Month: June 2019

The Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg took heat on Twitter Thursday for remarks he made in an interview about why there are so few women and people of color writing cover stories at his magazine. Then he tried to pin the blame for his own words on the female journalist who published them.

Goldberg spoke with Nieman Lab’s Laura Hazard Owen about recent diversity achievements at The Atlantic, when he conceded that the writers of the print edition’s most important stories are overwhelmingly white and male. Nieman Lab noted that of the 15 issues published this year, 11 had cover stories …

Fifty years after the New York Police Department raided the Stonewall Inn, leading to the birth of the modern LGBTQ rights movement, the commissioner of the NYPD has apologized.

“I do know what happened should not have happened,” James O’Neill, New York’s police commissioner, said in a public statement. “The actions taken by the NYPD were wrong — plain and simple. The actions and the laws were discriminatory and oppressive, and for that, I apologize.”

The commissioner’s remarks were vague about what, exactly, happened at the Stonewall Inn, a gay- and trans-friendly bar, in 1969, when patrons fought back …

YouTube has long had a rocky relationship with its queer users, thanks to a history of restricting queer content. Those tensions deepened this week when Vox video journalist Carlos Maza called out YouTube and right-wing personality Steven Crowder, saying that Crowder has harassed him for years using the platform.

Crowder is the host of Louder With Crowder, a political commentary show airing on Blaze TV, a conservative broadcasting network with cable, satellite, and streaming assets that hosts talking heads like Glenn Beck and Ben Shapiro. Maza says that Crowder has targeted him personally because of his race and …

Almost a year after Oregon state Rep. Janelle Bynum’s story of being questioned by police after a 911 call on her as she campaigned in her district went viral and sparked the hashtag #CampaigningWhileBlack, Oregon state senators have passed a bill that would allow the victims of frivolous, discriminatory 911 calls to sue the callers.

On Monday, the Oregon state Senate passed House bill 3216, a measure introduced by the state’s three black Democratic legislators, including Bynum. The bill allows victims of these calls to sue a 911 caller for as much as $250 if the victim can prove that …

The cascade of political probes targeting the four biggest companies in tech feels like it happened suddenly.

But Washington’s surge in scrutiny toward Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple in the past week is a natural culmination of a relationship between tech and society that’s soured over the past two years.

That’s why recent reports that the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission are divvying up responsibilities for possible action against the big four — and that legislators had begun a turn-over-every-stone investigation of companies like Facebook and Google — seemed at once both abrupt and a long …

The Trump administration is moving ahead with new travel restrictions for Cuba.

The new rules ban US cruise ships from stopping in Cuba and eliminate the “people to people” travel loophole that has allowed Americans to visit the the island nation as part of organized group educational tours and thereby get around the myriad federal restrictions limiting travel to the communist country.

According to the Treasury Department, the new rules will go into effect Wednesday. Travelers who’ve already booked their trips will be allowed to continue with their plans, however.

The new restrictions serve two purposes for the Trump …

Pete Buttigieg is running a conflict-averse presidential campaign. But conflict makes news.

And so the biggest moment of his MSNBC town hall Monday night in Fresno, CA was his half-hearted defense of former Sen. Al Franken (D-MN), who resigned in 2017 after several women accused him of groping them.

Calls for Franken’s resignation were led by Democratic women in the Senate — most notably Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), who is now herself running for president.

Buttigieg didn’t name Gillibrand or other Democratic senators running for president who called for Franken’s resignation in the days before he offered it — including Sens. …

At its annual developer’s conference today, Apple confirmed reports that it will break iTunes up into three separate apps: Apple Music, Podcasts, and Apple TV.

The news is not super surprising. These separate apps have already existed on iOS for a long time, with the iTunes Store reserved as a weird desktop-only clunker. iTunes has been a running joke for years — messy, confusing, and full of too many features that don’t have obvious uses in most people’s lives.

“iTunes itself is a relic of a different era in which people bought all their music and movies in one place,” …

Democratic presidential hopefuls pitched themselves to primary voters in San Francisco, California on Saturday and Sunday with calls for the party to embrace big changes. Messages on gun control, immigration reform, income inequality, and Medicare for all were received warmly by California Democratic Party Convention delegates, many of whom are progressives.

Most of the party’s frontrunners appeared at the California Democratic Party Convention, including Sens. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, and Cory Booker. In total, 14 candidates spoke, and one other, author Marianne Williamson, was present, but didn’t take the stage. Notably absent was former Vice President Joe Biden, …

House Majority Whip Rep. James Clyburn predicted Sunday that the House of Representatives will impeach President Donald Trump — just not yet.

In an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, Clyburn said House Democrats are moving methodically to build the type of impeachment case against the president that Speaker Nancy Pelosi has called “ironclad.”

“We’re trying to take our time and do this right,” Clyburn said. “I don’t see this as being out of whack with what people’s aspirations are.”

When asked by Tapper if he felt that Trump will eventually face impeachment, Clyburn did not mince words.

“Yes, that’s exactly …