With an Intel AI PC, AI assistance helps you save time.

With AI-powered text-to-image tools, you can unleash your creativity with fewer clicks,

or let AI draft your emails.

It's possible on an Intel AI PC.

Additional purchase may be required.

Learn more at intel.co.uk slash AIPC.

Hey folks, Asha here.

Here's a recording of my latest cafe note.

How bad are Trump's nominees? Ask Carla F.

As always, please write to us with your thoughts and questions at letters atcafe.com.

Dear listener, a Christian nationalist who is flagged by the National Guard as an insider threat

for Secretary of Defense, an anti-vaxxer for Secretary of Health and Human Services,

a Russian sympathizer for the director of national intelligence. No, this isn't bizarre a world,

this is real life. And perhaps the only thing more troubling than the actual cabinet nominees by the incoming

Trump administration is that it looks like none of them will undergo a traditional FBI

background check before their Senate hearings. Instead, the vetting will be outsourced to

private entities. Senator Bill Haggerty argued that

Americans, quote, don't care who conducts background checks for the cabinet picks. But if they don't,

they should, because it's unlikely that any private investigation will be as thorough as the FBI's

or searching for the same kinds of risks.

A background check for a government position, especially one that might include access to

sensitive information, involves more than just running fingerprints against a police database.

...