8/27/25: Spam Email 2026 Election Takeover, Taylor Lorenz Debates Phone Bans In Schools, Serbia Mass Protests

27:20Taylor Lorenz:No, we don't want that. We don't want that. She's like, only when we have breaks, though. Uh-huh. Well, of course. Okay. So here's the thing. First of all, no one wants their kids, or no one wants any kids, on their phone during class distracted. Like, no one. No normal person would make that argument. She agrees with that. That's, yeah. And there's a big sort of a wide range of options between laws that are often enforced by campus resource officers, police, and we can get into that, versus rules or norms or, you know, other ways of sort of like curtailing cell phone behavior use during class.

27:59Taylor Lorenz:So my opposition is specifically to the laws. You know, if schools, if teachers want to have certain policies, if they want, you know, everyone to put their phone in a basket or these little pocket things that they make now for classrooms, you know, that's totally fine. I think that's great. I would encourage teachers to kind of cultivate their own learning environments. But I think once we get into these blanket laws, there can be a lot of unintended effects. And I think that we are not discussing a lot of those unattended effects. And specifically, I'm concerned with the sort of civil liberties implications with some of the laws.

28:35Emily Jashinsky:So if you could flesh out what some of the civil liberties implications of that might be, I think Ryan and I are both on the same page. Particularly, Ryan has done reporting on this over the years about how some of the unintended consequences of sweeping laws that are able to be implemented. They get the political permission structure to be implemented by lawmakers because they're addressing a serious problem. And then the attempt to address a serious problem has unintended consequences because they're able to do the power grab. Everyone was sort of desperate for some type of solution. So I don't object to the idea that there may be unintended consequences here.

29:07Emily Jashinsky:Tell us a little bit about what you think they might be, Taylor.

29:10Taylor Lorenz:Yeah, so we've had tech bans in the past. And I would say the closest corollary to this is actually the beeper ban. This was a little before my time. But back in the early 90s, there was this really big panic about beepers. Kids had the beepers going off in class. like pagers were a new thing. This was a big distraction at school. And there was a lot of concern about beepers. And, you know, it was the implication was that people use beepers for like drug use. So there was this moral panic around them. We saw how those laws played out, where basically hundreds of kids ended up having interactions with police.

29:42Taylor Lorenz:Some kids ended up with criminal records. In one Chicago school, dozens of kids were arrested. And kids were just having these regular interactions with the police. Already, I talked to a parent in LA just last week who was talking about this exact issue where the teachers rightfully in certain environments don't want to enforce these bans or the administrators. And we have an increasing number of police in school, campus resource officers, which has actually skyrocketed since the days of those beeper bans. And those are often the people that are sort of tasked with enforcing these bans. So it ends up just being this quite discriminatory policy where they just sort of harass kids.

30:21Taylor Lorenz:They, you know, and it just leads to more interactions with kids and police. So I'm sort of against that. I also think that we have to look at this law in the context of this broader legislative and political effort that we're seeing right now to restrict kids from access to the internet. And I can get into that more broadly, but I think a lot of people have been sort of talking about things like age verification and these other things. And this law is very much tied, like these laws rather, are very much tied in this broader political effort to sort of censor the internet. And before we go into some of that, I wanted to get to address the related controversy that you're, that you're inside now.

30:59You've been going back and forth with a couple of people on Twitter, including Rachel Cohen Booth, who, who flagged, maybe we can put up, what do we have here?

31:08Taylor Lorenz:Decided to say that I was paid by a phone company. I am not paid by a phone company, never have been paid by a phone company. I don't know what, like, that really bothered me but you did put up the tag paid sponsorship no i did it no no no well let's put out her in their case and then have you respond to it their case is that so you did a tick tock for uh that you that about bark which is a you can tell us in a moment safety software yeah in the post it said hashtag ad and it had and it had a link that had a long code at the end of it. And you said - A tracking code. A tracking code. You said you're doing this in partnership with Bark.

31:48So people -

31:49Emily Jashinsky:The screenshot we had right there did have the tag paid partnership, which I think you've explained. So the reason I know, guys,

31:54Taylor Lorenz:oh my God, guys. No, no, no. This is such a derailing thing. The way that on TikTok, and I understand for people that don't use TikTok, they don't understand this. There's only one way to tag promotional content. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you click promotional content on TikTok, it comes up as paid. And that just means that the brand can put money behind it. It doesn't mean that you got money. I've been extra, extra careful where even things that I'm not paid for, I'll mark it as promotional because I am making something promotional. Like, hey, I really like this product. But me making a free promotion for child safety software that I use, that by the way, is completely unrelated and is actually on the same side as you guys on these bands, is just so absurd and ridiculous.

32:34Taylor Lorenz:And I think it just shows the attempt that people will go to, to sort of smear and attempt to discredit anybody that even raises issues with this. I have been reporting on this topic for eight years. Like I've been writing about all of these laws, the broader political effort. I've been talking about people like Jonathan Haidt, whoever are going into these school districts and specifically lobbying for these laws, the interest groups around that. This is something that I've covered for a long time. And I'm actually, you know what, who's actually paying me is this program, this Reporters in Residence program that I'm in right now, where I'm specifically, I got into the program talking about covering these laws.

33:14Taylor Lorenz:That's what I like am being paid for is basically this fellowship program. So it's just very silly, but, um, but yeah, I mean, you did post screenshot or somebody posted screenshots of the company saying, yeah, the company has said many times on the record, she's not paid, but, but it's like, I think people will just jump to anything where they just kind of want to make up a narrative because they want to discredit this issue. And this is very normal in moral panics. I write a lot about moral panics. And I'm not saying that necessarily kids being on their phone in class is moral panic, but this issue is very tied to a broader moral panic about cell phones where people are convinced that they're, you know, making kids sort of mass unalive themselves and things like that, not to use YouTube or Lego.

34:01You can see why people thought from the way that it was presented. Sure, of course, of course.

34:07Taylor Lorenz:But also like, well, of course I can understand like people getting confused. But at that point you have me responding and I was at a funeral that day. So I didn't have the chance to respond quite so quickly as people might have liked. But, and then the company issuing multiple statements saying, you know, this is just not the case. You've misunderstood the situation, but you know. Okay. So the question on the moral panic. Yes. It's just, it does seem to me. Well, first of all, just in my own life, I'm not a kid anymore. my brain is better formed than kids that are still developing. But even myself, since smartphones have come around, I think I read less.

34:46I do more audiobooks. I used to be able to sit down and read 10, 20, 30 pages at a stretch and then take a little break or something. Now it's like a page and a half and I find myself like distracted or scrolling.

35:04Combine that with the rates of anxiety and depression that we're seeing this society. Why are we like, why are we wrong?

35:11Taylor Lorenz:Well, you could combine that with the rate of baggy pants, Ryan, and you would find also a correlation. That doesn't mean that those things actually skinnier in that. Skinny pants. So what I would caution people against is making these broad based sort of conclusions. We actually had quite literally distracted from the book to like, look at my baggy pants. Well, but you are, but you are making that correlation that just does not exist in research. And we have the top, the top, top, top researchers, uh, people like Candace Audgers who wrote a great piece for the Atlantic, uh, on this exact topic, uh, Alice Marwick, like people that have studied this, issue in depth for years and years and years, coming out and saying, hey, we actually do know the cause of some of these broader issues, anxiety, all of these other things.

36:02Taylor Lorenz:We know those causes, and they're not related to phones. There is no correlation between those things. And it is just a fact based on the research that we have that that is just not a sort of a clear correlation. That's not to say that Ryan - What did she say they are? oh gosh you have to read her piece it's kind of long and I don't want to mess it up but um but all sorts of things I mean one in six kids is growing up below the poverty line like um I don't know just all of these other things that kids are dealing with like they're growing up in a pretty stressful world and they're told just the way that I was told that video games were you know destroying our lives back in you know when I was growing up we had the video game sort of panic where people were like oh these kids spend hours and hours on the video games it's destroying their mental health.

36:46Taylor Lorenz:It's making them violent. Like we've seen these moral panics play out over and over and over again. That doesn't mean that everyone has a healthy relationship with their phone and you shouldn't worry. What we know is that the way that you are can often inform your behavior. So if you are already depressed and you go down a rabbit hole, that can exacerbate it or whatever. But it is sort of like, it is more a symptom rather than the problem. And when we're treating it as the problem rather than the symptom of the problem, we don't ever get to address the sort of core issues. And often, and there are core issues that sort of lead to these mental health issues among children.

37:18Taylor Lorenz:And again, that does not mean that they should be able to sit on the cell phones all day. But what I would say is a lot of this moral panic is tied to content. So you'll see these people saying like, they're going to sit on TikTok all day, right? They're going to sit in class all day, like on TikTok. And the concern is more about the content and this sort of villainizing of short form video content.

37:40Emily Jashinsky:Well, yeah, I was going to say, I don't disagree with you because you shared a sub stack that's been going pretty viral, I think from somebody who like disagrees with you on a lot of different things. And someone had sent that to me separately as well. And it's about how the argument is that these bans are a way to shoehorn sort of content bans. And I don't actually disagree that that's probably the case with some people, that it's kind of a gateway to age verification laws and certain things that do genuinely encroach on civil liberties and creativity and freedom and all of that. I want to get your take, though, on, I mean, I'm looking at, I have three studies pulled up, one from Plus One, one from scientific reports, and this other one is from, I don't know.

38:22Taylor Lorenz:I just want to say, before you pull up any studies, we have to look at the body of research, and we have to look at how, and I don't, I can't speak to these specific studies, But what I would say is that all of the top researchers on this topic, this specific topic, got together last year and issued an 82-page report surveying the overwhelming amount of sort of studies on this topic and debunked this. A lot of misleading studies pushed by this man, Jonathan Haidt, which is sort of the most popular person.

38:51Emily Jashinsky:I'm not even going to get into Haidt here. The other one here is from the Journal of Association for Consumer Research. And I'm not I mean, I'm not an expert on this. So I'm just saying these are these are studies not about anxiety or any of that. This is a study that shows and this is particular to the phone ban issue. I think it's salient separately that show the kind of brain drain phenomenon. I think we all probably feel this intuitively or maybe you disagree, which is that after you as you're doing studies, even having a phone near you, even if it's like flipped down, reduces cognitive capacity.

39:18Emily Jashinsky:And so on the question of whether or not it's proper for a school district to say we're locking these guys up in yonder pouches from the beginning of the school day to the end of the school day, it seems to me that addresses the very specific question of whether kids' cognitive capacity is harmed while they're learning because their phone's in their backpack.

39:36Taylor Lorenz:Yeah, but like these studies are so dubious. Like often these are industry studies or they're funded by people with specific political agendas, like et cetera, et cetera. You also have to consider this is not some—

39:47Emily Jashinsky:about the big tech funded studies that go in the other direction.

39:50Taylor Lorenz:But there's tons of non big tech funded studies. And again, you have to look at the overwhelming body of research and the overwhelming body of research simply does not change. On the cognitive capacity question,

39:59Emily Jashinsky:what about the cognitive capacity question?

40:00Taylor Lorenz:The cognitive capacity question is a good question, but here's the thing that you have to consider. All of these school districts are different. And this is, again, I'm not saying that this means kids can be on their phone all day in class. I'm just against these laws where certain places you put the phone away, but you're on a laptop. You're on a really high-functioning, great laptop, and that's totally fine, and you're sort of connected. A lot of school districts, the phone is the only word processor people have. When you start to block them away, you know, 15 % of kids are disabled. A lot of kids use these as learning aids.

40:31Taylor Lorenz:And I know that's hard to believe, but a lot of times the phone is the only sort of computer that kids have in school. And we haven't even gotten into this yet, but because of big tech lobbying and other things, we have had, and because we just are trying to prepare kids for the modern world, we have integrated technology into every part of the learning process. And so sort of, and just our lives and sort of take this one piece away without addressing and without having any funding. These laws don't come with like funding initiatives or whatever to fix the broader infrastructure. It sort of just leaves kids less prepared.

41:04Taylor Lorenz:I would also say we want to teach kids restraint and control. We want to teach kids. What we don't want is for them to go off when they're 18 to college and not know how to self-regulate their own technological use, right? We wanna give them a safe environment where there are guardrails, where they're not allowed to sit on the phone all day long, but where we can teach them restraint. Otherwise, you're just prolonging the inevitable because phones, as much as this political effort is trying, are not going to be banned from public life, hopefully anytime soon for adults or the workplace. And so we we want to encourage a healthy relationship with tech if that makes sense It always has struck me as odd that Schools are filled with all of these different electronic devices And they focus on this one thing It's still on the other hand You don't think there's so what from your perspective what do the studies say About the effect of screens on developing brains and on kids Yeah.

42:09Taylor Lorenz:Well, there's a big question, right? Because you have like, if you talk about screens on developing brains, like you don't want to put a one-year-old in front of a screen like YouTube all day or something. But overwhelmingly, I mean, I think Candace Hodgers has really just been the best and I encourage people to seek out her work and Alice Marwick. These are two brilliant researchers that have really spoken about this at length. But this idea of like screen time and the panic over screen time is just very imprecise. And the reason that the studies don't show anything is because it completely depends what your screen time is.

42:40Taylor Lorenz:You could be using your screen time to consume content that is making you feel bad or something, or you could be using your screen time to text your friends and be creative and make creative work. We want people to do the latter. We want to teach kids to use their phone in healthy and creative ways. And when we tell the kids, especially when the primary way that kids use their phone is through texting, the primary way that kids use social media is actually DMing with each other. It's not scrolling the feed. Adam Massari came out and even said that. So we don't want to villainize communication.

43:12Taylor Lorenz:We want kids to stay in healthy, productive communication with each other and not bully each other and have positive experiences with each other and have social interaction, especially queer kids, kids that are from marginalized groups who rely on these online connections a lot more than other kids. But we just want to give them a healthy way to do that and teach them boundaries. And the best way to do that is to teach it to them when they're young, not to completely ban devices until they turn 18, and then it's a complete free-for-all. It's just that that's not an effective way to teach anybody healthy media consumption.

43:45Emily Jashinsky:What about parents who—let me try this one out. What about parents who say they don't actually—they don't give their kids phones. They don't want their kids to have phones. They worry. They read the studies differently. They have a different perspective on it. And they don't want their kids to be exposed to phones at all. So the bans then allow those parents to allow their kids to have a phone-free childhood without then getting shown something in between classes that actually from the content perspective may be harmful. Maybe take your example of maybe it's a queer kid and someone shows something on the phone between classes that is harmful to their mental health and their parents want to be able to prevent that.

44:22Emily Jashinsky:How would, why not allow parents to let their kids, make that decision for their own kids? Because you can't control that between classes.

44:30Taylor Lorenz:No, but what I would say is that that's a, you should be careful with that decision. We know actually that the mental health of kids that have the smartphone sooner is actually more positive. Like they have better mental health because they're able to get in touch with friends. And ironically, it's also been found that like poor kids have access to phones much more easily than richer kids. So it's not explained by, you know, income. and that is because they're able to keep in touch with friends. There's a study that came out that recently found that as well, that kids actually spent more time outside with friends because they were able to make plans.

45:02Taylor Lorenz:So you want kids to be able to communicate with friends. This idea of this phone-free childhood, again, we live in a world, I know that there's these political efforts, the people that are selling the phone-free childhood idea, they're also pushing a lot of other reactionary political efforts that would censor adults from content too. They want to go to a world before phones and before the internet. I admit to that. Yeah, me too. Well, guys, let me tell you, there's a lot of bad about the internet. And I've written about bullying. And trust me, no one is saying, I just have to reiterate this again, that you should have unmitigated access to your cell phone all day when you're 13 years old.

45:41Taylor Lorenz:You have to teach healthy internet use. But we live in the world. And if you want your kids to be competitive, and if you want your kids to be able to function and have a job and make it through college, you do need to teach them these skills. And I understand the fights that come with it. But the way that we can fight these addictive algorithms and I think the problems that a lot of people have with the phones in terms of the content is through comprehensive data privacy reform. You want less addictive algorithms. You want less predatory apps. You want less control of big tech and more nonprofit-driven online spaces that are about community.

46:13Taylor Lorenz:Join me in advocating for privacy laws. and data privacy specifically, we will never get those laws if this political effort to ban the phones and age restrict everything is successful. Because, and let me just say one other thing. At the same time that they are banning phones, they are, you know, these schools are doing partnerships with surveillance software companies that will do facial recognition to determine who's allowed to be on campus and who's not. Harvesting detailed biometric data on children. Like all of this stuff that could have significantly worse consequences for them down the line.

46:52Yeah, I saw a couple of months ago you write about those studies that you just referenced. And that was one of the first times where I was like, oh, this is kind of interesting. You did a piece about how the studies were showing that kids that didn't have access to phones at all had worse mental health outcomes.

47:10Emily Jashinsky:But that's also the collective action, right? Because if you need to have a cell phone to make plans with your friend, it's because your friends also all have cell phones. Right.

47:19Taylor Lorenz:And I think there's a balance. I just think there's a balance here. And I just think before we jump to laws that will be enforced by campus police officers, we should have a more balanced discussion of what we're trying to achieve and what the realistic tradeoffs are. Because there are realistic tradeoffs here. Not to mention the problems with parents and shift work and school. There's just so many down the line issues. So from your perspective, final question, what should parents do? Oh, God. I think it depends on the type of school that you have, and it depends on your child's educational environment and who your child is and how they're using their phone.

47:56Taylor Lorenz:I am against, like, I am against, you know, again, just like giving your kid completely unsupervised internet time and unsupervised phone time forever, obviously. You want to slowly introduce. And the reason I was talking in the first place for free about like child protection software is because it sort of allows parents to have a little bit more control over their kids' online experience. I think it's good to introduce kids to phones. I think having restrictions, parental restrictions, taking it away during certain times of the day, teaching them moderation and how to work with phones and use their phone in a healthy way and communicate in a healthy way is helpful.

48:30Taylor Lorenz:And just that's broad, the internet, that's the other thing is that like these phone conversations are gonna be irrelevant. Kids have Apple watches, smart glasses. The internet is getting more and more integrated into every part of our life. We're going to have wearables soon. So we have to help kids have this healthy relationship with the internet while they're still young.

48:47Emily Jashinsky:Ryan is an elder millennial, but as a junior— I mean, I was in school during the beeper thing. And yeah, it was like pitched largely about drug dealers. And it's like, what kind of drug dealer is like getting pinged in class? About one. But I was just going to say, as a junior millennial, my high school was cut in half by the smartphone. and I fully, fully concede to being part of a moral panic and so proudly concede to be a moral panic. I'm a much, much different side of this than you are, Taylor, but we appreciate you coming here and making the case and allowing us to have this discussion.

49:18Taylor Lorenz:Yeah, thank you for having me. And please don't, please don't destroy me online. I'm just trying to add a little nuance to the conversation.

49:25Emily Jashinsky:Tell people where they can find your work.

49:26Taylor Lorenz:Yeah, I'm on YouTube at Taylor Lorenz. I have a series called Free Speech Friday where I talk about civil liberties concerns and tech policy. So I talk about this stuff specifically. And I'm everywhere else just at Taylor Lorenz.

49:38Emily Jashinsky:Well, thank you so much for coming on.

49:40Taylor Lorenz:Thank you.

49:42Emily Jashinsky:Didn't catch the latest

49:44Taylor Lorenz:Roland Martin Unfiltered podcast? Here's what you missed. And the argument is, do you want to win? If you don't win, you have no power. It's real. Those are the very people who I always say vote against their own economic interests and they complain about the very thing they're receiving. It's raw. I knew that the issue of transgender athletes was not going well with a lot of black men. Roland Martin unfiltered. I went off. I said, this is exactly what I'm talking about. Y 'all gonna scream at Chanel, but you don't want to see a black luxury company in the same vein. Catch Roland Martin's daily commentary on the Black Information Network.

50:26Twelve seats. Those are moving south. So if you Democrats, you don't wait to 2030, you better be hitting the ground going hard in the South now. And download Roland Martin Unfiltered on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Mungus Shatikular, and I'm back with a new season of the podcast Skyline Drive. This time I'm diving into a rabbit hole of peptides, organoids, blood boys, blue zones, and brain replacement to try to understand what this longevity obsession is all about. and what it really means to live forever for all of us. I learned about some rad science.

51:05I can make a brain for you, and then we can test what draw is the best for your brain, as opposed to his brain. Here are some hard truths. I would expect Indians to age faster, but I did not expect it to be almost a four to five year acceleration. And get myself into a world of trouble. I'd say probably start bone smashing. That doesn't work. Make it look more defined. They say it works. I don't know. Listen to Skyline Drive, How to Live Forever on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

51:43This is Michael Rappaport, and my podcast, the I Am Rappaport Stereo Podcast, is unlike any one you've ever heard. We're a variety show, and if you're looking for strong opinions, funny opinions about sports, entertainment, politics, pop culture, and whatever else catches my attention, then subscribe now. This kid Jafar Jackson is as good as Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury and it's as good as Timothy Chamillai as Bob Dylan and I say that with love and respect for both of those actors and I don't know how many Oscar nominations they give out, I don't know if It's 5-6 for Best Actor. 150 % this kid Jafar Jackson should absolutely, positively get nominated for his portrayal as Michael Jackson.

52:31Listen to I Am Rapaport on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I Am Rapaport Podcast.

52:43Slightly different kind of segment here. We have new reporting from DropSite on the ground in Serbia from journalists there. Let's just go ahead and roll this.

53:25Police !********

53:48Gente! This is the Novi Sad railway station in Serbia, built in 1964. After a recent renovation, it was officially reopened in July 2024. Just a few months later, on November 1st, 2024, at 11.52am, a concrete canopy weighing over 300 tonnes collapsed, killing a total of 16 people. Following the renovation, the station building had neither an occupancy permit nor a completed technical inspection. The initial estimate for the works was 3 million euros. In the end, the cost rose to 16 million. The station was renovated as part of the construction of the high-speed railway from Belgrade to the Hungarian border, a project of national importance carried out under a Serbia-China agreement.

54:46In Serbia, such deals are commonly made behind closed doors. In the aftermath of the tragedy, the investor Chinese partners, Serbian Railways and President Aleksandar Vucic all stated that the collapsed canopy had not been part of the reconstruction. It would later emerge that each of these claims was false. Modifications to the canopy had in fact been carried out. In the first days following the collapse, those responsible were largely neither detained nor held in custody, with most released pending trial or allowed to remain under house arrest. Fifteen days after the tragedy, tributes to the victims begin across Serbia.

55:35held every Friday at 11.52 a.m. 22 days after the collapse, students were assaulted by officials and members of the ruling party while paying tribute in front of a university building in Belgrade. The protests swell in size. In the days that follow, students initiate blockades at the more than 60 universities and colleges across the country. To the public, this marks a completely unexpected response from a student population long seen as apathetic and disengaged from politics. The students advocate for the rule of law, the fight against corruption, strong institutions and respect for the legal system.

56:24They demand accountability. They distance themselves from political parties and refuse to meet with the president, stating that their demands do not fall under his constitutional authority, but under the jurisdiction of other institutions. They receive support from the public in Serbia, as well as from students in neighboring countries of the former Yugoslavia. Decision-making within the movement is based on the principles of direct democracy. Resolutions are adopted at general assemblies by a majority vote of those present. Every voice can be heard. Every proposal can be put to a vote. As they occupy their university buildings, students put forward an initial set of four demands.

57:14First, they call for the full release of all documentation related to the reconstruction of the Novi Sad railway station. records that are currently unavailable to the public. Second, they demand that the relevant authorities confirm the identities of those suspected of physically assaulting students and professors and that criminal proceedings be launched against them, along with their dismissal if they hold public office. Third, they call for all charges against arrested or detained students to be dropped and for all ongoing criminal proceedings against them to be halted. Fourth, they demand a 20 % increase in the budget for public universities.

58:14There is no possibility to choose for some, and to say, the basic right, while people who are not just ordinary people, are not just a matter of time for many things that work, that are of course not only one of the usual small person, one student, one of the most common citizens from the street. We all see each other as a great group, students, students, teachers, teachers, professors.

58:44Emily Jashinsky:How corruption in this society in our country is so deep it reaches all the way down to dinosaurs.

58:56How could you translate kumpei in English? Keep adding the positive energy, don't stop and don't lower the tension.

59:16お色々しい証言を何もお必要 logistics Jet monoブルーツnamoいる条

59:39Everything is the type of myep, I would like to eat it. I would like to eat it. I would like to eat it. I would like to eat it. I would like to eat it. Students organize gatherings in multiple cities across Serbia, reaching them through multi-day protest marches, which, as many have said, in some way sent a pulse through the country.

1:00:38How many months do you have? I can't wait for the rest. Our more than we hear that we have such a blessing. Good to you, Bebo!

1:00:52Just go ahead! Just go ahead! Hi! Children! Just go ahead! Here's the performance! Here's the performance! Hello! Come on, my dear.

1:01:17How do you feel? And happy and happy.

1:01:27Nobody is dying. What do you think? The fulfillment of the request. What do you think? The fulfillment of the request. How is your heart? It's too warm.

1:01:40Are you hungry? No. It's clean and clean. These children loved Serbian. That's the description of all of this. This is a group of strange, famous, thinking children who know what they want and what they don't. They are very cultural, fine, They are very friendly, very friendly, very friendly, they have a lot of their own, so it's a privilege to share time with them.

1:02:11Emily Jashinsky:What do you do with that? Biohemia. Are you a smučka? A smučka? We will have a better country. I hope you will be a smučka. President Vučić has ruled Serbia for 13 years. While the country is formally on the path toward European integration, Vucic continues to cultivate ties with both Moscow and Beijing. His rule is described by the Serbian opposition as increasingly autocratic. Serbia remains one of the few countries that has not imposed sanctions on Russia, even as negotiations over the status of Kosovo continue under close international supervision. Meanwhile, Serbian ammunition is being sent to both Ukraine and Israel.

1:03:01The European Commission has included the lithium mining project in Serbia, led by the company Rio Tinto, among the projects of strategic importance for the European Union. There is a growing sense that Vucic enjoys the backing of all major world powers, who, preoccupied with their own crises, pay little more than lip service to concerns over Serbia's internal political situation.

1:03:42The power is great! The power of the people! It's slow. We could have been able to get to the distance. We're going to go 120 kilometers, but now we're here. At the end of November 2024, during a commemoration for the victims of the Novisad tragedy, an incident occurred in the town of Pozarevac. Let's go to the person who was driving a car. How do you go to the person who didn't have the law? You stood on the way and said, I am God and I'm going to go on the land and I don't let you go. And the person goes and you go to the car and you say, go to the person who was driving a car. You are normal.

1:04:42In late January, after four young men emerged from the offices of Vucic's party in Novi Sad and fractured a female student's jaw in three places using baseball bats, Serbian Prime Minister Miloš Vucic submitted his resignation. Just over three months later, President Vucic referred to those same party members as heroes and later pardoned them. People, can you please give a hug to the baby who made us a kiss? You can't give a hug! Vucic and members of his ruling party labeled the protesters as foreign paid agents, accusing them of working on behalf of outside powers to overthrow both the government and the state.

1:05:29There is no need for them. There is no need for the revolution. And they should say it immediately, not to lie to the people. Now we return the political attack to the soldiers of those who wanted to do the civil revolution. The civil revolution was destroyed! The civil revolution was destroyed! I will destroy you in the whole world. In their pursuit of justice, the students visited European institutions, cycling for 13 days to Strasbourg, and then running a relay ultramarathon for 18 days to Brussels.

1:06:13On March 15th, the largest gathering in Serbia's history took place in Belgrade, with some 300 ,000 people responding to a call from the student movement. During the event, some form of sonic weapon was reportedly used, a claim supported by testimonies from over 3 ,000 citizens. The government denied all such allegations, dismissing the public's reaction as staged and orchestrated. Niko, nigde nije primetio nikakvo sredstvo koje se može nazvati zvučni top, zvučni uređaj kako ste vina pisali ili bilo šta tome slično. Dakle, da ponovim, niko to nije koristio. Nigde tako nešto nije primeteno, uočeno, zabeleženo, dokumentovano, kako god hoćete.

1:07:05Just a day after this statement, a photograph surfaced showing a police vehicle equipped with an LRAD 450XL acoustic device in front of the Serbian parliament during the protest. The Minister of Internal Affairs then offered an explanation.

1:07:39As their original demands remain unmet after six months of protest, on May 5th, the students issue a new demand, early elections in Serbia. They state they will not run as candidates themselves, but will vote on a candidate list through their general assemblies. Meanwhile, repression against dissent in Serbia is intensifying. There are political arrests and persecutions, widespread surveillance, raids on civil society organizations and the expulsion of foreign nationals.

1:08:38All right, that'll do it for us today. You around on Friday?

1:08:41Emily Jashinsky:I'm around on Friday. You're around on Friday. I'll be here on Friday. But I think we're off Monday. I think the show's off Monday because it's Labor Day weekend, so. That is correct. So no show funnets. You really got to be there for Friday. If you want the whole show on Friday, not just the first half, breakingpoints.com, become a premium member, supports everything we do here. I've also been arguing that we should do Friday show live for premium members. Right. Because why not? Like, we got nothing to hide. The sneakiest thing Ryan does is just talk about some of our internal discussions on air so that he can then use viewer feedback to fuel his position.

1:09:16People are demanding it now.

1:09:17Emily Jashinsky:People are crying out for the Taylor Swift segment. But no, I think live would be fun. We don't really edit it anyway. No, it just goes up. Although sometimes our DMs open when we share our Twitter live. Yeah, that's got to be on us. We just got a better OPSEC, like do what Griffin does, which is log out. Yes. Twitter. We can all learn from Griffin. Well, so we'll be here Friday. Maybe we'll, because we'll be off Monday, shove some extra stuff in. So great to make up for being off on Labor Day. so maybe we'll do that. Make sure that you're subscribed over at breakingpoints.com but other than that Crystal and Sager will be here tomorrow.

1:09:54Emily Jashinsky:We'll be with them or some combination of them Friday and if you're not there Friday you've got to be there Friday but if you're not we'll see you back here next Wednesday. That's right. See you then.

1:10:17Why do some women yearn for Shakira's black hair to make a comeback? And whatever happened to the power couple of my dreams, Mariah Carey and Luis Miguel? I'm Maria Garcia. You may remember me from my podcast, Anything for Selena or My Divo. And now I'm back to unpack more stories from the present and the past. Listen to Muy Excited with Maria Garcia on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Mange Shatikular and I'm back with a new season of my podcast, Skyline Drive. This time I talk to scientists, biopunks, curmudgeons, blues owners, super seniors, and Goa's top cryotherapy lab to try to understand this obsession with living forever and what it means for all of us.

1:11:04And I get into a bit of trouble along the way. I'd say probably start bone smashing. That doesn't work. Make it look more defined. They say it works. I don't know. Listen to Skyline Drive, How to Live Forever on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Michael Rappaport and my podcast, the I Am Rappaport Stereo Podcast, is unlike anyone you've ever heard. If you're looking for strong opinions about sports, entertainment, politics, pop culture, and whatever else catches my attention, then subscribe now. This kid Jafar Jackson should absolutely, positively get nominated for his portrayal as Michael Jackson.

1:11:42Listen to I Am Rap Report on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.