Well, hi, everybody. Welcome to Smarter News, where we're just going to do a quick hit in the middle of the week here as we have some quickly moving developments when it comes to some major news stories, which I will touch on briefly.

But I have a whole other reason why I wanted to jump on today to talk a little bit to you.

I was walking up to a coffee shop this morning.

I was getting ready for the work day.

And all I could think about in my mind is what in the world is actually going on?

When you look at all the different news stories in front of you on social media, on your

phones, it feels totally overwhelming.

I feel it too. I just want to validate your feelings on that. And also say, listen, there's

some other ways that we can get information that don't feel so overwhelming. And that's what

smarter news is all about. I'm sitting in downtown Austin. For those of you who are watching

on YouTube, I look, my background looks a little bit like

either a prison cell or an insane asylum, both of which pretty much feel accurate for how it feels

to work in media right now. I'm sitting at a great workspace that I use periodically called

Trick Hat. It's right in downtown Austin. It's a great

place to work if you're looking for a place to get out of the house, really interesting people

that are working on fascinating projects on all sorts of industries, from all sorts of industries,

and I really appreciate it. However, I do need a little bit of an office space because I need

to talk to you periodically.

And if I talk in the middle of the shared workspace and I'm very disruptive, I'm the bad

neighbor.

So I have to be someplace that I can go and close the door and jump in front of a microphone,

whatever it works.

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