Inside Elon Musk’s digital government takeover

This week, the New Yorker was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for its podcast In the Dark, which is featured in this episode from our archives.On Nov. 19, 2005, a group of U.S. Marines killed 24 men, women, and children in Haditha, Iraq. It would become known as the Haditha massacre and set off one of the largest war-crimes investigations in American history. But, ultimately, no one was convicted of these killings. The latest season of the New Yorker’s podcast In the Dark explores what happened in Haditha and how the U.S. military justice system often fails to hold its members to account. Host Madeleine Baran spoke with Apple News In Conversation’s Shumita Basu about this expansive investigative reporting. Listen to the full interview on Apple Podcasts.

In 2020, dozens of young women from a small Long Island, New York, community discovered violent and sexualized manipulated images of themselves on a deepfake-porn site. Local police found themselves ill-equipped to handle the case, but some of the victims did their own sleuthing. Their quest for justice is featured in Bloomberg Businessweek’s podcast Levittown. Reporters Olivia Carville and Margi Murphy sat down with Apple News In Conversation host Shumita Basu to talk about the rise of generative AI and how it’s found its way into the darkest places on the web.

Millions of Americans cannot afford housing despite working full-time jobs. They live in cars, shelters, or extended-stay hotels and often don’t qualify for assistance programs. Journalist and anthropologist Brian Goldstone follows five Atlanta families who are stuck in this cycle in his new book, There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America. Goldstone reveals how these parents and children are prevented from securing housing by steep rents, red tape, and predatory schemes. He spoke with Apple News In Conversation host Shumita Basu about how this crisis arose and ways to address it. Listen to the full interview on Apple Podcasts. Correction: A previous version of this episode misstated when the federal minimum wage was last raised. We have removed that line from the interview. The last federal minimum-wage raise was in 2009, not the 1990s.

The Trump administration is upending college campuses across the U.S. In recent weeks, the White House has launched investigations into dozens of the nation’s top universities, accusing them of antisemitism and threatening to freeze major federal grants if the schools don’t end diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and make other changes to address the administration’s claims. Michael S. Roth, the president of Wesleyan University, sat down with Apple News In Conversation host Shumita Basu to talk about how these moves endanger academic freedom and how schools are pushing back against the federal government.

Last month the Trump administration deported, without due process, 238 Venezuelan migrants to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador. The White House says that these people have ties to a Venezuelan gang but has provided little evidence to support this claim. Most of them do not have criminal histories. Apple News In Conversation host Shumita Basu sat down with New Yorker staff writer Jonathan Blitzer, who has covered immigration for more than a decade, to discuss the possible implications of these deportations and the muted resistance to the Trump administration’s immigration agenda.

For more than a century, Johnson & Johnson has billed itself as one of the most trusted companies in American history. But, in a stunning investigation, journalist Gardiner Harris documents decades of misconduct and malfeasance by the health-care conglomerate. Harris’s book, out April 8, is called No More Tears: The Dark Secrets of Johnson & Johnson. He spoke with Apple News In Conversation host Shumita Basu about why he says the company has “knowingly contributed to the deaths and grievous injuries of millions” through products including baby powder, a fentanyl patch, and a cancer drug. Johnson & Johnson has denied many of these allegations.

This year, Elon Musk and the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency have swept through federal agencies — ingesting data, enacting mass firings and cuts, and causing confusion among federal workers. Reporters Leah Feiger and Zoë Schiffer, along with their colleagues at Wired, recently spoke with over 150 sources, including current and former federal employees, about DOGE’s inner workings. Feiger and Schiffer sat down with Apple News In Conversation host Shumita Basu to discuss their story, “Inside Elon Musk’s ‘Digital Coup,’” which was selected as Apple News’s March Story of the Month. 

Brian Kelly, founder of the Points Guy, has made a career out of helping people travel using credit-card points and frequent-flyer miles. His readers have taken trips across the globe, flown first class, and stayed in five-star hotels — all using rewards. Kelly is out now with a new book, How to Win at Travel, which details travel advice that goes beyond points and miles. He spoke with Apple News In Conversation host Shumita Basu about ways to make your next trip easier and more affordable.

The U.S. military is the most powerful and lethal in the world. But several branches of the armed forces have failed to meet their recruiting goals in recent years. That has some experts concerned about whether the country would be prepared to defend itself in the event of war. In a recent piece for the New Yorker, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Dexter Filkins writes about the state of the military today. He spoke with Apple News In Conversation host Shumita Basu about the roots of this recruitment crisis, how the current administration plans to address it, and what it could mean for American security in the future.

Last year, media mogul Rupert Murdoch tried to wrest control of his family trust — and the future of his massive news conglomerate — away from three of his children in favor of his eldest son, Lachlan. The bitter court battle that followed strained the family to the breaking point and prompted his youngest son, James, to share his story, for the first time, with Atlantic staff writer McKay Coppins. Coppins’s article was selected as Apple News’s February Story of the Month, and he spoke with Apple News In Conversation host Shumita Basu about James’s challenging relationship with his father and the war for the Murdoch media empire.