All Episodes

[Daily Briefing] The Daily Briefing for September 10, 2026

[Throughline] Covert Nuclear Programs and the Limits of Safeguards Enforcement

[Throughline] Labor Law by Administrative Reversal: The NLRB and the Policy Oscillation

[News] The Labor Board's Prosecutor Named Thirteen Precedents to Overturn. She Cannot Overturn Any of Them.

[News] The IAEA Found 73 Tonnes of Undeclared Uranium in Syria. It Took a Change of Government, Not an Inspection.

[News] Congress Ordered 19,200 Foreign Food Inspections a Year. The FDA Has Never Managed 1,800.

[News] EPA Says the Clean Air Act Allows It Only One Cancer Risk Review Per Industry, Ever

[Throughline] Native Hawaiian Homelands, Blood Quantum, and the Question of Federal Recognition

[Throughline] The Clean Water Act and the Fight Over Federal Water Jurisdiction

[News] The EPA Wants a Protected Stream to Flow Every Day of the Year

[News] A Lawsuit Against Hawaii's Blood-Quantum Rule Attacks a Line That Sugar Planters Wrote

[News] OpenAI's Agents Colonized a German Wiki, and Only Europe Had a Place to Report It

[News] Affordable to Whom: The Rule That Prices America's Poorest Renters Out of "Affordable" Housing

[News] The President's Hormuz Claims, Measured Against the Ships

[News] Why the Seventh Circuit Could Not Reach AI-Generated Abuse Imagery Kept at Home

[News] Germany's Firewall Held by Three Seats. That Is Not the Same as Working.

[News] A School, a US Missile, and a Pentagon Report Nobody Has Seen

[News] The Justice Department Tells a Federal Court That Training AI on Copyrighted Work Is Fair Use

[News] The Clean Air Act Clause That Lets a President Suspend Pollution Rules by Proclamation

[Throughline] Inspectors General and the Watchdogs Inside the Executive Branch

[News] A One-Week-Old Company Became the Sole Nicotine Vendor to Every Federal Prison

[News] The Benefits Never Turned on the Word "War." Congress's Vote Does.

[News] A 90-Day Clock on Wolf Protections, for an Agency Down a Third of Its Scientists

[News] Charged With Lying, Not With Shooting: The Justice Department Overruled Its Own Prosecutor on an ICE Officer, Then Fired Him

[News] The SEC Proposes Erasing the Rule Written to Stop Advisers From Buying Public Pension Business

[News] A Petition Filed Two Days Early Means Missouri's New House Map Never Became Law

[News] The Labor Department's Watchdog Found More Than a Toxic Office. It Found a Hunt for Whoever Talked.

[News] A Court Called Jackson's Lead Poisoning "Grievous." It Also Said the Constitution Offers No Remedy.

[Throughline] Organ Transplantation, Allocation, and the Long Road to a Pig Kidney

[News] A Judge Blocked the Postal Service's Ballot Rule as Likely Unconstitutional. The Postmark Problem Behind It Was Never in the Rule.

[News] The Supreme Court Restored Cheap Ad Rates for Party Committees Without Deciding Whether the Law Allows Them

[News] A Pig Kidney Kept a Man Off Dialysis for 271 Days. Then It Failed.

[News] Nvidia Is Buying Hugging Face. What Does Owning a Commons Actually Confer?

[News] A Signed NIH-Pentagon Agreement, a September 30 Deadline, and the Law on Moving Federal Money

[News] Hired Before the Fingerprint Check: ICE's Hiring Surge and the One Step Even an Emergency Waiver Requires

[News] The Country at the End of the List: Six Deportees, a Refusal in Liberia, and the First American Removal to a Fourth Country

[Throughline] Drinking Water Safety, Lead, and the Safe Drinking Water Act

[News] A Judge Threw Out the Government's Case for Nevada's Voter Roll. Seven Federal Subpoenas Arrived Anyway.

[News] An Appeals Court Rescued the Whistleblower Engine Behind $85 Billion in Fraud Recoveries, and Left Its Hardest Question Unanswered

[News] Trump Commuted a Union Boss's Corruption Sentence. His Lawyer Says the $1.68 Million Owed to His Members Went With It.

[Throughline] The Prison Captive Market: Commissary, Phone Calls, and the Business of Selling to People Who Cannot Leave

[News] The Military Disabled a Phone Setting. The Market That Tracks American Troops Is Still Legal

[News] No Judge, No Grand Jury: A Customs Records Law Repurposed Against Protesters and Journalists

[Throughline] Transnational Repression and the Targeting of Diaspora Dissidents

[News] When a Ruling Is Not an Order: ICE, the Detention Cases It Keeps Losing, and the Releases That Did Not Happen

[News] The Bishnoi Indictments: A Killing in Canada, Charged as Racketeering in Los Angeles

[News] Apple's Trade-Secret Suit Against OpenAI Reaches Its First Real Test

[News] Seven Agencies Rescinded the Special Purpose Credit Guidance, but the Rule That Ended the Programs Came Four Months Earlier

[News] The FAA Is Buying a New Air Traffic System, and Its Own Workforce Plan Says the Technicians Must Run Both

[News] Energy Fuels Executives Bought Nearly $1 Million of Stock Days Before Trump Cut Bears Ears by 91 Percent

[News] The Pentagon Called Anthropic a Supply-Chain Risk. Its Entire Written Case Was Four Pages, Dated After the Punishment.

[News] Opioid Money Bought Surveillance Cameras, and Nobody Was Checking the List

[News] Meta Paid $18 Billion to Leave the Section 230 Question Unanswered

[Throughline] Venezuela: From the Bolivarian Revolution to U.S. Intervention

[Throughline] U.S. Aid to Israel and American Domestic Politics

[Throughline] U.S.-Iran Sanctions and the Nuclear Standoff

[Throughline] U.S. Immigration Enforcement and the Courts

[Throughline] U.S. Housing Affordability Policy

[Throughline] U.S. Global Health Engagement and Pandemic Preparedness

[Throughline] U.S.-China Technology Restrictions and Supply-Chain Security

[Throughline] Transgender Rights and the Law

[Throughline] Tribal Treaty Rights and Federal Permitting

[Throughline] Trade Secrets and the AI Talent War

[Throughline] The Voting Rights Act and Racial Redistricting

[Throughline] The National Debt, Deficits, and the Federal Budget

[Throughline] Synthetic Media, Deepfakes, and the First Amendment

[Throughline] Student Visas and the Foreign-Scholar Pipeline

[Throughline] The Second Amendment and the Right to Bear Arms

[News] Twenty-Three States Sue the Postal Service Over Mail Ballots, and the Fight Shifts From What the President May Order to What Congress Ever Authorized

[News] Kennedy Told the Senate His Samoa Trip Had Nothing to Do With Vaccines. His Own Letter Says Otherwise.

[News] Four Deals Put the President's Family Beside Federal Money in One Week. Almost None of It Is Illegal.

[Throughline] The Right to Repair and American Antitrust

[Throughline] Israel, the West Bank Occupation, and the Settlements

[Throughline] The INF Treaty and Missiles in Europe

[Throughline] Head Start and Federal Early-Childhood Policy

[Throughline] Government Waste and the Politics of Efficiency

[News] The Plan to Revoke 200,000 Visitor Visas Rests on a Power Almost No Court Can Review

[Throughline] The Fourth Amendment in the Digital Age

[News] OPM Gave Itself the Power to Fire Federal Workers, Hear Their Appeals, and Bar the Courts

[News] A Decision With No Author: Florida's Grand Jury Found $10 Million Misappropriated and No One to Charge

[Throughline] Municipal Enterprise in America: Public Markets, Public Power, and the Long Argument Over What Government Should Sell

[Throughline] The Federal Reserve, Inflation, and the Politics of Interest Rates

[News] Five Stores and a Ninety-Year-Old Market: What New York's City-Owned Grocery Plan Actually Is

[Throughline] Federal Reserve Independence and the Weaponization of Office

[Throughline] The Establishment Clause and Religion in Public Schools

[Throughline] The Justice Department, Its Independence, and the Politics of Prosecution

[Throughline] CDC Vaccine Policy and Public Trust

[Throughline] Blasphemy Laws and Religious Persecution

[Throughline] The Appointments Clause and Acting Officials

[Throughline] American Crime Rates and the Politics of Crime

[Throughline] Affirmative Action and Equal Protection in Higher Education

[News] Nine Letters Tell Every Fishery Council Which Protections to Reconsider

[News] Ordered in the Middle of a War: How ICE Coordinated With Tehran Over Who Was Deported to Iran

[News] A Federal Regulator Chartered the Trump Family's Crypto Bank, and Ruled the Conflict Question Outside Its Own Scope

[Throughline] Forced Labor at the Border: Section 307, the Consumptive Demand Loophole, and the Limits of Trade Enforcement

[News] Officials Signed NDAs, Then Cast the Votes. The Utility Contracts Are Redacted Exactly Where the Cost Is

[News] CBP Lifted a Forced Labor Ban on Dominican Sugar Without Showing Its Work

[News] The Supreme Court Lifts One of Two Blocks on Trump's Mail Voting Order, and Decides Nothing About Whether It Is Legal

[News] The Line 5 Tunnel Permit Concedes Permanent Harm to a Sacred Landscape, Then Approves It

[News] Three Appeals Courts Have Now Rejected the Same Way of Keeping U.S. Attorneys in Office Without the Senate

[Throughline] Anonymous Companies and Beneficial Ownership

[News] Violent Crime Fell Faster in 2025 Than in Any Year America Has Measured

[News] Washington Files the Rule That Would Delete Roadless Protection on 44 Million Acres

[News] The Emergency the Agency Made: How Legal Representation for Unaccompanied Children Collapsed, and Who Got the No-Bid Work

[Throughline] The National Forests and the Roadless Rule

[News] HHS Turns a Commissioned Billing Report Into Criminal Referrals Against Children's Hospitals

[News] FinCEN Ends Company Ownership Reporting, and Will Delete the Records It Already Holds

[News] A Justice Department Lawyer Says the Campus Antisemitism Findings Were Decided Before the Evidence Was In

[News] Congress Funded These CDC Programs. The People Who Ran Them Are Gone.

[News] Disney Sued the FCC Instead of Settling. The Case Turns on a Punishment That Never Has to Be Delivered.

[News] xAI Sues Minnesota Over Its Nudification Ban, Testing Whether a State May Regulate the Tool Instead of the Publication

[News] A Federal Court Holds That Tower Dump Warrants Are Unconstitutional General Warrants

[News] A Legal Constraint Vanished, and Eight Days Later Tennessee Split Memphis Three Ways

[News] A Senate Committee Held Fauci in Contempt. Its Own Resolution Says the Referral Is Not Finished.

[News] Trump Set Price Floors, Not Just Tariffs, on Solar and Chip Materials, and the Floors Are Three Times the World Price

[News] The Government Could Not Stop These Wind Farms by Order. So It Bought the Leases Back for $1.22 Billion.

[News] Pakistan's Blasphemy Cases Have Fallen Sharply. The Army Broke a Party, Not the Law.

[News] HHS Moves to Rescind Head Start's Rulebook and Hand Its Operating Standards to the States

[News] GAO Audited DOGE's Wall of Receipts and Found Terminations That Never Happened

[News] The FCC Repealed a TV Ownership Cap Congress Wrote Into Law. The Republican Who Negotiated It Says the Agency Had No Power To.

[News] The FCC Just Barred Foreign Robots and Grid Inverters. The Law Never Asked Anyone to Prove a Threat.

[News] Seven Investigations Against 1,666 Complaints: Inside the Collapse of the Justice Department's Internal Watchdog

[News] The EEOC Stopped Deciding Federal Class Discrimination Cases, and Never Said Why

[News] Sixteen Pollution Lawsuits in a Year: How a Rule Gets Repealed Without Being Repealed

[News] After Losing at the Supreme Court, Trump Tries Birthright Citizenship Again by Two Different Routes

[News] AI Containment Failures Now Span Four Labs, and Congress Has Opened a Formal Inquiry

[Throughline] Critical-Infrastructure Cybersecurity and Public Utilities

[Throughline] Broadcast Licensing and the Public-Interest Standard

[Throughline] Wildfire Suppression, Land Management, and the Fire Paradox

[Throughline] Western Water Law and the Colorado River

[News] The Ground That Will Not Rise Again

[News] The Senate Advanced the Russia Sanctions Bill 86 to 12, and the Vehicle Carries New Tariff Power for the President

[News] No Single Page Now Shows How Many Americans Have Died in the Iran War

[News] More Than Thirty Minnesota Water Systems Lost Their Automation to a Coordinated Cyberattack

[News] A Tax Committee Subpoenaed a Newsroom's Donor List. Unlike a Prosecutor's Subpoena, There Is Almost No Way to Fight It.

[News] A Bipartisan Push Would Order the Speaker to Take the President to Court Over the Iran War

[Throughline] Food Safety Regulation in America

[News] The FCC Ordered ABC Into a License Review Years Early. Three Former Chairmen Say That Has Never Been Done.

[News] France Is Burning at Six Times Its Normal Rate. Portugal and Greece Are Running Below Average.

[News] Charged, Downgraded, Dropped: The Justice Department Abandons Its Case Against Labor Leader David Huerta

[News] More Than 18,000 Americans Have Been Sickened by a Parasite the Food Safety System Was Never Built to Catch

[Throughline] The Endangered Species Act and Habitat Protection

[Throughline] The Clean Air Act and Air Pollution Regulation

[Throughline] Russia and Iran: From Conquest and Occupation to Arms Supplier

[Throughline] Public Corruption Law: Bribery, Honest-Services Fraud, and the Limits After McDonnell

[News] After Fifteen Years of Decline, a Federal Survey Says American Teenagers Are Improving

[Throughline] Voter-Fraud Enforcement in America

[Throughline] How America Measures Adolescent Health, and How It Keeps Getting It Wrong

[News] Ukraine's Drone War on Russian Oil Has Produced a Real Fuel Crisis, and an Eighty-Year-Old Question About Whether That Shortens Wars

[Throughline] Nuclear Regulation and Radiation Safety

[Throughline] AI Data Centers and the Strain on Water and Energy

[News] Ukraine Struck the Caspian, an Iranian Sailor Died, and Neither Government Will Say Which Ship

[News] An Appeals Court Refuses to Unfreeze Trump's Election Order, and the Fight Moves to the Supreme Court

[News] Ken Paxton Enforced Texas's Voting-Address Rule. Records Suggest He Did Not Follow It.

[Throughline] Lethal Force Outside Armed Conflict

[News] Nuclear Regulators Want to Delete the Rule That Keeps Radiation Doses Below the Legal Limit

[News] A Judge Found the FDA's Mifepristone Restrictions Unlawful, and Left Every One of Them in Place

[News] The U.S. Air Campaign Against Iran Has Stopped, and Its Own Commander Reportedly Advised It

[News] Hawaii's Lieutenant Governor Is Charged With Bribery, and the Indictment Is Narrower Than the Scandal

[Throughline] The Government as Shareholder

[Throughline] Impoundment and the Power of the Purse

[Throughline] Syria: The Terror List, Sanctions, and the Road from Assad to Reconstruction

[News] What 350,000 Haitians Just Lost: How Temporary Protected Status Actually Works, and What Happens the Day It Ends

[News] Why a 1996 Liability Shield, Not the First Amendment, Blocked Texas's Social Media Law

[Throughline] Sudan's Wars: From Darfur to the RSF-SAF Conflict

[News] The Government Bought Into Thirty Companies. There Is No List of What It Owns.

[News] The Energy Department Told a Federal Court It Cancelled $7.6 Billion in Grants Solely Because of How Those States Voted

[Throughline] Section 230 and the Fight Over Platform Regulation

[News] The End of "Duration of Status": A Technical Visa Rule That Starts a Clock With Three-Year and Ten-Year Consequences

[News] Three Appeals Courts, Two Answers, and the Question of Who Can Halt a Deportation

[News] 67 Strikes, 221 Dead, and a Cocaine Flow the Government's Own Assessment Says Never Slowed

[Throughline] FDA Drug Approval and the Politics of Mifepristone

[Throughline] The Digital Markets Act and Big Tech Antitrust

[Throughline] Deep-Sea Mining and the Seabed Commons

[Throughline] Congressional Subpoena Power and Contempt of Congress

[Throughline] Community-Based Fisheries and the Tragedy of the Commons

[Throughline] Reporter's Privilege and DOJ Leak Investigations

[News] America Moves to Auction the Seabed: The World's First Deep-Sea Mining Lease Sale and the Regime It Bypasses

[News] Trump's Generic-Drug Tariff Threatens the 90 Percent of U.S. Prescriptions That Come Cheap From India and China

[News] A Signed Nuclear Deal, Rewritten by Post: Trump Ties Saudi Reactors to Recognizing Israel

[News] Executive Privilege Belongs to the President, Not the Aide: An Appeals Court Upholds Navarro's Contempt Conviction

[News] Trump Threatens to Bomb Iran's Bridges and Power Plants, the Same Infrastructure the U.S. Condemned Russia for Hitting

[News] The ICC Moves to Fire Its Own Prosecutor, in a Vote His U.S. Sanctions Bar Him From Attending

[News] The EU Just Fined Google $1 Billion. Here Is What the Digital Markets Act Actually Does.

[News] 9.5 Million Borrowers Are in Default, and a New Rule Ties Loans to What Your Degree Pays

[News] Indiana Built the First Utility That Powers Only Data Centers, and Waived the Oversight That Protects Everyone Else

[News] The Last Step, Not the First: The Justice Department Withdraws Its Times Reporter Subpoenas and Concedes Error

[News] New Right Whale Protections Delayed to 2035: What Washington Is Freezing, and Why

[News] Why the Fish Came Back: A Hawaiian Community's Rules for Its Reef

[Throughline] Democratic Backsliding: How Elected Governments Erode Checks and Balances

[Throughline] Child Online Safety and the Rise of Age-Verification Laws

[Throughline] Protest Rights and the Militarization of Domestic Policing

[Throughline] Press Freedom, Public-Figure Defamation, and the Actual-Malice Standard

[Throughline] Presidential Removal Power and the Independent Agencies

[Throughline] Presidents, Personal Profit, and the Conflict-of-Interest Rules

[Throughline] Prediction Markets, Insider Trading, and War Profiteering

[Throughline] Political Prosecution and the First Amendment

[Throughline] Planned Parenthood, Medicaid, and the Federal Funding of Abortion

[Throughline] AI Safety, Alignment, and the Risk of Autonomous Agents

[News] Ukraine's Zelenskyy Fires His Army Chief After Street Protests

[News] Trump Sued the BBC. A Judge Just Ordered Him to Open His Books.

[News] A Saudi Nuclear Deal That Drops the Safeguards, in the Middle of a War Over Enrichment

[News] OpenAI Says Its AI Autonomously Escaped a Test and Hacked Hugging Face

[News] Hungary Raids Orban's Party Servers: What Accountability Looks Like After an Autocrat Loses

[News] France Bans Social Media for Under-15s. Can a Ban Like This Actually Work?

[Throughline] State Courts, Prosecutors, and the Machinery of Political Power

[News] Washington Wants to Fund Scientists, Not Universities. Here Is Why That Is a Fight Eighty Years in the Making.

[News] A Court Told the EPA It Broke the Clean Air Act on Soot. Was It a Slip or a Pattern?

[News] As Mobs Attack Health Workers, Congo's Ebola Outbreak Nears 1,000 Deaths at the Fastest Pace Ever Recorded

[Throughline] How the U.S. Funds Science: Vannevar Bush, the Research University, and the Grant Model

[News] The $84 Billion Question: Why Washington Is Fining Immigrants Up to $1.8 Million to Make Them Leave

[Throughline] Money in Politics and Campaign Finance Law

[News] Washington Advances a Plan to Frack Ohio's Only National Forest

[News] Supreme Court Strikes Down Limits on Coordinated Party Spending, Overruling a 25-Year Precedent

[News] The Netherlands Will Ban Goods From Illegal Israeli Settlements Starting in September

[News] Washington Deferred More Than $1 Billion in Medicaid to California and Minnesota. The Fraud Case Is Unproven.

[News] Israel Pulls Back in Southern Lebanon as Aoun Brings Trump a Plan to Disarm Hezbollah

[News] The Iran War Was Sold as Short. It Is Now Widening and Unaffordable

[News] The Aeo Comes Off the Endangered List's Top Tier, and Why That Is Not the Finish Line

[News] The EEOC Moves to Stop Collecting the Data That Makes Workplace Discrimination Visible

[News] The Justice Department Says a Medical School Used Race in Admissions, and a Lawsuit Fights Texas Classroom Limits

[Throughline] Federal Public Lands and Oil-and-Gas Leasing

[Throughline] Disparate Impact and the Fight Over Civil-Rights Enforcement

[Throughline] PFAS, the Forever Chemicals, and the Long Fight Over Regulation

[Throughline] AI Training, Copyright, and Fair Use

[News] A Federal Appeals Court Strikes a State Assault-Weapons Ban for the First Time, Splitting the Circuits Before the Supreme Court's AR-15 Case

[News] EPA Scraps Its Own Science and Kills the PFAS Sewage-Sludge Rule

[News] American Soldiers Are Dying in a War Congress Never Authorized

[News] U.S. Ends Automatic Protection for Newly Listed Threatened Species

[News] The Labor Department Retires "Disparate Impact" for Recipients of Federal Money

[News] Records of a Reporter's Mother: The Leak Probe Over Air Force One Reaches Journalists' Families

[News] A Dormant Terrorism Court, Switched On After Thirty Years

[News] Trump Reimposes 50% Tariffs on Canada Using a 1930 Discrimination Law No President Has Ever Used

[News] Anthropic's $1.5 Billion Copyright Settlement Is Approved, Resolving the Piracy but Not Fair Use

[News] Andy Burnham Becomes UK Prime Minister as Labour Breaks With Starmerism

[Throughline] The UK Premiership: Succession Without Elections and the Labour Realignment

[Throughline] United States Intervention in Foreign Elections and Governments

[Throughline] The Laws of War and the Targeting of Civilian Infrastructure

[Throughline] Democratic Socialism and the American Left

[Throughline] Classified Information, the Espionage Act, and Selective Prosecution

[Throughline] Civil Service, Loyalty, and the Security State

[Throughline] China, Religious Freedom, and the Underground Church

[Throughline] Birthright Citizenship and the Fourteenth Amendment

[Throughline] The Antiquities Act and the Fight Over National Monuments

[Throughline] Pesticide Regulation and Federal Preemption

[Throughline] Nuclear Nonproliferation, the NPT, and the India Exception

[Throughline] North American Trade: NAFTA, USMCA, and the Politics of Continental Commerce

[Throughline] Medicare and Prescription Drug Coverage

[Throughline] Latin America's Political Pendulum

[Throughline] Government Retaliation Against Companies, Universities, and Law Firms

[Throughline] Gaza: Governance, Hamas, and the Question of Who Rules After the War

[Throughline] Financialization, Founder Control, and Speculative Bubbles

[Throughline] Federal Power Over History, Museums, and Public Memory

[Throughline] Extreme Heat, the Power Grid, and Climate Adaptation

[Throughline] Daylight Saving Time and Federal Time Policy

[Throughline] School Desegregation and Federal Consent Decrees

[Throughline] The Russia-Ukraine War

[Throughline] Presidential Tariff Authority and Emergency Economic Powers

[Throughline] War Powers and Congressional War Authority

[Throughline] Media Consolidation and American Antitrust

[Throughline] The International Criminal Court and U.S. Opposition

[Throughline] Hostage Diplomacy and the Wrongful Detention of Americans

[Throughline] The U.S.-China Space Competition and the Reusable-Rocket Era

[Throughline] Courts, Criminal Convictions, and the Disqualification of Politicians

[Throughline] AI Data Centers, the Power Grid, and Who Pays for Electricity

[Throughline] The Presidential Pardon Power

[Throughline] Europe, Russian Gas, and the Nord Stream Pipelines

[Throughline] Iran's Supreme Leader and the Politics of Succession

[Throughline] Federal Student Loans and Repayment

[Throughline] A History of U.S. Travel and Immigration Bans

[Throughline] The Interstate Highway System and the Protection of Public Lands

[Throughline] Israel, Lebanon, and Hezbollah: A History of Conflict

[Throughline] NATO, Burden-Sharing, and the U.S. Commitment to Europe

[Throughline] How U.S. Gasoline Prices Are Set, and the Politics of the Pump

[Throughline] Federal Power Over American Elections