Private equity has become one of the most powerful — and least understood — forces in the American economy. In recent decades, firms have taken over everything from retail chains to hospitals to housing — often with little risk to themselves and with real consequences for workers and communities. In her new book, Bad Company: Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream , journalist Megan Greenwell breaks down how this industry is quietly reshaping American life. Greenwell sat down with Ap...
Jun 26, 2025•33 min
Formula 1 is the highest level of motorsport, with cars hitting speeds of over 200 miles per hour and teams making split-second, high-stakes decisions behind the scenes. Now the drama of this sport is coming to the big screen, with the new Apple Original film F1 The Movie , starring actors Brad Pitt and Damson Idris, in theaters June 27. Director Joseph Kosinski and producer Jerry Bruckheimer wanted to make it the most authentic car-racing movie possible, and they shot real F1 races, incorporati...
Jun 19, 2025•28 min
In his 22-year career in the FBI, undercover agent Scott Payne infiltrated some of the most dangerous criminal and extremist groups in America, from a motorcycle gang called the Outlaws to a white-supremacist group known as the Base. Payne shares his firsthand case accounts of gathering intelligence and stopping illegal activity in his memoir, Code Name: Pale Horse; How I Went Undercover to Expose America’s Nazis . His story is also featured on the latest season of the Slate podcast White Hot Ha...
Jun 12, 2025•27 min
Taylor Swift recently announced that she bought back the master recordings of her first six albums, ending a yearslong ownership battle. In light of this news, we’re bringing you an episode from our archives about Swift’s career, megastardom, and legacy. Taylor Swift requires no introduction. She recently became the first artist to win the Grammy for Album of the Year four times. Her Eras Tour, the highest-grossing music tour ever, ends this month. Rolling Stone ’s Rob Sheffield, who has been co...
Jun 05, 2025•36 min
When ProPublica health-care reporter David Armstrong was diagnosed with a rare blood cancer, he began taking a lifesaving drug called Revlimid. When he learned that each pill of this medication is sold for nearly $1,000 but costs drug companies only cents to make, he went on a quest to uncover the reasons behind its shocking price tag. Armstrong sat down with Apple News In Conversation host Shumita Basu to talk about his investigation into Revlimid’s origins and what it reveals about prescriptio...
May 29, 2025•27 min
Throughout his presidency, Joe Biden faced questions about his age and his health, so much so that he ultimately ended his 2024 reelection campaign. In a new book, Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again , journalists Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson reveal the true extent of Biden’s declining cognitive health, and the lengths his inner circle took to conceal it from the public. Tapper and Thompson spoke with Apple News In Conversation host Shum...
May 21, 2025•38 min
Forever chemicals, also known as PFAS, are found in virtually every corner of the world, including in most people’s bodies. These synthetic compounds have been linked to a wide range of health issues — from infertility to cancer to neurological problems — even at low levels of exposure. In a new book, They Poisoned the World: Life and Death in the Age of Forever Chemicals , investigative journalist Mariah Blake lays out how these toxic chemicals became so ubiquitous. Blake spoke with Apple News ...
May 15, 2025•33 min
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 H...
May 08, 2025•30 min
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 genera...
May 01, 2025•26 min
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 spok...
Apr 24, 2025•39 min
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 t...
Apr 17, 2025•31 min
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 ...
Apr 10, 2025•34 min
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 grie...
Apr 03, 2025•44 min
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 s...
Mar 27, 2025•29 min
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....
Mar 20, 2025•31 min
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 recr...
Mar 13, 2025•27 min
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 Appl...
Mar 06, 2025•35 min
The Ultimate Fighting Championship and the sport at its center, mixed martial arts, have exploded in popularity in recent years — and President Donald Trump is a fan. Trump and UFC CEO Dana White are also close friends, and have been for decades. For a story in Rolling Stone , Jack Crosbie details how the two have helped each other rise. Apple News In Conversation host Shumita Basu spoke with Crosbie about the integral link between Trump’s America and the UFC....
Feb 27, 2025•27 min
One month into his second term, President Trump has made a lot of big moves quickly, from pardoning 1,500 Jan. 6 rioters and attempting to stop all foreign aid to ordering mass firings of federal employees. These actions have triggered a flurry of challenges in the federal courts. Beyond each individual case, a larger picture is forming of the executive office pushing the limits of its power. Ankush Khardori, a former federal prosecutor and senior writer for Politico Magazine , talks to Apple Ne...
Feb 20, 2025•29 min
Saturday Night Live has churned out dozens of unforgettable stars — from Bill Murray and Eddie Murphy to Tina Fey and Kristen Wiig — but the biggest force behind the show is executive producer Lorne Michaels. Ahead of SNL ’s 50th anniversary, Susan Morrison, author of Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live , talks to Apple News In Conversation host Shumita Basu about Michaels’s unique management style and singular eye for comedy....
Feb 13, 2025•30 min
In at least 6% of in vitro fertilization (IVF) cases, the eggs come from donors — and that number is growing. The scarcity and value of human eggs have given rise to a flourishing global industry already worth billions of dollars. A new investigation in Bloomberg Businessweek reveals how this sprawling and largely unregulated market is ripe for exploitation. Apple News In Conversation host Shumita Basu spoke with senior reporters Susan Berfield and Natalie Obiko Pearson about the stories of the ...
Feb 06, 2025•30 min
The social-media grounds are shifting. In recent weeks, there have been major developments at platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. Meanwhile, more and more experts are raising alarm bells about the harms of social media on society and our mental health. To understand how we got here and what might come next, Apple News In Conversation host Shumita Basu spoke with Nicholas Carr, author of the book Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart , who has been writing about the...
Jan 30, 2025•31 min
The militia movement in America has a long, embattled history — and President Trump ushered in a new chapter with his sweeping grant of clemency to the more than 1,500 people charged for their involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. ProPublica reporter Joshua Kaplan sat down with Apple News In Conversation host Shumita Basu to talk about the message these pardons send and the insights of a unique source who secretly infiltrated and climbed the ranks of militia groups in Amer...
Jan 23, 2025•25 min
The Apple Original series Severance takes place in a world where people can split their memories in two — and create completely separate selves for inside and outside the workplace. It was a hit when it debuted in 2022, and in the season finale the characters’ “innies” and “outies” collide in a shocking cliff-hanger. In the three years since, fans have been waiting for — and sharing their theories about — what might happen next. Apple News In Conversation host Shumita Basu sat down with executiv...
Jan 16, 2025•33 min
Forty-five million people in the U.S. — about one in six adults — owe a total of $1.7 trillion in student-loan debt. Canceling some of these federal loans has become a flash point in modern American politics. In a new book, Burdened: Student Debt and the Making of an American Crisis , Ryann Liebenthal traces the origins of the student-loan system and breaks down how it works today. Liebenthal spoke with Apple News In Conversation host Shumita Basu about ways to address this trillion-dollar probl...
Jan 09, 2025•28 min
This is an episode from our archives. Esther Perel is the relationship expert many couples dream of scheduling a session with. Her podcast, Where Should We Begin? With Esther Perel , offers the next best thing. In it, she helps couples work through their issues, often providing insights that are relevant to other relationships. Apple News In Conversation host Shumita Basu spoke with Perel about how she approaches her work, the challenges of modern love, and how to resolve conflict....
Jan 02, 2025•32 min
This is an episode from our archives. Elizabeth Keating didn’t realize how little she knew about her mother’s life until after she had died. A trained anthropologist, Keating decided to develop a guide for interviewing and recording loved ones’ histories before it’s too late. Her book The Essential Questions: Interview Your Family to Uncover Stories and Bridge Generations offers a blueprint for these conversations along with thought-provoking questions. On Apple News In Conversation , Keating sh...
Dec 26, 2024•26 min
After the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Taliban came to power and quickly began stripping women and girls of their rights. With the support of Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai and actor Jennifer Lawrence, Afghan filmmaker Sahra Mani gathered footage from women activists fighting against this oppressive regime. The resulting documentary, Bread & Roses , is now available on Apple TV+. Mani and Yousafzai joined Apple News In Conversation host Shumita Basu to talk about ...
Dec 19, 2024•23 min
The separation of migrant families by the Trump administration is one of the most controversial policies in modern American history. It began in mid-2017 but was only acknowledged publicly about a year later. In 2020, NBC correspondent Jacob Soboroff came out with a book on the subject called Separated: Inside an American Tragedy . Most recently, Soboroff teamed up with Academy Award–winning filmmaker Errol Morris to make a documentary, also called Separated , based on the book . Morris and Sobo...
Dec 12, 2024•27 min
Taylor Swift requires no introduction. She recently became the first artist to win the Grammy for Album of the Year four times. Her Eras Tour, the highest-grossing music tour ever, ends this month. Rolling Stone ’s Rob Sheffield, who has been covering Swift since the beginning of her career, is out with a new book on the star, Heartbreak Is the National Anthem: How Taylor Swift Reinvented Pop Music . Sheffield talks with Apple News In Conversation host Shumita Basu about Swift’s gift for storyte...
Dec 05, 2024•34 min
