US photographer Margaret Bourke-White on top of the Chrysler Building, New York, 1931 #womensart

We're excited to reveal the #WolfsonHistoryPrize 2025 shortlist, celebrating the finest historical non-fiction works from the past year. Congratulations to all the shortlisted authors! 👏📚 www.wolfsonhistoryprize.org.uk/2025-wolfson...

Krishnan Guru Murthy, "Isn't it a bit insulting to say to an Indian doctor who is working 60-70 hours a week that in order to get settled status he's got to volunteer?" Rachel Reeves, "We want people to contribute if they come to our country" Labour have gone utterly bonkers

"Globally, data centers are expected to consume more than 4% of electricity by 2035, according to BloombergNEF. Put another way: If the facilities were a country they’d rank fourth in electricity use, behind only China, the US and India." www.bloomberg.com/graphics/202...

Multiple studies in recent weeks have suggested AI is not providing significant benefit to the companies racing to adopt it....Before companies realize the full value of AI, “there are a few things that need to happen." www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Andrea Bartz “I write my novels to engage human minds — not to empower an algorithm to mimic my voice + spit out commodity knockoffs to compete directly against my originals in the marketplace, nor to make that algorithm’s creators unfathomably wealthy + powerful.” www.nytimes.com/2025/09/29/o...

In any other country, if federal agents fired upon journalists when unprovoked — what would we call it? If federal agents marched down streets demanding papers — what would we say? Authoritarianism — let’s not pretend it’s something else when it happens in our American cities.

The fact the governor of Illinois is beging for citizen coverage because media as a whole is intentionally not covering the governments terror campaign should be absolutely a five alarm fire if you are not already figuring out the federal government is at war against us.

“Bots or likely bots authored 44.5% of X posts mentioning Cracker Barrel in the 24 hours after the new logo gained attention on Aug. 20, according to research for ⁦‪@WSJ‬⁩ by PeakMetrics. That number rose to 49% among posts calling for a boycott.”

Paris celebrated the opening of its 300th “school street”: landscaped & pedestrianized or semi-pedestrianized blocks situated in front of schools. Most have been completed since 2020.

I mean, I know Silicon Valley's normal practice is 'wildly break the law until you stop us' but isn't this basically asking to be sued to oblivion by some very deep-pocketed entities?

I don't think we'll ever get another sentence which sums up everything the New York Times embodies quite like "Some legal experts have called it a crime to summarily kill civilians".

“The overall state of Europe’s environment is not good, especially its nature which continues to face degradation, overexploitation and biodiversity loss,” it said. www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2025...

Khanna: "We have to understand how abnormal this is. You don't mock someone and put a video out about how they look. You don't ever mock people's ethnicity. How do you negotiate with that? And how have we made this normal?"

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/29/t... - applies to the companies creating the most advanced A.I. and with annual revenues of at least $500 million. They must: - publicize how they have incorporated best practices for safety - report safety incidents - protect whistle blowers at tech companies

who voted for this www.nytimes.com/2025/09/26/t...

Great reporting here on the political pressure affecting prosecutions of white-collar crime in the US Featuring also great use of LLMs for structuring data 👇👇 on.ft.com/3VFYuW3

Jeffries: "It appears, at least to me, that a decision has been made by House Republican leaders, perhaps blessed by the administration, to shut the govt down. Why did they they cancel votes? Why are they on vacation spread out across the country & world when we're on the brink of a govt shutdown?"

AI Data Centers Are Sending Power Bills Soaring Wholesale electricity costs as much as 267% more than it did five years ago in areas near data centers. That’s being passed on to customers. www.bloomberg.com/graphics/202...

If it’s copyrighted material, it seems to me either you can’t use it without running afoul of copyright or you cannot. “This would be infringing except for that we give you an opt-out” is not a thing, that I know of. Your copyright *is* your reservation of rights, you don’t have to say “Even you.”

Know your rights, Illinois. Stay safe and stay informed.

Over the weekend, we received reports of federal agents from ICE and Customs abusing their power. And now, we're being told the Trump Administration wants to deploy 100 military troops to Illinois. One thing is clear — none of this is making Illinois safer.

Back to back “free speech” headlines this afternoon.

"Don’t use an AI agent on anything important. There is risk involved in giving AI access to any website that has access to purchases." www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

OpenAI's new product requires that a copyright owner opt-out if they don't want their work included. The "startup began notifying talent agencies and studios over the past week about the product, which it plans to release in the coming days, and the opt-out process."

YouTube's settlement will go towards paying for the new White House ballroom (seriously) www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

Since last fall’s election win, Trump has raked in more than $80 million in settlements stemming from lawsuits he has brought against Big Tech and media companies. YouTube is the latest. Trump's lawyer says the companies wouldn't have settled if he wasn't president. www.wsj.com/us-news/law/...

Welp

It's not just bribery. He's now using personal litigation, backed by state extortion, to extract "settlements" which he then puts into an account he created to spend on government work, all entirely outside of Congress taxing or appropriating. It's full Charles I illegal taxation and spending.

"YouTube to Pay $24.5 Million to Settle Lawsuit Brought by Trump Google subsidiary is the last of three Big Tech companies to resolve personal litigation Trump filed against social-media platforms" www.wsj.com/us-news/law/...

SB 53 requires large AI labs – including OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, and Google DeepMind – to be transparent about safety protocols. It also ensures whistleblower protections for employees at those companies.  

Court-watchers confirm this cruel ICE agent has been reinstated. Last week, in the briefest moment of decency, violently throwing a woman to the floor was “beneath the men and women of ICE.” This week, it’s back to business as usual. The cruelty, after all, is the point.

Pritzker: “ICE is running around the Loop harassing people for not being white. Just a year ago, that was illegal in the United States. Now, ICE is making it commonplace.”

"In an interview, one woman who identified herself as the wife of one of the dead men said that her husband was a fisherman with four children who left one day for work and never came back." www.nytimes.com/2025/09/28/w...

Scoop with @lmatsakis.bsky.social: OpenAI is about to launch a TikTok-style social app for AI generated videos. We got the deets (and the docs): www.wired.com/story/openai...

“Our general approach has been to treat likeness and copyright distinctly,” said Jason Kwon, chief strategy officer of OpenAI. Definitely seeing this distinction being made by AI execs recently. A potential wedge being driven into Hollywood/Music industry www.wsj.com/tech/ai/open...

I don’t know a lot about the law, but I know that it doesn’t entail a mechanism that goes like “please sign here for me not to steal your stuff”

This is not actually how copyright law works. I don't need to opt out, copyright is automatic and you can't just use* my stuff without asking But it *is* how the UK government is proposing to change the law, to benefit AI firms instead of creatives *For a given, currently debated, meaning of "use"

Pritzker: "For Donald Trump and the MAGAs in Congress, this is not about fighting crime or public safety ... this is about consolidating power in Donald Trump's hands. What he plans to do with that power now or during the 2026 elections should worry all of us."

United States, 2025

Pritzker: "People of Illinois, we need your help. Get our your cell phones, record and narrate what you see. Put it on social media. Peacefully ask for badge numbers and identification. Speak up for your neighbors. We need to let the world know that this is happening and that we won't stand for it."

BREAKING: Gov. Pritzker says DHS will deploy 100 'military troops' to Illinois, citing need to protect ICE officers chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/...

It is important to see this sort of straight talking, precisely because of the executive order last week that conflated criticism of the government with terrorism.

Pritzker: "In any other country, if federal agents fired upon journalists & protesters when unprovoked what would we call it? If officials marched down streets harassing civilians & demanding their papers, what would we say? I don't think we'd have trouble calling it what it is: authoritarianism"

Gov. JB Pritzker said the Illinois National Guard has received an order from the Trump administration to deploy 100 “military troops” to protect ICE agents who the governor said have “wreaked havoc” during days of protests at a suburban processing center. https://to.wttw.com/48C9343

There is no story in 20th century history more important to understand than Hitler’s rise to power and the collapse of civilization in Nazi Germany. Richard J. Evans, one of the world’s most distinguished historians, has written the definitive account: www.penguinrandomhouse.com/series/DXG/t...

I hugely enjoyed being on this BBC AI Decided episode with the brilliant @dr-harebrain.bsky.social! #AIEthics