Chocolate wasn’t always sweet — or romantic. Once a ceremonial drink and even a form of currency, cacao has a long history before becoming a Valentine’s Day staple. Harvard Professor Carla Martin explains how marketing, industrialization and chemistry helped turn chocolate into a symbol of love — and why men buy the most chocolate one week a year.

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Attorney General Pam Bondi clashed repeatedly with Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday in a fiery hearing. Among other heated topics was the release of the Epstein documents and the redactions and lack thereof on those files. Top House Committee Democrat, Representative Jamie Raskin, accused the Justice Department of redacting the names of multiple men for political reasons. USA TODAY Justice Department Correspondent Aysha Bagchi joins The Excerpt to share her reporting.

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Who will be the Democratic presidential nominee in 2028? What will the price of gold be at the end of the week? Who will win the World Cup? All of these are relatively benign bets you can make today. But there are other bets that maybe aren’t so benign, like will Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro be removed from office by the end of January? That well-timed bet, made in the hours before the U.S. captured and extracted Maduro, netted the anonymous investor who made it $400,000. Are prediction markets democratizing information as some argue or are we monetizing reality in a way that incentivizes perverse motives? Alex Goldenberg, Fellow at Rutgers University, joins The Excerpt to explain how these markets work and the risks they pose financially and politically.

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For the first time in over half a century, there are no nuclear arms controls in place between the world’s two largest nuclear powers, the US and Russia. With a rising China growing its nuclear arsenal while it continues to assert its power on the international stage, we ask, is this the beginning of a new Cold War era? Ankit Panda, a senior fellow with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, joins The Excerpt to dig into the critical geopolitical, economic and military concerns at the heart of this story.

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It started with the banning of the Associated Press from certain White House events over its refusal to use the term “Gulf of America” instead of “Gulf of Mexico.” Then there was a recent FBI search of a Washington Post reporter’s home. And then in January two journalists, including former CNN host, Don Lemon were arrested following an immigration protest at Cities Church in St Paul, Minnesota. What’s happening to freedom of the press? First Amendment scholar RonNell Andersen Jones, professor of law at the University of Utah, joins The Excerpt to dig into all of it.

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Two recent elections-related developments are playing out today that have some election officials concerned. The first relates to the FBI’s seizure of election documents in Georgia, a state whose election President Donald Trump continues to falsely claim he won in 2020. The second involves recent public comments made by the president that elections should be nationalized in 15 states. Both of these actions may be illegal. Has the Trump administration crossed a line USA TODAY Justice Department Correspondent Aysha Bagchi joins The Excerpt to unpack the story.

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We are now just one day away from the roar of the opening ceremonies of the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina, Italy. Team USA is on the hunt for gold as figure skater Ilia Malinin – who some have dubbed the ‘quad god’ - pushes the sport of ice skating to dizzying heights. USA TODAY National Sports Columnist Christine Brennan and Olympic Gold Medalist Brian Boitano, the hosts of USA TODAY’s Milan Magic podcast and vodcast, join The Excerpt to share what they're most excited about.

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Since the Supreme Court widely legalized sports wagering in 2018 the nation’s appetite for bets has exploded. U.S. betters made over a billion dollars worth of bets in 2025 on sports alone. This year’s Super Bowl is expected to attract $1.7 billion in legal U.S. wagers. But investigators are finding that there’s also been a surge in illegal betting by minors. Are sportsbooks putting our children in harm’s way? USA TODAY Investigative Reporter Nick Penzenstadler joins The Excerpt to share his reporting.

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