Hinkley Point C has released a short film showing the scale and pace of night-time operations at the construction site of Britain’s first new nuclear power station in more than three decades Full story:

Sweden acquits activists who smeared paint on Monet painting

can't stop watching this clip of a tesla Optimus teleoperator taking his headset off before properly logging out the robot

Council inaction over the summer’s flag displays left locals to deal with the fallout – including intimidation and a serious assault. eastangliabylines.co.uk/politics/loc...

Apparently Norway found a kill switch from Chinese electric buses. Too bad the economics are making the victory of electric vehicles inevitable, and European firms dropped out of the race. m.economictimes.com/news/interna...

If Alan Moore did not exist, you probably couldn’t invent him. Here he is describing how he came up with V for Vendetta ceeeej-blog.tumblr.com/post/1240411...

Many of the policy issues facing the humanities and social sciences affect all research, but the instability in higher education is hitting these disciplines hard. During this time of change, let us not inadvertently risk a loss of capabilities that we will come to regret.

I also mention the importance of not overlooking humanities and social science research infrastructure as I explored recently with the British Library as an example www.cityam.com/the-british-...

I’ve written the @resprofnews.bsky.social Sunday Read this week. I’ve looked at the value and importance of the arts, humanities and social sciences and what policymakers might do to support them at a time we are seeing major cutbacks in universities www.researchprofessional.com/news-article...

excellent point: @ec.europa.eu, fix this

There’s a BBC article here about the difficulties the hospice is facing. There are so many things where I think surely the government should be funding this thing — that instead have to rely on charity — and hospices, especially children’s hospices, are top of that list.

Israel is not allowing antibiotics, IV solutions or surgical material to enter besieged Gaza despite 2-month ceasefire.

Hey everyone, here's the news, if you aren't a high earner, entrepreneur or a "skilled frontline worker" (whatever the fuck that means) the "Labour" Party says you aren't contributing, you're a taker!

“School officials have created a Microsoft Copilot prompt to review course descriptions with an eye toward avoiding ‘advocacy-oriented or prescriptive terms.’” Terms: “dismantling, decolonizing, interrogating, challenging, centering, combating, liberation, resistance, activism, justice oriented”

cannot stress enough how bad it is to give teenage boys a "see this person naked" button. massive, multi-axis disaster

"'Where are you from?’ he asked. Within seconds of offering my rather confused and sputtering answers, he had a clear response: ‘That’s the way back to Africa,’ with an accompanying hand gesture pointing towards a place far away." www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

"...we have five years until we're being sextorted by smart kettles..." www.thenerve.news/p/stewart-le...

Couldn’t Sam Altman just ask ChatGPT how to make itself profitable

This is getting stupid now. We're at the point where Labour acknowledge both the damage caused by Brexit AND that rejoining the Customs Union (more accurately, joining A Customs Union) would boost growth. And yet they still reinforce their red lines. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...

I don’t get how Jenrick can actually believe that we should shrink the population and then start making more of our own things from pots and pans to what iPhones? How does he think that happens?

“She showed up as scheduled, and when she arrived, officers were asking everyone what country they were from, and if they said a certain country, they were told to step out of line and that their oath ceremonies were canceled.” www.wgbh.org/news/local/2... @gbhnews.bsky.social

Thoughtful review with some good recent historical perspective on the ongoing paradigm shift that is radically changing the way we think about what brain areas do. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The following is a statement from the WGA on the Acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery by Netflix.

Cinemas and unions sound alarms over Netflix-Warner Bros. deal

Cool that a racist false conspiracy theory is now official U.S. policy, because the people who peddled it are now in charge. www.nbcnews.com/politics/pol...

The new National Security Strategy is a propaganda document, designed to be widely read. It is also a performative suicide. Hard to think of another great power ever abdicating its influence so quickly and so publicly. It will be worth following the reactions around the world, not just in Europe.

BBC Radio 3 Late Junction Pablo Diserens joins Verity Sharp to discuss symphonic landscapes and documenting environmental loss.

Getting caught up on some eps, and wow do I always enjoy an opportunity to learn from Chris Gilliard.

As the year winds down, I wanted to get an update on how things are going with the digital sovereignty effort in Europe. Unfortunately, it’s facing challenges — and being coopted by interests that want to use it to promote deregulation and EU tech with virtually all the same problems as US tech.

In terms of what’s understood to be socially acceptable behavior, normalizing the filming/taking pictures of people in public who are minding their own business (and putting it online) is one of the worst developments of the past 15 years.

Haiti whose travelling fans Trump has banned from the tournament.

This wildly tacky World Cup draw is a grimly fascinating preview of what happens if the aesthetics of fascism finally get their way.

‘Was the mural in Kingston ever meant to be looked at carefully, even? Or was it a bogus inkblot test intended to be misread in multiple ways?’ Mark Sinker on a disturbing festive mural: www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/de...

Hey, there is a mention of climate change in the National Security Strategy.

OpenAI just said it's working on AI capable of recursive self-improvement, while the chief scientist of another AI company pursuing this, Anthropic, says it's "the ultimate risk". Read about how AI R&D could start snowballing at machine speed:

99 UK politicians have now backed our campaign! Lord Berkeley of Knighton just joined our campaign calling for binding regulation on the most powerful AI systems. This is the first such coalition of lawmakers to acknowledge the extinction risk posed by AI!

Baroness Sheehan, Chair of the Environment + Climate Change Committee has written to the EA expressing concern that the Agency had not shared information about some illegal landfill sites which the Committee learned of via reports in the press. 🧵 1/3 cdn.roxhillmedia.com/production/e...

6/In many ways, it is the mirror image of the Clinton internet freedom speech. The US sought to use its tech dominance to upend politics in autocracies. Now, these tools will be turned against our closest allies. 2009-2017.state.gov/secretary/20...

1/Quick thoughts of implications of US National Security Strategy for Europe -- weaponized interdependence meets nationalist international. The US will use its tools (economic, technology, and financial dominance) to press for far right agenda. www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/u...

International Criminal Court considers genocide can be committed through cyber attacks on critical infrastructure like power grids, water supply, and hospitals. www.icc-cpi.int/sites/defaul...

Every word of this. It's just so weird to keep having to explain to apparently ordinary people that I have left Twitter for the same reason I refuse to take out a subscription to Stormfront, and to feel that they *still* don't really get it.

”How do I make my boss happy?”

Trump wants to prevent people who worked in fact-checking or combating misinformation from entering this country. That should tell you everything you know about his relationship to the truth. www.theverge.com/news/838489/...

"The racial bias in these stats shows the damaging real-life impacts of letting police use facial recognition without proper safeguards in place." - Charlie Whelton, Policy and Campaigns Officer www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Farage has been dismissing evidence of Russian ties to the Salisbury Novichok attack since 2018 🧐

Holy shit. Reuters reporting that new admin instructions on visas are if you worked at a platform in trust & safety or content moderation or on fact checking or online safety at an platform you *and your loved ones* are ineligible for H-1B visa. www.reuters.com/world/us/tru...

Europeans are waking up this morning to find the new US National Security Strategy (quietly) released. And what it has to say on Europe could not be clearer. On the „stark prospect of civilizations erasure“ for example. 👇

Without sim cards, we would never have got @sallyhayd.bsky.social's reporting from people in Libyan detention centres, which made up the bulk of her book, My Fouth Time We Drowned, the definitive account of exactly this kind of migration.

Not to be overly obvious here, but many people seeking asylum need phones to keep in touch with loved ones, access crucial information etc. Having a phone isn't a "luxury item" anymore. It is a necessity for many people. Taking it away has serious implications.