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Pushkin Industries

On Story of the Week, “journalist” Joel Stein chooses an article that fascinates him, convinces the writer to tell him about it, and then interrupts a good conversation by talking about himself. Sometimes the story will be the one everyone is talking about, like the New Yorker article on smoking hallucinogenic toads. Other times we’ll find a story you might have missed, like the one in the Verge about the rock groupie turned hacker who had huge corporations at her mercy. These are stories you’ll tell your friends about. Stories that stick with you long after you forget whatever headline you just doom-scrolled through.

iHeartMedia is the exclusive podcast partner of Pushkin Industries.

Story of the Week with Joel Stein

Here's an episode from Heavyweight, a new addition to the Pushkin slate of shows. Heavyweight, hosted by Jonathan Goldstein, creates space for difficult conversations and resolving long-standing regrets and unanswered questions. Balancing humor and empathy, host Jonathan Goldstein helps his subjects pinpoint the moment things went wrong and joins them on a quest to make them right. This episode features Michael, who, as a high school senior got his lucky break—the chance to star in a big-budget movie. Shooting wrapped, a premier date was set…and then he found out that his success was all based on a lie. Find Heavyweight wherever you get your podcasts.

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Heavyweight Presents: The Messenger

With the 96th Academy Awards this Sunday, we wanted to revisit this episode from last year. The Oscars seems to be cursed with a series of chaotic live television gaffes. But one moment in Academy Award history takes the cake. In 1974, a scrawny white man named Robert Opel ran across the stage butt naked, right as the Best Picture category was being announced. New Yorker magazine writer and Oscars aficionado Michael Schulman recounts the queer, wonderful, and historic life of the 1974 Oscars streaker. 
 
You can read the full story here: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/02/06/what-became-of-the-oscar-streaker 
 
You can find Michael Schulman’s new book Oscar Wars here.

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Revisiting: The Surprising, Queer History of the 1974 Oscars Streaker

After his cartooning career failed to take off, a German artist named Arno Funke started extorting department stores. He went by “Dagobert,” the German name for the character of Scrooge McDuck in the cartoon DuckTales. His crime spree lasted for years and made him a folk hero across Germany. Recently, reporter Jeff Maysh got to meet him. 
 
You can read Jeff Maysh’s New Yorker article “The Strange Story of Dagobert, the ‘DuckTales’ Bandit” here: https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/the-strange-story-of-dagobert-the-ducktales-bandit

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The Duck Tales Bandit

“Bronze Age Pervert” is the moniker of an influential far-right thinker. He has hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter. His book is a top-seller on Amazon, and was reviewed by a former Trump administration official. Journalist Graeme Wood knew him before all that, back when he was just a college student in tevas. 
 
You can read Graeme Wood’s Atlantic story “How Bronze Age Pervert Charmed the Far Right” here: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/09/bronze-age-pervert-costin-alamariu/674762/ 

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How the Bronze Age Pervert Became a Far Right Icon

When Andrew Leland was a teenager he learned he had a rare disease that would cause him to become blind by the time he reached middle age. He recently decided to prepare by attending a special school for blind people. 
 
You can read Andrew’s essay for the New Yorker, “How to Be Blind” here: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-weekend-essay/how-to-be-blind 
 
And you can find Andrew’s new book, The Country of the Blind here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/635964/the-country-of-the-blind-by-andrew-leland/ 

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Learning to Be Blind

A car mechanic named Jeff Carpoff invented a portable solar generator. Companies like Geico and Progressive Insurance bought thousands of his generators because they got tax credits for doing so. But there was something not quite right about Carpoff’s invention. You can read Ariel Saber’s Atlantic story, “The Billion Dollar Ponzi Scheme that hooked Warren Buffett and the US Treasury,” here: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/06/dc-solar-power-ponzi-scheme-scandal/673782/ 

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The Billion Dollar Green Energy Scam

Xochitl Gonzalez spent years planning the weddings of New York’s wealthiest couples. This is the story of the craziest wedding she’s ever planned.
 
You can read Xochitl Gonzalez’s Atlantic story “The Fake Poor Bride,” here: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/07/luxury-wedding-planners-industrial-complex-cost/674169/

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Confessions of a Wedding Planner

A developer named Domenic Broccoli wanted to build an IHOP in Fishkill, New York. But after it was discovered that the plot of land he was planning to build on may have been a Revolutionary War grave site, he became embroiled in a war of his own. 
 
You can read Reeves Wiedeman’s New York Magazine story “The Battle of Fishkill” here: https://www.curbed.com/article/ihop-fishkill-ny-domenic-broccoli-revolutionary-war.html 

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The Pancake Battles

Laos used to be known as “the land of a million elephants.” Now, there are only about 800 elephants left in the country. Reporter Paul Kvinta went undercover to learn about the illegal elephant trade, and ended up putting in an offer on an elephant himself. 
 
You can read read Paul Kvinta’s Outside Magazine story “I Bought an Elephant to Find Out How to Save Them,” here: https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/environment/asian-elephant-trafficking-captivity-laos/ 

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How Much is an Elephant Worth?

Simone Gold, a former ER doctor, is the founder of a non-profit called “America’s Frontline Doctors,” known for spreading misinformation about COVID. After she was arrested for taking part in the Jan. 6 insurrection, she received millions of dollars in donations. And that’s when the feuding within her organization began. 
 
You can read Joel Stein’s Financial Times story, “How a squad of MAGA warriors flush with cash turned on each other” here: https://www.ft.com/stream/3264fe6d-3997-493c-9f77-e565bd75eb1a

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The Implosion of a Leading Anti-COVID Vaccine Group

On the Replica app, you can create an AI-powered chatbot to talk to, befriend, sext and even virtually marry. The service has millions of users. Some of them are now discovering that having a friend or spouse that’s owned by a private company comes with downsides. 
 
Pranshu Verma wrote "They fell in love with AI bots. A software update broke their hearts" for The Washington Post. You can read the full story here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/03/30/replika-ai-chatbot-update/

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The Perils of Loving a Chatbot

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