The long and extremely urgent to-do list if Democrats win control of Congress

The long and extremely urgent to-do list if Democrats win control of Congress

Norman J. Ornstein writes: In the 1972 movie The Candidate, Bill McKay, played by Robert Redford, shockingly wins a Senate seat. Surrounded by ecstatic staff and volunteers, a stunned and panicky McKay pulls aside his manager and asks, “What do we do now?” That will be the relevant question for Democrats in the House and Senate if the wave election that looks increasingly possible comes true and they win control of both houses of Congress. There will be initial euphoria…

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Saudi-backed Yemeni government declares war against Houthis, widening crisis

Saudi-backed Yemeni government declares war against Houthis, widening crisis

The New York Times reports: The Saudi-backed government of Yemen on Sunday announced a major military campaign against the Houthi militia, a key Iranian ally, plunging the Middle East even deeper into war. In a televised speech, Rashad al-Alimi, the leader of the internationally recognized, Saudi-backed government, said that the government was seeking to reclaim all the territory it had lost to the Houthis over the past 12 years. The government and the Houthis have been engaged in fierce battles…

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Trump wants control of South America. If Bolsonaro Jr wins in Brazil, that could become a reality

Trump wants control of South America. If Bolsonaro Jr wins in Brazil, that could become a reality

Steve Bloomfield writes: Donald Trump has enjoyed very few foreign policy victories since returning to power. From failed wars to failed peace processes, his second term in office has been marked by one costly blunder on the world stage after another. In Latin America, though, the US president has a different story to tell. His administration’s national security strategy outlined how the US wanted to “restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere”. It was a brazen document, laying out how…

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AI infrastructure buildout surpasses every prior investment in American history, posing systemic risks

AI infrastructure buildout surpasses every prior investment in American history, posing systemic risks

Quartz reports: A new Brookings Institution study finds that the U.S. artificial intelligence infrastructure buildout is on pace to consume a larger share of economic output than any prior technology rollout in American history, including railroads, the interstate highway system, and the internet — while the financing structures underpinning it carry systemic financial risks. The study — authored by Columbia Business School finance and real estate professor Stijn van Nieuwerburgh — puts total spending on data centers and related AI…

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Dean Baker: If AI is crashing, the story should be jail in, not bail out

Dean Baker: If AI is crashing, the story should be jail in, not bail out

Dean Baker writes: We can’t know yet whether the Oracle meltdown, and the AI leaders’ admission that they don’t know what they are doing, will be enough to force the big money actors in the stock market to look at arithmetic, but we can hope. And if they do see reality, and the bubble begins to deflate, and the big AI companies head towards bankruptcy, we can predict what the politicians they bought will look to do: give them huge…

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McKinsey: AI will create millions new jobs — in places you don’t live, for workers with skills you don’t have

McKinsey: AI will create millions new jobs — in places you don’t live, for workers with skills you don’t have

McKinsey Global Institute reports: While social media abounds with dire predictions about the impact of AI on labor, the United States is likely to have more jobs available in 2035 than today, but with fewer workers because the population is aging. While estimates of the full impact of AI on the workforce differ widely, our base estimate indicates that automation could reduce labor demand by the equivalent of roughly 36 million jobs, while growth in the AI value chain and…

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Don’t be fooled — LLMs don’t reason

Don’t be fooled — LLMs don’t reason

Thore Graepel writes: On an afternoon in Seoul in March 2016, I watched a program I helped build put a stone on the fifth line of a Go board in what looked like a gift to its human opponent. Move 37 in game two of the five-game match looked so absurd that some commentators thought it was a programming glitch. It wasn’t. AlphaGo won the game, ultimately triumphing 4-1 over Lee Sedol, one of the greatest professional Go players of…

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I quit OpenAI because its culture is broken — the time for trial and error is over

I quit OpenAI because its culture is broken — the time for trial and error is over

David Robinson writes: What I’m about to tell you has, I realize, become something of a cliché: I resigned this week from OpenAI. I led the writing of the safety reports we published with each major launch. Now I’m joining a parade of former colleagues—at OpenAI and the industry’s other leaders—who have decided that the current path is unacceptable. I agree with other recently departed staff that the companies building this technology aren’t being nearly careful enough. But I believe…

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Are the AI hyperscalers engaged in the ‘largest misallocation of capital in history’?

Are the AI hyperscalers engaged in the ‘largest misallocation of capital in history’?

David Rotman writes: When Jessica Wachter, a finance professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, wanted to assess AI’s impact on the economy over the next few years, she faced a long list of business and technical uncertainties. So she started with what she calls a “remarkable fact” that is not in question: A handful of so-called hyperscalers are investing huge amounts of money to build AI data centers. Instead of trying to predict how useful and widely deployed…

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Zohran Mamdani is elevating politics by filling potholes

Zohran Mamdani is elevating politics by filling potholes

Lydia Polgreen writes: A few days before the leaders of the world streamed into the cavernous, marble-lined General Assembly Hall to deliver their speeches on the grave crises convulsing our combustible world, Mayor Zohran Mamdani offered his own, somewhat surprising solution to the problem of rising authoritarianism: filling potholes. “If politics cannot deliver on the block where you live, why would you trust it to deliver anywhere?” Mamdani asked a gathering of mayors from big cities across the world, explaining…

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Trump demanded that taxpayer money be used for TV ads praising him

Trump demanded that taxpayer money be used for TV ads praising him

The New York Times reports: President Trump personally instructed his budget director to use taxpayer money for TV ads praising him and his presidency, setting in motion a $20 million contract that used funds from the Department of Homeland Security, according to people familiar with the matter. The ads have run across cable and network television — on Fox News, CNN and MS Now, with football games on Fox and with national newscasts on CBS, ABC and NBC, including “Meet…

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We live in a rape-prone society. The horrific Cornell case reveals what that looks like

We live in a rape-prone society. The horrific Cornell case reveals what that looks like

Rebecca Solnit writes: Sometimes a story is so so appalling, it captures the public’s attention, including the attention of people who don’t focus on the issue otherwise. Such is the case with the alleged 2024 gang rape at Cornell University. For feminists who focus on violence against women or anyone who has ever cared about campus rape, the claims made in Jane Doe’s civil lawsuit against the alleged perpetrators may be unusual in its severity – but we know the…

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Economic strain is pitting China’s people against each other

Economic strain is pitting China’s people against each other

From Beijing, Helen Gao writes: For years, the mood in China has been darkening. A weakening economy has left many disillusioned, a state of mind expressed privately and across the heavily controlled internet in lowered expectations and quiet anxiety. Some of that may now be surfacing in more troubling ways. In March, a man drove a heavy construction vehicle through an outdoor market in a Beijing suburb, reportedly killing several people. In June, a small aircraft crashed into a prominent…

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‘The toll is huge’: El Niño-driven wildfires overwhelm Indonesia’s orangutan population

‘The toll is huge’: El Niño-driven wildfires overwhelm Indonesia’s orangutan population

The Guardian reports: The mother’s hands were peeling from walking on the torched ground. Her eight-month-old baby, which clung to her side, was dehydrated and thin. The pair, named Mama Abu and Abu (“ash” in Indonesian), were found in an oil palm subsidiary estate, rescuers say. The orangutan pair were saved last month from wildfires that are devouring Indonesia’s forests and peatland, unleashing thick smog, and destroying the habitat of some of the planet’s most vulnerable species. Primate specialists from…

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