Lyft's initial public offering this week was the first of several expected from some of Silicon Valley’s hottest tech companies in the next quarter (or two).
Why it matters: These companies are among the Silicon Valley tech startups that remained private for years, but they're finally making their public market debuts — and letting employees and early investors cash out.
Andrew Yang has focused his 2020 presidential election platform around a proposal for universal basic income, which he calls “The Freedom Dividend.”
Why it matters: The proposal is based on the notion that automation will eliminate millions of jobs for Americans and that this could help cushion the blow.
As TV advertising sales season approaches, traditional East coast media companies are under pressure to hold on to precious content rights or create popular programming to keep users from ditching their cable packages.
What's happening: Apple, Amazon and other West coast tech giants, keen on gaining subscribers, are bundling news, music, movies and TV shows. They can give away some content or charge less than traditional content companies thanks to the fact that they can make money from selling hardware (Apple) or goods (Amazon).
At a MSNBC town hall on Friday evening, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez responded to Republican criticisms of the Green New Deal and shared her policy details on the resolution, pointing out that a primary focus of plan is to simply make climate change a "national priority."
Why it matters: Highlights of the town hall resulted in viral moments on Twitter — like AOC admonishing an audience member who called former Rep. Bob Inglis a "moron" — but actual policy discussion took place, too. A key point of focus: "transitioning" fossil fuel workers into new energy jobs.
President Trump tweeted on Friday night, calling for the joint Pulitzer Prize that the New York Times and Washington Post won in 2018 to be voided for the outlets' coverage of Robert Mueller's Russia investigation.
Pete Buttigieg (boot-a-judge), the mayor of South Bend, Indiana who has announced an exploratory committee for a 2020 presidential bid, dug in on President Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan while speaking at the Commonwealth Club San Francisco, calling it “not honest” in the way it deals with Americans’ disaffection with automation in the workforce.
What he said: There is a “false promise being peddled by this White House that the solution is just to turn back the clock …‘We’re gonna make America Great again?’ You know, what does that mean? It means ‘we’re going to stop the changes so you don’t have to change anything,’ and it’s not honest. You can't have honest politics that revolves around the word ‘again.’”
After a two-year hiatus, HBO's "Veep" is returning on Sunday, March 31, for its seventh and final run that’s said to be more uncomfortable, biting, absurdist and uncanny than ever, Flipboard's Mia Quagliarello writes for Axios.
The scene: Season 7 sees Selina Mayer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) on the campaign trail, running for president again. This time her challengers include her on-and-off-again flame Tom James (Hugh Laurie), staffer Amy Brookheimer (Anna Chlumsky)'s ex-boyfriend Buddy Calhoun (Matt Oberg), and the smarmy Jonah Ryan (Timothy Simons).
2018 was the second-highest year for retirements of coal-fired power plants in the U.S. In the wake of plant closures, some communities are converting these facilities into production sites for lower-carbon energy sources.
Why it matters: Coal-fired plants have long been seen as economic boons for rural counties, despite the harmful effects of their pollution on local residents. Converting them can both mitigate job losses and help meet energy demands more sustainably.
Philippine journalist Maria Ressa was arrested at Manila's airport on Friday on securities fraud charges, another incident that watchdogs say is part of an ongoing attempt to silence her by the government of President Rodrigo Duterte, reports CNN.
Details: Ressa, a 2018 TIME Person of the Year who has faced multiple arrests on various charges, has reported extensively on Duterte's brutal war on drugs via her media company Rappler. The site's managing editor and 5 other former and current board members were also arrested earlier this week on similar charges.
U.S. companies are on pace to buy back more of their shares than they did during 2018's record binge, data shows, despite — or perhaps because of — mounting political opposition.
Why it matters: Companies are continuing to choose buying back their stock to reduce the number of shares outstanding and boost prices over investing in long-term capital and labor expenditures. Last year, companies spent more buying back their own stock than on capex for the first time since 2008, according to Citigroup.
In high schools across the U.S., a quiet movement is underway to better prepare students for a hazy new future of work in which graduates will vie for fast-changing jobs being transformed by increasingly capable machines.
Details: Breaking with traditional schooling, these new models emphasize capabilities over knowledge — with extra weight on interpersonal skills that appear likely to become ever more valuable.
While reporting this story about high schools that are rebooting themselves to better prepare students for future jobs, I visited Summit Shasta, a charter school in Daly City, Calif., just south of San Francisco.
There, I watched students in a science class assemble circuits and listened as English students read through a New York Times review before diving into a new book — Junot Diaz's "Oscar Wao."
The big picture: As they worked, whiteboards displayed the skill each activity emphasized, like explaining evidence or modeling difficult problems. These skills are among the dozens that students track through an online hub — something like a custom Trello or Asana for school.
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