The techno-fascists have just been blindsided by democracy

The techno-fascists have just been blindsided by democracy

Eduardo Porter writes: The Stanford ethicist Rob Reich was once invited to a dinner organized by a Silicon Valley mogul to discuss what a state designed to maximize science and tech powered by commercial models might look like. The gathered technologists were drawn to the idea of building a small nation-state dedicated to the endeavor, Reich recalls in “System Error: Where Big Tech Went Wrong and How We Can Reboot it”. When Reich asked whether this state would be a…

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AI is pushing medical costs higher

AI is pushing medical costs higher

The New York Times reports: In the latest sign that artificial intelligence is fueling higher health care costs, a group of insurers released a report Thursday claiming that hospitals’ use of A.I. was responsible for nearly $1 billion in additional expenses over two years. Using codes for various medical conditions, hospitals submitted claims for tens of thousands of patients that described their illnesses as more complex in 2024 and 2025 than in 2023. Despite the added conditions, there was no…

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Soaring diesel prices are clobbering Trump’s MAGA faithful, exposing rifts

Soaring diesel prices are clobbering Trump’s MAGA faithful, exposing rifts

The Washington Post reports: The administration has long since exhausted the tools available for mitigating the damage to consumers [caused by high fuel prices]. It paused the century-old Jones Act that limits what vessels can ship fuel between U.S. ports. It has spent heavily on a military operation to protect ships seeking to traverse the Strait of Hormuz from attack, which has helped restart the flow of some fuel through the waterway. It has urged Ukraine to stop the attacks…

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U.S. and Russia stripped human oversight from global AI weapons pact

U.S. and Russia stripped human oversight from global AI weapons pact

The Washington Post reports: Early this month, hundreds of diplomats huddled in a cavernous U.N. conference room in Switzerland, working toward a muscular treaty to regulate the use of lethal autonomous weapons — the first agreement governing the use of killer artificial intelligence arms. On the last day of negotiations, the talks turned aggressive. Over the next roughly 15 hours, U.S. and Russian diplomats hammered away at the document, removing a range of provisions designed to safeguard the use of…

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New appointment at Palantir is the latest sign of how far the rot has spread in UK politics

New appointment at Palantir is the latest sign of how far the rot has spread in UK politics

Clive Lewis, the Labour MP for Norwich South, writes: Whatever is said about Tom Watson, the former deputy leader of the Labour party has a knack for landing headlines. In the past he did it at the expense of the rich and powerful – from News International, over phone hacking, to the Home Office, over its mass surveillance of our data. But his latest headline – that he has joined Palantir as a senior vice-president – has been at the…

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Netanyahu ignored warnings from Egypt and the UAE days before October 7

Netanyahu ignored warnings from Egypt and the UAE days before October 7

The Atlantic reports: When Israel’s leaders gathered in Jerusalem on September 26, 2023, to mark the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the surprise assault by Syria and Egypt as a cautionary tale, one of missed intelligence warnings and self-delusion. “We do not underestimate any threat,” he said. Roughly two hours before Netanyahu took the stage, a chartered Cessna jet linked to Egypt’s intelligence service had touched down at Ben Gurion Airport, about 30…

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Pro-Trump ads are being paid for by U.S. taxpayers

Pro-Trump ads are being paid for by U.S. taxpayers

The New York Times reports: As President Trump ran to return to the White House in 2024, his campaign released a somber, black-and-white ad in which he railed against the “deep state” and vowed to expel “warmongers” from government. “This is the final battle,” Mr. Trump is heard saying in the online ad, which shows him walking silently down a hallway. That ad has returned this weekend, airing on television stations across the country, with one notable difference: As it…

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Trump wants voters to pretend he’s on the ballot. Republicans fear that’s happening

Trump wants voters to pretend he’s on the ballot. Republicans fear that’s happening

Axios reports: President Trump told voters to pretend he’s on the ballot. Apparently they’re listening: Republicans coast to coast are getting pulled under by a violent undertow fueled by Trump’s unpopularity. Why it matters: It’s looked bad for Republicans all year, but this week felt different — like the political environment was disintegrating in real time, one ominous data point after another. Most worrisome for the GOP, there’s virtually no chance the war ends, inflation cools, interest rates fall, consumer confidence rises, and economic optimism…

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ICE raids trigger backlash from beef industry and Republican lawmakers

ICE raids trigger backlash from beef industry and Republican lawmakers

The New York Times reports: Federal immigration raids in beef-producing regions of Republican states have prompted a forceful reaction from industry associations in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas, and unusual pushback from Republican officials just weeks out from the midterm elections. The associations warned the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement actions “will lead to higher beef prices” at a time when prices of groceries and fuel are already top concerns for voters. The most recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids occurred in…

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The truth behind Trump’s ‘biggest oil deal in world history’

The truth behind Trump’s ‘biggest oil deal in world history’

The Guardian reports: Donald Trump has long coveted the oilfields of other nations and declared an agreement with Venezuela to be “the biggest oil deal in world history”. But the agreement, reached after the US seized Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, is almost certainly doomed to collapse amid a wide array of legal and logistical issues, a Guardian investigation has found. The US president first mused about taking oil from Iran in 1987, when he told ABC’s Barbara Walters that Iranian…

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YouTube, TikTok and Meta are all rejecting paid ads for Alex Gibney’s ‘Musk’ documentary

YouTube, TikTok and Meta are all rejecting paid ads for Alex Gibney’s ‘Musk’ documentary

  The Hollywood Reporter reports: So much for free speech. The studio releasing Alex Gibney’s new Elon Musk documentary Musk is finding itself unable to buy an ad on the biggest social platforms. YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram and Facebook owner Meta are all declining to run the trailer for Musk, along with X itself, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. That last one is perhaps understandable, given its owner. But the rejection by the other platforms has taken distributor Bleecker Street…

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The ‘gray arm’ of Israeli annexation

The ‘gray arm’ of Israeli annexation

+972 Magazine reports: At the end of 2022, Yagil Levy, a professor of political sociology and public policy and head of the Institute for the Study of Civil-Military Relations at the Open University of Israel, identified a shift taking place within the Israeli military. “When it comes to the Palestinians, the Israeli military is in fact splintered into two armies,” he wrote in +972 Magazine. “Alongside the ‘official’ army, a ‘policing’ force has emerged in the Israeli-controlled West Bank” —…

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Climate super-pollutant from China’s electric grid is cooking the planet

Climate super-pollutant from China’s electric grid is cooking the planet

Inside Climate News reports: China’s electric grid has a dirty secret: Despite leading the world in renewable energy expansion, it is also the largest emitter of the planet’s most potent greenhouse gas. Sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) is a synthetic chemical that plays a critical role as an electrical insulator in high-voltage equipment. The gas is odorless, invisible, non-toxic and non-flammable. But it is also a climate killer, 24,300 times more effective at warming the planet than carbon dioxide on a pound-for-pound…

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In an $80 motel room, a discovery sheds light on the origins of life

In an $80 motel room, a discovery sheds light on the origins of life

The New York Times reports: On a spring day last year, Andrew Willoughby drove three and a half hours to a cheap motel in Nags Head, N.C. From the parking lot, he texted a stranger he had met online. Julia Van Etten appeared, ushering him past a “Do Not Disturb” sign into one of the motel’s $80 rooms, which she had secretly turned into a makeshift lab. Jugs of brackish water lined the walls. Buckets overflowed with hunks of marsh…

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