Browsed by
Author: From elsewhere

Federal judge bars Trump from implementing proof of citizenship requirement to vote

Federal judge bars Trump from implementing proof of citizenship requirement to vote

The Associated Press reports: A federal judge on Wednesday permanently barred President Donald Trump’s administration from implementing most of his first executive order on elections, part of which sought to require people to show documentary proof of citizenship when they register to vote. The ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Denise Casper in Boston effectively converts a preliminary injunction she issued a year ago, in which she temporarily blocked many of Trump’s efforts to overhaul elections, into a permanent ban….

Read More Read More

Bribery: How a $45 million donation brought Larry Ellison deeper into Trump’s circle

Bribery: How a $45 million donation brought Larry Ellison deeper into Trump’s circle

The Wall Street Journal reports: Larry Ellison didn’t join the gaggle of CEOs that traveled with President Trump on his state visit to China. He wasn’t among the guests at a White House dinner Trump hosted with tech titans. He also skipped the UFC event on Trump’s 80th birthday. The Oracle billionaire didn’t need to be at these public events. Ellison, 81, has developed a more-private friendship with Trump that has helped his tech company’s business as well as his…

Read More Read More

Democratic socialists aren’t taking over America

Democratic socialists aren’t taking over America

Adam Serwer writes: Candidates endorsed by New York City’s democratic-socialist mayor, Zohran Mamdani, swept the city’s primary elections yesterday, provoking alarm in both conservative and centrist circles over the future of the Democratic Party. The right-wing New York Post dubbed the winners, Brad Lander, Claire Valdez, and Darializa Avila Chevalier, the “hateful slate.” The Free Press quoted a supporter of one of the defeated candidates warning that it “doesn’t feel safe to be Jewish anymore,” notwithstanding the fact that one…

Read More Read More

‘You can’t make billions without hurting people’: Cory Doctorow on Elon Musk, the AI bubble and bosses’ cruel fantasies

‘You can’t make billions without hurting people’: Cory Doctorow on Elon Musk, the AI bubble and bosses’ cruel fantasies

Zoe Williams writes: A “centaur”, in automation theory, is a person assisted by a machine, and a “reverse centaur”, hero of Cory Doctorow’s new book, The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI, is a “human who is conscripted into acting as an assistant to a machine”. Every warehouse worker who ever had to urinate in a water bottle because they couldn’t otherwise meet the fulfilment targets set by an algorithm is a reverse centaur. Reaching into the future, everyone…

Read More Read More

Advanced AI models suffer a near-total collapse on classic psychology test as cognitive demands increase

Advanced AI models suffer a near-total collapse on classic psychology test as cognitive demands increase

PsyPost reports: New research provides evidence that while advanced artificial intelligence models process language with remarkable skill, they struggle significantly with tasks requiring the kind of sustained focus and conflict resolution seen in human attention. The study, published in PNAS Nexus, indicates that as cognitive demands increase, these programs experience a complete collapse in their ability to override automatic responses. The findings suggest that artificial intelligence systems currently lack the fundamental executive control necessary for developing true artificial general intelligence….

Read More Read More

Ten years after Brexit, every grim prediction has more than come true

Ten years after Brexit, every grim prediction has more than come true

Geoffrey Wheatcroft writes: “It was Game of Thrones,” says George Osborne. The former Tory chancellor of the exchequer was talking about the fateful referendum 10 years ago, on June 23, 2016, on whether the United Kingdom should remain in or leave the European Union. Or rather, he was talking about one man in particular, and Osborne’s comparison was just right. For Boris Johnson, the referendum—in fact, all of politics, even all of life itself—was a game, although also an opportunity….

Read More Read More

Trump’s Iran debacle could be a an unexpected gift for America

Trump’s Iran debacle could be a an unexpected gift for America

Robert Malley and Stephen Wertheim write: With Iran, Donald Trump has done the impossible once more. In attacking that country in February, he went where his predecessors never dared, joining with Israel in a bid to overthrow or incapacitate the regime in Tehran. Having achieved neither, he appears to have accepted worse terms than he could have obtained through diplomacy. His war was a political albatross as well, garnering, at the start, less support from the public than any other…

Read More Read More

Bernie Moreno and Elizabeth Warren: Our plan to save Social Security

Bernie Moreno and Elizabeth Warren: Our plan to save Social Security

Senators Bernie Moreno and Elizabeth Warren write: One of us is a Republican from Ohio who built a business that generated hundreds of jobs. The other is a Democrat from Massachusetts who built a career protecting consumers from financial tricks and traps. We don’t agree on everything, but here’s one thing we do agree on: Congress must act now to save Social Security for generations of Americans to come. Social Security is a core component of our nation’s promise —…

Read More Read More

New DOJ memo, pushed by Stephen Miller, questions decades of protections for people with disabilities

New DOJ memo, pushed by Stephen Miller, questions decades of protections for people with disabilities

  HuffPost reports: White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller was a driving force behind the Justice Department’s recent memo giving states authority to institutionalize people with disabilities rather than fund community-based care, according to an exclusive report from Bloomberg Law. Miller was reportedly instrumental to the DOJ Office of Legal Counsel’s Thursday opinion that said states may disregard decades of Supreme Court precedent that shields people with disabilities from being forcibly institutionalized. Instead, courts had been encouraged to…

Read More Read More

I cold-called President Trump. Here’s what he told me about an oil tycoon and major donor

I cold-called President Trump. Here’s what he told me about an oil tycoon and major donor

By Alex Cuadros This story was originally published by ProPublica My family’s morning routine is usually pretty ordinary. We wake up early, drink some coffee and get our 1-year-old ready for daycare. But one Wednesday morning last month, I found myself uttering to my wife a sentence that sounded frankly surreal to both of us: “Just to let you know, I’m about to call Trump.” Then, hoping to avoid any urgent diaper events, I ducked into the next room and…

Read More Read More

From Hormuz to the cockpit: How warfare and criminal activity undermine GPS and the race to safeguard navigation

From Hormuz to the cockpit: How warfare and criminal activity undermine GPS and the race to safeguard navigation

The Strait of Hormuz is just one example of a busy shipping lane where GPS signals are blocked and faked. Asghar Besharati/Getty Images By Zak Kassas, The Ohio State University Few people want to get lost when traveling. But if there are places where being lost feels especially unsettling, they tend to be the sea, desert and sky. These environments share a defining feature: the absence of distinctive visual cues. Where horizons blur, landmarks disappear and every direction can look…

Read More Read More

The ‘little brain’ may give the aging mind a big boost

The ‘little brain’ may give the aging mind a big boost

Science News reports: The cerebellum, the wizened “little brain” nestled in the base of the skull, may help keep us sharp as we age. Regions at the back of the cerebellum that resisted shrinkage with age were tied to better mental functioning, or cognition, even in people in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, researchers report June 10 in Nature Neuroscience. Though traditionally thought of as a movement control center, scientists now know the cerebellum is a key player in…

Read More Read More

‘Blatantly unlawful’: Federal judge blocks DOJ subpoenas aimed at Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz

‘Blatantly unlawful’: Federal judge blocks DOJ subpoenas aimed at Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz

Politico reports: A federal judge has thrown out Justice Department grand jury subpoenas aimed at Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and his allies, calling them an abusive and retaliatory process to punish Walz based on his refusal to assist President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. In a blistering ruling, U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz said there was “no doubt” that the subpoenas were issued to damage Walz — part of what he said was a pattern of Trump administration efforts to use…

Read More Read More

‘I’m out’: Tucker Carlson says he’s done with the GOP

‘I’m out’: Tucker Carlson says he’s done with the GOP

Axios reports: Conservative pundit Tucker Carlson says he’s “out” of the Republican Party moving forward, arguing the GOP no longer reflects his views. Why it matters: The public split underscores growing fractures inside the broad MAGA coalition President Trump built, as his Iran war and handling of the economy continue to divide Republicans. What they’re saying: “I’m out,” Carlson said on an episode of the “Can’t Be Censored” podcast that aired Thursday but gained traction online Monday. “And if I’m out, then I think a lot of other people are out.” “I…

Read More Read More