Today, Explained

A president. A porn star. A lawyer with a $130,000 payoff. The allegation is Donald Trump had an affair with Stormy Daniels and his lawyer paid her to keep quiet. Now, she’s suing so she can talk freely and just today, Daniels' attorney says someone threatened to physically harm her. Vox's Laura McGann says this is much more than your run-of-the-mill political sex scandal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There’s a new Cold War being fought in the North Pole between the United States and Russia (but also China, Finland, Norway, Canada, Greenland and more). Fueling the battle is the melting Arctic, which just had its warmest winter in recorded history. Vox’s Brian Resnick gives us the science before Yochi Dreazen takes us to the war. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos told states to back off regulating the nine private companies that lend money to students last week. That could mean more student debt and more student defaults when both are already at record highs. Vox’s Libby Nelson tells Sean Rameswaram about the national crisis we never solved. And we say goodbye to Stephen Hawking. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Twitter. That’s how Secretary of State Rex Tillerson found out he was fired today. The news came on the heels of Tillerson calling Russia “an irresponsible force of instability”. He hands over the reins to CIA director Mike Pompeo - who is now in charge of planning a historic U.S.-North Korea meeting. Vox’s Zack Beauchamp describes Tillerson’s rocky relationship with Trump, and Ezra Klein reflects on this administration’s high turnover. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Donald Trump takes his first trip to California as president tomorrow. Making matters awkward, his administration sued the Golden State last week over SB 54, a law that limits how much the state helps federal immigration agents. KQED reporter Marisa Lagos explains the legal battle, and Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims talks about being stuck in the middle. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After months of name calling and test missiles, Donald Trump will be the first sitting United States president to meet with a North Korean leader. Vox’s Yochi Dreazen lays out what to expect from the historic meeting. Plus, he shares some negotiation tips for President Trump. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Out of the ten counties with the most adults on Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), nine voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump. But in the president’s new budget, he’s calling for $72 billion in cuts to the program over the next ten years. It's a “thin piece of duct tape that’s keeping everything together,” according to Vox’s Dylan Matthews, who traveled to Tennessee to talk to people on SSDI. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

An historic walkout in West Virginia ended yesterday. Teachers managed to shut down every single public school in the state for nine days to demand higher pay. Oklahoma, Arizona and Kentucky may be next. Sean Rameswaram speaks with West Virginia Public Broadcasting reporter Dave Mistich and Harrison County math teacher Cathy Drummond Pizzino to find out exactly how the state’s educators pulled off their big win. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

President Trump announced that he's okay with a trade war late last week and he's got the tariff proposals to prove it: 25% for steel, 10% for aluminum. It’s another campaign promise fulfilled, but the decision flies in the face of Republicans in Congress and most of Trump’s own advisors. (Economic advisor Gary Cohn even quit today.) Vox’s Matthew Yglesias explains the impact of these tariffs, and the chances they could spark a trade war with our allies. He also hums a little ditty about steel. We run with it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Quick bonus episode! Frances McDormand won the Academy Award for Best Actress last night for her performance in “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.” In her memorable acceptance speech, she asked all the nominated women to stand up and left them with two words: “inclusion rider.” Vox’s Caroline Framke explains how inclusion riders could force Hollywood to change. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

China's National People's Congress opened its annual two-week meeting today. The country’s parliament is expected to change China’s constitution to allow President Xi Jinping to abolish term limits. Sean Rameswaram speaks to Fordham professor Carl Minzner and The New Yorker’s Jiayang Fan to find out what it means that the leader of one fifth of the world's population just decided he’s never stepping down. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It was a week of whiplash in the national fight over gun control. First, major retailers like Dick’s and Walmart raised the gun-buying age from 18 to 21, and companies like Delta dropped their NRA discounts. But then pro-gun rights legislatures pushed back. Vox’s German Lopez walks Sean Rameswaram through the many debates. He says the reason the country is stalled is because we haven’t begun to have the right conversation about guns. Sean and Vox’s Dylan Matthews talk about the elephant in the room. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There’s a new kind of algorithm that allows you to take a video of one person and map the face of another person onto his or her body. Not surprisingly, it’s being used to map celebrities’ faces onto the bodies of porn stars having sex. Vox’s Aja Romano tells Sean Rameswaram how “deepfakes” are spreading across the internet. Plus computer scientist Peter Eckersley explores how the same technology could tear our society apart in bigger ways. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A coalition of 20 states filed a lawsuit claiming Obamacare is unconstitutional yesterday. Vox’s Sarah Kliff says that’s just the latest pushback on the Affordable Care Act. Idaho has been quietly allowing insurance plans that don’t comply with Obamacare’s rules, and the Trump administration hasn’t been doing anything to stop it. Experts say if the federal government doesn’t intervene, other red states will likely follow in Idaho’s footsteps. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today, special counsel Robert Mueller dropped over 20 criminal counts against former Trump campaign official Rick Gates, just days after Gates agreed to a plea deal. Mueller's Russia probe has a lot of people and moving parts, so how do we keep them all straight? Vox’s Zack Beauchamp tells Sean Rameswaram not to focus on all the names and places or it might start to sound like “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” We update the Billy Joel song to explain Mueller’s investigation.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today, the United States Supreme Court denied a request from the Trump administration to expedite a decision on DACA. This keeps the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program on life support for a few more months, but also keeps its 690,000 recipients in limbo: Do they stay or do they go? Congress still hasn’t been able to pass a vote on DACA. Vox’s Dara Lind and Matthew Yglesias say that’s because Trump has moved the conversation into unfamiliar territory: from illegal immigration to legal immigration.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Something changed this week. Teenagers managed to break the deadlock over gun control. Marches, walkouts, and serious policy debates are on the way. To understand what's different about the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Sean Rameswaram speaks with Vox reporter German Lopez, Georgetown psychiatry professor Liza Gold, and Elizabeth Love, a Utah teenager who's a bit of a badass. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Cape Town is just a few months away from being the first major city to shut off its taps in the history of the modern world. Day Zero - the day Capetonians in South Africa will need to line up at water distribution points for daily water rations - is currently scheduled for July 9th. Reporter Kristen van Schie tells Sean Rameswaram how the three-year drought is drastically changing life for millions of Capetonians. Plus three tips to ward off a water crisis in your own city from hydrologist Peter Gleick. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

North and South Korea are on opposite sides of a demilitarized zone, separated by barbed wire, tank traps, and guard towers. But in the 2018 Winter Olympics, they came together on the rink. Is hockey the key to peace with North Korea? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

"Black Panther" is the biggest movie in the world, but what makes this comic book adaptation more important than the nearly 20 Marvel movies that came before it? Sean Rameswaram attends a "Black Panther"-themed engagement party and speaks to Evan Narcisse, writer of the "Rise of the Black Panther" comic books, to find out. (No spoilers!) (Transcript here.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices