Trump demands $500B in rare earths from Ukraine for continued support

Elon Musk’s Big Government Grift: An article from 2020 on Musk’s mission ‘to get unimaginably rich by maximally gaming the government’s largesse…taking advantage of programs meant to help people who earn in a lifetime what he earns every minute.’

Elon Musk’s growing empire is fueled by $4.9 billion in government subsidies: Old news, but let’s remember Musk’s success is at least partly down to government largesse.

More Than 800K Have Lost $2B on Trump’s Meme Coin: He, of course, profited vociferously.

He’s anti-democracy and pro-Trump: the obscure ‘dark enlightenment’ blogger influencing the next US administration: Curtis Yarvin.

Baltic nations disconnect from Russian power grid to avoid power being used ‘as a weapon’: ‘Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania disconnected from the network in a move to block Russia’s ability to geopolitically “blackmail” them via the electricity system.’

Is OpenAI’s Operator, a new AI ‘agent,’ ready to help in the real world?: A reporter’s very expensive AI inadvertently buys them very expensive eggs.

Advice for a friend who wants to start a blog: ‘…since there are already countless places where you can’t be yourself, there is no need to build another one of those.’

How Mark Zuckerberg, Once a Trump Foe, Changed His Tune on President-Elect: There was a time when he didn’t publicly admire ‘President Trump’s divisive and incendiary rhetoric’ quite so much.

Reform UK tops landmark poll for first time: Ugh.

A Coup is In Progress in America: ‘The transformation happening before our eyes—from a government bound by law to one bound by personal loyalty—is precisely what generations of Americans gave their lives to prevent.’

A real-world test of artificial intelligence infiltration of a university examinations system: A “Turing Test” case study: The 100% AI-written psychology essays weren’t detected as such by the graders, and they typically scored higher than the human ones.

DeepSeek Fails Researchers' Safety Tests: The hot new AI bot appears to be up for discussing pretty much anything, irrespective of harm.

‘I lost 10 years of my life’: how UK betting giant’s unlawful marketing kept suicidal gambler hooked: A particularly dark example of the perils of letting companies surveil, extract and exploit the trail of data modern life requires we generate.

The UK is a World Leader in Stomping Peaceful Protest: There is, unfortunately, something we’re still good at.

Trump’s calls with British leaders reportedly left staff crying from laughter: Maybe they were crying for other reasons too.

Dear Trans Kids, You Don’t Need the Government’s Permission to Exist: ‘In every era of US history, queer folks have carved out their spaces despite criminalization, discrimination, and violence.’

‘Sputnik moment’: $1tn wiped off US stocks after Chinese firm unveils AI chatbot: Open-source chatbot DeepSeek can apparently do more AI with less resources.

Spotify Hosts Trump Inauguration Brunch and Makes $150,000 Donation to Ceremony: Sigh.

Björk Says Spotify Is “The Worst Thing That Has Happened To Musicians”: ‘The streaming culture has changed an entire society and an entire generation of artists.’

Let’s Try to Always Provide a Dignified Way Forward: “While dealing with tough student situations, always provide a way for them to come out of the situation with their dignity intact, while still achieving the goal behind the intervention” seems like great advice when interacting with non-students too.

Far-right pundit Matt Walsh rails against women in law enforcement: ‘It’s an absurdity!’: Matt Walsh is an absurdity.

Advocates ‘deeply worried’ as Trump’s justice department halts new civil rights cases: One among many other extraordinarily worrying actions from the new president.

Pope warns Davos summit that AI could worsen ‘crisis of truth’: He was the subject of one of the more famous early deepfakes to be fair.

A rotten Apple: Tim Cook’s betrayal of LGBTQ+ rights: Never love a corporation part 9999.