Music: Eivind Aarset — ‘Intoxication’
When it all comes crashing down: The aftermath of the AI boom
Jeremy Hsu writes: Silicon Valley and its backers have placed a trillion-dollar bet on the idea that generative AI can transform the global economy and possibly pave the way for artificial general intelligence, systems that can exceed human capabilities. But multiple warning signs indicate that the marketing hype surrounding these investments has vastly overrated what current AI technology can achieve, creating an AI bubble with growing societal costs that everyone will pay for regardless of when and how the bubble…
AI evangelists dream of data centers in space
The New York Times reports: If the architects of the artificial intelligence boom are right, it is only a matter of time before data centers — the giant computing facilities that power A.I. — will float in orbit and be visible in the night sky like planets. The science-fiction-like dream is being driven by A.I. and space industry leaders who are growing increasingly worried that data centers will eventually require more energy and land than are available on Earth. So…
The AI Raj: How tech giants are recolonizing power
Allison Stanger writes: On December 31, 1600, Queen Elizabeth I signed a royal charter granting the East India Company exclusive rights to conduct trade in the Indian Ocean region. The document was precise in its limitations: The company could establish trading posts, negotiate with local rulers, and defend its commercial interests. Nothing more. Seventy-seven years later, the same company had acquired the right to mint currency on behalf of the British crown. By 1765, it controlled the tax collection (ruthlessly…
‘I will not abandon my principles’: Zohran Mamdani’s inauguration speech
I have been told that this is the occasion to reset expectations, that I should use this opportunity to encourage the people of New York to ask for little and expect even less. I will do no such thing. The only expectation I seek to reset is that of small expectations. Beginning today, we will govern expansively and audaciously. We may not always succeed. But never will we be accused of lacking the courage to try. To those who…
They tried to smear him as an antisemite – but Mayor Zohran Mamdani walks in a rich Jewish tradition
Molly Crabapple writes: Billionaires raised fortunes against him. The president threatened to strip his citizenship. Mainstream synagogues slandered him as the spawn of Osama Bin Laden and Chairman Mao. But today, Zohran Mamdani became the first socialist mayor of New York City. For all the hysteria, when I look at Mamdani, I didn’t see some radical departure from the past. I see him as the heir to an old and venerable Jewish tradition – that of Yiddish socialism – which…
Nick Shirley, the right-wing YouTuber behind viral Minnesota fraud video, has long anti-immigrant history
The Intercept reports: The day after Christmas, far-right YouTuber Nick Shirley posted a video claiming to have exposed fraud at Somali-owned day care centers in Minnesota. Portions of the 42-minute video — mostly scenes where Shirley is turned away at the day cares — went viral in conservative circles, catching the attention of the Trump administration, which was already at work targeting Minnesota’s Somali community amid its broader war on immigrants. The video, which has been viewed more than 2.2…
China signals it won’t give an inch to the U.S. in Latin America
The Wall Street Journal reports: China intends to keep playing in the U.S. backyard, Latin America. The Trump administration took veiled swipes at China in its national-security strategy with the vow to “restore American pre-eminence in the Western Hemisphere” and “deny non-Hemispheric competitors.” Less than a week after the release of the U.S. strategy in December, Beijing issued a little-noticed policy paper on Latin America and the Caribbean that geopolitical analysts say foreshadows more U.S.-China jostling for regional influence. “China…
Music: Fadaway — ‘Walking In Circles’
ICE plans $100 million ‘wartime recruitment’ push targeting gun shows, military fans for hires
The Washington Post reports: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials are planning to spend $100 million over a one-year period to recruit gun-rights supporters and military enthusiasts through online influencers and a geo-targeted advertising campaign, part of what the agency called a “wartime recruitment” strategy it said was critical to hiring thousands of new deportation officers nationwide, according to an internal document reviewed by The Washington Post. The spending would help President Donald Trump’s mass-deportation agenda dominate media networks and…
As Trump raised tariffs, fines for money laundering fell by 61%
PYMNTS reports: American regulators collected 61% less in money laundering/sanction breach fines in 2025. That’s according to a report Wednesday (Dec. 31) by the Financial Times (FT), which ties this decline to a more lenient approach to financial regulation under the Trump administration. Total fines levied against companies for what the FT calls “dirty money” offenses came to a little less than $1.7 billion as of Dec. 19, the report said, citing data from compliance software provider Fenergo. Last year,…
Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club sent spa employees on house calls to Epstein for years
The Wall Street Journal reports: Jeffrey Epstein wasn’t just a frequent visitor to Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The club was also sending spa employees—usually young women—to Epstein’s nearby mansion for massages, manicures and other spa services, according to former Mar-a-Lago and Epstein employees. The house calls went on for years, even as spa employees warned each other about Epstein, who was known among staff for being sexually suggestive and exposing himself during the…
Longtime MAGA ally Boebert lashes out at Trump over veto
The Washington Post reports: Rep. Lauren Boebert, the Colorado congresswoman long associated with the MAGA wing of the Republican Party, on Wednesday criticized President Donald Trump for vetoing bipartisan legislation to support a major drinking-water project in her district, saying she hopes the rejection “has nothing to do with political retaliation.” The legislation Trump vetoed, known as the Finish the Arkansas Valley Conduit Act, would have helped complete the final component of the decades-old Fryingpan-Arkansas Project. Colorado lawmakers supporting the…
Fighting fascism in America during a genocide in Palestine
Amahl Bishara writes: “These times make me think of 1933,” my neighbor commented as our sons zoomed down a hill on their bikes. This was a common sentiment in the early months of President Donald Trump’s second term — how to stop a leader with fascist tendencies who had gained power through a democratic process. But it wasn’t our usual neighborhood conversation. Rümeysa Öztürk, a graduate student at Tufts University, where I teach, had recently been kidnapped by masked U.S….
Most of Iran shuts down as government grapples with protests and economy
The New York Times reports: Businesses, universities and government offices stayed closed on Wednesday across most of Iran under a government-ordered shutdown, as the president struggled to address public frustration that has fueled mounting protests over the faltering economy and the government. The one-day shutdown in 21 of Iran’s 31 provinces, including Tehran, the capital, came as President Masoud Pezeshkian on Wednesday appointed a new central bank chief, the former economy minister Abdolnaser Hemmati. The president acknowledged that it…
The problem with letting AI do the grunt work
Nick Geisler writes: One of the first sentences I was ever paid to write was “Try out lighter lip stick colors, like peach or coral.” Fresh out of college in the mid 2010s, I’d scored a copy job for a how-to website. An early task involved expanding upon an article titled “How to Get Rid of Dark Lips.” For the next two years, I worked on articles with headlines such as “How to Speak Like a Stereotypical New Yorker (With…