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Donald Trump now challenges the rule of law

Donald Trump now challenges the rule of law

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Jonathan Chait writes: For most of Donald Trump’s presidency, the specter of a coming constitutional crisis has loomed over the Russia investigation. The newly leaked memo by Trump’s lawyers, obtained by the New York Times, suggests that such a crisis is not merely a likelihood, but that it has already begun. The memo proposes several tendentious interpretations of the publicly available facts of Trump’s behavior, along with some legally questionable and amateurish citations of precedent. But the most important passage…

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Google’s artificial intelligence drone project for the Pentagon provoked backlash for the company

Google’s artificial intelligence drone project for the Pentagon provoked backlash for the company

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Gizmodo reports: Google will not seek another contract for its controversial work providing artificial intelligence to the U.S. Department of Defense for analyzing drone footage after its current contract expires. Google Cloud CEO Diane Greene announced the decision at a meeting with employees Friday morning, three sources told Gizmodo. The current contract expires in 2019 and there will not be a follow-up contract, Greene said. The meeting, dubbed Weather Report, is a weekly update on Google Cloud’s business. Google would…

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Theory of predictive brain as important as evolution — an interview with Lars Muckli

Theory of predictive brain as important as evolution — an interview with Lars Muckli

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Our brains make sense of the world by predicting what we will see and then updating these predictions as the situation demands, according to Lars Muckli, professor of neuroscience at the Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging in Glasgow, Scotland. He says that this predictive processing framework theory is as important to brain science as evolution is to biology. Horizon magazine: You have used advanced brain imaging techniques to come up with a model of how the brain processes vision – and…

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Aristotle’s lessons on happiness

Aristotle’s lessons on happiness

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Edith Hall writes: In the Western world, only since the mid-18th century has it been possible to discuss ethical questions publicly without referring to Christianity. Modern thinking about morality, which assumes that gods do not exist, or at least do not intervene, is in its infancy. But the ancient Greeks and Romans elaborated robust philosophical schools of ethical thought for more than a millennium, from the first professed agnostics such as Protagoras (fifth century BCE) to the last pagan thinkers….

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Jaron Lanier is convinced that social media is toxic, making us sadder, angrier and more isolated

Jaron Lanier is convinced that social media is toxic, making us sadder, angrier and more isolated

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The Guardian reports: Many of the ideas in Jaron Lanier’s new book start off pretty familiar – at least, if you are active on social media. Yet in every chapter there is a principle so elegant, so neat, sometimes even so beautiful, that what is billed as straight polemic becomes something much more profound. The concept of random reinforcement, for example: addiction fed not by reward but by never knowing whether or when the reward will come, is well known….

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How music can fight prejudice

How music can fight prejudice

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Tom Jacobs writes: The outpouring of hostility toward immigrants and refugees has reminded us that ethnocentrism remains a fact of life in both Europe and the United States. Combating it will require teaching a new generation to view members of different cultures as potential friends rather than threatening outsiders. But what mode of communication has the power to stimulate such a shift? New research from Portugal suggests the answer may be music. It reports schoolchildren around age 11 who learned…

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Puerto Rico’s devastation takes a backseat to Roseanne coverage

Puerto Rico’s devastation takes a backseat to Roseanne coverage

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Pete Vernon writes: For those who argue that the media has misplaced priorities when it comes to coverage choices, this week has provided a case study to support their position. While media outlets from cable news to digital publishers obsessed over the cancellation of ABC’s Roseanne, a report on the staggering death toll in Puerto Rico has, in comparison, been met with relative silence. Researchers from Harvard University estimate that at least 4,645 deaths can be linked to Hurricane Maria…

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FBI official wrote secret memo fearing Trump got a cover story for Comey firing

FBI official wrote secret memo fearing Trump got a cover story for Comey firing

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The New York Times reports: The former acting F.B.I. director, Andrew G. McCabe, wrote a confidential memo last spring recounting a conversation that offered significant behind-the-scenes details on the firing of Mr. McCabe’s predecessor, James B. Comey, according to several people familiar with the discussion. Mr. Comey’s firing is a central focus of the special counsel’s investigation into whether President Trump tried to obstruct the investigation into his campaign’s ties to Russia. Mr. McCabe has turned over his memo to…

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Why Russia is celebrating a journalist’s fake death in Ukraine

Why Russia is celebrating a journalist’s fake death in Ukraine

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Coda Story reports: When the news broke that the prominent Russian journalist and Putin-foe Arkady Babchenko had been murdered in exile in Kiev, it looked like everything was following a sadly familiar script. As tributes began pouring in, his fellow journalists across the world wrote up their obituaries about the third critic of the Russian leader to be killed in the Ukrainian capital in the last 18 months alone. Reportedly shot in the back at home, Babchenko’s murder, as Ukraine’s…

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How the resurgence of white supremacy in the U.S. sparked a war over free speech

How the resurgence of white supremacy in the U.S. sparked a war over free speech

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Alex Blasdel writes: Late last summer, the American Civil Liberties Union faced a mounting crisis over its most celebrated cause, which many consider the lifeblood of democracy: freedom of speech. For nearly a century, the ACLU has been the standard-bearer of civil liberties in the US, second only to the government in shaping Americans’ basic rights. Although the organisation has been at the vanguard of many of the country’s most hard-fought legal battles – desegregation, reproductive rights, gay marriage –…

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Putin’s opponents are being assassinated one by one … minus one

Putin’s opponents are being assassinated one by one … minus one

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In February, 2017, Arkady Babchenko wrote: I can tell you what political harassment feels like in Putin’s Russia. Like many dissidents I am used to abuse, but a recent campaign against me was so personal, so scary, that I was forced to flee. Two months ago, a Russian plane transporting the world-famous military choir Alexandrov Ensemble crashed into the Black Sea en route to Syria. They were travelling to perform for pilots involved in Russia’s air campaign on Aleppo. I…

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More evidence of Trump’s efforts to obstruct the Mueller investigation

More evidence of Trump’s efforts to obstruct the Mueller investigation

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The New York Times reports: By the time Attorney General Jeff Sessions arrived at President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort for dinner one Saturday evening in March 2017, he had been receiving the presidential silent treatment for two days. Mr. Sessions had flown to Florida because Mr. Trump was refusing to take his calls about a pressing decision on his travel ban. When they met, Mr. Trump was ready to talk — but not about the travel ban. His grievance was with…

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‘We can’t see a future’: Group takes EU to court over climate change

‘We can’t see a future’: Group takes EU to court over climate change

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The Guardian reports: Lawyers acting for a group including a French lavender farmer and members of the indigenous Sami community in Sweden have launched legal action against the EU’s institutions for failing to adequately protect them against climate change. A case is being pursued in the Luxembourg-based general court, Europe’s second highest, against the European parliament and the council of the European Union for allowing overly high greenhouse gas emissions to continue until 2030. The families, including young children, claim…

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The total information awareness we feared the government acquiring, we have freely given to the tech giants

The total information awareness we feared the government acquiring, we have freely given to the tech giants

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Renee DiResta writes: “Every purchase you make with a credit card, every magazine subscription you buy and medical prescription you fill, every Web site you visit and e-mail you send or receive, every academic grade you receive, every bank deposit you make, every trip you book and every event you attend—all these transactions and communications will go into … a virtual, centralized grand database,” the New York Times columnist warns. On the heels of Mark Zuckerberg’s numerous government testimonies and…

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