‘Box office poison’: Trump told voters more than 40 times, ‘Pretend I’m on the ballot.’ They did

‘Box office poison’: Trump told voters more than 40 times, ‘Pretend I’m on the ballot.’ They did

The Washington Post reports: President Donald Trump spent two months urging Americans to pretend he was on the ballot. On Tuesday, they did just that. Voters delivered a stunning rebuke to Trump’s party that rivaled anything Republicans had suffered in 50 years, defeats on ruby-red turf that Trump won handily just two years ago, where he has dominated politics for nearly a decade and against candidates he had in some cases handpicked. Not only did Democrats flip Senate and governor…

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The race to find anyone but Trump to blame for the Republicans’ catastrophic losses

The race to find anyone but Trump to blame for the Republicans’ catastrophic losses

Wired reports: President Donald Trump’s aides were reeling from the scale of Republican losses on Tuesday night, but they almost immediately began figuring out who to blame. The ultimate responsibility, officials acknowledged only in private, lay with Trump for taking the country into an unpopular war with Iran that drove up prices, which became the number one issue for voters. But in the absence of being able to blame Trump publicly, there has been growing pressure to find scapegoats in…

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Trump concedes Iran war angered voters — but said he would do it again

Trump concedes Iran war angered voters — but said he would do it again

The Washington Post reports: President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance on Wednesday blamed Republicans’ stunning midterm losses on his unpopular war with Iran, though Trump said he had no choice but to launch the conflict and would do it again. “It’s largely true because it drove the gasoline [prices] up a little bit,” the president said Wednesday afternoon on the site of his half-finished White House ballroom, his first public appearance since the election. “At the same time,…

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Oil prices fall after Vance (supported by Donald Trump Jr) blames Iran war for election losses

Oil prices fall after Vance (supported by Donald Trump Jr) blames Iran war for election losses

Politico reports: Oil prices extended their sharp selloff on Wednesday as fears that President Donald Trump would launch fresh military strikes on Iran eased a day after Republicans were dealt a sharp defeat in the midterm elections. Trump has previewed for weeks that he may try to “finish the job” with another round of strikes on Iran. But the scale of the GOP losses has turned even Vice President JD Vance against the idea as voters delivered a sharp repudiation…

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Growing calls for Iran to pursue nuclear weapons

Growing calls for Iran to pursue nuclear weapons

The New York Times reports: From pulpits at Friday Prayers to street rallies, Iranian clerics and officials are increasingly urging the country’s leaders to reverse their longtime pledge not to pursue nuclear weapons. This demand, once seen as a fringe position held by hard-liners, is moving into mainstream public debate, and the shift could have dramatic consequences for Iran, whose government has for decades argued that its nuclear program was solely for peaceful purposes. “We must be equipped with nuclear…

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Democratic women surge past 100 House seats as Republican women lose ground

Democratic women surge past 100 House seats as Republican women lose ground

The Washington Post reports: Women will lead more states as governors and represent more congressional districts than at any time in American history come January. The blue wave putting Democrats back in control of Congress is also creating a House Democratic caucus that looks much more like the nation, in terms of gender, than ever before. Democratic women’s gains also widen a significant gap between the number of Democratic women and Republican women in power. For the first time, next…

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Tech industry in denial as U.S. overwhelmingly votes to restrict AI, data centers

Tech industry in denial as U.S. overwhelmingly votes to restrict AI, data centers

Ars Technica reports: Donald Trump’s big, rapid American AI buildout now faces a major slowdown as voters in yesterday’s elections overwhelmingly supported candidates and measures that favored increasing restrictions on AI and data centers nationwide. One resource from a polling firm, called Redbud Consulting, tracked data center initiatives on the ballot and reported that out of 44 measures across 10 states seeking to restrict data centers, 38 passed so far. Those measures included dozens of moratoriums and bans. Analysts suggested…

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Tech dictators: Google will turn off search for schools that reject AI

Tech dictators: Google will turn off search for schools that reject AI

The New York Times reports: Google announced Tuesday that early next year it would turn off artificial intelligence tools in its popular software for K-12 students, unless school administrators explicitly choose to make such tools available. Executives at the tech giant said they wanted to be responsive to educators and parents who have asked for more control in how children interact with A.I. But there is a catch: Schools that choose to restrict A.I. entirely will also lose access to…

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Google researchers are fighting the company to warn the world about AI risks

Google researchers are fighting the company to warn the world about AI risks

The Washington Post reports: Workers inside Google’s artificial intelligence division are pushing executives to release them from non-disparagement agreements, arguing that they must be free to inform the public about the risks of the technology they are working to advance, according to sources inside the company. In London — a major base for its AI division, Google DeepMind, which grew out of the 2014 acquisition of a British start-up — some staff members are forbidden by their employment contracts from…

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Anthropic warns that it’s very close to recursive self-improvement capability, aka self-building AI

Anthropic warns that it’s very close to recursive self-improvement capability, aka self-building AI

TechCrunch reports: While much attention has focused on the updated financials Anthropic revealed in its revised S-1/A on Monday (revenue is soaring, but so are expenses), the AI lab dropped another little bombshell in the fine print. The filing seems to warn that the company is on the cusp of creating a model capable of recursive self-improvement (RSI). RSI is the point at which AI grows so good at training itself that it spawns a dramatic acceleration of AI capabilities….

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AOC quietly lays the groundwork for 2028

AOC quietly lays the groundwork for 2028

Joe Perticone writes: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) has been campaigning furiously in the final stretch of this midterm election cycle, visiting states across the union to boost a range of candidates who hope that the charismatic congresswoman’s considerable name I.D. will help them run up the numbers against their Republican opponents. It’s usually helpful for a party star to campaign with others, especially in this attention economy, and Ocasio-Cortez is being a good team player here. But campaigning hard now…

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Justice Kagan confronts a broken Supreme Court

Justice Kagan confronts a broken Supreme Court

Jesse Wegman writes: Like a lot of Americans, I’ve grown accustomed to Supreme Court justices speaking out much more frequently and informally than they once did. Yet still there was more than one moment in a public conversation Elena Kagan had at Catholic University last month when I almost couldn’t believe what I was hearing. The justices like to say that their opinions speak for themselves. In the old days, they nurtured the mystique of their delicate yet elevated position…

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Pete Hegseth has made over half the military want to quit early

Pete Hegseth has made over half the military want to quit early

The New Republic reports: The Trump administration’s hyperpoliticized military environment apparently has thousands of active-duty military members looking toward the exit. A survey by Common Defense Civic Engagement, a grassroots veterans organization, found that 53 percent of active-duty service members want to leave because their service is becoming more politicized. Another 45 percent of polled respondents shared that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s policy changes and the ensuing instability had made them consider leaving their stations sooner rather than later. The…

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What happened to our cousins, the Neanderthals?

What happened to our cousins, the Neanderthals?

Carolyn Y. Johnson writes: For most of our evolutionary history, humankind was made up of many human kinds. Take the last 100,000 years or so. The oft-caricatured, big-browed Neanderthals roamed across Europe and into western Asia. The mysterious, towering Denisovans hunted and gathered in Asia. The diminutive, hobbit-like Homo floresiensis dwelled on an Indonesian island. The last of Homo erectus had just died out in Java. Our species, Homo sapiens, was merely another variation on the type. It’s tempting to…

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