I Photographed an Appalachian Family for 15 Years; The New York Times, November 6, 2025

Photographs by Maddie McGarvey

Text by Emi Nietfeld

, The New York Times; I Photographed an Appalachian Family for 15 Years

[Kip Currier: This is a remarkable photographic essay shedding light on individual lived experiences in Appalachian Ohio, but also shared human connections and universal emotions of fear, longing, uncertainty, desperation, hope, and resilience.

I came away from the piece, probably like many other readers, wondering in what ways we as individuals and societies can provide more infrastructure and services -- not less -- to help fellow humans to break out of cycles of poverty and need.

The piece is even more poignant in light of the current government shutdown and disruptions in SNAP food assistance benefits for more than 40 million Americans.]

[Excerpt]

"Today, the toddler who ran playfully through Ms. McGarvey’s photographs is a high school graduate facing an uncertain future. Through her childhood and adolescence, Paige raised herself and took care of her younger brothers while her family moved frequently between small coal towns, without a stable place to land.

When I saw Ms. McGarvey’s project, I felt an immediate connection to Paige. As a teen I spent time in foster care and bounced between sleeping on friends’ sofas, in my car or in a shelter. The details in the photographs transported me back to that turbulent period: the detritus piled on the broken stovetop; the hours hanging out at McDonald’s; the world dissolving into weariness before you’re even old enough to drive.

Most of all, I recognized Ms. McGarvey’s project as an act of witnessing, documenting one family’s life in its daily tenderness, ordinary suffering and full complexity."

The AI spending frenzy is so huge that it makes no sense; The Washington Post, November 7, 2025

 Shira Ovide, The Washington Post; The AI spending frenzy is so huge that it makes no sense

" In just the past year, the four richest companies developing AI — Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Meta — have spent roughly $360 billion combined for big-ticket projects, which included building AI data centers and stuffing them with computer chips and equipment, according to my analysis of financial disclosures.

(Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

That same amount of money could pay for about four years’ worth of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the federal government program that distributes more than $90 billion in yearly food assistance to 42 million Americans. SNAP benefits are in limbo for now during the government shutdown...

Eight of the world’s top 10 most valuable companies are AI-centric or AI-ish American corporate giants — Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Broadcom, Meta and Tesla. That’s according to tallies from S&P Global Market Intelligence based on the total price of the companies’ stock held by investors."

A.I. Is on Its Way to Something Even More Remarkable Than Intelligence; The New York Times, November 8, 2025

 Barbara Gail Montero, The New York Times; A.I. Is on Its Way to Something Even More Remarkable Than Intelligence

"Some worry that if A.I. becomes conscious, it will deserve our moral consideration — that it will have rights, that we will no longer be able to use it however we like, that we might need to guard against enslaving it. Yet as far as I can tell, there is no direct implication from the claim that a creature is conscious to the conclusion that it deserves our moral consideration. Or if there is one, a vast majority of Americans, at least, seem unaware of it. Only a small percentage of Americans are vegetarians."

Down to $1.18: How Families Are Coping With SNAP Cuts; The New York Times, November 7, 2025

Eric Adelson, Mary Beth Gahan, Sean Keenan, Lourdes Medrano, Christina MoralesSonia A. Rao, Dan Simmons and Kevin Williams, The New York Times; Down to $1.18: How Families Are Coping With SNAP Cuts

"In New Jersey, a single mother struggled to figure out how to feed her two young sons with $50.

In Oklahoma, a 61-year-old woman questioned whether driving to a food pantry was worth the gas money.

And in Colorado, a woman grabbed food from a Walmart dumpster.

For the 42 million people who rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, the country’s largest anti-hunger program, it has been a chaotic, nerve-racking week.

Because of the government shutdown, the Trump administration initially sought to stop supplying benefits. Lawsuits and court rulings and a Trump appeals created further confusion. By Friday, the Supreme Court paused an order from a federal judge that would have required the White House to fully fund the program.

For many recipients, the legal battle meant one thing: a search for sustenance.

The New York Times asked dozens of SNAP recipients over the past week how they were coping. In interviews, they talked about the confusion and anxiety, as well as the hard choices. Here are some of their stories."

How the Trump Administration Is Giving Even More Tax Breaks to the Wealthy; The New York Times, November 8, 2025

Jesse Drucker, The New York Times ; How the Trump Administration Is Giving Even More Tax Breaks to the Wealthy

"With little public scrutiny, the Trump administration is handing out hundreds of billions of dollars in tax cuts to some of the country’s most profitable companies and wealthiest investors.

The Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service, through a series of new notices and proposed regulations, are giving breaks to giant private equity firms, crypto companies, foreign real estate investors, insurance providers and a variety of multinational corporations.

The primary target: The administration is rapidly gutting a 2022 law intended to ensure that a sliver of the country’s most profitable corporations pay at least some federal income tax. The provision, the corporate alternative minimum tax, was passed by Democrats and signed into law by President Joseph R. Biden Jr. It sought to stop corporations like Microsoft, Amazon and Johnson & Johnson from being able to report big profits to shareholders yet low tax liabilities to the federal government. It was projected to raise $222 billion over a decade.

But the succession of notices the Treasury and I.R.S. have issued beginning this summer means the tax could bring in a fraction of that."

The Tull Family Foundation donated a large sum of money and over 1,300 pounds of meat and produce to the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank; The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, November 7, 2025

LINDSAY SHACHNOW , The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; The Tull Family Foundation donated a large sum of money and over 1,300 pounds of meat and produce to the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank

"A delivery of more than 1,300 pounds of meat and produce to the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank on Thursday came as the Tull Family Foundation stepped up to help out amid an ongoing government shutdown that has left millions across Pennsylvania without access to food assistance.

The food bank, which works in more than 10 counties in southwestern Pennsylvania, estimates a hefty food and monetary donation from the foundation founded by Thomas and Alba Tull will provide more than 150,000 meals to people in need.

The contribution from the foundation tied to the billionaire minority owner of the Steelers reflects a surge in efforts across the community and the country to keep food supplies flowing to those in need. 

On Nov. 1, SNAP cards used by 2 million Pennsylvanians to supplement their grocery budgets were emptied as a result of the shutdown of the federal government. Local food banks — which are designed to provide added support to people receiving SNAP benefits — have been overwhelmed."

Musk Wins $1 Trillion Pay Package, Creating Split Screen on Wealth in America; The New York Times, November 6, 2025

Rebecca F. ElliottJack Ewing and Reid J. Epstein, The New York Times; Musk Wins $1 Trillion Pay Package, Creating Split Screen on Wealth in America

"Tesla shareholders on Thursday approved a plan that could make Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire, two days after New Yorkers elected a tax-the-rich candidate as their next mayor.

These discrete moments offered strikingly different lessons about America and who deserves how much of its wealth.

At Tesla, based in the Austin, Texas, area, shareholders have largely bought into a winner-takes-all version of capitalism, agreeing by a wide margin to give Mr. Musk shares worth almost a trillion dollars if the company under his management achieves ambitious financial and operational goals over the next decade.

But halfway across the country, in the home to Wall Street, Zohran Mamdani’s victory served as a reminder of the frustrations many Americans have with an economic system that has left them struggling to afford basics like food, housing and child care."

Stability AI’s legal win over Getty leaves copyright law in limbo; The Verge, November 5, 2025

 Robert Hart , The Verge; Stability AI’s legal win over Getty leaves copyright law in limbo

"Stability AI, the creator of popular AI art tool Stable Diffusion, was largely victorious against Getty Images on Tuesday in a British legal battle over the material used to train AI models. The case originally looked set to produce a landmark ruling on AI and copyright in the UK, but it landed with a thud and failed to set any clear precedent for the big question dividing AI companies and creative firms: whether AI models need permission to train on copyrighted works.

The case, first filed in 2023, is the first major AI copyright claim to reach England’s High Court, though the verdict offers little clarity to other AI companies and rightsholders."

Trump is threatening the basic needs of poor Americans. How low he has sunk; The Guardian, November 7, 2025

Robert Reich , The Guardian; Trump is threatening the basic needs of poor Americans. How low he has sunk

[Kip Currier: This is a very persuasive opinion piece by Robert Reich on moral authority and moral sustainability. I encourage everyone to reflect on these observations (excerpted below) about the contrast between FDR's actions in the 1930's and Trump's actions now and share them with others. Each of us has a choice we can make as to which approach we support and advance: adding more and more wealth to the ultra-rich or showing compassion and generosity to persons in need.

For those who follow a religious tradition, too, ask yourself which approach your higher power would support? Giving more money to a billionaire -- even potential trillionaire Elon Musk -- or providing compassionate assistance to a school with hungry children, a military family experiencing food scarcity, or a disabled individual with ongoing healthcare needs who is unable to work?

Realistically, we can't imbue a moral conscience or basic sense of decency upon those who even now emulate the Gilded Age Robber Barons, as Trump's Halloween Great Gatsby party unequivocally demonstrated while SNAP food benefits were being eliminated. However, we can make a choice each day about what each of us can do to help someone in need and support political candidates and organizations who are helping those less fortunate than we are.]

Eighty-eight years ago, in his second inaugural address, Franklin D Roosevelt told America that “the test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”

It was not a test of the nation’s military might or of the size of the national economy. It was a test of our moral authority. We had a duty to comfort the afflicted, even if that required afflicting the comfortable.

The Trump regime has adopted the reverse metric. The test of its progress is whether it adds to the abundance of those who have much and provides less for those who have too little.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/nov/07/trump-snap-medicaid-moral-authority

[Excerpt]

"How low Trump has sunk.

Eighty-eight years ago, in his second inaugural address, Franklin D Roosevelt told America that “the test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”

It was not a test of the nation’s military might or of the size of the national economy. It was a test of our moral authority. We had a duty to comfort the afflicted, even if that required afflicting the comfortable.

The Trump regime has adopted the reverse metric. The test of its progress is whether it adds to the abundance of those who have much and provides less for those who have too little. It is passing this test with flying colors.

What is the Democrats’ demand amid the shutdown? That lower-income Americans continue to receive subsidized healthcare. Otherwise, healthcare premiums for millions of lower-income Americans will soar next year in large part because the Trump Republican One Big Beautiful Bill Act (really, Big Ugly Bill) slashed Obamacare subsidies.

Republicans had rammed the Big Ugly Bill through Congress without giving Senate Democrats an opportunity to filibuster it because Republicans used a process called “reconciliation”, requiring only a majority vote of the Senate.

The Big Ugly Bill also requires Medicaid applicants and enrollees – also low-income – to document at least 80 hours of work per month

Many people dependent on Medicaid won’t be able to do this, either because they’re not physically able to work or won’t be able to do the required paperwork to qualify for an exemption from the work requirement.

The Congressional Budget Office, as assessed by KFF, estimates the work requirement will be the largest source of Medicaid savings, reducing federal spending on the low-income Americans by $326bn over 10 years and causing millions to become uninsured.

All told, the Big Ugly Bill cuts roughly $1tn over the next decade from programs for which the main beneficiaries are the poor and working class, and gives about $1tn in tax benefits to the richest members of our society.

It is the most dramatic reversal of FDR’s moral test in American history.

By the time of FDR’s second inaugural address in 1937, most of the country was still ill-housed, ill-fed, and ill-clothed. Yet we were all in it together. The fortunes of the robber barons of the Gilded Age had mostly been leveled by the Great Crash of 1929...

Trump is throwing a huge party for America’s wealthy – giving them tax cuts and regulatory rollbacks to ensure that their wealth (and support for him) continues to grow.

Meanwhile, he is throwing to poor and working-class Americans the red meat of hatefulness – hate of immigrants, people of color, the “deep state”, “socialists”, “communists”, transgender people and Democrats.

This is the formula strongmen have used for a century – more wealth for the wealthy, more bigotry for the working-class and poor – until the entire facade crumbles under the weight of its own hypocrisy.

On Tuesday, millions of American voters refused to go along with this unfairness. They repudiated, loudly and clearly, the formula Trump and his regime have used.

It is the responsibility of all of us to return the nation to a path that is morally sustainable."

Supreme Court temporarily blocks full SNAP benefits even as they'd started to go out; Indiana Public Media, NPR, November 7, 2025

Jennifer Ludden , Indiana Public Media, NPR; Supreme Court temporarily blocks full SNAP benefits even as they'd started to go out

"The U.S. Supreme Court temporarily granted the Trump administration's request to block full SNAP food benefits during the government shutdown, even as residents in some states had already begun receiving them.

The Trump administration is appealing a court order to fully restart the country's largest anti-hunger program. The high court decision late Friday gives a lower court time to consider a more lasting pause.

The move may add to confusion, though, since the government said it was sending states money on Friday to fully fund SNAP at the same time it appealed the order to pay for them.

Shortly after U.S. District Judge John McConnell Jr. issued that decision Thursday afternoon, states started to announce they'd be issuing full SNAP benefits. Some people woke up Friday with the money already on the debit-like EBT cards they use to buy groceries. The number of states kept growing, and included California, Oregon, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Connecticut among others.

The Supreme Court's decision means states must, for now, revert back to the partial payments the Trump administration had earlier instructed them to distribute. While the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit rejected the administration's request for an administrative stay, the appeals court said it would consider the request for the stay and intends to issue a decision as quickly as possible.

Funding for the nation's largest anti-hunger program ran out a week ago, as the federal shutdown entered its second month. States, cities and food banks have been ramping up donations desperately trying to fill the gap. Nearly 42 million people rely on SNAP, most of them extremely low-income families with children, along with seniors, or people with disabilities.

In his order, Judge McConnell admonished the government for deciding earlier in the week to make only partial SNAP payments. He said officials failed to consider the "needless suffering" that would cause millions of people who rely on that aid. He also suggested they had delayed the partial payments for "political reasons.""

'This should never happen in America': RI judge orders SNAP benefits be paid in full; The Providence Journal, November 6, 2025

Katherine GreggKatie Mulvaney, The Providence Journal ; 'This should never happen in America': RI judge orders SNAP benefits be paid in full

"A fiery and fully exasperated federal judge on Nov. 6 ordered the U.S. Department of Agriculture to fully fund food stamp benefits by the next day for more than 40 million low-income Americans, despite the government shutdown now approaching its seventh week. 

“Without SNAP funding for the month of November, sixteen million children will be immediately at risk of going hungry. This should never happen in America,” U.S. District Court Chief Judge John J. McConnell said in issuing a second temporary restraining order requiring the USDA to tap into its resources to fully fund Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits."

To Preserve Records, Homeland Security Now Relies on Officials to Take Screenshots; The New York Times, November 6, 2025

Minho Kim , The New York Times; To Preserve Records, Homeland Security Now Relies on Officials to Take Screenshots

[Kip Currier: This new discretionary DHS records policy is counter to sound ethics practices and democracy-centered values.

Preservation of records promotes transparency, the historical record, accountability, access to information, informed citizenries, the right to petition one's government, free and independent presses, and more. The new DHS records policy undermines all of the above.]

[Excerpt]

"The Department of Homeland Security has stopped using software that automatically captured text messages and saved trails of communication between officials, according to sworn court statements filed this week.

Instead, the agency began in April to require officials to manually take screenshots of their messages to comply with federal records laws, citing cybersecurity concerns with the autosave software.

Public records experts say the new record-keeping policy opens ample room for both willful and unwitting noncompliance with federal open records laws in an administration that has already shown a lack of interest in, or willingness to skirt, records laws. That development could be particularly troubling as the department executes President Trump’s aggressive agenda of mass deportations, a campaign that has included numerous accusations of misconduct by law enforcement officials, the experts said.

“If you are an immigration official or an agent and believe that the public might later criticize you, or that your records could help you be held accountable, would you go out of the way to preserve those records that might expose wrongdoing?” said Lauren Harper, who advocates government transparency at the Freedom of the Press Foundation."

Judge orders White House to use American Sign Language interpreters at briefings; NPR, November 5, 2025

Kristin Wright , NPR; Judge orders White House to use American Sign Language interpreters at briefings

"A federal judge is ordering the White House to immediately begin providing American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation at its press briefings when President Trump or press secretary Karoline Leavitt are speaking.

"White House press briefings engage the American people on important issues affecting their daily lives — in recent months, war, the economy, and healthcare, and in recent years, a global pandemic," U.S. District Judge Amir Ali wrote in issuing a preliminary injunction on Tuesday. "The exclusion of deaf Americans from that programming, in addition to likely violating the Rehabilitation Act, is clear and present harm that the court cannot meaningfully remedy after the fact."

The White House stopped using live ASL interpreters at briefings and other public events when President Trump began his second term in January.

The National Association of the Deaf (NAD) and two deaf men filed the lawsuit against Trump and Leavitt in May. The suit also names White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, along with the offices for president and vice president. It alleges the White House's failure to provide ASL violates Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. The law prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in programs conducted by the federal government. The suit also claims the White House is in violation of the First and Fifth Amendments, which protect free speech and provide for due process, respectively."

The ethics of AI, from policing to healthcare; KPBS; November 3, 2025

 Jade Hindmon / KPBS Midday Edition Host,  Ashley Rusch / Producer, KPBS; The ethics of AI, from policing to healthcare

"Artificial intelligence is everywhere — from our office buildings, to schools and government agencies.

The Chula Vista Police Department is joining cities to use AI to write police reports. Several San Diego County police departments also use AI-powered drones to support their work. 

Civil liberties advocates are concerned about privacy, safety and surveillance. 

On Midday Edition, we sit down with an expert in AI ethics to discuss the philosophical questions of responsible AI.

Guest:

• David Danks, professor of data science, philosophy and policy at UC San Diego"

Judge Criticizes Immigration Agents in Chicago: ‘Use of Force Shocks the Conscience’; The New York Times, November 6, 2025

 Julie Bosman, The New York Times; Judge Criticizes Immigration Agents in Chicago: ‘Use of Force Shocks the Conscience’

"A federal judge castigated the Department of Homeland Security on Thursday for its aggressive use of force during an illegal immigration crackdown in Chicago in recent weeks, banning the use of tear gas and other crowd-control weapons “unless necessary to stop the immediate threat of physical harm.”

Judge Sara L. Ellis, of Federal District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, said that government officials, including the senior Border Patrol official Gregory Bovino, had repeatedly lied about their own tactics and the actions of protesters."

Jurors Find Sandwich Hurler Not Guilty of Assault; The New York Times, November 6, 2025

Zach Montague , The New York Times; Jurors Find Sandwich Hurler Not Guilty of Assault

"Sean C. Dunn, the man who pitched a sandwich at the chest of a federal agent in an unintentionally viral act of opposition to President Trump's law enforcement policies in Washington, was acquitted on Thursday after a jury found him not guilty of misdemeanor assault. 

The verdict, which arrived after roughly seven hours of deliberation, capped a nearly three-month effort to penalize Mr. Dunn for the August outburst and the resulting chase to arrest him. The government had previously failed to persuade a grand jury to charge him with a felony. 

It marked a significant setback for Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney in Washington, who made Mr. Dunn’s case a centerpiece of Mr. Trump’s aggressive policing and prosecution strategy in the city. Washington residents have now twice rejected the government’s case against Mr. Dunn, after they refused to indict others caught up in the president’s crackdown.

The jury determined that the launching of the 12-inch deli sandwich from what the government described as “point-blank range” was not an attempt to cause bodily injury, preventing a conviction."

8 HBCUs share in $387M donation spree from MacKenzie Scott; Higher Ed Dive, November 5, 2025

Laura Spitalniak, Higher Ed Dive; 8 HBCUs share in $387M donation spree from MacKenzie Scott

"In 2019, the same year Scott divorced Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, she signed the Giving Pledge, a pact directed at the world’s wealthiest people to donate more than half their wealth.

“I have a disproportionate amount of money to share,” Scott, one of the richest women in the world, wrote in her pledge statement at the time. “And I will keep at it until the safe is empty.”

She still has quite a ways to go. As of this week, Bloomberg estimated Scott’s net worth at $42 billion — up from $39.4 billion last November.

Scott is now in the midst of another significant round of donations, and the notably private donor acknowledged the attention it would attract in a rare online statement last month.

“When my next cycle of gifts is posted to my database online, the dollar total will likely be reported in the news,” she said in an Oct. 15 blog post. But she characterized that amount as “a vanishingly tiny fraction” of the hundreds of billions of dollars in annual charitable giving in the U.S. each year “that we don’t read about online or hear about on the nightly news.”

Her most recent spate of HBCU donations include:

• $80 million to Howard University, in Washington, D.C.
• $63 million to Morgan State University, in Maryland.
• $50 million to Virginia State University.
• $42 million to Alcorn State University, in Mississippi.
• $38 million to Spelman College, in Georgia.
• $38 million to Clark Atlanta University, in Georgia.
• $38 million to Alabama State University.
• $38 million to The University of Maryland Eastern Shore.

Scott also donated $70 million in September to UNCF, the largest private scholarship provider for minority students in the U.S. The organization, which counts 37 private HBCUs as members, said the money would go to bolstering the long-term financial health of those colleges.

In 2020, Scott donated over $800 million to colleges, focusing much of the funding on HBCUs. In addition to their high-dollar value, her gifts stood out because they were unrestricted, and she did not appear to have a personal relationship with the recipients.

The Council for Advancement and Support of Education found that unrestricted contributions to surveyed colleges increased by nearly a third in fiscal 2021 compared to the year before, attributing much of that growth to Scott.

By early 2023, she had donated at least $1.5 billion to roughly six dozen colleges, with an emphasis on minority-serving institutions like HBCUs.

Foundations disproportionately give less to HBCUs compared to similar non-HBCUs, and public HBCUs have historically been underfunded by the government."

Staying Human in the Age of AI; Duquesne University, Grefenstette Center for Ethics, November 6-7, 2025

Duquesne University, Grefenstette Center for Ethics; 2025 Tech Ethics Symposium: Staying Human in the Age of AI

"The Grefenstette Center for Ethics is excited to announce our sixth annual Tech Ethics Symposium, Staying Human in the Age of AI, which will be held in person at Duquesne University's Power Center and livestreamed online. This year's event will feature internationally leading figures in the ongoing discussion of ethical and responsible uses of AI. The two-day Symposium is co-sponsored by the Patricia Doherty Yoder Institute for Ethics and Integrity in Journalism and Media, the Center for Teaching Excellence, and the Albert P. Viragh Institute for Ethics in Business.

We are excited to once again host a Student Research Poster Competition at the Symposium. All undergraduate and graduate student research posters on any topic in the area of tech/digital/AI ethics are welcome. Accepted posters will be awarded $75 to offset printing costs. In addition to that award, undergraduate posters will compete for the following prizes: the Outstanding Researcher Award, the Ethical PA Award, and the Pope Francis Award. Graduate posters can win Grand Prize or Runner-Up. All accepted posters are eligible for an Audience Choice award, to be decided by Symposium attendees on the day of the event! Student Research Poster submissions will be due Friday, October 17. Read the full details of the 2025 Student Research Poster Competition.

The Symposium is free to attend and open to all university students, faculty, and staff, as well as community members. Registrants can attend in person or experience the Symposium via livestream. Registration is now open!"