Aaron Swartz deserves more justice and reconsideration than almost anybody in this century

Shannon Mattern@shannonmattern.bsky.social · 5h ago

"In 2022, Wiley removed over 1,300 ebooks from academic library collections; [they said] perpetual access is not an option for subscribed content. In 2025, Clarivate,... announced they would stop offering libraries perpetual access licenses for ebooks and primary-source digital collections."

New Zealand officials knew it was only a matter of time before the deadly H5N1 bird flu arrived in the country. As soon as the first case was detected in Australia in June, the department’s staff started pre-emptively vaccinating up to 300 of New Zealand’s rarest and most at-risk birds.

New Zealand is Racing to Vaccinate Its Endangered Birds Against Bird Flu

Conservation experts are trying to slow the march of the viral disease in a country that is home to rare and endangered bird species.

nyti.ms

One of the deadliest forms of cancer for women may not start where we once believed. Researchers now know nearly all fatal ovarian cancers begin in the fallopian tubes, not the ovaries. https://to.pbs.org/3TVKKJ6

How new findings on ovarian cancer origins may help reduce risk

One of the deadliest forms of cancer for women may not start where we once believed. Researchers now know nearly all fatal ovarian cancers begin in the fallopian tubes, not the ovaries. Stephanie Sy d...

to.pbs.org

Breaking News: The FDA approved the first mRNA flu vaccine, enabling a faster way to target particularly dangerous strains.

F.D.A. Approves Moderna’s mRNA Flu Vaccine

The agency had initially refused to even review the application but reversed course after a public outcry.

nyti.ms

Jordan Harper’s buzzy crime novel “A Violent Masterpiece” was dubbed “the noir novel of our times.” Critics argue it may not even be a work of noir. www.newyorker.com/books/under-...

How Jordan Harper Reinvented Noir for the Epstein Era

This year’s buzzy “A Violent Masterpiece” inverts the genre’s traditional contrast between optimism and despair. Is a hopeful crime novel still a noir?

newyorker.com

KLUWE PLANS UNICORN HUGS TO CURE CANCER

FinTwitter@fintwitter.bsky.social · 19h ago

SPACEX PLANS MOON FACTORIES POWERED BY HUMANOID ROBOTS

Meta has made it repeatedly clear that one of their growth strategies is sexualizing kids. Mark Zuckerberg and his leadership team deserve to face personal liability for this, and the company deserves sanctions up to and including corporate dissolution

WIRED@wired.com · 15h ago

Over the last nine months, Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has run dozens of paid ads that include explicit AI-generated child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and images of minors alongside sexually suggestive statements, according to details of the ads shared with WIRED.

jesusfuckingchrist

Oregon senators warn prediction markets allowing betting on wildfires could incentivize arson

A public report urges the CFTC to ban prediction market contracts on destructive wildfires, raising concerns over public safety and potential arson.

kptv.com

@rweingarten.bsky.social, this is a horror. Teachers cited in this article say they're using "A.i." to develop lesson plans for kids with disabilities and imply that they're feeding student data into LLMs. This is using untested, dangerous teach on vulnerable kids AND possibly violating privacy law.

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 19h ago

“Teaching educators about AI is a ‘moral imperative’, said Randi Weingarten, the AFT president.” “And without outside funding, it was a choice between taking big tech’s money or doing nothing, she said.”

That's really not the message I want to hear from the NASA administrator, to be quite honest

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 18h ago

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman on rockets crashing into the moon: "It's not a big deal right now. The moon has clearly seen better days."

It is truly truly upsetting that this is where we’re at as a country. Even if trump does order any troops or ICE to the polls and even if DHS doesn’t try to arrest election officials on bullshit charges, so much damage is already done. They’re publicly threatening and dangling it. And because of…

Asawin Suebsaeng@swin24.bsky.social · 5h ago

disturbing the level of resources & time that election officials, elected Dems, & others across the U.S. are devoting to preparing for if Trump tries to sic ICE, troops, or armed feds on their polling sites @justinglawe.bsky.social & I take you behind the scenes on how: zeteo.com/p/inside-dem...

This is team player shit, beat the bad guys shit. I love it. No fucking around with it, just let's go.

Evan Sutton@evansutton.bsky.social · 16h ago

I encourage all of us to have the grace and focus shown in this going up within minutes of the race being called.

Disc of Chinkultic, 590 CE, Maya ball player, a ruler or elite participant, in ceremonial attire during a ritual ballgame. Framed by hieroglyphic inscriptions that record the event and its participants, this monument reflects the deep political, religious, and cultural significance of the ballgame.

"Cool dude, see you in discovery!" is the obvious UNO Reverse card to Trump's attempts to bully organizations by suing them for a trillion dollars. It's a massive indictment of the US system that one after another institutions and major organizations settled and paid bribes rather than play it.

Graham Lanktree@glanktree.bsky.social · 10h ago

President Donald Trump is seeking to stave off a court order that requires him to begin giving the BBC financial details on his business empire by Thursday in connection with a defamation lawsuit he is pressing against the network. www.politico.com/news/2026/08...

The Trump regime admitted in court filings that the cancellation of clean energy grants for Hawaiʻi was because the state voted for Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election, rather than the previously stated reasons of advancing energy needs or economic viability.

Trump Administration Lawyers Admit Hawaiʻi Funding Cuts Were Partisan

The admission about terminated clean energy grants emerged in recent court filings, confirming what many already suspected.

civilbeat.org

A federal judge in May ordered the Kennedy Center to reconsider a two-year closure. But just days before the trustees are set to vote on the matter, they have received no new assessments about how closing for two years would affect the venue.

Kennedy Center board lacks materials needed for closure vote, senator says

The trustees are set to vote next week on a two-year closure, but some say they've received no new assessments of the potential effects on the performing arts center.

washingtonpost.com

In addition to strengthening local safety, we celebrated our city's rich cultural diversity by co-sponsoring a resolution alongside Councilor Mejia recognizing August 16, 2026, as Dominican Cultural Day in the City of Boston

Alongside @ruthzee.bsky.social and with the collaboration of @32bjseiu.bsky.social, I introduced a public safety ordinance to establish comprehensive, citywide minimum training standards for unarmed security guards.

for the first time in two and a half years, a new note was played in this organ performance today!

a visa overstayer from Chad who wants to be an American is more American than anyone who puts on the ICE mask

Semafor@semafor.com · 12h ago

“Based on its extraordinary success in slashing overstays from bonded countries to near zero, the State Department has made the Visa Bond Program permanent,” a State Department spokesperson told Semafor.

Factories and ships pepper this bird’s-eye view of Boston in 1870. In the foreground on the right, the new Back Bay neighborhood is beginning to emerge; at the very bottom of the second slide, laborers are shown constructing new buildings on Clarendon Street.

We had a great day at #FranklinParkZoo yesterday. We fed the budgies & multiple birds landed on all of our hands multiple times. That hasn’t ever happened to us before so it was very exciting. We also got to check out the new African penguin exhibit & it is really great.

This is exactly what I was saying - in Michigan, at least, he's totally right. For a whole lot of folks here, the stereotype - which is still a generalization and a stereotype - is "competent, careful doctor with an accent" rather than the more negative tropes the GOP wants to label him with.

#StupidSuez@diplomatofnight.com · 12h ago

Banger

A new analysis in Science of DNA from Chilean mummies has revealed the earliest known strain of ancient smallpox from the Americas. The findings offer the clearest genetic evidence yet that European colonization brought this disease to the New World. Learn more: https://scim.ag/4w3Sl5U

Are you on the route? In ON A WING AND A TEAR, our heroes travel from Chicago to Iowa City to Wallace State Park in MO, to Douglas County, KS to Cherokee Nation through Arkansas and Memphis, to Mississippi, through Alabama to the Ocmulgee Mounds outside Macon, GA. #KidLit @harperkids.bsky.social

In Bari Weiss' Free Press, Olivia Reingold reported from El-Sayed's watch party that "there were keffiyehs as far as the eye could see ... keffiyehs on heads, keffiyehs as belts, keffiyeh-printed phone cases." Not a single one made it into images from Reuters, a local ABC station, or Detroit News.

El-Sayed: "Once a government agency like ICE is told it has impunity to do the worst things and violate the highest law of the land, which is the Constitution itself, I don't think you can reform or retrain. I think we need to start from scratch ... I think we need to abolish it."

In other Michigan news, the state looks set to elect it's first transgender lawmaker. Joanna Whaley won her Democratic primary and will compete in November for a state house seat, beating a primary opponent who tried and failed to disqualify her for not running under her deadname

I wonder how many people do not realize that Abdul El Sayed is a medical doctor, Rhodes Scholar and is author of many articles on public health.