Author archives

How Trump 2.0 upended education research and statistics in one year

The Hechinger Report – Decades of carefully built infrastructure aimed at improving and tracking how American children learn vanished in an ideological attack. “Inauguration Day was a time of hope for the MAGA faithful who watched President Donald Trump take his second oath of office in the Capitol rotunda. But less than a mile away, …

Subjects: Censorship, Congress, Education, Government Documents, Health Care

The Stats on Abortion Access in Rural America

Daily  Yonder: “Nearly 19 million rural Americans live in states with the most restricted access to abortion.Compared to their urban and suburban counterparts, a greater share of the rural population lives in states with the most restrictive abortion legislation, according to my analysis of data from theAbout 46% of nonmetropolitan, or rural, Americans live in …

Subjects: Health Care, Legal Research, Medicine

Teens, Social Media and AI Chatbots 2025

Pew: “Young people turn to a variety of platforms, but YouTube stands out for being used by nearly all teens. Roughly nine-in-ten report ever using it. Teens widely use three other platforms: About six-in-ten or more say they use TikTok and Instagram. A somewhat smaller share say they go on Snapchat (55%). Fewer use Facebook (31%) and WhatsApp (24%). And no more than about one-in-five say …

Subjects: AI, Internet, Knowledge Management, Search Engines, Social Media

Donald Trump’s War on Free Speech & the Need for Systemic Resistance

Free Press: “We took the freedom of speech away.” President Trump in opening remarks at his “antifa roundtable” (October 2025) Download the Report  Key Findings  Timeline of Attacks “This Free Press report examines the Trump administration’s hostile relationship with dissent and free expression in 2025. It analyzes how President Trump and his political enablers have …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Free Speech, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

Growing plants from seed

YouTuber Boxlapse compiles a bunch of their time-lapse videos of various plants growing into a 22 minute supercut. Plant [and a couple of fungus] names are listed as chapters to the video in the description. As close to touching grass as you can get while watching YouTube. 4360 Days (11.9 years) of growing in total. …

Subjects: Education, Environmental Law

AI Deals and Disputes Tracker

AI Deals and Disputes Tracker Last updated on December 8, 2025 Platforms and Publishers Project P&P Timeline Other Tow Center Reports This tracker monitors developments between news publishers and AI companies—including Lawsuits, Deals, and Grants—based on publicly available information. It is compiled by Tow Center as part of the Platforms and Publishers project. The tracker …

Subjects: AI, Internet, Legal Research

Venezuela and US Military Strikes: Considerations for Congress

Venezuela and U.S. Military Strikes: Considerations for Congress CRS Insight, IN12618, 12/01/2025. Referenced Legislation – H.Con.Res. 61; S.J.Res. 83; S.J.Res. 90 – “On November 29, 2025, President Trump announced the closure of Venezuelan airspace days after the State Department designated the Cartel de los Soles (Cartel of the Suns) a foreign terrorist organization (FTO). Some experts …

Subjects: Congress, Defense, Government Documents, Legal Research, Legislation

Do you ever wonder what Congress is up to?

Do you ever wonder what Congress is up to? Well, now a new Legislative Branch Data Map shows where you can find out info about things like staffing, legislation tracking, lobbying, financial and gift disclosures, and more –  Legislative Branch Data Map, version 0.1This data map is a product of the Congressional Data Task Force …

Subjects: Congress, E-Government, Economy, Financial System, Government Documents, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Legislation

What 38 million obituaries reveal about how Americans define a ‘life well lived’

The Conversation: “Obituaries preserve what families most want remembered about the people they cherish most. Across time, they also reveal the values each era chose to honor. In a study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, we analyzed 38 million obituaries of Americans published from 1998 to 2024. We identified …

Subjects: Knowledge Management, Legal Research

AI Jurisprudence: Toward Automated Justice

Datzov, Nikola, AI Jurisprudence: Toward Automated Justice (September 9, 2024 – Revised December 4, 2025). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=5178780  “The U.S. judiciary’s evolving role and digitization into a “modern” court system over the past several decades has brought it to a fundamentally altering moment: the adoption of automated justice. Recent developments in artificial intelligence (AI) …

Subjects: AI, Courts, Education, Legal Research