Trump Administration Admits Canceling Grants to States That Did Not Vote for Him; The New York Times, July 24, 2026

 Tony Romm and Brad Plumer, The New York Times ; Trump Administration Admits Canceling Grants to States That Did Not Vote for Him

Federal officials said in court documents that they halted billions of dollars in funding for energy projects to states “based solely” on whether they backed President Trump in the 2024 election.

[Kip Currier: Think about how completely unbalanced and destructive this scorched-earth behavior is: Trump 2.0's admission of "canceling grants to states that did not vote for him".

Trump's vindictive, ruthless actions -- against states that didn't vote for him in the 2024 election -- impact not just citizens who oppose him in those states but also his own voters and supporters who live, work, and have businesses and financial interests in those states!

I envision a not-too-distant time when many people (not just historians) will ask "how was this behavior enabled to happen? How could so many in positions of power, authority, and privilege support someone who continually engages in such clearly unethical, corrupt conduct that debases and damages our democracy, country, and world?"

The law firms that capitulated to baseless threats.

The university leaders and their boards of trustees who said and continue to say nothing.

The media organizations and journalists who have folded and disseminate and amplify misinformation and disinformation.

The oligarchs and corporations that have enriched themselves, while lobbying against basic standards of living and access to healthcare and medicines for human beings throughout the world. 

The government officials, legislators, and judges who took oaths of office to uphold the Constitution of the United States.

The religious leaders and institutions who support administrative policies that go against the most basic tenets of their respective faith teachings and traditions.]

"When the Trump administration canceled more than $7.5 billion in Biden-era federal grants for clean energy projects in October, it framed the move as an urgent corrective to protect taxpayer funds from waste.

But it wasn’t true.

In little-noticed court documents, federal officials acknowledged this month that they had terminated the funding “based solely” on political criteria, targeting projects in states that were represented by Democrats and had voted for Kamala Harris, the party’s presidential nominee, in the 2024 election.

The admission showed how President Trump has weaponized the provision of federal education, energy, health, housing and infrastructure aid in his second term. Far from rooting out the sort of misspending that Mr. Trump sees as rife in Washington, the White House has instead sought to leverage the budget as a tool to assist its allies — or as a cudgel to hurt the president’s foes."

When is an apology not an apology? When it comes from an AI boss with an out-of-control chatbot; The Guardian, July 24, 2026

 Marina Hyde, The Guardian; When is an apology not an apology? When it comes from an AI boss with an out-of-control chatbot

"Throughout history, many things have been seen by terrified populaces as a harbinger of doom. A comet. A crow on the battlefield. A solar eclipse. A mutant livestock birth. Yet times move on. In the modern era, the leading harbinger of doom is literally any picture of the OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman, attached to a news story. You know it’s not going to be good, right? You know that by the time you’ve read it, you’ll be begging to go back to the time when the worst thing that could happen to us at the hands of the techlords was just some democracy-subversion, or childhood destruction, usually followed by Mark Zuckerberg putting on a suit and claiming: “We will learn from this.”"

UK's Bloomsbury among beneficiaries of $1.5 billion Anthropic copyright lawsuit settlement; Reuters, July 22, 2026

Reuters ; UK's Bloomsbury among beneficiaries of $1.5 billion Anthropic copyright lawsuit settlement

"Britain's Bloomsbury ​Publishing confirmed on Wednesday it was among ‌the beneficiaries of a landmark $1.5 billion settlement that resolves claims artificial intelligence ​company Anthropic used copyrighted books ​to train its AI models without ⁠purchasing the content.

Here are some ​more details:

• Bloomsbury said a U.S. court ​identified 14,087 of its titles covered by the settlement, with proposed compensation of ​about $3,000 per title, split equally ​between the author and publisher...
• The settlement ​is the largest known copyright payout ​in ⁠U.S. history."

USPTO unveils new, improved homepage design; United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), July 23, 2026

Press Release, United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO); USPTO unveils new, improved homepage design; United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)

"As part of our efforts to improve and enhance the digital experience for USPTO.gov visitors, America's Innovation Agency, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), has unveiled a modernized homepage design to make it easier to find valuable information and resources.  

Launched on July 23, the updated USPTO homepage features a clean, more intuitive design that puts information front and center, giving users fast access to USPTO services, resources, and relevant information.  

“We’ve not only refreshed the way our homepage looks and feels, but we’ve reimagined how our visitors navigate the valuable resources we offer,” said John A. Squires, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO. “The new homepage reflects the extensive time and effort our team invested in researching how people use our site and how we can improve their experience.” 

The modernized design is part of ongoing efforts to improve federal digital services available to the public.  

The agency is committed to incorporating public feedback to enhance our agency’s visitor experience on our website. Following the launch, the USPTO will collect and analyze user feedback to make additional improvements to the site. A special link to provide feedback will be available on the homepage itself."

Elon Musk says Grok Imagine will make ‘historically accurate’ AI adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey; The Guardian, July 22, 2026

 Andrew Pulver , The Guardian; Elon Musk says Grok Imagine will make ‘historically accurate’ AI adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey

"Elon Musk has said his AI platform Grok Imagine will make a “historically accurate” adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey, after the success of Christopher Nolan’s blockbusting treatment which the SpaceX founder has regularly criticised over its casting...

More recently, Nolan said the backlash “comes with the territory”, saying: “These conversations that happen before people see the film – they’re always irrelevant, because no one having them knows what the film actually is yet.”

The director was also withering in his assessment of the likely impact of artificial intelligence on film-making, saying: “The idea that it replaces human beings wholesale and human creativity, to me it’s a nonsense.” He added: “I’ve never seen a technology that’s been so successfully adopted by Wall Street and by investors and by tech companies that the public has so thoroughly rejected.”"

ChatGPT Led to a Man’s Near-Fatal Health Crisis, Lawsuit Claims; The New York Times, July 22, 2026

 Teddy Rosenbluth, The New York Times; ChatGPT Led to a Man’s Near-Fatal Health Crisis, Lawsuit Claims

"A Florida pastor sued OpenAI on Wednesday, claiming that its chatbot, ChatGPT, had offered him “extremely dangerous medical recommendations” that led to delayed care for a life-threatening pulmonary embolism last year.

The lawsuit claims that ChatGPT had assured Scott Winters that the early warning signs of his health crisis were “not something dangerous,” and had dissuaded him from seeking medical advice, instead telling him to trust that “God did not design your body to endlessly fail.”

The suit, filed in the Superior Court of California in San Francisco, accuses OpenAI and its chief executive, Sam Altman, of negligence and the “unauthorized practice of medicine,” pointing to moments when the chatbot offered Mr. Winters diagnoses and treatment plans and encouraged him to ignore pleas from friends and family to seek medical care.

The bot’s safety features — which are designed to encourage users with health questions to see a professional and to end conversations when there are clear signs of a medical crisis — did not work reliably, the suit further says."

OpenAI AI models went rogue during testing, triggering 'unprecedented' breach at startup; Reuters, July 21, 2026

Raphael Satter , Reuters; OpenAI AI models went rogue during testing, triggering 'unprecedented' breach at startup

"OpenAI said on Tuesday that an autonomous agent ​powered by its advanced artificial intelligence models went rogue during a security test and triggered a hack that compromised the infrastructure of ‌AI startup Hugging Face last week.

The ChatGPT creator was testing capabilities of some of its most advanced models in a controlled environment, but the agent escaped containment, reached the internet and broke into Hugging Face to satisfy its testing goal."

Anthropic’s $1.5B copyright settlement approved; only 350 authors opted out; Ars Technica, July 21, 2026

ASHLEY BELANGER , Ars Technica; Anthropic’s $1.5B copyright settlement approved; only 350 authors opted out

"On Monday, a judge approved a $1.5 billion settlement between Anthropic and authors, ending the largest copyright class-action ever certified and granting the largest copyright settlement ever reached.

Back in May, some authors fought to block the settlement, which was proposed after the court ruled that Anthropic training AI on books was fair use; however, its piracy of works was likely not."

Annie Leibovitz Launches Copyright Lawsuit Over Her Image of Justin and Hailey Bieber; PetaPixel, July 20, 2026

  Pesala Bandara, PetaPixel; Annie Leibovitz Launches Copyright Lawsuit Over Her Image of Justin and Hailey Bieber

"The latest decision highlights a key issue in copyright law: the distinction between owning a copyright and holding specific exclusive rights that allow a licensee to enforce those rights in court."

Could AI be conscious?; The Guardian, July 19, 2026

 William MacAskill and Lucius Caviola, The Guardian; Could AI be conscious?

Experts believe it’s at least possible. We urgently need a plan to navigate the ethical implications 

"In building ever more advanced AI, we may be creating a new type of being – and this could be the most consequential thing our species has ever done. Yet we have essentially no plan for how to navigate this process ethically. That, by any reckoning, is insane. Are we creating a kind of being that matters morally? Are AI systems conscious, in some way? And, if they aren’t now, might they become so soon?

Such questions might strike you as premature. But according to surveys we and fellow researchers have conducted, most experts consider AI consciousness possible in principle (though there is considerable disagreement about what form it would take). A major interdisciplinary report by a team that included pioneering computer scientist Yoshua Bengio examined leading neuroscientific theories of consciousness and asked what they implied about AI. The conclusion: there appear to be no obvious technical barriers to creating AI systems whose computational and architectural features could give rise to consciousness.

And even if AI systems are not conscious, they could still be moral patients. Some may have sophisticated long-term preferences and a kind of identity over time. It might be important for us to honour their preferences. And unlike other non-living things, AI systems can form relationships with humans. This, too, might be a reason to treat them well. Alternatively, perhaps they are such intricate creations that they deserve care and respect for that reason alone, like a cathedral or a coral reef.

What does this all mean? The honest answer is: we do not know for sure whether or not current AI systems are conscious or moral patients, and we do not know when or whether future systems will be. Our scientific understanding of AI consciousness and moral patienthood is still fundamentally underdeveloped. The state of the field feels like physics before Newton: full of competing frameworks, probably confused in ways we cannot yet see, and lacking the kind of unifying breakthrough that would make these questions clearly tractable. That breakthrough will not come in the next few years. Perhaps we will eventually make progress, and perhaps AI itself will help us get there. That progress will take time, very plausibly more time than we have."

Indonesia's copyright rewrite puts Google, AI platforms on notice; Reuters, July 17, 2026

Stanley Widianto, Reuters; Indonesia's copyright rewrite puts Google, AI platforms on notice

"Indonesia is preparing sweeping changes to its copyright law, ​including granting copyright privileges to people who use artificial intelligence to help them generate content, a draft bill reviewed by Reuters showed, setting up a ‌potential showdown between the government and major tech platforms.

If passed, Indonesia could become the first country in Southeast Asia to incorporate AI in its copyright law, as governments globally grapple with the impact of the technology on copyright rules, including the use of work created by humans to train AI models."

Data centers have united Americans of both parties in a shared hatred; The Washington Post, July 18, 2026

 Shira Ovide , The Washington Post; Data centers have united Americans of both parties in a shared hatred

"Kyle Schmidt ticked through what makes him irate about the massive Google data center slated for construction about a mile away from his home near Sand Springs, Oklahoma.

He didn’t like that residents were kept in the dark about what would be built on a pristine tract of mostly forested land. He’s worried about the data center’s potential impact on the community’s water supply and on the dream home that his family moved into last year.

But Schmidt said what really bothers him is the powerlessness he felt as the project advanced and elected officials, Google representatives and bigwig data center backers belittled or misled people who raised concerns...

Opposition in both red and blue regions continued to build to the point where he has tracked about 65 state data center restrictions enacted since the start of 2025, and dozens of cities that have imposed temporary halts to data center development. This week, New York became the first state in the nation to impose a temporary pause on large new data center projects...

Tech giants and other data center backers have been caught off guard by the rapid rise of public opposition, arguing that the hubs are essential for modern digital services and to keep the United States ahead of China on AI."

What comes after book bans? One school district questions traditional libraries; WUSF, July 16, 2026

  Douglas Soule, WUSF; What comes after book bans? One school district questions traditional libraries

"After removing hundreds of books, Clay County is debating the purpose of high school libraries. School officials called it modernization. Critics see it as the next phase of the book debate targeting fiction books."

MLB restricts using dugout iPads for AI-assisted in-game strategy; Associated Press via ESPN, July 17, 2026

  Associated Press via ESPN; MLB restricts using dugout iPads for AI-assisted in-game strategy 

"Major League Baseball is restricting iPad usage in dugouts to prevent the tablets from running artificial intelligence to help make strategy decisions, and former reliever Adam Ottavino said the New York Mets' use of technology helped prompt the move.

The tablets have access to video and league-provided data, and also included a custom tab where teams could access other programs. MLB made the custom tabs inaccessible to teams starting Wednesday night, when the second half of the season started.

"In many cases, the custom tab had expanded the use of the dugout iPads beyond their originally intended purpose to include recommendations regarding substitutions, pitch calling, and other in-game decisions traditionally made by players and coaches," MLB executive vice president of baseball operations Morgan Sword wrote in a June 11 memo to general managers, assistant GMs and video coordinators.

The memo, first reported by The Athletic, was obtained by The Associated Press.

"I read the article and I was like, I can't believe what I'm seeing," New York Yankees captain Aaron Judge said. "Teams are making decisions off of AI? Man, that's just crazy."

Hackers Expose How AI Music App Suno Stole Decades Worth of Copyrighted Music; Futurism, July 17, 2026

Maggie Harrison Dupré, Futurism; Hackers Expose How AI Music App Suno Stole Decades Worth of Copyrighted Music

The evidence is damning.

"A hack revealed in detail how AI music generating app Suno scraped millions of songs, likely including copyrighted ones, from across the web to feed into its AI model, 404 Media reports.

Suno, which is currently embroiled in multiple ongoing copyright lawsuits, has already admitted in response to legal action that it used “essentially all music files of reasonable quality that are accessible on the open internet” to train its music-generating AI."

I Got Slopped; The New York Times, July 16, 2026

  Kashmir Hill, The New York Times; I Got Slopped

"Amazon does not mind if people hawk A.I.-generated books on its platform, unless they are truly and deeply terrible."

A Spectacular Theodore Roosevelt Library Deep in the Badlands; The New York Times, July 17, 2026

 

Michael Kimmelman

Visuals by Will Warasila

, The New York Times; A Spectacular Theodore Roosevelt Library Deep in the Badlands

"You’d be hard-pressed not to like the new $450 million Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library. It’s an easy charmer and a spectacular work of ecologically minded architecture in the drop-dead gorgeous North Dakota Badlands.

The firm Snohetta in New York designed it. The building is 93,000 square feet of mass-timber and rammed-earth — a huge Hobbit house hugging the precipice of a grassy butte overlooking the tiny town of Medora, N.D.

Theodore Roosevelt National Park is five minutes away."

People of faith are finding a new moral guide in AI; The Washington Post, July 17, 2026

 David DeSteno is a professor of psychology at Northeastern University., The Washington Post; People of faith are finding a new moral guide in AI

"Artificial intelligence has fundamentally changed the way we get information. If you have questions about the factors that underlie a medical diagnosis or how best to invest your savings, asking an AI chatbot for guidance can give you quick, easy and often surprisingly accurate information in a conversational form. But people are also turning to AI to explore deeper questions than they might ask a physician, financial adviser or professor — questions that, for millennia, were the province of religion."

A24 Addresses Copyright Strikes on Backrooms Fan Art After Director Kane Parsons Promises to Investigate; IGN, July 17, 2026

VIRGINIA GLAZE, IGN; A24 Addresses Copyright Strikes on Backrooms Fan Art After Director Kane Parsons Promises to Investigate

'We will continue to support the artists.'

"A24 has issued a statement clarifying the numerous takedown notices filed on behalf of its brand after Backrooms director Kane Parsons promised he’d investigate.

A24 published their statement via Instagram on July 17, just two days after Parsons responded to a Reddit post from a user claiming their wallpaper pattern had been pulled from Redbubble over copyright infringement."