What Next | Daily News and Analysis

On January 1st, a new law will grant Californians the right to see, delete, and stop the sale of personal information collected by tech companies. But the impact of the bill may reach far beyond California. How does this landmark law affect the rest of the country? And will it set the stage for national privacy legislation?   Guest: Hayley Tsukayama , Legislative Activist at the Electronic Frontie...

Back in 2013, an entrepreneur named Jamie Siminoff appeared on  Shark Tank . He was seeking an investment in a new product he was calling Doorbot, a smart doorbell that would make answering the door more convenient and users’ lives “more connected.” Six years later, Doorbot is now Ring, an Amazon-owned home-security system that partners with more than 600 police departments around the country. How...

Back in 2013, an entrepreneur named Jamie Siminoff appeared on  Shark Tank . He was seeking an investment in a new product he was calling Doorbot, a smart doorbell that would make answering the door more convenient and users’ lives “more connected.” Six years later, Doorbot is now Ring, an Amazon-owned home-security system that partners with more than 600 police departments around the country. How...

The “Remain in Mexico” policy was sold as a humane way to throttle the flow of migrant families seeking asylum in the U.S. But the immigration courts remain overwhelmed, and migrants who do make the trip to the southern border have been left to wait for months -- sometimes upwards of a year -- in squalid, makeshift refugee camps in Mexico.  Guest: Adolfo Flores , immigration reporter for BuzzFeed....

Preparing for an active shooter is becoming a disturbingly normal part of the school experience. And while companies are developing new methods for how to keep students and teachers safe, it’s unclear if they’re becoming more effective.  Guest: Tali Woodward , deputy editor at The Trace.  Podcast production by Mary Wilson, Jayson De Leon, Danielle Hewitt and Mara Silvers. Slate Plus members get bo...

It’s hard to keep track of all the things that have happened in Georgia to tweak voter rights and poll access over the past several years. But a new investigation highlighted two overarching themes to recent changes: diminishing federal oversight and structural racism.  Guest: Mark Niesse , reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Read his story, co-reported with Nick Thieme .  Slate Plus me...

Public sector consulting is under a new kind of scrutiny. Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign has thrust his former employer, McKinsey, into the spotlight. What’s been brought to the surface has challenged their stated values of “doing the most good”.  Guest: Ian McDougall, Reporter for ProPublica Slate Plus members get bonus segments and ad-free podcast feeds. Sign up now. Hosted on Acas...

Over the past decade, the world of influencers has grown from a fringe marketing movement to a multibillion-dollar industry. Now, tactics and strategies originally developed by influencers can be found across industries, from health care to politics to higher ed.    What’s behind this meteoric rise? And why do we misunderstand a movement that Taylor Lorenz calls “a fundamental shift in society”?  ...

Over the past decade, the world of influencers has grown from a fringe marketing movement to a multibillion-dollar industry. Now, tactics and strategies originally developed by influencers can be found across industries, from health care to politics to higher ed.    What’s behind this meteoric rise? And why do we misunderstand a movement that Taylor Lorenz calls “a fundamental shift in society”?  ...

On Monday, the Washington Post published a damning account of America’s war in Afghanistan. Titled “ The Afghanistan Papers ,” the report features dozens of interviews with people directly involved in the war, detailing the lies, deception, and misleading of the public that kept the war going. At once shocking and completely unsurprising, the papers are a secret history of America’s longest war. G...

Two maps can help tell the story of a looming public health problem in rural America. One, published by the CDC, shows 220 of the most vulnerable counties in America either experiencing or at risk of an HIV outbreak. The other, published by the Washington Post, shows where pharmaceutical companies sent most of their pain pills at the height of the opioid crisis. These maps almost perfectly matchup...

Underneath the Oval Office there’s this room. It’s a windowless place with terrible cell phone reception but, right now, it’s home to a team crafting President Donald Trump’s impeachment defense strategy. Former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi and former Treasury aide Tony Sayegh started the effort to protect the president only in the past few weeks, but they’re already seeing results. How has...

Former U.S. Senator Harry Reid thinks the expected impeachment trial in the Senate will fail to convict. And Reid should know -- he was in the Senate during the last impeachment trial. Slate Plus members get bonus segments and ad-free podcast feeds. Sign up now. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On Tuesday, Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page announced that they are stepping down from their respective roles as president and CEO of Alphabet, Google’s parent company. The move will leave Sundar Pichai in charge of both Google and Alphabet.    With pressure mounting from unhappy employees, antitrust regulators in Europe, and the Trump administration, Pichai takes the helm at a crucial...

On Tuesday, Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page announced that they are stepping down from their respective roles as president and CEO of Alphabet, Google’s parent company. The move will leave Sundar Pichai in charge of both Google and Alphabet.    With pressure mounting from unhappy employees, antitrust regulators in Europe, and the Trump administration, Pichai takes the helm at a crucial...

Residents of Opportunity, Montana have a problem: their town is infected with a century’s worth of toxins from copper mining. The responsible company, Arco, and the E.P.A. have come up with a plan to fix that, but the community members say it’s woefully inadequate and doesn’t guarantee “a clean and healthful environment.” Now, the case has escalated all the way to the Supreme Court. Guest: Kathlee...

The next impeachment hearing will be in the House Judiciary Committee, where Corey Lewandowski made a mockery of Democrats in September. So perhaps it’s by design that the testimony planned for Wednesday seems rather low-stakes: Four professors will speak about the constitutional grounds for presidential impeachment.  Guest: Jim Newell , Slate’s senior politics writer. Slate Plus members get bonus...

Senator Cory Booker still hasn’t made the cut for the next Democratic debate, despite having all the moderate bona fides that a suburban voter could want. Why has Booker failed to pop up in the polls?  Guest: Slate’s Jordan Weissmann . Read his piece, “ Dear Moderates: Please Give Cory Booker a Chance. ” Slate Plus members get bonus segments and ad-free podcast feeds. Sign up now. Hosted on Acast....

When she was a staff writer at Breitbart News, Katie McHugh exchanged hundreds of emails with Stephen Miller, who is currently one of President Trump’s senior advisors. Then, McHugh was a champion of the alt-right and a supporter of white nationalist ideology. Now, she wants the world to know that those same ideas are what motivate Miller to craft hard-line anti-immigration policies. And she has t...

For months, White House lawyers have argued that many of the president’s aides can sidestep congressional subpoenas because of their proximity to Trump. This week, a judge rejected that claim, setting the stage for another installment in the House of Representatives’s impeachment inquiry.  Guest: Jeremy Stahl , Slate senior editor Podcast production by Mary Wilson, Jayson De Leon, Danielle Hewitt,...

This summer, the explosion of vaping-related illnesses sent medical researchers on an urgent quest to figure out why teenagers were showing up at the hospital unable to breathe. Years before this became a public health crisis, federal regulators had the power to crack down on e-cigarettes. Why didn’t they do it? Guest: Desmond Jenson , an attorney with the Public Health Law Center at the Mitchell...

In India, Muslims are watching the secular democratic principles of their country crumble. What is it like when your country rejects your family and shakes your faith in multiculturalism?  Guest: Rana Ayyub , a contributor to the Washington Post Opinion section and author of Gujarat Files: Anatomy of a Cover Up .  Slate Plus members get bonus segments and ad-free podcast feeds. Sign up now. Hosted...

With two weeks of public impeachment hearings in the books, how will the next phase of the inquiry take shape? Guest: Jim Newell , senior politics writer at Slate. Dahlia Lithwick , writes about the courts and the law for Slate. Slate Plus members get bonus segments and ad-free podcast feeds. Sign up now. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

TikTok now has over 1.5 billion downloads, putting it in the company of social media giants like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. While all of these companies have faced scrutiny from lawmakers in one form or another, TikTok is getting attention for its Chinese ownership as some fear that Beijing could use data uploaded to the platform for counterintelligence purposes. Is there a real reason to b...

TikTok now has over 1.5 billion downloads, putting it in the company of social media giants like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. While all of these companies have faced scrutiny from lawmakers in one form or another, TikTok is getting attention for its Chinese ownership as some fear that Beijing could use data uploaded to the platform for counterintelligence purposes. Is there a real reason to b...