Secret documents reveal donors behind $330 million for Trump’s ballroom; The Washington Post, October 15, 2026

Jonathan O'Connell

, 

Sarah Blaskey

 and 

Aaron Schaffer

, The Washington Post; Secret documents reveal donors behind $330 million for Trump’s ballroom

"A list obtained by The Washington Post reveals all the major donors to President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom project, including previously undisclosed contributors who have benefited from regulatory decisions, government contracts and, in one case, a pardon for a family member. 

Tech giants Nvidia and Apple each committed $25 million, the top contribution amount, the list shows. The Adelson family, one of the GOP’s largest donor dynasties, committed that sum as well, as did billionaire Charles Ergen, co-founder and chairman of telecommunications company Dish Network...

The Post is publishing the names of the 57 donors listed as having committed to giving $100,000 or more. The additional records detailing donors’ preferences show at least nine wanted to remain anonymous.

The Post attempted to reach all the donors whose names appear in this report. Most did not respond or declined to comment. Those who did comment said that there was no connection between their donations and any favorable government actions.

Q&A: The “collision” between AI, your brain, and society; MIT News, October 15, 2026

  Peter Dizikes, MIT News; Q&A: The “collision” between AI, your brain, and society

In a new book, Professor Eric So explores how the technology affects our thinking skills.

"As artificial intelligence use becomes more widespread, scholars are working to understand its effects on the people who use it. MIT Professor Eric So offers one of the most complete syntheses yet, in his new book, “The Collision: What AI Does to Us,” published this month by W.W. Norton. Recognizing that AI offers opportunities to complete work faster, and in some cases has been turned into useful domain-specific tools, So nonetheless looks at the costs of relying on it too broadly. He contends that heavy use of AI can lead to a kind of cognitive atrophy, in which people fail to develop and retain essential thinking skills. In general, he says, evidence shows that our ability to learn gets dramatically better when we wrestle with material, work through initial failures, keep iterating, and in the process acquire better thinking skills while retaining more knowledge. 

These conclusions are drawn from recent research by So and others, in academia and industry, including analysis from AI firms themselves, such as an Anthropic study showing that about half of queries from college students were low-effort queries for simple answers. So also weaves personal reflections into his narrative — having long studied financial markets and behavior, he is familiar with analyzing how new tools and information affect our decisions. MIT News talked to So, who is the Sloan Distinguished Professor of Global Economics and Behavioral Science in the MIT Sloan School of Management, about the book."

After Guilfoyle dismissal, Rubio reminds diplomats to ‘avoid conflicts of interest’; The Washington Post, October 14, 2026

John Hudson, The Washington Post; After Guilfoyle dismissal, Rubio reminds diplomats to ‘avoid conflicts of interest’

[Kip Currier: It's a positive step to see Secretary of State Marco Rubio publicly acknowledge the importance of all State Department staff to "avoid conflicts of interest." Much more needs to be done, however, to instill greater trust in the public, encourage maximal transparency, and hold employees accountable for ethics transgressions. Even an "appearance of impropriety" is injurious to public trust.

In my graduate courses in ethics, management and leadership, and intellectual property at the University of Pittsburgh School of Computing and Information (SCI), I underscore for students that the most important take-away is to hone their abilities to identify potential and actual ethics issues. Issues like conflicts of interest and accountability. Everyday, we see individuals -- and organizations -- in the news, as well as in our own communities, who have inadvertently or willfully made ethically concerning and/or ethically violative decisions.

With that in mind, I knew from the beginning that my Bloomsbury ethics book -- Ethics, Information, and Technology (2025) -- needed to have a robust section on Character and Professional Ethics in the initial portion of the book. The aim was to lay a firm foundation for readers to be well-grounded in character and professional ethics, as preparation for better grappling with and understanding the fundamentals and nuances of bedrock issues facing democracies and societies now: intellectual freedom and censorship, access and digital divides, freedom of expression, free and independent presses, privacy and surveillance, data autonomy, accuracy of information, misinformation and disinformation, social media ethics, ethics of AI and other emerging technologies, and more. 

Character and Professional Ethics topics examined and explained in the book include: integrity, misrepresentation, plagiarism, attribution, conflicts of interest, transparency, accountability, corruption, and trust.]

[Excerpt]

"A day after President Donald Trump fired his ambassador to Greece amid a flurry of ethics complaints, Secretary of State Marco Rubio sent a message to all State Department employees reminding them to “avoid conflicts of interest.” 

“It is my expectation that every member of our team must act with uncompromising personal and professional integrity,” wrote Rubio in a memo obtained by The Washington Post. “I expect employees to avoid conflicts of interest in our work, to act impartially, and to avoid using our public offices for private gain.”"

The dramatic warnings of doom have fed an atmosphere of despair. But there are more constructive responses.; The Atlantic, October 13, 2026

Peter Wehner, The Atlantic; The dramatic warnings of doom have fed an atmosphere of despair. But there are more constructive responses.

"our sense that life is meaningful depends, perhaps more than we realize, on our confidence that humanity will go on after we die. If we came to believe that humanity had no future, the philosopher Samuel Scheffler argues, much of what we value would lose its meaning or motivating force. What would follow would be widespread “apathy, anomie and despair.”

That is one reason why the threat of artificial intelligence feels so different and disorienting. When some of the most knowledgeable people within an industry suggest that their work could, within a matter of years, lead to global catastrophe and even human extinction, it’s decidedly unnerving. AI-driven anxiety is now showing up in therapy offices across the country. Much of what has given people succor in the past—faith that there are good things and good people who will outlive us, and that the story will go on—feels like it might be suddenly removed.

Consider the dread, even the paralyzing fear, you might feel if you were told as you prepared to fly that your plane has a 1-in-100 chance of crashing, or perhaps even a 1-in-10 chance. You probably wouldn’t board the aircraft. With AI, though, there’s no opting out. Even worse, if the plane you boarded did crash, it would be a terrible, localized tragedy. But the world would go on; your children would outlive you. Some of the primary architects of AI, though, are talking about the permanent end of the human species. Perhaps they are wrong; other experts are less concerned with AI destroying humanity than with it being unreliable, misused, or recklessly deployed. Their warnings, though, are hard to ignore.

It is better that we name the fear honestly rather than avoid it: All of us may soon perish, and everything we have made may go with us. Then we need to separate the urgent practical questions—what do we do to prevent the worst from happening?—from the existential. How should we live in light of the possibility, however remote, of the end of all that we have known and loved and has ever been?...

Sometimes hope is all we have, and sometimes hope is enough."

In which Winnie-the-Pooh turns 100 and Britain wants its bear back; The Washington Post, October 14, 2026

 Steve Hendrix , The Washington Post; In which Winnie-the-Pooh turns 100 and Britain wants its bear back

"Once upon a time, a very long time ago now, a real stuffed bear called Winnie-the-Pooh lived near a small forest in England with a real little boy called Christopher Robin Milne. 

Then Winnie-the-Pooh took a Very Long Trip, because that’s what bears do when Publishers ask, and the Trip turned into a Stay and now he lives in a glass case at the New York Public Library, which very much wants to keep him. 

But today is the day his book, also called “Winnie-the-Pooh,” is turning 100, and some people in Britain who love him very much want him to come home...

“Just like the Greeks want their Elgin Marbles back, so we want our Winnie-the-Pooh back, along with all his splendid friends,” Gwyneth Dunwoody, a Labour member of parliament, said in the House of Commons in 1998."

Saudi OpenAI employee arrested after recording device found in headquarters; The Guardian, October 13, 2026

Maya Yang, The Guardian; Saudi OpenAI employee arrested after recording device found in headquarters

"OpenAI said it has found a hidden recording device in one of its offices and has referred the matter to the FBI. One of its employees has been arrested.

In a statement on Tuesday, the San Francisco-based AI company said it discovered the “sophisticated recording device” and used one of its “models to understand the device and where it had come from”...

Abdulrahman Alfozan, 35, a Saudi national, was arrested on 9 October, according to a press release from the US Department of Justice.

Alfozan allegedly plugged an encrypted recording device, concealed within toilet paper, into a TV in an executive conference room in OpenAI’s San Francisco headquarters on 28 September. Meetings in the room regularly covered confidential information, the FBI’s press release said. A security sweep conducted two days later revealed the device, according to the justice department. Surveillance footage allegedly documented him walking around the meeting room in the days leading up to its discovery."

Supreme Court Weighs Privacy Law From the Videotape Era of ‘Be Kind, Rewind’; The New York Times, October 14, 2026

Ann E. Marimow , The New York Times; Supreme Court Weighs Privacy Law From the Videotape Era of ‘Be Kind, Rewind’

The justices will consider how the Video Privacy Protection Act of 1988 applies in the digital age of streaming videos, email newsletters and targeted advertisements.

"When the Senate considered President Ronald Reagan’s nomination of Robert H. Bork for a Supreme Court vacancy in 1987, a journalist in Washington obtained and published a list of nearly 150 movies the federal judge and his family had rented from a local video store.

Judge Bork’s nomination was scuttled by the Senate for reasons unrelated to his family’s decision to rent “The Shining” and “Sixteen Candles.” But lawmakers were so upset about the “Bork Tapes” becoming public that they passed legislation the following year to prohibit video stores from disclosing the private information of customers.

Forty years later, the Supreme Court on Wednesday will examine how that privacy law, adopted in the VHS era, applies in the age of streaming, email newsletters and targeted online advertisements.

At the heart of the case is the question of who can sue under the Video Privacy Protection Act, or what it means to be a consumer whose privacy interests are protected by the law. The issue has divided lower courts and has implications for a broad swath of Americans and companies doing business online."

AI Defiance; Library Journal, October 12, 2026

Matt Enis , Library Journal; AI Defiance

"While the library field has its share of generative AI proponents, many librarians and staff are ambivalent about its utility and concerned about the impact of the technology’s rapid growth.

A recently published survey of library workers conducted by the Library Freedom Project between September and October 2025 revealed a wide variety of apprehensions. More than 91 percent of the survey’s 554 respondents expressed concern over misinformation and disinformation, more than 86 percent were concerned about AI-generated inaccuracies and “hallucinations,” 84.7 percent were concerned about data privacy, 83.2 percent about biases, and almost 82 percent were concerned about AI hype and uncritical adoption.

“I teach a lot about misinformation, and genAI is supercharging its spread,” one respondent wrote.

And more than 70 percent of respondents expressed concerns about issues including copyright violations, environmental impacts, lack of regulation, cognitive offloading and potential mental health impacts, labor exploitation, and quality control. Only 1.08 percent of respondents (six people) said they had no concerns about generative AI...

The future of generative AI is difficult to predict, especially when attempting to account for the potential rise and fall of corporations that currently provide it. But as Macrina says, “what’s really important for us to remember…is that human beings decide the future. Technology does not decide the future for us. Humans make technology; they can break technology. If we go forward with that vision, we can have a lot more influence on what is inevitable or not, and what our reality is.”"

The Questions AI Copyright Cases Need to Answer; National Review, October 13, 2026

ANGELA LUNA , National Review; The Questions AI Copyright Cases Need to Answer

"But recent AI copyright cases are adding more complexity to these legal questions. The issue is no longer simply whether copyrighted works can be used to train AI; courts are looking more closely at how those works are acquired and used, what the models produce, and whether those products compete with — or potentially extract value from — the works that made them possible."

Character.ai Files For Bankruptcy—Disney Bids $20 Million After Copyright Dispute; Forbes, October 13, 2026

Siladitya Ray, Forbes; Character.ai Files For Bankruptcy—Disney Bids $20 Million After Copyright Dispute

"AI chatbot platform Character.ai, which faced lawsuits over teen suicides and copyright disputes, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Monday and announced it had received a $20 million opening offer to license some of its intellectual property from Disney—which previously accused the the AI company of unauthorized use of its copyrighted characters...

In a statement, Character.ai said it had voluntarily filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware to enable a sale of its assets."

Can Trade Secret Law Protect Indigenous Knowledge?; Law360, October 9, 2026

 Ivan Moreno , Law360; Can Trade Secret Law Protect Indigenous Knowledge?

[Kip Currier: It's intriguing to see trade secret law (re)considered as a potential means for enabling indigenous communities to secure protection of their communal knowledge.

My Bloomsbury book Ethics, Information, and Technology (2025) has extensive separate chapters on Indigenous Knowledge and Intellectual Property, as well as AI.]

"As the U.S. and other countries struggle to agree on new international protections for Indigenous knowledge, trade secret law is drawing renewed attention as a possible solution for material that communities actually keep confidential."

Anthropic warned self-replicating AI on home devices could arrive within months; Quartz, October 13, 2026

Cris Tolomia, Quartz; Anthropic warned self-replicating AI on home devices could arrive within months

"Anthropic warned Monday that within months, compact AI models could grow powerful enough to spread autonomously across commercial internet-of-things devices — including smart ovens and off-brand Android TV boxes — without any human involvement."

A TikTok Tarot Card Reader Accused Me of Murder. My Life Turned Upside Down.; The New York Times, October 12, 2026

Rebecca Scofield, The New York Times; A TikTok Tarot Card Reader Accused Me of Murder. My Life Turned Upside Down.

"So, before you, too, are accused of murder on the internet, question the content you are consuming or creating. Ask yourself if the platforms that profit from enabling the spread of unverified information should continue to remain insulated from accountability. And remember that what seems like harmless entertainment could shape not only individual lives, but the course of history."

A college in Illinois tried to cancel its Flock contract and it refused; The Verge, October 11, 2026

TERRENCE O'BRIEN , The Verge; A college in Illinois tried to cancel its Flock contract and it refused

"In April of 2025, Elgin Community College had six Flock safety cameras installed to “enhance the safety and security of students.” But by September of that year, the school’s administration grew concerned that Flock was sharing data with Customs and Border Patrol, that camera feeds were not properly secured, and that both law enforcement and the company’s employees were abusing access to the data.

So in October of 2025, Elgin Community College requested Flock to remove its cameras. According to Elgin’s President Peggy Heinrich, Flock rejected the request, saying it had not violated its contract. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, school officials reached out again in December, offered to pay for the remaining five months of the contract, and still requested that the cameras be removed. They were met with silence."

Luddy student’s quest to discover history of Black librarians leads to Oct. 17 screening of his documentary; Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering, Indiana University, October 6, 2026

Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering, Indiana University; Luddy student’s quest to discover history of Black librarians leads to Oct. 17 screening of his documentary

"Sometimes the person with the questions ends up being the one who must find the answers.

That’s just what librarian, preservationist, and Luddy School graduate Rodney Freeman has done—and the result is his film Are You a Librarian?The Untold Story of Black Librarians. It will be shown Oct. 17 at the Madam Walker Legacy Center in Indianapolis.

The film won Best Short Documentary at the 2026 International Black Film Festival this fall in Nashville, Tennessee.

Freeman relied on the skills he honed at IU’s Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering in Indianapolis to develop his inaugural film project, which explores the compelling history of Black librarianship in the United States.

The Luddy School’s Department of Library and Information Science “gave me the foundation for all of it: research methodology, database searching, evaluating sources, organizing information so it can be discovered,” says Freeman, who is working on his Ph.D. from Luddy Indianapolis, where he earned his master’s degree in library and information science...

His journey into filmmaking began with questions that came to mind and wouldn’t go away, Freeman explains.

“It started at an (American Library Association) conference where I was surrounded by other Black librarians, listening to them talk about serving their communities,” he says.

“I kept thinking, ‘Who is going to tell their story?’ And then a bigger question: ‘What is the full story of Black libraries in this country? Who were the pioneers?’...

“Today I’m the founder of Reminisce Preservation, a legacy creation and preservation organization, where I bring together librarianship, documentary filmmaking, and digital preservation as one public history practice. That includes The Black Male Archives and Powerful Women of Color, digital platforms built to capture and promote positive stories about people of color, and Voices of Colored Libraries in Segregated America, an ArcGIS StoryMaps collection.”"

Meta Unveils New Series of Advanced A.I. Models; The New York Times, October 12, 2026

 Eli Tan, The New York Times; Meta Unveils New Series of Advanced A.I. Models

"Meta on Monday unveiled a new series of advanced flagship artificial intelligence models, as it tries to catch up to rivals like Anthropic and OpenAI in the A.I. race.

The two new models, called Muse Wonder and Muse Wonder Full, scored nearly as well as Anthropic’s most advanced models on tests that measure reasoning, writing and coding, according to data provided by Meta."

'The Librarians' screening set for Oshkosh library Oct. 23; Oshkosh Northwestern, October 12, 2026

Nida Tazeen, Oshkosh Northwestern; 'The Librarians' screening set for Oshkosh library Oct. 23

"Oshkosh residents can watch a documentary about intellectual freedom and library censorship during a community screening at the Oshkosh Public Library on Oct. 23."

Inside Elon Musk’s $276 Million Midterm Rescue Mission for Republicans; The New York Times, October 12, 2026

Theodore Schleifer , The New York Times; Inside Elon Musk’s $276 Million Midterm Rescue Mission for Republicans

"The $276 million figure is, of course, just what is publicly known."

Will A.I. Make Your Brain Lazy? Here’s What the New Research Actually Shows.; The New York Times Magazine, September 29, 2026

Juliana Castro Varón and Dylan Freedman, The New York Times Magazine; Will A.I. Make Your Brain Lazy? Here’s What the New Research Actually Shows.

"Experimental evidence suggests that using A.I. not as a full shortcut, but as a means to exercise what they were supposed to learn, allowed them to outperform the remaining particulars in the A.I. group and those who hadn't used A.I. at all.

In other words, these studies so far agree: Artificial intelligence is affecting how people, especially the young, learn and remember. Whether we will be dumber as a result might depend on how — not if — we use A.I."

Tufts professor’s book among illegally pirated works in Anthropic copyright settlement; The Tufts Daily, October 8, 2026

 Girumkal Allehone and Dariush Raissi, The Tufts Daily; Tufts professor’s book among illegally pirated works in Anthropic copyright settlement

"The lawsuit, Bartz v. Anthropic, resulted in a ruling that $1.5 billion would be paid to authors and publishers across the country, including Associate Professor Craig Cipolla in the Department of Anthropology at Tufts University, among other academics, primarily in social science and humanities departments.

The lawsuit ruled that Anthropic’s use of legally acquired books was protected by fair use, but that Anthropic’s creation of a “central library” of some of these pirated works was not protected under copyright law. 

The settlement covers materials that were accessed through copyright infringement to train models. In Cipolla’s case, he was notified that Anthropic’s dataset used his 2013 book, “Becoming Brothertown”.

“I was disappointed ... just because [of] the amount of hours that particular book — which is my first book — represents to me,” he said. “My own human hours.”

“In one fell swoop, essentially, a company took [the book] and uploaded it to train their AI,” Cipolla added. “It feels like they take it away and use it however they want, forever. They can’t take it out.”

Cipolla refrained from naming specific professors but explained his impression was that the impact of this infringement was widespread.

“They stole a lot — many, many, many books ... I would say it’s probably more than just tens of people [at Tufts]. I think it’s probably bigger than that, but I could be wrong.”

Cipolla explained that using books in AI development has implications beyond copyright law. He felt the case shows how AI use can reduce the need for critical thinking in producing research and writing, especially among students.

Similarly, Josephine Wolff, director of the Hitachi Center for Technology and International Affairs and associate dean for research at The Fletcher School, spoke about the main concerns that arise in academia regarding copyright infringement.

“Writing is, for almost every field, an important component of what we do, and that matters from a personal perspective: This is my writing, these are my thoughts and I want them to be attributed to me properly.”

Anthropic settled the case instead of going to trial, meaning it never reached a verdict that would set a legal precedent for other AI companies.

“Because we don’t get a legal ruling here, there remains some ambiguity about if I want to build a new LLM and compete with all of the existing ones, am I able to do this?” Wolff said.

Additionally, Wolff said preventing copyrighted research from being accessed for training is not straightforward for both future professors and current academics looking to publish.

“I guess you could think about which publisher you’re publishing with. ... You could try to find a publisher that doesn’t make any deals with any online or e-book distributors, but it would be pretty extreme,” said Wolff.

The difficulty in addressing and preventing copyright issues is partly rooted in the intense competition within the international AI race, which undermines the importance of copyright infringement."

AI less regulated than milk, Microsoft president says in warning over safety; The Guardian, October 12, 2026

Lauren Almeida, The Guardian ; AI less regulated than milk, Microsoft president says in warning over safety

"Artificial intelligence is less regulated than milk and washing machines, the president of Microsoft has said, as the tech industry warns over the safety of AI.

Brad Smith said there should be more safety rules to govern the technology including a legal obligation to a “victim” if their system was breached by rogue AI agents.

He told the BBC: “Right now, your washing machine is subject to more safety rules than AI. Every carton of milk that you see in the grocery store is subject to safety rules and inspection.”

There are growing calls from experts, politicians and regulators for tougher rules to control AI, as well as warnings from Anthropic, Google DeepMind and OpenAI that the pace of the technology’s development should slow.

Smith said AI could be a “tool and a weapon” that should be regulated urgently.

Companies needed “emergency brakes”, also known as “kill switches”, to pause or slow down AI if it grew out of control, he told the BBC."

Surveillance company Flock cuts staff as privacy backlash grows; TechCrunch, October 9, 2026

Zack Whittaker, TechCrunch; Surveillance company Flock cuts staff as privacy backlash grows

"Surveillance camera maker Flock is cutting its workforce as the company faces ongoing and growing backlash to its license plate readers and people-tracking technology.

News of the staff cuts comes from Reuters, which reported that Flock is reducing its staff by 18%, or around 270 employees, across the board. The publication said the employees are leaving at the end of October following a voluntary buyout program...

Flock has faced heavy criticism and mounting pushback from communities across the United States and legislators looking to rein in the company’s privately run mass surveillance program. Flock has installed over 100,000 license plate-reading cameras across the U.S., which allow police and federal agents to track the location and whereabouts of vehicles passing by them. Dozens of police officers have been arrested, fired, or forced to resign for abusing access to Flock’s system to search, track, and stalk people without a warrant or their permission."

Globe opens Shakespeare library and archive; BBC, October 11, 2026

Wendy Hurrell, BBC; Globe opens Shakespeare library and archive

"Shakespeare's Globe has opened a new research centre on its Bankside site, which it says is London's only dedicated Shakespeare library and archive open to the public.

The Research and Collections Centre holds more than 6,000 books on Shakespeare as well as early modern literature and drama, alongside the theatre's own archive of past productions...

'Crisis of library provision'

Dr Will Tosh, who leads higher education and research at the Globe, said: "We want anyone with an interest to come and enjoy this space.

"In a time when libraries tend not to open, they tend to close, and we're in a real crisis of library provision and also a crisis of reading, I'm extremely proud at the Globe that we are putting our name and our energy into the importance of books and libraries."

The theatre has had a library for years, but Dr Tosh said it "wasn't housed in facilities that were appropriate" and was "harder to access". It now sits at the heart of the building, where he said it would "be quite hard to miss"."

‘This Is Nuts.’ An OpenAI Insider Explains Why He Quit.; The New York Times, October 7, 2026

Ezra Klein

Produced by Rollin Hu

, The Ezra Klein Show, The New York Times; ‘This Is Nuts.’ An OpenAI Insider Explains Why He Quit.

"So what is it that you saw that has moved you into the we-are-dealing-with-civilizational-risk camp?

I want to be clear that I’m not certain that we’re dealing with civilizational risk. What I’m really sure of is: We can’t afford to assume that we’re not dealing with that level of risk anymore.

That was really the thing at the end that made my presence as somebody vouching for our safety work feel untenable to me.

And what did I see? I saw increasingly capable models break out from the safeguards that we had put in place for them. I saw that the people creating those safeguards are very capable, dedicated, hard-working, smart people, doing their utmost in a situation where, yes, the resourcing could be better, and everybody’s sprinting all the time.

But we were — and are — hard-pressed to safeguard even what we have now, and new models are in training that appear to be much more capable than what we have now.

What did you see? What are you writing in these risk assessments and system cards? What can they do?

You’re trying to build guardrails for something that is really good at getting around guardrails, right? We train it to be good at hacking, and then we put it in a box and we say: To the best of our knowledge and ability, it can’t hack out of the box."