What Next | Daily News and Analysis

As the fight for trans rights, including gender-affirming medical care, heads through state legislation, activists and medical providers are stepping up to testify. While explaining her perspective as a medical professional, a Little Rock pharmacist, who is trans, was asked about her genitalia in the middle of the Arkansas general assembly. This is the first installment in What Next’s Pride Month series. “After They Testified” is about the Americans who’ve shown up in the last year to speak out against anti-queer legislation, how it felt to do so, and what came next.Guest: Gwen Herzig, owner and pharmacist at Park West Pharmacy in Little Rock, Arkansas, president and executive director of The Prism Foundation.If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—and you’ll be supporting the work we do here on What Next. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to help support our work.This Pride Month, make an impact by helping Macy’s and The Trevor Project on their mission to fund life-saving suicide prevention services for LGBTQ youth. Go to macys.com/purpose to learn more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

After a long-delayed five-year investigation, the Illinois attorney general Kwame Raoul released the report on sexual abuse in the Illinois Catholic church. Where does this case fit in in the long history of abuse in the Catholic Church? And over two decades after the infamous Boston Globe investigation into the Catholic Church, has anything changed?Guest: Robert Herguth, investigative reporter at the Chicago Sun-Times, part of the Watchdogs team.If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—and you’ll be supporting the work we do here on What Next. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to help support our work. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Right-wing activists have been waiting for a Supreme Court like this one, willing to hand down unpopular, reactionary opinions on guns, abortion, and voting rights. Meanwhile, the general public’s opinion of the court is cratering, and this year’s docket doesn’t look like it will help.Guest: Jay Willis, editor-in-chief of Balls and Strikes.If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—and you’ll be supporting the work we do here on What Next. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to help support our work. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From our colleagues at Decoder Ring:Parking is one of the great paradoxes of American life. On the one hand, we have paved an ungodly amount of land to park our cars. On the other, it seems like it’s never enough.Slate’s Henry Grabar has spent the last few years investigating how our pathological need for car storage determines the look, feel, and function of the places we live. It turns out our quest for parking has made some of our biggest problems worse.In this episode, we’re going to hunt for parking, from the mean streets of Brooklyn to the sandy lots of Florida. We’ll explore how parking has quietly damaged the American landscape—and see what might fix it.This episode was written by Henry Grabar, author of Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World. It was edited by Willa Paskin, who produces Decoder Ring with Katie Shepherd. We had extra production from Patrick Fort and editing help from Joel Meyer.Your regular What Next programming resumes Tuesday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How the music streaming business opened the door to billions of dollars in fraud.Guest: Ashley Carman, Bloomberg News reporter covering the podcasting, music, and audio beat.If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—and you’ll be supporting the work we do here on What Next TBD. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to help support our work. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How Twitter’s new CEO Linda Yaccarino finds herself on the edge of “the glass cliff”: when a woman is sent in to fix a big mess. Guest: Vittoria Elliot, reporter for Wired, covering platforms and powerIf you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—and you’ll be supporting the work we do here on What Next TBD. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to help support our work. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How Twitter’s new CEO Linda Yaccarino finds herself on the edge of “the glass cliff”: when a woman is sent in to fix a big mess. Guest: Vittoria Elliot, reporter for Wired, covering platforms and powerIf you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—and you’ll be supporting the work we do here on What Next TBD. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to help support our work. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Florida governor has finally officially entered the Republican presidential primary. With electoral wins and culture war conflicts under his belt, does Ron DeSantis actually have a chance at beating Donald Trump?Guest: Molly Ball, Time magazine’s national political correspondent.If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—and you’ll be supporting the work we do here on What Next. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to help support our work. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A national ban on abortion remains so unpopular that even Republican presidential candidates won’t commit to one. However, a law from the 1870s, depending on how it's interpreted and enforced, could ban both abortion pills and the procedure across America. Guest: Mary Ziegler, law professor at UC Davis and author of Roe: The History of a National Obsession.If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—and you’ll be supporting the work we do here on What Next. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to help support our work. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Supreme Court is currently hearing a case that will determine whether or not the government is obligated to ensure water access for Native American tribes. The arguments in the case, Arizona v. Navajo Nation, hinge upon whether or not the government has violated past treaties with the tribe by not providing adequate water.Guest: Heather Tanana, assistant professor of law at the University of Utah and citizen of the Navajo Nation.If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—and you’ll be supporting the work we do here on What Next. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to help support our work. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.