Slate News

Over the past five months, city blocks have been slipping away. Bars are closed; restaurants are half-empty; retail is shuttered. As the country returns to varying states of lockdown, how long can these blocks hold on?

This week: how one commercial strip on Chicago’s South Side is weathering the pandemic. 

Guests:

Nedra Sims Fears, executive director of the Greater Chatham Initiative

Brian d'Antignac, The Woodshop

Jaidah Wilson-Turnbow, Frances Cocktail Lounge

Zoie Reams, Brown Sugar Bakery

Host

Henry Grabar

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Virginia Heffernan talks to Katherine Eban, contributing editor for Vanity Fair and author of Bottle of Lies: The Inside Story of the Generic Drug Boom, about her recent piece on Jared Kushner’s botched COVID-19 response, and what happened when she followed a suspicious trail of his receipts.

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Messing with the census, undermining the election, and guest Juliette Kayyem on competent crisis response.

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

Alex Thompson for Politico: “Trump’s Campaign Knocks on a Million Doors a Week. Biden’s Knocks on Zero.”

Ben Smith for the New York Times: “How the Media Could Get the Election Story Wrong”

Franklin Foer for the Atlantic: “Putin Is Well on His Way to Stealing the Next Election”

Alice Miranda Ollstein for Politico: “Lawmakers Demand Explanation for Cutting Federal Funding to States for National Guard Deployments”

Juliette Kayyem for The Atlantic: “Reopening Schools Was Just an Afterthought”

Here are this week’s cocktail chatters:

John: Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson 

Emily: Deep Cover: The Drug Wars

David: This Week in Virology, “Episode 640: Test Often, Fast Turnaround, with Michael Mina”; Elian Peltier for The New York Times: “3 Men Marooned in the Pacific Are Rescued After Writing SOS in the Sand”

Listener Carol Palmer, @AgnetaAnderso: Larry Kanter for Medium “Inside the Company Trying to Solve the Global Bicycle Shortage”

Slate Plus members get a bonus 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 talk about missing their work friends.

You can tweet suggestions, links, and questions to @SlateGabfest. Tweet us your cocktail chatter using #cocktailchatter. (Messages may be quoted by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.)

The email address for the Political Gabfest is [email protected]. (Email 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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Even before the pandemic child care was a long, simmering crisis. With the fall approaching and school reopenings in flux, many parents are asking themselves the same question: what am I going to do with my kid? America has solved a child care crisis before, the question is whether the country can muster up the energy (and money) to do so again.

Guest: Betsey Stevenson is a Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the University of Michigan.

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Schools in Oklahoma are preparing to reopen, but special education teacher Nancy Shively won’t be among the teachers going back to school. Shively, who has pre-existing medical conditions, has been forced to choose between her own health and the education of her students. She says President Trump’s response to the coronavirus has led her to question her support for him and the Republican Party. 

Guest: Nancy Shively, a teacher from Skiatook, Oklahoma 

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Tuesday’s Kansas Senate primary has Republican party leadership concerned. Polls show that Barbara Bollier, a former Republican turned Democrat, stands a chance in the general election against one of the leading Republicans in the primary, Kris Kobach. So much so in fact that a pro-Democrat super PAC has been running ads in favor of Kobach, hoping to face off against him in November. How would a Kobach win on Tuesday upend the battle for control of the Senate? And what are Republicans doing to stop him?

Guest: Dave Weigel covers politics for the Washington Post.

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The past couple of weeks have seen some alarming developments in the U.S.-China relationship. Among them is how the United States plans to deal with the wildly popular Chinese social media app TikTok. The debate over the social giant has reached the White House and discussions of what to do about it have ranged from an outright ban to Microsoft acquiring U.S. operations of the app.

What makes TikTok a threat to national security? And what does this whole episode say about where U.S.-China relations are heading?

Guest: Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, reporter for Axios and author of the Axios China newsletter. 

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Exclusive to Slate Plus members, Dahlia Lithwick’s January interview with Ruth Bader Ginsburg about the women of Harvard Law School’s class of 1959. 

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

Go to Slate.com/RBG for more on all the women of the class.

Find the print version of this interview here. 

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Felix Salmon, Emily Peck, and Anna Szymanski are joined by Felix’s cousin Thomas Harding to discuss his book, Legacy: One Family, a Cup of Tea and the Company that Took On the World , on the unusual financial history of the Salmon family, generational wealth, and financial inequality.

And in the Plus segment: More with Thomas Harding.

Email: [email protected]

Podcast production by Jessamine Molli.

Twitter: @felixsalmon, @Three_Guineas, @EmilyRPeck

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For the last four months, federal and state eviction moratoria have kept Americans in their apartments, even if they couldn’t pay rent. Now, with financial relief in question, and moratoria set to expire, the first of the month might look very different for millions of Americans.

Guests:

Emily, a resident of Chicago’s Northwest Side

Mark Durakovic, principal at Kass Management

Peter Hepburn, analyst at Princeton’s Eviction Lab

Host

Henry Grabar

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