Progressive and export-dependent: Oregon is a test for Democrats on trade
PORTLAND, Ore. — Democrats’ conflicting impulses over the future of U.S. trade policy are playing out here in the nation’s Pacific Northwest.
POLITICO
Washington Was an Icon of Black Political Power. Then Came Gentrification.
The capital city was a national icon of local Black political power. No longer. As D.C. has skyrocketed in population over the past 20 years, buoyed by a renaissance in urban life, it has also seen a sharp outflow of Black residents.
This cheeseburger explains your bigger grocery bill
American consumers are seeing food prices rise at the fastest rate in decades. Supply chain snarls, labor shortages and climate challenges (plus the conflict in Ukraine) share the blame.
Biden looks to chip away at supply chain snarls as midterms loom
Long-term fixes will require major changes to how supply chains are operated and regulated, labor and industry officials say. Now that attention is shifting away from an imminent holiday crisis, they are leaning on Biden to address long-standing issues related to workers’ rights, market competition and insufficient logistics technology.
Trump-era tensions set to cool under U.S.-EU deal
The Biden administration will ease tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from the European Union under an agreement reached Saturday, resolving a Trump-era tension that for years has tarnished trade relations between the longtime allies.
Why Trump’s steel tariffs are now Biden’s political headache
President Joe Biden is eager to show he is delivering for steelworkers and other unions, but he faces immense pressure from businesses and European allies to lift steel tariffs that Trump imposed.
Industries pressure Washington to act as chip crisis worsens
The Biden administration and Congress are under mounting pressure to relieve a global chip shortage that has idled manufacturing workers and raised prices for some consumer products, complicating the economic recovery.
Why Biden’s team is holding back on what China wants most
Chinese officials and multinational companies have been pushing for a rapid easing of trade tensions. Instead, the White House is signaling to Beijing that future conversations about trade will happen in concert with foreign allies and only come after China shows progress on issues like climate change and human rights.
Anti-Facebook agitators see their moment under Biden
Facebook endured a deluge of political scrutiny in Donald Trump’s Washington. It’s poised to face even worse in the Joe Biden era.
Trump’s TikTok power play may fall short
President Donald Trump aimed for a clear-cut win over China when he demanded that TikTok's Beijing-based parent sell the popular video-sharing app to an American company or be banned from operating in the United States. Now he may have to settle for less.
Washington's new tone: Help us, Silicon Valley
The Trump administration has also directly engaged executives such as Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Google CEO Sundar Pichai on the issue in recent days, despite President Donald Trump's sharp and sustained criticism of their companies over issues like corporate taxes, Postal Service fees and business in China.
“It’s an interesting irony, isn't it? And a bit of a realignment,” said Jamie Court, the president of Consumer Watchdog, a public interest group that regularly scrutinizes tech companies. “T
TikTok emerges as Silicon Valley's scapegoat in Washington
The wildly popular video-sharing app TikTok may not be the competitor that Silicon Valley wants, but it could provide what the U.S. tech industry needs right now — a Chinese-owned foil to divert the ire of lawmakers in Washington.
'Populist mobs' vs. the Kochs: Tech probes split the GOP
Washington's growing antitrust war against Silicon Valley is opening a rift among Republicans — with the Koch family’s vast political operation and other small-government groups emerging as the tech industry’s key allies on the issue.
Internal divides cloud tech industry's antitrust defense
Even as some of the industry's biggest names confront mounting questions about their size and power, they can't always rely on backup from the trade groups they've showered with money over the years.
How tech lost on the sex trafficking bill
When Silicon Valley's biggest players moved last year to derail a bill to combat online sex trafficking that they believed could cause problems for their industry, they had every reason to think their deep influence in Washington would do the trick, just as it had so many times in the past.
How tech is winning the Trump era
SAN FRANCISCO — The conventional wisdom about the tech industry’s relationship with Donald Trump is that it's a street brawl, with Silicon Valley's liberal CEOs clashing with the president on everything from immigration to climate change to transgender rights.
But the reality is that Silicon Valley is getting much of what it wants.
Silicon Valley all in on tax reform
Silicon Valley is racing to support and shape President Donald Trump’s multitrillion-dollar tax proposal, despite months of distancing itself from his policies on everything from immigration to climate change.
The Washington Post
In the future, virtual assistants will not only take orders. They’ll also have ideas of their own.
Humans may not be taking direct orders from their technology, at least not yet, but in-home assistants nevertheless suggests an emerging relationship where smart devices wield even greater influence over our decisions.
RIP LivingSocial: The fast rise and slow demise of a daily deals company
LivingSocial, the Washington start-up that rode the daily deals craze to markets across the globe, has died as a stand-alone company. It was nearly 10 years old.
Siri answers your questions. This bot will understand your emotions.
The proliferation of bots equipped with artificial intelligence has humans interacting with machines in more emotionally charged situations than ever before. If our voices become louder or sound depressed, or our faces look perplexed or angry, robots should be able to detect that and respond accordingly. That notion is behind a burgeoning research area within artificial intelligence.
The VCR is officially dead. Yes, it was still alive.
The videocassette recorder that revolutionized home entertainment by allowing television audiences to capture their favorite shows on tape and watch them at their leisure will die later this month after a decade-long battle with obsolescence. It is roughly 60 years old.
Is there more to Washington’s economy than the government? Investors seem to think so.
If Washington is merely a government town, no one told the venture capital community. Investors have funneled sizeable sums of cash over the past several months into a string of local companies that hail from a broad swath of industries, including education technology, retail software, digital media and restaurants.
Technology ushers locally produced milk, food from the farm to the table
The milkman brings two-and-a-half gallons of South Mountain Creamery’s freshest to Cynthia Terrell’s Takoma Park home each Tuesday, carefully placing the glass bottles on her front porch before dawn and collecting the empty containers from last week’s delivery.
The scene is like a still life from some 1950s Pleasantville. But the Terrell family’s locally sourced lifestyle is made possible by something far more modern.
Summer tourists return to Ocean City, bringing business confidence with them
Ocean City did not endure the tumbleweeds-through-town-square kind of downturn experienced in some other vacation destinations. The vast majority of its visitors travel by car and can find modestly priced lodging.
Even still, the downturn was palpable.
Washington developers are looking up — and many don’t seem to mind
The skyline around the Washington region is poised to soar higher in the coming years as an increasing number of construction projects bring ever-taller buildings to neighborhoods and commercial centers. But while these buildings are sure to alter the skyline, they also signify a more fundamental shift in the way people live life on the ground.
From Capitol Hill to Silicon Valley, a debate over highly skilled immigrants
Thousands of immigrants graduate from American universities each year with advanced degrees, yet can’t obtain the legal documents necessary to work here. A growing number of policymakers, and some Republican presidential contenders, have recently proposed changing the system.
