Trump is looting our country. He just gave us (more) proof.

Lawyer Oyer – Trump is looting our country. He just gave us (more) proof. “This week [May 17, 2026], Trump filed a government ethics disclosure known as Form 278-T. It’s a roadmap to the corruption and conflicts of interest that have pervaded his presidency. Call me old fashioned, but it continues to surprise me that …

Subjects: Economy, Financial System, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Legal Research, Securities Law

Hundreds of prolific Wikipedia editors are threatening to go on strike

The Verge – “After the Wikimedia Foundation abruptly dissolved a beloved team of engineers, Wikipedia’s volunteers are angry — and discussing how they can push back. Wikipedia is one of the last bastions of trust on the internet. But last week, volunteer editors and contributors were alarmed to hear that a small but important team …

Subjects: E-Records, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

YouTube stops hiding its AI labels

Indicator: ‘YouTube announced it will make its AI labels more visible on content that is “photorealistic and meaningfully AI altered or generated.” [Work in Progress so be alert] Instead of burying labels in the description, the platform will now display them directly below or overlaid on the video (depending on the format). YouTube will also …

Subjects: Legal Research

As data centers boom, Virginians breathe the exhaust of 10,000 diesel generators

Washington Post [no paywall]: “Pollution from generators at data centers could cause respiratory symptoms and deaths in the region, an analysis for The Washington Post found….Data centers — warehouses stuffed with powerful computers — are spreading across the United States to support tech industry visions of a gleaming future powered by artificial intelligence. Most come …

Subjects: AI, Health Care, Legal Research

When everyone has AI and the company still learns nothing

Robert Glasser: “Are people using AI, or is the organization learning from it? What changed because we spent those tokens? And who moves discoveries from individuals to teams to organizational capabilities? Ethan Mollick has been writing about AI adoption in organizations for a while now. In Making AI Work: Leadership, Lab, and Crowd, he makes the …

Subjects: AI, E-Records, Education, Intellectual Property, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Privacy

Nonfiction Book Publishers Aren’t Remotely Ready for AI

New York Mag – Intelligencer [no paywall]: “Steven Rosenbaum started writing his book The Future of Truth: How AI Reshapes Reality in 2022, around when ChatGPT launched. Initially he didn’t use it at all, “But as the writing moved forward into 2023, 2024, it got better and I got better at using it,” he said. …

Subjects: AI, Education, Intellectual Property, Internet, Knowledge Management, Libraries

The Influenced Index – Measuring what money buys in American politics

The Influenced Index scores every member on ten categories: direct contributions, outside spending, lobbying inside the policy areas they regulate, revolving-door lobbying access, vote alignment with funders, contribution timing around legislative action, dark-money concentration in outside spending, stock trades inside the industries they regulate, donor concentration, and foreign-interest lobby exposure. Evidence of capture — how …

Subjects: Congress, Economy, Financial System, Government Documents, Legal Research

US healthcare still stupidly expensive, with pathetic outcomes, study finds

The Commonwealth Fund – U.S. Health Care from a Global Perspective, 2026: “Countries around the world are grappling with the shared challenges of rising health care costs, physician burnout, and aging populations. Yet the United States has long been an outlier in several respects. The U.S., on average, has the poorest health outcomes of any …

Subjects: Economy, Health Care, Medicine

Taxpayer Funding for National Parks Diverted to Trump Vanity Projects in DC, NY

Via Crooked: A…New York Times review of federal documents found that $67 million in entry fees paid at national parks are now funding Trump’s D.C. construction projects. More specifically, $60 million is going toward repairing nine of the “capital’s ornamental fountains.” The last $7 million is going into the Reflecting Pool. [Note – no bid …

Subjects: Economy, Environmental Law, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Legal Research