Immersive political and historical storytelling with NPR’s Throughline

🎧 Interested in today’s headlines as much as the history behind them? Throughline is your gateway to the past, connecting the dots between historical events and the biggest stories shaping our present. The NPR podcast, led by Peabody Award-winning journalist Rund Abdelfatah and former host Ramtin Arablouei, explores politics, economics, technology, and business, digging up fresh perspectives that help listeners make sense of the world’s current affairs.

Big Saudi money flowing into Silicon Valley. In a 50-minute episode, Throughline digs into the connection between Silicon Valley’s rise and Saudi Arabia’s seemingly endless wealth. Over the past two decades, the country has been one of big tech’s biggest investors, building ties with the biggest names in politics and business — including Elon Musk, Donald Trump, Bill Gates, Jared Kushner, Mr. Beast, and more — a trend jump-started by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, a tech geek himself.

What we liked: The episode also follows the Yemen invasion, broader Silicon Valley ambitions, AI and technology as rising tools of control and surveillance, and military tech deployed by dictatorships. A sweeping story and an even more sweeping display of storytelling make up the episode. Throughline delivers a rich experience with suspenseful sound design, archival audio, and valuable commentary from both American and Saudi experts, bringing the narrative to life. The episode covers an impressive amount of ground in a relatively short time.

The verdict: Whether you’re a politics junkie or a casual news reader, Throughline is bound to pull you into one of its many engrossing, under-an-hour episodes. If you’re looking to deepen your understanding of current affairs and add context to your daily news digest, the podcast offers informative audio journeys that make history feel vividly relevant to the present.

WHERE TO LISTEN- You can tune in on Apple Podcasts | Anghami.