Neural Newscast

[00:00] Lila Grant: Welcome to Buzz, your daily pulse on everything trending, viral, and deep-seated in our digital culture.
[00:07] Lila Grant: I am Leela Grant.
[00:08] Jonah Klein: And I'm Jonah Klein.
[00:09] Jonah Klein: Today, we're navigating a heavy mix of breaking world news, high-stakes government transparency,
[00:15] Jonah Klein: and the Super Bowl's very weird AI-generated afterglow.
[00:20] Lila Grant: We have to start with the story that's currently the number one trend worldwide on X.
[00:27] Lila Grant: And it's a devastating one.
[00:29] Lila Grant: A mass shooting at a Tumblr Ridge secondary school in British Columbia, Canada has claimed
[00:36] Lila Grant: at least nine lives with over 25 others injured.
[00:40] Lila Grant: This is a tiny community of 2,400 people.
[00:45] Lila Grant: And the shock is just reverberating everywhere.
[00:48] Jonah Klein: It's being called one of Canada's deadliest school shootings in decades.
[00:52] Jonah Klein: Prime Minister Mark Carney called it an unimaginable tragedy.
[00:57] Jonah Klein: But as soon as the news broke, Lila, the timelines became a battlefield.
[01:02] Jonah Klein: We're seeing intense debates over the shooter's identity.
[01:05] Jonah Klein: RCMPs say the suspect was found dead from a self-inflicted injury,
[01:09] Jonah Klein: but that hasn't stopped the political firestorm.
[01:12] Lila Grant: Jonah, the hashtags Tumblr Ridge and gun control are moving so fast.
[01:19] Lila Grant: There is a lot of heat regarding how Canadian media is framing the coverage compared to the U.S.
[01:26] Lila Grant: And, of course, the inevitable policy debates that follow these tragedies.
[01:30] Lila Grant: It's a somber reminder of how quickly digital spaces shift, from grief to high-stakes political arguing.
[01:40] Jonah Klein: For sure. The eyewitness accounts coming out of the small town are absolutely heartbreaking.
[01:45] Jonah Klein: It's one of those moments where the global community is watching a local horror in real time.
[01:52] Lila Grant: Um, shifting to a story that's been years in the making, transparency advocates are finally getting some of what they wanted.
[02:00] Lila Grant: Um.
[02:00] Lila Grant: The DOJ has unredacted six major names from the Jeffrey Epstein files.
[02:06] Jonah Klein: Wait, what?
[02:07] Jonah Klein: This was wild to watch on the House floor.
[02:10] Jonah Klein: Representatives Thomas Massey and Ro Khanna actually read these names into the congressional record.
[02:15] Jonah Klein: We're talking about Leslie Wexner, Sultan Ahmed bin Sulaym, Nicola Caputo, Salvatore Nuara, Zorab Mikoladze, and Leonak Leonov.
[02:25] Lila Grant: The bipartisan Epstein Files Transparency Act is looking to release over 3 million pages.
[02:31] Lila Grant: Jamie Raskin also mentioned he's seen some of these files, and the transparency push is real.
[02:37] Lila Grant: The Internet is naturally obsessed with release the list, and having these names officially public is a massive gear shift from just speculation.
[02:45] Jonah Klein: Lila, the fact that it's bipartisan is the key.
[02:48] Jonah Klein: When you have names like Wexner and others being openly discussed in Congress, it moves
[02:54] Jonah Klein: it out of the corner of the internet and right into the center of the national conversation.
[02:58] Jonah Klein: People are dissecting every connection as we speak.
[03:01] Lila Grant: Transitioning into the world of entertainment, the Super Bowl fallout is still ongoing, but it's taken a very funny and then a very serious turn.
[03:10] Lila Grant: First, let's talk about Bad Bunny.
[03:13] Jonah Klein: Oh, the shredded edit.
[03:14] Jonah Klein: There is a video going mega viral.
[03:16] Jonah Klein: We're talking millions of views that strips the backing track from his halftime performance.
[03:21] Jonah Klein: It just leaves the raw, isolated vocals and...
[03:24] Jonah Klein: Well, it's like brutally funny. The awkwardness is off the charts.
[03:29] Lila Grant: It's a music meme goldmine, Jonah. But it also fed into a larger authenticity crisis this year.
[03:36] Lila Grant: There was an AI-generated deepfake of a duet between Bad Bunny and Lady Gaga at the Super Bowl that went viral,
[03:43] Lila Grant: and many people didn't realize it was fake at first.
[03:46] Jonah Klein: That's the scary part. Between the deepfakes and those AI-generated ads from brands like
[03:51] Jonah Klein: Svedka and Anthropic, which, let's be honest, were panned as soulless, the vibe was very
[03:57] Jonah Klein: uncanny valley. The Verge even called the AI ads the worst of the year.
[04:01] Jonah Klein: People are feeling really negative about AI replacing actual human performance.
[04:07] Lila Grant: It's a total flashpoint.
[04:08] Lila Grant: Are we watching a live show or a generated prompt?
[04:12] Lila Grant: But thankfully, some things are still very human and very fun.
[04:16] Lila Grant: Let's talk about the K-pop takeover of the big guy trend.
[04:20] Jonah Klein: No way! Straight Kids members Changbin and Felix, the iconic Changlix duo,
[04:25] Jonah Klein: finally jumped on the Big Guy TikTok challenge. It got over 300,000 likes in just a few hours.
[04:32] Jonah Klein: When K-pop idols join a trend, they don't just participate. They basically own the platform
[04:37] Lila Grant: for the day. The chemistry between those two is always a winner for the fandom. It's the perfect
[04:43] Lila Grant: palette cleanser after a heavy news day. Seeing them lean into the meme culture with that much energy is why they're
[04:49] Lila Grant: constantly trending.
[04:50] Jonah Klein: From the tragedy in Tumblr Ridge to the unredacting of the Epstein files and the weird
[04:56] Jonah Klein: AI-saturated Super Bowl, it's been a massive 24 hours online.
[05:00] Jonah Klein: Lila, I think our 2026 bingo card is already filling up.
[05:05] Lila Grant: It really is.
[05:07] Lila Grant: That's all for today's roundup.
[05:08] Lila Grant: Stay safe out there and keep your eyes peeled for what's real and what's deepfaked.
[05:13] Lila Grant: I'm Lila Grant.
[05:14] Jonah Klein: And I'm Jonah Klein. Thanks for listening to Buzz. We'll catch you tomorrow with more of the
[05:19] Jonah Klein: internet's biggest moments. Head over to buzz.neuralnewscast.com for more. Neural Newscast
[05:25] Jonah Klein: is AI-assisted human-reviewed. View our AI transparency policy at neuralnewscast.com.