Podcasts about Defense

16. Conrad Black Headline: Canada's Commitment to Arctic Defense Black praises Prime Minister Mark Carney for prioritizing Arctic defense and military modernization. He notes that while Canadians support pulling their weight in NATO, challenges persist regarding pipeline development and international participation. (16)1930 OTTAWA

11. Edward J. Larson Headline: Washington's Desperate Defense of New York Following the victory in Boston, Washington moved to defend New York against an overwhelming British force. Despite the Howe brothers' initial desire for negotiation, the conflict escalated as the colonies formally declared independence. (11)1829 JEFFERSON AND FRANKLIN

In this episode of The PDB Afternoon Bulletin:  First—a risky new option is now under discussion at the White House: seizing Iran's primary oil export hub to break its grip on the Strait of Hormuz. We'll walk through what's being discussed—and the potential consequences. Later in the show—Ukraine is now exporting its battlefield experience against Iranian drones to the Middle East, deploying military specialists across five countries to help defend against Tehran's attacks. We'll break down what this means for the broader conflict—and how Ukraine is trying to turn their unique expertise into leverage with Washington. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Acre Gold: Start building physical gold with simple monthly payments and enter to win two Ancient Collection gold bars at https://GetAcreGold.com/PDB CBDistillery: Visit https://CBDistillery.com and use promo code VIP for 50% off your entire order! DeleteMe: Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to https://joindeleteme.com/PDB and use promo code PDB at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Advocates fight to change the law that protected Mike Levengood. Content Warning for rape, sexual violation by an intimate partner, and nonconsensual intimate image distribution. If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal Team, email us at betrayalpod@gmail.com. Follow us on Instagram @betrayalpod and @glasspodcasts. Follow our newsletter and join the Betrayal community at betrayal.substack.com. For resources on sexual violence, visit rainn.org/betrayal. You can also get free, confidential, 24/7 support through RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline. Text HOPE to 64673 or call 1-800-656-HOPE. Every state has a domestic violence coalition, and many counties also have resources available. If you’re looking for help, go onto your county’s website to see what resources are available locally, or search the web for your state’s domestic violence coalition. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

14. Guest Peter Berkowitz outlines reforms for the Department of Defense, including cutting bureaucratic red tape and encouraging technological competition. He stresses the importance of higher education in teaching the free-market principles necessary for national security.,, (15)1943

SHOW SCHEDULE 3-18-261900 OTTAWA1. Guests Gordon Chang and Steve Yates discuss the postponed Trump-Xi summit during the Iran war. They analyze Chinese negotiation tactics that favor theater over substance and Xi's belief in the inevitable decline of the West.,,, (2)2. Guest Captain James Fanell analyzes China's AR2000 shipborne drone, describing it as a propaganda signaling tool. He notes the PLA Navy currently lacks the carrier experience and volume necessary to sustain major bombing campaigns.,,, (3)3. Guest Charles Burton critiques Canada's import of Chinese electric vehicles as a dangerous economic concession. He warns of "maple washing," security risks, and "elite capture" by Beijing, which threatens Canadian sovereignty and human rights.,, (4)4. Guests Gordon Chang and Charles Burton express skepticism about U.S.-China trade truces, noting Beijing's history of non-compliance. They advocate for North American collaboration on critical mineral processing to reduce dependence on Chinese state-controlled monopolies.,,, (5)5. Guest Simon Constable reports on surging energy prices and diesel shortages in France caused by the Iran war. He addresses global inflation driven by rising shipping costs and the UK's struggle to provide naval support.,,, (6)6. Guest Simon Constable examines the political unpopularity of Prime Minister Starmer and the debate over King Charles's U.S. visit. Constable argues the monarch must proceed to maintain essential diplomatic ties despite ongoing regional wartime tensions.,, (7)7. Guests Mariam Wahba and Natalie Ecanow discuss the International Union of Muslim Scholars, identifying it as a Muslim Brotherhood-aligned group in Doha. They describe the organization's strategy of hedging between Iran and Arab states.,,, (8)8. Guests Natalie Ecanow and Mariam Wahba address the IMEC project to bypass the Strait of Hormuz. They emphasize the need for U.S. energy dominance and strategic infrastructure to reduce Iran's ability to leverage global trade routes.,, (9)9. Guest Michael Bernstam details how Russia benefits from the Iran war, earning $150 million extra daily as oil prices soar. He explains that lifting sanctions on the shadow fleet significantly strengthens Putin's wartime budget.,, (10)10. Guest Michael Bernstam analyzes the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz, calling it a narrow choke point currently controlled by Iran. He warns of a massive shipping traffic jam that will cause prolonged high energy prices.,, (11)11. Guest Sinan Ciddi explains Turkey's deployment of NATO Patriot systems after Iranian missile provocations. Turkey seeks to stay out of the war, preferring a weakened but stable Iranian regime to prevent regional Kurdish uprisings.,,, (12)12. Guest Cliff May defines Iranian interference in the Strait of Hormuz as an act of international piracy. He urges U.S. action to guarantee freedom of navigation, comparing the threat to historical North African pirate states.,,, (13)13. Guest Peter Berkowitz discusses the book "Mobilize," which advocates for rebooting the American industrial base. He critiques central planning and argues the U.S. must leverage private-sector entrepreneurial innovation to counter the Chinese Communist Party.,, (14)14. Guest Peter Berkowitz outlines reforms for the Department of Defense, including cutting bureaucratic red tape and encouraging technological competition. He stresses the importance of higher education in teaching the free-market principles necessary for national security.,, (15)15. Guest Bob Zimmerman reports on the private space industry, highlighting SpaceX's flight records and plans for orbital AI data centers. He also discusses startups in South Korea and Germany facing technical challenges during their launches.,,, (16)16. Guest Bob Zimmerman explores archival space data on Uranus's moons and the upcoming Apophis asteroid mission. He highlights the "Mothra" telescope in Chile as a prime example of private enterprise funding successful scientific exploration projects.,, (17)SHOW SCHEDULE 3-18

Sadanand Dhume Sadanand Dhume outlines Narendra Modi's foreign policy hierarchy, prioritizing the United States and Israel for defense. He notes India's strategic energy dependence on Gulf nations, leaving Iran as a significantly lower diplomatic priority. Modi's Strategic Hierarchy: Prioritizing the West and Gulf (3)1900 BENGAL

Fresh off a California sweep, North Carolina's sluggish start on Wednesday did not keep the Tar Heels from pushing their win streak to six, winning 8-2 over UNC Greensboro. Head coach Scott Forbes joined Inside Carolina's Tommy Ashley for their weekly conversation highlighting the Diamond Heel outfield defense and pitching as keys to his team's success of late.  Ashley and Forbes dig into the pitching plan for a season from the weekend starters to key numbers in the bullpen and how Forbes and his staff mesh plans against the reality of the situations that arise during a season. With Caden Glauber stepping to the front of the pen with his performances this season, Forbes discusses his players' willingness to take on any role necessary for the team. Finally, Forbes discusses Louisville and what the Cardinals will bring to Boshamer Stadium in a three game series beginning on Friday, March 20th. **Call to Action:** **Subscribe:** Follow 'Inside Carolina' wherever you get your podcasts to never miss an episode! **Review:** Leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify to help us reach more Tar Heel fans! **Visit:** Explore http://www.InsideCarolina.com for breaking news, recruiting updates, and expert commentary on all things UNC sports.This show is brought to you by Inside Carolina, the No. 1 site for UNC sports coverage and community. Visit http://www.InsideCarolina.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

It's really hard to estimate the total cost of war in the middle of one. Over the first six days of the Iran war, an estimated $11.3 billion was charged to the public purse. But long-term costs take years to manifest. Even daily costs are fuzzy. Take munitions: the Department of Defense hasn't budgeted for  many of the bombs it's dropping. One more time. The bombs – the bombs! – are not totally priced in.On today's show, estimating the cost of the Iran war right now. And how healthcare, disability benefits, environmental costs and interest payments could add to its future price tag.Come see Planet Money live on stage in April! Twelve cities. Details and tix here: https://tix.to/pm-book-tour. Related episodes: A trucker, a farmer, and an entrepreneur walk into a global supply shockA lot of gas trapped, oil reserves tapped, and Live Nation gets a (tiny) capWill Trump's shipping insurance plan work?For sponsor-free episodes of The Indicator from Planet Money, subscribe to Planet Money+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Fact-checking by Sierra Juarez. Music by Drop Electric. Find us: TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Newsletter.To manage podcast ad preferences, review the links below:See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Ross is joined by star Dallas Cowboys wide receiver CeeDee Lamb to discuss Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer, the Cowboys' defense, former head coach Mike McCarthy landing with the Steelers, and more! Afterward, Ross gives his thoughts on the biggest news around the league, including the Broncos trading for Dolphins wide receiver, Jaylen Waddle! CeeDee Lamb interview: 2:25 NFL News & Notes: 12:10 Download the DraftKings Sports Book App and use code ROSS! Connect with the Pod Website - https://www.rosstucker.com Become A Patron - https://www.patreon.com/RTMedia Podcast Twitter - https://twitter.com/RossTuckerPod Podcast Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/rosstuckerpod/ Ross Twitter - https://twitter.com/RossTuckerNFL Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This time, John discusses Joe Kent who resigned as the head of the National Counterterrorism Center, which is part of Tulsi Gabbard's office. Kent cited the war with Iran as his reason for leaving. John also talks about the ongoing conflict in Iran, emphasizing the internal divisions within the Republican party and the implications for American foreign policy. He raises important questions about accountability and the potential consequences of military action, encouraging listeners to think critically about the narratives presented in the media. Then, he interviews Elizabeth Vartkessian who's been investigating the life histories of those facing the most severe penalties possible in the U.S. They talk about her new book "The Deserving: What the Lives of the Condemned Reveal About American Justice". Next, John speaks with Tony Box who served as a Judge Advocate General officer while being deployed to Iraq. His career experience includes working as an investigator with the Congressional Commission on Wartime Contracting, for the Department of Defense, as a special agent and member of the SWAT team with the FBI, as an assistant U.S. Attorney, and in private practice. Having operated in both military and federal law enforcement leadership roles for decades, Tony brings a unique perspective on whether we're heading down a familiar and risky path. And finally, John jokes with comedian Keith Price and they talk listeners off the edge and calm their fears about voting, gas prices, and the War in Iran.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ross is joined by star Dallas Cowboys wide receiver CeeDee Lamb to discuss Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer, the Cowboys' defense, former head coach Mike McCarthy landing with the Steelers, and more! Afterward, Ross gives his thoughts on the biggest news around the league, including the Broncos trading for Dolphins wide receiver, Jaylen Waddle! CeeDee Lamb interview: 2:25 NFL News & Notes: 12:10 Download the DraftKings Sports Book App and use code ROSS! Connect with the Pod Website - https://www.rosstucker.com Become A Patron - https://www.patreon.com/RTMedia Podcast Twitter - https://twitter.com/RossTuckerPod Podcast Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/rosstuckerpod/ Ross Twitter - https://twitter.com/RossTuckerNFL Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Exploring Bogus oil prices Hold cow – look at what Gemini and JSD can do… Markets needed good news – Correlation high Fed on hold? PLUS we are now on Spotify and Amazon Music/Podcasts! Click HERE for Show Notes and Links DHUnplugged is now streaming live - with listener chat. Click on link on the right sidebar. Love the Show? Then how about a Donation? Follow John C. Dvorak on Twitter Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter   Warm-Up - Bogus Oil Prices - Look at what Gemini and JSD can do... - Markets needed good news - Correlation high - Fed on hold? - JCD LIMERICK! Markets - Did we just correct? - Inflation - Eco that matters - Manipulation in Oil - Land? John Dvorak Jr. - Guest  - UPDATE ON JCD - AH Spoke with JCD Saturday.... Oil Prices - Bogus? - The price of oil in the middle east is at $140 for its land-locked price, but ocean traveling oil is at $100. - Sort, of, opposite of what you'd expect? - But, then there's been active conversation and warning about manipulating oil futures to manage the situation. - Oil in Backwardation across the spectrum. (Current price of oil contract is $95 and December contract is $75) Oil Prices may be BOGUS - But What About Gas? Gas Prices More Manipulation - The Trump administration has discussed trading in the oil futures market as a strategy to help curb surging crude prices amid the war in Iran, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said. - US would just sell future contracts and then deliver at those prices at the end of the contract date. (SPR/Venezuela?) - Not sure how markets will take an intervention like that. - Remember when short selling was banned on Financials back in the 2008 ----Stock prices continued to fall during the ban and tended to stabilize only after it was lifted, suggesting the ban did not stop the decline. ------ Seems that when government intervenes in free markets they can set off more panic as the optics make it look even worse. ---- AND- Russian Oil sanctions partially removed Inflation and ECO - PCE Prices stay elevated - GDP rose at a seasonally and inflation-adjusted annual rate of just 0.7% in the fourth quarter, according to a Commerce Department revision Friday. - The first revision of the GDP reading was a sharp step down from the previous estimate of 1.4% and well below the Dow Jones consensus forecast for 1.5%. - The core PCE inflation rose 0.4% in January and 3.1% on a 12-month basis. The ex-food and energy reading was 0.1 percentage point higher than December. Eco Table Oil Models...Very Cool - JSD - Explain - https://gemini.google.com/share/d1427a61a804 Department of Defense, err War, is hiring - The Pentagon is hiring financial 'defense', or is that a financial warfare unit? - This may mean we're beginning to really adopt "Unrestricted Warfare (???) ----- ie: The Chinese strategy where the warfare model is extended to include social engineering, illicit trade, and finance operations. - Isn't this already in play? Tariffs, Straits of Hormuz, Asset Seizure (Russian Yachts), Venezuelan Oil???? --- This is why Quantum is in play too...(offense and defense) Did you know? - 30% of Helium production comes from Qatar - Qatar helium production stopped back on March 2nd, and is ~30% of all helium globally - South Korea depends almost entirely on helium from the strait of Hormuz, with 65% from Qatar specifically -  Semiconductor manufacturing - - Wafer/equipment cooling — High thermal conductivity removes heat fast during lithography, etching, deposition, and other steps; critical for precise temp control and smaller chip nodes (no good substitutes). - - Inert purging & atmospheres — Chemically inert; flushes systems, prevents unwanted reactions in annealing, deposition, or vacuum chambers. -- - Plasma processes — Acts as carrier, diluent, or purge gas in plasma etching for precise circuit patterning. - - Leak detection — Tiny atoms detect micro-leaks in tools, pipelines, and vacuum systems to ensure reliability. - - Backside wafer cooling — Delivers stable cooling to silicon wafers in advanced fabs. INDIA! Running out of Gas - Does it matter? - India maintains only a 25 day reserve of oil - Good news for them that they use coal for electricity generation, and only use oil for transportation - BUT BUT BUT, What about getting goods from one place to another in India? -- FWIW - coal prices up 19% YTD in India Back to this... - AI not causing job losses - WHAT ABOUT META? - Meta's stock climbed after Reuters reported the social media giant is planning to lay off over 20% of its 79,000 employees to balance AI-related spending. Drone Warfare - New Warfare fought like games - Ender's Game Movie - Length: 3.5 meters (about 11.5 feet) Wingspan: 2.5 meters (about 8.2 feet) Weight (total takeoff/mass): Approximately 200 kg (around 440 pounds) Warhead/payload: Typically 40–50 kg explosive (some variants up to 90 kg with reduced fuel/range) --- Usage ~ 2,000 per day in Iran an peak of 10,000 per day in Ukraine/Russia Gaming Industry - DOA? See above - no wonder why - it is IRL now - Q1 continues sharp decline in video game sales - Older gamers: new AAA titles heavily cannibalized by old games - Gen Z & Alpha mostly play only Roblox (144M DAU), Fortnite (60M DAU), or Minecraft (11M DAU) - Young gamers rarely buy new AAA titles or consoles - Industry “growth” driven purely by subscriptions & upsells — no real sales increase - Hardware far below peaks: PS2 sold 160M, Nintendo DS 154M vs Switch 2 only 17M (original Switch lifetime 114M) - AI failing to cut costs for big studios — Roblox capturing all the upside - Roblox launches Incubator & Jumpstart programs for kids using AI “vibe-coding” to chase millionaire status INTERACTIVE BROKERS Check this out and find out more at: http://www.interactivebrokers.com/ Target Earnings - Target posted another quarter of falling revenue and customer traffic at its stores, though its shares rose as the retailer's earnings beat estimates and it said it is poised to end its sales slump. -  Earnings per share: $2.44 adjusted vs. $2.16 expected - Revenue: $30.45 billion vs. $30.48 billion expected - Target said it expects full-year adjusted earnings per share to range from $7.50 to $8.50. Its adjusted earnings per share for the most recent full year were $7.57. - Shares up 7% in a piss poor tape     Love the Show? Then how about a Donation? THE CLOSEST TO THE PIN for CATERPILLAR Winners will be getting great stuff like the new "OFFICIAL" DHUnplugged Shirt!     FED AND CRYPTO LIMERICKS There is a tech pundit whose name be John, Whose sharp takes went late into dawn. He hit pause for some care, But with grit (and repair), Soon he'll be back oh so steady and strong. See this week's stock picks HERE Follow John C. Dvorak on Twitter Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter

In this special episode, Michael zeroes in on the potential for a collapse in global energy security amid the U.S.-Israel war with Iran. First, he speaks with Clay Seigle, a senior energy security fellow at CSIS, about the economic impact of the dangerous choke point at the Straits of Hormuz, where a paralyzed trade is threatening to send global oil prices soaring. Clay also analyzes the strategic implications of U.S. strikes on military infrastructure at Iran's key oil depot on Kharg Island. Then, Rear Admiral (Ret.) Mark Montgomery, Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), breaks down the high-stakes naval mechanics of reopening the Straits and why the U.S. must reset Iran's nuclear and ballistic capabilities by "five or seven years" to ensure long-term regional stability.

If you're curious about how AI is changing criminal defense, attorney-client relationships, and the law itself, you'll want to listen in.I'm Steve Palmer, and I'm digging into a topic that's becoming increasingly important in the legal world—"AI is NOT Your Attorney."In this episode, I start by reflecting on a classic lesson from law school: a lawyer isn't a bus, and now, more than ever, a lawyer isn't a robot either. That idea sets the stage as I walk you through a recent case out of New York—United States vs. Heppner—where the defendant used AI to analyze his legal defense.The government seized those AI-generated results and saw them as a strategic goldmine, raising big questions about attorney-client privilege in our high-tech age.I break down why plugging legal advice into AI isn't protected by privilege—once you enter that information into a digital system, you might be waiving your rights to confidentiality.From Zoom recordings to AI transcription tools, these digital conveniences can easily erode the protection clients expect.I share practical advice for lawyers and clients on safeguarding privilege in a tech-driven landscape, and offer my thoughts on the legal precedents just beginning to take shape.Remember, I'm not giving legal advice here—just sharing insights and real talk on today's pressing legal challenges.3 Key Takeaways:AI is Not Privileged: Plugging sensitive legal information into AI tools—even for personal analysis—can destroy attorney-client privilege. AI is a third party, just like any non-lawyer in the room.Old Rules, New Tech: Courts are applying existing privilege rules to AI, meaning that any communication shared with or processed by AI platforms could be discoverable by opposing counsel or the government.Be Ultra-Cautious: Lawyers and clients must be careful with technology in legal settings. From transcription devices to Zoom recordings with disclaimers—if a third-party tool is present, privilege may be lost.Got a question you want answered on the podcast? Call 614-859-2119 and leave us a voicemail. Steve will answer your question on the next podcast!Submit your questions to www.lawyertalkpodcast.com.Recorded at Channel 511.Stephen E. Palmer, Esq. has been practicing criminal defense almost exclusively since 1995. He has represented people in federal, state, and local courts in Ohio and elsewhere.Though he focuses on all areas of criminal defense, he particularly enjoys complex cases in state and federal courts.He has unique experience handling and assembling top defense teams of attorneys and experts in cases involving allegations of child abuse (false sexual allegations, false physical abuse allegations), complex scientific cases involving allegations of DUI and vehicular homicide cases with blood alcohol tests, and any other criminal cases that demand jury trial experience.Steve has unique experience handling numerous high-publicity cases that have garnered national attention.For more information about Steve and his law firm, visit Palmer Legal Defense. Copyright 2026 Stephen E. Palmer - Attorney At LawMentioned in this episode:Circle 270 Media Podcast ConsultantsCircle 270 Media® is a podcast consulting firm based in Columbus, Ohio, specializing in helping businesses develop, launch, and optimize podcasts as part of their marketing strategy. The firm emphasizes the importance of storytelling through podcasting to differentiate businesses and engage with their audiences effectively. www.circle270media.com

On Monday's Mark Levin Show, there is an ongoing effort to hijack the conservative movement and MAGA, which is rooted in the Tea Party and constitutional conservatism. We reject any defense of the Third Reich, attacks on Christians, Jews, or Israel, and sabotage from within. True patriots focus on real threats like illegal immigration, Islamism, economic socialism, ideological Marxism, and figures from George Soros to the woke Reich neo-fascists. These infiltrators pretend to seek debate but aim to control and destroy the movement, much like Marxists and Islamists. President Trump independently learned about this ongoing internal battle within the conservative movement and MAGA and posted a supportive message to Mark Levin on Truth Social. The post reaffirms MAGA's commitment to preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and achieving peace through strength and dismisses critics like Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly. Trump threw down the gauntlet against neo-fascists, anti-Semitism, Nazism, and character assassination. Also, Joy Reid said women in Iran have it better than in America. She's free to leave and join Carlson in Qatar or, she might enjoy the life of a woman in Iran. And do the so-called women's groups even exist anymore? The past few years have seen the most shocking abuse of women by Hamas and Iran and mostly crickets. Later, Director of the Ronald Reagan Institute Roger Zakheim calls in and explains that Trump is doing the right thing in Iran. The effort is going well and the United States and its military are winning, though mainstream media fails to report this positively. Zakheim believes President Reagan would thank Trump for finishing the war against Iran, which began its acts of terrorism in the Persian Gulf during Reagan's presidency. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Episode 5221: Pentagon Has Sights On Globalist Bankers For Defense Unit; Stopping All Immigration

In this episode of John Solomon Reports, we dive deep into the critical issue of election integrity with groundbreaking revelations that could reshape the narrative surrounding voter security. John Solomon unveils shocking details about U.S. intelligence agencies that have known since the spring of 2020 about China's access to American voter registration files. Unlike the swift national crisis that ensued in Britain following a similar breach, the American response has been marked by silence and cover-up.John discusses a declassified document that confirms Chinese intelligence was analyzing voter data to influence the 2020 election, a fact that was kept from the public and Congress for years. He shares insights from intelligence officials who express disbelief at the lack of transparency regarding this serious breach. The conversation raises pressing questions about the implications of foreign interference in U.S. elections and the ongoing debates surrounding voter ID laws.Additionally, we explore the troubling actions of the Biden administration in suppressing information about this issue and the potential risks that come with unauthorized access to voter registration data. John emphasizes the importance of vigilance in protecting election integrity and the need for accountability in Congress.As the episode unfolds, we also present exclusive footage from Maricopa County's election processing center, revealing concerns raised by bipartisan congressional monitors about the integrity of the election process. This visual evidence adds another layer to the ongoing conversation about transparency and trust in our electoral system.Today's guests include Republican National Committee Chairman Joe Gruters. He shares insights on the current state of elections and the importance of safeguarding voter registration data.We also feature Jonathan Schanzer from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, who provides an analysis of the geopolitical landscape, focusing on the threats posed by Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela. His expertise sheds light on the dangers that these nations present in today's world.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Could your body be missing two key nutrients needed to help defend against cancer at the cellular level?     On today's show, I build on our previous discussion of the p53 gene, often called the "guardian of the genome," which acts as the body's internal surveillance system to detect DNA damage, repair mutations, and eliminate potentially cancerous cells.     While this powerful system works automatically, it can become suppressed by factors like poor sleep, artificial light at night, chronic stress, and more.      The good news is that there are two specific nutrients that play a critical role in supporting this protective process.     So join me on today's Cabral Concept 3693 to learn how these two nutrients help support your body's natural cancer surveillance system and what simple lifestyle habits can help optimize their function.     Enjoy the show! - - - For Everything Mentioned In Today's Show: StephenCabral.com/2693 - - - Get a FREE Copy of Dr. Cabral's Book: The Rain Barrel Effect - - - Join the Community & Get Your Questions Answered: CabralSupportGroup.com - - - Dr. Cabral's Most Popular At-Home Lab Tests: > Complete Minerals & Metals Test (Test for mineral imbalances & heavy metal toxicity) - - - > Complete Candida, Metabolic & Vitamins Test (Test for 75 biomarkers including yeast & bacterial gut overgrowth, as well as vitamin levels) - - - > Complete Stress, Mood & Metabolism Test (Discover your complete thyroid, adrenal, hormone, vitamin D & insulin levels) - - - > Complete Food Sensitivity Test (Find out your hidden food sensitivities) - - - > Complete Omega-3 & Inflammation Test (Discover your levels of inflammation related to your omega-6 to omega-3 levels) - - - Get Your Question Answered On An Upcoming HouseCall: StephenCabral.com/askcabral - - - Would You Take 30 Seconds To Rate & Review The Cabral Concept? The best way to help me spread our mission of true natural health is to pass on the good word, and I read and appreciate every review!  

Morgan Stanley MUFG 's Japan Equity Strategist Sho Nakazawa talks about the sectors that are leading the current rebound of Japanese stocks and why these gains may be more than a cyclical shift.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Sho Nakazawa, Japan Equity Strategist at Morgan Stanley MUFG Securities.Today: How Japan's Takaichi administration could define Japan's stock market for years to come.It's Tuesday, March 17th, at 3 PM in Tokyo.Sanae Takaichi became Japan's first female prime minister on October 21, 2025. She leads a conservative administration that emphasizes defense spending and economic resilience. When Takaichi took office in February, this signaled the start of a structural pivot in Japan's economy. And markets have responded quickly. Over the past several months, stocks with high exposure to the administration's 17 strategic domains have outperformed TOPIX by 15 percentage points. That kind of divergence suggests something bigger than a cyclical rebound. Capital is positioned to a structural shift. First, there's the Japanese government's increased emphasis on economic security and supply chain resilience. This reflects a philosophical shift. For years efficiency ruled: just-in-time supply chains and global optimization. The pandemic and the reorientation towards a multipolar world changed that workflow. Now the emphasis is on redundancy and autonomy – and this has implications for Defense & Space, Advanced Materials & Critical Minerals, Shipbuilding, and Cybersecurity. The second pillar of Japan's structural market shift is AI and the compute revolution. Yes, some investors worry about overinvestment in AI, but we believe in [the] possibility of nonlinear returns as AI breakthroughs occur. And, keep in mind, AI isn't just software. It requires data-center cooling, communications networks, expanded power grids, and critical minerals. This is a full industrial stack upgrade. Looking further out, the global humanoid robotics market could reach US$7.5 trillion annually by 2050 according to our global robotics team estimates. That's roughly three times the combined 2024 revenue of the world's top 20 automakers at about US$2.5 trillion. The third force reshaping Japan's market is infrastructure. The 2026 budget slated towards national resilience initiatives exceeds ¥5 trillion. With aging infrastructure and intensifying natural disasters, resilience spending relates directly to economic security. Ports, logistics, and communications systems are increasingly becoming strategic assets. Our work suggests the long-term construction cycle is entering an expansion phase as bubble-era buildings from the late 1980s reach replacement timing. That points to durable demand rather than a temporary spike. With all of this said, what's also important is how stock market leadership spreads. It tends to move from upstream to downstream – from materials and power infrastructure, to AI, to defense and communications, and eventually to applications like drug discovery, quantum technologies, cybersecurity, and content. Right now, the strongest three-month returns are in Advanced Materials and Critical Minerals, and in Next-Gen Power and Grid Infrastructure. Meanwhile, areas like Cybersecurity and Content have lagged but remain tightly connected in the network. If leadership broadens, those linkages matter. The real constraint isn't political opposition. It's [the] market itself. If investors decide this is a temporary stimulus rather than sustainable earnings growth, valuations might adjust. But we do believe that Japan's equity market isn't simply rallying. It is reorganizing around economic security, AI infrastructure, and national resilience.Thanks for listening. If you enjoy Thoughts on the Market, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share the podcast with a friend and colleague today.

(00:30) Simms QB Draft Rankings (19:30) Carolina Panthers LB Jaelan Phillips: "I think that I still have room to grow, obviously as a pass rusher, and just turning all that disruption into production.” (29:05) Jerry Jones: “Had we played a lick of defense last year, we would’ve had ourselves, I think, a real playoff run.” (37:20) 49ers sign WR Christian Kirk to 1 year, $6M contract (44:23) Texans revise RB David Montgomery’s contract (48:00) CB Darius Slay announces retirement after 13 seasons See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In Part 2 of our series on the history of the kibbutz, Noam Weissman explores how these communal villages helped shape Israel's borders, identity, and culture. From frontier defense and the battles of 1948 to privatization and change, the kibbutz movement evolved dramatically, yet its core ethos of community and collective responsibility still endures. Here is the link to learn more about Kibbutzim: https://kibbutzvolunteers.org.il/program Here is a link to sources used in the episode: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iROxgkVz-65IRT_DVfmBNEfmxaZLh4V4EbDLXHlPeOg/edit?usp=sharing This episode was generously sponsored by Friedkin Philanthropies and the Koret Foundation, and is inspired by ISRAEL 21c. To sponsor an episode or to be in touch, please email noam@unpacked.media. Visit jewishlives.org to explore and buy books from the Jewish Lives book series. Use the discount code JLIFE to get a discount. Check out this episode on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Youtube.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠This podcast is brought to you by Unpacked, an OpenDor Media brand .------------------- For other podcasts from Unpacked, check out: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jewish History Nerds⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Soulful Jewish Living⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Stars of David with Elon Gold ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Wondering Jews⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

The guys discuss every defensive position group in the draft, talk about who could be picked in the first round, and chat about which players are rising up the board. :00 - Defensive tackles 13:20 - Defensive ends 28:50 - Off-ball linebackers 37:00 - Cornerbacks 44:35 - SafetiesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Austin played the perfect take-what-you-want type of game, so both guys explain why they actually liked what they saw from him against Houston's athleticism. Anthony is also starting to come around on the Lakers defense, so he asks Raj if he feels the same way. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Ticket's draft expert Bob Sturm and his draft dude Dominic Robinson present the Ticket's 2026 NFL Draft Podcast. Tape over Traits. Episode 3- Linebackers. Another position of need on Defense for the Cowboys. Follow along with all new episodes here as we head towards the NFL Draft April 23-25. https://www.theticket.com/2016/06/15/podcasts/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

0:30 - Election Day 40:14 - DHS shutdown, impact on TSA 01:00:20 - Andrew McCarthy, former Chief Assistant U.S. Attorney and contributing editor at National Review, argues “Islamophobia” is a manufactured term used to discourage scrutiny of Islamist ideology. Follow Andy on X @AndrewCMcCarthy 01:16:24 - In-depth History with Frank from Arlington Heights 01:19:39 - Gubernatorial candidate Ted Dabrowski delivers his closing argument. 01:40:58 - SAVE Act 01:59:11 - Georgetown Law professor Randy Barnett shares details from his new book Felony Review: Tales of True Crime and Corruption in Chicago. Felony Review is available today! 02:17:37 - Jed Babbin, former U.S. Deputy Undersecretary of Defense and contributor to The Washington Times and The American Spectator, says if the Iranian regime isn’t changed, it will pursue nuclear weapons. Follow Jed on X @JedBabbinSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Scammers know their scams are not believable. They know most of us we know that the Prince of Nigeria has not emailed us to help with his fortune. They don't want to scam everyone. They're looking for the most credulous people they can find and the Prince of Nigeria is a filter. They don't want anyone who's going to ask too many questions. They make these things hard to believe on purpose. They want only the extremely credulous.To keep reading ⁠⁠The Credulous and the Scammed⁠ ⁠⁠⁠visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. Episode 490Song: Scam Song⁠Image by Yuliya Strizhkina via ⁠UnsplashGive this podcast 5 stars. Write a nice review!Rate it at: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://ratethispodcast.com/strugglingartist⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Mailing list: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/SongsfortheStrugglingArtist/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Support me on Patreon: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Kofi: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://ko-fi.com/emilyrainbowdavis⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠PayPal: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.paypal.me/strugglingartist⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Substack: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://emilyrainbowdavis.substack.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@erainbowd⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Mastodon - @erainbowd@podvibes.coBlueSky - @erainbowd.bsky.social⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ & ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pinterest⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Listen to The Dragoning ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and The Defense ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. *Explicit due to Sweary Song

I couldn't stay silent on this one.If you've been watching the drama unfold between OpenAI, Anthropic, and the U.S. Department of Defense and seen the uprise in the #QuitGPT momevent… yeah, it's a lot. And if you're feeling stuck, confused, or even a little trapped by your AI tools right now? You're not alone.I think we need to talk about what's actually happening, what it means for online business owners like us, and what your real options are when it comes to using AI tools that align with your values.I'm not here to tell you what to think about the whole situation. I'm here to help you navigate what it means for your business—especially if you've been building custom GPTs or relying heavily on ChatGPT to run your content, your programs, or your client delivery.Here's what we're unpacking:A neutral recap of the OpenAI vs. Anthropic conflictWhy so many creators feel "trapped" by ChatGPT right now—and what's really keeping you thereWhat it actually takes to migrate from one AI platform to another (spoiler: it's way easier than you think)How I experimented with Claude this week—and what I learned about switching toolsWhy you DON'T need to port over 3 years of ChatGPT conversations to use a different model effectivelyI'm also announcing we are opening our waitlist for our AI Creator Platform (name to be released at launch). It's a place where you can build AI bots and multi-agent squads, choose your own models (OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and more), and share tools with clients without being locked into one provider.If you've been wrestling with this decision, feeling stuck, or just wanting more control over how you use AI in your business, this episode is for you.>> Mentioned in this Episode:New AI Creator Platform Waitlist (brought to you by my new company, Gravia Studio)The Artificial Intelligence Show Podcast. Catch up on the “Pentagon vs Anthropic” issue in episodes 200&201.>> Your Next Steps:

The Gospel of Thomas Verse James Talarico Won't Show You A sermon clip from Texas legislator James Talarico recently went viral after he referenced the Gospel of Thomas to suggest that Jesus supported modern ideas about gender and equality. But there's something missing from that presentation. In this episode, Lenny plays the viral clip and responds directly to the claim by examining what the Gospel of Thomas actually says — including the final saying that rarely gets mentioned. Then we step back and explore the bigger issue: how the Bible's canon was formed and why writings like the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Judas were never considered Scripture by the earliest Christians.

The Lakers started on what could be the toughest road trip of the season—their first stop...in Houston for game one of two straight games against the Houston Rockets. A second-half adjustment by JJ Redick had constant double-teams on Kevin Durant, which helped LA to force 22 turnovers. And despite scoring only four points in the first eight minutes of the fourth quarter, the Lakers were able to come up with a late-game run keyed by Luka Doncic (36 points), Deandre Ayton (7 points, 11 rebounds), and Marcus Smart (a dagger three late in the fourth) to get an important Western Conference victory, 100-92 over the Rockets. Check in with the LFB as we share thoughts on tonight's game, where the Lakers are in the Western Conference standings, and what may happen on Wednesday in game two against Houston. It's the Lakers and Rockets squaring off in the first of a two-game series to start the road trip, and we've got it covered for you right here on the Lakers Fast Break podcast!Join our ESPN March Madness Tournament Challenge Group today athttps://fantasy.espn.com/tc/sharer?challengeId=277&from=espn&context=GROUP_INVITE&edition=espn-en&groupId=ac5a9bdf-631b-4813-b98e-45da40b39568Follow @DripShowshop for some awesome sports or pop culture merchandise!The MVP Race is heating up, and Best League has got it covered on his site https://mvprace.top/Joe's new game Coreupt is OUT NOW on Steam. Play it today!Lakers Fast Break now has YouTube memberships! Join today at / @lakersfastbreak and for just $2.99 a month, you get access to LFB badges and emojis, channel page recognition, and more!Check out Stone Hansen on Twitter @report_court, Alfred Ezman @alfredezman, and John Costa's channels: Clutch Talk- / @clutchtalkpod and Lakers Corner- / @lakerscorner and Legend350 on his new channel / @sportslegend2018Special Deals today from our friends at #temu today at https://temu.to/m/u1samwbo8cc use code: aca785401 and you might save some $$$ at TEMU!Take a look at the line of Kinhank Mini PC's and retro game machines today at https://www.kinhank-retrogame.com?rs_ref=e8NA2Rm2 for some gaming and computing fun from Kinhank! Please Like, Share, and Subscribe to our channel and our social media @lakersfastbreak on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Twitch, on BLUESKY at @lakersfastbreak.bsky.social, e-mail us lakersfastbreak@yahoo.com or catch our audio of the Lakers Fast Break today at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://anchor.fm/lakers-fast-break⁠, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or your favorite podcast outlet!The views and opinions expressed on the Lakers Fast Break are those of the panelists or guests themselves and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Lakers Fast Break or its owners. Any content or thoughts provided by our panelists or guests are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, anyone, or anything.Presented by our friends at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠lakerholics.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠lakersball.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pop Culture Cosmos⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Inside Sports Fantasy Football⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Lakers Corner, @DripShowshop, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠SynBlades.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, I Got Next Sports Media⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Happy Hoarder⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Retro City Games!

Israeli forces continue to push further into southern Lebanon, in what the IDF says is their goal to expand the "forward defense area" in order to decimate the terror group Hezbollah. Hezbollah, in coordinated attacks with Iran, have launched hundreds of missiles into residential areas of Israel. Meanwhile, top Iranian official Ali Larijani was killed in an Israeli strike, according to an Israeli battle damage assessment. FOX's Eben Brown speaks with Dr. Jonathan Schanzer, the executive director at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, who says Hezbollah won't be fully defeated until their Iranian sponsors are handled with first. Click Here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ To Follow 'The FOX News Rundown: Evening Edition' Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Lakers get big win over Rockets!

President Donald Trump and his administration and allies have sent mixed messages about the war with Iran in the first two weeks of the operation. The Secretary of Defense called it war. Now, the Speaker of the House said thus conflict with Iran is not a war.Whatever the president decides to call the joint U.S.-Israeli campaign – it's cost the lives of 13 American troops and more than 2,000 people in the Middle East, both civilians and military personnel.Congress has voted on a resolution to limit the president's power to continue this campaign – but that effort failed. And the president hasn't indicated he wants Congress to weigh in. Many Republican members appear unbothered by that fact. At least in public.What does Trump owe Congress as far as buy-in on war? And how have past presidents involved the legislative branch when deploying the military?Find more of our programs online. Listen to 1A sponsor-free by signing up for 1A+ at plus.npr.org/the1a.To manage podcast ad preferences, review the links below:See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

PREVIEW FOR LATER: John Hardieexamines how the Iran war affects Ukraine's defense and global oil markets. He details U.S. Treasury waivers on Russian oil sanctions intended to mitigate supply disruptions caused by the Strait of Hormuz closure. (3)UKRAINE

Domonique Foxworth and Charlie Kravitz are joined by Ted Nguyen for a deep dive into the NFL's best defenses. They look at the defenses for the Vikings, Seahawks, Texans and Eagles and discuss what makes each defensive unit unique. They also break down base coverage vs. nickel, man coverage vs. zone, and the importance of versatility before giving their expectations for the new and improved Rams' defense next season and listing other defenses they could see improving. 0:00 Intro 1:33 Defensive vs. offensive coaches 4:11 Vikings' defense 8:01 Seahawks' defense 12:29 How the Seahawks and Texans prevent big plays 21:22 Texans' defense 26:25 Chiefs' defense 28:52 Eagles' defense 35:16 Importance of coach continuity 44:54 Rams' defense 48:51 Man coverage in today's NFL 51:17 How personnel dictates scheme 55:39 Broncos' defense 1:00:00 Defenses that could evolve next season 1:05:31 Maxx Crosby trade thoughts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Beau and Z are back on a football (and basketball) Monday edition of the program. The guys bring you the latest news and info on the Browns defensive additions and go through the weekend's headlines (52:15). That plus Quincy Williams from the podium (1:14:49), a look at this year's NCAA Tournament field and more!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Domonique Foxworth and Charlie Kravitz are joined by Ted Nguyen for a deep dive into the NFL's best defenses. They look at the defenses for the Vikings, Seahawks, Texans and Eagles and discuss what makes each defensive unit unique. They also break down base coverage vs. nickel, man coverage vs. zone, and the importance of versatility before giving their expectations for the new and improved Rams' defense next season and listing other defenses they could see improving. 0:00 Intro 1:33 Defensive vs. offensive coaches 4:11 Vikings' defense 8:01 Seahawks' defense 12:29 How the Seahawks and Texans prevent big plays 21:22 Texans' defense 26:25 Chiefs' defense 28:52 Eagles' defense 35:16 Importance of coach continuity 44:54 Rams' defense 48:51 Man coverage in today's NFL 51:17 How personnel dictates scheme 55:39 Broncos' defense 1:00:00 Defenses that could evolve next season 1:05:31 Maxx Crosby trade thoughts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What makes a character so compelling that readers will forgive almost anything about the plot? How do you move beyond vague flaws and generic descriptions to create people who feel pulled from real life? In this solo episode, I share 15 actionable tips for writing deep characters, curated from past interviews on the podcast. In the intro, thoughts from London Book Fair [Instagram reel @jfpennauthor; Publishing Perspectives; Audible; Spotify]; Insights from a 7-figure author business [BookBub]. This show is supported by my Patrons. Join my Community and get articles, discounts, and extra audio and video tutorials on writing craft, author business, and AI tools, at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn This episode has been created from previous episodes of The Creative Penn Podcast, curated by Joanna Penn, as well as chapters from How to Write a Novel: From Idea to Book. Links to the individual episodes are included in the transcript below. In this episode: Master the ‘Believe, Care, Invest' trifecta, how to hook readers on the very first page Define the Dramatic Question: Who is your character when the chips are down? Absolute specificity. Why “she's controlling” isn't good enough Understand the Heroine's Journey, strength through connection, not solo action Use ‘Metaphor Families' to anchor dialogue and give every character a distinctive voice Find the Diagnostic Detail, the moments that prove a character is real Writing pain onto the page without writing memoir Write diverse characters as real people, not stereotypes or plot devices Give your protagonist a morally neutral ‘hero' status. Compelling beats likeable. Build vibrant side characters for series longevity and spin-off potential Use voice as a rhythmic tool Link character and plot until they're inseparable Why discovery writers can write out of order and still build deep character Find the sensory details that make characters live and breathe More help with how to write fiction here, or in my book, How to Write a Novel. Writing Characters: 15 Tips for Writing Deep Character in Your Fiction In today's episode, I'm sharing fifteen tips for writing deep characters, synthesised from some of the most insightful interviews on The Creative Penn Podcast over the past few years, combined with what I've learned across more than forty books of my own. I'll be referencing episodes with Matt Bird, Will Storr, Gail Carriger, Barbara Nickless, and Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer. I'll also draw on my own book, How to Write a Novel, which covers these fundamentals in detail. Whether you're writing your first novel or your fiftieth, whether you're a plotter or a discovery writer like me, these tips will help you create characters that readers believe in, care about, and invest in—and keep coming back for more. Let's get into it. 1. Master the ‘Believe, Care, Invest' Trifecta When I spoke with Matt Bird on episode 624, he laid out the three things you need to achieve on the very first page of your book or in the first ten minutes of a film. He calls it “Believe, Care, and Invest.” First, the reader must believe the character is a real person, somehow proving they are not a cardboard imitation of a human being, not just a generic type walking through a generic plot. Second, the reader must care about the character's circumstances. And third, the reader must invest in the character's ability to solve the story's central problem. Matt used The Hunger Games as his primary example, and it's brilliant. On the very first page, we believe Katniss's voice. Suzanne Collins writes in first person with a staccato rhythm—lots of periods, short declarative sentences—that immediately grounds us in a survivalist mentality. We care because Katniss is starving. She's protecting her little sister. And we invest because she is out there bow hunting, which Matt pointed out is one of the most badass things a character can do. She even kills a lynx two pages in and sells the pelt. We invest in her resourcefulness and grit before the plot has even begun. Matt was very clear that this has nothing to do with the character being “likable.” He said his subtitle, Writing a Hero Anyone Will Love, doesn't mean the character has to be a good person. He described “hero” as both gender-neutral and morally neutral. A hero can be totally evil or totally good. What matters is that we believe, care, and invest. He demonstrated this beautifully by breaking down the first ten minutes of WeCrashed, where the characters of Adam and Rebekah Neumann are absolutely not likable, but we are completely hooked. Adam steals his neighbour's Chinese food through a carefully orchestrated con involving an imaginary beer. It's not admirable behaviour, but the tradecraft involved, as Matt put it—using a term from spy movies—makes us invest in him. We see a character trying to solve the big problem of his life, which is that he's poor and wants to be rich, and we want to see if he can pull it off. Actionable step: Go to the first page of your current work in progress. Does it achieve all three? Does the reader believe this is a real person with a distinctive voice? Do they care about the character's circumstances? And do they invest in the character's ability to handle what's coming? If even one of those three is missing, that's your revision priority. 2. Define the Dramatic Question: Who Are They Really? Will Storr, author of The Science of Storytelling, came on episode 490 and gave one of the most powerful frameworks I've ever heard for character-driven fiction. He explained that the human brain evolved language primarily to swap social information—in other words, to gossip. We are wired to monitor other people, to ask the question: who is this person when the chips are down? That's what Will calls the Dramatic Question, and it's what he believes lies at the heart of all compelling storytelling. It's not a question about plot. It's a question about the character's soul. And every scene in your novel should force the character to answer it. His example of Lawrence of Arabia is unforgettable. The Dramatic Question for the entire film is: who are you, Lawrence? Are you ordinary or are you extraordinary? At the beginning, Lawrence is a cocky, rebellious young soldier who believes his rebelliousness makes him superior. Every iconic scene in that three-hour film tests that belief. Sometimes Lawrence acts as though he truly is extraordinary—leading the Arabs into battle, being hailed as a god—and sometimes the world strips him bare and he sees himself as ordinary. Because it's a tragedy, he never overcomes his flaw. He doubles down on his belief that he's extraordinary until he becomes monstrous, culminating in that iconic scene where he lifts a bloody dagger and sees his own reflection with horror. Will also used Jaws to demonstrate how this works in a pure action thriller. Brody's dramatic question is simple: are you going to be old Brody who is terrified of the water, or new Brody who can overcome that fear? Every scene where the shark appears is really asking that question. And the last moment of the film isn't the shark blowing up. It's Brody swimming back through the water, saying he used to be scared of the water and he can't imagine why. Actionable step: Write down the Dramatic Question for your protagonist in a single sentence. Is it “Are you ordinary or extraordinary?” or “Are you brave enough to love again?” or “Will you sacrifice your principles for survival?” If you can't answer this with specificity, your character might still be a sketch rather than a person. 3. Get rid of Vague Flaws, and use Absolute Specificity This was one of Will Storr's most important points. He said that vague thinking about characters is really the enemy. When he teaches workshops and asks writers to describe their character's flaw, most of them say something like “they're very controlling.” And Will's response is: that's not good enough. Everyone is controlling. How are they controlling? What's the specific mechanism? He gave the example of a profile he read of Theresa May during the UK's Brexit chaos. Someone who knew her said that Theresa May's problem was that she always thinks she's the only adult in every room she goes into. Will said that stopped him in his tracks because it's so precise. If you define a character with that level of specificity, you can take them and put them in any genre, any situation—a spaceship, a Victorian drawing room, a school playground—and you will know exactly how they're going to behave. The same applies to Arthur Miller's Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman, as Will described it: a man who believes absolutely in capitalistic success and the idea that when you die, you're going to be weighed on a scale, just as God weighs you for sin, but now you're weighed for success. That's not a vague flaw. That's a worldview you can drop into any story and watch it combust. Will made another counterintuitive point that I found really valuable: writers often think that piling on multiple traits will create a complex character, but the opposite is true. Starting with one highly specific flaw and running it through the demands of a relentless plot is what generates complexity. You end up with a far more nuanced, original character than if you'd started with a laundry list of vague attributes. Actionable step: Take your protagonist's flaw and pressure-test it. Is it specific enough that you could place this character in any situation and predict their behaviour? If you're stuck at “she's stubborn” or “he's insecure,” keep pushing. What kind of stubborn? What kind of insecure? Find the diagnostic sentence—the Theresa May level of precision. 4. Understand the Heroine's Journey: Strength Through Connection Gail Carriger came on episode 550 to discuss her nonfiction book, The Heroine's Journey, and it completely reframed how I think about some of my own fiction. Gail explained that the core difference between the Hero's Journey and the Heroine's Journey comes down to how strength and victory are defined. The Hero's Journey is about strength through solo action. The hero must be continually isolated to get stronger. He goes out of civilisation, faces strife alone, and achieves victory through physical prowess and self-actualisation. The Heroine's Journey is the opposite. The heroine achieves her goals by activating a network. She's a delegator, a general. She identifies where she can't do something alone, finds the people who can help, and portions out the work for mutual gain. Gail put it simply: the heroine is very good at asking for help, which our culture tends to devalue but which is actually a powerful form of strength. Crucially, Gail stressed that gender is irrelevant to which journey you're writing. Her go-to examples are striking: the recent Wonder Woman film is practically a beat-for-beat hero's journey—Gilgamesh on screen, as Gail described it. Meanwhile, Harry Potter, both the first book and the series as a whole, is a classic heroine's journey. Harry's power comes from his network—Dumbledore's Army, the Order of the Phoenix, his friendships with Ron and Hermione. He doesn't defeat Voldemort alone. He defeats Voldemort because of love and connection. This distinction has real practical consequences for writers. If you're writing a hero's journey and you hit writer's block, Gail said, the solution is usually to isolate your hero further and pile on more strife. But if you're writing a heroine's journey, the solution is probably to throw a new character into the scene—someone who has advice to offer or a skill the heroine lacks. The actual solutions to writer's block are different depending on which narrative you're writing. As I reflected on my own work, I realised that my ARKANE thriller protagonist, Morgan Sierra, follows a hero's journey—she's a solo operative, a lone wolf like Jack Reacher or James Bond. But my Mapwalker fantasy series follows a heroine's journey, with Sienna and her group of friends working together. I hadn't consciously chosen those paths; the stories led me there. But understanding the framework helps me write more intentionally now. Actionable step: Identify which journey your protagonist is on. Does your character gain strength by being alone (hero) or by building connections (heroine)? This will inform every plot decision you make, from how they face obstacles to how your story ends. 5. Use ‘Metaphor Families' to Anchor Dialogue and Voice One of the most practical techniques Matt Bird shared on episode 624 is the idea of assigning each character a “metaphor family”—a specific well of language that they draw from. This gives each character a distinctive voice that goes beyond accent or dialect. Matt explained how in The Wire, one of the most beloved TV shows of all time, every character has a different metaphor family. What struck him was that Omar, this iconic character, never utters a single curse word in the entire series. His metaphor family is pirate. He talks about parlays, uses language that feels like it belongs in Pirates of the Caribbean, and it creates this incredible ironic counterpoint against his urban setting. It tells us immediately that this is a character who sees himself in a tradition of people that doesn't match his immediate surroundings. Matt also referenced the UK version of The Office, where Gareth works at a paper company but aspires to the military. So all of his language is drawn from a military metaphor family. He doesn't talk about filing and photocopying; he talks about tactics and discipline and being on the front line. This tells us that the character has a life and dreams beyond the immediate scene—and it's the gap between aspiration and reality that makes him both funny and believable. He pointed out that a metaphor family sometimes comes from a character's background, but it's often more interesting when it comes from their aspirations. What does your character want to be? What world do they fantasise about inhabiting? That's where their language should come from. In Star Wars, Obi-Wan Kenobi is a spiritual hermit, but his metaphor family is military. He uses the language of generals and commanders, and that ironic counterpoint is part of what makes him feel so rich. Actionable step: Assign each of your main characters a metaphor family. It could be based on their job, their background, or—more interestingly—their secret aspirations. Then go through your dialogue and make sure each character is consistently drawing from that well of language. If two characters sound the same when you strip away the dialogue tags, this is the fix. 6. Find the Diagnostic Detail: The Diagonal Toast Avoid clichéd character tags—the random scar, the eye patch, the mysterious limp—unless they serve a deep narrative purpose. Matt Bird on episode 624 was very funny about this: he pointed out that Nick Fury, Odin, and eventually Thor all have eye patches in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Eye patches are done, he said. You cannot do eye patches anymore. Instead, look for what I'm calling the “diagonal toast” detail, after a scene Matt described from Captain Marvel. In the film, Captain Marvel is trying to determine whether Nick Fury is who he says he is. She asks him to prove he isn't a shapeshifting alien. Fury shares biographical details—his history, his mother—but then she pushes further and says, name one more thing you couldn't possibly have made up about yourself. And Fury says: if toast is cut diagonally, I can't eat it. Matt said that detail is gold for a writer because it feels pulled from a real life. You can pull it from your own life and gift it to your characters, and the reader can tell it's not manufactured. He gave another example from The Sopranos: Tony Soprano's mother won't answer the phone after dark. The show's creator, David Chase, confirmed on the DVD commentary that this came from his own mother, who genuinely would not answer the phone after dark and couldn't explain why. Matt's practical advice was to keep a journal. Write down the strange, specific things that people do or say. Mine your own life for those hyper-specific details. You just need one per book. In my own writing, I've used this approach. In my ARKANE thrillers, my character Morgan Sierra has always been Angelina Jolie in my mind—specifically Jolie in Lara Croft or Mr and Mrs Smith. And Blake Daniel in my crime thriller series was based on Jesse Williams from Grey's Anatomy. I paste pictures of actors into my Scrivener projects. It helps with visuals, but also with the sense of the character, their energy and physicality. But visual details only take you so far. It's the behavioural quirks—the diagonal toast moments—that make a character feel genuinely alive. That said, physical character tags can work brilliantly when they serve the story. As I discuss in How to Write a Novel, Robert Galbraith's Cormoran Strike is an amputee, and his pain and the physical challenges of his prosthesis are a key part of every story—it's not a cosmetic detail, it's woven into the action and the character's psychology. My character Blake Daniel always wears gloves to cover the scars on his hands, which provides an angle into his wounded past as well as a visual cue for the reader. And of course, Harry Potter's lightning-shaped scar isn't just a mark—it's a direct connection to his nemesis and the mythology of the entire series. The rule of thumb is: if the tag tells us something about the character's interior life or connects to the plot, it's earning its place. If it's just there to make the character visually distinctive, it's probably a crutch. Game of Thrones takes character tags further with the family houses, each with their own mottos and sigils. The Starks say “Winter is coming” and their sigil is a dire wolf. Those aren't just labels—they're worldview made visible. Actionable step: Start a “diagonal toast” notebook. Every time you notice something strange and specific about someone's behaviour—something that feels too real to be made up—write it down. Then gift it to a character who needs more texture. 7. Displace Your Own Trauma into the Work Barbara Nickless shared something deeply personal on episode 732 that fundamentally changed how I think about putting pain onto the page. While starting At First Light, the first book in her Dr. Evan Wilding series, she lost her son to epilepsy—something called SUDEP, Sudden Unexplained Death in Epilepsy. One day he was there, and the next day he was gone. Barbara said that writing helped her cope with the trauma, that doing a deep dive into Old English literature and the Viking Age for the book's research became a lifeline. But here's what's important: she didn't give Dr. Evan Wilding her exact trauma. Evan Wilding is four feet five inches, and Barbara described how he has to walk through a world that won't adjust to him. That's its own form of learning to cope when circumstances are beyond your control. She displaced her genuine grief into the character's different but parallel struggle. When I asked her about the difference between writing for therapy and writing for an audience, she drew on her experience teaching creative writing to veterans through a collaboration between the US Department of Defense and the National Endowment for the Arts. She said she's found that she can pour her heartache into her characters and process it through them, even when writing professionally, and that the genuine emotion is what touches readers. We've all been through our own losses and griefs, so seeing how a character copes can be deeply meaningful. I've always found that putting my own pain onto the page is the most direct way to connect with a reader's soul. My character Morgan Sierra's musings on religion and the supernatural are often my own. Her restlessness, her fascination with the darker edges of faith—those come from me. But her Krav Maga fighting skills and her ability to kill the bad guys are definitely her own. That gap between what's mine and what's hers is where the fiction lives. Barbara also said something on that episode that I wrote down and stuck on my wall. She said the act of producing itself is a balm to the soul. I've been thinking about that ever since. On my own wall, I have “Measure your life by what you create.” Different words, same truth. Actionable step: If you're carrying something heavy—grief, anger, fear, regret—consider how you might displace it into a character's different but emotionally parallel struggle. Don't copy your exact situation; transform it. The emotion will be genuine, and the reader will feel it. 8. Write Diverse Characters as Real People When I spoke with Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer on episode 673—Sarah is Choctaw and a historical fiction author honoured by the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian—she offered a perspective that every fiction writer needs to hear. The key message was to move away from stereotypes. Don't write your American Indian character as the “Wise Guide” who exists solely to dispense mystic wisdom to the white protagonist. Don't limit diverse characters to historical settings, as though they only exist in the past. Place them in normal, contemporary roles. Your spaceship captain, your forensic scientist, your small-town baker—any of them can be American Indian, or Nigerian, or Japanese, and their heritage should be a lived-in part of their identity, not the sole reason they exist in the story. I write international thrillers and dark fantasy, and my fiction is populated with characters from all over the world. I have a multi-cultural family and I've lived in many places and travelled widely, so I've met, worked with, and had relationships with people from different cultures. I find story ideas through travel, and if I set my books in a certain place, then the story is naturally populated with the people who live there. As I discuss in my book, How to Write a Novel, the world is a diverse place, so your fiction needs to be populated with all kinds of people. If I only populated my fiction with characters like me, they would be boring novels. There are many dimensions of difference—race, nationality, sex, age, body type, ability, religion, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, class, culture, education level—and even then, don't assume that similar types of people think the same way. Some authors worry they will make mistakes. We live in a time of outrage, and some authors have been criticised for writing outside their own experience. So is it too dangerous to try? Of course not. The media amplifies outliers, and most authors include diverse characters in every book without causing offence because they work hard to get it right. It's about awareness, research, and intent. Actionable step: Audit the cast of your current work in progress. Have you written a mono-cultural perspective for all of them? If so, consider who could bring a different background, perspective, or set of cultural specifics to the story. Not as a token addition, but as a real person with a real life. 9. Respect Tribal and Cultural Specificity Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer on episode 673 was emphatic about one thing: never treat diverse groups as monolithic. If you're writing a Native American character, you must research the specific nation. Choctaw is not Navajo, just as British is not French. Sarah described the distinct cultural markers of the Choctaw people—the diamond pattern you'll see on traditional shirts and dresses, which represents the diamondback rattlesnake. They have distinct dances and songs. She said that if she saw someone in traditional dress at a distance, she would know whether they were Choctaw based on what they were wearing. She encouraged writers who want to write specifically about a nation to get to know those people. Go to events, go to a powwow, learn about the individual culture. She noted that a big misconception is that American Indians exist only in the past—she stressed that they are still here, still living their cultures, and fiction should reflect that present reality. I took a similar approach when writing Destroyer of Worlds, which is set mostly in India. I read books about Hindu myth, watched documentaries about the sadhus, and had one of my Indian readers from Mumbai check my cultural references. For Risen Gods, set in New Zealand with a young Maori protagonist, I studied books about Maori mythology and fiction by Maori authors, and had a male Maori reader check for cultural issues. Research is simply an act of empathy. The practical takeaway is this: if you're going to include a character from a specific cultural background, do the work. Use specific cultural details rather than generic signifiers. Sarah talked about how even she fell into stereotypes when she was first writing, until her mother pointed them out. If someone from within a culture can fall into those traps, the rest of us certainly can. Do the research, try your best, ask for help, and apologise if you need to. Actionable step: If you're writing a character from a specific culture, identify three to five sensory or behavioural details that are particular to that culture—not the generic version, but the real, researched, lived-in version. Consider hiring a sensitivity reader from that community to check your work. 10. Give Your Protagonist a Morally Neutral ‘Hero' Status Matt Bird was clear about this on episode 624: the word “hero” simply means the protagonist, the person we follow through the story. It's a functional role, not a moral label. We don't have to like them. We don't even have to root for their goals in a moral sense. We just have to find them compelling enough to invest our attention in their problem-solving. Think of Succession, where every member of the Roy family is varying degrees of awful, and yet the show was utterly compelling. Or WeCrashed, where Adam Neumann is a narcissistic con artist, but we can't look away because he's trying to solve the enormous problem of building an empire from nothing, and the tradecraft he employs is fascinating. As I wrote in How to Write a Novel, readers must want to spend time with your characters. They don't have to be lovable or even likable—that will depend on your genre and story choices—but they have to be captivating enough that we want to spend time with them. A character who is trying to solve a massive problem will naturally draw investment from the audience, even if we wouldn't want to have tea with them. Will Storr extended this idea by pointing out that the audience will actually root for a character to solve their problem even if the audience doesn't actually want the character's goal to be achieved in the real world. We don't really want more billionaires, but we invested in Adam Neumann's rise because that was the problem the story posed, and our brains are wired to invest in problem-solving. This connects to something deeper: what does your character want, and why? As I explore in How to Write a Novel, desire operates on multiple levels. Take a character like Phil, who joins the military during wartime. On the surface, she wants to serve her country. But she also wants to escape her dead-end town and learn new skills. Deeper still, her father and grandfather served, and by joining up, she hopes to finally earn their respect. And perhaps deepest of all, her father died on a mission under mysterious circumstances, and she wants to find out what happened from the inside. That layering of motivation is what turns a flat character into a three-dimensional one. The audience doesn't need to be told all of this explicitly. It can emerge through action, dialogue, and the choices the character makes under pressure. But you, the writer, need to know it. You need to know what your character really wants deep down, because that desire—more than any external plot device—is what drives the story forward. And your antagonist needs the same depth. They also want something, often diametrically opposed to your protagonist, and they need a reason that makes sense to them. In my ARKANE thriller Tree of Life, my antagonist is the heiress of a Brazilian mining empire who wants to restore the Earth to its original state to atone for the destruction caused by her father's company. She's part of a radical ecological group who believe the only way to restore Nature is to end all human life. It's extreme, but in an era of climate change, it's a motivation readers can understand—even if they disagree with the solution. Actionable step: If you're struggling to make a morally grey character work, make sure their problem is big enough and their methods are specific and interesting enough that we invest in the how, even if we're ambivalent about the what. 11. Build Vibrant Side Characters Gail Carriger made a point on episode 550 that was equal parts craft advice and business strategy. In a Heroine's Journey model, side characters aren't just fodder to be killed off to motivate the hero. They form a network. And because you don't have to kill them—unlike in a hero's journey, where allies are often betrayed or removed so the hero can be further isolated—you can pick up those side characters and give them their own books. Gail said this creates a really voracious reader base. You write one series with vivid side characters, and then readers fall in love with those side characters and want their stories. So you write spin-offs. The romance genre does this brilliantly—think of the Bridgerton books, where each sibling gets their own novel. The side character in one book becomes the protagonist in the next. Barbara Nickless experienced this firsthand with her Dr. Evan Wilding series. She has River Wilding, Evan's adventurous brother, and Diana, the axe-throwing research assistant, and her editor has already expressed interest in a spin-off series with those characters. Barbara described creating characters she wants to spend time with, or characters who give her nightmares but also intrigue her. That's the dual test: are they interesting enough for you to write, and interesting enough for readers to demand more? As I wrote in How to Write a Novel, characters that span series can deepen the reader's relationship with them as you expand their backstory into new plots. Readers will remember the character more than the plot or the book title, and look forward to the next instalment because they want more time with those people. British crime author Angela Marsons described it as readers feeling like returning to her characters is like putting on a pair of old slippers. Actionable step: Look at your supporting cast. Is there a side character who is vivid enough to carry their own story? If not, what could you add—a specific hobby, a distinct voice, a compelling backstory—that would make readers want more of them? 12. Use Voice as a Rhythmic Tool Voice is one of the most important elements of novel writing, and Matt Bird helped me think about it in a technical, mechanical way that I found really useful. He pointed out that the ratio of periods to commas defines a character's internal reality. A staccato rhythm—lots of periods, short sentences—suggests a character who is certain, grounded, or perhaps survivalist and traumatised. Katniss in The Hunger Games has a period-heavy voice. She's in survival mode. She doesn't have time for complexity or qualification. A flowing, comma-heavy style suggests someone more academic, more nuanced, or possibly more scattered and manipulative. The character who qualifies everything, who adds sub-clauses and digressions, is a different kind of person from the character who speaks in declarations. This is something you can actually measure. Pull up a passage of your character's dialogue or internal monologue and count the periods versus the commas. If the rhythm doesn't match who the character is supposed to be, you've found a mismatch you can fix. Sentence length is the heartbeat of your character's persona. And voice extends beyond rhythm to the words themselves. As I discussed in the metaphor families tip, each character should draw from a distinctive well of language. But voice also encompasses their relationship to silence. Some characters talk around the thing they mean; others say it straight. Some are self-deprecating; others are blunt to the point of rudeness. All of these choices are character choices, not just style choices. I find it useful to read my dialogue aloud—and not just to check for naturalness, but to hear whether each character sounds distinct. If you could swap dialogue lines between two characters and nobody would notice, you have a voice problem. One practical test: cover the dialogue tags and see if you can tell who's speaking from the words alone. Actionable step: Choose a key passage from your protagonist's point of view and read it aloud. Does the rhythm match the character? A soldier under fire should not sound like a philosophy professor at a wine tasting. Adjust the ratio of periods to commas until the voice feels right. 13. Link Character and Plot Until They're Inseparable Will Storr made the case on episode 490 that the number one problem he sees in the writing he encounters—in workshops, in submissions, even in published books—is that the characters and the plots are unconnected. There's a story happening, and there are people in it, but the story isn't a product of who those people are. He said a story should be like life. In our lives, the plots are intimately connected to who we are as characters. The goals we pursue, the obstacles we face, the same problems that keep recurring—these are products of our personalities, our flaws, our specific ways of being in the world. His framework is that your plot should be designed specifically to plot against your character. You've got a character with a particular flaw; the plot exists to test that flaw over and over until the character either transforms or doubles down and explodes. Jaws is the perfect example. Brody is afraid of water. A shark shows up in the coastal town he's responsible for protecting. The entire plot is engineered to force him to confront the one thing he cannot face. Will pointed out that the whole plot of Jaws is structured around Brody's flaw. It begins with the shark arriving, the midpoint is when Brody finally gets the courage to go into the water, and the very final scene isn't the shark blowing up—it's Brody swimming back through the water. Even a film that's ninety-eight percent action is, at its core, structured around a character with a character flaw. This is the standard I aspire to in my own work, even in my action-heavy thrillers. The external plot should be a mirror of the internal struggle. When those two are aligned, the story becomes irresistible. Will also made an important point about series fiction, which is where most commercial authors live. I asked him how this works when your character can't be transformed at the end of every book because there has to be a next book. His answer was elegant: you don't cure them. Episodic TV characters like Fleabag or David Brent or Basil Fawlty never truly change—and the fact that they don't change is actually the source of the comedy. But every episode throws a new story event at them that tests and exposes their flaw. You just keep throwing story events at them again and again. That's a soap opera, a sitcom, and a book series. As I wrote in How to Write a Novel, character flaws are aspects of personality that affect the person so much that facing and overcoming them becomes central to the plot. In Jaws, the protagonist Brody is afraid of the water, but he has to overcome that flaw to destroy the killer shark and save the town. But remember, your characters should feel like real people, so never define them purely by their flaws. The character addicted to painkillers might also be a brilliant and successful female lawyer who gets up at four in the morning to work out at the gym, likes eighties music, and volunteers at the local dog shelter at weekends. Character wounds are different from flaws. They're formed from life experience and are part of your character's backstory—traumatic events that happened before the events of your novel but shape the character's reactions in the present. In my ARKANE thrillers, Morgan Sierra's husband Elian died in her arms during a military operation. This happened before the series begins, but her memories of it recur when she faces a firefight, and she struggles to find happiness again for fear of losing someone she loves once more. And then there's the perennial advice: show, don't tell. Most writers have heard this so many times that it's easy to nod and then promptly write scenes that tell rather than show. Basically, you need to reveal your character through action and dialogue, rather than explanation. In my thriller Day of the Vikings, Morgan Sierra fights a Neo-Viking in the halls of the British Museum and brings him down with Krav Maga. That fight scene isn't just about showing action. It opens up questions about her backstory, demonstrates character, and moves the plot forward. Telling would be something like: “Morgan was an expert in Krav Maga.” Showing is the reader discovering it through the scene itself. Actionable step: Look at the main plot events of your novel. For each major turning point, ask: does this scene specifically test my protagonist's flaw? If not, can you redesign the scene so that it does? The tighter the connection between character and plot, the more powerful the story. 14. The ‘Maestra' Approach: Write Out of Order If you're a discovery writer like me, you may feel like the deep character work I've been describing sounds more suited to plotters. But Barbara Nickless gave me a beautiful metaphor on episode 732 that reframes it entirely. Barbara described her evolving writing process as being like a maestra standing in front of an orchestra. Sometimes you bring in the horns—a certain theme—and sometimes you bring in the strings—a certain character—and sometimes you turn to the soloist. It's a more organic and jumping-around process than linear writing, and Barbara said she's only recently given herself permission to work this way. When I told her that I use Scrivener to write in scenes out of order and then drag and drop them into a structure later, she was genuinely intrigued. And this is how I've always worked. I'll see the story in my mind like a movie trailer—flashes of the big emotional scenes, the pivotal confrontations, the moments of revelation—and I write those first. I don't know how they hang together until quite late in the process. Then I'll move scenes around, print the whole thing out, and figure out the connective tissue. The point is that discovery writers can absolutely build deep characters. Sometimes writing the big emotional scenes first is how you discover who the character is before you fill in the rest. You don't need a twenty-page character worksheet or a 200-page outline like Jeffery Deaver. You need to be willing to follow the character into the unknown and trust that the structure will emerge. As Barbara said, she writes to know what she's thinking. That's the discovery writer's credo. And I would add: I write to know who my characters are. Actionable step: If you're stuck on your current chapter, skip it. Write the scene that's burning in your imagination, even if it's from the middle or the end. That scene might be the key to unlocking who your character really is. 15. Use Research to Help with Empathy Research shouldn't just be about factual accuracy—it's a tool for finding the sensory details that create empathy. Barbara Nickless described research as almost an excuse to explore things that fascinate her, and I feel exactly the same way. I would go so far as to say that writing is an excuse for me to explore the things that interest me. Barbara and I both travel for our stories. For her Dr. Evan Wilding books, she did deep research into Old English literature and the Viking Age. For my thriller End of Days, I transcribed hours of video from Appalachian snake-handling churches on YouTube to understand the worldview of the worshippers, because my antagonist was brought up in that tradition. I couldn't just make that up. I had to hear their language, feel their conviction, understand why they would hold venomous serpents as an act of faith. Barbara also mentioned getting to Israel and the West Bank for research, and I've been to both places too. Finding that one specific sensory detail—the smell of a particular location, the specific way an expert handles a tool, the sound of a particular kind of music—makes the character's life feel lived-in. It's the difference between a character who is described as living in a place and a character who inhabits it. As I wrote in How to Write a Novel, don't write what you know. Write what you want to learn about. I love research. It's part of why I'm an author in the first place. I take any excuse to dive into a world different from my own. Research using books, films, podcasts, and travel, and focus particularly on sources produced by people from the worldview you want to understand. Actionable step: For your next piece of character research, go beyond reading. Watch a documentary, visit a location, talk to someone who lives the experience. Find one sensory detail—a smell, a sound, a texture—that you couldn't have invented. That detail will make your character feel real. Bonus: Measure Your Life by What You Create In an age of AI and a tsunami of content, your ultimate brand protection is the quality of your human creation. Barbara Nickless said that the act of producing itself is a balm to the soul, and I believe that with every fibre of my being. Don't be afraid to take that step back, like I did with my deadlifting. Take the time to master these deeper craft skills. It might feel like you're slowing down or going backwards by not chasing the latest marketing trend, but it's the only way to step forward into a sustainable, high-quality career. Your characters are your signature. No AI can replicate the specificity of your lived experience, the emotional truth of your displaced trauma, or the sensory details you've gathered from a life of curiosity and travel. Those are yours. Pour them into your characters, and they will resonate for years to come. Actionable Takeaway: Identify the Dramatic Question for your current protagonist. Can you state it in a single sentence with the kind of specificity Will Storr described? Is it as clear as “Are you ordinary or extraordinary?” or “Are you the only adult in the room?” If you can't answer it with that kind of precision, your character might still be a sketch. Give them a diagonal toast moment today. Find the one hyper-specific detail that proves they are not an imitation of life. And then ask yourself: does your plot test your character's flaw in every major scene? If you can align those two things—a precisely defined character and a plot that exists to test them—you will have a story that readers cannot put down. References and Deep Dives The episodes I've referenced today are all available with full transcripts at TheCreativePenn.com: Episode 732 — Facing Fears, and Writing Unique Characters with Barbara Nickless Episode 673 — Writing Choctaw Characters and Diversity in Fiction with Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer Episode 624 — Writing Characters with Matt Bird Episode 550 — The Heroine's Journey with Gail Carriger Episode 490 — How Character Flaws Shape Story with Will Storr Books mentioned: The Secrets of Character: Writing a Hero Anyone Will Love by Matt Bird The Science of Storytelling by Will Storr The Heroine's Journey by Gail Carriger How to Write a Novel: From Idea to Book by Joanna Penn You can find all my books for authors at CreativePennBooks.com and my fiction and memoir at JFPennBooks.com Happy writing! How was this episode created? This episode was initiated created by NotebookLM based on YouTube videos of the episodes linked above from YouTube/TheCreativePenn, plus my text chapters on character from How to Write a Novel. NotebookLM created a blog post from the material and then I expanded it and fact checked it with Claude.ai 4.6 Opus, and then I used my voice clone at ElevenLabs to narrate it. The post Writing Characters: 15 Actionable Tips For Writing Deep Character first appeared on The Creative Penn.

Ready to break through your Keto or low carb plateau? Book your free consultation call with Robert Sikes here: https://www.ketobodybuilding.com/callYou are sabotaging your own health goals without even realizing it. Your shallow breathing and high stress levels are destroying your digestion, blocking fat burning, and leading to hormone imbalances. The key to improving your health isn't just about what you eat, but how your body functions from the inside out.In episode 867 of the Savage Perspective Podcast, host Robert Sikes sits down with Dr. John Douillard to reveal how ancient Ayurvedic wisdom holds the answers to modern health problems like metabolic syndrome and fatigue. They explore how simple changes in your breathing can improve your lymphatic system, reset your digestion, and create lasting energy. This episode provides the tools you need to stop fighting your body and finally work with it to achieve your best state of health.Follow Dr. John Douillard on IG: https://www.instagram.com/lifespa/Get Keto Brick: https://www.ketobrick.com/Subscribe to the podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/42cjJssghqD01bdWBxRYEg?si=1XYKmPXmR4eKw2O9gGCEuQChapters0:00 - The Optimal Intermittent Fasting Window For Fat Loss0:58 - How an Ironman Triathlon Led to A Surprising Discovery3:16 - The "Eye of the Storm" Secret for Peak Performance5:22 - How Nasal Breathing Scientifically Unlocks The "Runner's High"6:29 - Why Life Feels Like a Struggle (And How to Fix It)8:23 - The Unexpected Habit That Boosts Athletic Power10:29 - The Science of "Calm Amidst Chaos" for Elite Performance12:36 - What Is Ayurveda? A Beginner's Guide13:19 - How Seasonal Eating Optimizes Your Gut Microbiome15:34 - The Forgotten System Key to Longevity16:30 - Is Brain Fog Linked to a Congested Brain?18:13 - Why Most Athletes Have a Weak Diaphragm (And Don't Know It)20:51 - Are Food Intolerances a Myth? The Real Cause23:15 - Is 1g of Protein Per Pound of Bodyweight a Fad?25:07 - The Single Biggest Lever to Pull for Better Digestion27:13 - How to Properly Practice Breathwork for Maximum Benefit28:03 - Are You "Over-Breathing"? The Signs of Oxygen Inefficiency29:07 - The Perfect Storm for Anxiety (And How to Reverse It)30:00 - A Message From Robert Sikes31:40 - How Your Mental State Affects Nutrient Absorption32:21 - What is Metabolic Syndrome and What Truly Causes It?35:12 - The Real Reason for PMS Symptoms (It's Not Hormones)37:14 - What Is The Optimal Meal Frequency for Digestion?38:45 - The Truth About Intermittent Fasting: Breakfast vs. Supper43:03 - One Meal a Day (OMAD): Pros and Cons46:16 - TRT & HRT: Are They a First Line of Defense?50:00 - How to Test The Health of Your Lymphatic System at Home50:35 - How to Preserve Your Nitric Oxide Production52:41 - The Ancient Ayurvedic Tool for Oral Health55:20 - Dr. Douillard's Daily Morning Routine for Longevity59:31 - Dr. Douillard's Evening Wind-Down Routine1:02:15 - Where to Find Dr. John Douillard

In high-stakes murder trials, the decision not to call your client to the stand is one of the most consequential a defense team can make. In the Kouri Richins trial, that decision has been made. The defense rested without putting Kouri Richins in front of the jury.What does that silence communicate — legally, strategically, and behaviorally?Defense attorney Bob Motta and retired FBI Behavioral Analysis Chief Robin Dreeke join Tony Brueski to examine the strategic landscape at the close of evidence in one of true crime's most-watched cases. With no physical drug evidence, a immunity-protected star witness whose credibility was aggressively challenged, and a defendant who spent years publicly performing grief while allegedly orchestrating false testimony, the Kouri Richins trial raises questions that go beyond this one case.When circumstantial evidence is this dense, what does a defense team owe the jury? When an investigation has as many procedural gaps as this one, does that create reasonable doubt — or just noise? And when a defendant chooses silence, what fills that vacuum in a juror's mind?Closing arguments are next. The verdict window is open. This is where the case stands.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspodX Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#KouriRichins #KouriRichinsTrial #DefenseRests #EricRichins #UtahMurderTrial #FentanylMurder #BobMotta #RobinDreeke #TrueCrime #SummitCounty

In a move carrying significant legal weight, Kouri Richins' defense team rested without calling a single witness — concluding three weeks of prosecution testimony in a first-degree murder case built entirely on circumstantial evidence. Former FBI behavioral analyst Robin Dreeke joins Tony Brueski for a listener Q&A examining the evidentiary landscape the jury is now tasked with assessing.From a procedural standpoint, the defense's silence forces jurors to evaluate the prosecution's case on its own terms. That case rests on interconnected pillars: an extensive financial picture — accounts reportedly in the red, failed real estate transactions, outstanding loans — uncontested opportunity evidence, and Carmen Lauber's testimony, which represents the closest thing this case has to a direct statement from Richins about her intentions.Lauber's testimony came with a serious legal complication. A detective allegedly told her she needed to provide "details that ensure Kouri gets convicted." That statement, if accurately reported, represents a significant problem for the prosecution's most important witness — and Dreeke examines how jurors are likely to weigh that disclosure against everything else Lauber put on the record.The defense also left documented evidentiary gaps in the record: cocktail mugs never forensically tested, no warrant executed for a key family member's phone, an uninvestigated report that Eric sought fentanyl from an alternate source. Under reasonable doubt standards, those aren't rhetorical flourishes — they're unresolved evidentiary questions. Dreeke addresses whether they're likely to carry weight in deliberations.The "Walk the Dog" letter — Richins' alleged jail correspondence coaching family members on what to tell investigators — anchors the prosecution's consciousness-of-guilt argument. Dreeke examines what that document does once it's inside a deliberation room.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspodX Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#KouriRichins #TrueCrimeToday #KouriRichinsTrial #LegalAnalysis #EricRichins #CircumstantialEvidence #MurderTrial #UtahMurder #TrueCrime #JuryDeliberations

Nick Reiner pleaded not guilty to two counts of first-degree murder with special circumstances. The death penalty remains on the table. And his siblings are done. This Hidden Killers Week In Review breaks down the legal mechanics most headlines are missing—and examines what brought Jake and Romy Reiner to the point of walking away from their brother's defense.That not guilty plea wasn't a claim of innocence. It was a procedural placeholder. In California, pursuing an insanity defense requires entering a dual plea: not guilty AND not guilty by reason of insanity. The single plea keeps all options open while psychiatric evaluations continue.Door one: full insanity under the M'Naghten standard—a longshot given Nick was reportedly arguing with his father at a party hours before allegedly stabbing both parents to death. Door two: diminished actuality, using his documented schizoaffective disorder and a reported medication change to argue he couldn't form specific intent to premeditate. Door three: incompetence to stand trial, potentially pushing proceedings out months or years.Meanwhile, the family has fractured. Sources told TMZ: "Nick's defense is Nick's defense. They're not involved." The high-profile attorney Jake and Romy initially funded—Alan Jackson—withdrew in January. Nick now has a public defender. Reports indicate his siblings won't attend the trial. His only visitor in over two months has been his lawyer.After eighteen rehabs, a conservatorship, years of police visits—what does it cost to finally stop holding on? Tony Brueski examines what Peter Lanza, the Roof family, and Kerri Rawson can teach us about the moment when family members of killers finally step back.The question the legal system can't fully answer: what do we owe people who refuse to be helped, and what do we owe the people they destroy?Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspodX Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#NickReiner #RobReiner #MicheleReiner #TrueCrimeToday #InsanityDefense #NotGuiltyPlea #JakeReiner #RomyReiner #Parricide #CaliforniaMurder

Welcome to The Times of Israel’s Daily Briefing, your 20-minute audio update on what’s happening in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world. Political reporter Ariela Karmel joins host Jessica Steinberg for today’s episode. As the Knesset increases its activity during the war, Karmel discusses the subjects up for debate, including controversial legislation regarding the politically appointed probe into the October 7 massacre. Following last week’s announcement by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich to enact a 3% cut across the budget to bolster defense spending, including the earmarked funds for the long-awaited rehabilitation of the northern communities, Karmel discusses the contentious debate from the residents, coalition and opposition. Karmel also reports on the severe lack of shelters in the Bedouin communities, predating October 7, brought to the forefront during the June war with Iran, and now leaving two-thirds of the community without any access to shelter during the current war. Check out The Times of Israel’s ongoing liveblog for more updates. For further reading: Coalition advancing controversial legislation amid war with Iran Northern communities protest cuts to rehabilitation budget amid war As Hezbollah strongholds crop back up, northern farmers regrow destroyed fields With missiles flying again, most Negev Bedouin still exposed without any shelter Subscribe to The Times of Israel Daily Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by Ari Schlacht. IMAGE: Damage after a missile fired toward Israel overnight struck Zarzir, in northern Israel, March 13, 2026 (Michael Giladi/Flash90)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Kouri Richins defense has rested. No testimony from Kouri. No alternate explanation for how five times the lethal dose of fentanyl ended up in her husband's body. The cross-examinations are done. The objections are logged. And now twelve jurors are sitting with everything they've seen and heard over three weeks of trial.Defense attorney Bob Motta knows exactly what it looks like when a defense team decides their best move is to stop talking. He joins Tony Brueski alongside retired FBI Behavioral Analysis Chief Robin Dreeke to pull apart the defense's strategy from the inside — what worked, what didn't, and what the decision not to call Kouri Richins as a witness tells us about how confident her own attorneys are in the case they built.The prosecution spent nearly three weeks laying out motive, means, and a behavioral trail that allegedly started years before Eric Richins died. The defense spent their time trying to dismantle it piece by piece — targeting Carmen Lauber's immunity deal, the absence of physical drug evidence, and the gaps in the original investigation. Motta assesses whether that dismantling was enough. Dreeke breaks down what the jury has been absorbing on a level that has nothing to do with legal arguments.Closing arguments are next. This is the last word before the jury decides.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspodX Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#KouriRichins #KouriRichinsTrial #DefenseRests #EricRichins #UtahMurderTrial #FentanylMurder #BobMotta #RobinDreeke #TrueCrime #SummitCounty

Three weeks of testimony. A letter written from jail. A witness whose testimony arrived pre-damaged. And then the defense sat down without calling a single person to the stand.The Kouri Richins murder trial just hit its most consequential moment — and former FBI behavioral analyst Robin Dreeke joins Tony Brueski to dig into what the prosecution actually built, what the defense failed to dismantle, and what twelve jurors are now sitting with in that room.The "Walk the Dog" letter is the prosecution's most chilling document. Written while Richins was awaiting trial, she allegedly directed family members on what narrative to hand investigators. Dreeke examines what that coordinated deception effort — executed from a jail cell — reveals about someone's behavioral state and decision-making, and why it's extraordinarily difficult to walk back in a jury room.Carmen Lauber's testimony was central to the prosecution's case, but it carried complications. Eric Richins' obituary was reportedly pinned to Lauber's mirror. And a detective allegedly told her she needed to deliver "details that ensure Kouri gets convicted." Dreeke examines how those two facts — one deeply personal, one deeply problematic — interact when jurors try to assess what she actually knew and when she knew it.The investigation had documented gaps: cocktail mugs never tested for fentanyl residue, no warrant executed for a key family member's phone, and an uninvestigated report involving a man who allegedly told investigators Eric sought fentanyl from another source. None closed. The question is whether a jury carrying this much circumstantial weight will let those threads do the work the defense needed them to do.One underreported detail: Eric's trust reportedly left his estate to his sister rather than Kouri. She allegedly learned this after his death. That addition to the financial motive picture darkens what prosecutors had already been building for weeks.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspodX Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#KouriRichins #EricRichins #KouriRichinsTrial #TrueCrime #HiddenKillers #RobinDreeke #MurderTrial #ForensicEvidence #UtahCrime #InvestigativePodcast

Ken Carman and Anthony Lima discuss the Cleveland Cavaliers' recent defensive lapses following their loss to the Mavericks. They also break down the NCAA Tournament bracket, specifically focusing on the Miami RedHawks being placed in the First Four and Ohio State's potential path through the tournament. 01:20 - Cavs Defensive Struggles 05:42 - NBA Finals Poll 09:18 - College Hoops Dominance 13:14 - Mixing Rotation Players 19:10 - Playoff Matchup Concerns 23:39 - Jared Allen Injury 30:34 - NCAA Tournament Format 33:46 - Miami RedHawks' Path 37:57 - Ohio State Outlook

From Episode #236: "Joel Salatin Dismantles Kennedy's Defense of the Glyphosate Executive Order"✨ For the FULL Episode, join Beyond Labels Premium today and support independent agricultural and alternative health journalism: https://beyondlabels.supportingcast.fmFind Joel Here: www.polyfacefarms.comFind Sina Here: www.drsinamccullough.comFollow on InstagramFollow on XSubscribe on RumbleSubscribe on YouTubeDISCLAIMER

H3: S2 - Commanders defense: Could it actually be good?

Hour 3: 3/16/2026

Newt talks with Michael Horowitz, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and Richard Perry Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. They discuss the AI company Anthropic and its model, Claude Gov, which is the first AI model used on classified systems. A recent meeting between Secretary Hegseth and Anthropic's CEO Dario Amodei at the Pentagon failed to reach an agreement on assurances against the use of the model for surveillance or autonomous weapons, leading Anthropic to sue the Department of Defense over being labeled a supply chain risk. Horowitz discusses the slow adoption of AI in the military, attributing it to the U.S. military's historical reluctance to change due to its current superiority. He outlines three AI applications in the military: logistics, intelligence surveillance, and autonomous weapon systems, emphasizing the potential for AI to transform warfare. They also discuss OpenAI working with the military. Horowitz sees AI as an inevitable part of military evolution, comparable to past technological revolutions like electricity.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.