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But Tan's passion, as it is for a growing number of tech leaders, is San Francisco politics. He's part of a love-it-or-hate-them group of tech executives and investors with lots of opinions about the city and endless piles of cash to, as they say in the tech industry, move fast and break things. (Their critics would say it's more like they're trying to buy City Hall.)For some in San Francisco's political establishment, Mr. Tan, 43, has become the most annoying in a parade of wealthy tech executives. He has created a bombastic online persona by spending around $400,000 in local politics in recent years – with potentially much more to come. And on social media site X, where he has 425,000 followers, Mr Tan not only rubs some people the wrong way, he infuriates them.Sh...

Airstrikes killed a number of soldiers near the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on Friday morning, Syrian state media and an independent organization said, in what appeared to be one of the heaviest Israeli attacks in the country in years .The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based group that tracks Syria's civil war, said the victims included 36 Syrian soldiers, seven Hezbollah fighters and one Syrian from pro-Iranian militias. The group said the attack appeared to hit multiple targets, including a weapons depot belonging to Hezbollah, an Iran-backed Lebanese militia with a presence in Syria. The airstrikes fueled fears that have troubled Western officials for months: that Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza could degenerate into a broader conflict against Syria, Iran...

Ashlee Wiseman, a waitress at a Sizzler in Idaho Falls, Idaho, was 10 weeks pregnant when a nurse phoned with crushing news: a test of fetal DNA in her blood had found that her baby girl had trisomy 18, a catastrophic genetic abnormality, and was unlikely to survive.Devastated, she called her partner, Clint Risenmay, who was at work. He broke down in tears.Ashlee’s response was different.“A still small voice took over me,” she said. “I’m like, ‘I’m not going to listen to them. There has to be something that can help her. And there has to be someone who can help.’”A social media search led her to Dr. John Carey, a professor emeritus of pediatrics at the University of Utah, who has devoted his life to helping families dealing with trisomy 18. He supports pregnant women who chose abortion, bu...

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...