Opinion – Washington Post – By A.G. Sulzberger/New York Times [free link]: Some foreign leaders have ruthlessly curtailed journalism. U.S. politicians could draw from their playbook. “After several years out of power, the former leader is returned to office on a populist platform. He blames the news media’s coverage of his previous government for costing… Continue Reading
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Author Archives: Sabrina I. Pacifici
Armed and Underground: Inside the Turbulent, Secret World of an American Militia
ProPublica: “Last February, some 20 men and their wives gathered for dinner at an upscale restaurant in Spokane, Washington, for their annual Valentine’s Day celebration. The men weren’t just friends; they did community service work together. They had been featured on local television, in khakis and baseball caps, delivering 1,200 pounds of food to an… Continue Reading
The Pivotal Importance of Air Quality, Ventilation and Exposures For Our Health
Ground Truth – Koseph Allen: The Pivotal Importance of Air Quality, Ventilation and Exposures (Such as “Forever Chemicals”) For Our Health And What We Can Do About It by Eric Topol. “Professor Joseph Allen directs the Healthy Buildings Program at Harvard Chan School of Public Health. His expertise extends far beyond what makes buildings healthy.… Continue Reading
Retailers Locked Up Their Products and Broke Shopping in America
Bloomberg no paywall: “…In retailers’ eyes it might be their best option, but it’s one that appears to be backfiring. Neil Saunders, managing director of the retail practice at the firm GlobalData, describes the locking up of merch as “a blunt instrument.” Several years into this experiment, the instrument’s outcomes are becoming clear: miserable workers,… Continue Reading
Some Lawyers Using Venmo Are Exposing Confidential Client Information
LawSites – and they May Not Even Know It – “Multiple lawyers who are using the payments app Venmo in their law practices are exposing client information to the public — and they may not even know it. These accounts expose client names and sometimes other details, such as payment amounts, the nature of the… Continue Reading
Social Security Administration Digitizes or Removes Signature Requirements for Many Forms
Move eases burden on millions of customers: “Today, the Social Security Administration (SSA) announced progress this year to reduce customer burden by transitioning wet (physical) signature requirements to digital signatures for over 30 forms as well as removing the signature requirements altogether for 13 forms. These actions simplify application processes for people, including removing a… Continue Reading
New AI standards group wants to make data scraping opt-in
Ars Technica: “The first wave of major generative AI tools largely were trained on “publicly available” data—basically, anything and everything that could be scraped from the Internet. Now, sources of training data are increasingly restricting access and pushing for licensing agreements. With the hunt for additional data sources intensifying, new licensing startups have emerged to… Continue Reading
Got a Change Healthcare letter about a data breach? Here’s what to do
Washington Post [gift article]: “After Change Healthcare, a technology company owned by UnitedHealth Group, reported a giant ransomware attack, you may have received a letter by mail letting you know your data has been compromised. But you get a lot of random stuff in the mail, too. How can you determine if the letter is… Continue Reading
The world is pumping out 57 million tons of plastic pollution a year
“A new study from the University shines a light on the enormous scale of uncollected rubbish and open burning of plastic waste in the first ever global plastics pollution inventory. Researchers used A.I. to model waste management in more than 50,000 municipalities around the world. This model allowed the team to predict how much waste… Continue Reading
Study suggests gun-free zones do not attract mass shootings
PHYS.org: “Gun-free zones have often been blamed for making schools, malls and other public areas more attractive to shooters; however, there have been no quantitative studies examining those claims. Now, in a first of its kind study published in The Lancet Regional Health – Americas, researchers at UC Davis Health and other institutions have shown… Continue Reading
How publishers are experimenting with Reddit even without a formal publisher program
DIGIDAY: “While it hasn’t formally launched a publisher program, over the last 18 months Reddit has been steadily rolling out products and resources aimed at courting media companies to increase their presence on the platform. And according to audience development leads from publishers including Newsweek, The Hill and Wirecutter, those efforts have helped pivot focus… Continue Reading
There’s a ‘Cat-astrophe’ Brewing on Downing Street
WSJ unpaywalled: “…Larry, the Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office, has now outlasted five prime ministers—and their pets. A British icon, he has his own unofficial X account, with 900K followers. He is so well known that Downing St. has even reportedly made plans for how to break the news of his eventual death (Larry… Continue Reading
