Slate News

Emily, John and David dig into SCOTUS's failure to enforce the Voting Rights Act, the GOP's embrace of January 6th rioters, and protests in Canada.Here are some notes and references from this week’s show:John Dickerson for The Atlantic: “The GOP Has No Standards Now”Adela Suliman for The Washington Post: “Marjorie Taylor Greene says Nancy Pelosi leads ‘gazpacho police,’ causing collective spit take”Brett Samuels for The Hill: “Pence breaks with Trump: 'I had no right to overturn the election'”Here’s this week’s chatter:Emily: Sam Levine for The Guardian: “The Black Woman Sentenced To Six Years In Prison Over A Voting Error”John: “John Grisham Reads Soggy Sweat's Whiskey Speech”David: Oliver Holmes for The Guardian: “Putin’s Massive Table: Powerplay or Paranoia?”Listener chatter from Cason Reily: BBC: “Who Is Sue Gray?”  For this week’s Slate Plus bonus segment Emily, John, and David ponder what makes something qualify as a sport or a game. Tweet us your questions and chatters @SlateGabfest or email us at gabfest@slate.com. (Messages may be quoted by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.)Podcast production by Jocelyn Frank.Research and show notes by Bridgette Dunlap. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As the Winter Olympics unfold in Beijing, a darker reality remains: China’s abuses against the Uyghurs, an ethnic minority in the country’s Xinjiang region. While much of the world remains glued to the sports coverage, Uyghurs in the diaspora are calling on people to pay attention to China's treatment of their family members back home.Guest: Gulchehra Hoja, a Uyghur journalist with Radio Free Asia. If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—and you’ll be supporting the work we do here on What Next. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to help support our work. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Ottawa truckers protest is neither exclusive to Ottawa nor strictly composed of truckers. And its supporters are hoping to head to a city near you. Guest: Jesse Brown, editor-in-chief of Canadaland.If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—and you’ll be supporting the work we do here on What Next. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to help support our work. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

With Roe v. Wade on the chopping block, abortion access is under fire in states around the country. At Planned Parenthood’s Knoxville location, the clinic faced that literally when an arson attack burned the building to the ground. How will providers rebuild when the things they stand for are so threatened?Guest: Tory Mills, director of community engagement for Planned Parenthood’s Knoxville Health Center.If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—and you’ll be supporting the work we do here on What Next. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to help support our work. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Until last month, Brian Flores was the head coach of the Miami Dolphins, and one of only three Black head coaches among the NFL’s 32 teams. That number has since dropped to one. On Tuesday, Flores announced he was suing the NFL, alleging that the league's hiring practices are racist. His suit comes almost 20 years after the creation of the Rooney Rule, which requires teams to interview ethnic-minority candidates for senior positions, and eight years after Colin Kaepernick was black-balled from the sport for kneeling during the national anthem—begging the question of how much has really changed in that time. Guest: LZ Granderson, columnist for the Los Angeles Times and host of ABC News’ “Life Out Loud with LZ Granderson.”If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—and you’ll be supporting the work we do here on What Next. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to help support our work. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Banks, healthcare providers, and retailers around the world still rely on COBOL, a programming language originally developed in the 1960s. By all accounts the code is powerful, practical, and very rarely problematic. But the small group of people who still know the language are aging out of the workforce. What happens when there are no more COBOL coders left?Guest: Clive Thompson, journalist and author of "Coders: The Making of a New Tribe and the Remaking of the World."Host: Lizzie O’Leary Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, Felix Salmon and Emily Peck are joined by management consultant and sports fan Robin Timothy of to talk about Facebook’s sudden loss of users and revenue, why the Olympics are both problematic and boring, and the Brian Flores NFL lawsuit alleging racial discrimination in coach hiring. In the Plus segment: A big gold cube.Mentioned In the show: “Brian Flores’ NFL Lawsuit: Can He Prove Systemic Racism? What We Know About Claims of ‘Sham Interviews’ and Incentivizing Tanking, Plus What’s Next” by Kevin Seifert“An Artist Placed a Cube Made From $11.7 Million Worth of Gold in Central Park – Protected By Its Own Security Detail” by Dorian Batycka Email: slatemoney@slate.comPodcast production by Cheyna Roth Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For Spotify, the last month has seen a cascade of controversies around its exclusive podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience. Is it time for the streaming service to rethink its role as a podcast publisher? And is it even possible to moderate podcast misinformation?Guest: Evelyn Douek, lecturer at Harvard Law School, and Affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & SocietyHost: Lizzie O’Leary Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Emily, John and David discuss Donald Trump’s attempts to seize voting machines, the racist attacks on the yet-to-be-named SCOTUS nominee, and they are joined by Joseph Allen, director of the Healthy Buildings program at Harvard University's T. H. Chan School of Public Health, to discuss ways we might update U.S. COVID norms.Here are some notes and references from this week’s show:Joseph G. Allen for The Washington Post: “Our Playbook to Fight Covid-19 Is Outdated. Here Are 10 Updates for 2022.”Joseph G. Allen and Celine R. Gounder for The Hill: “We Have a Once-in-a-Generation Opportunity to Fix Our Crumbling Schools”Healthy Buildings: How Indoor Spaces Drive Performance and Productivity, by Joseph G. Allen and John D. MacomberAdam Serwer for The Atlantic: “Republicans Seem to Think Putting a Black Woman on the Supreme Court Is the Real Racism”Meltdown: What Plane Crashes, Oil Spills, and Dumb Business Decisions Can Teach Us About How to Succeed at Work and at Home, by Chris Clearfield and András Tilcsik Here’s this week’s chatter:Emily: Kristin Toussaint for Fast Company: “How Do Workers Take on a National Chain Like Starbucks? One Store at a Time”; Noam Scheiber for The New York Times: “Taking On Starbucks, Inspired by Bernie Sanders”John: Adam Gopnik for The New Yorker: “Molière to the Panthéon!”; History, Art and Archives: United States House of Representatives: Representative Clement Vallandigham of OhioDavid: Neil Vigdor for the New York Times: “A Teenager Tracked Elon Musk’s Jet on Twitter. Then Came the Direct Message.” Listener chatter from Erin Arizzi-Shores: The Double Shift: “The Check's Not In The Mail”More listener chatter from Larry Williams: Barbara J. King for NPR: “Watch The Moment A Dying Chimpanzee Recognizes An Old Friend”; Mama's Last Hug: Animal Emotions and What They Tell Us about Ourselves, by Frans De Waal. For this week’s Slate Plus bonus segment Emily, John, and David offer advice about how to establish a work/life balance. Tweet us your questions and chatters @SlateGabfest or email us at gabfest@slate.com. (Messages may be quoted by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.)Podcast production by Jocelyn Frank.Research and show notes by Bridgette Dunlap. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A popular, outgoing liberal mayor in Silicon Valley is taking on gun rights groups with a splashy municipal ordinance fashioned to curb gun violence—and be the first of its kind. Gun rights groups are foretelling doom for the new law, and the NRA called it a “ridiculous publicity stunt.” Does this city’s initiative have the hallmarks of a breakthrough on gun violence prevention? Will lawsuits tank it before anyone has the chance to find out?Guest: Sam Liccardo, mayor of San Jose, California.If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—and you’ll be supporting the work we do here on What Next. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to help support our work. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.