America at 250 & Beyond
by Nathan Gardels
How do you update a 250-year-old democracy when the act of voting is no longer enough?
0:00 / 38:10 · Narrator Vindemiatrix
Daily edition
2026-07-27
Today's Crosscut
Borders and Science
From violent campaigns to stop German rocket experts from reaching 1960s Egypt to a modern proposal locking American physicists out of CERN, governments treat the movement of scientists as a national security threat.
When Egypt Tried to Build Its Own Missile Program × How Trump’s “America First” Administration Could Shut U.S. Scientists Out of the Next Nobel-Worthy Discovery
0:00 / 32:46 · Narrator Sulafat/Charon/Vindemiatrix
Future-gazing →
In China, People Are Renting Out Their Faces to AI
by Kinling Lo and Viola Zhou
If you rent out your face to a machine, who decides what it does next?
0:00 / 7:53 · Narrator Charon
For the curious →
Don’t Turn Away From Tragedy, but Do Witness Intentionally
by Nena Močnik
When a war shows up on your phone, how much of it are you supposed to watch?
0:00 / 12:09 · Narrator Sulafat
The Man Who Created a Written Language for the Cherokee Did It so Efficiently and Elegantly, His Peers Thought It Was Magic
How do you invent a written language when you have never learned to read?
0:00 / 6:13 · Narrator Algieba
How Japanese Military Officers Freely Scouted Colonial India Without Raising British Suspicion
by Ajay Kamalakaran
How did a treaty meant to protect British India end up letting Japanese soldiers map it?
0:00 / 10:33 · Narrator Rasalgethi
Smart escape →
The Surprisingly Undisciplined Trick to Escaping Social Media
by Constance Grady
How do you escape the endless scroll without turning your free time into homework?
0:00 / 10:19 · Narrator Gacrux