Behind Locked Shelves: Alberta’s Librarians Brace for a New Era of ‘Book Bans’; The New York Times, November 6, 2026

 Vjosa Isai, The New York Times; Behind Locked Shelves: Alberta’s Librarians Brace for a New Era of ‘Book Bans’

"Starting in January, a new Alberta law will compel librarians to restrict access to books and other material deemed inappropriate for certain ages, a role many say would turn them into censors. Across the Western Canadian province’s public libraries, staff are uneasy.

They will be required to pull from the shelves an indefinite number of books, movies, video games and comics containing “graphic visual depictions of sexual acts,” as defined by Alberta’s government, and make them available only to library card holders older than 15 years.

Those 15 and younger will need a parent’s consent to peruse that part of the catalog, which will be kept separate from the general collection. Access to online resources like e-books would face the same restrictions, but the government has acknowledged that there may be technical limitations depending on where the content is hosted.

As the deadline for compliance approaches, librarians will have to review thousands of items in their collections, move some to a private area, and create a vetting process to check ages — or risk consequences including threats to their budgets. The government did not allocate funding for the extra work or for any new physical infrastructure."

Trump backs Nvidia's Huang amid affair, spy investigation; Axios, November 9, 2026

Ben Berkowitz, Axios ; Trump backs Nvidia's Huang amid affair, spy investigation

""I haven't heard that he's done anything wrong," Trump added. "He dealt with somebody but, you know, so does everybody else.""

An unexpected activist emerged to help block a $5 billion data center in Maryland; NPR, November 7, 2026

Jenny Abamu, NPR; An unexpected activist emerged to help block a $5 billion data center in Maryland

"Frazier McCollum is one of a number of Americans whose political awakening was triggered by data center development. Across the country, community members have taken to local council hearings to voice their opposition. They've prompted — though estimates vary — about 500 moratoriums on data centers nationwide...

She created a petition that gathered over 25,000 signatures, leading to widely attended protests and culminating in multiple local moratoriums imposed on data centers throughout the county. It blocked the $5 billion project that was set to break ground between 2026 and 2027."

Nvidia Opens Investigation Into Jensen Huang’s Relationship With Chinese Spy; The New York Times, November 8, 2026

Tripp Mickle, The New York Times; Nvidia Opens Investigation Into Jensen Huang’s Relationship With Chinese Spy

Mr. Huang, the company’s chief executive, acknowledged on Sunday that he was intimate with a business executive who U.S. officials had determined was working for Chinese intelligence.

"Nvidia said on Sunday that it was opening an investigation into Jensen Huang, its chief executive and co-founder, after he acknowledged to the company’s board that he had been intimate with a business executive who U.S. intelligence determined to be a Chinese spy.

Mr. Huang’s relationship with the woman, who is named Alice Huang, became a U.S. government concern after surveillance revealed that she was feeding information directly to Beijing. The revelation raised troubling possibilities because Mr. Huang is one of the most powerful figures in the A.I. revolution as well as an influential ally of President Trump.

In a message to the company, Mr. Huang apologized. “I was unfaithful to my wife,” he said. “My actions hurt her and our children. There is no excuse for what I did. I am deeply sorry.”

Nvidia’s board said that it had “no reason to believe that either national security or Nvidia secrets were compromised,” but that “the board’s inquiry will examine all available information.” It said Mr. Huang “fully supports the review and has committed to cooperating with it.”

How A.I. Just Blew Up a Key Tenet of Computer Science; The New York Times, November 6, 2026

Cade Metz, The New York Times; How A.I. Just Blew Up a Key Tenet of Computer Science

A longstanding hypothesis held that some problems would always be hard for computers to solve quickly. But OpenAI disproved it — raising the possibility of radical new efficiencies.

"Common sense says that checking solutions should be much easier than finding solutions. “If P and NP follow intuition, then they should definitely not be equal,” said Ryan Williams, a professor of engineering and computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

On Oct. 26, OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, cast doubt on that seemingly obvious argument. While the broader problem of “P vs. NP” remains unsolved, the company announced that its newest artificial intelligence technology had refuted a related conjecture called the exponential time hypothesis, or E.T.H., which Dr. Impagliazzo proposed in 1998 with his colleague Ramamohan Paturi and a Bell Labs researcher named Francis Zane. Similar to the argument that P can’t equal NP, the E.T.H. held that certain problems must always remain hard for computers to solve quickly.

OpenAI’s result indicates that isn’t the case. It hints that machines could in theory solve Sudoku puzzles just as quickly as they could check their solutions — even when the grid spans 1,000 rows or more. The finding also suggests that computers could rapidly design new algorithms and new electrical circuits for new kinds of computers, helping to create their own successors.

“If you have a really fast algorithm for Sudoku solving,” Dr. Impagliazzo said, “you could use it to design optimal circuits.”

Among many other mind-bending scenarios, OpenAI’s proof could point to a future in which computers rapidly crack the encryption that guards the world’s secrets or design new medicines by optimizing the behavior of proteins in the body. All of this is theoretical. But machines are already moving in this direction, with new approaches that could turbocharge chip design, drug discovery and other areas."

Hegseth draws fire after using government resources for partisan video; The Washington Post, November 6, 2026

 Tara Copp, The Washington Post; Hegseth draws fire after using government resources for partisan video

"Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s use of government employees and taxpayer-funded resources to create a self-promoting video attacking Democrats and other political opponents probably violated federal law, government watchdogs said Friday...

Hegseth’s office confirmed Friday that the video was recorded and produced by Defense Department staff, but declined to address questions about cost and whether it was reviewed for compliance with the federal government’s legal and ethical guidelines. 

“The pro-Trump and self-laudatory remarks in the video are clear violations of the ban on using federal funds for propaganda, the specific and repeated mentions of funding bills violates the anti-lobbying statute, and the blatant effort to oppose the Democrats’ agenda for accountability is a potential violation of the Hatch Act,” said Donald K. Sherman, president of the nonpartisan government accountability organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

Abigail Bellows of Common Cause, another nonpartisan government watchdog, concurred. Using social media “to criticize Democrats, whether it’s because he’s re-auditioning for his job or any other reason,” is a violation of the law, she said. 

Under the Hatch Act, federal employees — including Cabinet secretaries like Hegseth — are prohibited from engaging in “activity directed at the success or failure of a political party, [or] candidate for partisan political office” while the employee is on duty or in any federal room or building. The law also bars political appointees and the civilian staff working under them from using social media to advocate for or against a political party."

Winner of the Prix Goncourt literary prize admits to using AI; The Guardian, November 5, 2026

Emma Loffhagen, The Guardian; Winner of the Prix Goncourt literary prize admits to using AI

"The winner of France’s most prestigious literary prize has admitted using artificial intelligence while writing his novel, barely a day after collecting an award whose jury had thrown out another book over suspected AI use.

Philippe Jaenada, who won the Prix Goncourt on Tuesday for L’Inconnue du quai de Javel (The Unknown Woman of the Quai de Javel), told France Inter radio on Wednesday that he had turned to AI “three times” while writing it.

The first, he said, was to slip in a sentence written by ChatGPT in order to “play with the reader”. He said he had revealed which sentence it was only to the Goncourt jurors, on the day of the award. “If it gets out, I’ll know where it came from,” he said.

He also included a section of AI-generated text to poke fun at ChatGPT, which gave “completely absurd answers about a technical detail”, and for research...

The admission comes after the Académie Goncourt removed Thélyson Orélien’s book C’était ça ou Mourir (It Was That or Die) from its longlist in September. The Canadian-Haitian writer’s debut had been the breakout hit of France’s rentrée littéraire – the period between late August and early November which sees many books published in France – selling more than 35,000 copies and winning the Prix du roman Fnac (Fnac novel prize), before the journalist Samuel Fitoussi ran it through the AI-detection tool Pangram and concluded that much of it had been machine-generated. However, the accuracy of AI-detection software has been called into question.

In a statement on 25 September, the academy said analyses by researchers and journalists showed the novel was “in all likelihood very largely the product of an artificial intelligence”. It said it wanted to protect the integrity of a prize that exists to honour “literature written by women and men”, and to send “a clear message” that it did not endorse texts generated with the help of AI...

The contrast has prompted some accusations of a racial double standard online. “So when it’s an old white man it’s fine, but when it’s a young writer of colour he gets stoned in the public square?” one user wrote on X. Another said Jaenada had faced “no media lynching, no banishment” over his use of AI – “a leniency denied to Thélyson Orélien”."

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Standing in the way of slop bowls: the woman blocking food delivery robots; The Guardian, November 7, 2026

Arwa Mahdawi with visuals by Kriston Jae Bethel, The Guardian; Standing in the way of slop bowls: the woman blocking food delivery robots

"The semi-retired University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) communications professor has become something of a local celebrity after taking it upon herself to block the UberEats food delivery robots which have become a ubiquitous presence in the city’s downtown. She doesn’t do this every day – “I have a life” – but whenever a robot crosses her path she’ll stare it down as a protest against their incursion into public spaces.

Her antics have gone viral: so much so that some Philadelphians dressed up as Marvin and the robot for Halloween. But while she may have supporters, her protesting isn’t universally admired: a few weeks ago it got her in trouble with the law...

Halloween graphics on the screen that operates as its “face” and another has little zzz on it, indicating that it’s sleeping. I’ve got to admit, they look cute. And, of course, that’s by design. “Humanizing the robots is important, because they are a completely new entity,” a spokesperson for Avride told me when I called them for an interview a couple of days earlier. “We want people to feel comfortable around the robots and not to feel scared about some weird box travelling down the sidewalk.”...

“OMG,” a young passerby called Cadence says as she recognizes Marvin and her trademark blue visor. “It’s the queen! I feel like I met a celebrity!” Cadence, a 22-year-old recent graduate, is on board with the professor’s protest. “AI and robotics are supposed to make life easier for us and help us do the things we enjoy, not take the jobs of other people,” she effuses. “I will support any small business that doesn’t use AI. I appreciate what is made by humans.”

Passing kids, meanwhile, seem less concerned about the gig economy, and more interested in the robots’ cute faces. Every toddler who goes by points at them with delight. A couple of kids who pass have a heated discussion about whether the robot looks like a dog or a cat. (It looks like neither.) The only child we come across who isn’t enthralled looks around seven years old and yells “clanker!” at it. “I’ve watched enough movies to know that these things are going to hunt us down!” he says.

The people cheering Marvin on aren’t outliers: these protests have struck a chord with people because of a growing distrust around AI and automation. According to a recent study by Pew Research, a majority of Americans are deeply skeptical of AI; more adults are expecting it to have a negative impact than a positive one. And while I’m not sure if other people are blocking food delivery robots, we’re certainly seeing a rise in protests against datacenters and other symbols of automation. A few weeks ago in Philadelphia I passed a woman standing in front of a Waymo self-driving taxi (which is being tested in the city with human safety drivers) blocking its path and yelling “LAME-O”.

Despite this antipathy, robots are gradually being normalized. Pennsylvania legalized delivery robots via Act 106 of 2020, defining them as “pedestrians” and they’re slowly becoming part of the landscape...

While the automation industry has big plans to grow their fleets of robots, Marvin stages these protests because she wants to remind people that they have a say in all of this. They have a right to weigh in on whether private robots should be allowed on public streets.

“I’m very supportive of the kinds of things that AI is doing in terms of medical breakthroughs,” Marvin says. “And I think robots are fine on factory floors, but they don’t belong in public space. I take the position that this isn’t inevitable. But you have to have the will to do something. In Toronto they banned delivery robots from sidewalks in 2021. And I think, you know, the question is: who is public infrastructure designed to serve?”"

In Ukraine, drones are death. Now they are rescuers, too.; The Washington Post, November 6, 2026

Serhiy Morgunov, The Washington Post; In Ukraine, drones are death. Now they are rescuers, too.

"Code 9.2 started looking for another way about a year ago. It built a frame of its own but lacked the technology to make it safe for a person. So instead they turned to SkyFall, whose engineers designed the first dedicated evacuation drone: StarGate...

New technology

The StarGate operations are so new that the pilot, Andrii Koliada, 33, had logged only six hours of practice before the rescues began last month — the first flight coming only four days before the first rescue...

SkyFall says it designed both the drone and its capsule specifically to evacuate the wounded. It built the capsule around a certified medical stretcher, and the drone can carry up to 330 pounds at speeds of up to 65 mph. The company says it also carries electronic warfare equipment to counter FPV attack drones and jamming."

There’s a new feeling in America as kindness drives out cruelty; The Guardian, November 5, 2026

Margaret Sullivan, The Guardian; There’s a new feeling in America as kindness drives out cruelty

"But on Tuesday, that discouraging conversation – changed. Not just a little, but radically.

American citizens rose up and showed the world their nation’s truer colors.

They showed it to be a place that values decency. A place capable of choosing diversity, not mocking it. A place strong enough to say “enough, already”.

The global caricature of the ugly American as an ignoramus in thrall to an immoral cult leader got pushed aside in this election that turned both houses of Congress, and many a governor’s office, away from Maga and toward potential reform.

“I think it was about kindness,” reflected my neighbor, a registered nurse and French immigrant, as I encountered her on her dog walk on Wednesday morning.

In a pre-election piece titled “America’s Clarifying Moment”, the writer and academic Stephen Beschloss summarized the stakes. This is “when we find out whether our fellow Americans really are committed to putting an end to the reckless destruction, the ceaseless corruption, the lawless abuse of our democracy and the utter indifference to the people’s struggle to survive”.

Turns out enough Americans were not merely committed. They were passionate, turning out in droves to elevate the kind of people that Maga had so blithely trashed.

Among the victors: a Black female governor in Georgia, a gay senator in New Hampshire, a Muslim senator in Michigan, and a Native American female governor of New Mexico.

“The sheer diversity of the winners tonight is staggering,” observed Jennifer Senior of the Atlantic."

MAGA Finally Gets What It Deserves; The New York Times, November 5, 2026

 David French, The New York Times; MAGA Finally Gets What It Deserves

"For now, we can sum up everything that happened in the midterms in three words, words that the MAGA movement has scorned for 10 years: Character is destiny."

The Election Day Revolt That Threatens America’s AI Boom; Wall Street Journal, November 4, 2026

  

Will Parker

, 

Anissa Gardizy

 and 

Amrith Ramkumar, Wall Street Journal; The Election Day Revolt That Threatens America’s AI Boom

Data Center-Related Ballot Measures

Rows shaded in gray are for ballot measures that were more favorable toward development. The unshaded rows are for measures that were more prohibitive or restrictive of data centers.

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Table with 6 columns and 41 rows of data. Currently displaying rows 1 to 8. (column headers with buttons are sortable)

Alhambra	Calif.	✔	Prohibit data centers in the city	82% 82%	18% 18%
Ashville	Ohio	✘	Uphold a term summary to guide negotiations between the Village of Ashville and EdgeConneX regarding two data center	18% 18%	82% 82%
Bloomington	Ill.	✔	Advise the city to impose a moratorium on building large-scale data centers	78% 78%	22% 22%
Boulder City	Nev.	✘	Allow data centers within the Eldorado Valley Transfer Area	29% 29%	71% 71%
Chouteau (Madison County)	Ill.	✘	Advise officials to permit the construction and operation of new data centers in the township	17% 17%	83% 83%
Conneaut	Ohio	✔	Prohibit the construction of data centers with an aggregate monthly electrical demand or peak load greater than 25 megawatts	65% 65%	35% 35%
Defiance	Ohio	✔	Prohibit the construction of data centers with an aggregate demand or peak load greater than 25 megawatts	65% 65%	35% 35%
Downe (Cumberland County)	N.J.	✘	Advise support for data centers in Downe Township	13% 13%	87% 87%

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Note: Tap or click column headers to sort. Table shows measures that were voted on Nov. 3. Data are as of Wednesday afternoon. WSJ classified the measures as either more favorable or more restrictive.