Democratic elite must face accountability for Gaza

Democratic elite must face accountability for Gaza

Matt Duss writes: As Democrats continue to struggle to coalesce around a shared message for the future, last week offered some troubling examples of their refusing, once again, to learn from the mistakes of the past. After a delay, the Democratic National Committee finally released the post-2024 election autopsy report that DNC chair Ken Martin had long promised. It was easy to see why he had tried to avoid making it public. In addition to being incomplete and a mess,…

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The high-seas black market that keeps Iran’s sanctioned oil flowing

The high-seas black market that keeps Iran’s sanctioned oil flowing

The Wall Street Journal reports: In this nautical no-man’s-land 45 miles off the coast of Malaysia, tankers laden with sanctioned Iranian oil sit low in the water, waiting to offload their cargo to vessels bound for Chinese refineries. They lower tarps and other objects over the names on their hulls and use black paint to conceal identity numbers. They’re here to carry out an elaborate deception: offshore trysts known as ship-to-ship transfers, in which one vessel offloads sanctioned oil onto…

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The AI boom is heading toward a massive financial crash

The AI boom is heading toward a massive financial crash

Joachim Klement writes: I calculate that over the past four quarters, 93 per cent of US GDP growth was explained by tech investments. Even at the peak of the technology, media and telecom bubble [which burst in 2000], it barely reached 60 per cent. The developers of large language models such as OpenAI and Anthropic are preparing for blockbuster initial public offerings later this year to benefit from investor optimism about their growth. Meanwhile, the hyperscalers Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta…

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AI costs are hitting corporate America

AI costs are hitting corporate America

Axios reports: Corporate leaders are starting to question whether soaring AI spending is delivering meaningful returns. Why it matters: Companies that rushed to embrace AI are now confronting ballooning IT costs, uncertain productivity gains and growing employee skepticism. Driving the news: Microsoft canceled most of its Claude Code licenses, in part over costs, according to The Verge, and Uber’s COO said AI costs are getting “harder to justify.” An AI consultant tells Axios one of their clients recently spent half a billion dollars in a single…

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The White House intervened to get a $620 million deal for a company tied to Donald Trump Jr.

The White House intervened to get a $620 million deal for a company tied to Donald Trump Jr.

By Robert Faturechi This story was originally published by ProPublica When the Pentagon announced a $620 million loan last year to a small North Carolina startup linked to Donald Trump Jr., defense officials and the company tried to tamp down suspicions of cronyism.  The president’s eldest son said through a spokesperson that he wasn’t involved. The Pentagon said Trump Jr. played no role in the record-setting deal. And the startup’s founder told reporters that his company, Vulcan Elements, received no…

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Justice Alito’s son quietly operates inside Treasury Department

Justice Alito’s son quietly operates inside Treasury Department

The Daily Beast reports: Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s son quietly landed a top job in the Trump administration as his father ruled on huge cases involving the president. Philip Alito, 39, got the political appointee job as a lawyer in the Treasury Department in the early days of Trump’s second term, NOTUS reported. The “sheepish” Alito was acutely aware of the nepotism and laid low once he got through the door, according to sources. The office provides legal and…

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‘I don’t care about the midterms,’ Trump claims as Iran deal remains elusive and he threatens Oman

‘I don’t care about the midterms,’ Trump claims as Iran deal remains elusive and he threatens Oman

Jonathan Lemire and Nancy A. Youssef write: In 2015, then–Secretary of State John Kerry testified before a Senate committee about a new deal to restrict Iran’s nuclear development. After more than a year of talks, with Iran on one side and several nations—including the U.S., China, and Russia—on the other, an agreement was on the table, full of hyper-technical details about what Tehran could and couldn’t do for the next two-plus decades. The U.S. had plenty of other complaints about…

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‘It’s the West Bank’: Lebanese villagers on life inside Israel’s ‘yellow line’

‘It’s the West Bank’: Lebanese villagers on life inside Israel’s ‘yellow line’

The Guardian reports: For hours, Hussein Abdel al-El and his wife, Um Alaa, did not move. They sat in the bathroom in the dark, not daring to touch their phones; the faint glow of the screen might give them away to the Israeli soldiers outside. It was 1am, the Israelis were raiding their neighbours’ house, and the septuagenarian couple did not want their door knocked on next. In the next house over, Israeli soldiers had forced residents against the wall…

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U.S.-Israel war on Iran driving historic levels of global hunger, UN says

U.S.-Israel war on Iran driving historic levels of global hunger, UN says

The Guardian reports: The continuing US-Israel war on Iran has compounded other global disasters to drive record numbers of people into hunger at a time when funding to combat famine has fallen dramatically, the deputy head of the UN World Food Programme has said. The WFP says 363 million people around the world are now at risk of acute hunger, 45 million of them as a result of conflict in the Middle East and the consequent oil price spike. The…

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The State Department’s ‘Office of Remigration’ is a shady operation, lacking oversight or accountability

The State Department’s ‘Office of Remigration’ is a shady operation, lacking oversight or accountability

Wired reports: The State Department doesn’t seem to want anyone to know that it has an Office of Remigration. There’s no mention on the department’s social media feeds or even on the official website. There aren’t many details about when it was established, who is running the office, or what work it is carrying out. When WIRED reached out to ask if the office exists, the State Department wouldn’t share specific details about the office and its work. But the…

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Former judges urge inquiry into slush fund deal Trump struck with IRS

Former judges urge inquiry into slush fund deal Trump struck with IRS

The New York Times reports: A bipartisan group of 35 former federal judges on Wednesday asked the judge who oversaw President Trump’s remarkable lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service to reopen the case and conduct an inquiry into whether the hasty deal to resolve it could be challenged as an act of fraud. The move by the former judges was one of an increasing number of legal efforts to attack the validity of the two extraordinary benefits that emerged from…

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Trump wants all federal employees to sign NDAs

Trump wants all federal employees to sign NDAs

Don Moynihan writes: Scott Kupor, the Director of the Office of Personnel Management, explained why nearly every federal employee should sign a Non Disclosure Agreement In much of the private sector, employees handling sensitive business or customer information are routinely required to sign confidentiality agreements, and the federal government should not be held to a lower standard. Set aside the small problem that Kupor — previously a longtime executive at Andreessen Horowitz — does not work in the private sector…

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Neuroscience needs to stop treating the brain as if it is a computer

Neuroscience needs to stop treating the brain as if it is a computer

Àlex Gómez-Marín writes: What is a brain? The question might seem obvious, but it is not trivial. Neuroscience has progressed in the past century, with the development of sophisticated techniques to measure and manipulate brain cells, neural circuits and even animal behaviours. Yet how the brain actually works still eludes us. In The Brain, In Theory, neuroscientist Romain Brette deconstructs the predominant model of the brain, which treats the organ like a computer. He concedes that engineering metaphors can be…

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The Democratic Party cannot continue giving unconditional support to Israel

The Democratic Party cannot continue giving unconditional support to Israel

Sen. Chris Van Hollen writes: Democrats need to face a hard truth. While Republicans’ approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has failed, so has ours. The Democratic Party has provided reflexive and unconditional support to Israeli governments, even as their actions have increasingly undermined American interests and values. For decades, we have called for a two-state solution, but we’ve failed to use our leverage to make it real. It’s past time that we use that leverage to end the occupation and…

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