Fewer Americans say democracy is central to country’s identity

AP: “As the U.S. prepares for an extravagant celebration of its founding principles, fewer Americans see their country as exceptional, a new poll finds. The survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research highlights many Americans’ feeling of unease over the future of its representative government — particularly among young people. It presents …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Education, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

The Data the CIA World Factbook Left Orphaned

Follow up to CIA ends publication of its popular World Factbook reference tool – Manuel Longo: “When the CIA World Factbook faded as a free, machine-readable source, a swath of public-interest country data was effectively orphaned. Bamwor rebuilds it as open data: 261 countries and 5.2M cities, in four languages, as CSV/JSON with a permanent …

Subjects: Censorship, Defense, Freedom of Information, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

My Students Can’t Read

The Chronical of Higher Education- no paywall: “The generational collapse in literacy is measurable, persistent, and likely to get worse…Every generation of professors has complained that their students cannot read. The lament is usually overblown, but data have caught up to anecdote, and what I am seeing in my classroom is no longer a hunch. …

Subjects: Education, Internet, Knowledge Management

Ai2’s Skylight project launches ‘Shippy’

GeekWire: An AI agent that dives into ocean data  “Skylight, the free ocean-monitoring platform built by Seattle’s Allen Institute for AI (Ai2), launched an AI agent that gives maritime analysts answers to plain-language questions about what’s happening across the world’s oceans, from illegal fishing to vessels that have gone dark. The agent, dubbed Shippy, runs …

Subjects: AI, Legal Research, Search Engines, Transportation

The Grocery Industrial Complex

rxansmithmedia: “You’re not paying for food. You’re paying for a system engineered to extract from you at every step—while calling it a free market. The conversation about grocery prices in America gets framed as economics. Supply and demand. Inflation. Bird flu. Ukraine. Pick a villain. Blame the moment. Move on. But the real problem isn’t …

Subjects: Economy, Financial System, Food and Nutrition, Legal Research

DOJ Hasn’t Taken Its Usual Steps to Protect 2026 Election

NOTUS: “President Donald Trump says “if you don’t have honest voting, you can’t really have a nation.” But five months out from the midterm elections that will determine control of Congress, his Justice Department has canceled election-integrity training sessions for prosecutors and FBI agents, deleted a 281-page guide to prosecuting election offenses, fired most of …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Congress, E-Records, Free Speech, Legal Research

Passive AI use at work increases feelings of work meaninglessness

Lee, E.H., Yin, Y., Jia, N. et al. Relying on AI at work reduces self-efficacy, ownership, and meaning while active collaboration mitigates the effects. Sci Rep 16, 13583 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-42312-6 “Artificial intelligence (AI) promises major productivity gains, but it also raises fundamental questions about how technology can reshape people’s relationship to their work. Historical debates …

Subjects: AI, Health Care, Internet, Knowledge Management

This Company Will Add Phone, AirPod, and Smartwatch Trackers to License Plate Readers

404 Media no paywall: “A surveillance company plans to add sensors to automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) that would mean the devices, as well as capture the license plate of passing vehicles, would also sweep up unique identifiers of mobile phones, wearables, and other Bluetooth-enabled devices in those cars, potentially letting law enforcement identify specific …

Subjects: Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, E-Records, Legal Research

The Supreme Court Has Invented a Right to Discriminate

The Atlantic Gift Article: “…Alabama willfully drew a map that flouted the District Court’s preliminary injunction and hoped that this Court would eventually see things its way,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her dissent, which was joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. “After today, it is hard to call Alabama’s cynical gambit …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Courts, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Legal Research

Trump Administration’s Continued War Against Science, Research, Public Health and the Rule of Law – Part 9

Via LLRX – Trump Administration’s Continued War Against Science, Research, Public Health and the Rule of Law – Part 9 – This article is the ninth in a series by Sabrina I. Pacifici focused on the Trump administration’s unrelenting policy of attacking science, healthcare, public health, and the rule of law. The cornerstone of this series …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Climate Change, Education, Environmental Law, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

Dismantling and Destroying Biomedical Research in America

Washington Post [no paywall] Diabetes researchers ejected from conference after criticizing White House Five diabetes researchers, including the editor of a leading journal, were removed from the field’s premier conference in New Orleans on Friday morning, after handing out copies of an editorial criticizing the Trump administration’s “dismantling” of the biomedical research enterprise. The incident …

Subjects: Censorship, Economy, Education, Health Care