The "Kill Them All" Edition US officials debate who to blame for the military killing of shipwrecked alleged drug smugglers; Democrats celebrate despite losing a special election in Tennessee; and the future of self-driving cars. Please enable javascript to get your Slate Plus feeds. If you can't access your feeds, please contact customer support. Check your phone for a link to finish setting up your feed. Please enter a valid phone number.

This week, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss whether the US should join Israel's war on Iran, the tragic Minnesota assassinations and why US political violence is surging now, and the Supreme Court's unsurprising but willfully obtuse decision to uphold Tennessee's youth transgender care ban. Here are some notes and references from this week's show: Alexander Ward, Lara Seligman, and Dustin Volz for The Wall Street Journal (Exclusive): Israel Built Its Case for War With Iran on New Intelligence. The U.S. Didn't Buy It. Thomas L. Friedman for The New York Times (Opinion): The Smart Way for Trump to End the Israel-Iran War Oren Cass for Understanding America (Substack): Is Israel the Ideal "America First" Ally? Warren P. Strobel, Alex Horton, and Abigail Hauslohner for the Washington Post: Navigating Iran crisis, Trump relies on experience over star power Amy Howe for SCOTUSblog: Court upholds Tennessee's ban on certain medical treatments for transgender minors Abbie VanSickle for The New York Times: Sotomayor Writes the Court'Abandons' Transgender Children to'Political Whims' Ella Lee for The Hill: Clarence Thomas urges courts to end deferring to'experts' on gender-affirming care Ian Millhiser for Vox: The Supreme Court's incoherent new attack on trans rights, explained Here are this week's chatters: Emily: A Family Matter by Claire Lynch; The Fall of Affirmative Action: Race, the Supreme Court, and the Future of Higher Education by Justin Driver; A Flower Traveled in My Blood: The Incredible True Story of the Grandmothers Who Fought to Find a Stolen Generation of Children by Haley Cohen Gilliland. John: Mary Cunningham for CBS News: Federal Reserve holds its benchmark interest rate steady at today's FOMC meeting; ABA Banking Journal: Fed's Powell says some areas of U.S. may be'uninsurable' in next decade David: Trip Gabriel for the New York Times: William Langewiesche, the'Steve McQueen of Journalism,' Dies at 70 For this week's Slate Plus bonus episode, Emily, John, and David discuss the exciting possibilities and likely limitations of using AI tools for historical research and writing.

This week, Emily Bazelon and David Plotz are joined by Henry Blodget to discuss the financial and political fallout from the President's threats to fire Fed Chair Powell and subsequent retreat; a Supreme Court case over free exercise of religion that could have broad implications; and why Trump stands by Hegseth after Signalgate Part 2. Here are some notes and references from this week's show: Colby Smith for The New York Times: Trump Says He Won't Fire Powell. His Fed Battle May Not Be Over Yet. America's economy is collateral damage Nicole Narea for Vox: Trump's tariffs are driving a gold rush Megan K. Stack for the New York Times (Opinion: Guest Essay): My School District Could Have Avoided This Supreme Court Case Neal McCluskey for Reason: The Supreme Court Is About To Hear 2 Education Cases. Ian Millhiser for Vox: The Supreme Court's "Don't Say Gay" argument went disastrously for public schools Aaron Blake for The Washington Post (Analysis): Even on the gravest of issues, GOP can't summon the will to question Trump Michael Crowley for The New York Times: Critics Call Rubio's Overhaul Plan a Blow to U.S. Values Here are this week's chatters: Henry: Christopher Lamb, Alicia Johnson, Jhasua Razo, and Sarah-Grace Mankarious for CNN: Who will be the next pope?

The table is set for Alexa's big AI reveal, with Amazon holding a long-delayed "devices and services" event in New York City this Wednesday, February 26. For its part, Amazon has offered a few hints, noting that Wednesday's unveiling with be "Alexa-focused." Meanwhile, tech sleuths have discovered that if you assemble the various press invites Amazon sent out for the gathering, you can spell out the "Alexa" logo. Of course, what we're all waiting to see is whether Amazon's long-promised AI revamp for Alexa is ready for prime time. The last time we saw the new AI Alexa was way back in fall 2023, and since then, there's been a great deal of chatter about false starts, delays, and reversals in Amazon's AI strategy for Alexa.

One of the more persistent concerns in the age of AI is that the robots will take our jobs. The extent to which this fear is founded remains to be seen, but we're already witnessing some level of replacement in certain fields. Even niche occupations are in jeopardy. For example, the world of OnlyFans chatters is already getting disrupted. What are OnlyFans chatters, you say?

We present a novel digital humanities method for representing our Twitch chatters as user embeddings created by a large language model (LLM). We cluster these embeddings automatically using affinity propagation and further narrow this clustering down through manual analysis. We analyze the chat of one stream by each Twitch streamer: SmallAnt, DougDoug and PointCrow. Our findings suggest that each streamer has their own type of chatters, however two categories emerge for all of the streamers: supportive viewers and emoji and reaction senders. Repetitive message spammers is a shared chatter category for two of the streamers.

This week, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss Donald Trump's fascism, disinhibition, and age; the state of young men in America with Rachel Simmons; and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at the University of Michigan with Nicholas Confessore of The New York Times. Tickets are on sale now. And send us your Conundrums at slate.com/conundrum. Here are some notes and references from this week's show: Jeffrey Goldberg for The Atlantic: Trump: 'I Need The Kind Of Generals That Hitler Had' ABC News: Kamala Harris reacts to John Kelly's remarks that Trump is a'fascist' and CNN: Harris says she believes Trump is a fascist: Part 1 of Kamala Harris' Town Hall Niall Stanage for The Hill: What we know, and what we don't, about early voting numbers Nicholas Confessore for The New York Times: The University of Michigan Doubled Down on D.E.I. What Went Wrong? and Anna Betts: What to Know About State Laws That Limit or Ban D.E.I.

This week, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss the revival of Arizona's 1864 abortion ban; the end of No Labels; and the past and future of presidential debates. Here are some notes and references from this week's show: Mary Jo Pitzl and Reagan Priest for The Arizona Republic: Arizona House GOP halt Democrats' effort to overturn Civil War era law in chaotic session A.O. Sulzberger Jr. for The New York Times: Reagan Says Ban On Abortion May Not Be Needed Thomas B. Edsall for The New York Times: Has No Labels Become a Stalking Horse for Trump? Michael H. Brown for The Washington Post: Joseph Lieberman, senator and vice-presidential nominee, dies at 82 Here are this week's chatters: David: Hannah Seo for The New York Times: Is It Better to Brush Your Teeth Before Breakfast or After? For this week's Slate Plus bonus segment, David, John, and Emily discuss AI communications with loved ones after they die. See Walter Marsh for The Guardian: Laurie Anderson on making an AI chatbot of Lou Reed: 'I'm totally, 100%, sadly addicted' and Ira Glass for This American Life: The Ghost in the Machine.

People in conversation entrain their linguistic behaviours through spontaneous alignment mechanisms [7] - both in face-to-face and computer-mediated communication (CMC) [8]. In CMC, one of the mechanisms through which linguistic entrainment happens is through explicit replies. Indeed, the use of explicit replies influences the structure of conversations, favouring the formation of reply-trees typically delineated by topic shifts [5]. The interpersonal coordination mechanisms realized by how actors address each other have been studied using a probabilistic framework proposed by David Gibson [2,3]. Other recent approaches use computational methods and information theory to quantify changes in text. We explore coordination mechanisms concerned with some of the roles utterances play in dialogues - specifically in explicit replies. We identify these roles by finding community structure in the conversation's vocabulary using a non-parametric, hierarchical topic model. Some conversations may always stay on the ground, remaining at the level of general introductory chatter. Some others may develop a specific sub-topic in significant depth and detail. Even others may jump between general chatter, out-of-topic remarks and people agreeing or disagreeing without further elaboration.

This week, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss the problems with issue polling and issues with political journalism; the chaos and conflict of Sam Altman and OpenAI; and the failure of the Oslo Accords and perpetual struggle between Israel and Palestine. Send us your Conundrums: submit them at slate.com/conundrum. And join us in-person or online with our special guest – The Late Show's Steven Colbert – for Gabfest Live: The Conundrums Edition! December 7 at The 92nd Street Y, New York City. Here are some notes and references from this week's show: Nate Cohn for The New York Times: The Crisis in Issue Polling, and What We're Doing About It and We Did an Experiment to See How Much Democracy and Abortion Matter to Voters Eli Saslow for The New York Times: A Jan. 6 Defendant Pleads His Case to the Son Who Turned Him In John Dickerson and Jo Ling Kent for CBS News Prime Time: What Sam Altman's ouster from OpenAI could mean for the tech world Emily Bazelon for The New York Times Magazine: Was Peace Ever Possible? Ezra Klein for The New York Times's The Ezra Klein Show podcast: The Best Primer I've Heard on Israeli-Palestinian Peace Efforts John Dickerson for CBS Mornings: Former President Jimmy Carter: "America will learn from its mistakes" Here are this week's chatters: John: Julia Simon for NPR: 'It feels like I'm not crazy.'