Slate News

This Week: A.I. giant Anthropic, makers of Claude, filed to go public. Felix Salmon, Elizabeth Spiers, and Emily Peck discuss what the S-1 filing revealed about their finances and what this IPO means for Anthropic’s place in the A.I. race. Then, they look at why Weil, Gotshal & Mange, a top Wall Street law firm, is choosing to shut its doors and what that says about the industry. And finally, they take a look at how crypto exchange Binance is scrambling after a $6.3 billion Bitcoin heist.
In the Slate Plus episode: Is Cheesecake Factory Cheesy?

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Podcast production by Jessamine Molli and Cheyna Roth.
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The Trump administration has sued to potentially block certification of a Senate race in Alaska, threatened California election officials with jail time, and challenged the voter rolls in 30 states. They've lost almost all of those cases. So with a few days to go before the midterms, should we still be worried?
Dahlia is joined by Ari Berman, Mother Jones national voting rights correspondent and author of Minority Rule and Give Us the Ballot, to walk through the legal state of play heading into Election Day. They cover the Alaska Senate race lawsuit, the California ballot-segregation case, the threat of election-day ballot seizures and poll intimidation, and the Supreme Court's likely role if disputed elections land on its doorstep. They also discuss a source of hope: Black voters across the South are surging to the polls, driven by the Roberts Court’s attack on voting rights in its recent Callais decision, turning a ruling designed to suppress their votes into the most powerful mobilizing force of the cycle.
Plus, Amicus Plus members get a bonus episode with Madiba Dennie on this week’s Epstein file revelations, new GOP threats to judges who rule against Trump, and a major religious liberty case headed to SCOTUS.
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It’s the last Friday before the midterms and Democrats have every reason to finally stop panicking and start….merely fretting. This episode originally aired as a Slate Live on YouTube, produced in collaboration with Slate’s politics newsletter The Surge.
There’s going to be another one of these just for Slate Plus listeners next Wednesday (11/4) at 12P ET! To register, click here.

Guests:
Jim Newell, Slate’s senior politics writer.
Patrick Reis, Slate’s politics editor
Lizzie O’Leary, What Next: TBD host

This episode is member-exclusive. Listen to it now by subscribing to Slate Plus. By joining, not only will you unlock exclusive episodes of What Next —you’ll also access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the What Next show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen.

Podcast production by Evan Campbell, Madeline Thames-Ducharme and Patrick Fort.

Paige Osburn is the senior supervising producer of What Next and What Next TBD.
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What is AGI—and is it crazy to say it’s already here? Anthropic’s targeted IPO valuation indicates that many don’t think it’s far off.

Guest: Kevin Roose, author of “The AGI Chronicles”, former NYT host of “Hard Fork,” current host of NPR’s “Machine Gods.”

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Podcast production by Evan Campbell, Madeline Thames-Ducharme and Patrick Fort.

Paige Osburn is the senior supervising producer of What Next and What Next TBD.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss what they're paying attention to and what to expect on Election Day next Tuesday, how to understand the complex results of Israel's elections with guest Ruth Margalit, and what Anthropic's highly anticipated IPO prospectus says about the promise and peril of AI.

Here are this week’s chatters:

Emily: Sam Levine for The Guardian: Justice department charges ex-FBI director James Comey for third time; Jordan Rubin for MS NOW: How the Trump DOJ can lose the new Comey case before it even starts; Michelle Spear for The Conversation: Do women have to pee more often? The answer is surprisingly complex

John: CBC Podcasts: Sea of Lies; BritBox: Ludwig

David: Hulu: Adults; Michael Johnston and Melissa de la Cruz for NPR: 'Spell'-Bound By A Goofy Book — And Later, United By It

Listener chatter from Bryan Bennett in Austin, Texas: Bryan Bennett for Walking Through the Data (Substack): Democrats Need to Confront the Length and Depth of Distrust in Government and Institutions

For this week’s Slate Plus bonus episode, Emily, John, and David discuss the spat between Obama and Trump over Trump's gilded Oval Office decor, consider which side emerges looking better, and ask whether dumb cultural moments like this really matter.

In the latest Gabfest Reads, John Dickerson interviews Angela Duckworth about her new book, Situated: Find the People and Places That Bring Out Your Best. This new book argues that the most successful people don’t just grind harder; they reshape their circumstances to make success feel automatic.

Email your chatters, questions, and comments to gabfest@slate.com. (Messages may be referenced by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.)

Podcast production by Nina Porzucki
Research by Emily Ditto

You can find the full Political Gabfest show pages here.

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Find out more about David Plotz's monthly tours of Ft. DeRussy, the secret Civil War fort hidden in Rock Creek Park.

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