Listener Mail: Bird Deaths, Gas Station Bars, The Battle of Blair Mountain and More

Despite numerous earlier statements, the US Department of Justice and FBI officially concludes that notorious human trafficker Jeffrey Epstein had no client list -- spoiler, chaos ensues. Akon's planned utopian city falls through. Elon Musk's Grok chatbot courts controversy as it makes pro-Nazi statements and (for unrelated reasons) is also banned in Türkiye. Akon's utopian city is abandoned. A 'click-to-cancel' rule is blocked, prompting questions about the influence of big business. All this and more this week's strange news segment.They don't want you to read our book.: https://static.macmillan.com/static/fib/stuff-you-should-read/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Are we living in a simulation? What's the future of AI? How can humans understand the past, present, and future of the universe -- assuming, of course, that time exists? In this interview segment, Ben, Matt and Noel welcome special guest Dr. Jorge Cham, the creator of the new hit podcast ScienceStuff, and pick his brain about some of the biggest questions in all of human civilization.They don't want you to read our book.: https://static.macmillan.com/static/fib/stuff-you-should-read/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sloth inspires a round-up of recent news stories from the world of birds. Fae shares a story of real-life bars inside gas stations. Kevin prompts an exploration of hidden history -- the earth shaking Battle of Blair Mountain, and the resulting cover-up from the Powers That Be. Plus puns. All this and more in this week's listener mail segment.They don't want you to read our book.: https://static.macmillan.com/static/fib/stuff-you-should-read/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's an open secret that not everything is as it seems in the world of diplomacy -- a great many individuals operate with some degree of subterfuge and invisibility. So what happens when things go wrong, and these often disturbing, unseen things become visible? Tonight's story takes us to Lahore, Pakistan: on January 27, 2011, CIA contractor Raymond Allen Davis found himself in a brutal firefight in traffic. What follows becomes an international scandal reaching all the way to the President of the United States. Join Ben, Matt and Noel to learn more.They don't want you to read our book.: https://static.macmillan.com/static/fib/stuff-you-should-read/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Make no mistake -- being a farmer is hard work. Farming outfits often have to carry a huge amount of risk from one season to the next, and any number of things may ruin their prospects, from unexpected weather, market volatility and so on. To mitigate these dangers, world governments often provide funding, or subsidies, to agribusiness in order to lower risk and increase chances of farmers staying in business. In the US, these subsidies are a multi-billion dollar industry... but where does all that money actually go?They don't want you to read our book.: https://static.macmillan.com/static/fib/stuff-you-should-read/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Australia is astonished as a full one-third of all residents of Tuvalu apply for the new, limited 'climate visa,' sparking concerns about the future of islands nations amid the global sea level rising. Chinese manufacturers are in hot water over an international scheme to flood markets with 'used' electric vehicles. A guy commits robbery dressed as Scooby-Doo, and studies prove cheese can give you nightmares. All this and more in the week's strange news segment.They don't want you to read our book.: https://static.macmillan.com/static/fib/stuff-you-should-read/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hello, Stuff They Don't Want You To Know Fans! We want to share a new show you might like, United States of Kennedy.  About the show: United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story. Listen here and subscribe to United States of Kennedy on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts!They don't want you to read our book.: https://static.macmillan.com/static/fib/stuff-you-should-read/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As the Aum Shinrikyo movements gains national, then global, attention, the founder Shoko Asahara begins to move his followers in a darker direction. Convinced that the world can only truly be saved through mass casualty events, Asahara first predicts massive disasters -- and then orders his followers to create these events themselves. In chapter two of this strange two-part series, Ben and Matt learn how Aum committed multiple acts of terror, murder, extortion and fraud leading up to their infamous sarin attacks on the Tokyo subway... and what happened to the cult in the aftermath.They don't want you to read our book.: https://static.macmillan.com/static/fib/stuff-you-should-read/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Located in Jefferson Davis Parish, the town of Jennings, Louisiana wasn't a particularly well-known place -- in fact, many people in the US would probably have lived their entire lives without ever hearing of the town until a few years ago. You see, Jennings had a secret, a dark criminal underbelly that seethed just below the surface. Over the course of several years, multiple women were murdered under mysterious circumstances, inspiring journalists and federal investigators alike to dive into the increasingly strange connections between each homicide. And today the question remains: What happened to the Jennings 8?They don't want you to read our book.: https://static.macmillan.com/static/fib/stuff-you-should-read/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Modern-day Japan is often lauded as one of the safest countries on the planet -- but that doesn't make this nation immune to the danger of cults. In the first chapter of this special two-part series, Ben and Matt explore the bizarre, conspiratorial rise of the organization known as Aum Shinrikyo.They don't want you to read our book.: https://static.macmillan.com/static/fib/stuff-you-should-read/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.