Filing Your 2025 Taxes
Forbes – “Filing Your 2025 Taxes — The Biggest Changes You Need To Know. Taxpayers should prepare for major tax-policy shifts this year. Forbes’ expert contributors explain how — and when — key rule changes may affect you…”
United States Completes WHO Withdrawal
WASHINGTON — January 22, 2026—The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of State today announced the United States’ completion of its withdrawal from the World Health Organization (WHO) due to the organization’s mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic that arose out of Wuhan, China, its failure to adopt urgently needed reforms, …
CBP Murdered Alex Jeffrey Pretti in Minneapolis MN on January 24, 2026
“The death of Alex Pretti, the Minneapolis man killed by federal agents, has been ruled a homicide, the Hennepin County medical examiner’s office said.” February 1, 2026 update. Propublica identifies the two men who murdered Alex Pretti – Two CBP Agents Identified in Alex Pretti Shooting. The two federal immigration agents who fired on Minneapolis …
The Kleptocracy Tracker
“SNF Agora faculty and fellows are frequently called upon by local, national, and international media to offer context and insight on the complex challenges facing democracy today. Drawing on their research and real-world experience, they contribute to a wide range of public conversations, including about elections, civic engagement, disinformation, political polarization, and global governance. The …
Search Bench
“I built Search Bench as a small experiment to compare search engines without showing which engine produced which results. It was inspired by the idea behind the LLM Arena, but applied to search. How it works: 1. You enter a query. 2. You see two result sets side-by-side (search engine names hidden). 3. You pick …
Activists Say Ring Cameras Are Being Used by ICE
Futurism: “As US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents wreak havoc on American communities, big tech companies have been making themselves indispensable to the increasingly tyrannical state. Among them is Amazon subsidiary Ring, the company behind those AI doorbell cameras that have exploded in popularity over the last few years. Back in October, Ring announced that …
Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, January 24, 2026
Via LLRX – Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, January 24, 2026 – Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the …
Hold Fast, Harvard
Via LLRX – Hold Fast, Harvard – Since 2025 the Secretary of Education Linda McMahon has engaged in battles with major American institutions of higher education and research. Using the Trump administration’s Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education, McMahon demands strict adherence to “educational principles” that include elimination of ‘DEI’ programs to quality for ‘preferential federal …
Your Wi-Fi name can expose more information than you think
MakeUseOf: “When you set up your home Wi-Fi network, your router’s name—technically called the SSID (Service Set Identifier)—might seem like an innocent detail. After all, it’s just the name you see when looking for available networks, right? Not quite. That simple network name is actually a privacy minefield, and the information it reveals might shock …
House Democrats propose QR code ID requirement for ICE, CBP agents
Biometricupdate.com: “House Democrats introduced legislation that if passed would force federal immigration enforcement agents to wear a public-facing identification in the form of a clearly visible and scannable QR code during enforcement actions. The measure, H.R. 7233, was introduced last week by Rep. Ritchie Torre, a Democrat from New York, and referred to the House …
Anthropic’s warning to the world about risk of AI
Axios – Behind the Curtain: “Anthropic’s warning to the world Why it matters: In a new essay, Dario Amodei cautions of the imminent “real danger” that super-human intelligence will cause civilization-level damage absent smart, speedy intervention…” Quartz: “In a sprawling, 38-page essay, “The Adolescence of Technology: Confronting and Overcoming the Risks of Powerful AI,” posted …
Prepping for the SAT Using AI
TechCrunch “Prepping for the SAT is nobody’s idea of fun, but Google aims to make it less stressful with AI. The company announced that it’s now focusing its AI education efforts on standardized testing with free SAT practice exams powered by Gemini. Students can prompt Gemini by typing “I want to take a practice SAT …