Month: August 2021

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Headlines From The Times - Get out of here with that corn

Corn is a part of modern life in all sorts of ways: It fattens up livestock and gets turned into biofuels. We eat it on the cob, as grits, polenta and tortillas, and as syrup that sweetens so many other foods.

Most of the corn used in the U.S. is sprayed with weed killers such as glyphosate and is genetically modified to survive those weed killers and to create bigger yields — controversial practices.

Mexico, corn’s birthplace, imports millions of tons of U.S. corn each year. But there’s about to be a dramatic change. The nation is preparing to shut its doors to GMO corn and ban glyphosate. Today we talk with reporter Renée Alexander, as well as the head of a company that’s devoted to buying from Mexican farmers who grow non-GMO corn, about what that means for both Mexico and the United States.

Host: Gustavo Arellano

Guests: Journalist Renée Alexander and Masienda founder and CEO Jorge Gaviria

More reading:

Mexico is phasing out imports of glyphosate and GMO corn

Champion of poor or demagogue? Mexico’s president remains popular

Court upholds $25-million verdict against maker of glyphosate weed killer Roundup

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The Intelligence from The Economist - Bridges and divides: America’s infrastructure push

The Senate has passed the first part of President Joe Biden’s mammoth plan, which is now tied to a far more ambitious part two. We examine their prospects for passage. Zambia is undertaking a pivotal election—but it seems far from a fair fight to oust the incumbent. And our Germany-election tracker cuts through reams of data and tricky electoral politics.

For full access to print, digital and audio editions of The Economist, subscribe here www.economist.com/intelligenceoffer

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Code Story: Insights from Startup Tech Leaders - S5 Bonus: Jody Shapiro, Productiv

Jody Shapiro was fortunate enough to know he was going to be an engineer from a young age. He did the typical kid things, liked played with legos, and built things, with deep curiosity around how things worked. He was introduced to coding when he was 9 years old - and it clicked. He also found himself interested in the business world. The same curiosity around gears and levers was also extended into business... and he was fascinated by the systems in place that enabled intelligent decisions around pricing, stocking, etc.

He's had the opportunity to indulge in his curiosities, studying computer engineering in his undergrad, and working on incredible problems in the industry. He has worked for Microsoft, video conferencing software, Silicon Graphics, and Google (for 9 years). He finds it's easy to fall in love with tech, but it's important to remember that there are users on the other side of solutions.

When he left Google, he set out to build... a business. He wasn't sure what type of business he was going to build. But he wanted to go work on a big problem, one that everyone had. After spending some time researching, he figured out that everyone has more SaaS than ever before, and companies were having a hard time managing their portfolios. He thought there must be a way to solve this problem, and solve it driven by data.

This is the creation story of Productiv.

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Bay Curious - Your Guide to the Gavin Newsom Recall Election

You may have thought we were done with elections for a little while, but there's another big one coming up. On September 14th, Californians will vote on whether or not to recall Governor Gavin Newsom. Here's a primer with nitty-gritty voting details, some context for the campaign, and what you'll find on your ballot.

Additional Reading:


Reported by Guy Marzorati. Bay Curious is made by Olivia Allen-Price, Katrina Schwartz, Sebastian Miño-Bucheli and Brendan Willard. Additional support from Erika Aguilar, Jessica Placzek, Kyana Moghadam, Paul Lancour, Suzie Racho, Carly Severn, Ethan Lindsey, Vinnee Tong and Jenny Pritchett.

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What Next - What Next | Daily News and Analysis – When Your Town Burns Down

Last week, the northern California mountain town of Greenville was wiped out by the Dixie Fire, which has lasted for nearly a month and is now the largest wildfire in California history. Greenville residents have just begun to assess the damage to their homes and businesses. Is it safe to rebuild? Is it even ethical, when wildfires are only expected to get worse? 

Guest: Margaret Garcia, also known as Meg Upton, reporter at Plumas News. 

If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—and you’ll be supporting the work we do here on What Next. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to help support our work.

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The Best One Yet - ⚽ “Kardashian vs Messi” — WeWork’s new SaksWork. Weight Watchers’ cold vaxx summer. Lionel Messi’s Nike shirt.

Lockdowns grew our waistlines, but Weight Watchers stock plummeted 25% yesterday. The real celebration of Lionel Messi’s record-breaking soccer deal is at Nike: The business of obsolescence. And say goodbye to the old WeWork… say hello to WeMall. $WW $BOWX $NKE Got a SnackFact? Tweet it @RobinhoodSnacks @JackKramer @NickOfNewYork Want a shoutout on the pod? Fill out this form: https://forms.gle/KhUAo31xmkSdeynD9 Got a SnackFact for the pod? We got a form for that too: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe64VKtvMNDPGSncHDRF07W34cPMDO3N8Y4DpmNP_kweC58tw/viewform Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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What Next | Daily News and Analysis - When Your Town Burns Down

Last week, the northern California mountain town of Greenville was wiped out by the Dixie Fire, which has lasted for nearly a month and is now the largest wildfire in California history. Greenville residents have just begun to assess the damage to their homes and businesses. Is it safe to rebuild? Is it even ethical, when wildfires are only expected to get worse? 

Guest: Margaret Garcia, also known as Meg Upton, reporter at Plumas News. 

If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—and you’ll be supporting the work we do here on What Next. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to help support our work.

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