Slate News

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 did Doorbot become Ring? And what are the consequences of placing surveillance cameras on front doors around the country?

Guest: Caroline Haskins, technology reporter at Buzzfeed. 

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Emily, John and David discuss impeachment, the pushback against Pete Buttigieg, and they offer a review of the most important stories of 2019.

Here are this week’s cocktail chatters:

• Emily: The, soon to be, end of an era with her warm and welcoming neighborhood grocery store Romeo and Cesare’s 
• John: Thomas Fuller and Josh Haner for the New York Times: “Portrait of an Oakland California Homeless Encampment.” and A 5700 year-old human genome and oral microbiome from chewed birch pitch in the journal Nature.
•  David: Anna Fifield for the Washington Post: “Taiwan’s tea party aims to burst Beijing’s one-China bubble.”
• Chatter from listener Ionic Tonic @ionictonic about a series of tweets from Surprised Eel Historian @greenleejw about the importance of eels in the economies of British medieval and renaissance times.

For this week’s Slate Plus bonus segment, Emily, David, and John recite some favorite passages of poetry and non-fiction.

• Emily: Blood History by Dwayne Betts
• John: Sorting it out by Philip Booth
• David: Lytton Strachey’s book Eminent Victorians writing about Florence Nightingale

You can tweet suggestions, links, and questions to @SlateGabfest. Tweet us your cocktail chatter using #cocktailchatter or post it to our Facebook page. (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 by Bridgette Dunlap.

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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. 

Slate Plus members get bonus segments and ad-free podcast feeds. Sign up now.

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If you have any school-aged children in your life, you know that lockdown and active shooter drills have become a routine part of their school experience. These drills now take place in 95 percent of American schools.

What you’re about to hear is a collaboration between Slate and The Trace, a nonprofit newsroom covering gun violence in the United States. It’s an audio project featuring firsthand accounts from kids of all ages about what it’s like to go through these drills. We hear a lot about school shootings, but we’re only starting to have a larger conversation about how they affect even those kids who may never go through one. 

You can hear more from the students at slate.com/lockdown.

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

If you have any school-aged children in your life, you know that lockdown and active shooter drills have become a routine part of their school experience. These drills now take place in 95 percent of American schools.

What you’re about to hear is a collaboration between Slate and The Trace, a nonprofit newsroom covering gun violence in the United States. It’s an audio project featuring firsthand accounts from kids of all ages about what it’s like to go through these drills. We hear a lot about school shootings, but we’re only starting to have a larger conversation about how they affect even those kids who may never go through one. 

You can hear more from the students at slate.com/lockdown.

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

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 bonus segments and ad-free podcast feeds. Sign up now.

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

Virginia Heffernan talks to Eric Columbus, lawyer and Obama-appointed former member of the Senate Judiciary Counsel, about impeachment, Trump voters, Mike Pence, Bill Barr, and more.

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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 members get bonus segments and ad-free podcast feeds. Sign up now.

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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.

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This week Felix, Emily, and Anna discuss the end of the World Trade Organization, the life of Paul Volcker and Away’s toxic workplace.

And in the Slate Plus segment: Hydrocarbons.

This episode is brought to you by LightStream. Get an additional interest rate discount at lightstream.com/money.

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