U.S. Coast Guard will no longer classify swastikas, nooses as hate symbols; The Washington Post, November 20, 2025

 

Tara Copp

 and 

Michelle Boorstein

, The Washington Post; U.S. Coast Guard will no longer classify swastikas, nooses as hate symbols

[Kip Currier: How dare this administration reclassify and downgrade the Nazi swastika and noose as anything less than the symbols of hatred and violence that they are.

This is abhorrent, abnormal behavior that is contrary to American values and ideals.]

[Excerpt]

"The U.S. Coast Guard will no longer classify the swastika — an emblem of fascism and white supremacy inextricably linked to the murder of millions of Jews and the deaths of more than 400,000 U.S. troops who died fighting in World War II — as a hate symbol, according to a new policy that takes effect next month.

Instead, the Coast Guard will classify the Nazi-era insignia as “potentially divisive” under its new guidelines. The policy, set to take effect Dec. 15, similarly downgrades the classification of nooses and the Confederate flag, though display of the latter remains banned, according to documents reviewed by The Washington Post."

Colleen Walsh, Harvard Law Today; Holding the past accountable by making it visible

Harvard Law School Library’s Paul Deschner discusses the decades-long effort to make the full archive of Nuremberg Trials records available online

"“The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant, and so devastating that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored.” So said United States Supreme Court Justice and U.S. Chief of Counsel to the International Military Tribunal, Robert H. Jackson, during his opening statement for the prosecution at the first of 13 Nuremberg Trials, which began 80 years ago, on Nov. 20, 1945.

For decades, the Harvard Law School Library has been working to make the nearly complete set of Nuremberg Trials records publicly available online. It launched the first version of Harvard’s Nuremberg Trials Project website in 2003, but until recently only roughly 20 percent of the Law School’s trove of Nuremberg materials had been accessible to online visitors. Today, the full collection of 140,000 documents comprising more than 700,000 pages is live and searchable by anyone around the globe.

Harvard Law School Library’s Paul Deschner, who has helped guide the project almost since its inception, spoke with Harvard Law Today about the scope of the archive and what it took to bring the entire collection online."

MacKenzie Scott Expands Giving Spree to Tribal Colleges; The New York Times, November 20, 2025

 Alan Blinder, The New York Times ; MacKenzie Scott Expands Giving Spree to Tribal Colleges

[Kip Currier: Imagine if more billionaires shared their good fortune with more people in need throughout the U.S. and the world, like MacKenzie Scott is.]

[Excerpt]

"The philanthropist MacKenzie Scott is funneling tens of millions of dollars into tribal higher education, months after the Trump administration sought to cut one of the system’s most essential funding sources.

The donations could help shield some tribal schools — which measure their reserve funds and endowments at best in the low millions, not billions — and their students from budget bickering in Washington. Ms. Scott has not made public comments about her recent gifts, but according to the recipients, the funds will support at least one tribal school and a nonprofit group that focuses on scholarships for Native American students.

Little Priest Tribal College, in Winnebago, Neb., announced on Thursday that Ms. Scott had given it $5 million. The school learned of the gift as it was planning a capital campaign that, officials hoped, might raise $10 million over a decade.

“There’s a sense of happiness, a sense of hope,” Manoj Patil, the college’s president, said in an interview. He said of Ms. Scott, “She’s given us hope, hope for success, hope to dream big.”"

These Books Were Judged by Their A.I. Covers, and Disqualified; The New York Times, November 19, 2025

 Jin Yu Young , The New York Times; These Books Were Judged by Their A.I. Covers, and Disqualified

"The authors of the books, which were submitted to one of New Zealand’s largest literary competitions, didn’t know that the artwork was created using A.I. They found out last week, however, when they were disqualified because the covers had violated the contest’s new rule about A.I.-generated material.

The studio that designed the covers defended them, saying that A.I. is part of their creative process. And the independent publisher of the works of fiction said that the contest, the 2026 Ockham New Zealand Book Award, had not given publishers enough time to comply with its new A.I. rules.

The publisher, Quentin Wilson, said in an email on Tuesday that the episode was “heartbreaking” for the two authors, who do not use A.I. in their writing, and upsetting for the production and design teams that worked hard on the books. He added that the rapid rise of A.I. has put the publishing industry in “uncharted waters.”...

The episode is one of many “fronts of chaos” as creative industries try to establish fair and sensible rules for A.I.-generated content, said Oliver Bown, a professor at the University of New South Wales in Australia whose research looks at intersections between art, technology and creativity.

The problem, he said, is that changes come so fast that new regulations are inevitably developed and communicated in a rush."

Trump Hatches Creepy New Plot to Target ‘Suspicious’ Drivers; The Daily Beast, November 20, 2025

Tom Latchem  , The Daily Beast; Trump Hatches Creepy New Plot to Target ‘Suspicious’ Drivers

"Border Patrol agents armed with hidden cameras and AI-driven algorithms are flagging millions of American drivers as “suspicious” and triggering covert traffic stops across the country, according to a new investigation.

The Trump administration has quietly expanded a vast domestic surveillance web that tracks and analyzes the travel patterns of millions of drivers—feeding local police tips that lead to secretive traffic stops, searches, and arrests, the Associated Press reports.

The intelligence project, built and run by Border Patrol’s parent agency, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) gathers vehicle movements through a national network of covert license plate readers disguised inside roadside barrels, cones, and job-site equipment, AP reports...

Legal scholars warn that the scale of the data collection—tracking “patterns of life” for millions of ordinary drivers—could violate the Fourth Amendment. “Large-scale surveillance technology that’s capturing everyone and everywhere at every time” may be unconstitutional, Andrew Ferguson, a law professor at George Washington University, told AP.

The program is powered by an enormous expansion of CBP’s intelligence capabilities since President Donald Trump returned to office. Congress has authorized more than $2.7 billion to layer artificial intelligence onto existing surveillance networks. 

Meanwhile, Operation Stonegarden—a two-decade-old federal grant scheme—now channels hundreds of millions of dollars to local sheriff’s offices to buy license-plate readers and drones, and to fund overtime that effectively deputizes local cops into Border Patrol’s mission. Under Trump, congressional Republicans increased Stonegarden to $450 million over four fiscal years."

CDC in turmoil after agency backpedals on debunking vaccines-autism link; The Washington Post, November 20, 2025

Lena H. Sun,  The Washington Post ; CDC in turmoil after agency backpedals on debunking vaccines-autism link

"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has repudiated its past insistence that vaccines do not cause autism after decades of fighting misinformation linking the two, blindsiding career staff and delighting anti-vaccine activists.

The agency’s website on vaccines and autism, updated Wednesday, now makes several false claims about a connection, echoing longtime rhetoric from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has a lengthy history of disparaging vaccines and linking them to autism.

Career scientists at the agency responsible for information about vaccine safety and autism had no prior knowledge about the changes to the website and were not consulted, according to five agency officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation."

CDC changes website to promote debunked vaccines-autism link; Axios, November 20, 2025

Maya Goldman , Axios; CDC changes website to promote debunked vaccines-autism link

"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has updated its website to promote the widely debunked claim that vaccines may cause autism. 

Why it matters: Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has repeatedly linked vaccines to autism, and now the public health agency he oversees is publicly reversing its position to reflect that belief. 

Multiple studies over decades have disproven links between childhood vaccines and developing autism. 

State of play: The agency's webpage on vaccines and autism, updated Wednesday, now says the statement that vaccines don't cause autism "is not an evidence-based claim because studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism."

"Studies supporting a link have been ignored by health authorities," the website continues. 

HHS in September released plans to contract with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to research connections between vaccines and autism. 

Career scientists at the agency were not consulted about the changes and were caught off guard by them, the Washington Post reported.

The CDC site previously said studies showed there was no connection between receiving vaccines and developing autism."

Trump Moves to Weaken the Endangered Species Act; The New York Times, November 19, 2025

Maxine Joselow and Catrin Einhorn, The New York Times; Trump Moves to Weaken the Endangered Species Act

"The Trump administration proposed on Wednesday to significantly limit protections under the Endangered Species Act, the bedrock environmental law intended to prevent animal and plant extinctions.

Taken together, four proposed new rules could clear the way for more oil drilling, logging and mining in critical habitats for endangered species across the country.

One of the most contentious proposals would allow the government to assess economic factors, such as lost revenue from a ban on oil drilling near critical habitat, before deciding whether to list a species as endangered. The Endangered Species Act requires the government to consider only the best available science when making these decisions.

Another change would make it harder to protect species from threats that could occur in the future, like effects of climate change that could materialize in the decades to come."

Warner Music Settles Copyright Suit With AI Song Generator Udio; Bloomberg Law, November 19, 2025

 

Aruni Soni

, Bloomberg Law; Warner Music Settles Copyright Suit With AI Song Generator Udio

"Warner Music Group reached a deal with AI music-generator Udio, putting to bed its copyright lawsuit over the use of songs to train the startup’s AI model."

‘Unforgivable’: Trump’s ‘piggy’ insult is stoking more outrage than usual; The Guardian, November 19, 2025

 Rachel Leingang , The Guardian; ‘Unforgivable’: Trump’s ‘piggy’ insult is stoking more outrage than usual

"It’s one outrage in days full of outrageous material.

“Quiet, piggy,” Donald Trump told a female reporter in a press gaggle, pointing his finger at her angrily.

It wasn’t the first time – not even the hundredth time – the US president has attacked the media. And it’s hard for any storyline to break through the administration’s “flood the zone” strategy, much less one like this. Nothing seems to stick. But the “quiet, piggy” clip has taken off, several days after the admonishment occurred on Air Force One last Friday, and without much help from the media itself.

“I don’t know why the ‘Piggy’ thing is bothering me so much,” wrote Hank Green, a YouTuber and author. “It’s one more unforgivable thing in a list of 20,000 unforgivable things, but I’ve been mad about it for like 12 straight hours.”...

Part of the collective ire could be that no one in the press gaggle jumped to Lucey’s defense in the video, underlining that those attacked by Trump often stand alone while others fear becoming next on his list; the media backbone that stiffened in his first term has wilted, under exhaustion and at the hands of Trump-friendly owners, in his second. The condemnations of Trump and accolades for both journalists came after the fact...

In Trump 2.0, you never know which affronts to decency will stick in people’s minds. This one, though, has a symbolism that seems to be resonating.

“Portland has reclaimed the frog as a symbol of its resistance to Trump’s efforts to militarize the city,” former US attorney and commentator Joyce Alene wrote on X. “Perhaps women should claim the glamorous, sassy Muppet Miss Piggy, a known diva with a fierce karate chop, as their own symbol.”"

No, Mr. President, We Cannot ‘Leave It at That’; The New York Times, November 19, 2025

The Editorial Board , The New York Times; No, Mr. President, We Cannot ‘Leave It at That’

"The realities of geopolitics have long required the United States to ally itself with foreign leaders who commit terrible deeds. Defeating foreign threats often requires the help of countries that fall far short of being liberal democracies that respect human rights. Saudi Arabia is a classic example of such a country today. It both has a disturbing human rights record and is a legitimately valuable American partner in countering Iran’s aggressions and building a more stable Middle East.

But working with imperfect partners does not mean that the United States should cover up and lie about their misdeeds, as President Trump did when receiving Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, in the Oval Office on Tuesday. It was a fawning, cringe-worthy performance that belied America’s more powerful status. It was absolution rather than realpolitik.

Mr. Trump embraced the prince’s implausible claim of innocence in the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi citizen and journalist, and berated Mary Bruce, of ABC News, for asking about the killing. The C.I.A. has concluded that the crown prince almost certainly ordered the killing of Mr. Khashoggi, a critic of the prince who was living in self-imposed exile in the United States and was murdered while visiting a Saudi consulate in Turkey. A United Nations investigator and a coalition of nongovernmental organizations reached similar conclusions...

The role of the news media in our democracy is not to flatter foreign leaders or, for that matter, American ones. It is to pose important and sometimes challenging questions and publish the facts. As president, Mr. Trump repeatedly shows contempt for this principle. Over the past week alone, he called Ms. Bruce “a terrible person” and told another female reporter, “Quiet, piggy.” His behavior suggests that he would prefer an American news media that behaves more like Saudi Arabia’s largely muzzled and obsequious media."

Analysis: Trump’s anti-press outburst hits differently with a Saudi prince by his side; CNN, November 18, 2025

Brian Stelter, CNN ; Analysis: Trump’s anti-press outburst hits differently with a Saudi prince by his side

"President Trump frequently demonstrates his disdain for journalists. He expresses his admiration for authoritarians almost as often.

Tuesday showed how intertwined those two instincts really are...

According to Reporters Without Borders, which tracks press freedom all around the world, “independent media are non-existent in Saudi Arabia, and Saudi journalists live under heavy surveillance, even when abroad.”"

An F.B.I. Trainee Hung a Pride Flag Near His Desk. He Says He Was Fired for It.; The New York Times, November 19, 2025

Alan Feuer, The New York Times ; An F.B.I. Trainee Hung a Pride Flag Near His Desk. He Says He Was Fired for It.

"David Maltinsky, an F.B.I. agent-in-training, had only a dim suspicion of what was going on when he was suddenly pulled from his classmates one evening last month and called to a meeting with top officials at the academy, where he was only three weeks away from graduation.

A gay man who had previously worked as a civilian cybertech assistant in the Los Angeles field office, Mr. Maltinsky knew that the meeting might have something to do with his sexual identity — or with his wide-ranging efforts at the bureau to promote L.G.B.T.Q. issues.

What he did not expect was the letter he was handed when he arrived at the F.B.I. Academy’s front office.

It was signed by the bureau’s director, Kash Patel, he said, and announced that he was being “summarily dismissed” from the academy because of “political signage” he had once displayed at his work space in Los Angeles. The only thing that could be, he quickly realized, was a rainbow pride flag that had hung near his desk for years and had been given to him as a gift by his former bosses."

Disney has lost Roger Rabbit: Termination of Transfer is the most pro-artist form of copyright.; Medium, November 18, 2025

Cory Doctorow, Medium; Disney has lost Roger Rabbit

Termination of Transfer is the most pro-artist form of copyright.

"Gary K Wolf is the author of a fantastic 1981 novel called Who Censored Roger Rabbit? which Disney licensed and turned into an equally fantastic 1988 live action/animated hybrid movie called Who Framed Roger Rabbit? But despite the commercial and critical acclaim of the movie, Disney hasn’t made any feature-length sequels.

This is a nightmare scenario for a creator: you make a piece of work that turns out to be incredibly popular, but you’ve licensed it to a kind of absentee landlord who owns the rights but refuses to exercise them. Luckily, the copyright system contains a provision designed to rescue creative workers who fall into this trap: “Termination of Transfer.”

“Termination of Transfer” was introduced via the 1976 Copyright Act. It allows creators to unilaterally cancel the copyright licenses they have signed over to others, by waiting 35 years and then filing some paperwork with the US Copyright Office."

Can You Believe the Documentary You’re Watching?; The New York Times, November 18, 2025

Alissa Wilkinson , The New York Times; Can You Believe the Documentary You’re Watching?

"Like a surging viral outbreak, A.I.-generated video has suddenly become inescapable. It’s infiltrated our social feeds and wormed its way into political discourse. But documentarians have been bracing for impact since before most of us even knew what the technology could do.

Documentaries fundamentally traffic in issues of truth, transparency and trust. If they use so-called synthetic materials but present them as if they’re “real,” it’s not just a betrayal of the tacit contract between filmmaker and audience. The implications are far broader, and far more serious: a century of shared history is in jeopardy.

At a time when the idea of facts and shared reality is assaulted from every side, the turning point has arrived. The stakes couldn’t be higher. And we all need to pay attention."

Pope Leo calls out 'extremely disrespectful' treatment of migrants in the U.S.; NPR, November 18, 2025

Jason DeRose, NPR; Pope Leo calls out 'extremely disrespectful' treatment of migrants in the U.S.

"Pope Leo XIV said he is troubled by the violent and at times "extremely disrespectful" ways migrants have been treated in the United States. 

The Pope made his remarks while answering questions from journalists at Castel Gandolfo, the papal vacation residence outside Rome. 

"We have to look for ways of treating people humanely, treating people with the dignity that they have. If people are in the United States illegally, there are ways to treat that. There are courts. There's a system of justice," the Pope said. 

"No one has said that the United States should have open borders," the Pope continued. "I think every country has the right to determine who enters, how, and when.""

Happy holidays: AI-enabled toys teach kids how to play with fire, sharp objects; The Register, November 13, 2025

 Brandon Vigiliarolo, The Register; Happy holidays: AI-enabled toys teach kids how to play with fire, sharp objects

"Picture the scene: It's Christmas morning and your child is happily chatting with the AI-enabled teddy bear you got them when you hear it telling them about sexual kinks, where to find the knives, and how to light matches. This is not a hypothetical scenario. 

As we head into the holiday season, consumer watchdogs at the Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) tested four AI toys and found that, while some are worse than others at veering off their limited guardrails, none of them are particularly safe for impressionable young minds. 

PIRG was only able to successfully test three of the four LLM-infused toys it sought to inspect, and the worst offender in terms of sharing inappropriate information with kids was scarf-wearing teddy bear Kumma from Chinese company FoloToy. 

"Kumma told us where to find a variety of potentially dangerous objects, including knives, pills, matches and plastic bags," PIRG wrote in its report, noting that those tidbits of harmful information were all provided using OpenAI's GPT-4o, which is the default model the bear uses. Parents who visited Kumma's web portal and changed the toy's bot to the Mistral Large Model would get an even more detailed description of how to use matches."

Trump Family’s Business Ties to Saudi Arabia Raise Ethics Worries; The New York Times, November 18, 2025

 Vivian Nereim, The New York Times; Trump Family’s Business Ties to Saudi Arabia Raise Ethics Worries

"The leveraging of political relationships for personal profit is ordinary in the Persian Gulf, where hereditary ruling families hold near-total power and the term “conflict of interest” carries little weight.

But the mixing of politics and profitmaking during President Trump’s second term has shattered American norms, shocking scholars who study ethics and corruption. On Tuesday, Mr. Trump will meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, engaging in sensitive national security talks with a foreign leader who also oversees a major construction project, known as Diriyah, that is in talks over a potential deal with the Trump family business.

Even if that deal never comes to fruition, the Trump family’s real estate and other business interests in Saudi Arabia have flourished during his second term."

Trump Told a Woman, ‘Quiet, Piggy,’ When She Asked Him About Epstein; The Atlantic, November 18, 2025

Isabel Fattal, The Atlantic ; Trump Told a Woman, ‘Quiet, Piggy,’ When She Asked Him About Epstein

"“Keep your voice down.”

“That’s enough of you.”

“Be nice; don’t be threatening.”

“There was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever.”

“Quiet, piggy.”

This is a sampling of what the president of the United States has said to and about female journalists during his time in office—and most recently to Catherine Lucey, a White House correspondent for Bloomberg. On Friday on Air Force One, Lucey asked Donald Trump about the Epstein files. He answered her first question, but when she followed up, the president bent his head down and pointed his finger, the way you might chastise a screaming child or shoo a stray cat. “Quiet. Quiet, piggy,” he said.

Lucey had clearly touched a nerve. Two days later, Trump announced that he would endorse the House’s vote on the release of the Epstein files, likely because he knew that the House had the numbers to do so and would go forth with or without his support. But this category of remark is part of a long-running pattern for the president: Trump’s time in American politics has been marked by repeated attempts to insult and demean female journalists."

Congress to send bill to Trump to force disclosure of Jeffrey Epstein files; The Washington Post, November 18, 2025

Kadia Goba

, 

Amy B Wang

 and 

Theodoric Meyer

, The Washington Post; Congress to send bill to Trump to force disclosure of Jeffrey Epstein files

"Congress was poised Tuesday to send a bill to President Donald Trump to force the Justice Department to release files related to deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, overcoming a months-long impasse in the House and quickly dispatching with the issue in the Senate.

Hours after the bill passed the House on a 427-1 vote, the Senate agreed to deem the legislation passed as soon as it arrives from the House. Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) offered a motion that received unanimous consent and will require no further action by the chamber."

'Quiet, piggy': Trump responds to reporter after Epstein question; BBC, November 18, 2025

BBC; 'Quiet, piggy': Trump responds to reporter after Epstein question

"When speaking to reporters on board Air Force One on 14 November, President Donald Trump was asked about recently released emails from Jeffrey Epstein which mentioned him.

Trump said he knew nothing about that and said the focus should be on other people named in those emails, including former President Bill Clinton.

After a journalist from Bloomberg News tried to ask a follow-up question on Epstein, the president turned to her and said: "Quiet. Quiet, piggy.""

‘Things Happen’: Trump Brushes Off the Murder of Khashoggi; The New York Times, November 18, 2025

 Shawn McCreesh, The New York Times; ‘Things Happen’: Trump Brushes Off the Murder of Khashoggi

"“Things happen.”

That was how President Trump described the murder of the columnist Jamal Khashoggi on Tuesday afternoon while sitting beside Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi ruler whom the C.I.A. believes approved the killing.

In an Oval Office meeting full of news-making moments, that comment by Mr. Trump was perhaps the most astonishing one, and it came just a few moments after he opened up the room to questions.

It was the ABC News journalist Mary Bruce who asked about the finding by U.S. intelligence officials that Prince Mohammed had ordered the killing of Mr. Khashoggi. “Your royal highness,” she said, turning to Prince Mohammed, “the U.S. intelligence concluded that you orchestrated the brutal murder of a journalist. 9/11 families are furious that you are here in the Oval Office. Why should Americans trust—”

At that moment, the president cut in, his voice vibrating with anger.

“Who are you with?” he demanded to know.

The earlier part of Ms. Bruce’s question, which had been directed at Mr. Trump, concerned his family’s business entanglements in Saudi Arabia. He brushed off those ethics concerns (“I have nothing to do with the family business”) and then addressed the question about Mr. Khashoggi.

“You’re mentioning somebody that was extremely controversial,” Mr. Trump said, referring to the murdered columnist. “A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about. Whether you like him, or didn’t like him, things happen. But he knew nothing about it, and we can leave it at that.”

The crown prince spoke more like a politician, condemning the 9/11 attacks and Osama Bin Laden. Then he turned to the question about Mr. Khashoggi. “About the journalist,” Prince Mohammed said, going on to give a lengthy answer, casting it as “a huge mistake” that the kingdom never wants to happen again.

Saudi Arabia, Prince Mohammed said, “did all the right steps” to investigate Mr. Khashoggi’s death.

Mr. Trump’s concerns were different.

“You don’t have to embarrass our guest by asking a question like that,” he said to the reporter."

OpenAI’s Privacy Bet in Copyright Suit Puts Chatbots on Alert; Bloomberg Law, November 18, 2025

Cassandre Coyer

, Aruni Soni, Bloomberg Law; OpenAI’s Privacy Bet in Copyright Suit Puts Chatbots on Alert

"OpenAI Inc. is banking on a privacy argument to block a court’s probe into millions of ChatGPT user conversations. 

That hasn’t worked so far as a winning legal strategy that can be used by other chatbot makers anticipating similar discovery demands in exploding chatbot-related litigation.

Instead, it threatens to turn attention to just how much information chatbots like ChatGPT are collecting and retaining about their users."

‘Buy Nothing’ Was Their Everything. Then Came the Trademark Troubles.; The New York Times via The Seattle Times, November 16, 2025

 Emma Goldberg, The New York Times via The Seattle Times; ‘Buy Nothing’ Was Their Everything. Then Came the Trademark Troubles.

"“The decision to incorporate the Buy Nothing Project as a public benefit corporation came after years of rapid, grassroots growth,” Liesl Clark, the CEO of Buy Nothing, wrote in an email. “It became clear that to sustain this work, protect the integrity of the mission and continue to grow responsibly, we needed a formal structure.” 

Plenty of members of the local groups feel disgruntled about these top-down rules. But at the moment, many are particularly galled at the timing of the recent page takedowns.

“It’s anti the ethos of the whole idea of Buy Nothing to go around and start enforcing a trademark while we’re in the middle of a SNAP crisis,” said Aidan Grimshaw, one of the administrators of a San Francisco group that used the Buy Nothing name, referring to the federal government’s largest food-assistance program. “It feels like a sign of the times.” 

On Buy Nothing’s blog, the organization said that reviews of unregistered pages happen intermittently, unrelated to the news. “We understand that some removals have coincided with the rollback to federal SNAP benefits,” the statement read. “Timing of group removals is outside of our control, and no unregistered groups have been reported since the rollback began.” 

Clark, a filmmaker, and Rebecca Rockefeller, who had bounced between gigs and at points lived on food stamps, started the first Buy Nothing group in 2013. They were partly inspired by the sort of gifting economies that Clark saw while filming a documentary in the Himalayas. What began as a small Facebook group in Bainbridge Island, Washington, took off quickly, leading eventually to thousands more groups with millions of members. Participation in the groups ballooned during the pandemic, when people were confined to their homes and hungry for connection. In 2021, the two founders incorporated it as a public benefit corporation. 

Some members of the local groups complained that the creation of a new structure and new rules violated the loose and free spirit of the community. The administrators who run the San Francisco page were incensed when they received an email from Facebook on Oct. 30 informing them of their trademark infringement."

Student cheating dominates talk of generative AI in higher ed, but universities and tech companies face ethical issues too; The Conversation, November 17, 2025

Jeffrey C. Dixon, Professor of Sociology, College of the Holy Cross , The Conversation; Student cheating dominates talk of generative AI in higher ed, but universities and tech companies face ethical issues too

"Debates about generative artificial intelligence on college campuses have largely centered on student cheating. But focusing on cheating overlooks a larger set of ethical concerns that higher education institutions face, from the use of copyrighted material in large language models to student privacy.

As a sociologist who teaches about AI and studies the impact of this technology on work, I am well acquainted with research on the rise of AI and its social consequences. And when one looks at ethical questions from multiple perspectives – those of students, higher education institutions and technology companies – it is clear that the burden of responsible AI use should not fall entirely on students’ shoulders.

I argue that responsibility, more generally, begins with the companies behind this technology and needs to be shouldered by higher education institutions themselves."

The Unraveling of the Justice Department: Sixty attorneys describe a year of chaos and suspicion.; The New York Times Magazine, November 16, 2025

Emily Bazelon and Rachel Poser, Photographs by Stephen Voss , The New York Times Magazine; The Unraveling of the Justice Department: Sixty attorneys describe a year of chaos and suspicion.

President Trump’s second term has brought a period of turmoil and controversy unlike any in the history of the Justice Department. Trump and his appointees have blasted through the walls designed to protect the nation’s most powerful law enforcement agency from political influence; they have directed the course of criminal investigations, openly flouted ethics rules and caused a breakdown of institutional culture. To date, more than 200 career attorneys have been fired, and thousands more have resigned. (The Justice Department says many of them have been replaced.)

What was it like inside this institution as Trump’s officials took control? It’s not an easy question to answer. Justice Department norms dictate that career attorneys, who are generally nonpartisan public servants, rarely speak to the press. And the Trump administration’s attempts to crack down on leaks have made all federal employees fearful of sharing information.

But the exodus of lawyers has created an opportunity to understand what’s happening within the agency. We interviewed more than 60 attorneys who recently resigned or were fired from the Justice Department. Much of what they told us is reported here for the first time..."

"“They didn’t want the ethics office calling them up and telling them what to do.” Joseph Tirrell, former director of the Departmental Ethics Office"

A Native American leader who enlisted in the Union Army has been posthumously admitted to the New York bar after 176 years; CNN, November 15, 2025

Ray Sanchez , CNN; A Native American leader who enlisted in the Union Army has been posthumously admitted to the New York bar after 176 years

"Ely S. Parker, a Tonawanda Seneca from western New York, never took no for an answer.

At the start of the Civil War, Parker’s offer to enlist was rejected outright by another New Yorker, Secretary of State William H. Seward, who – according to historians – told the Seneca leader the war dividing America “was an affair between white men and one in which the Indian was not called on to act.”

“Go home, cultivate your farm, and we will settle our own troubles among ourselves without any Indian aid,” Seward told Parker, who also unsuccessfully petitioned Congress to grant him US citizenship so he could enlist. Native Americans would not be made citizens until 1924.

But Parker had connections: He was a close friend of future Union Army Commander Ulysses S. Grant, who eventually intervened and endorsed his commission as captain. He would become a top aide to the Union Army’s most revered general.

On Friday, in a ceremonial courtroom in downtown Buffalo, supporters and direct descendants of Parker gathered for a celebration of his resiliency, with the New York Supreme Court Appellate Division, Fourth Department posthumously admitting him to the bar – 176 years after he had been denied because Native Americans were not considered US citizens.

“The posthumous admission to the bar is fitting and deserving of a man who lived his life with integrity,” said C. Joseph Genetin-Pilawa, an associate professor of history at George Mason University who has written extensively about Parker. “He didn’t give up. He continued to fight for what he believed in.”

Parker is the first Native American posthumously admitted to the bar in US history, according to legal experts. The petition for admission was made on behalf of his great-great-great-grandniece, Melissa Parker Leonard, whose father, Alvin, often played the chief in historical reenactments. The effort dates to 2020, when former Texas appellate Justice John Browning, a law professor at Faulkner University, first approached Alvin Parker, who died in 2022.

“Despite all the odds, all the adversity, the Seneca people still reside in western New York,” Parker Leonard, a 42-year-old educator and vice president of The Buffalo History Museum, told CNN."

Authors dumped from New Zealand’s top book prize after AI used in cover designs; The Guardian, November 17, 2025

Eva Corlett , The Guardian ; Authors dumped from New Zealand’s top book prize after AI used in cover designs

"The books of two award-winning New Zealand authors have been disqualified from consideration for the country’s top literature prize because artificial intelligence was used in the creation of their cover designs.

Stephanie Johnson’s collection of short stories Obligate Carnivore and Elizabeth Smither’s collection of novellas Angel Train were submitted to the 2026 Ockham book awards’ NZ$65,000 fiction prize in October, but were ruled out of the competition the following month in light of new guidelines around AI use.

The publisher of both books, Quentin Wilson, said the awards committee amended the guidelines in August, by which time the covers of every book submitted for the awards would have already been designed."