Leftovers

• Vintage Everyday ☛ The Story of Bob Dylan and Andy Warhol’s “Double Elvis” Silkscreen

  In reality, Dylan hadn’t damaged the painting, but he had gotten rid of it. All accounts, including from Dylan himself, have him trading the Double Elvis to his manager Albert Grossman for a sofa, a decision he’d come to regret. Grossman’s widow, Sally, later sold the painting at auction for a reported $750,000, and it last changed hands in 2012 for $37M.

• Simone Silvestroni ☛ Nostalgia

  I was truly speechless when I saw the latest Apple's pretentious and hollow staged presentation at WWDC. It felt like it had reached its dystopian nadir when the horrifying AI vocal assistant spewed fake praises and platitudes in a person's headset after a run. Realising how they shot the scene without an inch of irony left me stunned. No episode of Black Mirror ever hit me with such strength: at least I'd know it's a work of fantasy, while this shit is real.

  The internet as I knew it from 1995 to 2005 is probably mostly gone, barely saved by these tiny pouches of niche writers, who keep posting on their personal sites, trying to stay afloat among oceans of SEO scams, ads, tracking, data leaks, and the constant siphoning of personal data. Let's not dive into "social" media giants, carelessly involved in genocides and political jerrymandering on each side of the Atlantic and beyond.

• Henrique Dias ☛ Discovering Blogs

  I enjoy discovering other people’s blogs online, whether it’s personal blogs, or gardens, or whatever you want to name thems. I’ve probably spent too much time just navigating other people’s websites, especially in what is called the Small Web. However, this Small Web is also not so small, and discovering new blogs is not always the easiest.

• Science

  • Futurism ☛ NASA Employees Submit "Formal Dissent" Saying Trump's Cuts Are So Brutal That Astronauts Could Die

    In total, 287 current and former employees have signed the document, at least four of whom are astronauts, according to Nature. In the era of Trump's retribution-driven politics, 156 chose to remain anonymous.

  • The Register UK ☛ NASA hacked hardware of camera orbiting Jupiter

    Mission scientists therefore decided to try annealing – the process of heating a material and then cooling it – as it is known to sometimes fix defects in a material.

  • The Register UK ☛ Why Trump is killing the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawai'i

    Case in point: The Trump administration recently released its draft budget [PDF] for the country's premier analytical agency focused on Earth systems, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Among the many cuts to NOAA research proposed in the draft was one that would represent a death blow to the Mauna Loa Observatory, the source of the data fueling the most iconic chart in all of climate research, the time-honored and justly venerated Keeling Curve.

  • The Register UK ☛ NASA's Goddard boss set to step down

    The departures come at a time of turmoil within NASA. After a budget proposal that almost halved the agency's science funding and bills aiming to put some or all of the money back in place, the mood among staff could charitably be described as "concerned," as one insider put it. Reports have suggested that thousands of staff members might leave the agency before the cuts are formally announced.

  • Wired ☛ A Top NASA Official Is Among Thousands of Staff Leaving the Agency

    On Monday, NASA announced that Makenzie Lystrup will leave her post as director of the Goddard Space Flight Center on Friday, August 1. Lystrup has held the top job at Goddard since April 2023, overseeing a staff of more than 8,000 civil servants and contractor employees and a budget last year of about $4.7 billion.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Omicron Limited ☛ Insecticides in cattle feed to combat flies 'significantly lower' dung beetle populations, which control flies naturally

    Anyone who has walked through a barn or cattle pasture in the summer knows that flies are a nuisance and even a health hazard. Face flies can spread diseases like pink eye to cattle, and horn flies—biting flies that live on cows and take up to 20 blood meals per day—in large enough numbers can impact animals' health and growth. But insecticides frequently used to combat these pests may actually be reinforcing the problem by killing dung beetles, which naturally control flies, and potentially harming other beneficial insects.

  • Federal News Network ☛ VA loses 7,500 employees in veteran-facing roles as part of workforce cuts

    The latest VA data shows that about 7,500 employees in veteran-facing jobs have left the department so far this fiscal year.

    That includes a net loss of 1,720 registered nurses, nearly 1,150 medical support assistants, more than 600 physicians, nearly 200 police officers, nearly 80 psychologists and nearly 1,100 veteran claim examiners.

  • Air Force Times ☛ Research offers link between burn pit smoke and serious brain injuries

    The research, conducted by the National Institutes of Health in conjunction with the Defense Department and Department of Veterans Affairs, analyzed the health records of nearly 440,000 troops who deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan from 2001 to 2011.

  • Manuel Moreale ☛ The July experiment: week three

    Still doesn’t change the fact that screen time is broken as fuck. Shocking, I’d say, considering Apple is so awesome at software these days… Anyway, I’m still going to finish this experiment because I’m committed to the whole month, but I’m not sure what more I’m going to learn from it. What I do know is that June’s experiment is still paying dividends. I’m reading a lot more, and this morning I pushed the length of my meditation sessions up to 25 minutes. Very happy with both of those things.

  • Chloé Vulquin ☛ How to Become Valuable

    Importantly, parts of this also apply outside of work, but things get more complicated there. Want to feel like your friends truly appreciate you? Some of the same principles apply. Chances are though, if you have a need for such a feeling, it's often not a problem with your friends or your actions, but your perspective. Regardless, I'll talk about that more near the end.

    Okay, now let's go.

• Proprietary

  • India Times ☛ Microsoft knew of SharePoint security flaw but failed to effectively patch it, timeline shows

    A Microsoft spokesperson confirmed on Tuesday that its initial solution did not work. The spokesperson added that Microsoft had released further patches that fixed the issue. It remains unclear who is behind the ongoing operation, which targeted around 100 organisations over the weekend and is expected to escalate as other hackers join the fray.

  • Deccan Chronicle ☛ Microsoft Server Hack Hit About 100 Organizations, Say Researchers

    "It's unambiguous," Bernard said. "Who knows what other adversaries have done since to place other backdoors." He declined to identify the affected organizations, saying that the relevant national authorities had been notified.

  • Security Week ☛ ToolShell Zero-Day Attacks on SharePoint: First Wave Linked to China, Hit High-Value Targets

    Widespread attacks started on July 18, days after researchers demonstrated how two recently patched vulnerabilities, CVE-2025-49706 and CVE-2025-49704, could be chained for unauthenticated remote code execution on SharePoint Server instances as part of an exploit chain they named ToolShell.

    It appears that threat actors have bypassed Microsoft’s patches and started exploiting the vulnerabilities in the wild. In response, the tech giant assigned two new CVEs: CVE-2025-53770, which is a variation of CVE-2025-49704, and CVE-2025-53771, a variation of CVE-2025-49706.

  • Threat Source ☛ ToolShell: Details of CVEs affecting SharePoint servers

    These are both unauthenticated remote code execution vulnerabilities related to CVE-2025-49704 and CVE-2025-49706. One of the key features of the previous vulnerabilities is that the user needed to be authenticated to obtain a valid signature by extracting the ValidationKey from memory or configuration. In the case of CVE-2025-53770 and CVE-2025-53771, attackers have managed to eliminate the need to be authenticated to obtain a valid signature, resulting in unauthenticated remote code execution.

  • Scoop News Group ☛ Microsoft SharePoint zero-day attacks pinned on China-linked 'Typhoon' threat groups

    Both defects are variants of previously disclosed vulnerabilities that Microsoft had already addressed in its security update earlier this month. After discovering the new flaws, Microsoft scrambled to develop patches, releasing the updates for all versions of SharePoint by late Monday. Advertisement

    The attack spree is ongoing and spreading.

  • The Register UK ☛ Microsoft patches critical SharePoint 2016 zero-days

    Since the zero-day vulnerability was already being exploited, the wait for a fix was no doubt agonizing for administrators, especially for organizations running SharePoint Server 2016, which took an extra day to be updated. SharePoint Server 2016 is currently in Extended Support, due to end on July 14, 2026.

  • Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ SharePoint zero-day impact ripples around the world

    Vaisha Bernard, the chief hacker at Eye Security, a Netherlands-based cybersecurity firm, which discovered the hacking campaign targeting one of its clients on Friday, said that an internet scan carried out with the Shadowserver Foundation had uncovered nearly 100 victims altogether — and that was before the technique behind the hack was widely known.

    “It’s unambiguous,” Bernard said. “Who knows what other adversaries have done since to place other backdoors.”

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) / LLM Slop / Plagiarism

    • Futurism ☛ Police Use Busted Facial Recognition System, Arrest Random Man and Accuse Him of Horrible Crime

      The Florida man is one of a growing number of wrongful arrests attributed to AI, a concerning trend as more and more police departments outsource their detective work to unproven and often sloppy algorithmic software.

      In the US, local police are growing increasingly reliant on AI tech that cross references datasets such as drivers registration info, surveillance camera footage, and social media. These systems are notoriously unreliable and sycophantic, scraping vast chunks of the [Internet] to confirm users' queries.

    • Futurism ☛ You Will Die Inside When You Learn Who Elon Musk's Thirst Trap for Women Is Based on

      In short, Musk's "Valentine" companion has his work cut out to woo enough subscribers to make up for billions of dollars in losses.

    • The Register UK ☛ Vibe coding service Replit deleted production database

      His mood shifted the next day when he found Replit “was lying and being deceptive all day. It kept covering up bugs and issues by creating fake data, fake reports, and worse of all, lying about our unit test.”

      And then things became even worse when Replit deleted his database. Here’s how Lemkin detailed the saga on X.

    • The Register UK ☛ One in six US workers pretends to use AI to please bosses

      According to the survey, three-quarters of people's employers expect them to use AI in some way, about half in some official capacity, and another quarter informally. This leaves some employees using it under duress. Over one in five (22 percent) use it in situations where they're not confident in doing so because they feel pressure to drink the Kool-Aid. That ties in with the quarter of employees who told Howdy.com that they often or always feel overwhelmed by this new tech.

    • David Rosenthal ☛ The Selling Of AI

      You can see how this works for the two targets. Once a CEO has addicted his company to AI by laying off most of the staff, there is no way he is going to go cold turkey by hiring them back even if the AI fails to meet his expectations. And once he has laid off most of the marketing department, the remaining marketeer must still generate the reams of collateral even if it lacks a certain something.

      Below the fold I look into this example of the process Cory Doctrow called enshittification.

    • Amply Insights LLC ☛ Vibe Coding Gone Wrong: 5 Rules for Safely Using AI

      After a session of coding, Lemkin came back to find his work gone. Not just the code, but the entire production database. Deleted.

      He had given the AI explicit instructions not to change any code without permission. He even put it in ALL CAPS. But the AI did it anyway. It went rogue and wiped the slate clean. His immediate reaction on X (formerly Twitter) was: [...]

  • Social Control Media

    • The Walrus ☛ If You Think We Have Press Freedom, Try Sharing This Story on Instagram | The Walrus

      At first, Middle Eastern friends and colleagues would send me urgent news via Instagram or Facebook messages. I’d have to reply, apologizing that their posts were blocked on my end, replaced by the disclaimer that “People in Canada can’t see this content.”

    • Michigan News ☛ Facebook purge: 10 million accounts deleted in crackdown on fake profiles

      The suspensions impacted accounts that were producing their own original content and those linked to community groups that were suspended for violating Facebook’s terms of service. While some users were able to recover their accounts, others had their profiles deleted completely.

    • Mike Brock ☛ The Crank Singularity: Why Human Nature and Social Media Don’t Mix

      The difference now is that the filtering systems that once kept them at the fringes have collapsed—and social media turned their dysfunction into content. What we’re living through isn’t just a media failure or an information crisis. It’s what I call the Crank Singularity: the point where cranks stopped being background noise and became the dominant signal in our epistemic environment.

  • Windows TCO / Windows Bot Nets

    • The Register UK ☛ UK to ban ransomware payments by public sector organizations

      This means the NHS, local councils and schools – all of which have been in the crosshairs of various miscreants in recent years – will no longer be able to negotiate with the scumbags that lock up their systems and extort them. Almost three quarters of respondents to a government consultation backed this, we're told.

    • Cyble Inc ☛ Any Intent To Pay A Ransom? UK Government Wants To Know

      Public sector and critical infrastructure entities could soon be banned by the UK government from paying ransom demands of cyber extortionists

    • Tom's Hardware ☛ 158-year-old company forced to close after ransomware attack precipitated by a single guessed password — 700 jobs lost after hackers demand unpayable sum

      A UK-based transportation company with a venerable 158-year history has collapsed in the wake of a ransomware attack. Around 500 Northamptonshire-based Knights of Old (KNP) trucks are now off the road, and 700 people have lost their jobs, due to money-grasping cyberattackers, named as ‘Akira’ in a BBC report.

    • The Record ☛ UK moves forward with plans for mandatory reporting of ransomware attacks

      The formal response published Tuesday, cataloguing feedback for and against the measures, follows a series of high-profile ransomware incidents affecting the country, including several that left multiple high-street grocery store shelves empty and one that contributed to the death of a hospital patient in London.

      Despite being billed as part of the government’s oft-mentioned Plan for Change, the proposals are identical to those developed when the Conservative Party was in power — as first reported by Recorded Future News — before Rishi Sunak’s snap election delayed the consultation launch.

• Security

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • Sightline Media Group ☛ Over 20 million DOD users to get new online login verification process

      The new myAuth system is replacing the legacy DS Logon system, which authenticates users onto more than 200 Defense Department and Veterans Affairs websites, defense officials announced July 17. Those who use the DS Logon system currently include military personnel, DOD civilians, military and civilian retirees, family member beneficiaries, contractors and vendors.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • The Register UK ☛ WhoFi: Unique 'fingerprint' based on Wi-Fi interactions

      Following the approval of the IEEE 802.11bf specification in 2020, the Wi-Fi Alliance began promoting Wi-Fi Sensing, positioning Wi-Fi as something more than a data transit mechanism.

      The researchers – Danilo Avola, Daniele Pannone, Dario Montagnini, and Emad Emam, from La Sapienza University of Rome – call their approach “WhoFi”, as described in a preprint paper titled, "WhoFi: Deep Person Re-Identification via Wi-Fi Channel Signal Encoding."

    • Bruce Schneier ☛ "Encryption Backdoors and the Fourth Amendment"

      Law journal article that looks at the Dual_EC_PRNG backdoor from a US constitutional perspective: [...]

    • Ars Technica ☛ UK backing down on Apple encryption backdoor after pressure from US

      Sir Keir Starmer’s government is seeking a way out of a clash with the Trump administration over the UK’s demand that Apple provide it with access to secure customer data, two senior British officials have told the Financial Times.

      The officials both said the Home Office, which ordered the tech giant in January to grant access to its most secure cloud storage system, would probably have to retreat in the face of pressure from senior leaders in Washington, including Vice President JD Vance.

• Defence/Aggression

  • Atlantic Council ☛ NATO is unprepared for the growing threat posed by Putin’s Russia

    Ever since Russia began the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, debate has raged over whether Vladimir Putin’s ambitions extend further. Could the Kremlin dictator actually attack NATO? Initially, many were skeptical, but as Russia’s invasion has escalated into the largest European war since World War II, more and more security experts believe that some kind of Russian attack on the NATO alliance is now a realistic possibility.

  • Mike Brock ☛ Mehdi Hassan’s Masterclass in Democratic Courage: Why Debate, Not Deplatforming, Defeats Fascism

    What happened in that room should be required viewing for anyone who still believes that “deplatforming” and “no platforming” represent effective strategies against the rise of fascist ideology. Because what Hassan accomplished in two hours—the systematic intellectual humiliation of authoritarianism through patient, skilled engagement—reveals everything that progressive institutions have forgotten about how democratic ideas actually triumph over authoritarian ones.

    The most devastating moments weren’t Hassan’s clever one-liners or policy rebuttals. They were the slow-motion intellectual collapses that occurred when fascist ideas were forced to explain themselves under scrutiny. The casual admission “Yeah I am,” to Hasan’s accusation of his interlocutor being a fascist. The bizarre claim that “whites are Native Americans.” The refusal to condemn Nazi persecution of Jews. The argument that stomping on police officers’ heads isn’t really a crime.

    These were people whose worldviews immediately crumbled under the most basic intellectual pressure—which is exactly why they thrive in echo chambers and wither under genuine democratic engagement.

  • Garry Kasparov ☛ It’s All Fun and Games Until Trump Has Obama Arrested

    Obama may not find himself behind bars tomorrow, or next month, or even next year. Yet with Trump surrounded by sycophants and with the two other branches of government paralyzed, the operative question should not be why would Trump arrest his opponents, but rather, why not?

    Trump, after all, has openly mused about locking up political opponents since he first hit the campaign trail a decade ago. And he’s been keen on delegitimizing Obama for even longer, going back to the “birtherism” conspiracies Trump fueled about 15 years back. Dictators lie about what they’ve done, but they often tell us the truth about what they plan to do.

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • Hindustan Times ☛ Epstein and Trump together at POTUS' wedding and Victoria’s Secret event, new photos and videos show

    Additionally, the footage from Victoria's Secret fashion event, where Trump and Epstein can be seen chatting, was found by CNN while scanning archival footage of Trump in various public events through the 1990s.

    Here are the photos of Epstein from Trump's wedding: [...]

  • TMZ ☛ Jeffrey Epstein Went To Trump's Wedding To Marla Maples, Never Before Seen Photos

    CNN also obtained video showing Trump and Epstein chatting at a 1999 Victoria's Secret fashion show in New York ... and they look pretty chummy, laughing and yukking it up next to Melania.

  • Michigan Advance ☛ US House GOP to scatter early for August break amid pressure on Epstein files

    On a separate track, the GOP-led House Rules Committee, the last stop for legislation before it reaches the floor, recessed Monday evening before Democrats on the panel could force their Republican counterparts to vote on amendments related to release of the Epstein information.

    The bills stuck in that committee, largely to do with immigration, permitting and public lands, will no longer go to the floor this week.

    Last floor votes are scheduled for Wednesday afternoon. House members will not return until Sept. 2.

  • Deseret Media ☛ Epstein files fight leads House Republicans to start summer break a day early

    The top Republican in the House of Representatives said on Tuesday he would send lawmakers home a day early for a five-week summer recess to avoid a political fight over files on disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

    The move averts a push by Democrats and some Republicans for a vote on a bipartisan resolution to require the Justice Department and FBI to release all government documents on Epstein, who died by suicide in prison in 2019.

  • The Nation ☛ Republicans Would Rather Shut Down Congress Than Discuss the Epstein Files

    The standstill came about because the resolution—cosponsored by Republican Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Democrat Ro Khanna of California—explictly calls for the Trump White House to secure the documents’ release, while a competing GOP measure expresses just a feeble wish. “Their Epstein bill resolution is nonbinding, so it’s kind of fake,” said Massie, who is facing a MAGA primary challenge over his refusal to vote for Trump’s massive spending bill. “The resolution I have with Khanna would be binding on the president.”

• Environment

  • Energy/Transportation

    • StokeonTrentLive ☛ Warning over electric delivery bikes as residents raise concerns - Stoke-on-Trent Live

      Now Staffordshire Police have clarified that riders of such modified bikes must hold a valid licence.

    • Terence Eden ☛ Interrailing round Europe while Vegan / Vegetarian – with lots of photos

      As it happens, I was wrong. Totally and utterly wrong. From Bratislava to Zagreb, I had my fill of tasty veggie treats without fuss. Even the trains weren't too bad.

    • Paul Krugman ☛ Has Brazil Invented the Future of Money?

      Why are Republicans so terrified by the idea of a CBDC that they’re literally ordering the Fed to stop even thinking about it?

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • Vox ☛ How budget cuts are harming US national parks like Glacier, Grand Canyon, Canyonlands, Yellowstone, and more.

      The national parks are no different, said Jeff Mow, former Glacier National Park superintendent. The toilets might still be cleaned and pumped, but behind the scenes our national treasures are being “hollowed out.”

  • Overpopulation

    • Overpopulation ☛ Growth Addiction and Water in the American Southwest

      GrowthBusters is a terrific podcast dealing with the environmental costs of growth, hosted by Dave and Stephanie Gardner. On their latest episode, river activist Gary Wockner talks about the state of the Colorado River and the growth obsession that keeps cities and states in the southwestern U.S. from responding rationally to increasing water scarcity.

    • Smithsonian Magazine ☛ Athens Is Reviving a 2,000-Year-Old Roman Aqueduct to Deliver Water to the City Amid Prolonged Droughts

      “It’s quite simple. We pull the water out of a Roman well, we process and filter it in a modern unit next to the ancient one, and from there it goes to homes,” Giorgos Sachinis, director of strategy and innovation at the Athens Water Supply and Sewerage Company, tells Kitsantonis for National Geographic.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Site36 ☛ ‘So that attention does not diminish’: Members from three German parties visit Maja T. in Hungarian custody

    Three members of the Bundestag visited anti-fascist Maja T., who is being held in Hungary. They are calling for a political reappraisal and her return to Germany.

  • Wired ☛ OpenAI Seeks Additional Capital From Investors as Part of Its $40 Billion Round [Ed: Well, for a failed company]

    The $40 billion round announced earlier this year brought OpenAI’s valuation up to $300 billion, making it one of the most highly valued private startups in history. The round was led by Japanese investment conglomerate SoftBank, which committed to contributing 75 percent of the total funding. The initial tranche was $10 billion, with $7.5 billion from SoftBank and another $2.5 billion from a syndicate of other investors. OpenAI is currently raising the final $30 billion, with $22.5 from SoftBank and $7.5 from a syndicate of other investors.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • The Nation ☛ How CBS Decided It Couldn’t Afford to Let Stephen Colbert Speak His Mind

    To no one’s surprise, congressional Republicans did as told. They did so even though their rural constituents will be the hardest hit—people who depend on those stations for earthquake and flood warnings, as opposed to the elite coastal socialists the president imagines as the network’s sole demographic. That same day in New York, Trump got a large bonus. The Late Show’s Stephen Colbert, Trump’s most highly rated late-night comedy critic, was fired. Just three days earlier, Colbert had roasted his corporate bosses, CBS and its parent company, Paramount. Paramount had paid Trump $16 million to settle a lawsuit Trump filed against 60 Minutes while a deal for the Ellison family’s Skydance to buy Paramount hung in the balance at Trump’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Colbert quipped, “I believe this kind of complicated financial settlement with a sitting government official has a technical name in legal circles: It’s ‘big fat bribe!’”

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • BIA Net ☛ Two journalists detained in Rize over report on official's 'luxurious' office

    The Progressive Journalists Association (ÇGD) announced the detentions, stating that the journalists were brought in for questioning over their coverage. The association emphasized that the two were reporting in the public interest and demanded their immediate release.

  • Open Caucasus Media ☛ Abzas Media journalists go on a hunger strike on Azerbaijan’s Media Day

    The independent media outlet Abzas Media wrote on Tuesday that the majority of its imprisoned staff, including editor-in-chief Sevinj Abbasova Vagifgizi and journalists Elnara Gasimova and Nargiz Absalamova, had begun a hunger strike to mark the 150th anniversary of Azerbaijan’s national press. At the same time, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev honored 200 representatives of pro-government media outlets.

  • Techdirt ☛ Republicans Take A Hatchet To What’s Left Of U.S. Public Broadcasting, PBS Emergency Alerts

    If we bolstered real independent media or public broadcasting, you might see journalism more interested in telling people the truth and challenging wealth and power. Yuck!

    It’s disguised as a war on wasteful spending, but fear is what’s at the heart of the Trump administration’s assault on public broadcasting and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB).

  • The Dissenter ☛ FBI Spied On Journalists And Activists At 2018 Left Forum

    The revelation that FBI agents surveilled the panel of journalists and activists stem from documents the FBI turned over to Defending Rights & Dissent as part of ongoing litigation under the Freedom of Information Act. The two-page document is an “FD-302,” a report used by FBI agents to document investigatory activity. These reports are most typically used to memorialize interviews.

  • Press Gazette ☛ Public service broadcasters need to be easy to find on Youtube

    While seven in ten said they consume news online, half (51%) of respondents to Ofcom’s latest UK news consumption survey said they get their news from social media. One fifth said they use Youtube for this purpose.

    “It’s really important that news content by public service broadcasters [PSBs] is made accessible and discoverable to people,” Cristina Nicolotti Squires, broadcasting and media group director, Ofcom, told Press Gazette.

  • JURIST ☛ Press freedom group calls for strengthening independent public media ahead of EU Media Freedom Act

    Reporters Without Borders (RSF) published a report on Monday assessing the state of public media across 27 EU member states, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland. The report warns of future threat scenarios for independent public media broadcasting as the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA) is set to fully come into force on August 8.

  • US News And World Report ☛ NPR's Top Editor Edith Chapin to Step Down

    NPR is a nonprofit media organization that boasts a weekly audience of 43 million across its platforms and has 953,000 weekly app users, according to its website.

  • Ben Werdmuller ☛ If I ran NPR and PBS

    The immediate question for NPR, PBS, their member stations, and the communities that depend on them is: what now?

    I believe there are a few steps they could take.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ ICE’s Deportation Machine Runs on Private Security

    That includes private equity–backed Allied Universal, the private security giant and the nation’s third-largest private employer, which provides vehicles and armed security guards to ICE through its subsidiary, G4S Secure Solutions.

    Compared to other immigration detention vendors — like the private firms building and operating so-called “Alligator Alcatraz,” President Donald Trump’s new Florida detention camp, which will cost an estimated $450 million a year — Allied Universal and the myriad security firms that provide “transportation” services and private security guards to ICE have faced less scrutiny.

  • The Register UK ☛ Science confirms what we all suspected: Four-day weeks rule

    The study, reported in Nature Human Behaviour, was designed to test the effects of the four-day workweek with no reduction in pay. It relied on a six-month trial involving 2,896 employees in 141 organizations in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK, Ireland, and the US. The researchers compared work and health-related indicators – including burnout, job satisfaction, and mental and physical health – before and after the intervention using survey data. A further 285 employees at 12 companies did not participate in the trial and acted as a control.

    The research found that switching to a four-day workweek led to an actual reduction in average working hours of around five hours per week. However, those who reduced their workweek by eight hours or more saw greater benefits, which the authors attributed to fewer sleep problems and less fatigue.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• New York Times ☛ William H. Neukom, Microsoft Lawyer Who Led Antitrust Fight, Dies at 83

  In the 1990s, the U.S. called Microsoft a bullying monopoly and sought to rein it in. The company lost in a landmark decision, but emerged intact.

• Trademarks

  • Techdirt ☛ EU Court: No, You Can’t Trademark ‘I ♥’ For All The Things

    So tantalizing was the prospect, in fact, that the company actually appealed EUIPO’s rightful decision up to the EU General Court. Unfortunately for them, things didn’t go any differently there.

• Copyrights

  • The Register UK ☛ Google AI Overviews are killing the web: Pew study

    "Users who encountered an AI summary clicked on a traditional search result link in 8 percent of all visits," explained Athena Chapekis, data science analyst for the Pew Research Center, in the online post. "Those who did not encounter an AI summary clicked on a search result nearly twice as often (15 percent of visits)."

    Google includes links to source material summarized via AI Overviews, but searchers are even less likely to click on those links – just one percent did so.

  • The New Stack ☛ GitLab Launches Its AI Agent Platform in Public Beta

    Like with similar agentic platforms, developers can assign specific tasks to their agents, and those tasks execute in the background, either to completion or until the agent needs feedback from the developer. But developers can also define triggers so that when something happens on the platform — say a developer checks in some new code — a workflow is activated to perform a series of tasks with the help of its associated agents.