Monroeville library removes Pride Month display after officials’ request; WTAE, June 29, 2026

 Kalea Gunderson, WTAE; Monroeville library removes Pride Month display after officials’ request

"The Monroeville Public Library removed its Pride Month children’s book display following a directive from local officials.

Kelly Meredith, president of the Monroeville Public Library Board of Directors, said a decision was made to remove the library's Pride Month display after the municipal manager directed library staff to take it down...

Meredith explained that the decision to remove the display was made to protect library staff from potential negative impacts. 

“There was a lot of pressure, and it was a very difficult decision because we don't want to set a precedent that says that the council can come in and dictate what displays are appropriate for the library. But we had to do what the library staff felt would keep them safest in this situation,” Meredith said. 

She added that the municipal manager and a council member visited the library to ensure the display had been removed. 

Monroeville Municipal Manager Alex Graziani said the request was related to holiday timing. 

“I advised that the June Pride Month display in the children’s section of the Monroeville Public Library could be removed and replaced with a patriotic America 250 display in advance of the Independence Day holiday and our community celebration,” Graziani said. 

Meredith responded, stating that library staff, not public officials, are responsible for determining displays. 

Monroeville Mayor Dennis Biondo Jr. said he is investigating the situation and emphasized that libraries should be welcoming spaces free from intimidation and censorship. 

"I affirm our community's values of safety, dignity, and respect for all residents, including the LGBTQIA+ community... Libraries must remain safe, welcoming spaces free from intimidation or censorship, so that all patrons have access to the books and resources they need or wants," they mayor said in a statement posted online."

‘Five years in AI is an eternity’: Inside Pittsburgh’s work to govern a technology moving too fast to predict; Pittsburgh's Public Source, June 30, 2026

 Alice Crow , Pittsburgh's Public Source; ‘Five years in AI is an eternity’: Inside Pittsburgh’s work to govern a technology moving too fast to predict

"The city decided to work with it, creating standards for generative AI usage. The early policy, which became public in 2024 through a series of Public Source articles, was largely restrictive, designed to curb risky behavior like putting private resident data into commercial AI tools. 

Pittsburgh updated its policy in 2025, designating Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat as its recommended tool for city employees, meaning data entered into Copilot stays within the city’s Microsoft system and isn’t used to train AI models, according to the policy. 

City employees are also being told which AI tools to use, what information to keep out of them and when to disclose that they’ve used the tech.

Today, as officials set those guardrails, they’re also leaving room for experimentation, asking how AI could improve city work."

Intellectual Property Influence; UC Berkeley Law, June 10, 2026

 UC Berkeley Law; Intellectual Property Influence

"An article by Professor Pamela Samuelson has been selected as one of the best intellectual property papers of 2025 and will be included in the next edition of the Intellectual Property Law Review, published annually by Thomson Reuters. It’s the seventh time one of her articles has been recognized this way. 

“Justification for Fair Uses(opens in a new tab),” published in 2025 in the Wisconsin Law Review, explains the implications of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. v. Goldsmith. Samuelson argues that the ruling preserved the standards for analyzing fair–use defenses the Court laid out in its 1984 Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. decision. 

“Contrary to what some have mistakenly asserted, nothing in Warhol abjures the rich body of fair use case law, both before and after Campbell, that has recognized many types of fair use justifications,” Samuelson writes."

‘There’s this deep mystery of what, actually, is this thing?’: the philosopher inside Google DeepMind AI; The Guardian, June 30, 2026

 Robert P Baird, The Guardian ; ‘There’s this deep mystery of what, actually, is this thing?’: the philosopher inside Google DeepMind AI

"After starting at DeepMind in 2017, Gabriel was, for a time, the only active philosopher working at a frontier AI lab. He quickly discovered that his background in moral philosophy and political theory gave him an unusual perspective in an industry dominated by engineers. Over the past decade, he has assembled a body of work that tracked, and in many cases predicted, the ethical challenges created by the surprising success of large language models (LLMs)...

More generally, Gabriel has been a leading advocate for the idea that the current wave of AI development demands not just new technical vocabularies but also new ways of thinking about our relationship to technology, and even to ourselves. As he put it to me recently, in one of several long conversations we’ve had over the past few months, “I can take any technological artefact and ask: is it wise? Is it just? Is it caring? And the answer is no. But the depth of the question when it comes to AI – including what kind of ethics is appropriate to it – is hard to overstate. I sometimes feel like it’s very hard to look at AI directly. There’s this deep mystery there, which is: but what actually is this thing? We have a very literal answer, but the literal answer doesn’t seem to necessarily provide a moral answer.”

We’re Only Starting to Grasp the Pitfalls of Using A.I. at Work; The New York Times, June 29, 2026

 Noam Scheiber , The New York Times; We’re Only Starting to Grasp the Pitfalls of Using A.I. at Work

Scholars say the “unknown unknowns” of using artificial intelligence in the workplace may be undermining the technology’s advertised benefits.

"In the years since A.I. burst onto the scene, many companies have become aware of flaws produced by the technology and, at times, taken steps to offset them. They know that A.I. models can be biased against certain groups of people, like nonwhites. They know that chatbots can provide confident but incorrect answers to queries. They know that the bots sometimes spill the beans on information that should remain private.

But as companies race to bring A.I. into their day-to-day operations, researchers are discovering more subtle defects."

‘We’re up against forces that have all the money in the world’: Erin Brockovich on her battle against AI datacentres; The Guardian, June 29, 2026

Zoe Williams, The Guardian; ‘We’re up against forces that have all the money in the world’: Erin Brockovich on her battle against AI datacentres

"Some of the emails Brockovich gets from people near datacentres express genuine bafflement: “Why did I not know about this? How did this construction just start? Why am I now getting a notice from the city council that this has already passed when I didn’t even have a voice in it?” Others reflect concerns about the impact of the centres: “What about our resources? What’s happening to the water? Who’s paying for all this energy and am I going to foot that bill? What will the future impact on health be from these monstrosities? What’s going to happen to the wildlife?”"

NYT slams Microsoft for building copyright-infringing supercomputer for OpenAI; Ars Technica, June 26, 2026

ASHLEY BELANGER , Ars Technica; NYT slams Microsoft for building copyright-infringing supercomputer for OpenAI

"In a heavily redacted court filing Thursday, The New York Times proposed to amend its copyright complaint against OpenAI and Microsoft to clarify a claim and allege that Microsoft actively encouraged OpenAI to steal NYT works by building a bespoke supercomputing system ranked among the most powerful in the world."

Brookville council approves 180-day moratorium on data centers, water use; WJAC, June 23, 2026

 WJAC; Brookville council approves 180-day moratorium on data centers, water use

"As data centers become a growing point of controversy across the state, officials in Jefferson County are moving to limit potential impacts on local water resources.

Brookville Borough Council approved a 180-day moratorium that pauses potential data center development and blocks the use of borough water resources for those facilities. 

Officials said the decision came after they learned about two possible data center projects in Pine Creek and Rose townships.

Council members said each facility could require more than 1.2 million gallons of water per day."

AI helps read papyrus scroll burnt to crisp during Vesuvius eruption; The Guardian, June 24, 2026

 Ian Sample, The Guardian; AI helps read papyrus scroll burnt to crisp during Vesuvius eruption

[Kip Currier: How exciting to learn from this 6/24/26 Guardian article that AI has uncovered more text from an ancient scroll that was charred by Mount Vesuvius's eruption in 79 AD.

I included in my Ethics, Information, and Technology book a "benefits of AI" example from a couple of years ago of just a few words that had been gleaned by AI from one of these blackened scrolls. Now the world has access to "20 columns of previously hidden text covering more than a metre of charred papyrus without physically unrolling the scroll."

This example offers another persuasive argument, too, for the importance of preserving archival artifacts, even if the technologies of the time present roadblocks to discovery and new knowledge. Thankfully, these charred, seemingly impenetrable scrolls were preserved until emerging technologies like AI are now making new discoveries a reality.] 

"The surviving part of an ancient scroll that was burnt to a crisp when Mount Vesuvius erupted nearly 2,000 years ago has been virtually unwrapped and read with help from artificial intelligence.

Researchers uncovered 20 columns of previously hidden text covering more than a metre of charred papyrus without physically unrolling the scroll. The work discusses stoic philosophy on ethics, art and human behaviour and dates to the second or late-third century BC."

Come for the Books, Stay for the Power Tools; The New York Times, June 27, 2026

 

Sarah Diamond

Illustrations by Gabrielle Lamontagne, 

 The New York Times; Come for the Books, Stay for the Power Tools

"As of 2024, there were more than 2,000 examples of places around the world where patrons have access to objects that might otherwise sit unused in a closet, garage or on a store shelf.

The idea has roots stretching back to World War II-era tool-lending libraries. But researchers say the movement gained momentum after the Great Recession in 2008, when many Americans began questioning whether they needed to own items they used only occasionally. “It’s a reclamation of the commons,” said Shannon Mattern, an author and former professor who studies libraries and public infrastructure."

How Teaching A.I. to Speak Cajun Can Help Save a Language; The New York Times, June 27, 2026

Jonathan Abrams, The New York Times; How Teaching A.I. to Speak Cajun Can Help Save a Language

By feeding centuries-old nursery rhymes and folklore recordings into their own model, linguists in Louisiana hope to help a community control its digital destiny.

"Louisiana French, the oral dialect of which Balfa was a cultural guardian, is part of the Bayou’s societal DNA, a link to its history, music and identity. Today, Caffery described the language as struggling and endangered, a notion reinforced by Alexa’s overlooking Balfa.

In response, Caffery assembled a small team at the center to train its own language learning model in automatic speech recognition for Louisiana French, drawing from a trove of historical artifacts and interviews.

Over the months, as the learning language model is trained on bits of the language — such as an old-age French nursery rhyme — it brings centuries-old dialect closer into the digital age."

Ethical AI rows open way to wave of litigation; Financial Times, June 25, 2026

 Patrick Temple-West , Financial Times; Ethical AI rows open way to wave of litigation

Lawyers are at the forefront of debate and dispute over the technology’s lawful and responsible use

"But while legal professionals ponder how best to ensure their own responsible use of AI, lawyers are also at the forefront of fractious disputes over its lawful and responsible use on behalf of clients...

“For years, the AI ethics debate produced frameworks, guidelines and voluntary commitments that changed almost nothing,” says Marie Potel-Saville, co-founder of Fair Patterns, an AI watchdog. “What is changing the dynamic now is litigation and enforcement,” adding: “Boards that have treated AI ethics as a reputational question will have to treat it as a litigation risk, faster than most of them currently expect.”

Closed Flagstaff venue Yucca North hit with copyright infringement lawsuit; Arizona Daily Sun, June 24, 2026

SAM MCLAUGHLIN , Arizona Daily Sun; Closed Flagstaff venue Yucca North hit with copyright infringement lawsuit

"And this week, to add insult to injury, Yucca North’s owners were sued by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) for alleged nonpayment of music licensing fees and copyright infringement...

The complaint against Yucca North references three specific songs that were allegedly performed without permission on Nov. 10 or 11, 2025: “Plush” by Stone Temple Pilots; “Creep” by Radiohead; and “Play that Funky Music” by Wild Cherry.

ASCAP also sued 11 other businesses in different states, on similar grounds of copyright infringement.

“Tens of thousands of well-run establishments across the country recognize the value of music and obtain ASCAP blanket licenses because music attracts customers, causes them to stay longer and spend more money,” ASCAP executive vice president Stephanie Ruyle said in a press release announcing the litigation. “U.S. copyright law requires that businesses compensate the creators of that music when they use it, and ASCAP ensures the creators of that music get paid. However, each of the establishments sued today has chosen to infringe upon the hard work of songwriters instead of licensing the music they play, despite repeated notifications and opportunities to do so.”

ASCAP claims that Yucca North stopped paying music licensing fees in September 2024."

The AI backlash is only getting started; The Economist, June 25, 2026

  The Economist; The AI backlash is only getting started

"Advances in artificial intelligence have long terrified techies. Lately, voters are feeling the angst, too. ai is unpopular in the West and climbing up the political agenda. The fiercest fights so far have been in America, where protests against data centres have scuppered nearly $100bn-worth of projects, warring ai megadonors have just dumped tens of millions into a Manhattan congressional race and around 40% of voters tell pollsters that they want ai banned from most industries. But spats are breaking out elsewhere: after chipmaking profits soared recently, workers at Samsung in South Korea threatened a strike to secure special payouts."