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Pierre Bienaimé has three things to know today—from what Robert Mueller wants to know, to Palestine, to Facebook moving on.

On today’s Gist, thick-as-bricks Lego thieves come a-tumbling down.Hurricane recovery has been a disaster in Puerto Rico. NPR’s Laura Sullivan wanted to know why. So she found documents revealing a FEMA in shambles. She traced Puerto Rico’s economic troubles back to a 1996 tax vote. And she explains how the island’s remaining wealth was wiped out by years of shady municipal debt deals. Sullivan’s report for NPR and Frontline is called “Blackout in Puerto Rico.” You should really watch it. In the Spiel, is it spring yet?

Virginia Heffernan talks to Eric Columbus, a former lawyer at the Department of Justice, about the leak of the Mueller questions and the questions themselves. What can we read into them? What do we make of the leak?Don't forget to buy tickets to our live show in Brooklyn, NY!

Prudence is joined this week by Aria Velasquez, an audience engagement editor at Slate. First up, I’m worried my discussion with my eight year old about me and my husband’s sexual orientation has greatly confused her, please help! Next...my family is struggling after an awful accident in which my father killed a neighbor’s dog and in which my kids blame themselves. I think I may have found “the one” but our interactions with another couple leave us both feeling outrageously jealous… (only for Slate Plus) Following that: my coworker is taking all the communal office food and I’d like to speak up without hurting their feelings, is this possible? And lastly, I’m giving a lot of financial support to one of my granddaughters after a terrible car accident in which she’ll need lifetime medical support, but some of my children and grandchildren are reacting with greed and not empathy and I’m at a loss for how to speak with them. Hear more Prudence by joining Slate Plus: Slate.com/Prudiepod.Email: prudencepodcast@gmail.comProduction by Max Jacobs

Yes! John McWhorter on our compact, workaday affirmative.Join Slate Plus! Members get bonus segments, exclusive member-only podcasts, and more. Sign up for a free trial today at www.slate.com/podcastsplus. Twitter: @lexiconvalleyFacebook: facebook.com/LexiconValleyEmail: lexiconvalley@slate.com

After touring the world for the last five years, the "David Bowie is" exhibit is making its final stand at the Brooklyn Museum. The show features over 400 pieces: diary entries, handwritten lyrics, artwork, and lots of unforgettable costumes.But Bowie's music is on display as well. One of the show's highlights is a mashup of David Bowie songs, created by his longtime producer and collaborator, Tony Visconti.It’s a 15 minute musical tour of Bowie’s career that showcases the incredible diversity of his music. Initially, Visconti had been asked to make a short audio piece featuring three David Bowie songs. "Something just came over me, and I realized that I couldn’t decide on three songs,” Visconti explained. “So the three songs evolved into 49 songs."We stopped by Visconti's studio to learn how the mashup was made.This podcast was produced by Studio 360’s Tommy Bazarian.

Jayson De Leon has three things to start your day – from John Kelly calling Trump an "idiot" to a fascinating history of the laff box.Go check out Decoder Ring!

On today’s Gist, President Trump’s Nobel in the making. There is no market quite like the boomers—that was true when they were young, and it remains true as they enter their 60s and 70s. So how do you market to the olds? The answer lies in a few busted bits of conventional wisdom, the millennial lifestyle, and probably your mom’s iPad. Joseph F. Coughlin explains it all in his book The Longevity Economy: Unlocking the World’s Fastest-Growing, Most Misunderstood Market. In the Spiel, what happened at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner?

Josh Levin, Wosny Lambre, and Ethan Sherwood Strauss discuss the NBA playoffs. They also talk about Meek Mill’s release from prison and his relationship with the 76ers, and they ponder quarterback Josh Allen’s old, racial-slur-laden tweets. NBA playoffs (2:20): Josh, Wos, and Ethan assess the state of the Oklahoma City Thunder and the NBA’s most polarizing player, Russell Westbrook. They also examine LeBron James’ latest triumph and check in on the state of the Golden State Warriors. Meek Mill (22:35): Upon his release from prison, the Philadelphia rapper headed straight to the Sixers’ game against the Miami Heat. How did Mill forge such a tight connection with the team, and how did he become a cause célèbre for criminal justice reformers? Josh Allen (37:23): The Wyoming quarterback’s tweets were publicized the night before the NFL draft. Should we care about Allen’s social media misadventures, and how should we think about athletes’ old tweets more broadly? Afterballs (56:00): 

Welcome to Decoder Ring! Decoder Ring is a new monthly podcast about cracking cultural mysteries. Every episode we’ll take on a cultural object, idea, or habit and speak with experts, historians and obsessives to try to figure out where it comes from, what it means and why it matters. Why do we get so invested in fictional romances? What does it mean to wear a baseball hat backwards? Why do we clap? What do people think about all day? Decoder Ring explores questions and topics you didn't know you were curious about.In our first episode, we ask: What happened to the laugh track? For nearly five decades, it was ubiquitous, but beginning in the early 2000s, it fell out of sitcom fashion. What happened? How did we get from Beverly Hillbillies to 30 Rock? We meet the man who created the laugh track, which originated as a homemade piece of technology, and trace that technology’s fall and the rise of a more modern idea about humor. With the help of historians, laugh track obsessives, the showrunners of One Day at a Time and the director of Sports Night, we wonder if the laugh track was about something bigger than laughter.

Nithya Nathan-Pineau is Program Director of CAIR Coalition's Detained Children's Program. She spoke with Jacob Brogan about helping children understand their legal situation, and her work helping making arguments that kids facing deportation deserve asylum under American law. In a Slate Plus Extra, Nathan-Pineau discusses her program's relationship with the Office of Refugee Resettlement, and how that might change under the new presidential administration. If you’re a member, enjoy bonus segments and interview transcripts from Working, plus other great podcast exclusives. Start your two-week free trial at slate.com/workingplus.Capital Area Immigrants' Rights Coalition: https://www.caircoalition.org/Email: working@slate.comTwitter: @Jacob_Brogan

Virginia Heffernan talks to the author of Chasing Hillary, Amy Chozick, about "New York Times worship," being what she calls an "unwitting agent of Russian intelligence," and why she kept having dreams of Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail.Plus, the RNC is still digging for the right website to discredit James Comey.

Self-driving cars, Ford, and WeWork debt on this week's episode with Felix Salmon, Anna Szymanski, and Meredith Broussard. Meredith's new book Artificial Unintelligenceis available now.Production by Daniel Schroeder.

Mary Wilson has today’s rundown: Why you should stop calling yourself Facebook’s product, a torrent of excuses for self-conscious seltzer water obsessives, and New York Times reporter Amy Chozick shares her secret weapon: babka.

On The Gist, when your sympathy for the poor goes beyond platitudes, Paul Ryan fires you.In the interview, the New York Times’ Rukmini Callimachi has a new podcast. Caliphate lays out how she knows what she knows about ISIS. Through her reporting in Iraq, she’s learned how the group endeared itself to locals with services as simple as garbage collection. And though the would-be Islamic State has fallen, the extremists behind it persist as an insurgency.In the Spiel, there is no Spiel!