Slate News

Most kids in the country aren’t back to school in any way we’d recognize as normal. Republicans have noticed. Now, they’re launching a few trial balloons this year to see if “reopen the schools” can become their next winning campaign slogan.

Guest: Edward-Isaac Dovere, staff writer at the Atlantic. Read his story, “Democrats Are Failing the Schools Test.”

Dovere is the author of the forthcoming book, Battle for the Soul: Inside the Democrats’ Campaigns to Defeat Trump. 

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Welcome to Slate Money Goes to the Movies, a miniseries in which Felix Salmon, Anna Szymanski, and a different guest each week discuss popular business-themed movies. 

This week, Felix and Anna are joined by Edmund Lee of The New York Times to talk about The Devil Wears Prada. They discuss the film’s dated depiction of the magazine and fashion industries, Andy’s judgey friends, and of course, the IRL Miranda Priestly, Anna Wintour.

Email: [email protected]

Podcast production by Jessamine Molli.

Twitter: @felixsalmon, @Three_Guineas

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Houston residents and elected officials are trying to stop the largest urban highway project of their lifetimes -- one that would clear out more than 1,000 homes in primarily Black and Latin neighborhoods and, they say, introduce additional flooding and health risks. Now, residents have a powerful new ally in Washington: the Biden administration. The fate of I-45 may tell us something about what 21st-century infrastructure will look like. 

Guests: Tomaro Bell, Houston resident and community leader, and Oni Blair, executive director of LINK Houston. 

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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has become a Republican celebrity for his notably lax coronavirus policies, keeping the state mostly open during the pandemic. But in Miami Beach, tourists are using the lack of restrictions to their advantage, exposing the difficulty of managing a world that isn’t quite done with COVID-19, but desperately wants to be.  

Guest: Verónica Zaragovia, healthcare reporter at WLRN. 

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Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Adam Cohen to talk about Supreme Inequality: The Supreme Court’s Fifty-Year Battle for a More Unjust America, and whether Merrick Garland should heed calls to reinvestigate Justice Brett Kavanaugh. 

In our Slate Plus segment, Mark Joseph Stern on Cedar Point Nursery v Hassid, the big union case before the court this week, guns at the 9th Circuit, and Georgia’s vote-suppression legislation push. 

Sign up for Slate Plus now to listen and support our show.

Podcast production by Sara Burningham.

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Max Cho, a product manager at Google, joins Felix Salmon and Emily Peck to talk about that cargo ship stuck in the Suez Canal and its effect on supply chains, the bloodbath at Medium and the media in general, and what the post-pandemic return to the office will look like.

In the Plus segment: The price of Bitcoin. 

Email: [email protected]

Podcast production by Jessamine Molli.

Twitter: @felixsalmon, @EmilyRPeck

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Hey Trumpcast listeners! Your host Virginia has some big news. Her next podcast—After Trump—is a guidebook alongside legal scholars Jack Goldsmith and Bob Bauer—both former Trumpcast guests—to reforming our laws, norms, and ethical codes so we never get in that fix again. After Trump is coming soon to a podcast app near you. To learn more, go to AfterTrumpPod.com.

But first, Virginia is here to introduce an episode of a show she hopes you'll check out: What Next, a daily news podcast from Slate. In this episode, host Mary Harris talks to guest Colorado Rep. Tom Sullivan, who counts the number of Fridays since his son was killed in the Aurora theater shooting in 2012. The latest mass shooting in Boulder, which left 10 people dead, was yet another reason Sullivan says he’s continuing his quest to curb gun violence in the state.

If you like what you hear, subscribe to What Next. You'll get a short episode every weekday taking on ONE story, and going deep, behind the headlines. What Next is news you’re not going to get just scrolling through your phone. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

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Back in April 2020, AstraZeneca was hailed as a frontrunner in the race to get an effective vaccine to market. A year later, after a series of trial pauses, communication blunders, and PR problems, the vaccine is on the cusp of FDA approval. 

By all accounts, the company succeeded in making a safe, effective vaccine. So why has there been so much confusion about its rollout?

Guest: 

Peter Aldhous, science reporter at Buzzfeed News

Host

Lizzie O’Leary

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Back in April 2020, AstraZeneca was hailed as a frontrunner in the race to get an effective vaccine to market. A year later, after a series of trial pauses, communication blunders, and PR problems, the vaccine is on the cusp of FDA approval. 

By all accounts, the company succeeded in making a safe, effective vaccine. So why has there been so much confusion about its rollout?

Guest: 

Peter Aldhous, science reporter at Buzzfeed News

Host

Lizzie O’Leary

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Emily, John and David discuss immigration, violence against Asian Americans and how Amazon is shaping the American economic landscape.

Here are some notes and references from this week’s show:

Emily Bazelon for Slate: “Stop Telling Ruth Bader Ginsburg to Retire: It's Counterproductive”

David Leonhardt for The New York Times: “The Democrats’ Immigration Problem”

Nicole Narea for Vox: “Migrants Are Heading North Because Central America Never Recovered From Last Year’s Hurricanes”

One Billion Americans: The Case for Thinking Bigger by Matthew Yglesias

Slate’s Political Gabfest, “The “Rage” Edition” (with Matthew Yglesias)

Claire Jean Kim for Politics and Society: “The Racial Triangulation Of Asian Americans” 

How the Irish Became White by Noel Ignatiev 

Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America by Alec MacGillis

Michael Corkery and Karen Weise for The New York Times: “Amazon Workers’ Union Drive Reaches Far Beyond Alabama”

Lina M. Kahn for The Yale Law Journal: “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox”

The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson 

The Hardest Job in the World: The American Presidency by John Dickerson

John Dickerson for 60 Minutes: “Studying Coronavirus Spread in One Georgia School System”

Here’s this week’s chatter:

Emily chattered about her forthcoming article about the exoneration of Yutico Briley. Matt Sledge for The New Orleans Advocate: “A Man Serving 60 Years For Armed Robbery Is Free After Jason Williams Clears The Way For Release”

John: Howard Schneider for Reuters: “U.S. Covid Response Could Have Avoided Hundreds of Thousands of Deaths - Research”

David: Janelle Shane for Substack: “GPT-3 Tries Pickup Lines”

Listener chatter from Mathew Dicks: Philip Hoare for The Guardian: "Sperm Whales in 19th Century Shared Ship Attack Information"

Slate Plus members get great bonus content from Slate, a special segment on the Gabfest each week, and access to special bonus episodes throughout the year. Sign up now to listen and support our show.

For this week’s Slate Plus bonus segment, Emily, David, and John discuss a wrong but unappealable call by high school basketball referees. 

Tweet us your questions and chatters @SlateGabfest, or email us at [email protected]. (Messages may be quoted by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.)

Podcast production by Jocelyn Frank.

Research and show notes by Bridgette Dunlap.

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