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NiemanLab: “A new policy at Law360, the legal news service owned by LexisNexis, requires that every story pass through an AI-powered “bias” detection tool before publication. The Law360 Union, which represents over 200 editorial staffers across the 350-person newsroom, has denounced the mandate since it went into effect in mid-May. On June 17, unit chair …
FastCompany – no paywall: “More than half of Americans now use a chatbot, with an increasing number of people replacing search engines with large language model (LLM)-powered chat queries to navigate the web and find answers. In general, the quality of these outputs is improving as the underlying models get better. However, the challenge of …
The New York Timesl: “Senior Justice Department officials are exploring whether they can bring criminal charges against state or local election officials if the Trump administration determines they have not sufficiently safeguarded their computer systems, according to people familiar with the discussions. The department’s effort, which is still in its early stages, is not based …
The Atlantic no paywall: “…Over the days ahead, and then weeks, and then more weeks, I got pulled into a corner of modern existence that you are, of course, familiar with. You know it from dealing with your own car company, or insurance company, or health-care network, or internet provider, or utility provider, or streaming …
AP: “A federal judge has ruled that recent mass layoffs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services were likely unlawful and ordered the Trump administration to halt plans to downsize and reorganize the nation’s health workforce. U.S. District Judge Melissa DuBose granted the preliminary injunction sought by a coalition of attorneys general from …
Nature: “From 1 July, researchers funded by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) will be required to make their scientific papers available to read for free as soon as they are published in a peer-reviewed journal. That’s according to the agency’s latest public-access policy, aimed at making federally funded research accessible to taxpayers. US …
The New Republic: “Yes, Donald Trump is a threat to democracy. But the far bigger menace is the monstrous growth in wealth concentration over five decades that made a Trump presidency possible—and maybe inevitable. Here’s how we let it happen. Donald Trump is America’s first billionaire president. He entered the White House in 2017 with …
[Not an endorsement – this is an example of how AI is applied to a specific environmental disaster] “The increasing loss of bee colonies around the world poses a threat to approximately 75% of pollination-dependent crops that humans consume, as well as to the pollinators themselves. At Beewise, our business model is intrinsically linked to …
“ICEBlock, an iPhone app that allows users to anonymously report sightings of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, has rocketed to one of the coveted top spots in Apple’s U.S. App Store rankings. The upshot: Criticism from U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi helped get it there. Most of ICEBlock’s users — about 20,000 — …
Ars Technica: “In another sign that the Trump White House is aggressively moving to slash NASA’s science programs, dozens of mission leaders have been asked to prepare “closeout” plans by the end of next week. The new directive came from NASA’s senior leadership on Monday, which is acting on behalf of the White House Office …
UPI – “The Trump administration has quietly shut down a major federal website that hosted congressionally mandated national climate assessments, which were the U.S. government’s preeminent reports on climate change impacts, risks and responses. The disappearance Monday of the U.S. Global Change Research Program’s website marked an unexpected loss in public access to the most …
Corey Robin: “Now that Zohran Mamdani has won the New York City mayoral primary, the New York Times is asking the question, “Zohran Mamdani Says He’s a Democratic Socialist. What Does That Mean?” The article doesn’t provide much of an answer. Instead, it trots out my old bête noire, Sheri Berman, who offers up crisp …