There's a lot of chatter around the proposal being inserted into a budget bill that would put a moratorium on any AI legislation being passed by the states for the next 10 years. I thought I'd say a bit about why this is an absolutely disastrous move. www.404media.co/republicans-... 1/n

“What then, is the responsible course of action? For me, the answer now lies in refusal, the withdrawal of participation from systems that require dishonesty as the price of belonging. My resignation represents such a refusal, not a surrender of responsibility but an assertion of it.”

“To remain on advisory boards that have been stripped of meaningful advisory function is to become that shopkeeper, to lend legitimacy to a process that has been systematically delegitimized."

"Like the shopkeeper in an authoritarian society described by Vaclav Havel in his essay “The Power of the Powerless,” who participates in his own oppression through small daily acts of complicity, like placing a party slogan in his window not out of conviction but out of habit."

“To watch these changes unfold without naming them for what they are is to participate in a collective amnesia about how knowledge infrastructures shape power relations."

"For me, the answer now lies in refusal, the withdrawal of participation from systems that require dishonesty as the price of belonging." Today I am resigning from the National Science Board and the Library of Congress Scholars Council. I wrote about my decision in TIME. time.com/7285045/resi...

The symposium is open to the public throughout the day. If you would like to also join us for the reception and keynote dialogue, please register using this link:

Originally we planned to hold the symposium solely focused on the issue of reparations, but these new dangers prompted us to pivot *in medias res*, without sacrificing the original focus.

The past is under threat from a variety of forces, including the commodification of data, the privatization of knowledge, and more recently, a concerted effort to erase or rewrite history in ways that serve the interests of those in power.

Now the past is facing new dangers, and the question of ownership and control over the Black historical and cultural record is more urgent than ever.

In our second installment we continue our efforts to gather a distinguished group of scholars, librarians, and archivists from the Americas and Africa to discuss, elucidate, and provide public answers to the question: Who owns and controls the Black historical and cultural record?

What: 𝐖𝐡𝐨 𝐎𝐰𝐧𝐬 𝐁𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐚? A̶r̶c̶h̶i̶v̶a̶l̶ ̵R̶e̶p̶a̶r̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶s̶ ̵The Past in Danger When: May 14, 2025 Where: Yale University

NEW: Rhode Island's long waiting list for infants and toddlers with developmental delays to get Early Intervention has finally decreased after the latest funding boost helped increase salaries "In the life of a baby, every week is critical," said one provider whose wait list has finally diminished

Potential insider trading is a completely across the political spectrum thing btw, knows no bounds of party www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

It always boggles my mind that I, a journalist, am expressly forbidden from trading stocks, but members of Congress, with vastly greater knowledge of market-moving news, are allowed to profit by front-running markets, and so may profit by in essence stealing from the public they represent.

WASHINGTON (AP) — AP wins reinstatement to White House events after judge rules government can’t bar its journalists, citing 1st Amendment.

Deeply concerning: US citizen lawyer getting detained and his phone searched on reentering the U.S. at Customs. www.freep.com/story/news/l...

“I’m not particularly interested in assisting the process of flattening myself into an array of data points, to serve the interests of tech companies by making myself even more machine-readable. I’m not convinced that the best way to understand oneself is through quantification.“

“Facing pressure to scrub its website of diversity and inclusion references, a Japanese American National Museum leader says the museum will ‘scrub nothing.’” 🔥

Can we get more of this? “The Japanese American National Museum will ‘scrub nothing,’ Fujioka said, and instead will highlight the importance of DEI. “Our community is based on diversity, equity is guaranteed to us in the Constitution, and inclusion is what we believe in,” Fujioka said.

Yesterday, 1,400 protests were held to protest the Trump whose headlines fill this page. But to the #BrokenTimes this morning, they are a buried BTW. It has plenty of photos; none here. This is what they call "news judgment." To the Times, we are not news.

OK, let’s see the best signs that you saw today.

Elementary school principals going where university presidents fear to tread...

Boston showed up today to send a clear message: We will not sit by while Donald Trump and his billionaire friends dismantle the protections that our families count on. Hands off Boston.

More fantastic #handsoff signs in Providence 🙌🏽🪧🙌🏽

We have a digital exhibit coming on the music of the conventions! In the meantime, check out, teach, and share the amazing digital exhibits on our at coloredconventions.org/exhibits!

Black men, send me manuscripts. Stop playing with me. As one of very few Black men in this industry, SEND ME YOUR BOOKS. Thanks. 🫶🏽

NEW: Another blow to RI's health care system Anchor Medical Associates (successor to the old Harvard Pilgrim clinics) informed their roughly 25,000 patients the practice will close on June 30 AG @peterfneronha.bsky.social calls the closure a "spectacular failure" and a wakeup call on primary care

Here is the top comment on this article: “You are advising responsible honest people who have worked hard, saved all their lives… to scale down their retirement dreams because a one person has decided to destroy the US economy. Why not write an article about how to get rid of the real problem?”

Providence City Council passes ordinance preventing the fining of unhoused people camping on public property "This ordinance commits the city to the bare minimum of basic compassion over misguided cruelty," said Councilmember Miguel Sanchez. steveahlquist.substack.com/p/providence...

I can’t believe how stupid everything is

6/ Healthy democracies rely on an independent legal profession to maintain the rule of law, independent universities to guard objective truth and provide forums for dissent to authority, and independent state/local government to counterbalance a powerful federal government.

Every lede like this is a fundamental journalistic failure. (There is no "relentless antisemitism on campus" and you don't need to give the administration's propaganda priority). www.nytimes.com/2025/04/03/u...

Bill Burr is a national treasure 🎯! "You journalists need to get your balls back"

The 2025-2026 Members of the Institute for Advanced Study School of Social Science. I look forward to thinking with and learning from this extraordinary group of scholars next year, when I will also convene a special collaborative theme seminar on Digital (In)Equality. www.ias.edu/stsv-lab/dig...

It’s sad that it requires courage right now for a university president to file something as straightforward as this, but it does. Thanks to Tufts University President Sunil Kumar for filing this. www.tufts.edu/president/sp...

A few tips for NEH grantees: 1) if you've spent money on an awarded grant but have not yet drawn down the funds, make sure to submit the paperwork to drawn down funds ASAP. 2) the NYTimes article suggests that "DOGE" might cancel awards. If you receive an email from DOGE cancelling your NEH award,

I had the pleasure to give an interview about synthetic data www.wired.com/story/nvidia... by @laurengoode.bsky.social for Wired. I'd like to add a caveat: the promises of synthetic data to solve privacy and data scarcity issues are not yet backed up by scientific evidence.

It’s still hard to believe the simple fact that this is all self-imposed. Everything that’s happening right now wasn’t the result of some foreign adversary destroying the country. We did this all to ourselves by electing the dumbest motherfucker to ever rule a nation.

We keep writing about this destruction without getting to the core of it. “White Americans who are racially resentful towards Blacks, hold negative views of immigrants, and believe that whites are being discriminated against are especially likely to hold anti-democratic beliefs.”

“We must dissent because America can do better.” Good to hear Wisconsin Judge Susan Crawford quote Justice Thurgood Marshall in her victory speech tonight.

United Nurses and Allied Professionals Local 5098 held an informational picket at Rhode Island Hospital We're trying to draw some attention. We've been in negotiations with the hospital. We're looking at staffing, we're looking at safety, and we're looking at hiring and staffing retention.

You don’t need me to tell you that none of the “executive orders” from that puny little man with his puny little pen has the power to erase the histories of Black folk from the world.