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."

He Shot an Iconic Photo—and Lost the Copyright; FStoppers, October 31, 2026

 Alex Cooke, FStoppers ; He Shot an Iconic Photo—and Lost the Copyright

"Lester LaRue shot 44 frames on the morning of April 19, 1995, with his employer's camera, his employer's film, and his employer's car to get him there. One of those frames ran on the cover of Newsweek's May 1 issue. A federal court later ruled the copyrights had never been his...

What This Means for the Camera in Your Bag

If you draw a paycheck and you take pictures, this is the case to read. The doctrine does not weigh how good the photograph is, or whether your employer could ever have imagined it, and it does not require the picture to depict the business. The test comes out of agency law and asks three things: whether the work was the kind you were employed to perform, whether it happened substantially within the time and space your job authorized, and whether you were acting at least partly to serve your employer. Whose camera you were holding is evidence going to those questions, not a fourth question. LaRue lost because every one of the three pointed the same way, and staff shooters, in-house content producers, safety officers, and real estate agents lose the same way every year without a Newsweek cover to show for it.

Section 201(b) leaves one lever, the written instrument. Ownership between an employee and an employer can be reallocated, but only in a signed writing, and the practical time to get one is before anything happens in front of the lens. The Copyright Office's own guidance for photographers is blunt about the same point, and if you are building a business around images you expect to license later, the contract side deserves as much attention as the business of commercial photography itself. Freelancers get the better end of this: under Section 101, a commissioned photograph is a work made for hire only in narrow enumerated categories, and only with a signed agreement.

The publicity half of the case cuts the other direction, and it travels badly. Oklahoma tied its statute to what the naked eye can determine from the photograph alone, so an obscured face defeated the claim no matter what the caption said. Other states draw the line differently, and identifiability standards vary enough that a shot that is safe in one jurisdiction is exposure in another."

To make AI morally good, tech companies are turning to religion. But some say it isn’t that simple; AP, October 25, 2026

KRYSTA FAURIA, AP; To make AI morally good, tech companies are turning to religion. But some say it isn’t that simple

"Religion is more than a set of rules to follow

For decades, scholars have pushed back against a widespread view of religion as a set of rules or principles that can be divorced from the “messy, practical, ad hoc” ways adherents live, argues Webb Keane, an anthropologist at the University of Michigan.

The idea that religion can be separated from things like culture and politics remains entrenched, even though it suffuses both in many ways. Some worry that AI companies, as they ask various faith leaders to answer ethical questions, will further perpetuate a theory of religion that fails to recognize the importance of doctrine, ritual and relationships.

Here’s the issue, Keane argues: If you assume that religion overall can offer a distinct set of extractable moral principles, using it to train AI risks prioritizing certain traditions and distorting others — particularly when it comes to faiths that do not see themselves primarily as a system of ethics.

“There’s a very conventional way of thinking of religion as a rule book,” he said. “It is certainly very tied to scriptural religion, and the scriptural religions at the end of the day really turn out to be the Abrahamic religions.”"

Supreme Court recusals stop music case in its tracks, strike warning note; NPR, October 21, 2026

 Carrie Johnson, NPR; Supreme Court recusals stop music case in its tracks, strike warning note

"No quorum, because four of the nine justices recused themselves. The court did not explain why Sonia Sotomayor, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson stepped away from the case.

But the watchdog group Fix the Court has an idea: All four of those justices have book deals with Penguin Random House, part of a German conglomerate that's a party in the music copyright case.

"When you have a financial stake in a party or your finances could somehow be impacted by the outcome of a case, under federal law and the Supreme Court code of conduct, the justices are supposed to recuse," said Gabe Roth, who leads Fix the Court...

Three years ago, the Supreme Court published a code of conduct. But the long and short of it is, the justices largely police themselves.

Blackman, the law professor, said Congress should pass legislation to address the book royalties issue...

Tim Kappel is a lawyer for the songwriter in the case the court declined to hear. In a written statement, Kappel said the recusal speaks to the broad impact of copyright law and the expansive definition of what it means to be an artist."

A leading religious voice proposes a new test for AI: Humanity’s First Exam; Deseret News, October 17, 2026

Tad Walch , Deseret News; A leading religious voice proposes a new test for AI: Humanity’s First Exam

"Elder Gong said artificial intelligence presents three opportunities.

The first is artificial intelligence can help religions widely share the good they provide. The Church of Jesus Christ uses AI for humanitarian and educational services, translation and communication, pastoral and community support and more, he said.

“We help individuals and families live and contribute for good in an increasingly complex world,” he said.

The second is that faith traditions can help establish benchmark evaluations and moral compass in AI.

Third, religions can influence AI companies to infuse their models with a moral compass that promotes human flourishing by valuing families and faith.

Elder Gong repeated his position that AI is not and cannot be God.

“Whatever our faith or ethical tradition,” he said, “we know AI is math and math is not conscious or alive. As a creation of God, man can create AI, but AI cannot create God.”

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.

‘Honey Please’: Kimberly Guilfoyle Pushed Donor to Wire $100,000 to Her Amex Account; The Wall Street Journal, October 7, 2026

Dana Mattioli

, 

Drew Hinshaw

, 

Rebecca Ballhaus

 and 

Joe Parkinson , The Wall Street Journal; ‘Honey Please’: Kimberly Guilfoyle Pushed Donor to Wire $100,000 to Her Amex Account

"Kimberly Guilfoyle was preparing for her congressional hearing to become U.S. ambassador to Greece when she reached out to a Trump donor with an urgent request: She needed $100,000 that she said she owed American Express—in a way that wouldn’t leave a paper trail. 

“It won’t show up anywhere if you wire money to American Express,” she wrote on Signal, according to messages reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. “Please.”...

“Honey please I need you to get this done for me today,” she texted Deters, adding a prayer hands emoji and a PDF with bill payment instructions from American Express. “You could just send it here,” she wrote on July 3, 2025, just days before her July 9 confirmation hearing."

New Jersey lieutenant governor resigns after release of damaging ethics report; NBC News, September 25, 2026

Rebecca Shabad and Kyla Guilfoil, NBC News; New Jersey lieutenant governor resigns after release of damaging ethics report

"New Jersey Lt. Gov. Dale Caldwell has resigned from his position following an investigation that found he violated state ethics and harassment policy, Gov. Mikie Sherrill said Friday at a press conference."

Frank Mugisha: Inamori Ethics Prize Biography; Case Western Reserve University, September 23, 2026

Case Western Reserve University; Frank Mugisha: Inamori Ethics Prize Biography

Trump reveals millions of dollars' worth of share deals in big tech and AI; BBC, September 23, 2026

  

Dearbail Jordanand

Francisco Velasquez

, BBC; Trump reveals millions of dollars' worth of share deals in big tech and AI

"US President Donald Trump has disclosed millions of dollars' worth of stock market trades made during July, including in firms from Elon Musk's SpaceX to tech and AI giants such as Microsoft.

According to official documents, between $6.5m (£4.8m) and $31m worth of stock in Microsoft was sold on behalf of Trump, while they show purchases of between $165,000 and $400,000.

Across more than 1,000 trades, shares were bought and sold in AI company Nvidia and software firm Palantir, a contractor with the US defence department and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the filing shows."

The Logical End Point of AI Job Interviews Is Two Bots Talking to Each Other; Wired, September 2, 2026

 Kate Taylor, Wired ; The Logical End Point of AI Job Interviews Is Two Bots Talking to Each Other

Christopher was sick of being ghosted by AI recruiters. So he unleashed ChatGPT on his robot interviewer.

"By the fifth time Riley texted him, Christopher had had enough. If the company was going to use AI, he reasoned, why shouldn’t he do the same?

Christopher typed a handful of sentences of background information into ChatGPT Voice and told it to stand in as “Christopher.” Then, Christopher says, when Riley called, “I just put them next to each other, and they just hit it off.”"

Pa. election results, Shapiro’s speeches, and state laws are all prediction market bets. Could this lead to corruption?; Spotlight PA, September 3, 2026

Jaxon White , Spotlight PA; Pa. election results, Shapiro’s speeches, and state laws are all prediction market bets. Could this lead to corruption?

"Who will win Pennsylvania’s race for governor? How many data centers will be proposed here? Which state laws will be enacted this year?

That’s just a sample of the political questions that prediction market platforms, like Kalshi and Polymarket, allow people to bet on.

These platforms, which allow people to wager on the outcomes of a wide range of real-world events, are exploding in popularity. As the midterms approach and these markets receive more scrutiny, some ethics experts are raising concerns that they are ripe for abuse from government insiders or bad faith actors looking to sway elections."

Research shows ethics education teaches kids right from wrong. Why can so few students access it?; The Conversation, August 31, 2026

Michael Noetel, Geetanjali Basarkod, The Conversation; Research shows ethics education teaches kids right from wrong. Why can so few students access it?

"How important is it that kids learn to tell right from wrong?

Businessman and former university chancellor David Gonski recently called for ethics classes to be rolled out in all Australian schools to boost social cohesion. 

At the moment, ethics does not get dedicated time in the school curriculum. 

Some might argue children don’t need school ethics classes if they already learn ethics from their parents and other adults in their lives. 

But our research shows formal ethics education can make a difference. In the largest ever review on the subject, we found teaching ethics can improve students’ ability to reason through ethical issues and prioritise doing the right thing."

A Society of Cheats; The Atlantic, August 30, 2026

John Paul Rollert , The Atlantic; A Society of Cheats

Students’ use of AI is teaching them to cut corners, disdain rules, and believe that integrity is for suckers and wimps.

"By now, there have been many articles about how undergraduates’ promiscuous use of AI will affect their intellectual development, but I’m far more interested in its moral consequences. This is partly because I’m pretty confident about the former—I’ve told graduate students who actually learned how to write papers in college that I anticipate a generation of incompetents roughly a decade behind them—but also because I teach classes in leadership and business ethics, and I’m aghast at so many young people seemingly habituating themselves to cheating as a way of life.

Many students would no doubt object to this claim, but plainly that’s what they’re doing, cheating their way through their education. Every paper they don’t write, every problem set they don’t prepare, every serious reading they summarize into a memo—all of these are exercises in cutting corners, in getting by, and, at graduation time, in gaining a degree they didn’t earn.

That word is key: earn. To say that someone “earned” something is to apply a moral distinction to what one acquires. Not only can we get things we didn’t earn, but we can also obtain things we don’t deserve. The first is the good fortune of the trust-fund kid, the second the province of a thief.

Students are spending a lot of time learning to be thieves nowadays, and once they receive their dubious diplomas, they will enter the “real world” with all the qualities of a criminal syndicate: a knack for cutting corners, a disdain for community rules, and an assumption that a spirit of integrity, and the sacrifices it assumes, is the reserve of suckers and wimps. We will be a society of cheats."

Culture and ethics meets tech: UCLA debuts country’s first bachelor’s in digital humanities; LAist via Cal Matters, August 27, 2026

Mikhail Zinshteyn, LAist via Cal Matters,; Culture and ethics meets tech: UCLA debuts country’s first bachelor’s in digital humanities

"UCLA is launching the nation’s first digital humanities department and bachelor’s degree this fall. The new discipline combines classical humanities with technical know-how to examine a digitized and increasingly AI-enhanced world.

The major fuses technological tools for statistical analysis, coding, 3D mapping and data visualization with traditional humanities subjects like history, literature and global cultures. It’s a multidisciplinary approach to education that capitalizes on employers’ growing desire for recent graduates to think critically while also being able to harness new technology. And the major requires a great deal of teamwork among students, another skill hiring managers seek.

Students will learn how new technologies shape culture and the human biases that enter into the use of these new tools. Top of mind is the rise of generative artificial intelligence and training students to use it ethically while also understanding how easily it can produce misleading content."

Why Silicon Valley’s Vision of the AI Future Should Worry You; Time, August 24, 2026

 Liz Bucar, Time; Why Silicon Valley’s Vision of the AI Future Should Worry You

"Everyone has a vision of the ultimate future, some picture of what the world looks like at its best (or worst), and whether that future is even reachable. In religious studies, we call this an “eschatology.” 

Eschatology isn’t just the Book of Revelation or the Rapture. The Greek meaning of eschaton is “last things,” and today the word captures the set of beliefs a person holds about where things are headed and what that implies for the present. 

You don’t have to be religious to have an eschatology. Political optimism is an eschatology, whatever side you’re on. Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist,thinks the future is something we build our way toward with free childcare and buses. Stephen Miller, one of the architects of the current immigration crackdown,thinks it’s something we had and lost, but can get back through sealing the border and mass deportations. Neither one just describes the future. Both are telling you what you’re obligated to do about it right now. In other words, your eschatology shapes your ethics, because what you believe is coming determines what you feel obligated to do today."

AI Has Plunged the Book Publishing Industry Into Utter Chaos; Wall Street Journal, August 17, 2026

 Anna Silman, Wall Street Journal; AI Has Plunged the Book Publishing Industry Into Utter Chaos

The spectacular implosions of big deals over suspected AI use are forcing a reckoning over creativity, trust and the future of the industry

"The spectacular implosions of big book deals over suspected AI use—and fears about who might be next—are forcing a reckoning over the nature of authorship, the relationship between writers and publishers and the industry’s long-term survival. But nobody can seem to agree who exactly is responsible for solving this problem, or even how much a problem it actually is."

A bruising 24 hours - what next for Fifa and under-pressure Infantino?; BBC, August 1, 2026

Dale Johnson , BBC; A bruising 24 hours - what next for Fifa and under-pressure Infantino?

"On Tuesday morning, Gianni Infantino was in an impregnable position as Fifa president, the most powerful job in football.

Now, after trying to sell stakes in Fifa competitions to private investments firms - apparently without the knowledge of anyone else - Infantino's position appears to be under threat."

White House agrees to ethics provision in crypto bill; The Hill, July 21, 2026

 JULIA SHAPERO  , The Hill; White House agrees to ethics provision in crypto bill

"The White House has agreed to an ethics provision in a cryptocurrency regulation bill amid a final push to pass the legislation in the Senate.

The provision would bar all federal officials from offering or issuing digital assets, with the Department of Justice (DOJ) tasked with enforcing the measure, an industry source told The Hill following a meeting with White House crypto adviser Patrick Witt."

Ethics Panel Recommends Censure for Rep. Spillane for ‘Demeaning’ Comments; InDepthNH.org, July 17, 2026

Nancy West , InDepthNH.org; Ethics Panel Recommends Censure for Rep. Spillane for ‘Demeaning’ Comments

"The Committee charged Spillane with violations of the Ethics Guidelines, Section 1, Principles of Public Service, Paragraph III, Principle of Accountability, which provides that legislators “shall ensure that government is conducted openly, equitably and honorably in a manner that permits the citizenry to make informed judgments, have confidence in the integrity of the legislature, and hold government officials accountable” and Paragraph IV, Principle of Conduct, which provides that legislators “shall treat each other, legislative employees, and the public with dignity and respect.”

It will be up to the House to vote on the committee’s recommendation. The next time the House is expected to be in session will be Veto Day in September or October.

The report said Spillane admitted to making the postings identifying him as a state Representative at a hearing on the matter, but said they weren’t made in the performance of his official duties so his conduct didn’t fall within the jurisdiction of the Committee. Spillane also argued that his comments in the social media posts are protected speech under the federal and New Hampshire constitutions.

“While the right of freedom of speech is fundamental, it is not absolute. Certain categories of speech such as defamation and harassment can be restricted. In this case Rep. Horrigan testified that the offensive statements made in the posts were not true and. Rep. Harvey testified that she had legitimate concerns about her safety,” the report said.

In 2020, the civil rights unit of the Attorney General’s Office investigated a social media post by Spillane that stated “Public Service Announcement: If you see a (Black Lives Matter) sign on a lawn it’s the same as  having the porch light on for Halloween. You’re free to loot and burn that house.” Spillane said at the time he meant that post as “tongue-in-cheek” political commentary and the investigation was suspended with no action taken."