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- Eric Swalwell Thought He Was Untouchable — Until He Wasn’t
The Toyota Corolla shuttling Eric Swalwell to the San Francisco airport was already running well over the speed limit. It wasn’t enough. “‘Go as fast as you can. Go 90 or whatever,’” Dean Wallace, the staffer behind the wheel, recalled his boss telling him. “‘We’re not going to get in trouble. Just keep going.’” That ride to the airport more than 13 years ago, when Swalwell was about to miss his flight to Washington for his new membership orientation, was no one-off. As an ascendant Democratic House member, he would push his staff to drive so dangerously from one appointment to the next that one former congressional aide said she racked up numerous tickets for speeding or running red lights and was once chewed out by Capitol Police after an especially reckless maneuver. As a candidate for California governor, he’d say of the navigation app, “Waze is just the start of a negotiation,” and encourage his driver to disregard traffic laws, according to a staffer familiar with his campaign travel. It was an impulsive sense of urgency that reflected, almost too neatly, the ambitions and instincts that propelled Swalwell to the upper ranks of the Democratic Party and a credible shot at becoming California’s next governor. Not only was he willing to take risks to get to where he wanted to go, he was convinced — or at least, seemed to be — that he’d escape the consequences.Until last week, when his political career collapsed entirely. Swalwell has now been accused by multiple women of sexual assault; at least two others claim he harrassed them with unwanted come-ons and explicit photos. He faces criminal investigations into separate rape accusations in Manhattan and Los Angeles, and the Department of Justice also opened an investigation; he has denied all allegations of assault, though he has acknowledged “personal failings.” He withdrew from the governor’s race and resigned from Congress before his colleagues moved to expel him. Swalwell and his attorney did not respond to requests for comment. His downfall, beyond prompting a reckoning on the Hill about how such a prominent politician could act with impunity for so long, has forced a reappraisal of Swalwell among his one-time friends and allies. POLITICO Magazine spoke with 30 people who had a front-row seat to his rise from the Bay Area to Washington, including lawmakers, staffers and consultants. Many were granted anonymity to speak candidly… [TheTopNews] Read More.2 weeks ago - Grindr’s CEO Has a Favorite in the California Governor’s Race
Grindr CEO George Arison tries to avoid discussing politics. But he and the popular gay dating app he leads are making a play for influence both in Sacramento and Washington. Grindr recently announced it washosting a buzzy party as part of this year’s White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner weekend. And now Arison, like many of California’s tech executives, is backing San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan to be the next governor. Mahan, a moderate Democrat, is making anaggressive fundraising and advertising push after Eric Swalwell dropped out of the governor’s race and resigned from Congress amid allegations of sexual assault. Arison, however, says he’s been a fan of Mahan for years. The longtime Bay Area resident sent Mahan’s campaign a $7,000 check this week and expressed his increasing frustration with the state’s direction in an interview with POLITICO Magazine. “I like living here for professional reasons. I like living here for the environment,” Arison said, echoing sentiments from a politically reawakened Silicon Valley. “But I hate living here for the fact that we have a state government that is quite bigger than the one a decade ago that provides less services.” Grindr has been a California-based company since it was founded in Los Angeles in 2009 and remains headquartered in West Hollywood, despite atumultuous stint under Chinese ownership. Since Arison became CEO in 2022, he’s wanted to remake the dating app into an AI-focused company by applying automation to its troves of data. Grindr began rolling out some of those AI features for paid users this year. “I got excited about this job because I knew AI was going to become very big,” said Arison, who previously co-founded the startup Pulsar AI. He added that Grindr’s advantage was having “all the users and then also the data.” When it comes to AI regulation, Arison favors the Trump administration’s light-touch strategy over Sacramento’s ideas for overseeing risks posed by advanced models, like its landmark safety and transparency law SB 53. He is vehemently against a data center moratorium or ban, blasting its proponents as “demagogues.” Arison, who once faced online backlash after describing himself as a conservative, also called recent suggestions from OpenAI to establish a public wealth fund and incentivize 32-hour workweek pilot programs to deal with disruption from AI “ridiculous.” The AI labs, he said, “are full of people who are not capitalists.” The following conversation was edited for length… [TheTopNews] Read More.2 weeks ago - Can Turning Off Your Phone Bring You Closer to God?
John Mark Comer can be a hard man to find. He’s one of the most famous pastors in America right now, an author whose books have together sold more than 1 million copies, but he’s not the most reachable guy. He has a professional website but no contact page. He rarely travels. And as I reported this story, I began to learn his habits: Sending him a text early in the day was a wash, for instance, because he doesn’t check his phone until after morning prayer time. Once, when I reached out by email, I got an out-of-office response that he had set before Christmas explaining that he was observing “rhythms of rest” and asking that I try him again after his return in mid-January. Incoming messages sent in the meantime would be deleted.I had first seen Comer in October, at a service for Church of the City New York, held inside a historic chapel in Lower Manhattan. Lo-fi beats played over the speakers as hundreds of people, mostly in their 20s and 30s, milled around and looked for seats in the crammed pews. When Comer took the stage, dressed in a matching ochre shirt-jacket and pants, a silver stud in his left ear, the crowd cheered and whooped.He pulled up a slide. It was not the usual Bible story or psalm, but an excerpt from Anne Helen Petersen’s 2019 BuzzFeed essay “How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation.” Burnout is “not a temporary affliction,” it read. “It’s the millennial condition.” The Gen Z one, too, Comer added. “It’s like we just churn out tired, exhausted souls like a widget factory,” he said. “I don’t know if you feel this at all yet in your body or in your bones. If you don’t, it’s because you’re still young and you haven’t been in the city very long. But you will. Trust me, you will.”Then he clicked over to a passage from the Gospel of Matthew:Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.“Most of us, as modern Americans,” Comer said, with a hand over his heart, “we read that line and there’s just this, like, deep, soul-level, Yes,… [TheTopNews] Read More.2 weeks ago - The FBI Director Is MIAOn Friday, April 10, as FBI Director Kash Patel was preparing to leave work for the weekend, he struggled to log into an internal computer system. He quickly became convinced that he had been locked out, and he panicked, frantically calling aides and allies to announce that he had been fired by the White House, according to nine people familiar with his outreach. Two of these people described his behavior as a “freak-out.”Patel oversees an agency that employs roughly 38,000 people, including many who are trained to investigate and verify information that can be presented under oath in a court of law. News of his emotional outburst ricocheted through the bureau, prompting chatter among officials and, in some corners of the building, expressions of relief. The White House fielded calls from the bureau and from members of Congress asking who was now in charge of the FBI.It turned out that the answer was still Patel. He had not been fired. The access problem, two people familiar with the matter said, appears to have been a technical error, and it was quickly resolved. “It was all ultimately bullshit,” one FBI official told me.But Patel, according to multiple current officials, as well as former officials who have stayed close to him, is deeply concerned that his job is in jeopardy. He has good reasons to think so—including some having to do with what witnesses described to me as bouts of excessive drinking. My colleague Ashley Parker and I reported earlier this month that Patel was among the officials expected to be fired after Attorney General Pam Bondi’s ouster, on April 2. “We’re all just waiting for the word” that Patel is officially out of the top job, an FBI official told me this week, and a former official told my colleague Jonathan Lemire that Patel was “rightly paranoid.” Senior members of the Trump administration are already discussing who might replace him, according to an administration official and two people close to the White House who were familiar with the conversations.In response to a detailed list of 19 questions, the White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told me in a statement that under Donald Trump and Patel, “crime across the country has plummeted to the lowest level in more than 100 years and many high profile criminals have been put behind bars. Director Patel remains a critical player on the Administration’s law and order… [TheTopNews] Read More.2 weeks ago
- Motor School with Quinn Redeker: It’s Automatic
The NT1100 DCT is one of eight models available with Honda’s automatic Dual Clutch Transmission. (Photo by Simon Cudby) If I asked you to get my BMW R 1300 RT-P out of my garage, you could do it with your eyes closed; hop on, pull in the clutch, roll the bike back and forth as you confirm it’s in 1st gear, find neutral with the delicacy of a safe cracker, and start rolling it back with careful solid presses of your legs. And if you were on a slight incline, you would probably employ the front brake preload trick as you backed out, which I won’t explain because it would come to you intuitively. But recently, I’ve been exposed to something that takes a major component of my training and motorcycling experience and blows it sideways, and we need to discuss it: automatic clutch systems. I’m confident you know about the biggies – Honda’s Dual Clutch Transmission, BMW’s Automated Shift Assistant, and KTM’s Automated Manual Transmission – and maybe you’ve been curious. Well today I’d like to give you my practical hands-on seat-of-the-pants situational optics on the subject in case you are on the fence about buying a motorcycle equipped with one of these systems. Just understand that if you want a dive deep into the technological origins and mechanical innerworkings of automatic clutch systems, I’m not your guy. And to clarify, this is not a head-to-head shootout between automatic clutches but rather an exploration of their unique characteristics when compared to a traditional manual clutch during a glorious Southern California ride day. Okay, let’s hit it. Honda’s Dual Clutch Transmission The first obvious observation is the lack of a clutch lever, and with it, the elimination of the need to use one when shifting gears. Instead, you have various buttons, selectors, and modes to get things rolling. So after a few quirky sequences are initiated, you can successfully get in gear and head down the road without the need to lift a finger (or your left toe). And hey, I’ll admit it’s kind of nice. What happens if you roll up to a traffic light and realize your airbag vest is offline and requires all hands on deck? If you are like me, you will reflexively start jabbing at zippers and tabs to get it online again, ignoring the fact that you never downshifted… [TheTopNews] Read More.2 weeks ago - Spot Market Shift: Flatbed Gains While Van and Reefer Rates Cool
Flatbed Strength Continues as Van and Reefer Markets Pull Back The freight spot market is showing a clear shift as flatbed rates continue to climb, while dry van and refrigerated (reefer) rates begin to cool. After several weeks of strong increases driven by rising fuel costs linked to global conflict, the market is now adjusting. As a result, carriers are seeing mixed trends across different equipment types. According to recent reports from FTR Transportation Intelligence and DAT Freight & Analytics, this marks the first decline in van and reefer rates since the Iran war triggered a surge in fuel prices. However, flatbed demand remains strong, pushing rates higher for the 15th consecutive week. Dry Van Market Sees Decline in Rates and Volumes The dry van segment experienced a slowdown last week. Although rates remain elevated compared to last year, both pricing and load volumes dropped. Key dry van trends include: Spot rates decreased by 2 cents Linehaul rates fell by 4 cents per mile to $2.00 Load volumes declined by 7.4% Rates are still about 25–37% higher year over year Therefore, while the market is cooling, it remains stronger than in previous years. This suggests that demand is stabilizing after recent volatility. Refrigerated Segment Shows Sharper Drop The refrigerated market experienced a more noticeable pullback. After several weeks of strong growth, rates and volumes both declined significantly. Key reefer trends include: Spot rates dropped by 8 cents Linehaul rates fell to $2.39 per mile Load volumes decreased by 14% Rates remain about 27–35% higher than last year Meanwhile, this decline follows a sharp surge in previous weeks, where reefer rates had increased rapidly. As a result, the current drop may reflect a market correction rather than a long-term downturn. Flatbed Market Continues Upward Momentum In contrast, the flatbed segment continues to show strong performance. Demand remains high, and rates are still increasing, although at a slightly slower pace. Key flatbed trends include: Spot rates increased by 8 cents Linehaul rates rose to $2.58 per mile Load volumes grew by 6.2% Rates are up about 15–21% year over year Additionally, flatbed rates have reached their highest levels since mid-2022. This ongoing growth highlights strong demand in sectors such as construction and industrial freight. Market Shift Reflects Changing Conditions The divergence between flatbed and other segments reflects broader market adjustments. While fuel price spikes initially… [TheTopNews] Read More.2 weeks ago
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