Trump sues CBS News for $10 billion over Harris interview; Axios, October 31, 2024

• Sareen Habeshian , Axios; Trump sues CBS News for $10 billion over Harris interview

"Former President Trump filed a lawsuit against CBS News Thursday, alleging the network engaged in election interference by doctoring a "60 Minutes" interview with Vice President Harris, per a court filing.

Driving the news: Trump is seeking $10 billion in damages for CBS's alleged "partisan and unlawful acts of election and voter interference," which the lawsuit claims were intended to confuse the public and "attempt to tip the scales" toward Democrats in the 2024 presidential election.

• The lawsuit was first reported by Fox News."

Anxious About the 2024 Election? Here's What Therapists Recommend; KQED, October 31, 2024

 Carlos Cabrera-Lomelí, KQED; Anxious About the 2024 Election? Here's What Therapists Recommend

"Keep reading for expert advice on the things you can do before, on and after Nov. 5 to help manage anxiety about the 2024 election."

Musk’s get-out-the-vote workers didn’t know they were canvassing for Trump – report; The Guardian, October 30, 2024

Robert Tait in Washington, The Guardian; Musk’s get-out-the-vote workers didn’t know they were canvassing for Trump – report

"Elon Musk’s get-out-the-vote effort for Donald Trump has come under renewed scrutiny after paid canvassers reported not knowing beforehand that they were being hired to support the former president.

Workers recruited by Musk’s America Pac to canvass in the battleground state of Michigan only discovered they were working for the Space X and Tesla entrepreneur to drum up voter turnout for Trump after signing non-disclosure agreements, Wired reported.

“I knew nothing of the job, or much of the job description, other than going door to door and asking the voters who are they voting for,” a canvasser who was flown to Michigan from another state told the website. “Then, after I signed over an NDA, is when I found out we are for Republicans and with Trump.”

The canvassers also said they faced threats to their working conditions if they failed to meet stringent door-knocking targets.

The disclosure comes after the Guardian revealed serious question marks about Musk’s voter turnout effort in Nevada and Arizona amid reports that up to 25% of reported door knocks in the state could be fraudulent."

MAGA Men Are Freaking Out Over Their Wives Secretly Voting for Harris; The New Republic, October 31, 2024

Malcolm Ferguson , The New Republic; MAGA Men Are Freaking Out Over Their Wives Secretly Voting for Harris

"Over the last couple of months, there have been growing reports of grassroots campaigns reminding women that no one has to know how they voted. Post-it notes have been left in women’s bathrooms reading, “Woman to woman, your vote is private.” And a new pro-Harris ad from Vote Common Good this week featuring a voiceover from Julia Roberts shows two women at the polls sharing an understanding gaze as they cast their ballots for Harris while their pro-Trump husbands cluelessly egg them on.

This development has deeply disturbed MAGA husbands everywhere. 

Perhaps no one better portrayed the MAGA meltdown than Fox News anchor Jesse Waters on Wednesday evening.

“If I found out [my wife] Emma was going into the voting booth and pulling the lever for Harris, that’s the same thing as an affair,” yelled Watters, who cheated on his first wife with Emma, then his 25-year-old employee. “That violates the sanctity of our marriage. What else is she keeping from me? What else has she been lying about?"

Election Falsehoods Take Off on YouTube as It Looks the Other Way; The New York Times, October 31, 2024

Nico Grant , The New York Times; Election Falsehoods Take Off on YouTube as It Looks the Other Way

"From May through August, researchers at Media Matters tracked 30 of the most popular YouTube channels they identified as persistently spreading election misinformation, to analyze the narratives they shared in the run-up to November’s election.

The 30 conservative channels posted 286 videos containing election misinformation, which racked up more than 47 million views. YouTube generated revenue from more than a third of those videos by placing ads before or during them, researchers found. Some commentators also made money from those videos and other monetized features available to members of the YouTube Partner Program...

Mr. Giuliani, the former New York mayor, posted more false electoral claims to YouTube than any other major commentator in the research group, the analysis concluded...

YouTube, which is owned by Google, has prided itself on connecting viewers with “authoritative information” about elections. But in this presidential contest, it acted as a megaphone for conspiracy theories."

An Elon Musk-backed political group is posting fake Kamala Harris ads on Facebook; NPR, October 30, 2024

Bobby Allyn , NPR; An Elon Musk-backed political group is posting fake Kamala Harris ads on Facebook

"A series of ads that look like they are from the Harris campaign are spreading falsehoods about her current policy positions, including that she wants to institute a mandatory gun-buyback program and give Medicare benefits and drivers’ licenses to undocumented immigrants. One of the ads asserts Harris wants to ban fracking. None of this is true.

The Facebook ads have collectively been viewed millions of times in swing states, posted by an account dubbed “Progress 2028,” a name suggesting a liberal counterpart to the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025.

But there is no such Harris-aligned initiative as Progress 2028. And the ads are bankrolled by Building America’s Future, a dark money group funded by billionaire Elon Musk and others, according to campaign tracking site Open Secrets. It’s part of the more than $100 million Musk has spent to help re-elect former president Donald Trump, campaign finance records show.

The ad buys are publicly available in an ad library database hosted by Meta, Facebook’s parent company. It shows that so far the group has posted 13 of these ads. As of Wednesday afternoon, Meta tallied the ads as having received 8.7 million impressions, although some viewers may have seen the same ads multiple times.

Experts told NPR that there is nothing illegal about the ads, since the First Amendment protects political speech, even when it contains lies. But the messages have the potential to lead voters astray just days before the election."

What is the No. 1 leading cause of stress for you? Hint: It's not family; NPR, October 22, 2024

Katia Riddle , NPR; What is the No. 1 leading cause of stress for you? Hint: It's not family

"Every year the American Psychological Association takes a look at the leading causes of stress in the U.S., and publishes an annual report. This year the report shows all the usual suspects like money, health and family are still wearing people down, but one issue is dominating – politics.

Seven out of 10 adults say the future of the nation is a significant source of stress in their lives and the issue crosses party lines: 80% of Republicans rated it a top stressor, so did 79% of Democrats and 73% of Independents. Lynn Bufka, a clinical psychologist and APA’s deputy chief, professional practice, says she was surprised by the findings...

The report – called Stress in America 2024: A Nation in Political Turmoil — details the results of a survey conducted by the Harris Poll on behalf of the APA. More than 3,000 U.S. adults aged 18 and older were surveyed between August 1st and 23rd, 2024...

A majority of respondents are also concerned about misinformation and disinformation — 82% said they are worried that people are basing their values and opinions on false or inaccurate information.

Bufka says one of the problems is Americans are not seeing the things that matter to them represented in the political discourse...

There is some positive news in the report. Three out of five people felt hopeful about the election results. Stress can also galvanize people into action; 80% of survey respondents say they do intend to vote in the Presidential election."

Your guide to coping with election anxiety; Vox, October 28, 2024

Allie Volpe , Vox; Your guide to coping with election anxiety

"Feeling jittery and unsettled about the upcoming election? If you’re anything like the 69 percent of American adults who said the 2024 presidential election was a “significant” source of stress in their lives, per this year’s American Psychological Association’s Stress in America poll, you’re not alone. 

Elections are common wellsprings of anxiety because they’re rife with uncertainty, says David H. Rosmarin, the founder of the Center for Anxiety. You’re unsure of the outcome, and unsure of what life may look like for you under a new administration, especially when the difference between the two choices is undeniably vast. Some of the proposed policies may threaten people’s safety and freedoms, resulting in even more anxiety. Research shows political anxiety can impact people who aren’t generally anxious otherwise.

There are key differences between everyday anxiety and election-related anxiety. Sometimes, generalized anxiety is rooted in cognitive distortions, or inaccurate beliefs or fears about the world. But election-based distress isn’t necessarily based on hypotheticals or overreactions, says licensed clinical social worker Jneé Hill. “A lot of the concerns,” she says, “are very real and very valid based on people’s real lives and lived experiences.”

While election anxiety may feel large and existential, mental health experts agree it can be managed. In the lead-up to November 5 — and the uneasy days following — there are some strategies that can help quiet your mind."

'The Calculator Mistake': Denial, hostility won't help lawyers deal with emergence of AI; ABA Journal, October 23, 2024

TRACY HRESKO PEARL , ABA Journal; 'The Calculator Mistake': Denial, hostility won't help lawyers deal with emergence of AI

"There are two ways to deal with this kind of uncertainty. The first is denial and hostility. Legal news outlets have been filled with articles in recent months about the problems with AI-generated legal briefs. Such briefs may contain fake citations. They miss important points. They lack nuance.

The obvious solution, when the problem is framed in this way, is to point lawyers away from using AI, impose strong sanctions on attorneys who misuse it, and redouble law school exam security and anti-plagiarism measures to ensure that law students are strongly disincentivized from using these new forms of technology. “Old school” law practice and legal teaching techniques, in this view, should continue to be the gold standard of our profession.

The problem, of course, is that technology gets better and does so at an increasingly (and sometimes alarmingly) rapid rate. No lawyer worth their salt would dare turn in an AI-generated legal brief now, given the issues listed above and the potential consequences. But we are naive to think that the technology won’t eventually overtake even the most gifted of legal writers.

That point may not be tomorrow; it may not be five years from now. But that time is coming, and when it does, denial and hostility won’t get us around the fact that it may no longer be in the best interests of our clients for a lawyer to write briefs on their own. Denial and hostility won’t help us deal with what, at that point, will be a serious existential threat to our profession.

The second way to deal with the uncertainty of emerging technology is to recognize that profound change is inevitable and then do the deeper, tougher and more philosophical work of discerning how humans can still be of value in a profession that, like nearly every other, will cede a great deal of ground to AI in the not-too-distant future. What will it mean to be a lawyer, a judge or a law professor in that world? What should it mean?

I am increasingly convinced that the answers to those questions are in so-called soft skills and critical thinking."

Thousands of published studies may contain images with incorrect copyright licences; Chemistry World, October 28, 2024

 DALMEET SINGH CHAWLA, Chemistry World ; Thousands of published studies may contain images with incorrect copyright licences

"More than 9000 studies published in open-access journals may contain figures published under the wrong copyright licence.

These open-access journals publish content under the CC-BY copyright licence, which means that anyone can copy, distribute or transmit that work including for commercial purposes as long as the original creator is credited. 

All the 9000+ studies contain figures created using the commercial scientific illustration service BioRender, which should technically mean that these are also available for free reuse. But that doesn’t appear to be the case.

When Simon Dürr, a computational enzymologist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne in Switzerland, reached out to BioRender to ask if two figures produced using BioRender by the authors of both studies were free to reuse, he was told that they weren’t. The company said it would approach both journals and ask them to issue corrections.

Dürr runs an open-source, free-to-use competitor to BioRender called BioIcons and wanted to host figures produced using BioRender that were published in open access journals because he thought they would be free to use. According to Dürr, he followed up with BioRender near the end of 2023, flagging a total of 9277 academic papers published under the CC-BY copyright licence but never heard back on their copyright status. In total, Dürr says he found 12,059 papers if one includes other copyright licences that restrict commercial use or have other similar conditions."

A new study seeks to establish ethical collecting practices for US museums; The Art Newspaper, October 29, 2024

Annabel Keenan , The Art Newspaper; A new study seeks to establish ethical collecting practices for US museums

"As calls for the restitution of looted objects spread across the industry, the Penn Cultural Heritage Center (PennCHC) at the Penn Museum in Philadelphia is launching a study that will examine collecting policies and practices at US museums and encourage transparency and accountability in the sector. Launching today (29 October), the “Museums: Missions and Acquisitions Project” (dubbed M2A Project for short) will study over 450 museum collections to identify current standards and establish a framework for institutions to model their future practices...

The PennCHC has been supporting ethical collecting since its founding in 2008, including working closely with local communities in countries around the world to identify and preserve their cultural heritage. “US museums have historically acquired objects that were removed from these countries illegally or through pathways now considered inequitable,” says Richard M. Leventhal, the executive director of the PennCHC and co-principal investigator for the M2A Project. “The M2A Project is asking a very simple set of questions about these types of objects: Are US museums still acquiring them? And if so, why? Recent seizures of looted property and calls to decolonise collections force us to reconsider whether acquisitions best serve the missions of museums and the interests of their communities.”

The M2A Project evolved from the PennCHC’s Cultural Property Experts on Call Program that launched in 2020 in partnership with the US Department of State’s Cultural Heritage Coordinating Committee to protect at-risk cultural property against theft, looting and trafficking. Through this programme, the PennCHC collaborated with more than 100 museums and universities to study and document the trade in illicit artefacts."

Elon Musk says X users fight falsehoods. The falsehoods are winning.; The Washington Post, October 30, 2024

Will Oremus

, 

Trisha Thadani

 and 

Jeremy B. Merrill

, The Washington Post; Elon Musk says X users fight falsehoods. The falsehoods are winning.

"When Elon Musk acquired Twitter in 2022, he laid off swaths of workers tasked with moderating the platform and embraced an experimental approach: asking users to fact-check one another.

Musk has touted the crowdsourcing program, called Community Notes, as “the best source of truth on the internet.” But the majority of accurate fact checks proposed by users on political posts are never shown to the public, according to research from the nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) and a separate data analysis by The Washington Post — suggesting that the feature is failing to provide a meaningful check on misinformation."

Five Charged in Cheating Scandal That Helped Over 200 ‘Unqualified’ Texas Teachers; The New York Times, October 30, 2024

Hank Sanders , The New York Times; Five Charged in Cheating Scandal That Helped Over 200 ‘Unqualified’ Texas Teachers

"More than 200 “unqualified teachers” in Texas were able to get jobs or promotions at schools across the state under a board scheme in which impersonators were paid to take more than 400 certification exams for them, prosecutors said this week."

A Harris Presidency Is the Only Way to Stay Ahead of A.I.; The New York Times, October 29, 2024

THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN, The New York Times; A Harris Presidency Is the Only Way to Stay Ahead of A.I.

"Kamala Harris, given her background in law enforcement, connections to Silicon Valley and the work she has already done on A.I. in the past four years, is up to this challenge, which is a key reason she has my endorsement for the presidency...

I am writing a book that partly deals with this subject and have benefited from my tutorials with Craig Mundie, the former chief research and strategy officer for Microsoft who still advises the company. He is soon coming out with a book of his own related to the longer-term issues and opportunities of A.G.I., written with Eric Schmidt, the former Google C.E.O., and Henry Kissinger, who died last year and worked on the book right up to the end of his life.

It is titled “Genesis: Artificial Intelligence, Hope, and the Human Spirit.” The book invokes the Bible’s description of the origin of humanity because the authors believe that our A.I. moment is an equally fundamental turning point for our species.

I agree. We have become Godlike as a species in two ways: We are the first generation to intentionally create a computer with more intelligence than God endowed us with. And we are the first generation to unintentionally change the climate with our own hands.

The problem is we have become Godlike without any agreement among us on the Ten Commandments — on a shared value system that should guide the use of our newfound powers. We need to fix that fast. And no one is better positioned to lead that challenge than the next U.S. president, for several reasons."

‘Carved on bodies and souls’: Ukrainian men face ‘systemic’ sexual torture in Russian detention centres; The Guardian, October 29, 2024

Emma Graham-Harrisonand Artem Mazhulin in Kyiv, The Guardian; ‘Carved on bodies and souls’: Ukrainian men face ‘systemic’ sexual torture in Russian detention centres

"The UN commissioner for human rights has documented hundreds of cases of sexual violence perpetrated by Russian troops since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Two-thirds of the victims are men and boys who were tortured in Russian jails.

Russia deploys systematic sexual torture against Ukrainians, both civilians and prisoners of war, in “almost all” detention centres where they are held, the UN found.

That includes “rape, attempted rape, threats of rape and castration, beatings or the administration of electric shocks to genitals, repeated forced nudity and sexualised humiliation”.

“The numbers in Ukraine are quite startling,” said Charu Lata Hogg, the executive director of the All Survivors Project, which supports men and boys who have endured sexual violence.

The organisation keeps a global database of cases that stretches back three decades, and the scale of new abuse recorded in Ukraine is unprecedented, she said. Sexual violence against men “happens all over the world, but the struggle is always getting documented cases”.

In Ukraine, the UN has recorded 236 incidents of sexual violence against men and two against boys in under three years."

Trump calls Madison Square Garden rally a ‘love fest’; The Hill, October 29, 2024

 BRETT SAMUELS , The Hill; Trump calls Madison Square Garden rally a ‘love fest’

"Former President Trump on Tuesday described a Madison Square Garden rally that was marked by racist and sexist comments as a “love fest.”

“There was love in the room. The love in that room was breathtaking,” Trump said in remarks from his Mar-a-Lago estate.

“It was like a love fest. An absolute love fest,” he added, scoffing at critics who likened the rally to a 1939 Nazi event at the arena.

Trump did not address the backlash to comments made by other speakers at the New York City rally, including comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, whose joke comparing Puerto Rico to a “floating island of garbage” has caused a firestorm, including with some Latino voters."

Banned Books and Libraries Under Attack Conference Mobilizes First Amendment Allies; Library Journal, October 24, 2024

Bob Sandrick, Library Journal;  Banned Books and Libraries Under Attack Conference Mobilizes First Amendment Allies

"Librarians and educators across the United States are facing mounting pressure from parent groups and state legislators to keep books they deem inappropriate for young people off the shelves. New state laws threaten librarians with jail time or fines if they don’t comply. The political intimidation has produced a chilling effect, causing library and education professionals to exclude from their collections books they would not have thought twice about in the past.

“We’re just simply very concerned,” said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the American Library Association Office for Intellectual Freedom and executive director of the Freedom to Read Foundation.

“The idea that public libraries should become vehicles for elected officials smacks at the heart of our democracy,” Caldwell-Stone said. “The public library should not be confused with an arm of the state.”

Caldwell-Stone made her comments on October 10 at the Banned Books and Libraries Under Attack Conference at the Cleveland State University (CSU) College of Law. About 100 lawyers, library professionals, educators, students, and activists attended the conference, which featured more than a dozen speakers and panelists."

How AI images boosted 'fake narratives' that Black men significantly support Trump; ABC15 Arizona, October 28, 2024

Kadia Tubman , ABC15 Arizona; How AI images boosted 'fake narratives' that Black men significantly support Trump

"With the presidential election days away, disinformation experts warn about an increase in fake images leading to false narratives about key voting communities — particularly Black men.
"We're seeing an increase of artificial intelligence related images that are suggesting that black men endorse Donald Trump, when in fact those images are false," said Alphonso David, President and CEO of Global Black Economic Forum, referring to AI images that show former President Donald Trump with a group of Black men."

‘Real threat of autocracy’: Washington Post editorial staffers resign in forceful letters; The Guardian, October 28, 2024

Lorenzo Tondo , The Guardian; ‘Real threat of autocracy’: Washington Post editorial staffers resign in forceful letters

"More Washington Post staffers have stepped down and more than 200,000 people had canceled their digital subscriptions by Monday after the newspaper’s decision not to support Kamala Harris for president.

Editorial board members David Hoffman and Molly Roberts both resigned on Monday with forceful letters indicating their reasons.

“I believe we face a very real threat of autocracy in the candidacy of Donald Trump,” Hoffman, who took home the Pulitzer Prize just last week, wrote in his resignation letter. “I find it untenable and unconscionable that we have lost our voice at this perilous moment.”

Roberts said she was resigning “because the imperative to endorse Kamala Harris over Donald Trump is as morally clear as it gets”."

The hard truth: Americans don’t trust the news media; The Washington Post, October 28, 2024

Jeff Bezos, The Washington Post; The hard truth: Americans don’t trust the news media

Jeff Bezos is the owner of The Washington Post.

"I would also like to be clear that no quid pro quo of any kind is at work here. Neither campaign nor candidate was consulted or informed at any level or in any way about this decision. It was made entirely internally. Dave Limp, the chief executive of one of my companies, Blue Origin, met with former president Donald Trump on the day of our announcement. I sighed when I found out, because I knew it would provide ammunition to those who would like to frame this as anything other than a principled decision. But the fact is, I didn’t know about the meeting beforehand. Even Limp didn’t know about it in advance; the meeting was scheduled quickly that morning. There is no connection between it and our decision on presidential endorsements, and any suggestion otherwise is false."

Over 200,000 subscribers flee 'Washington Post' after Bezos blocks Harris endorsement; NPR, October 28, 2024

David Folkenflik , NPR; Over 200,000 subscribers flee 'Washington Post' after Bezos blocks Harris endorsement

"The Washington Post has been rocked by a tidal wave of cancellations from digital subscribers and a series of resignations from columnists, as the paper grapples with the fallout of owner Jeff Bezos’s decision to block an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris for president.

More than 200,000 people had canceled their digital subscriptions by midday Monday, according to two people at the paper with knowledge of internal matters. Not all cancellations take effect immediately. Still, the figure represents about 8% of the paper’s paid circulation of 2.5 million subscribers, which includes print as well. The number of cancellations continued to grow Monday afternoon."

Trump’s Puerto Rico fallout is ‘spreading like wildfire’ in Pennsylvania; Politico, October 28, 2024

MEREDITH LEE HILL, MIA MCCARTHY and HOLLY OTTERBEIN , Politico; Trump’s Puerto Rico fallout is ‘spreading like wildfire’ in Pennsylvania

"Donald Trump has a serious Puerto Rico problem — in Pennsylvania.

Many Puerto Rican voters in the state are furious about racist and demeaning comments delivered at a Trump rally. Some say their dismay is giving Kamala Harris a new opening to win over the state’s Latino voters, particularly nearly half a million Pennsylvanians of Puerto Rican descent.

Evidence of the backlash was immediate on Monday: A nonpartisan Puerto Rican group drafted a letter urging its members to oppose Trump on election day. Other Puerto Rican voters were lighting up WhatsApp chats with reactions to the vulgar display and raising it in morning conversations at their bodegas. Some are planning to protest Trump’s rally Tuesday in Allentown, a majority-Latino city with one of the largest Puerto Rican populations in the state.

And the arena Trump is speaking at is located in the middle of the city’s Puerto Rican neighborhood.

“It’s spreading like wildfire through the community,” said Norberto Dominguez, a precinct captain with the local Democratic party in Allentown, who noted his own family is half Republican and half Democratic voters.

“It’s not the smartest thing to do, to insult people — a large group of voters here in a swing state — and then go to their home asking for votes,” Dominguez said.

The timing couldn’t be worse for Trump."

Trump Team Fears Damage From Racist Rally Remarks; The New York Times, October 28, 2024

Maggie HabermanJonathan Swan and Michael Gold, The New York Times; Trump Team Fears Damage From Racist Rally Remarks

"Senator JD Vance of Ohio, Mr. Trump’s running mate, dismissed any concerns. “Maybe it’s a stupid, racist joke, as you said,” he told reporters on Monday. “Maybe it’s not. I haven’t seen it.” But, he added, “we have to stop getting so offended at every little thing in the United States of America.”

This Is Trump’s Message: At his Madison Square Garden rally, Trump’s argument was hate and fear.; The Atlantic, October 28, 2024

David A. Graham, The Atlantic; This Is Trump’s Message

At his Madison Square Garden rally, Trump’s argument was hate and fear.

"We might as well start with the lowlight of last night’s Trump campaign rally at Madison Square Garden. That would be Tony Hinchcliffe, a podcaster who’s part of Joe Rogan’s circle, and who was the evening’s first speaker.

“These Latinos, they love making babies too. Just know that. They do. They do. There’s no pulling out. They don’t do that. They come inside,” he joked. “Just like they did to our country.” A minute later: “I don’t know if you guys know this, but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. Yeah, I think it’s called Puerto Rico.” It took a few more minutes before he got to the joke about Black people loving watermelons. Novel, edgy stuff—for a minstrel show in 1874.

Other speakers were only somewhat better. A childhood pal of Donald Trump’s called Vice President Kamala Harris “the anti-Christ” and “the devil.” The radio host Sid Rosenberg called her husband, Doug Emhoff, “a crappy Jew.” Tucker Carlson had a riff about Harris vying to be “the first Samoan-Malaysian, low-IQ former California prosecutor ever to be elected president.”"