Media Company 'The Messenger' Bites the Dust Less Than a Year In‚ As News Bloodbath Continues

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images This is Hot Pod‚ The Verge’s newsletter about podcasting and the audio industry. Sign up here for more. I just got back from Puerto Rico and wow‚ there is a lot of podcast news! Let’s get into it. Call Her Daddy is getting wide distribution It’s very nearly the end of the exclusivity era for Spotify. The audio streamer announced today that Call Her Daddy‚ Spotify’s second-most-popular original podcast‚ is getting wide distribution across podcast platforms. Call Her Daddy was one of only two remaining Spotify exclusives‚ along with Rogan. The arrangement could be an indication of what is to come for Rogan as his contract is up for renewal. There is a slight twist to the deal: Spotify is still hanging on to the video version of Call Her... Continue reading…

Photo by Celal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images Today’s hearing on child safety was — mostly — an unusually focused affair. The Senate Judiciary Committee called up the CEOs of X‚ Meta‚ Snap‚ TikTok‚ and Discord and grilled them for four hours on the potential dangers their services posed for children. Many of the lawmakers emphasized emotional impact‚ playing to an audience filled with families who’d had kids targeted by predators or otherwise harmed online. But midway through the hearing‚ it was dragged off course by a predictable tangent: the fact that TikTok is owned by Chinese company ByteDance. And a meeting ostensibly about keeping kids safe dipped into a now-familiar attempt to make TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew answer questions utterly unrelated to the rest of the day. Although... Continue reading…

Former President Donald Trump met with leaders of the Teamsters Union in Washington Wednesday as he tried to chip away at President Joe Biden's organized labor support heading into a likely general election rematch.

When the Tropicana Las Vegas opened in 1957‚ Nevada's lieutenant governor unlocked the door to what would become a Sin City landmark for more than a half-century.

Five young adults identified as asylum-seekers were arrested following the alleged assault of two police officers near New York City's Times Square‚ ABC News reported.

President Joe Biden will visit the eastern Ohio community that was devastated by a fiery train derailment almost one year ago‚ accepting an invitation from the East Palestine mayor to see firsthand how the cleanup of spilled toxic chemicals and the recovery are coming along.

Actor Alec Baldwin on Wednesday plead not guilty to a charge of involuntary manslaughter over the 2021 on-set shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins during filming of the Western "Rust" in New Mexico.

SESAME STREET — Following the overwhelming response to an innocuous social media post in which he asked the nation how it's doing‚ Elmo later announced that the next Sesame Street episode will be sponsored by the letter ‘X' for Xanax.

WASHINGTON‚ D.C. — After seeing Elmo's incredible knack for connecting with the average American‚ President Biden has officially announced Elmo as the new White House Press Secretary.