Business, Spoken

You’re inching home alongside four lanes of fellow commuters when a digital billboard blinks to a video ad for the latest model of the car you’re driving. Oh yeah, you think, my lease is up next month. Fifteen minutes later, you’re home. You grab your laptop and sink into your couch. You check Facebook and distractedly tune into a new Facebook Original Series. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Donald Trump is now president, and Americans are flooding Congress with pleas and protestations. They’re anxious about the fate Obamacare, the future of the environment, and the president’s cabinet nominations. How are they expressing their anger, fears, and hopes? Email. Lots of email. Take Pennsylvania Democratic senator Bob Casey. He reportedly received 50,000 letters and emails opposing the nomination of Betsy DeVos for secretary of education. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

It was 10:15 am on Inauguration Day, and John Paul Farmer was beginning to lose hope. The former Obama White House staffer had spent the last night at his sister’s apartment in Washington DC, working the phones and emailing any sentient being he’d met during his years in Washington. Farmer was trying to find someone, anyone, who could get the Tested Ability to Leverage Exceptional Talent Act—the Talent Act, for short—to President Barack Obama. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Jesse Richman used to be one of those researchers who only dreamed his work might someday capture national attention—maybe even inspire some sort of systemic change. On Ratemyprofessor.com, his students describe him as tough but fair, a “genius” who was liberal with extra credit projects and went out of his way to offer help. In 2014, Richman’s world changed when he co-authored a paper on voter fraud that instantly caught fire. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Kim is a high-stakes poker player who specializes in no-limit Texas Hold ‘Em. The 28-year-old Korean-American typically matches wits with other top players on high-stakes internet sites or at the big Las Vegas casinos. But this month, he’s in Pittsburgh, playing poker against an artificially intelligent machine designed by two computer scientists at Carnegie Mellon. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Fake news isn’t just Macedonian teenagers or internet trolls.A longstanding network of bogus “think tanks” raise disinformation to a pseudoscience, and their studies’ pull quotes and flashy stats become the “evidence” driving viral, fact-free stories. Not to mention President Trump’s tweets. These organizations have always existed: they’re old-school propagandists with new-school, tech-savvy reach. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

A rushing river of protesters flooded downtown Washington, DC, today, pink hats stretching as far as I could see. But it’s thesigns that stayed with me. “I’m With Her” and “Love Trumps Hate” posters from Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Signs mocking President Trump: “Keep your tiny hands off my rights” and “Can’t build the wall. Hands too small. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

On the eve of Donald Trump’s inauguration, Democrats are lost. The Democratic National Committee has not elected a new leader. Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton supporters are still blaming each other for her loss. The party holds no branch of the federal government and fewer than half of state legislatures. What in mid-2016 looked like a fractured Republican party is increasingly uniting behind its new leader. The Democratic Party looks like its falling apart. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The trench running along the road linking Kodicherla and Penjarla in southern India is just 5 feet deep and about half as wide. Yet it carries the promise of a better life for the people of those villages, and all of Telangana. Within the ditch lie two pipes, a large black one carrying fresh water and smaller blue one containing a fiber optic broadband cable. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Microsoft is buying a deep learning startup based in Montreal, a global hub for deep learning research. But two years ago, this startup wasn’t based in Montreal, and it had nothing to do with deep learning. Which just goes to show: striking it big in the world of tech is all about being in the right place at the right time with the right idea. Sam Pasupalak and Kaheer Suleman founded Maluuba in 2011 as students at the University of Waterloo, about 400 miles from Montreal. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices