Biden signs law mandating colleges report hazing incidents | The Excerpt
On Wednesday’s episode (first released on December 25, 2024) of The Excerpt podcast: President Joe Biden has signed legislation mandating that colleges report hazing incidents. Sean 'Diddy' Combs has been sued by a former male employee for sexual battery, according to reports. Paste BN Graphics Editor George Petras takes a look at the history behind model trains and Christmas. The start of Hanukkah falls on the same day as Christmas this year. That's a rarity. Paste BN Money Reporter Bailey Schulz talks about the voice actors behind popular toys, and what's next for them amid a rise in AI.
Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.
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Taylor Wilson:
Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson, and today is Wednesday, December 25th, Christmas Day 2024. This is The Excerpt. Today, Biden has enacted an anti-hazing law, plus another lawsuit against Diddy, and we hear from some of the voices behind your favorite toys.
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President Joe Biden yesterday enacted the first federal anti-hazing law, marking the end of a year's long push by victims' families for more transparency and accountability on college campuses. The Stop Campus Hazing Act, which passed the house in September and the Senate this month, requires universities to start collecting hazing statistics to include in regular public reports. These requirements could kick in as soon as next week and impact many campus groups. Under longstanding federal statutes, colleges and universities must disclose crimes that occur on their campuses each year. And still amid the sometimes violent and even fatal outcomes of hazing, schools have never been required by the federal government to disclose statistics about how often it happens, especially within fraternities and sororities that target their new members. While nearly every state has an anti-hazing law, the measures vary in scope and impact according to the advocacy group Stop Hazing.
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Sean Diddy Combs has been sued again. The embattled music mogul who was awaiting a trial next year for federal sex crimes was sued Monday, this time by a former male employee, Philip Pines, who was accusing Diddy of sexual battery according to TMZ and Variety. According to the suit obtained by the outlets, Pines claims Diddy treated him as a personal lackey during his employment for the Bad Boy Records founder, which lasted from 2019 to 2021. Part of the alleged responsibilities included setting up rooms for sex parties that Combs referred to as Wild King Nights. It also claims Diddy pressured him to have sex with a female guest of the rapper detailing an incident in which Diddy told him to have sex with the unnamed woman. Pines stated that he complied briefly, but stopped and left the room upset.
Combs' representative said in a statement to Paste BN about the latest suit, "No matter how many lawsuits are filed, it won't change the fact that Mr. Combs has never sexually assaulted or sex trafficked anyone, man or woman, adult or minor. We live in a world where anyone can file a lawsuit for any reason. Fortunately, a fair and impartial judicial process exists to find the truth and Mr. Combs is confident he will prevail in court." You can read more with a link in today's Show Notes.
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Maybe your kid is waking up this morning to a new train set from Santa, or you already have a model train set up around the tree. So how did model trains and Christmas come to be tied together? I spoke with Paste BN Graphics Editor George Petras to learn more about this century-old tradition. George, thanks for hopping on today.
George Petras:
Thank you. Good to be here.
Taylor Wilson:
Yeah, George, let's just start with this. I mean what's the origin story here? How did model trains become popular in the U.S.?
George Petras:
No one really knows precisely when the custom started, but it's been a part of the U.S. culture since the early 1900s, and it's been passed down from one generation to the next. But I was told, I spoke with a couple of editors of Modern Railroad magazines, that it was part of the American consciousness way back then because if you wanted to travel long distances, you had to do it by train. The connection between like say trains and Christmastime, since trains were the primary method method of travel, trains also brought in everything from the relatives that were coming to see you from out of town, plus all the presents that you were getting at home at Christmastime. So there's a very strong connection between the trains and what they brought to you.
Taylor Wilson:
Interesting. So how did we see it change? You mentioned the early kind of 20th century. How did we see it change throughout I guess the last 100 years?
George Petras:
It was just part of Christmas because there was that strong connection between the trains and the travel and Christmastime, and they started putting rudimentary toy trains on the tree. I mean we're talking like things made out of wooden blocks practically, and some of them were pulled by strings or small pieces of rope or something like that. It got more involved. I mean model train manufacturers started to make more elaborate sets. Then they were run by electricity and then it sort of took off. I think the heyday was probably like in the 1950s and 1960s because that's when the model Lionel Train makers and so on really brought out a lot of fascinating detailed equipment that you could put down and that really sparked people's imagination.
Taylor Wilson:
All right, George, so fast-forward to today in the 2020s, does this tradition still endure around Christmastime? How big is the model railroad hobbyist community in general stateside? I mean just where do things stand these days?
George Petras:
As you might imagine it's not as popular as it was in the 1950s and '60s, but it staged a bit of a comeback with the COVID pandemic and people were staying at home and they were working on their hobbies and so on, and probably a lot of people remembered when they were kids and they had that model train set around the Christmas tree. They would start buying new sets and setting them up at home. Model railroad clubs started seeing a new influx of fans and it's sort of built up by then. It's gone ... So to sum up, it's dropped a lot since the '50s, but it's come back a little bit.
Taylor Wilson:
And have you spoken with any enthusiasts who are still involved in this community today? I mean what do they have to say?
George Petras:
Oh yeah, they love their hobby of course, and they're always looking for new members. And it may be more of a generational thing, you might see older folks, senior citizens be more enthusiastic, but younger people are starting to discover this too. The thing of building something with your hands and the artistry of setting up a train set and a train village and so on, that does appeal to some people.
Taylor Wilson:
For folks who are listening here, George, whose interest might be piqued by this story, how can they get involved? Maybe it's too late to get involved this Christmastime, but just in general with this hobby?
George Petras:
You can do it at any point. I would say the best thing to do would be to check in your area to see if there's a model railroad club there. Very likely, there very well may be. And the people that I've spoken with at various model clubs, they are very welcoming. They're willing to share their knowledge and they really like to talk to new members, and that would be a very good way I think to break into it. If there's no club in your area, you could just sort of branch out on your own, buy your own train set. There are magazines out there that are devoted to the hobby that would give you some good guidance.
Taylor Wilson:
George Petras is a Graphics Editor with Paste BN. I love this story. I want the listeners to go check out the full version with a link in today's Show Notes. Thank you, George, and Merry Christmas.
George Petras:
Thank you so much.
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Taylor Wilson:
Today is both Christmas Day and the start to Hanukkah, and that's a rarity, a Chrismuka as rare as this one due to the Hebrew calendar, not aligning with the Gregorian calendar, causing the start of the Hanukkah holiday to move dates annually. The holidays have occurred on the same day four times since 1900, according to Hebcow, a website that tracks Jewish holidays and the Hebrew calendar.
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Your favorite holiday toy has a voice, who's behind the magic and what's next amid the rise in AI? I chatted with Paste BN Money Reporter Bailey Schulz for more. Hello, Bailey.
Bailey Schulz:
Hi. Yeah, thank you for having me.
Taylor Wilson:
Thanks for coming on today, Bailey. So I have to admit, I loved this story. Let's start with this, who are some of the folks you spoke with for this piece and what's their experience in the industry?
Bailey Schulz:
Yeah, so I had a lot fun with this one because I got hit with a lot of nostalgia as I was working on this story where I was talking to voices behind toys like Leapfrog, different Furby toys, collar, educational toys, even like Shrek movie themed toys. And so yeah, talked to a number of talent behind some of these bigger brands in the toy space.
Taylor Wilson:
And what did you hear from them and just kind what their careers have looked like?
Bailey Schulz:
What I heard over and over again is that people who are in the space just love their work, love this job where whether that's, like I said, working with a Shrek the Movie themed toy, and you're in a sound booth making burping and fart noises and being paid to do that, or you're working with maybe more educational toy or a toy for babies, toddlers, and you're working on this audio with this toy that's supposed to help these kids learn things like colors or learn how to read. And I just heard over and over again that they thought that this has been a very fun, rewarding job.
Taylor Wilson:
Well, speaking of the fun and just the energy that these voice actors bring to this job, I want the listeners to get a peek of what this all sounds like.
Toy:
Let's play. Let's play.
Taylor Wilson:
So in comes AI, what's the future of voice acting look like as a whole, Bailey, and especially as it pertains to voicing kids toys? Are we already seeing a shift?
Bailey Schulz:
There's slippery opinions out there on exactly what sort of changes we'll see with AI, but it's definitely something that's top of mind for many voice actors. We've seen some strikes recently pushing for more work or protections. As far as what we're seeing in the toy space, what I was told is that these voice actors aren't seeing much yet as far as AI taking over jobs voicing for toys, but a lot of people do think that's coming. And so there's a differences in the end on exactly how big of a slice AI will take, whether it's just taking over some of those maybe cheaper toy brands or when these larger companies keep working with human voice actors while the other sites going to take over entirely.
So I reached out to a number of toy companies for the story, didn't hear back from all of them, but someone at Leapfrog, which is a company that makes these educational toys, mentioned that AI isn't something that's been implemented in products yet, but as the technology keeps growing, keeps improving, he told me that he could see AI becoming an industry standard within a few years.
Taylor Wilson:
Well, it's possible we'll see some kind of hybrid model, right, bailey, where some toys have AI, some have humans or some mix as well? What can humans in this space do functionally that AI cannot?
Bailey Schulz:
Yeah, you're right where that Leapfrog dialogue director told me that he could see either companies adopting a hybrid model that utilizes both real voices and AI. Others have said they kind of expect maybe to see these sorts of less expensive toys turn to AI first. But what I heard over and over again from voice actors is they don't think that AI can do the job that they're doing, where maybe with some of those more dry dialogues or if you're reading a jargon-filled technical scripts, those sorts of things, I was told they get why that would go to AI.
But as far as these sorts of more emotional roles or things like even with toy companies where you have to be very animated and then put a lot of energy into these sorts of roles, they told me that they do not think that AI can sort of live up to what humans are doing at this point.
Taylor Wilson:
All right, this was a great piece. Listeners can go check out the full version with the link in today's Show Notes. Bailey Schulz covers money for Paste BN. Thank you, Bailey.
Bailey Schulz:
Thank you for having me.
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Taylor Wilson:
Thanks for listening to The Excerpt, I hope you have a great holiday however you're celebrating. I'm Taylor Wilson and I'll be back tomorrow with more of The Excerpt from Paste BN.