POLITICO Tech

Months before two infants died and another was hospitalized from bacterial infections, a whistleblower alerted senior FDA officials to what he said were "lax practices, including regulatory violations" at an Abbott Nutrition infant formula plant last October. But it was still months before the FDA investigated and formula was recalled. Helena Bottemiller-Evich reports. Learn more about your ad cho...

Presenting Playbook Deep Dive: The White House Correspondents’ Dinner is back for the first time since 2019. Journalists, A-list celebrities and Washington’s power players will pack the cavernous ballroom at the Washington Hilton. That means brunch is back too. On this week’s episode, Playbook co-author Ryan Lizza gets a tour from Tammy Haddad at the site of her annual garden brunch, one of the mo...

The FDA may propose a rule banning menthol cigarettes as early as today, a decision 10 years in the making. Katherine Foley reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The world’s richest man has a lot of experience getting his way in Washington. But doing it as Twitter's owner may be different. Rebecca Kern reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Federal regulators are just beginning to tackle a technical flaw that threatens to hold back the United States’ next giant leap in communications: Many of our radios suck. John Hendel reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

An alleged human trafficking ring in Georgia highlights many of the loopholes found in the H-2A agricultural visa program, renewing calls for an overhaul. Ximena Bustillo reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week Playbook co-author Ryan Lizza is in Arizona to dig into a few big plotlines ahead of this year’s elections. Trump narrowly lost the state in 2020, Senator Mark Kelly – the Democratic incumbent – is one of the most vulnerable senators up for reelection this year and strategists are already looking at the 2024 Senate election to see who will run against Kyrsten Sinema. On this week’s Playb...

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Russia’s ambassador to the United States can’t get meetings with senior officials at the White House or the State Department. He can’t convince U.S. lawmakers to see him, and it's rare to find an American think tanker who’s willing to admit to having any contact with the envoy. Senior foreign affairs correspondent Nahal Toosi discusses her conversation with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. and D.C....

We're six and a half months out from the the midterms, and to keep track of the almost 500 seats up for grabs, POLITICO has launched an election forecaster. Steve Shepard, the man behind the tracker, breaks down his 2022 election predictions and which races to keep an eye on. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A newly drawn House district offered the prospect of electing Oregon’s first Latina to Congress. Then a top super PAC unexpectedly swooped in. Sabrina Rodriguez reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Gentrification has dramatically transformed Washington, D.C. — as a result, the city now has a smaller Black population. That decline mirrors a nationwide trend, nine of the 10 cities with the largest Black populations have also seen decreases in Black residents. Delece Smith-Barrow reports on the latest installment of The Recast’s Next Great Migration series: Washington, D.C. Read the full piece...

Insulin is what economists would call a super inelastic product — no matter what the cost is, people will pay for it because it's a life-saving medication. Two bills currently in Congress hope to drive down costs. Katherine Foley reports.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

American consumers are seeing food prices rise at the fastest rate since 1981. Supply chain snarls, labor shortages and climate challenges — plus the conflict in Ukraine — share the blame. Steven Overly reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As political pressure grows to crack down on Russian oligarchs, U.S. policymakers are taking a deeper look at an industry that has long avoided anti-money-laundering rules: real estate. POLITICO's Katy O'Donnell discusses the push in Congress to close foreign money loopholes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A POLITICO investigation based on more than 50 interviews finds the FDA is failing to meet American consumers' expectations on food safety and nutrition. POLITICO's Helena Bottemiller Evich reports on the agency's structural flaws and the risks posed to Americans. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Trained by the U.S. Army, a group of trailblazing Afghan women became a formidable military force during the war in Afghanistan. They now live scattered around the U.S., stuck in immigration limbo. Amanda Ripley reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Federal protections for state and territorial cannabis markets don't apply to Native American tribes. Natalie Fertig reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On Monday, the U.N. offered a familiarly stark report card on the world’s progress on cutting emissions from the IPCC, which has been monitoring climate change since 1988. Despite the panel's regular reports about the consequences of burning fossil fuels, between 1990 and 2019 global emissions rose 54 percent and they are still rising. POLITICO's Karl Mathiesen reports. Learn more about your ad ch...

Amazon has been pushing into health care for years, starting with wearable health devices and pharmacy services. But the nationwide expansion of its “Amazon Care” service is its biggest move in the rapidly growing telehealth industry, which could grow to a $20 billion sector over the next five years. Emily Birnbaum reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In a copy of a Zoom recording provided to POLITICO, New York City Mayor Eric Adams instructed administration staff that every single communication from a city agency, down to notices about cherry blossoms in bloom, must be approved by City Hall — warning that anyone violating his “discipline of message” would be fired. Julia Marsh reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adcho...

A raft of punishing sanctions sent Russia’s currency crashing after its invasion of Ukraine. A month later, the ruble has staged a dramatic recovery — putting pressure on the Biden administration and allies to deploy even tougher measures. But officials say the ruble's recovery is not necessarily a sign of improvement in the Russian economy or Putin’s position. Kate Davidson reports. Learn more ab...

POLITICO reporter Rachael Levy broke the story that some hospitals have been asking patients to remove their N95 masks — even though they offer better protection. Rachael’s reporting changed a national policy in a matter of days — but the question remains why policymakers in the US are behind on mask guidance. Rachael Levy reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Florida’s fight over contentious LGBTQ legislation — the "Parental Rights in Education Bill," dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill by opponents — had its genesis nearly two years ago, not in the halls of the state Legislature but in a September conversation between a Tallahassee mother and her 13-year-old teen. Gary Fineout reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On Monday, President Joe Biden released his administration’s new budget proposal. It includes increases in domestic investments and a big boost in military funding. To pay for it, Biden proposed increasing taxes on corporations and the rich — including a new minimum tax on Americans with incomes of $100 million or more. Brian Faler reports.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/ad...