While mounting a military response to Hamas, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been forced to unite his far-right wing with his political rival, centrist Benny Gantz, a former military Chief of Staff. The plans for retaliation that are emerging are unlike any of Israel’s past skirmishes with Hamas.
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In this week’s big voting rights case, Alexander v. South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, the Supreme Court heard arguments concerning whether to uphold a South Carolina congressional map that is avowedly partisan (everyone agrees it favors Republicans, but partisan gerrymanders are A-OK under SCOTUS precedent). What is disputed here is whether the mapmakers relied on race to reach their partisan aims. A three-judge panel in South Carolina found it to be a racial gerrymander, and threw out the map. In arguments on Wednesday, it became clear that the high court’s conservatives would rather toss out the evidence the lower court used to reach its decision, an unusual move for the highest court in the land, but perhaps the bed it’s made for itself after ruling partisan gerrymanders non justiciable in Rucho v. Common Cause in 2019. And so SCOTUS cos-played as a trial court for two hours on Wednesday.
On this week’s Amicus, Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Leah Aden, senior counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund who argued the case on behalf of the South Carolina Conference of the NAACP, and Taiwan Scott - a South Carolina voter and individual plaintiff in the case, who says the electoral power of his Gullah Geechee community is suppressed by the gerrymander.
Zelle has exploded in popularity as a fast, convenient way to send and receive money. But the story of a couple who was scammed out of a pool shows there are problems with safety on the platform.
Guest: Devin Friedman, journalist and senior correspondent for GQ magazine.
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 TBD. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to help support our work.
In this week’s big voting rights case, Alexander v. South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, the Supreme Court heard arguments concerning whether to uphold a South Carolina congressional map that is avowedly partisan (everyone agrees it favors Republicans, but partisan gerrymanders are A-OK under SCOTUS precedent). What is disputed here is whether the mapmakers relied on race to reach their partisan aims. A three-judge panel in South Carolina found it to be a racial gerrymander, and threw out the map. In arguments on Wednesday, it became clear that the high court’s conservatives would rather toss out the evidence the lower court used to reach its decision, an unusual move for the highest court in the land, but perhaps the bed it’s made for itself after ruling partisan gerrymanders non justiciable in Rucho v. Common Cause in 2019. And so SCOTUS cos-played as a trial court for two hours on Wednesday.
On this week’s Amicus, Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Leah Aden, senior counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund who argued the case on behalf of the South Carolina Conference of the NAACP, and Taiwan Scott - a South Carolina voter and individual plaintiff in the case, who says the electoral power of his Gullah Geechee community is suppressed by the gerrymander.
When the Arab Spring was unfolding, Twitter was hailed as a way for on-the-ground reporting to reach the public. But when fighting between Hamas and Israel broke out over the weekend, X became flooded with misinformation.
Guest: Casey Newton, founder and editor of the technology newsletter Platformer.
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After their first plan to forgive billions of dollars of student debt was thwarted by the Supreme Court, the Biden administration is quietly searching for other ways to help borrowers.
Guest: Jeremy Bauer-Wolf, senior higher education reporter for Higher Ed Dive.
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Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Madeline Ducharme, Anna Phillips, Paige Osburn, and Rob Gunther.
On this week’s episode of The Waves: the case for taking a sabbatical.
Host TK Dutes speaks with author and former television writer Patty Lin on her latest book End Credits: How I Broke Up With Hollywood. Lin worked in some of the most notable writers' rooms like Friends, Freaks and Geeks, Desperate Housewives and Breaking Bad. But when she hit a breaking point, she made a big change and stopped working for an entire year. After that? Her relationship with work–and everything else–transformed.
In Slate Plus: Patty Lin on how her closest relationships changed after going on sabbatical
Podcast production by Vic Whitley-Berry with editorial oversight by Daisy Rosario and Alicia Montgomery.
Send your comments and recommendations on what to cover to thewaves@slate.com.
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On today’s episode, Rachelle Hampton and Candice Lim talk to writer Cyrena Touros about Dracula Daily, a newsletter that emails bite-sized passages from Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel to more than 235,000 readers.As an epistolary novel, Dracula is broken into letters written between May and November. Dracula Daily emails those letters to readers, who have now created a book club-like fandom rife with memes and sidebars about a guy stuck in a vampire’s castle.
This podcast is produced by Se’era Spragley Ricks, Daisy Rosario, Candice Lim and Rachelle Hampton.
President Biden’s administration announced plans to resume construction of a wall on the southern border, contradicting a contrast then-candidate Joe Biden drew between himself and his opponent in 2020,
Guest: Muzaffar Chishti, senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute at NYU’s School of Law
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Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is vowing a complete blockade of Gaza after Hamas militants killed more than 700 Israelis this weekend. The surprise attack caught Israeli intelligence completely off-guard, and has thrown the region into disarray, on the eve of landmark talks between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
What’s the next stage of this already-volatile conflict? And what’s next for civilians in the Gaza Strip?
Guest: Gregg Carlstrom, Middle East correspondent for The Economist
