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Days after Hamas launched its attacks on Israel on October 7, the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, was one of the first Western leaders to arrive in Tel Aviv. Standing next to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he declared that Germany has “only one place – and that is next to Israel.”That position now looks increasingly awkward for Germany, Israel's second-largest arms supplier, and a nation whose leadership calls support for the country a “Staatsraison,” a national reason for existence, as a way to atone for the Holocaust.Last week, as Israel's deadly offensive continued in Gaza, the chancellor again stood alongside Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, striking a different tone. “No matter how important the goal,” he asked, “can it justify such terribly high costs?”With international ...

archived recording 1It is election day in Georgia and the stakes are high.archived recording 2Tonight, Georgia remains at the center of the American political universe. Why?archived recordingThis is a huge victory for the Democrats, a state they’ve long eyed, like a 10-year-long project to flip this red state blue.archived recordingShe released a playbook laying out the path to Democratic victory here and across the country.Abrams says the keys are spending money, tens of millions, and convincing voters to show up.archived recording (trevor noah)Every time I see you, I feel like you are doing more and more things.archived recording (ellen degeneres)Well, they said you’d written a bunch of romance novels under a different name?archived recording (stacy abrams)Yes, I’ve written a romance nov...

Listen and follow 'Hard Fork'Apple | Spotify | Amazon | YoutubeThis week we will look at the corporate chaos in the field of artificial intelligence. Stability AI has announced that its founder and CEO, Emad Mostaque, will be leaving the company. Meanwhile, Microsoft hired two of Inflection's cofounders and much of Inflection's staff, without actually acquiring the company itself. Both moves surprised tech insiders. Then we spoke to listeners who had something to say about our interview with Jonathan Haidt about smartphones, social media and young people. Finally, let's examine the real reasons behind “Shrimp Jesus” and other extremely popular images on social media generated with artificial intelligence.Today's guests:Jordan Lucero, a high school studentMay...

Israeli troops and Hamas fighters waged deadly battles in and around two of the Gaza Strip's main hospitals on Thursday, as the Israeli government came under growing pressure at home and abroad to moderate its approach to the war that has the enclave was devastated.Fighting has raged for an 11th day at Gaza City's Al-Shifa hospital, in an area first seized by Israeli forces in November. The clashes highlighted the difficulty the Israelis are having in maintaining control of places they had already captured as Palestinian militants disperse and then return.In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, increasingly unpopular and criticized on multiple fronts, met for the first time with the families of the soldiers kidnapped and detained in Gaza, who had accused him before the meeti...

For Dr. Theresa Cheng, the scene was “apocalyptic.”She had come to Valley of the Moon, an open-air detention site in rural San Diego's Mountain Empire, to provide voluntary medical care to asylum seekers who had breached the U.S.-Mexico border wall and were waiting to be arrested by the American authorities.Among the crowds at this and other sites, he found children with deep lacerations, broken bones, fever, diarrhea, vomiting and even seizures. Some hid in overflowing dumpsters and porta-potties. An asthmatic boy without an inhaler panted in acrid smoke from brush and garbage fires, which had been lit for warmth.With immigration processing centers at capacity, migrants, including unaccompanied minors, wait for hours – sometimes days – in outdoor holding areas, where housing, food a...

An influential United Nations human rights body gave a scathing assessment of civil rights protections in Britain on Thursday, accusing the Conservative government of backsliding and urging the country to abandon its controversial legislation requiring applicants to be sent asylum in Rwanda.The criticism from the UN Human Rights Committee came as it presented the conclusions of two days of meetings in Geneva this month with a delegation of 24 British officials to review the country's compliance with an international treaty protecting civil rights and politicians.“We are seeing a really regressive trend and trajectory” in Britain, committee member Hélène Tigroudja said at a news conference in Geneva. She said the trend is happening “in many, many areas when it comes to civil and politi...

This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email [email protected] with any questions.archived recording 1This is what democracy looks like!This is what democracy looks like!astead herndonIn 2011, I was a college student in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.archived recording 2Thursday night, tens of thousands of protesters packed three floors of the Capitol building.astead herndonAnd during that time —archived recording 3The protesters first descended on the Capitol Monday, raging at the new Republican governor, Scott Walker.archived recording 4We’re broke, like nearly every other state across the country. We’ve got a massive deficit...

Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, convicted of stealing billions of dollars from customers, was sentenced to 25 years in prison Thursday, capping an extraordinary saga that has rocked the cryptocurrency industry and become a warning about greed and arrogance.Bankman-Fried's sentence was less than the 40 to 50 years that federal prosecutors had sought after a jury found him guilty of fraud, conspiracy and money laundering — charges that carried a maximum sentence of 110 years behind bars . But the sentence was well in excess of the six and a half years requested by his defense lawyers.Mr. Bankman-Fried, 32, did not visibly react when Judge Lewis A. Kaplan handed down the sentence in Federal District Court in Manhattan. His parents, law professors Joe Bankm...

Ireland plans to submit an argument in South Africa's genocide case against Israel to the International Court of Justice, according to the Irish government, a move that comes as the country has strongly condemned Israel's actions against civilians in Gaza.South Africa has filed a lawsuit against Israel in the United Nations court, alleging that Israel is committing genocide, a charge Israel has denied. Ireland did not outline the argument it intended to make, but the country's lawmakers have made repeated calls to prioritize the protection of civilians in Gaza.The United Nations allows countries to “intervene” in proceedings if they are parties to the United Nations' 1948 Genocide Convention. Micheál Martin, the Republic of Ireland's foreign minister and vice-presiden...

The Biden administration announced Thursday that it has finalized a new regulation that curbs the use of short-term health insurance plans that do not comply with the Affordable Care Act, reversing the Trump administration's move to give consumers greater access to cheaper but more succinct services. plans.Under the new rule, short-term plans will only be able to last 90 days, with consumers being able to extend a one-month extension.In 2018, the Trump administration issued a rule that allows plans to last just under a year, with the possibility of renewing them for a total duration of up to three years. Previously, under Obama-era policy, plans could last no longer than three months.The plans, often with lower premiums than those on Affordable Care Act marketplaces, do not have to c...