awash in conspiracy theories that she was dead. NBC News reporter Brandy Zadrozny set out to prove that Tiffany Dover was alive. This turned out to be more difficult than she could have imagined. You can read Brandy Zadrozny’s story, “Conspiracy theorists made Tiffany Dover into an anti-vaccine icon,” here:...

What happens when artificial intelligence comes for the novelists? Death of an Author is a groundbreaking, suspenseful experiment in the meta world of man meets machine. A gripping mystery that is 95% written by AI, aka “Aidan Marchine,” and 5% by journalist Stephen Marche, who skillfully crafted the story outline and machine prompts. The project is publishing on 5/9/23, order your copy here: https://www.pushkin.fm/audiobooks/death-of-an-author See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy...

On the Replica app, you can create an AI-powered chatbot to talk to, befriend, sext and even virtually marry. The service has millions of users. Some of them are now discovering that having a friend or spouse that’s owned by a private company comes with downsides.  Pranshu Verma wrote "They fell in love with AI bots. A software update broke their hearts" for The Washington Post. You can read the full story here:...

In 2012, Melania Trump tweeted a photo of a smiling beluga whale and captioned it “what is she thinking?” Eleven years later, Sabrina Imbler, a journalist at Defector Media, decided to try to answer that question.  You can read Sabrina Imbler’s full story, “What Was She Thinking? An Investigation,” here: https://defector.com/what-was-she-thinking-an-investigation See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Celebrity autographs are a billion dollar industry. And in New York City, “Radio Man” is better at collecting them than anybody else. He also regularly appears as an extra in movies and TV shows. How did a formerly homeless man come to be so beloved by celebrities? And how did he get so good at getting their autographs? Drew Schwartz wrote “Meet Radio Man: Autograph King, Friend of George Clooney, ‘Bum’” for the New York Times. You can read the full story here:...

Is it possible to live for even a day without plastic? Stunt journalist extraordinaire A.J. Jacobs tries his best. And fails miserably. You can read the full New York Times story here: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/11/style/plastic-free.html See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian man nicknamed “Putin’s Chef” went from being a street criminal to a hot dog seller to owning a catering company that provides services to the Russian government. Oh yeah– and he’s also the head of a private military company that’s sending soldiers all over the world. How did Prigozhin turn global conflict into a lucrative business? And what could happen if he decides he’s had enough of Vladimir Putin’s rule?  Julia Ioffe wrote about Prigozhin for her publication,...

In 2013, two women started a Facebook group called “Buy Nothing” for their local community on Bainbridge Island to swap unwanted items for free. But their small group quickly grew, becoming a national movement with millions of users.  A coup within Buy Nothing raised questions about if it’s possible to create a utopian project within a broken society.  Vauhini Vara reported on the saga of Buy Nothing for Wired Magazine. You can read the full story here:...

UPDATE: Since we recorded this episode on 03/09, Guo Wengui was arrested in New York City on charges of financial conspiracy.For years, rapper Pras Michél has allegedly been doing the bidding of wanted Malaysian billionaire, Jho Low. Pras’s baffling, Icarian story involves one of the greatest financial scandals in history, an international hostage negotiation, and the possibility of a decadeslong prison sentence. Matthew Campbell co-wrote this story for Business Week. You can read it here:...

The Oscars seems to be cursed with a series of chaotic live television gaffes. But one moment in Academy Award history takes the cake. In 1974, a scrawny white man named Robert Opel ran across the stage butt naked, right as the Best Picture category was being announced. New Yorker magazine writer and Oscars aficionado Michael Schulman recounts the queer, wonderful, and historic life of the 1974 Oscars streaker.  You can read the full story here:...

Tipping. Dinner parties. Canceling plans. We could all use an etiquette guide that teaches us to live without pissing people off. Luckily, New York Magazine has one – and it went viral. We (politely) asked Choire Sicha, who edited that guide, to come on our show.  You can read the full list from New York Magazine here: https://www.thecut.com/article/tipping-rules-etiquette-rules.html See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What happens when extinct animal skeletons meet the “Joe Rogan Experience”? The answer is murky, freezing, and may contain submerged cars. This week, we bring on Michael Wilson from the New York Times, who wrote about how a fossil-excavating reality TV star came on Joe Rogan’s podcast to make a bombshell claim: that there are mammoth tusks at the bottom of the East River. What ensues is a no-holds-barred bone rush. You can read the full story...

A special episode from Land of the Giants: Dating Games. When Tinder launched in 2012, it changed dating culture and our expectations around dating forever by leveraging the iPhone and gamifying the dating experience. But did the rise of dating apps make finding romance easier or harder, and what are the consequences of playing a game that never ends? Subscribe to Land of the Giants to get new episodes every Wednesday. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.