The next stop on Sheryl Sandberg's Sheryl Sandberg Publicity Tour: our shuttered nation's capital, where the shutdown means government officials are happy to meet you, but unable to explain to anyone why.

A familiar sheen of sweat coated Mark Zuckerberg's forehead yesterday when James Bennet, editor-in-chief of the Atlantic, asked the CEO of Facebook to place himself on the political spectrum. "Liberal conservative, Libertarian, Democrat, Republican, or something else?" asked Bennet.

Late Saturday night, Bridget Todd, a writer, activist, and former lecturer at Howard University, tweeted at taxi dispatch startup Uber that she'd been choked by the driver she'd ordered on Uber's smartphone app—apparently because he was angry at her interracial relationship. Uber CEO Travis Kalanick's response, in an emailed warning to his PR team: "make sure these writers don't come away thinking we are responsible when these things do go bad…"