Catch Me Up

AI's Dark Cash, the Oregon Massacre, Erin's Law & a Kid With a Camera

Episode Summary

AI companies want more data centers and they're spending big to elect the people who'll approve them. In this episode, we follow Scripps News reporting on pro-AI super PACs pouring money into 36 House and Senate races, mostly in Georgia, New York and Texas, where data center building is concentrated. The twist: the ads aren't even about AI; they're aimed at whatever each candidate's weak spot is. Our national investigative reporter Patrick Terpstra followed the money. We also break the silence after abuse with Erin Merryn, who was abused as a child and stayed silent because her abuser told her no one would believe her. She turned that silence into Erin's Law, now on the books in 38 states, requiring schools to teach kids body safety once a year — and she's still fighting for the other 12. On the heels of the massacre at a Bend, Oregon elementary school, Brette Steele of Eradicate Hate — a former advisor to the White House, Congress, DOJ and DHS on targeted violence — joins us on the warning signs most people miss and what to do when someone you know shows them. And 10-year-old Ukrainian-born naturalist and storyteller Noah Beshto, who has documented wildlife in eight countries, tracks a GPS-tracked black stork from near Chernobyl toward Africa with a message for kids everywhere: you're never too young to protect the planet. Plus: our whip-around on half a million protesters marching across France, President Trump's "complete and total" endorsement of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Supreme Court refusing to revive the 9/11 plea deal, and Trump's call for New Mexico to rename itself. Andrew Rafferty has our Midterm Madness Minute with under two weeks to go. Our panel debates the push to bring back the Redskins name, newly unsealed records in the O.J. Simpson case, and the New Mexico name change. And in hidden headlines: a GOP ad buyer sends Senate campaign money to the wrong Portland. Marc has a fall recipe. This isn't your typical news show — and that's just the start.