In this episode, …’s executive editor Brian Barrett is joined by senior politics editor Leah Feiger to run through five stories that you need to know about this week—from the release of Grokipedia to real estate entering its AI slop era. Then, Brian and Leah dive into why the promise of a tech-forward school in Texas with software instead of teachers fell apart.
Articles mentioned in this episode:
- Federal Workers Are Barely Making It Through the Government Shutdown
- Elon Musk's Grokipedia Pushes Far-Right Talking Points
- Real Estate Is Entering Its AI Slop Era
- Man Has Pig Kidney Removed After Living With It for a Record 9 Months
- Parents Fell in Love With Alpha School’s Promise. Then They Wanted Out
You can follow Brian Barrett on Bluesky at @brbarrett and Leah Feiger on Bluesky at @leahfeiger. Write to us at uncannyvalley@….com.
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Transcript
Note: This is an automated transcript, which may contain errors.
Brian Barrett: Welcome to …'s Uncanny Valley. I'm …'s executive editor Brian Barrett filling in today for Zoë Schiffer. Today on the show, we're bringing you five stories that you need to know about this week, including why the promise of a tech-forward school in Texas with software instead of teachers fell apart. I'm joined by our senior politics editor, Leah Feiger. Hey Leah.
Leah Feiger: Hey Brian. Thanks for having me.
Brian Barrett: So Leah, our first story today. Today is a consequential and unfortunate moment. It is the 30th day of the federal government shutdown. Our reporters Victoria Elliott and McKenna Kelly spoke with more than a dozen workers who are struggling to pay the bills, working side gigs, some of them are even relying on free food programs to get by. As of this recording, around 750,000 federal workers had been furloughed with no end in sight. One of the people that Tori McKenna spoke with was a federal worker who was working abroad and a month ago learned that her husband, who's also a federal worker, had an aggressive form of cancer. Doctors told the couple that they needed to move quickly to remove it, so they did, but now with the government shutdown, their health care claims aren't being paid out. They're out tens of thousands of dollars at least, and they're not sure when that's going to change.
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