Jamaal Bowman

This story was originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist’s weekly newsletter here.Does Beyond Meat’s Plant Have a Mold Problem?Last fall, Marielle Williamson, a senior at Eagle Rock High School in Los Angeles, set up a table just outside her school’s college center. Stocked with free stickers and cartons of Oatly oat milk, she settled in to tell people about the environmental and ethical benefits of plant-based milk. Classmates soon crowded around for samples of oat- or pea protein-based beverages.“Students loved…

Photo: J. Scott Applewhite (AP)With calls for a national ban against TikTok growing more and more common by the week, particularly in Congress, it’s never been a tougher time to be a lawmaker publicly supporting the app. Still, a vocal minority of House and Senate Democrats—no Republicans—are defying those calls and doing so on the platform despite recent federal laws barring the app on government devices.The few politicians willing to stick their necks out on the short-form video app overwhelmingly come from one party.…

Self-described libertarian, Kentucky Senator, and messy yard dispute loser Rand Paul has broken with fellow Republicans and become possibly the sole GOP voice opposing a national TikTok ban. In his view, banning TikTok would violate Americans’ right to free speech and would make vindictive US lawmakers no different from their Chinese counterparts who’ve moved to ban US social media firms like Facebook and YouTube. Paul’s recent statements come just days after House lawmakers from both parties laid into TikTok CEO Shou Zi…

Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) on Sunday argued that a national TikTok ban would be like putting “a Band-Aid on maybe a small scab,” saying that lawmakers needed to focus on a broader data security bill. “To ban TikTok is to put a Band-Aid on maybe a small scab versus what’s happening in the whole social media landscape,” Bowman said in an interview with MSNBC’s “PoliticsNation.” “We need a national data privacy piece of legislation.” Bowman has been fighting back against a rising tide of bipartisan support for…

A fiery coalition of more than two dozen TikTok content creators gathered outside the steps of the nation’s capitol Wednesday to fiercely oppose growing lawmaker calls for a nationwide ban. Every one of those protesters had their expenses covered by TikTok.The spokesperson for the social media firm confirmed that it paid for the creators’ travel expenses in a statement sent to Gizmodo. Those payments, according to a Wired report, covered the hotel, travel, meal, and shuttle rides for the creators, some of whom traveled…

The call for climate action is coming from the inside the House. More than a dozen congressional staffers occupied the Washington D.C. office of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer today, in a protest demanding that Congress pass policy to combat climate change. Less than an hour after the demonstration began, Capitol police arrived and arrested many of the staffers, according to a series of tweets and photos from New Yorker journalist, Andrew Marantz.In an emailed statement to Gizmodo, U.S. Capitol Police said the…